10x18 Find Me

[8.5/10] My favorite stretch of The Walking Dead is the Terminus arc, if only because the show stopped trying to do these overarching plot that it’s so-so at, and basically fell back into doing individualized short stories, giving its characters and performers space to breathe. It’s too season to tell, but part 2 of season 10 seems to be following the same tack, and it’s paying dividends.

In “Find Me”, that takes the form of a frame story where Daryl and Carol go on a hunt together, and a flashback story set in the unseen interregnum between Rick’s disappearance and the present day, where Daryl found an amiable concordance with a fellow Loner named Leah.

I like both parts of the episode. There’s a nice contrast between Carol/Daryl at the beginning of the episode versus the two of them at the end. They’re the two longest-serving cast members at this point, and it shows. There’s such an easy rapport, a lived-in back and forth between them as they make their way through the wilderness on Daryl’s bike and rib one another through the process. You can feel the shorthand and rapport that the two have developed over the years, a mutual understanding and deep friendship that’s persisted through all of this hell they’ve been through.

But at the same time, understanding a person also means understanding how to hurt them. Being vulnerable with someone also means opening up yourself to pain. So when Daryl projects his hurt and challenges Carol on the losses that are her fault, on her need to follow what’s right, and Carol returns fire on the topic of Daryl’s hero/martyr complex, it hurts just as much for the audience. What the two say to one another isn’t wrong exactly, but it’s uncharitable, it’s harsh, in a way that shows you how much these two people are smarting and, sadly, taking it out on one another with no one else to blame for the scars that have accumulated over the years.

At the same time, there’s a meta quality to their conversations and much of the dialogue in the episode. Carol seems self-aware when she wonders aloud if their luck has run out. Carol and Daryl and their coterie have enjoyed a certain amount of plot armor, and story-necessity protection for their communities given the needs of the show. And yet, we seem to be entering a new stage, post-Whisperers, with a new showrunner fully asserting herself and more wounds being opened in even the most hard-won relationships on the show. News of a spin-off featuring some characters dampens the lengths to which this could go, but it’s an interesting idea to play around with.

I also like the flashbacks we get to Daryl’s relationship with Leah. It’s a nice way to fill the gap from the show’s time jump, and I like the notion of Daryl having a tense but also solace-filled relationship with someone. Their interactions are a little traditional and expected for this sort of thing, but the chemistry is there, and the friendship is endearing. Plus, it’s an origin story for Dog, which I didn’t know I needed! I like the two of them together, finding comfort in the fact that they’ve both suffered losses, and the question of “Where do you belong?” to Daryl, challenging his hero complex, add weight to the romantic elements of the plot. The midpoint monologue from Leah is a bit much, and I just know she’s going to show up with the Reapers or something, but as a standalone piece, I still love these little glimpses of what Daryl was up to in the intervening years.

It’s also worth noting that this was a particularly gorgeous episode of the show. The autumnal setting, the beating rain, the summery glow when Daryl and Leah are enjoying life together, the framing of Daryl and Carol on opposites sides of the river, all made for some stunning images in this one. The score was excellent as always, lifting these moments without being too obtrusive. This was a slower, more aesthetic episode in a lot of ways, and I appreciate the show taking some big artistic swings, here.

Overall, this was another big winner for the new season. I’m not naive enough to expect it to continue at this level of quality, but it’s welcome to get the show as the earthy, character drama in the ashes of the world, the one we were promised all those years ago, from time to time.