Episode 5, Self Help
Summary:
Episode 5 kicks off with Team Eugene in their bus moving down the road. Maggie & Glenn are on board and both of them are hoping that Team Rick is going to follow them. Eugene starts hinting at how they plan on killing the walkers but before we learn anything good he clams up – worried about security. Shortly after that their bus blows a tire and flips.
When we come back from commercial we see Abraham beating a guys head in with a soup can in a flash back. When he wakes up everyone is wounded but appears mostly okay. Everyone goes to town with knives and such during a brief but brutal walker clearing. And Eugene actually saves Tara from a walker that came up behind her. You go Eugene!
After they clear the walkers Eugene actually wants to turn back but Sgt. Ford won’t hear it. He wants, he needs, to keep moving forward. Team Eugene walks until its night and end up in some retail space that looks vaguely familiar to the place in Sgt. Ford’s flash backs. The team collects toilette water to drink and moves some book cases around so they have some walls to protect them as Tara makes a fire and works to boil their water.
Sgt. Ford and Rosita Espinosa are apparently a thing. I don’t know if I missed that earlier. But they go at it pretty good on the floor – while Eugene watches. 
After Tara catches Eugene watching they have a brief discussion and we find out that Eugene was the reason the bus had its accident. A tire didn’t blow out – he put broken glass in the fuel and it must have cut the line which cased the fire. He justifies it in a round about way because if they make it to where they are going and he can’t “fix” the undead issue he will be useless. Which leads me to wonder if he is who he says he is and if he has any way to actually do what he says he can. The flashbacks that Ford is having also make me think that he wasn’t always with Eugene. Not in the before.
When they wake the next morning Rosita tells Ford they should sit tight and heal up but he doesn’t want to do anything but move north. And they are going to do it in a fire truck. After they move the fire truck the walkers stuck inside come spilling out though. Which lets Eugene have some fun with a large squirt gun. No one noticed the spray paint on the concrete until after Eugene cleaned things up a little.
Team Eugene makes it out of town on the fire truck but they don’t keep moving for long. As Ford works on the truck Maggie bonds with Eugene, talking to him about his beautiful mullet. As they are working on the truck the winds change and the team gets a whiff of something nasty. We found out what it is when they abandon the truck and start walking. There are a lot of walkers – lots of walkers.
Abraham wants to plow through them – to drive forward – but everyone else wants to detour. Ford is losing it – and it makes Eugene give up the truth that he isn’t scientist because he’s afraid that Ford is so driven to get him to Washington that he’s going to get him killed in the process. Now we get to see what happens now that the team knows Eugene is a fake.
Ford takes it the least well and starts punching Eugene. Which triggers a flashback to him losing who I think are his wife and kids. Which is when Eugene and Ford found each other. Eugene gave Ford purpose – and now he doesn’t have any.
Overall it was a good episode but it was the weakest of the season so far. I liked the revelation at the end but this episode didn’t have the same punch the other ones had.
Things I loved about this episode…
- Glenn – “Why the hair?” Eugene – “I like it that way.”
- I think we saw Eugene lose his Walker Virginity.
Things that I didn’t like about this episode…
- Abraham driving too fast in the short bus. Come on, its the apocalypse. Go slow, there aren’t any ambulances around.
- Tara doesn’t slap the shit out of Eugene for wrecking the bus? Even if she understands his fear of being useless it doesn’t justify what he did. But it does raise some questions. Is he really who he says he is? Or is it bullshit so Abraham will protect him?
- How long has that fire truck been there? I don’t think batteries last for years.
- I am so hoping that Sgt. Ford isn’t descending madness. We’ve done that with Rick. Its getting old.
- They didn’t kill Eugene when he told them that he was full of sh*t.
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