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The Walking Dead season five, episode 11: The Distance – recap

The theme of the impossibility of trust in a post-apocalyptic world comes to the fore again as Rick goes crazier and Aaron tries to marshal the survivors

Spoiler alert: this blog is published after The Walking Dead airs on AMC in the US on Sundays. Do not read on unless you have watched season five, episode 11 (which airs in the UK on Fox on Mondays).

There was a moment when Aaron, our new friend from the Alexandria colony, and his partner Eric were talking and making out (finally some gay action in post-apocalyptic America!) and Rick was lurking in the darkness watching them. You forget that he’s there spying and then suddenly you see his grungy face and bushy beard. Even standing next to this display of human tenderness, Rick is still lurking in the darkness, both literal and metaphorical. That seems to be a main theme of this season and, while a little heavy-handed, at least it is playing out logically week to week.

When Aaron first arrived at the camp I knew that Rick would be cautious and that many would be loth to trust him, but Rick smacking him in the face in the middle of what seemed to be a very rehearsed sales pitch seemed a little excessive, don’t you think?

While I understand Rick’s caution and scepticism, he’s also beginning to come off a little bit like a madman. The scene where he forces Aaron to eat the applesauce before he gives it to Judith made him look unreasonable. Aaron explains why it would make no sense to poison the baby, but Rick can only think of doomsday scenarios where Aaron would make Judith sick and then hold on to the antidote until he got what he wanted. The funny thing is, that seems like a plot Rick would think up to defend himself. It’s what makes him a survivor that also makes him so good at hurting other people.

It was interesting how reactions to Aaron’s talk of his “community” divided the tribe. Maggie, Sasha, Carl, and most vocally Michonne, all knew that the group needed a place to hang their hats – and guns – and thought they should go with him. Rick, Daryl and Glen were more cautious. The split seemed almost entirely divided upon gender lines, unusually for this show. So the women want to settle down and make a home whereas the men want to continue to fight. I wonder where Carol, a certified badass, would stand on the proposition?

Michonne’s role in the episode is especially interesting. It seems like she’s stepped in to Herschel’s old shoes as the person who continuously has to talk sense into Rick. When we first met her she was almost entirely silent and solitary; now she’s the one most loudly advocating for everyone to stay together and form a community. When she goes outside the barn and pleads for Rick to go with Aaron, Rick says something that really makes sense: that they didn’t hear anything before they got to the governor’s camp or Terminus, so there is nothing that could convince him to take his family into Alexandria.

That is the central question the last few episodes seem to be posing again and again: at what point do these people lose their humanity altogether? How many times do they have to be burned by other people, or lose everything, before they are completely irredeemable? It’s not that they become bad people, necessarily, but they are so worried about their own survival that they can’t trust strangers. At some point, won’t the same thing start happening to those they hold closest to them too?

While Michonne and others were so trusting of Aaron, the best scene was set in the back of the Cadillac. Michonne realizes that there are no photos of people in Aaron’s stack and she starts to worry. She reverts back to her old scepticism, asking him the “questions” that Rick and company require anyone they meet to answer. That is when Rick discovers the listening device and they all freak out, driving a white Cadillac through a herd of zombies. (Man, that is going to stain.)

It just shows that, even when trusting, these people can turn at the slightest suspicion. It’s their doubt, their mistrust of good intentions, that almost leads to disaster.

Abraham and Rosita have a sweet moment in the front of the RV as they finally see Washington down the road (an impossibility from most of Virginia, but that’s another story). They finally realised their goal and, even though the circumstances are different, it still is a search for hope and refuge.

After a stalled-out battery and even more delays, Rick finally rolls up to the front gates of Alexandria and, unlike at all those other places that spelled doom for his company, he hears something. It sounds a little bit like the beginning of Belle & Sebastian’s If You’re Feeling Sinister, to be honest, but it’s supposed to be the sound of humanity. With that, Rick picks up his daughter and gets the gang ready to head toward their next adventure. Carol tells Rick: “Even though you were wrong, you were right.” It’s not about being wrong or right, nice or mean, sceptical or trusting, it’s about keeping yourself alive, and that’s no easy task for people living in this new reality.

When they pull up, the sun is shining, everyone is hopeful, there are no zombie arms hanging out of the front of the RV, and the happy music is playing on the soundtrack. We know that everything is supposed to be good. But as Rick tilts his head toward the setting sun and looks towards the gate, we hear a slight key change in the music and it starts to get that familiar dread that we’re so used to on this show. No matter how much he might trust them, we’re never going to know what is on the other side of the gate, and whether or not there is something sinister there.

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