Walking Dead Review: “Cherokee Rose”

The stay at the farm permits for more traditional character development. After last week’s swarm, the show cuts down to one zombie—but h’s one of the nastiest we’ve seen yet.

My opinions on this episode are (appropriately) split.

Title: “Cherokee Rose”

Cast and Crew

Directed by Bill Gierhart
Written by Evan Reilly, from the graphic series by Robert Kirkman

Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes
Sarah Wayne Callies as Lori Grimes
Jon Bernthal as Shane
Laurie Holden as Andrea
Jeffrey DeMunn as Dale
Steven Yeun as Glenn
Norman Reedus as Darryl
Scott Wilson as Herschel Greene
Lauren Cohan as Maggie Greene
IronE Singleton as T-Dog
Melissa Suzanne McBride as Carol Peletier
Emily Kinney as Beth Green
Hane McNeill as Patricia
Chandler Riggs as Carl Grimes

Additional cast and crew information may be found here.

Premise

Darryl searches for Sophie and finds some leading evidence, Glenn and Maggie seek supplies in town and get lucky, Herschel and Rick discuss God and arrive at a compromise, and the survivors encounter, well, a bit of a problem.

High Point

Nothing like a waterlogged corpse sloshing around a well.

The zombie scene felt forced and unnecessary– but it may be the best forced and unnecessary scene on television this week.

Low Points

We learn they have a generator and five four wells, but other things don’t really make sense here. Why has the Herschel clan not cleaned out the pharmacy already? Why don’t any of them head out with Darryl? Why did they risk Glenn’s life in the well? And why is Herchel so resistant to outsiders, given that so few real people remain> Okay—readers of the comic have possible answers to that last question (though not necessarily good ones), but really, most of these things happen to facilitate the plot. The pharmacy provides the opportunity to send Glen and Maggie off on a mission. Glen has a great and creepy moment in the well. And Darryl’s discoveries have to be made alone—it’s more interesting that way, and it leaves the decision about what to report to him alone. Still, the plotting seems forced this week.

The Scores:

Originality: 3/6

Effects: 6/6 The show’s sole walker this week may be its most repulsive to date.

Story: 4/6 The episode felt both forced and aimless, but it did allow for character developments.

Acting: 5/6 Steven Yeun gives the episode’s best performance, while Jon Bernthal demonstrates restraint in the handling of Shane’s emotional difficulties. Other actors give less inspired performances.

Emotional Response: 4/6 The episode has some good interactions, typically between pairs of characters.

Production: 5/6.

Overall: 5/6 The episode develops from last week’s while providing a change of pace. It concludes with a surprise development that will surprise few viewers, but which will create some problems for the characters.

In total, “Cherokee Rose” receives 32/42

6 replies on “Walking Dead Review: “Cherokee Rose””

    • When this show hits a high note, it really hits a high note, but… Yeah. We have a lot more writing of characters and actions so that the show can have a particular scene or outcome, without anyone doing the work to make those scenes or outcomes believable.

      • Did you check out Hell On Wheels? Great acting and visuals, but “writing to get to a scene without doing the work to make it believable” on Hell On Wheels makes TWD look like Shakespeare. For AMC to go to all the effort to creat such great potential shows and see such weak scripting is very disheartening. Makes you wonder if this was ties in to the staff shakeup TWD endured.

        • I understand they fired the entire writing team, at the end of TWD season one. This is a new bunch of scribes.

          I can take the budget cuts of fewer sets and even walkers, but not stories that keep it going.

  1. I really like this show but it is increasingly getting me on a slow burn here.

    I get that it’s basic cable with a low budget and this season we only have four sets to work with – the interstate and its car wrecks, the farm and its surrounding woods, the school and (briefly) the small town pharmacy, but still, writing tight scripts costs no more than bad ones. Last season we had tight scripting, ongoing tension and conflict. This season the main tension is sitting around waiting for Carl to wake up.

    I am losing willing suspension of disbelief by the second the longer they adopt this ho-hum attitude over searching for Sophie. PARTICULARLY her mom – this ep she is specifically depicted cleaning up a camper kitchen instead of getting the hell out there and searching for her own kid? Seriously?

    Whoever wrote this script is obviously not a parent.

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