The Walking Dead: 4 Things "Spend" Got Right (And 6 It Didn't)

By Tom Baker /

5. What Is This, Desperate Housewives?

Last week's episode seemed like a turning point for The Walking Dead, as it set its targets not on the usual nihilistic €œLOOK WHAT MONSTERS HUMANS BECOME WHEN ALL THE LAWS HAVE BEEN TAKEN AWAY€ angle on its antagonists, but the more subtle and creeping trouble of when people pretend like everything's fine, playing house and continuing their upper-crust existence whilst the world crumbles around them. It wasn't particularly subtle in putting that across, with Daryl literally €œoutside€ the swanky party being thrown by the Alexandria lot, and Sasha freaking out about everyone treating a missing pasta machine as the most desperate problem in a world where the dead are returning to life and eating people. That angle was lost a little this week, when the drama served less as a wider commentary on the state of things and instead seemed like the sort of suburban satire of Desperate Housewives with its Alexandria-set stories. Somebody broke an owl? There's a drunk doctor? Who cares? Why did they think viewers would?