The Walking Dead: 5 Things Self Help Did Right (And 5 It Didn't)

4. Zombies Aren't A Threat

One thing Slabtown did very well was to return the walkers to being something of a threat. They didn't cause a whole lot of trouble in the episode - as is the wont of The Walking Dead, and all good zombie fiction really, it€™s the living that tend to muck things up for themselves - but their presence was a constant source of threat, a ticking time bomb that could go off at any time and consume everyone. Which tended to make make tempers flare and drama happen. That€™s just good storytelling. And that€™s the thing that the show runs on. Still, every so often, the walkers need to do something. Otherwise they€™re nothing more than set dressing. One of the weakest parts of Self Help was that, well, the undead were incredibly weak. The group dispatched them all with ease after the bus crash, and Eugene was a dab hand with that water cannon, which does well in showing how the group have adapted to their environment and grown across the seasons to the point that they€™re well-oiled killing machines. But it also serves to make the zombies seem totally useless, non-threatening, and thus robs much of the episode of any sort of tension.