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

3. Flashbacks

The Walking Dead doesn't mess with its timeline a whole lot. After the leap forward that occurred during Rick€™s coma in the pilot, the only other temporal dissonance has taken the form of the odd flashback, or that weird episode where Daryl kept hallucinating his racist brother Merle was hanging out and chastising him. It makes sense not to harken back to the pre-apocalypse too much, since it spoils the immersion; similarly, the pasts of new cast members tend to remain unexplored. They€™re not important. Everybody keeps moving forward, surviving. That€™s what made the flashbacks to Abraham€™s early days in the walker-infested world fall flat. Well, that and the fact that they do the super cheesy sepia toned, soft focus effect whenever they show one of his memories, of which there are many in Self Help. Abraham is an interesting, complex and clearly troubled character - all of those are things that come across in Josh McDermitt€™s brilliant performance. You don€™t need flashbacks to get that across, especially when they€™re pretty vague anyway (apart from his introduction to Eugene, anyway). This isn't Lost.