The Walking Dead 5.14 Review: “Spend”

The Walking Dead 5.14 “Spend” (written by Matt Negrate) ramped up the action in Alexandria this week, and – big surprise – killed off some more characters, driving home the point that humans’ cowardly choices can be just as deadly as the zombies that inhabit the landscape.


The episode opens with Reg and Noah having an early meeting in the morning sunlight. Noah wants Reg to show him how to build and reinforce structures, so someone else can carry on Reg’s important work. Noah is in this for the long haul, and after receiving a journal from Reg, Noah begins to document his life in Alexandria, with a small first entry (which we later find out said “This is only the beginning”). Within these first few minutes, the writing was clearly on the wall for Noah – for two reasons: First, the character got his own scene. We all know what happened when Bob started getting scenes of his own. Second, Noah was shown to have aspirations, and he was making plans for the future. Taken together, those two factors sealed his fate as a dead man.

The community’s power grid is acting up, so a plan is made for Glenn, Noah, Tara, Eugene, Nicholas, and Aiden to make a supply run to get the needed parts to restore it. Eugene doesn’t want to go, but he’s assured all will be ok (which means it definitely won’t). When everyone piles into the van and the engine is started, Knife Party’s “Internet Friends” (of all songs) fills the air. Everybody has a laugh, but this little detail will come into play later in the episode.

Meanwhile, Rick and Jessie share a quiet moment together, just long enough to make googly eyes at each other and for Jessie to alert Rick that someone trashed the tin owl project she’s been working on with her kids. This little detail will also come into play later in the episode, and I like when the show ties together seemingly insignificant points that mean something more within the episode’s storyline.

When the small group arrives at the warehouse, Glenn suggests they look for all the entrances and exits in case things go bad. While on their perimeter check, Eugene complains about being on the run in the first place, but Tara tells him he needs to start pulling his weight. Eugene counters that he did his share by getting the group close to D.C. Tara, however, sees it the other way around. The one point the two can agree on, though, is that Eugene is a coward.

The group enters the warehouse, staying together and keeping their eyes peeled for signs of trouble. Glenn hears something and surmises there are walkers stuck behind something. That turns out to be true, and Aiden is impressed, complimenting Glenn on his awareness of the situation. Now, it’s not too hard to figure out that suddenly Aiden is being portrayed as a more reasonable dude. Since the change is very sudden, it seems the show needs us to sympathize with him in a hurry. So suffice to say, it also became clear that Aiden was not making it out of this episode either.

When an armor-wearing walker shambles over to Aiden, Glenn yells to him to let it come closer, but Aiden, already acting impulsively, starts repeatedly shooting at the thing. He ends up hitting a grenade attached to the walker’s belt, causing an explosion that impales Aiden onto some spikes and injures Tara.

Things escalate quickly, and these scenes really were infused with tension. This show does action well, (despite resorting to racking up character fatalities way too often, which I’ll touch on later in this review). When some walkers attack Eugene, knocking him to the ground, I thought he might be a goner too, but Glenn rescues him, and after Nicholas declares Aiden dead, the others move Tara inside an office.

Meanwhile, back at the safe zone, Carol hears noises under her stairs, and finds Sam in a closet. He wants cookies – which would seem kind of ridiculous considering his last encounter with Carol – but in reality, he actually needs something else from her. She is nasty to him right away, telling him he if he wants cookies he’ll have to steal the chocolate, and threatening him once again should he say something to somebody if he gets caught. It was understandable that Carol would feel the need to threaten Sam about the guns, but about stealing a little chocolate for cookie making? It was unnecessary and made Carol seem harsh, but she did let him come back to the house, and Carol’s time spent with children has always ended in heartbreak, so I guess I see her reticence.

Later in the episode, and interspersed between the warehouse action, Carol does soften when Sam tells her he breaks things when he’s sad (tying in the destroyed tin owl from earlier in the episode). When he asks for a gun to protect someone, and then runs out of the house, Carol has to go investigate. When she gets to Jessie’s and Pete answers the door, refusing to let her see Jessie or Sam, Carol quickly figures out – from experience – what’s going on behind those closed doors.

Also in the middle of the warehouse action, we get Abraham at the old mall construction site working with a crew to expand the wall. Interestingly, once he’s off by himself, he has a bit of a panic attack. This is something we’ve never seen from Abraham before. He’s quickly startled out of it, though, by the sound of gunfire as walkers infest the work site. One of the shots Tobin fires causes the bulldozer bucket to come down, dumping Francine (and it’s funny all these non- characters get names quickly when it’s needed for the plot.) onto the ground. Scared by the walkers, Tobin wants the rest of the group to fall back, but Abraham won’t leave a man – or woman – behind, and rushes off to save Francine.

And it’s here, when he’s back in familiar combat conditions, that the old Abraham shows up, with his “Mother Dick” and his skull cracking of walkers – single file only, please. Later, Abraham chews Tobin out for his cowardice, which brings up a point: These Alexandrians are mostly portrayed as spineless imbeciles. But according to the show, they did build a wall around a neighborhood, expanded said wall, cleared a road that leads to the community, and recruited more people to ensure their survival for the last two years. Maybe I’m being too easy on them, but it seems like they got a lot done. Somewhere along the line, somebody had to have had vision and courage.

Later, Tobin goes to Deanna’s house and resigns, saying Abraham is a much better leader. Again, they had already expanded the wall once with Tobin in charge – but I won’t say any more about all that now. Afterwards, Deanna worries out loud to Maggie that she has now put more of Rick’s group in charge, but Maggie assures her that her group is an asset to the community.

Rick needs some more to do in this episode, and we need more reasons to hate Pete, so we get a scene where Pete shows up drunk at Rick’s house, mentioning Rick’s dead wife and generally acting like an ass. Then Pete has the nerve to tell Rick his group needs to remember the Alexandrians lost things too. Before he leaves, the two have a stare down.

Back at the warehouse, Tara has head trauma and is losing blood fast, but just as they go to get her in the van, they hear Aiden scream for help and realize he’s alive. Eugene tells the others to go get Aiden, since he will protect Tara. Um, What? Ok. Since they don’t have time to be incredulous, they take Eugene at his word and go.

Eugene finally does get to play the hero, and with Tara slung on his back, blows away a few walkers to get her to the safety of the van. It was a good writing choice to keep the heroics modest, because it would be totally unbelievable for Eugene to do something huge, like take on an entire herd by himself.

Meanwhile, when Glenn, Nicholas, and Noah reach Aiden, they try and free him, but the walkers are closing in on them. As the panic grows in Nicholas, he leans toward Aiden and whispers “You left them, we both did. That’s who we are,” and then takes off. Glenn doesn’t want to give up, but Aiden confirms what Nicholas said, that the Alexandrians who got killed (the ones Aiden strung up the walker for) died because Aiden and Nicholas panicked. Glenn and Noah narrowly escape, just as the walkers surround Aiden and gruesomely tear him apart.