Review: Walking/Talking Dead “Coda”
Dec. 1, 2014
Coda
noun
A resolution. A convergence of themes. An end.
The title of this week's episode of The Walking Dead seems apropos given the nature of the story. It is an end: a mid-season finale putting the series on hiatus until February. It's also a terminus: the real end of the line for this particular incarnation of the rag-tag clan led by Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln). It's a point of forfeiture, where old goals are discarded to new, emergent realities.
Of course, the most striking of these realities is a murder, a straight-shot to the face, at the hands of a cop, no less. This isn't surprising to anyone but the most ardent Nazi; it is in the job description after all:
Atlanta PD Handbook
Rule One, Section One:
'Salright to bust bitches in the face.
But not this bitch, and not in that face. Not Beth Greene: sweet and innocent, blonde and white. Dear God! Not her! Take Noah, or Tyreese, or—Noah! Anyone but Beth!
Which brings me to the focal point of this article: the Talking Dead wrap-up show. Sitting in my living room last night, watching Keegan-Michael Key, Robert Kirkman, and Chris Hardwick fawn over robotic “actress” Emily Kinney, was truly a sight to behold. The three men lamented her character's death, professing her purity, treating her as something more than the dramatic fodder that she was written to be.
And when Kinney's tears fell, Hardwick coddled her and rocked her to sleep, complete with a goodnight kiss.
Kirkman even went as far as saying, “I changed my mind. You're back on the show,” appealing to the rising tide of protective audience sentiment. I'll give this to Kirkman: he knows where his bread is buttered.
For his part, Keegan-Michael Key parroted everything his white counterparts said, but overly zealous responses and nervous shifting gave him away. Mr. Key, a biracial man, obviously noticed the gigantic, smelly, metaphorical elephant in the room. Here they were, tearing up over the fictional police shooting of a pretty white girl, just a scant few days after the very real Darren Wilson got away with the very real police shooting of Michael Brown (with an alleged million dollars in racial donations, no less). All this, a week after the police shooting of twelve year old Tamir Rice, in Cleveland, Ohio. After that kind of week, how could they have any tears left?
But there they were: sobbing, and hugging this poor, out of work, successful white actress who had to—gasp--move her things out of her apartment, and—gasp--leave her fellow successful actors behind. This is a woman who will never have to worry about getting shot by the police, and will never lose a child to such violence. (Unless she does get it on with Tyler Williams, and pops out a little mulatto suspect.)
Without an ounce of reflection, Kinney's tears flowed, Chris Hardwick drank them up, and the gigantic smelly metaphorical elephant sat in silence.