The Walking Dead Episode Review: "Self Help"

Guest stars include Andrea Moore.

From the moment this series first introduced Dr. Eugene Porter, I suspected something wasn’t quite right with him. His story seemed plausible and he definitely showed quite a bit of intelligence. But, something just seemed off. And, as we learned in this episode, he is nothing more than a good con man that happened to come across Sgt. Abraham just at the right moment and exploited him from the moment they met.

His revelation at the end does raise some questions for his character going forward. His survival skills are pretty much non-existent and, despite Tara’s (Alanna Masterson) assurances they would continue to protect him even if he couldn’t save the world, I have a feeling the fact he lied to them and people died as a result of his deceit will change that opinion.

I’m also curious what this will mean for Abraham’s character too. He’s definitely unstable and, without having some sort of mission (such as getting a scientist to Washington), I have a feeling he is going to lose focus and ultimately go off the deep end. I don’t think he’ll kill himself (though, as we learned through flashbacks, he was about to do just that when he was interrupted by Eugene). But, part of me wonders if he’ll eventually snap like Shane (Jon Bernthal) in the earlier season, especially since the rest of his group came to Eugene’s defense at the very end.

Speaking of earlier seasons, was I the only one having flashbacks to Dale (Jeffrey DeMunn) when they were having a hard time keeping that fire truck running? I half expected Glenn (Steven Yeun) to go off searching for a radiator hose.

I think this episode was a little bit forgettable as far as the overall action was concerned (though watching walkers get exploded by that fire hose was admittedly pretty neat). It did, however, give us a much better understanding of Abraham and Eugene and, now that Washington D. C. has proven to be a bust (unless Eugene convinces them there is still value in going there), it’ll be interesting to see what ultimately happens to those two characters.

My Grade: B