The Walking Dead Review: Look At The Flowers (Season 10 Episode 14)
The truth comes out in disarming ways on The Walking Dead Season 10 Episode 14, “Look At The Flowers,” as Carol, Negan, Ezekiel, and Beta realize their limits more than ever before. It’s the kind of introspection that’s needed after a fairly big reset of taking out Alpha, and it’s the right moves to set up each character down their paths of redemption (or, in Beta’s case, destruction).
The events at Hilltop have left everyone at a loss, both emotionally and physically. They’re all searching for their own answers, and with fear and uncertainty settling in, it’s no shock that Eugene’s revelation is something to be worried over rather than accepted.
But Ezekiel backing him up is a great little moment, similar to Michonne’s final scene on The Walking Dead Season 10 Episode 13, “What We Become,” in the way both have faced insurmountable loss, but still open their heart to possibility and trust.
Alpha becomes a fantastic foil for Carol throughout the episode, an embodiment and voice for her self-doubt and regrets as they eat away at her. For all of the rage Carol holds for Alpha, this is the emotional payoff; she may not be the one to strike her down, but they hold a bond, whether or not they ever realized it.
They are tied by their anger, their grief, and their need to see the other fail. While Beta is hearing Alpha from beyond the grave, Carol is visited by her physical manifestation. While it’s all inside of her head, Carol’s mind locking onto Alpha as the way to place all of her failures upon her as loneliness takes hold is a brilliant solution of externalizing her conflict that has been a little frustrating until recently.
It’s mostly one-sided as Carol tries to push it away, but it’s the kind of torturous viewpoints that weakens Carol down and leave her to act carelessly and get trapped.
It’s somewhat of a shame that this is likely where Carol’s subconscious being Alpha ends, since her confidence and escape leads to the vision disappearing. With Alpha gone, having her appear to Carol occasionally as the devil on her shoulder could be a wonderful way of externalizing all of the things going on with Carol when her actions earlier on the season feel out of left field.
But if this is where it ends, at least we have Carol reaching a point of understanding herself better, and how she views everyone as a potential loss on her head. Returning to Alexandria and Daryl may be the exact thing Carol needs, as stability will lessen those worries.
The trip to the city becomes this fascinating tableau of macabre moments of the past. They’re all images of everyday life making a comeback in walker form, and at least Ezekiel greatly appreciates it; but it’s all probably the sign of a breakdown of a mind more than passing time while bored.
The person that appears before them rather enthusiastically with impressive firepower is too young to have lived and remembered these moments in time, and so they are likely not alone. While we don’t know if this is a sentry for where Eugene is heading or if this is an entirely different group, it’s intriguing that life can still go on in a city.
If this is indeed a member of the community that Eugene has been speaking to, their use of heavy guns all of these years later means they have a pretty good system still in place; that is, if the gun is loaded. Maybe this community is far more advanced, and it’s the answer the communities we know well have been searching for this whole time.
Negan’s pleas of truth to Daryl is an intriguing place to take them both. Negan is disarmingly truthful during the episode, and because of that, there’s this feeling of doubt weeding its way into Daryl. It all sounds too good to be true, how everything goes down with Alpha, even if we know it’s all real.
Negan is tasting freedom again for the first time, and he’s tempted by it. But he has a legacy with Alexandria. It’s the kids, at the end of the day. Negan may be mostly heartless, but he still has kindness for children. Alpha’s need to wipe out everyone may have been her undoing, more than Carol sending Negan as an assassin. The insinuation is that Negan may have stayed at her side if she allowed the kids a chance to live.
The Whisperers switching their allegiance to him is that extra tempt of fate moment, and he chooses Daryl, who’s more than happy to kill him, rather than being a leader again. It’s not a trick or a game, but rather Negan realizing that everyone has their part to play, and that leadership, in his hands, is empty. It feels like he’s accepting that he’s caught between two worlds, both of which do not really want him.
Beta’s origin story is finally revealed, where he’s the lead singer of a band called Half Moon. The pub he visits looks like their final show venue, at least the way it’s presented, and it becomes the place where he struggles to face his past and his present.
It’s all cleverly done mostly in silence or with his song blaring in the background, and so there’s this reliance on visual storytelling to really click in all of the clues as Beta goes through a breakdown of what he’s come to rely on and finding he must now rely on himself. This isn’t an abandoning of Alpha, but an embracing of her as a piece of him, taking a piece of her as part of his reworked Whisperer mask.
Now there’s the question of what’s next for him. He’s more than happy to take out allies to prove points, more than Alpha even, and so it’s unlikely he will take on the leadership of the Whisperers. Maybe he will become the leader of the horde, sending them wherever he pleases. The ending certainly suggests that.
Or maybe he is coming for one last fight to settle the score, this time on Alexandria. Either way, hopefully Ryan Hurst’s Beta stays on the show in some form, because he’s been a fantastic presence and threat. Plus, there’s still a rematch against Daryl that needs settling.
The feeling of the show now is one of hopelessness falling away to hope and trust. It’s that all of the setbacks and losses can’t change humanity, and that humanity will always default to kindness. The show’s ten seasons may beg to differ, but it’s a positive outlook that will help settle everyone onto their new paths as the show looks to be pivoting to something new.
It’s not clear if this new place will be that something new, or if things, as they are, will be changing. The Walking Dead Season 10 Episode 14, “Look At The Flowers,” looks to test its four narratives by throwing doubt at them and seeing how they climb their way out. Some take it as an answer to accept again, while others, like Beta, see it as the fire to ignite a storm.
But the show is capturing that doubt and using it in interesting ways to keep things fresh and tied to developing its character so that they can learn to trust again. Let’s hope the trust is earned on the next episode, as the finale may be a while.
What did you think of this episode of The Walking Dead? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9/8c on HBO.
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Kevin Lever
Kevin Lever has been following television closely for most of his life, but in starting to cover it, he has grown a further appreciation. He strives to give the blockbusters their due, and give the lesser known shows a spotlight to find more fans.