“The Walking Dead” Recap “Self Help”: The Scientist

In the latest “The Walking Dead” recap, Abraham refuses to stop until he gets to Washington D.C but will his mission mean as much after Eugene unloads a huge secret to the rest of the group….

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

A lie begets a lie.

When Eugene’s journey began during the genesis of the zombie apocalypse it was clear this was one guy not build for a world in chaos and anarchy. He was too busy listening to Poison records and figuring out which combat boots to wear with his jorts. He didn’t have time for guns and mayhem, much less the gumption to know how to kill someone.

What Eugene had going for him was the fact that he knew more than the guy standing next to him. He knew how to be MacGuyver. Give Eugene some duct tape, a few fish hooks and some tin foil and he’ll build a car (or so it seemed). He knew how to start a fire without matches. He know how to put it out with no water nearby.

He wasn’t a genius and he definitely never had the cure to stop the zombie apocalypse. He was just a smart guy with a plan. A plan to survive.

The Road to Washington

This week’s episode of “The Walking Dead” titled Self Help catches up with Abraham, Rosita, Eugene, Glenn, Maggie and Tara as they drive towards Washington D.C. on the church bus they borrowed from Father Gabriel. Everything is going so well that you know something bad is going to happen soon enough. The group is about two seconds away from bursting into song they are so smiley along the road.

Rosita jokes about giving Abraham a haircut, which he then teases about a full body shaving and going “dolphin smooth”, which is rather disturbing and way, way, way too much information. Glenn and Maggie first envision that their friends met back up with Daryl and Carol and were probably just behind them on the road, but then decide to quiz Eugene about the work he’ll do in Washington to save the world. His response sounds something like Dirk Diggler trying explain the history of Napoleon — you know the Roman king — and right away a few alarms should start sounding.

But Glenn and Maggie look past his rather odd and non-answer-answer and move right into the burning question everybody has been curious about since first meeting Eugene a season ago?

What is up with the mullet?

Eugene explains that he loves the haircut and he was apparently a big fan of “Eastbound and Down” before telling how his former boss at the Human Genome project was the biggest fan of his “Tennessee Tophat”

“The smartest man I ever met happened to love my hair. He said my hair made me look like, and I quote, a “fun guy.”
~ Eugene

Now that the discussion moved into business up front and a party in the back, something bad had to happen and sure enough, the bus seized up, hit something and then crashes on its side before skidding up the road, tossing everyone inside like phone books in a dryer. When they get out, Abraham does was Abraham does, killing anything and everything standing in his way and the others pitch in as well, but Eugene is trapped and scared like a kitten backed into a corner with nothing left to do but meow until someone comes and rescues him. Thankfully Tara helps him out and then hands him a knife and more or less says it’s time to be a man, dammit.

In the end, Eugene comes through with one good jab to save Tara from becoming tonight’s dinner. With the bus wrecked and nothing but woods on both sides of them, Eugene makes the suggestion to travel the 15 miles back to the church to meet up with Rick and the other survivors. Abraham ain’t having that shit.

“We don’t stop. We don’t go back. We’re at war and retreat means we lose. The road fights back, the plan gets gat, you all know that! Now we will get through this because we have to. Every direction is a question. We don’t go back!”
~ Abraham

The group decides to follow Abrham’s lead until they finally happen upon a library in a town that hasn’t been completely burned to the ground and they opt to stay there for the night until they can procure a vehicle to head north again towards Washington.

The Watcher

At the library, Abraham and Glenn take watch while Eugene builds a fire and Tara finds some toilet water to boil and drink (yummy). While watching out over the road to make sure the walkers don’t get too close, Abraham and Glenn have a little heart to heart. Abraham explains that in this new world everybody that’s left alive is strong, but that can be both a good thing or bad thing. Since only the strong survive it means they will either band together to fight for a common goal or become a threat and a threat has to be eliminated.

The problem is Abraham’s ability to eliminate threats is getting easier and easier every time he kills a person and that’s not something he likes to think about. Alright, enough deep conversation it’s time for sleep, but first Abraham needs some ass. Yep, he said it just like that.

A few moments later, Abraham is humping Rosita on a stack of what I can only assume are National Geographics when she notices something out of the corner of her eye. Eugene is behind one of the bookcases staring at them. She finds it disturbing. Abraham just laughs it off. Tara also notices when she sees Eugene at the bookcase. He explains that it’s a victimless crime. He likes the female body and every now and again (probably every, single time) he likes to sneak a peek. I don’t even want to know what he would have done if Tara hadn’t busted him.

The two get into a conversation and for the first time since we met him, Eugene opens up a bit and sounds more like a normal person and less like a redneck savant. He ends up revealing a rather big secret to Tara, which shocks her to the core. The reason the bus seized up, crashed and nearly killed everyone was because Eugene sabotaged the gas tank with shards of broken glass. He assumed the fuel line would get ripped up long before they took off from the church, but when it didn’t the glass ended up near the spark plugs, thus the crash and then the subsequent explosion that nearly killed everyone. Eugene didn’t want to leave the church and the other survivors, but he knew Abraham wouldn’t take no for an answer so he tried to stop them from leaving his own way.

Tara tells Eugene to keep this to himself and she’ll do the same, but telling the rest of the group would only cause huge, massive problems. The truth tends to do that sort of thing. This wasn’t the last piece of information Eugune shared either.

The Water’s Edge

In the morning, the rest of the group tries to convince Abraham that scavenging for supplies around town for the day is probably the best idea but he’s not listening. They’ve stopped long enough. They need to hit the road. Rosita, hesitant at first, finally complies with Ginger I Joe and they’re off once again.

Before leaving, they first need a vehicle and Abraham has that all figured out as well. He spotted a fire engine next door to the library and this is their ticket out, plus in theory the truck will have about 500 gallons of water inside that they can use.

Abraham gets the truck started quick enough, but after pulling away no further than five feet, the engine cuts off again. It’s then made clear the big fire engine was blocking a door and when it opens guess what comes pouring out? If you guessed anything but walkers just stop reading this right now.

The fight is on again but the numbers are starting to get out of hand. Just when it looks like Abraham is about to become walker bait, a blast of water from the hose up above takes out zombie after zombie in rather disgusting fashion. Remember a couple of weeks back when the food bank was flooded and we saw the damage that water can do to the human body when it’s over exposed to the wet stuff? Well, pressurized hoses can tear off skin, especially when it’s decomposed and rotting. Eugene takes out the entire group of walkers with the firehose and after cleaning out the muck that was blocking the air filter, they are on the road again.

The Scientist

Music videos are a thing of the past these days, but one of the best ever made was for the Coldplay song “The Scientist” where you see the backwards path of a car crash and the events that led to the beginning of the video where things were so much happier. “The Walking Dead” followed a somewhat similar theme to the end of this week’s episode while interlacing some back story on Abraham in the process.

One of the first images we get this week is Abraham smashing in the head of some random person in a grocery store using nothing more than a can of corn. The man wasn’t dead yet, so we can only assume he was there to hurt Abraham or as it turns out the family he brought with him. When he walked back and saw his wife and two children staring at him in sheer fright as he stood there with his hands both soaked in blood, Abraham knew this was going to be a pivotal moment in the future of his family.

The next morning when he awoke, his family was gone with a note that said “don’t try to find us”. Abraham’s only reason for living abandoned him because they would rather try to make it out in the world alone than to watch him become more and more unraveled as each day passed. It only got worse when Abraham ventured outside and saw his wife, his son and his daughter laying only a few feet away, slaughtered like lambs and left for dead. There was a reason he was being so unrelenting and brutal in the store. Because he had to be.

With his family dead and purpose at a loss, Abraham was ready to just give up. Then a voice came from the distance and he spotted a man running from a group of walkers. He sprung into action, killed the walkers and saved the guy who fled instead of fought. It turns out, it’s Eugene.

He tries to get Abraham’s attention, but the handlebar mustached bad ass is just walking away. That’s when Eugene springs it on him — he needs his help to compete a mission he’s on to save the world. It was all Abraham needed to keep going in that moment and so from there on out he’s had Eugene as his sidekick as they trot up the middle of the United States trying to get to Washington where he can stop the zombie apocalypse and restart the human race.

Back in present day as the group is back on the road in the fire engine, a mysterious smell starts breaking down wind and no one is able to ignore it. You’d have to imagine at this point the smell of rotting flesh is just about the only thing in the air, but some scents are stronger than others. When Glenn and the rest of the group goes to scout it out, they look ahead a few miles down the road and see fields upon fields of walkers roaming the area. If a herd is dangerous, this is like an entire army of zombies. There’s no way they can go forward with this kind of obstacle in the way.

Abraham doesn’t want to hear it.

They can plow through, they always do and consequences be damned. He needs to get Eugene to Washington to save the world and nothing is going to stop him. When Glenn and everyone else tries their best to intervene, which then causes Abraham to lash out, Eugene has seen enough.

“I’m not a scientist!”
~ Eugene

He screams it over and over again but it just doesn’t seem possible (to them anyways). Eugene finally makes a full confession. He was never a scientist and never had a cure to the zombie virus that guarantees if you die, you’re waking up with a serious appetite for human flesh. He was just a guy who was smarter than everyone else and he could lie like nobody’s business. So when all hell broke loose and he knew he couldn’t fend for himself, Eugene concocted a plan to have someone help him survive. He knew Washington DC was statistically the place with the best chance to find shelter away from the zombie apocalypse considering the government stronghold that reside there. Getting to Washington wasn’t going to be easy, and that’s where Abraham came in.

He was the brawn, Eugene was the brains.

Everyone gasps in shock and awe at Eugene’s revelation and that’s when Abraham finally snaps. He grabs Eugene and gives him a few punches before the man with the mullet crashes to the ground. While the rest of the group checks on him, Abraham finally knows that he’s been on a fool’s errand this entire time. He needed a mission to keep going after losing his family and Eugene gave it to him. Now he knows there’s no saving the world. There’s no coming back from this. Everything Abraham ever held sacred is gone and it’s going to be really hard for him to find something worth living for now.

In the comic, Eugene also reveals this big secret but he also states that he was a high school science teacher, which explains why he knew so much about basic chemistry and other tricks of the trade when it came to survival.  Why this was changed for the television show, I certainly do not know.

A solid episode from start to finish with some answers that were needed to hopefully return us to the road where we’ll see Abraham’s group team back up with Rick’s survivors. Next week’s episode focuses on Daryl and Carol’s mission to find Beth, and one can assume we’ll find out how Carol got captured and ended up in the hospital from hell. In terms of sequence it would appear next week’s episode would fit better this week to give the Beth story a beginning, middle and end, but sometimes I think “The Walking Dead” just lives to confound me.

Make sure to come back for the next episode of “The Walking Dead” next Sunday night at 9pm ET on AMC when we find out what happened with Daryl and Carol went on the search for Beth…