Last week’s opening installment of Tales of the Walking Dead introduced us to a pair of polar opposite preppers. Aside from that wonderful excuse for some alliteration, the episode wasn’t much to write home about. This week, the anthology series goes in a completely different direction with the franchise’s first real sci-fi story.
As always, the recap portion of this review will contain plenty of spoilers.
The Circle Begins
Tales of The Walking Dead (AMC)
The episode opens at an Atlanta insurance company named Circle of Trust in the year 2010, which is right at the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. Society is still functioning, but reports of mounting violence (and unofficial reports of people biting others) have everything hanging by a thread.
The agency’s boss (Blair) points out how the climate of fear/panic is good for business. Meanwhile, the company’s receptionist (Gina) privately fumes with disgust at Blair’s behavior while also worrying about her own family. Before taking off for the day, Blair blames the media for making people panic. She also belittles Gina, who is clearly someone she takes pleasure in bullying.
Later, Blair and her fiance (Brian) get stuck in a massive line for gas while making their way to Jekyll Island for vacation. As Blair complains about how much she dislikes Gina (and accuses her of stealing the company’s coffee mugs), she spots the receptionist pulling up to the gas station convenience store.
Tales of The Walking Dead (AMC)
Gina walks in and sees that the shelves are nearly empty. After walking back out, she finds Blair waiting in the parking lot to scold her for leaving the office early. Gina meekly attempts to stand up for herself, but ends up getting fired on the spot.
As Blair makes a phone call to terminate her employment, Gina notices a woman driving by with her husband, who has a nasty-looking neck wound. This causes her to get a shotgun out of her hatchback, walk over to an oil tanker, and demand that the driver give her his keys. A nearby Homeland Security agent named Leo Rogers (who’s in a car with his son Wendell) sees what’s happening and attempts to diffuse the situation. Blair attempts to help by promising not to fire Gina, but it doesn’t help.
Before the situation can boil over, the group hears the woman from the car scream. They all look and see that her zombified husband has thrown her to the ground and is gnawing on her flesh.
Rogers takes Gina’s shotgun and orders his son to get inside the tanker. He then tells the driver that he’s confiscating his vehicle. When Wendell calls out and causes Rogers to turn, the driver tries to grab the shotgun from him. This causes the weapon to fire and hit the tanker, engulfing everyone in a fiery explosion.
History Repeating
Tales of The Walking Dead (AMC)
When we return from the opening credits, Blair finds herself standing in the insurance office at the same point in time when the episode began. Aside from a few wisps of smoke that escape her mouth, there’s no evidence of the grisly fate that occurred in another timeline. Blair struggles to wrap her around what felt like an extremely vivid hallucination, but that doesn’t stop her from belittling Gina. She even makes a joke about the receptionist being unhinged and hiding a shotgun under her desk, but doesn’t find one.
As Blair gets ready to leave the office, both she and Gina begin to hear echoes of their previous interaction. Before either one of them can make sense of things, Blair leaves to meet Brian for their trip to Jekyll island. She tries to tell him about her hallucination, but struggles to explain it as anything beyond a vivid case of déjà vu..
Things become a whole lot more vivid when the same tanker truck from before pulls into the gas station Blair and Brian are in line for…and when Gina pulls up to the convenience store.
Tales of The Walking Dead (AMC)
Things play out slightly different this time (Gina doesn’t go into the store), but the sequence of events still lead to Gina getting out her shotgun and ordering the truck driver to give her his vehicle.
Blair storms over and begs her receptionist not to get them killed like she did “last time.” When that doesn’t work, Blair immediately goes to Agent Rogers, who once again asks her to help talk Gina down. This time, however, Blair notices that he has a nasty-looking bite mark on his wrist. He also says that they don’t have much time, which seems like an understatement, but will actually turn out to be much more ominous later on.
Seconds later, the woman in the car is attacked by her zombified husband and begins to scream.
In yet another diversion from the first timeline, Gina is able to hang onto the gun when the trucker tries to grab it. After hitting him in the crotch, she gets inside the vehicle and begins to drive away. Agent Rogers orders her to stop, but she refuses, explaining that shooting his gun would blow all of them up.
Desperate to escape with her (or maybe just to figure out what the hell is going on), Blair runs ahead and puts herself in the truck’s path, forcing Gina to veer off the road and resulting in a fiery crash/explosion.
Third Time’s a Charm
Tales of The Walking Dead (AMC)
When reality snaps back to the insurance office, Gina is screaming while Blair holds her hands up in disbelief. The rest of the office looks on with a mix of curiosity and fear, all of them no doubt wondering if the two women have completely lost it.
Gina shuffles outside in a daze and Blair follows her. The two women quickly realize that they’re repeating the same horrific events that will happen to them later that day. While Blair begins hyper analyzing everything, Gina hazily recalls how she went to the gas station because she wanted a snack and the office vending machine was broken — an issue she’d mentioned to her boss numerous times before. She then tells Blair that she won’t be going to the gas station this time and to leave her alone.
Later, Blair is in the car with Brian at the gas station when her fiance spots Gina holding the tanker truck driver at gunpoint. When Blair gets out and confronts her, Gina angrily explains that she blew a tire and had no choice.
Realizing that she won’t be able to talk Gina out of her current course of action, Blair storms over to Agent Rogers. After telling him that his bite looks bad, she demands he explain what’s really going on and why he’s in such a rush to leave Atlanta. Rogers responds that things are much worse than what the news is reporting — people are going crazy and biting each other. The military has also taken over the city and only left two backroads open.
Tales of The Walking Dead (AMC)
Rogers then begins to approach Gina and asks her to put the gun down. Once again, she turns at the sound of a woman screaming while she’s attacked by her undead husband. This time, the truck driver uses the opportunity to run and get into his vehicle. Gina turns just as Rogers reaches for her weapon, causing it to fire and kill the truck driver. That would be bad enough on its own, but Wendell had already gotten into the vehicle’s cab, as well.
As the truck begins to roll forward, Gina hears Wendell cry for help. She ditches her gun and chases after him.
*Side Note: Not sure why Rogers didn’t do the same, but whatever.
Brian demands that Blair get back in the car, but she goes after the truck instead. She manages to make it onto the cab while Gina tries to comfort the boy and get him to take the wheel. When the terrified child refuses, she opens the door and pulls herself into the driver’s seat.
Seconds later, the zombified truck driver gets up and bites Gina’s neck just as the vehicle swerves into something and explodes.
Neck and Neck
Tales of The Walking Dead (AMC)
When reality resets again, Gina is shaking and holding her neck where she’d just been bitten. Meanwhile, Blair monologues in disbelief over how the dead truck driver came back to life — much to the confusion/concern of her office staff.
Gina then gets up and begins to let Blair have it. Years worth of resentment explode in an epic rant about what a horrible, self-centered person she is. Things get kicked up a notch when Gina begins revealing how much the rest of the office hates her — something that might not have happened if she’d ever gotten to know her employees instead of talking about herself all the time.
Gina finishes by demanding Blair leave her alone. Just as she’s about to exit the insurance office, Blair counters that Gina is actually the selfish one since their time loop wouldn’t be happening if she’d stayed at her desk. Before walking out the door, Gina points out that if Blair actually cared about any of her employees, she’d warn them about what was happening outside.
Later, Gina is arrested at the gas station thanks to Blair calling the police about her possessing an unregistered shotgun. The two women begin to trade insults, which quickly escalates into full-blown fisticuffs. Their fight is cut short when the tanker truck runs into another car, causing a massive explosion that kills everyone.
From there, we’re treated to a montage of Blair and Gina continually being killed as they try to escape their loop. The last one ends with a zombified Gina biting into Blair moments before yet another explosion.
Tales of The Walking Dead (AMC)
This shared and repeated trauma causes Blair and Gina to bond somewhat. As the rest of the insurance office looks on in disbelief, the women share some vending machine snacks (which Gina liberated by breaking the vending machine’s glass) while discussing how awful their ordeal is.
When Blair gets sick and goes to the bathroom, Gina follows to comfort her. The pair then sit down against the wall and discuss what’s about to happen. Blair explains that since the military is closing down the city, Gina can’t leave unless she knows what roads are still open — knowledge Blair has thanks to Agent Rogers from many time loops ago. Gina responds by begging Blair to just let her leave in peace so she can drive through downtown and get to her family.
Blair silently agrees.
When we next see Gina, she’s leaving in the truck and smiling while Agent Rogers futility demands that she stop. Back at the office, Blair looks at pictures of Gina’s family before telling the rest of the employees to go home early and be with theirs. When Brian walks in to ask where she’s been, Blair asks why he never tried to help her during any of the countless times she died. After Brian responds with understandable confusion, Blair declares that they aren’t right for each other and tells him to go to Jekyll Island without her.
Once Brian leaves, Blair steps outside and allows a pair of zombified teenagers to eat her.
Changing the Tune
Tales of The Walking Dead (AMC)
Despite changing general trajectories, both women find themselves snapped back to the same moment at the insurance office again. After telling everyone to go home, Blair and Gina go into the back so they can discuss what happened.
Gina admits that she never even made it downtown. Blair responds by explaining how she died. She also apologizes to Gina for always being horrible to her. Gina’s response isn’t particularly gracious, but the beleaguered receptionist also admits that Blair has helped her become less of a doormat during this ordeal.
With that awkward bit of reconciliation out of the way, Blair suggests that they try something new to get out of their loop.
Tales of The Walking Dead (AMC)
The two women go to the gas station and move on the truck driver just as the woman in the car is attacked by her zombie husband. Blair alerts Agent Rogers to what’s happening, allowing her and Gina to hold up the driver and easily get his keys. The plan works perfectly, but comes at the cost of watching Wendell die when he approaches the zombie to see what’s wrong with him.
Despite everything they’ve seen, the two women are still in a heartbroken haze as they drive away.
Blair tells Gina how to get to her family, which helps get them talking again. Gina reveals that she became a receptionist despite having a marketing degree. She didn’t have any major connections to get her foot in the door, but complacency and cowardice kept her from putting herself out there. Blair responds by revealing that she stayed with Brian because she was scared to be alone after her father died of lung cancer.
After going around a police blockade, both women admit to each other that they’re still scared about what will happen to them next.
Forging a New Path
Tales of The Walking Dead (AMC)
As the women get near an overpass, the sound of car horns and screams convinces them to stop and see what’s happening. They look over I-85 and observe a swarm of zombies shuffling out of Atlanta, all of them hungrily lurching toward a large group of people trapped by a multi-lane car accident.
After Gina takes out the hose and douses the path with gasoline, Blair drops a cigarette onto it. When that fails to ignite, Gina convinces Blair to light one of her favorite neck accessories on fire. They drop it from the overpass and create a wall of fire that slows/stops the zombies from overtaking the people fleeing from their cars. The women are only able to enjoy a few seconds of righteous satisfaction before the tanker truck explodes, throwing them into the air. Luckily, they are far enough away that the blast merely singes them.
After pulling themselves up from the ground, Gina checks her watch and realizes that they made it past the time they were supposed to die.
Blair asks if she thinks they’re dead — something she’s okay with since she’d really like to see her dad. Gina responds with a theory that Blair infected her with her personality disorder via folie a deux, which in turn has caused them to create a shared delusion.
This leads to the pair engaging in another round of friendly insults and they walk down the deserted interstate together.
The Verdict
Tales of The Walking Dead (AMC)
Now we’re cooking with gas.
While I completely understand that this episode won’t appeal to everyone, Blair/Gina showed one of the best things that Tales of the Walking Dead can do. Instead of yet another zombie survival story, we get a quirky sci-fi tale anchored by a couple of fantastic actresses — all of which takes place against the backdrop of The Walking Dead‘s first location.
While Blair/Gina is definitely a comedy, it provided a solid amount of angst and horror, too. I certainly can’t be the only one who expected poor Wendell to survive and/or be saved.
Tales of The Walking Dead (AMC)
That said, this was a pretty standard time loop story, right down to the main characters’ having emotional breakthroughs about themselves and with each other. There was also some unevenness with Agent Rogers, who was either a noble protective father or an oblivious idiot depending on which loop we were in.
Thankfully, Parker Posey (Blair) and Jillian Bell (Gina) made the episode incredibly fun to watch. In addition to their great chemistry, the pair deftly toed the line between playing everything straight and eliciting genuine laughs. Posey’s turn into a sympathetic character was a bit compressed, but she still made it believable. Meanwhile, Bell made the most of a rare opportunity to be the episode’s emotional anchor.
A small part of me wishes we’d gotten to spend more time exploring the zombie apocalypse’s origins, but observing this supremely weird corner of it was a lot of fun. I should also note that an entire season/series like this wouldn’t be my cup of tea. As a chapter of an anthology, however, it’s fantastic.
For those of you who want things to remain more serious, next week’s Tales of the Walking Dead will explore the backstory of one of the franchise’s most depraved characters.
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