‘The Walking Dead’ recap: Ruining revolving doors for everyone

After Sunday’s episode of “The Walking Dead,” titled “Spend,” chances are good that many of us will think twice about going through a revolving door anytime in the future.

“Boxing Helena” filmmaker Jennifer Lynch made her “Walking Dead” directing debut in this episode and succeeded in shocking even longtime viewers with two of the most brutal on-screen deaths in a long time.

Aidan, the Members Only jacket-wearing jerko Alexandria resident, got graphically disemboweled after getting speared with a piece of metal and abandoned by his jerko teammate Nicholas.

And, more tragically, Noah get ripped apart in front of Glenn, who could do nothing but watch while trapped inside a revolving door. And when we say Noah got ripped apart. He. Got. Ripped. Apart. In close up. Starting with his cheek.

You can show dozens of extras getting their hands, arms, legs and necks chomped off. It’s all in a day’s work for this show. But showing a guy’s cheek getting ripped off in extreme close up and suddenly, the violence got really real.

Poor Noah. He didn’t even last a full season and his last words were, “Don’t let go.” But sadly, Glenn did let go and Noah got his cheek (and other things) ripped apart.

The death visibly wrecked Glenn and will surely haunt him moving forward. In fact, I wonder if this moment will set us on the path for Glenn’s eventual demise. Maybe even at his own hand. But for now, Glenn made it out and Noah did not.

The episode also updated on Father Gabriel, who seems to be having a breakdown of his own. Still wracked with guilt over the way he treated his own parishioners -- he hid in the church while they got eaten -- he’s acting out by working to undermine Deanna’s trust in Rick and company. As Maggie listened in, unobserved, Father Gabriel warned Deanna that Rick and his crew were no less than emissaries of the devil, sent to bring down the fragile peace of Alexandria.

While that may seem like a lame move on Father Gabriel’s part, he’s actually more correct than he realizes. In the next scene, we see Rick and Carol plotting to kill the jealous husband of the hairdresser Rick is sweet on. And Carol is also developing a rather corrupt alliance with a gun-loving little boy in town. Combined with Glenn’s presumably deteriorating mental state and Rick’s other plans to wrest control of the town away from Deanna, it does actually seem like the town would be better off without them.

The one bright spot of the episode, and there are so few these days -- was gettting to see cowardly, awkward Eugene finally step up and show some bravery by rescuing the unconscious Tara from the zombie-infested warehouse and then luring the zombie hoards away from that fateful revolving door. Whether Tara survives has yet to be determined, but in this one instance, Eugene has finally pulled his own weight. It’s not his fault that Glenn let Noah get ripped apart.

Did we mention they ripped off his cheek?

Follow me on Twitter: @patrickkevinday

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