Review of What We

9/10
"What We" contains a lot of emotional moments and the impact is felt, in this brilliantly written and acted episode, Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira are spectacular
18 March 2024
"What We" is the fourth episode which follows Rick and Michonne after she throws them off a helicopter into the ocean. With the episode's premise: Rick and Michonne try to find the love they had. You know this episode is all about these characters, it extends beyond the writing and acting, thanks to the visual storytelling which the director and cinematographer succeeds with in this episode, making it grounded and character driven. The screenplay and writing is excellent, realistic and just heartful. The first fifteen minutes or so is simply these two characters, talking, arguing and acting like three dimensional characters who have both changed a lot with Rick Grimes having changed the most. Then the episode goes into a more action driven route with some great sequences of suspenseful zombie scenes with tension through these two characters, before going back to a slower pacing. The pacing is perfect and it remains character driven from start to finish, about these two characters. Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira.

This week's episode of TWD: The Ones Who Live "What We" was directed by Michael Slovis and written by Danai Gurira, the direction and visual storytelling were excellent, and with the writing I had looked forward to Danai's script as it had been hyped for a long time. The screenplay for "What We" was incredible! Back to the direction and visual storytelling, Michael Slovis who has directed the previous episode, handles every scene with perfection and makes sure there are brilliant shots as well as the actors are doing their finest work, which they are. Andrew Lincoln pulls an award worthy performance in this episode, so raw and emotional. Danai Gurira is also terrific in this episode, if it wouldn't be how heavy the episode and the screenplay leans into making Rick more hopeful, I would say her performance would be as great! The screenplay, written by Danai herself, focuses on this duo and the amount of character development which came out of this episode just shows how talented she is at writing dialogue and set pieces. When dialogue is written by someone who knows these two characters, it can't be bad, it can only be good and in this case quite great.

The production design and art direction is terrific, so is the mise-en-scene and cinematography for the show. The musical score is something I haven't commented about but it's spectacular. The increased budget makes for better production design and visual effects, overall making a better show in every department along with the actors. The prior episodes were high budget with some terrific visuals to meet our expectations of the CRM, this episode has solely two characters whom have interacted but not as much as we would want, thus not breaking the immersion with the story the writers are trying to tell. It's in this episode which Michonne opens up to Rick, information which needed the right moment and I'm so glad they did it this way. Totally the right way. In the previous episode we got information from the art guy (who makes the pictures on the phone) how Rick had forgotten what Carl looked like and that is so realistic. With everything Rick had been through, all the trauma suffered, he had forgotten what his son looked like. That's heartbreaking to hear and in this episode he tells her that, it's brilliantly written and acted with perfection. Yet, it got a little bit repetitive because of the same sets, that's my small criticism. This episode contains some of the best acting and writing in the show, yet it's so small compared to other episodes, but it still has everything you love with The Walking Dead. It's hard to rate though, but for a show about these two beloved characters, this episode was done brilliantly.
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