The Walking Dead 'Self Help' Review: Stayin' Alive

Season 5 of The Walking Dead rolled along on Sunday night with "Self Help," an episode that once again jumped to another group of survivors. We spent the first three episodes with Rick's crew and then hopped over to Beth last week. But instead of continuing the hospital action this week, the show opted to check in with Abraham, Rosita, Eugene, Glenn, Maggie and Tara on the road.

The episode confirmed what many fans had suspected for quite a while. Eugene is not a scientist, nor does he have a cure to stop the zombies and restore the world to the way it was. He's just a smart man, a con man actually, who said what he needed to say in order to get the muscular and lethal Abraham to protect him and keep him alive.

Eugene has no faith in his ability to survive on his own and considers himself more or less useless, so he took the only course of action he felt would keep him going. He was so desperate to live that he sabotaged his group's efforts as the people got closer and closer to Washington. He wanted to keep this information to himself as long as possible, but he realized that he would be out of options once they got to D.C.

So Eugene spills the beans after Abraham goes into "full steam ahead" mode despite the horde of zombies in front of them. Glenn tries to argue and he and Abraham get into a scuffle, which prompts Eugene to break it up with the truth. Fans of the comic book saw this moment coming, but even fans of the show alone had a suspicion that something was off about the man with the mullet.

Of course, this revelation earns him a brutal beating from Abraham, and it's not out of the question that the military man just killed Eugene. But consider the weight of what happened here not just to Abraham, but to the entire group of survivors. Eugene represented hope for these people and for the entire planet, and he crushed that hope in a matter of seconds. He had been playing them all along, and the one thing that kept them going has now been taken away from them. Abraham, who looks like he's in shock, wanders a few steps away and drops to his knees in defeat.

Eugene's revelation meshed nicely with Abraham's flashbacks, which showed bits and pieces of the man's life in the (seemingly) immediate aftermath of the apocalypse. He had such a violent temper that he beat a man (or several people) to death in a supermarket, and his wife and children were so terrified of him that they decided to take their chances on the road with the zombies rather than stick with their husband and father.

Abraham was ready to end his own life, but then Eugene appeared with a group of zombies behind him and suddenly Abraham had purpose again. He had a mission, a reason to keep living. So it's understandable that he exploded violently on Eugene, who had just taken that entire purpose and mission away from him.

We'll have to wait and see what the group does next. Do they go back to Rick and company, or do they wait for them to catch up and then continue onto D.C. anyway? Eugene's probably not wrong when he says Washington is the safest place for them all.

Notes:

- Eugene is also a voyeur, which is both gross and appropriate for him.

- This episode spent an odd amount of time on Eugene's hair, but did so to set up the reveal at the end.

- Why has Maggie not asked a single question or shown any concern about her sister at all?

What did you think of "Self Help"? Let us know in the comments section.