Eugene & The Ginge, Best Buddies Forevah

“Self-Help”

It’s all about the Ginge this week, Abraham, that is, the biggest and baddest ginger of all. Eugene and his ubiquitous mullet (wherein all his power lies) also figure prominently, and we are additionally treated to some hot postapocalyptic sex. Speaking of sex, I’m lusting after Rick, and I even coveted the evil Shane while he was alive, but never been that attracted to the ginge contingent before. There was this one fair-skinned, six-foot redhead named David that I shared a lap with whilst swimming one summer, and I admit that I think of him fondly from time to time, but other than that, all quiet on the red front.

Abraham is driving the school bus and flirting with Rosita, or is it the other way around? Tara is chatting with Eugene about his hair style choices. Maggie and Glenn are happily ensconced in the back of the bus. So far, you will recall, we are operating on the premise that Eugene is the key to saving the world. He goes on about pathogens, missile sites, blah blah blah, and then we get back to the interesting topic at hand, his hair. They pass a pack of staggering walkers. Ginge swerves to avoid crashing into a wreck and crashes the bus as a result. The walkers descend upon the bus, naturally, and we cut to the opening credits. Once again, we are subjected to the sorriest group of zombies that ever were; didn’t the apocalypse claim any fashionable individuals?

Glenn and Maggie make small talk with the Eugene.

Ginge flashes back to a grocery store when he was bashing someone’s head in, a non-zombie person’s head. Hmmm. Reserve judgment, reserve judgment, times were tough, and a can of food was precious tender!

Tara hands the wimpy Eugene a knife and instructs him to be “brave.” He has this deer caught in the headlights thing going on, though, and does nothing while the rest of the group goes around stabbing walkers handily through the head. Recall that Eugene is the veal of the group; he needs to be protected because of his precious scientific knowledge. The bus catches on fire. The group has to walk. Eugene wants to retreat to the church, whereas Ginge says there’s no going back, dammit!

Eugene pauses to hock a loogie on a dead walker. They leave the burning bus.

Another Ginge flashback. He’s looking for Ellie, who’s with cowering children and alive. I expect there’ll be plenty more of these as the episode progresses, so I’ll be peppering my commentary with them.

The group is building fires? With books. Looks like they found a bookstore. There’s a little something something going on between Rosita and Ginge. I guess she IS attracted to gingers, or at least she has nothing against them, and it’s better than Eugene, after all. Ginge thanks Glenn for his selfless service. There’s a lot of red-haired mumbling that doesn’t interest me that much? Glenn is still under the impression that life will get better, perhaps due to Eugene’s future contribution to humanity.

Abraham and Rosita make sweet, sweet love as Eugene watches from the Self-Help section of the bookstore. O, sweet irony! Tara and Eugene have a tense conversation. Eugene admits to sabotaging the bus. Why? Tara wants to know. Eugene admits that he has no value if he cannot cure the disease. Tara refutes this, and further promises to keep his dastardly secret. “Welcome to the human race, asshole,” she tells him. Maggie and Glenn are looking forward to the future, too. How is it that she is not pregnant yet by him? They have sex like, 20 times per day.

Ginge is in flashback mode again, with the trembling Ellie and the two very scared children. Ginge is, after all, covered in fresh blood, telling them that they don’t need to be scared “of him” anymore.

Ginge’s hand is injured. Rosita wants to take a break and stay put, but of course Ginge wants to push on. It’s a matter of time, and they don’t have it to waste. The group heads across the street to a fire truck. It starts! Success. For now. Uh, no, it stalls and stops. As he was pulling out he opened the door of the firehouse, which may or may not be significant. Oh yes, it was. Walkers, and a lot of them! Luckily the highly pressurized water from the truck’s hoses seems to do the trick, splattering walkers right and left. Ginge is hysterical as he tries to fix the truck. If he didn’t laugh, folks, he’d be cry in’.

Have you ever noticed that redheads have more fun?

Ginge flashes back to the store he was in with Ellen and the 2 kids. They’ve left and he runs out to find them.

Ginge busies himself with the repair of the truck, while Eugene the pampered puss reads a book. Maggies makes conversation with Eugene—well, tries to, at any rate. He’s a bit Asperger-y. A grand stink rolls in. What could be so smelly? Hmmm. Is something on fire? That would be my guess. I can’t tell what it is, my TV is too small. I guess it’s a huge horde of walkers. Ginge says they can press on through, who’ll notice them? Ginge is irrational. The others try to convince him otherwise, even his GF Rosita. Ginge takes Eugene with the intention of dragging him through the horde, but then Eugene admits that he’s not a scientist and has no idea how to stop the zombie virus. Ka-boom.

Eugene’s ass is pretty much grass. This is a big admission. “I just know things,” he affirms, but he’s no scientist. He wants to get to DC because he thinks it does hold the key to survival. Eugene rattles off the names of all of the people who died in aid of his phony plight. Ginge finally starts to beat Eugene up, and rightly so, I think. However, he is pulled off by the others. Semiconscious Eugene is not doing well. Does Ginge have an anger management problem? He finds Ellen and her kids dead, decimated by walkers. Was Ginge an abusive husband? Ginge then saves Eugene in his flashback, and Eugene tags along with him. Why should Ginge wait? Because Eugene has a “very important mission.” How gullible was I? I thought Eugene was really a scientist and that he really had the answer, or at least a contribution to make towards a solution.