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[TV] “The Walking Dead”: ‘The Distance’ Review

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“The Distance” managed to salvage the inescapable tone of dread from last week and manufacture some well warranted tension thanks to the new arrival to the group: Aaron.

This episode can easily be summed up with what Carol says to Rick during the final minutes “even though you were wrong, you were right.” This episode belongs to Rick thanks to some well warranted trust issues. Aaron arrives to the camp, and within moments is taken prisoner against his will.

Luckily he was incredibly forthcoming with everything that he could safely offer the group. Despite this, Rick has been put on edge. His marching across the barn to punch Aaron in the face shows his inability to trust, and no he’s not wrong. People are natural storytellers, Rick knows this, and they’ve been tricked many times before. What may have felt forced in the past, felt perfectly in place here because Aaron is a little too easy going.

With Michonne taking point in the quest to find Aaron’s cars and hopefully his partner, we get to see a different perspective of the ordeal. Michonne’s is one of more hope, she’s driven by the same ideals but makes a valid point, these dudes trusted her – a woman with a samurai sword, and would you? She’s comforted by this, and isn’t that exactly what they want you to think?

Despite several signs that Rick is talking to a genuinely good person, he can’t let up. When he’s struggling to make some real shit food for Judith, Aaron offers him solace in some applesauce. Although he initially slaps his hand, Rick does come around and taste the dish, with fantastic Rick Grimes’ smiley results.

Of course the others succeed in finding the cars and the food within. Rick takes it upon himself to create another route toward the camp than the one offered by Aaron. Again, his aversion to trust is well warranted, but as they solider along the highway we see just why Rick was told to go a certain way.

We get walker chaos for a while, and the perfectly dark and confusing night scene capped off with Aaron helping the group when by all means he should have just hightailed it into the darkness. Leading to the most heartfelt scene of the night: Aaron’s relationship to Eric. And, bravo to AMC for flat out showing their embrace and treating it as if it’s nothing, Aaron and Eric have an incredibly strong relationship thanks to that one scene.

So we arrive at the mysterious “Alexandria” by the morning, and it seems that Rick was indeed wrong. Suffice to say, that still remains to be scene, but the sounds of laughing children don’t seem that ominous. The group has been on the run for a whole season and subsequently without hope, so the return of home-base, a safety net of sorts, could really be something special.

The Walking Dead has never been a story about hopelessness, because at its core there is a tone of hope. To restart what we lost, but better this time. Alexandria effectively offers some glimmer of that, but where there are people there are politics, and sometimes they can be more damaging than the walkers outside the walls.

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[Review] Graphic Novel ‘Tender’ Is Brilliant Feminist Body Horror That Will Make You Squirm & Scream

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Tender Beth Hetland Graphic Novel

Beth Hetland’s debut graphic novel, ‘Tender,’ is a modern tale of love, validation, and self-destruction by way of brutal body horror with a feminist edge.

“I’ve wanted this more than anything.”

Men so often dominate the body horror subgenre, which makes it so rare and insightful whenever women tackle this space. This makes Beth Hetland’s Tender such a refreshing change of pace. It’s earnest, honest, and impossibly exposed. Tender takes the body horror subgenre and brilliantly and subversively mixes it together with a narrative that’s steeped in the societal expectations that women face on a daily basis, whether it comes to empowerment, family, or sexuality. It single-handedly beats other 2023 and ‘24 feminine horror texts like American Horror Story: Delicate, Sick, Lisa Frankenstein, and Immaculate at their own game.

Hetland’s Tender is American Psycho meets Rosemary’s Baby meets Swallow. It’s also absolutely not for the faint of heart.

Right from the jump, Tender grabs hold of its audience and doesn’t let go. Carolanne’s quest for romantic fulfillment, validation, and a grander purpose is easy to empathize with and an effective framework for this woeful saga. Carolanne’s wounds cut so deep simply because they’re so incredibly commonplace. Everybody wants to feel wanted.

Tender is full of beautiful, gross, expressive artwork that makes the reader squirm in their seat and itch. Hetland’s drawings are simultaneously minimalist and comprehensively layered. They’re  reminiscent of Charles Burns’ Black Hole, in the best way possible. There’s consistently inspired and striking use of spot coloring that elevates Hetland’s story whenever it’s incorporated, invading Tender’s muted world.

Hetland employs effective, economical storytelling that makes clever use of panels and scene construction so that Tender can breeze through exposition and get to the story’s gooey, aching heart. There’s an excellent page that depicts Carolanne’s menial domestic tasks where the repetitive panels grow increasingly smaller to illustrate the formulaic rut that her life has become. It’s magical. Tender is full of creative devices like this that further let the reader into Carolanne’s mind without ever getting clunky or explicit on the matter. The graphic novel is bookended with a simple moment that shifts from sweet to suffocating.

Tender gives the audience a proper sense of who Carolanne is right away. Hetland adeptly defines her protagonist so that readers are immediately on her side, praying that she gets her “happily ever after,” and makes it out of this sick story alive…And then they’re rapidly wishing for the opposite and utterly aghast over this chameleon. There’s also some creative experimentation with non-linear storytelling that gets to the root of Carolanne and continually recontextualizes who she is and what she wants out of life so that the audience is kept on guard.

Tender casually transforms from a picture-perfect rom-com, right down to the visual style, into a haunting horror story. There’s such a natural quality to how Tender presents the melancholy manner in which a relationship — and life — can decay. Once the horror elements hit, they hit hard, like a jackhammer, and don’t relent. It’s hard not to wince and grimace through Tender’s terrifying images. They’re reminiscent of the nightmarish dadaist visuals from The Ring’s cursed videotape, distilled to blunt comic panels that the reader is forced to confront and digest, rather than something that simply flickers through their mind and is gone a moment later. Tender makes its audience marinate in its mania and incubates its horror as if it’s a gestating fetus in their womb.

Tender tells a powerful, emotional, disturbing story, but its secret weapon may be its sublime pacing. Hetland paces Tender in such an exceptional manner, so that it takes its time, sneaks up on the reader, and gets under their skin until they’re dreading where the story will go next. Tender pushes the audience right up to the edge so that they’re practically begging that Carolanne won’t do the things that she does, yet the other shoe always drops in the most devastating manner. Audiences will read Tender with clenched fists that make it a struggle to turn each page, although they won’t be able to stop. Tender isn’t a short story, at more than 160 pages, but readers will want to take their time and relish each page so that this macabre story lasts for as long as possible before it cascades to its tragic conclusion. 

Tender is an accomplished and uncomfortable debut graphic novel from Hetland that reveals a strong, unflinching voice that’s the perfect fit for horror. Tender indulges in heightened flights of fancy and toes the line with the supernatural. However, Tender is so successful at what it does because it’s so grounded in reality and presents a horror story that’s all too common in society. It’s a heartbreaking meditation on loneliness and codependency that’s one of 2024’s must-read horror graphic novels.

‘Tender,’ by Beth Hetland and published by Fantagraphics, is now available.

4 out of 5 skulls

Tender graphic novel review

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