Precisely. He's merely timelocked out of their lives.

It was a pastiche, not an homage to any one thing.

I thought they were more of a parody of Marvel's Infinity Stones than anything else. I would be surprised if we hear of them again, unless Moffat needs one to write himself out of a corner.

Moffat isn't gay, not that we know of. You're probably thinking of the previous showrunner, Russell T. Davies. Moffat has, however, introduced quite a few queer characters to the Doctor Who universe, more than most mainstream shows probably.

I'm calling it: the mullet will be Eugene's downfall. He's going to get it caught in a door or something.

It could have worked if he was killed just short of their goal, leaving them with no hope of accomplishing what he thought was possible. But I'm glad he was lying, because his lie was too full of hope to be a possibility within this bleak and futureless world.

Eugene's goal is still a good one. D.C. should remain their objective, at least after they've gone back to find Rick and the others. They may not have a magic reset button anymore, but Eugene has a point about it being the most likely place to have adequate defenses against the outside world.

I sort of wished he had mentioned what he did in his old life. An opportunistic high school teacher is a lot more sympathetic and easy to root for than the opportunistic basement-dwelling parent-leeching manchild I've been imagining him as.

That in itself is a narrative trap. Already the show has gotten to the point where I feel sorry for any new settlement they come across, because I know they've brought the end with them. The group has become the harbingers of destruction.

It seems much less serialized. Strange that a more episodic format would probe the elixir of life in an increasingly over-serialized TV landscape.

Of course not. They had Otis' wife and Beth's boyfriend to do that for them, duh.

I give all three of them three episodes to live, tops.

That's how I read it too. Ford knew on some level that Eugene's story was the only thing keeping him from eating a bullet, so self-preservation alone was enough to keep him in denial.

I swear if another character flips a goddamn vehicle driving at forty miles an hour I'm going to flip my shit. I expected better of you Abraham. That's some Lori-level crap.

You can say that, but we all know if Eugene had shown up back in season two, it would have taken them *twelve* episodes to out him, rather than four (and he wasn't even in all four!). It's gotten MUCH better.

You shut your whore mouth!

According to Wikipedia, in 2010, black people made up 35% of the population of Atlanta/DeKalb county. Currently on the show the main cast is composed of nine white characters, an Asian, a Latino woman, and four black characters, if you count Father Gabriel. So I'd say they're doing pretty damn good, especially when…

And yet, like Eugene's story, it has an odd air of believability to it.

Having not read the comics, I had almost started thinking Abraham and Rosita were in on the con.

Wishful thinking can be a powerful thing. Everyone WANTED to believe Eugene so badly that they didn't dare question him in front of the others, for fear of deflating the one item of hope they had seen in a very long time.