The Walking Dead: The Stupidest Things Andrea Said and Did This Week 2

Given the context of the episode, this might not be a fair feature to revisit–but a couple of these are so egregious that they’re just begging to be discussed.And let’s just say, for the record, that Laurie Holden is great in the role–the problem isn’t with her acting, it is (as Norman Reedus reminded us) that she’s being written in such a way that Holden’s convincing depiction makes her unpopular. Apparently some people have a problem drawing that line.Spoilers ahead for tonight’s episode of AMC’s The Walking Dead, “Arrow in the Doorpost.”While this is the week that many fans have been waiting for–when Andrea clearly has started to formulate some kind of coherent plan in her head and is clearly leaning toward siding with Rick’s group of survivors–it wasn’t without a few of the “classic Andrea” moments that fans have come to expect this season.Another abrupt change in characterization brings her back to something similar to where she was at the start of the series. It’s a version of Andrea that makes sense, given her pre-apocalypse backstory, but it’s hard to reconcile with how she’s been acting for the last season and a half or so. We’ll see how it all pans out, but until that key moment when she inevitably becomes a major player during the big battle with the Governor, we’ll continue to call attention to the moronic things she does and says.For example…1. Calling the meeting in the first placeSeriously–who but Andrea could possibly think that anything good could come of this? It was painfully obvious from the word “go” that neither man had any real interest in negotiating, not least of all because each of them had already explicitly said as much–TO ANDREA.Calling the meeting was an entirely self-aggrandizing moment where she could say, “hey, look what I did!” in the vain hope that it would affect some change. What it really did was put the lives of everyone there–and of anyone else who, like Merle, might have tried to crash the meeting–in immediate peril.2. Her whole “I know what’s best for everyone and that’s why I brought you here” speechOkay, so it was pretty stupid just calling the meeting in the first place, but at least all that high-minded rhetoric sounded good, right?Nope.The air of entitlement–as though she’s the only one who knows what she’s doing in spite of the fact that she’s proven time and time again all season long that she’s actually one of the weakest, most clueless members of whatever group she’s in–really just made me want to scream.3. “I’m not leaving!”Once she’s called a meeting of “kings” together–these are characters who have virtually no one to answer to, and who act like it–she expects to be able to remain there, presiding over the whole affair, simply by virtue of the fact that “Hey, I know you guys!”?How does that make her any better suited to the job than Merle? She’s basically at the same level of trustworthiness, except that fans like Merle, and the characters (inexplicably) continue to like (or at least try to) Andrea.4. JudithAre you freaking kidding me?What possible purpose could it serve to give the Governor that piece of information?BEST case scenario, you get what you got–it depressed him and made him sullen and uncooperative. Worst-case scenario, a shoot-out could have happened right then and there as Rick–whom Andrea knows to be unstable–doesn’t take kindly to the slight.