You deserve to get beaned in the head by a soup can if you don’t know there are SPOILERS below.
Last night’s episode of The Walking Dead was another semi-standalone episode focusing on the escapades of the group surrounding big badass Abraham and his “scientist” cohort Eugene. The episode ended with the barely surprising reveal that Eugene has been full of shit since day one, but that’s not the most interesting aspect of the episode. Apparently the Censorship Powers That Be almost kept “Self Help” (or at least part of it) from airing. At least, that’s the story told by star Michael Cudlitz, who plays the emotionally harrowed Abraham. Here’s how he put it on his Twitter page.
Ridiculous, right? Think back over the entire episode and try to pinpoint a scene that was “too something” to be put out there to TV audiences. Can you think of anything that completely shocked or disgusted you? Me either.
Perhaps it was the sex scene between Abraham and Rosita, though it was about as tame of a sex scene as one could imagine, shrouded in darkness and blankets. Surely the censors don’t think that consensual sex between loving partners is more dangerous to see than cannibals. I know this isn’t a show that ever gets very sexual, but cable TV has gotten pretty free with various forms of nudity, and none of that happened here. The only thing about this scene that was a tad off was Eugene hanging around and watching them do it, even though that’s also slightly consensual, despite being creepy. Is voyeurism really more risqué than blood and guts?
If not that, then what else? There were a few gory scenes here – particularly the one where Eugene destroyed a zombie squad with the firetruck hose – but it wasn’t any more revolting or excessive than anything we’ve seen this season, much less the past four years the show has been on the air. There was that one scene near the end where Abraham’s family was shown to be victims of a zombie attack, but there weren’t any real close-ups of dead children or anything. It was mostly implied and the impact was played out through the temporarily suicidal Abraham’s facial expressions.
Maybe it was almost censored by AMC for all the bullshit frame-cropping that happened for DirecTV users watching the episode. (Which was countered by AMC during one commercial break with the network saying that DirecTV’s claims were mostly phony.) What do you guys think the censors had a problem with?
