Tag: Jalen Thomas Brooks

Walker Sets Up What’s to Come in ‘Buffering’

Walker Sets Up What’s to Come in ‘Buffering’

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Last week’s episode of Walker was aptly named, with multiple situations setting up the prospect of change for some of the characters who have been a bit in limbo recently.

Cassie and Trey are both in trouble with Captain James, but for now they’re enjoying being adorable besties out for a food truck dinner, Trey clueless when the waitress hits on him (not sure she’s a good bet because how did she know Cassie wasn’t his girlfriend though??)

Trey is worried about how angry the Captain is at them, Cassie for some reason isn’t – after he totally went off on them last week.

Cassie and Kevin are ‘buffering’ their relationship, Trey insists, determined to keep their work/life boundaries separate. Cassie’s not interested in “another fling” and she’s a little worried about where Kevin stands, especially because he didn’t tell her about an upcoming luncheon with the mayor honoring them all for their bravery.

Things are at an uncomfortable impasse with many of the Walkers too. Abeline is recovering nicely, but Bonham hasn’t forgiven August and still seems intensely on edge about making sure she doesn’t experience any stress at all (which isn’t realistic if you want to, you know, actually live…)

The Walker family is under a lot of stress, much of it caused by Bonham being horribly cranky while ostensibly trying to make things LESS stressful for Abeline in the wake of her TIA. He’s grumpy with August, who he’s having a hard time forgiving even though August is bending over backwards trying to make it up to everyone. He was grumpy with Cordell last week, leaving him this week saying he’s trying to avoid even going over to his parent’s house in the wake of the ‘find your own place to live’ advice. And he’s grumpy with Liam, who is still really floundering trying to figure out who he is and what he wants to be – it doesn’t seem to be a rancher, if the cranky feed store guy who goes off on him for using too big words can be believed. (I felt so bad for Liam there, having been someone who maybe once or twice got called out for using too many big words…)  Liam was trying to help with his offer to go down to the feed store to straighten things out, but Bonham immediately warned him not to mess it up instead of being happy about the offer.

Liam introduces himself as Bonham’s son to the feed store guy and he’s like oh, Texas Ranger?

Liam: No, the other one.

Ouch.

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Walker Welcomes Supernatural Alum Jake Abel to the Family!

Walker Welcomes Supernatural Alum Jake Abel to the Family!

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It’s the awkward morning of all awkward mornings at the start of this episode, when Cordell gets up and Liam is ready to have that talk they discussed but Cordell is a bit distracted by the fact that he left his daughter in jail the night before.

It only gets more awkward when Mawline comes home – with Stella, who she bailed out.

Cordell is angry, saying he left her there to think and learn the consequences of her actions now that she’s an adult (he did have the sergeant separate her so we know she was safe, which is what I figured, but still.)

Abeline: She’s 18!

Cordell: And she’s MY daughter!

They’re both right actually. She is undermining his parenting and he is refusing to listen to Stella’s side (though she did a terrible job of actually trying to TELL him her side too.) This family is infuriating sometimes! (Like all families…)

He’s also angry that she told Cassie, accusing her of “meddling in my work as well” – and again, he’s actually not wrong, that’s not her place. But her saying “you need to take it down a notch and you need to hear your daughter out” is also good advice.

Stella FINALLY tells what really happened to Abeline – who she apparently also did not tell the story to for some reason I literally cannot fathom!

August is still infuriating (and hungover), saying he can’t help clean up at the SideStep because he’s the head of the homecoming dance committee. Mawline doesn’t take excuses though, insisting they follow the list of chores that their father left and clean up their mess at the bar. Augie also insists that Cordell wouldn’t let him tell the story, but I find that even harder to believe. He still isn’t owning up to any responsibility or apologizing, insisting he’s becoming his own person and she’s just pissed because she’s losing a sidekick and holding everyone hostage with her indecision.

Ouch.

August: So since you wanna stay hogging up the limelight…who knows, I might even shine…

Wow, Augie. But it’s clear that’s what’s really getting to him, the struggle of the younger sibling in thei shadow of their superstar older sibling’s spotlight all the time.

Colton arrives in the middle of awkward sibling rivalry fighting and offers to make breakfast – a “happy curry”. What a sweetie Colton is.

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‘Walker’s Rubber Meets The Road’ Takes An Unflinching Look at Trauma

‘Walker’s Rubber Meets The Road’ Takes An Unflinching Look at Trauma

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Last week’s episode of ‘Walker’ was one of my favorites so far – and more than that, it felt important. I talk a lot, as a psychologist, about the ways in which fictional media can help us, in everything from providing a much-needed escape, to role models and inspiration, to giving us a way to work through our own ‘stuff’ in a safely displaced manner. The latter is what this episode of Walker did. Aptly titled ‘When Rubber Meets the Road,’ the episode picks up where the first two episodes left off. The brothers Walker, traumatized from captivity and terror and torture, are now physically safe. But that does not translate to any kind of psychological safety, as Liam tries to confide to his big brother.

He says what I said in last week’s review – they should have taken both of them to the hospital, and yes, they should have had MRIs and I find it hard to believe they wouldn’t after those beatings.

“Every time I close my eyes…” Liam begins, but Cordell cuts him off, saying they don’t need to do any of that, that the threat is over.

That’s the last thing Cordell wants to do, to close his eyes and relive the trauma. He’s been trying to perfect not doing that for a long time, it turns out.

Cordell: You’re safe, I’m safe, so let’s not compare notes.

Liam protests that they need to talk about it, but Cordell disagrees.

Cordell: We don’t. It’s better this way.

Liam’s helpless sounding “maybe we have internal injuries” is spot on. They may not be physical injuries that you can see, but both men are deeply wounded internally, psychologically and emotionally.

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Cordell cannot go there, and that’s intensely hurtful to Liam, who keeps trying to reach out to him throughout the episode. The imagery of Cordell walking away from Liam is repeated, as though he’s turning his back on his little brother (he isn’t, but the image is nevertheless painful.)

Geri is there to console Cordell and he appreciates it, but also immediately makes a joke about his falling-off shirt.

Cordell: You’re not digging the deep V?

He deflects from her concern for him by asking about everyone else and how they are. And while that’s certainly relevant, because this was a trauma for all of them, it also keeps the focus off Cordi opening up about his own feelings to someone who clearly wants to listen.

We know they’re there, though, just under the surface – we can see it in his expression when he sees the old photo of him in the Marines on the table as he comes home, hearing in his mind “so this is the war hero…” that they taunted him with.

He doesn’t feel like a hero right now.

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‘Walker’ Returns for Season 3, and Kicks Off the “WalkerVerse”

‘Walker’ Returns for Season 3, and Kicks Off the “WalkerVerse”

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Last Thursday was a double dose of excitement for Walker fans – the original show returned for its third season and its brand new prequel, Walker Independence,  premiered right after. For me as a long-time Supernatural fan (who’s been a Walker fan since the start), it felt a little like the “good old days” of Supernatural fandom, with anticipation all day and then a live tweet fest with fans and cast alike all sharing their real-time reactions. Jared Padalecki and Gen Padalecki joined in the fun, which made it extra special for fans – and I think most of us were not at all disappointed with either the original show’s return or what looks to be an excellent new show in Walker Independence!

I’m not doing an actual review of Walker Independence (because holy crap there are a lot of shows out there to watch right now!) but suffice it to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it and its intriguing cast of characters. I can’t wait to see more and will be watching on Thursday nights for sure. (Shout out to an epic callback – Hoyt’s horse is named Cordell.  Cue all the innuendo that invites…)

As the second episodes prepare to air, let’s look back at what happened on the season premiere of Walker.

We get a brief recap (as if anyone forgot that Cordell didn’t come back from his run with Trey and Liam!). Dan Miller is mentioned, so we know he’s still around, which makes me very happy indeed – I love Dave Annable and his character, and I always thought Dan got kind of a raw deal, so I’m glad to hear that the Walkers gave him some of the disputed land back. More Dan and Liam push-pull-kinda-reluctant-friendship please!

And then we pick up right where we left off, with poor Cordell being dragged to a shady looking van and tossed inside.

That set the tone for the episode for Walker, who spent it locked in a cage and periodically tortured by his captors as they tried to “break” him.

The men refer to him as their new inside guy, saying they have to “initiate” him. Honestly I don’t entirely understand what their goal was as they keep torturing him and demanding that he somehow give in so they can stop.  Give in to what? They’re not asking him for any information. I guess they want him to agree to join them? Not sure how torture gets someone to want to do that, but Cordell figures out they want him to be Fenton’s replacement.

Bad Guy No. 2: So this is the war hero, huh?

That cues us in that what Cordell is going to experience is tied into his past, and whatever trauma he went through then.

The music during the initial putting-a-blindfolded-Cordell-in-a-cage montage was a good song, very Supernatural-esque, but I’m mostly not a fan of how prominent the music is sometimes in the show. In this case, it mostly worked, but sometimes it pulls me right out of a scene that might otherwise have been powerful. In this episode, however, the music was well chosen and worked with the couple of scenes in which music was prominent.

We get to hear Cordell’s thought process as he uses his training and experience to try to figure out where he is and who’s holding him, first with a monologue and later as he imagines Emily there with him, keeping him calm and helping him talk through strategizing.

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Walker’s Second Season Finale Fills In Some of the Blanks with “Something’s Missing”

Walker’s Second Season Finale Fills In Some of the Blanks with “Something’s Missing”

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The season finale of Walker tied up a lot of loose ends for Season 2 – and then kicked off a whole new mystery, and a dramatic one at that!

The episode is titled “Something’s Missing” and that is both literally and figuratively true throughout the show. (One of the things I like best about Walker is that they love to run parallel themes throughout an episode and then reference it somehow in the title, and it’s a fun game for a reviewer to pick out all the instances of that theme – or at least it is for this reviewer!)

The first thing that’s missing is Emily, because Stella Blue is about to graduate. If you’ve ever lost someone, you know that the toughest times are big life events, the celebrations that you always thought that special person would be at. I facilitated a grief counseling group at a university counseling center for many years, and I heard from so many students nearing graduation just how hard it was to approach that milestone without a parent they had always imagined there to be proud of them. Emily not being there is hard for Stella, and it’s hard for Cordell too. Cordell is every parent, wondering where the time went and saying that it seems like yesterday that Emily told him she was pregnant.

Later in the episode, they share a tender father-daughter moment over one of the games they used to play on family game night, something Cordell hasn’t been able to do since he lost his wife. Stella says it seems like a good time to start over, or to carry on where they left off. Cordell admits he would never have taken the game out of the box, that it’s so like her – and her mom – to make him face it.  That’s also a theme of the episode, going back to the exploration of grief and loss that I have always valued most in this show – that you can’t go over it or around it, eventually you have to go through it. Everyone does that differently and on their own timetable, but Stella and Geri and Cordell have all learned that it’s true. Cordell is proud of his daughter.

Cordell: You make all of us feel. You’re the one that keeps this family together. I ran, you stayed.

Stella: I ran a few times too.

Stella has grown up a lot over the past two years of real time, and on the show as well. Cordell gives her a gift, knowing she’s been struggling with individuation and the question of staying close or going away for college.

Cordell: I want you to know now…it’s okay to go.

That made me tear up partly because it was such a beautifully played father-daughter scene, and partly because that’s a line from the Supernatural finale too, when Sam gives his brother the gift of permission to go in a more permanent way. I don’t know if it was a deliberate call back, but it made me even more emotional than I was. I’m sure the parallel wasn’t lost on Padalecki, who understands intimately the importance of that finale to many fans.

Another thing that’s missing, but not for long, in this episode is certainty. The certainty of figuring out who you are and what you want to do with your life. While Stella seems close to figuring that out, both Liam and Trey are at a transition point in their lives and unsure of where they should be going.

James tells Trey that he has to stay out of official Ranger business if he’s not an official Ranger – which James offers him after making some calls. They’re willing to treat his military experience as time served so he could be an actual Ranger – which came as no surprise to most of the fandom, who has been expecting it. I feel better about that than them offering to employ him as a psychologist when he isn’t one, but that’s probably just me feeling bitter about all those years of a PhD program to get to that point. It makes sense to make Trey a Ranger so they can keep Jeff Pierre and his popular character on the show, and Trey certainly seems qualified.

Walker — “Something’s Missing” — Image Number: WLK220a_0392 r — Pictured: Jeff Pierre as Trey Barentt — Photo: Rebecca Brenneman/The CW — © 2022 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Trey talks to his mom about the Ranger offer; she’s not all that happy about it, worrying about all the stress and anxiety. I can relate to his mom – that would so be me if one of my kids announced that!

Liam is also unsure of his next step, saying he’s not so sure he wants to go back to being a lawyer and envious of his father for always knowing what he wanted to do. Later in the episode, he thanks Bonham for forgiving him when he wanted to move away, and Bonham says that it helped make him who he is. So did you, and the ranch, Liam says. And when Bonham says that the ranch isn’t for everyone, Liam tells his father: I think it is, for me.

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