Spoilers

Joe (Terry Crews) has it all. A good dog. A man cave that’s also a survival bunker and… well that’s about it. Until tragedy strikes, he loses his best friend and decides to seize the now distinctly post-apocalyptic day. Joe fell for Sandra (Kersti Bryan) on a prepper message board but was too frightened to visit her in person. With nothing left at home, he sets out on his tricked out bike to find her. Until he runs into Evie (Olivia Munn), former weed farmer, enthusiastic bike thief, surprising capoeira practitioner and the best friend he didn’t know he needed…

Let’s manage expectations straight off the bat; you’re going to see a lot of ‘But how does this connect to The Walking Dead?! Will these characters appear in a future show?!’ type articles over the next few weeks. Let me answer them all now:

  • It takes place in the same universe as the other shows, at various points of the collapse of society.
  • But honestly it doesn’t matter.

An anthology show has two primary roads it can take: play the hits or play something new. Tales plays something new straight from the jump and that, along with the ludicrously good cast assembled not just for this episode but for the whole season, makes this a really satisfying, funny, crumpled piece of TV.

A huge part of that is casting Crews and Munn in the leads. Individually they’re both great, intuitive comedians. Together they’re one of those double acts that’s instantly funny the moment you put them side by side. Crews is a mountainous physical presence with a surprisingly gentle, vulnerable side. Spoiler warning: Joe has a great dog. His mortality is key to several scenes. Crews will make you cry. Be prepared.

Meanwhile, Munn is a nuclear core of deadpan wrapped around natural authority and physicality. The fact she’s a hippy with home-made traps and he’s a prepper with a custom electric bike and a fondness for weird country just makes them all the more endearing. They’re both folks who live on the fringe, in different philosophical neighbourhoods. Seeing them realize that, and that they actually get much better than they think is a good half of the fun.

The other half comes from the way the script makes sure no one is just what they say they are. Joe is a prepper with resources, time and crushing emotional vulnerability. Evie is a back woods weed farmer with surprising Capoeira skills and a desperate need to find out if her not-quite-ex hates her. Neither are incompetent survivors, both are pretty incompetent humans and that makes for a really sweet piece of television. As the episode closes, Evie gets her answer and we realize that’s the only closure there is. Joe, meanwhile, gets everything he wanted and discovers that he’s too late. The woman of his dreams, played by Kersti Bryan, is broken in the exact way he worried he was.

Sandra is where the episode either derails or tries something very new. When Joe arrives she drugs him and ties him up as she explains how a man got in and ‘wasn’t friendly’ and she took his watch. There’s a pretty clear implication of attempted sexual assault and if so, Sandra’s reaction should present as tragic instead of darkly comedic. Alternately, the reveal that she has a lot of watches could be read as Sandra simply having a taste for murder which, in this universe, is sometimes as light as you get. It’s a slightly bum note, but only slightly.

As the episode ends, Evie and Joe are just as rubbish as they were when it started and, amazingly, not a couple. This is the final subversion of expectation and it’s the most welcome. They’re clearly close friends and I’m sure there’ll be fanfic writers by the ton plotting where they go next, but as the episode closes, that’s all they are and all they need. Friends. Buddies. People who never had people, realizing they have people. And a goat.

Verdict: I loved spending time with Evie and Joe. I never need to see them again, but it sure was great to visit with them. Great too to see the show getting funny, and weird, and kind straight out of the gate. I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart