We open with some
heavy handed moral reminders because the writers of this show think everyone
watching it is a damn fool and needs the moral lessons to hit us around the
head with the same subtlety as a sledgehammer: Carl talking to Rick about
Siddiq and how they need to be better after they defeat the Saviours or what’s
the point of defeating them in the first place
Less torture, people
burned with hot irons and rape but let’s keep dancing to this moral equivalency
tune.
Alas the rest of this
episode is depressing because the Saviours are back and counter attacking and
WHY CAN’T NEGAN BE DEAD ALREADY?!
At the Kingdom
Ezekiel is rocked from his depression by the arriving Saviours. Gavin arrives
to tell everyone how he totally wanted to play nice but now everything is going
to suck, so there. I almost believe he means it. He demands the Kingdom people
hand over Ezekiel which is going to happen 2 weeks after never. Instead Ezekiel
is rocked into action and manages, through distraction and a school bus, to get
most the people of Kingdom out and away - but in doing so ends up staying
behind to provide distraction and delay, much to Carol’s outrage
And mine. I mean, yay
go Ezekiel a hero and all that but there’s absolutely no reason why he had to
sacrifice himself here. I’m going to treble that if he dies. This is a chance
for Ezekiel to grow and become more - not for him to “find redemption” in
martyrdom. I’m hopeful that Morgan lurking outside the Kingdom may change this
Maggie’s group is
ambushed on the road by Simon and some other less pleasant Saviours who have
Jerry hostage. They kill one of Maggie’s men and demand she come with them
peacefully or they kill everyone and drag her… Maggie surrenders. But she keeps
her wits about her and asks for the coffin (the one they expected to take her
to Negan in) to bury her dead man in. Simon agrees
I’m not sure I buy
him agreeing, to be honest, it seems dubious - but I guess it shows how
confident they are and a willingness to avoid conflict when they’ve already
been hit hard. Especially since, as he says, Hilltop is the only settlement
being spared since it IS the primary good producers.
Maggie has a
different idea. At Hilltop she finds the captured Saviour who has been a pain
in the arse and shoots him even as he says she won’t do it. It certainly shakes
Good Saviour guy and Jesus - but Jesus doesn’t say a word in protest though he
does wonder at her plans to fortify. Maggie seems to have written off the other
two camps but fully expects there to be survivors who will head to Hilltop - so
they need to be fortified for a last stand
She puts the dead
Saviour in the coffin and paints a little sign saying she has 38 more captives
if Negan & co don’t stand down. Part of me says Maggie’s not playing but
part of me also thinks it’s awfully convenient she thought of prison exchanges
back when there was no indication this would be needed. Still this leaves
Hilltop as the one remaining outpost to fight
Because Alexandria is
also gone. Negan himself leads his forces to Alexandria and Carl leads the
defence
And my gods what
bullshit this is. Yes Michonne did the whole “you get to lead the defence”
think in the first episode but that was a sop. This child should not be leading
these adults and should certainly not be dictating to Michonne and Tara both of
whom disagreed. And, yes, they disagree with him and he overrules her. (I even
get why Michonne disagrees because one big thing for Michonne was finding a
home and Carl’s tactic of abandoning Alexandria would hurt that deeply held
desire - more could be made of that). Which is beyond belief. I mean maybe he
could convince her. Maybe they could think of it together. Or maybe she could
make the decision being the damned adult and all
And I don’t care that he’s RIGHT, it’s the writers who put those words in Carl and Michonne’s and Tara’s mouths and made two minority women completely fold and cede leadership to a damn teenager so Carl can have his moment
So Carl arranges for
everyone to run away, using the sewers as a point of escape while he talks to
Negan. And his speech is mature and powerful and full of calls for peace and
even offers to martyr himself and seems to really touch Negan. Until he
realises that Carl is basically playing for time until everyone can escape
And escape they do -
because the people guarding the exit are led by Dwight who carefully makes sure
the Alexandrians can escape and then leads his Saviours into an ambush - but he
is revealed as the mole in the process so he pretty much has to stay with the
Alexandrians now. Even if Daryl still gives him angry eyes.
Negan responds by
unleashing a load of RPGs on the town - which he apparently has - while Carl
flees leaving trails of smoke bombs behind. Negan enters the burning Alexandria
and decides to wait in Rick’s house until he’s overcome by smoke or the
raging fires reach him Rick comes home. Rick does and they have a fight
with lots of posturing and me wondering why Negan would be stupid enough to
confront Rick alone before Rick escapes much to Negan’s annoyance
He meets Michonne who
has returned to Alexandria to walk through the smoke and unleash katana death
on anything she finds and together they flee
In the sewers they
catch up with Carl who has saved everyone… and reveals he has been bitten by a
zombie in the stomach - there’s no way they can heal that. Michonne and Rick
are both devastated.
I think the bite was
actually from when he helped Siddiq kill zombies - when we open Carl was
writing a note to his dad saying “survive” somehow which suggests he knew he
was dying.
Other notes:
Michonne and Judith
are just adorable together
Daryl and Tara are
both feeling shaky about how they just screwed up everything and Rosita is
trying to make them feel better about it.
Eugene is further
dropping into a booze bottle to cope with his guilt and as part of that helps
Gabriel and the doctor escape but still refuses to go with them. He talks right
and wrong with Gabriel, insisting it’s subjective but seems less sure now. I
predict a martyr redemption in Eugene’s future. It would not shock me if he
died in the second half of these season and did so bringing Negan down.
Aaron and Erin are
still characters and go to Oceanside for help - and promptly screw everything
up. Aaron is held at gun point by the leader of Oceanside and Erin shoots her.
Not a good first impression
Carl’s bite - this
matters. This is important for The Walking Dead I think because it’s finally
returning to what is supposed to be the core threat of this story: the Walkers.
Because ultimately the Walkers are what has changed the world and I think we
often forget this. Let the zombies be a threat again.
Of course it’s also
about the central moral conflict - being good vs treating people as a threat,
caring over fighting etc etc. Because Carl was bitten while helping Siddiq -
but at the same time he has not become angry about this but is holding on to
those beliefs, those principles.
It’s also a huge
shift from the comics. I actually thought Carl was up there with Rick in terms
of immortality. Sure he’s not TECHNICALLY dead but how do you stop a bite to
the abdomen? The flip question is we have had weird visions of the future which
seemed to include Carl… apparently not
The loss of
Alexandria - not a fan. Ok Alexandria has been around for a while but I don’t
like what this does to the overall shape of the plot. We seemed to be heading
to a new future with building a new civilisation; but removing their base of
operations (especially since Kingdom seems to be in the same situation) feels a
lot like we’re flashing back to the Prison days again: brief moment of safety
is destroyed, now what? Are we back to nomadic survival? Part of me wonders if
having a multi-part war everywhere is actually a way to decimate the cast,
remove a lot of these side characters so the show can return to a relatively
small number of wandering nomads. In the early days of our comic reviews we had
lists of the survivors and the dead until it became impossible because of the
size of the cast: is this a return?
Of course, Alexandria
has been the base of operations for several seasons now so it’s definitely a
shake up - but what will we end up with?
