Posts tagged: The Walking Dead Reviews

The Walking Dead S06E08 “Start To Finish” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on: FOX, Mondays, 9pm
Writer: Matthew Nagrete
Director: Michael E Satrazemis

Essential Plot Points:

• The episode opens with Sam listening to ‘Tiptoe Through The Tulips” in his room, unaware of what’s coming or the stream of ants eating his discarded cookie.

• The tower comes DOWN. Rick runs towards the horde as they swarm in, firing at them to draw them away from everyone else. Deanna goes to help him and is almost injured.
• Maggie barely gets to a watchtower before the horde is on her and she is trapped there.
• Deanna is injured and Rick grabs her, Gabriel, Carl, Ron and Michonne and heads for Jessie’s house. Jessie helps them get inside and they barricade the house.

• Eugene, trapped by himself, is rescued by Tara and Rosita and they hide in a garage. After bemoaning their fate briefly, the three set off to explore the house they’re hiding out in.

• While patching up Deanna, Michonne discovers she’s been bitten. Rick splits his time between helping tend to her and helping secure the house.
• In the attack, Carol falls over and injures herself. Morgan carries her to the house where he’s been keeping the Wolf who Denise is talking to.

• At Jessie’s house, it’s clear Michonne wants Alexandria to work.
• Deanna, serene now she knows what’s coming, talks to Michonne about the instructions and repeatedly tells her to work out what she wants to do as well as what’s good for the group.
• Downstairs, Ron and Carl get into a brutal and clumsy fight over Enid. Ron draws a gun on Carl and in the ensuing fight, they break a window, letting the Walkers in. Both boys lie about what happened and go to a separate room. Carl draws his gun on Ron, who apologises. Carl accepts the apology but takes his gun anyway.

• Upstairs Rick almost kills Deanna when she seems to have turned. She shows him she’s still alive and they talk, Deanna emphasising that the entire group is “Rick’s people” now.
• Denise and the Wolf talk and it becomes clear just how mad the young man is. Carol goes to kill him but Morgan refuses to let her.

• At Jessie’s house things are getting much worse. The survivors are trapped on the top floor and, with little other option, Rick and Michonne kill two Walkers and drag them upstairs. They make smocks for everyone and cover them in the Walker guts, planning to head for the Armory.
• Michonne goes to end Deanna’s life but both women refuse to take that option.

• At Morgan’s house, he and Carol get into a vicious fight that he wins. The Wolf immediately knocks Morgan unconscious and kidnaps Denise. Rosita, Tara and Eugene appear from the garage but can’t fire. They surrender their weapons and the Wolf drags Denise out onto the Walker-infested streets.
• Outside the compound, Glenn and Enid climb a tree and Glenn sees Maggie, trapped but alive.

• Inside Jessie’s house, Sam panics at what they’re about to do and his mother comforts him as best she can. Slowly, the group make their way outside. They’ve all been told to be quiet but as they move out, Sam begins asking for his mom over and over…
• In a post-credit scene, Daryl, Sasha and Abraham are pulled over by men on motorbikes. Men who answer to Negan… Glen! Put War And Peace DOWN!

Review:

This half season has backed down from absolutely nothing. It’s been relentlessly decompressed, cheekily showman-like and has refused to give us a single easy answer. This episode is no exception, and it’s all wrapped up in a character we’ve spent almost no time with and how you feel about him.

Sam.

Sam is a normal kid. He likes bad records and cookies and being by himself in the room where his mother didn’t kill someone to defend him. He’s scared and unsure about all these people breaking in and absolutely terrified at what they’re about to do. He’s not quite old enough to understand what’s going on, not quite trusted enough to be told everything and he’s doing the best he can.

And it isn’t good enough. And it’s almost certainly going to get people killed.

Sam, in the space of the 24 hours since this episode aired in the US, has received colossal amounts of hate for what he does in the closing scene. In a rare instance of the internet being classy, it’s all been directed at the character rather than the actor too.

Everyone who has jumped on this kid and his behaviour is right. Sam’s a liability. He’s confused, traumatised and, crucially, no one has taken the time to explain what’s really going on to him. So, of course, he’s going to start asking for his mom at the worst possible time to do so. And, unless the show pulls another double blind, he’s going to get people dead. Quickly.

But that’s the point.

Sam embodies the collision between Rick’s group and Alexandria more perfectly than any other character, arguably even Rick himself. All he’s known is Alexandria and the normal world before it so he’s three steps behind where most other Alexandrians are two. He’s a decent kid, but he’s had to grow up way too fast and with none of the pragmatism Carl has been exposed to. He’s a walking victim and the only way that will change is if he survives. And he’ll only survive if Rick and his group pull a miracle out of the bag. Again.

Based on this episode, they’re going to be hard-pressed to do it. But that’s the other point. This is probably Alexandria’s darkest hour and so much of this episode is wrapped up in how people react to that. Rick is mentally halfway out the door and heading for the hills with as many people as he can, ready to abandon the town but he’s the only one. Everyone else, from the criminally under-used Rosita to Morgan and Carol, is entrenched and ready to fight

There’s a lot of good stuff here with characters who haven’t been given enough screen time recently. The Tara and Rosita scene is especially great as is the Ron and Carl fight. But what really stays with you here, oddly, is Deanna.

Deanna is killed in the opening moments of the episode and, like everyone on The Walking Dead, does not go down easy. As she fades, what should be a funereal moment is instead shot through with hope. Unlike very nearly everyone else on this show she leaves with absolutely no regrets. Better still, she leaves with a successor in place; Michonne. Everyone’s favourite wandering Samurai has clearly decided she doesn’t want to wander anymore and if anyone leads the fight to take back Alexandria, I’m betting it’s her. The scenes she shares with Deanna are electric and by the end of them you can see Michonne’s not just grown, she now has the last thing she ever expected to have: hope.

Speaking of personal growth and the pain that goes with it, Morgan and Carol have that debate/punch-up that’s been threatening for weeks now. Again, this is a plot that’s been criticised up and down the internet. Again, I say it’s a good thing. Morgan has one thing in his life: his philosophy. He’s desperate to cling to it even as he questions it and that, oddly, puts him on exactly the same footing as Carol. She’s had her own dark night of the soul this season, albeit in a far more minimalist way and seeing the opposing viewpoint embodied gives both of them the certainty they’ve been searching for.

That certainty, this being The Walking Dead, leads to Carol trying to kill Morgan and the Wolf escaping with Denise. But that’s because, like Tara says, they’re not done paying for Alexandria yet. Whether this leads to someone being exiled, someone being killed or the best team-up in the show’s history is unclear. What’s certain is that Carol and Morgan, just like Rick’s group and Alexandria, have been used to show that there are no absolutes any more. If they want to survive, they’ll work together.
That’s where this show lives, and where it leaves us, in the gap between ethics and compromise, survival and horror, victory and tragedy. It’s almost unheard of for a show with an audience base as solid as this to take such huge chances but it’s so welcome to see. Like all experiments there’ve been missteps but the payoffs have been more than worth it. Arguably the show’s finest (half) season to date and we still have Negan on the horizon. Get ready. The characters won’t be…

The Good:

• Tovah Feldshuh. The central conflict this half season has been Team Rick’s group of feral deathdealers trying to fit into what is essentially Ramsey Street in the Deep South. Deanna has always been a major part of that conflict and here, her death looks set to do the one thing her life never quite did; bring everyone together. It’s a standard trope for this show to have characters dole out wisdom in their dying moments but honestly, when it’s written this well you don’t care. Deanna’s relentless belief in her people, in Alexandria, in Rick is inspiring and dignified in a show that by necessity rarely bothers with either. Her gentle chiding of him is one of this season’s most poignant moments and the scenes she shares with Michonne are some of its very best. She’s made Rick’s people, and just maybe Rick, believers in Alexandria. Now we get to see how much they’re prepared to put on the line to save it.
• As for Deanna? Everything, start to finish, just like she said. Few characters have had a more futile exit from the show but I’d argue none have had one more true to themselves. Just beautifully written, directed and acted.

• Carl. Remember season two where Carl was just an appalling liability? These days he’s a calm, focused leader in his own right. The scene where he and Ron lie about their fight is another perfect piece of writing. It’s two kids lying to stay out of trouble but it’s also two people putting a tiny difference aside to keep everyone alive. You grow up fast in this world, and Carl certainly has.
• Glenn seeing Maggie, trapped and isolated but ALIVE across the compound. And, just maybe, her seeing him. My emotions. MY EMOTIONS!

The Bad:

• Three separate characters fall over in the opening assault. In each case, the scenario is the same; female character leaps into/flees from danger, trips, is almost killed, saves themselves or is saved at the last minute.
• One of these characters is Deanna and that’s kind of fair enough given the Alexandria leader’s well-meaning and relentless optimism has always outstripped her abilities. The other two are Maggie and Carol. CAROL??? Superficially this looks picky I know, but the more you think about it the worse it becomes. Firstly having the same gambit hit three characters within minutes of each other is lazy. Secondly, the fact it’s a cliché that was old when high-heeled lady scientists were falling over in the 1950s makes it tedious. Thirdly, the fact it’s all women makes it outright offensive. Because no guys fall over. That’s why this is nonsense, because it’s impossible not to read it as incredibly sexist. Especially given Maggie and Carol’s well-established positions as two of Team Rick’s major asskickers. It’s lazy, bad writing that causes the episode to stumble far more than any of the women do and it’s, at least, a decade past its sell by date. Do much, MUCH better next season, please. The female characters deserve better and the audience damn well do too. Or at the very least have the guys trip every now and then too.
• Everyone’s obviously under a ton of stress and that’s legit but are you honestly telling me, at no point, did anyone go deal with Sam’s record player?

The Random:

• The MiniMates on Sam’s bedside cabinet are characters from Robert Kirkman’s other major comic series Invincible. Yay product placement!
• “Tiptoe Through The Tulips” is famously the song playing during several of the spookiest moments in the Insidious movies. This probably does not mean Sam is a possessed child. But we’re keeping our options open…
• Morgan ends his fight with Carol by hitting the Rock Bottom, one of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s old pro wrestling finishing moves. Looks like it bloody hurts too.
• “I got to do what I wanted, right up until the end. What do you want?” “I want this place to WORK.” Deanna’s serene progress into death is deeply odd and very moving. Plus, while she brushes aside this response from Michonne, I think we’ll be coming back to it.
• “What do you want for you?” “I don’t know.” “You better.” Likewise this. Michonne knows what she wants for everyone else now. What she wants for herself will be a big part of next season I suspect.
• “Will you look out for him like you look out for your people?” “…” “Guess what. They’re all your people, Rick, they are.” I love this exchange because it finally calls Rick on his nonsense and transfers the one gift Deanna truly can give; hope. Even in the face of destruction.
• “I didn’t run over to help you out there because I like you or because I think you’re a good man, a good father or that you can grow one hell of a beard. I ran over to help because you are one of us. That’s the right answer.” Likewise this. Rick’s group, his family, is much much bigger now. I can’t wait to see what he does with that knowledge.
• “Place that has got to have a price, right.” “And we haven’t paid it already?” “Apparently not.” Tara and Rosita need to hang out more.
• “Lock pickin’ is within my skill set.” Never change, Eugene.
• “We are better than the…” “NOT IF WE KILL.” Morgan desperately holding onto his morality and Carol desperately holding onto her’s. The truth is somewhere between them. It’s going to be interesting seeing them survive long enough to figure that out.
• “Now what do you want? Figure it out.” “I will.” “Good. Give ’em hell.” Every exchange between Deanna and Michonne is great but this is a standout.
• “Your dad’s a killer.” “So was yours.” Ron and Carl do surprisingly great work here. I love this exchange in particular, as well as their pragmatic, unspoken agreement that they need to settle their problem before everyone dies.
• “Carl I’m sorry.” “Yeah I know. Now gimme the gun.” Carl does not mess. He’s also past the adolescent rage Ron is still caught in.
• “I don’t trust you but I never thought you were lying.” The psychological nuance here is the best. Carol has no particular beef with Morgan. She just can’t rely on him and that makes him a problem until he’s a solution.
• “I will not turn back, no matter what happens.” “Yeah I know.” Father Gabriel and Rick finally talk to each other like adults.

• Shot of the week is this. Deanna, three-quarters dead, choosing to go out fighting. Her entire character in one pointless, massively significant, glorious gesture.

Review by Alasdair Stuart

• Read more reviews of The Walking Dead season six

The Walking Dead S06E07 “Heads Up” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on: FOX, Mondays, 9pm
Writer: Channing Powell
Director: David Boyd

Essential Plot Points:

• (Best Jim Ross voice) GLENN LIVES! GLENN LIVES! GLENN LIVES!
• We flash back to the end of “Thank You” to see Glenn, as many people predicted, crawling under the dumpster while the Walkers eat Nicholas.
• The following morning, a badly dehydrated Glenn is thrown water by Enid, who then runs off. The bottle breaks but it’s the principle of the thing.
• Glenn finds out that Alexandria was attacked. Enid, for everyone who isn’t Glenn, and has seen the last few episodes, acts an awful lot like she had a role in it. She also acts a lot like she’s increasingly not happy about that and runs off, trying to lose Glenn. He follows, finding the zombified David from “Thank You” along the way. He retrieves his bloodied final message to his wife.

• Back at Alexandria, life just about goes on. Rick and Maggie chat about ways to deal with the herd before Rick gives Ron a shooting lesson. On the way, he sees Gabriel putting up prayer circle leaflets and tears them down. Gabriel replaces them.
• During the lesson, Rick not only gives Ron some pretty solid advice but also an empty gun to carry around to get used to it. There is no way this will end badly at all, especially not for Carl who’s being a remarkably supercilious little arsehole considering the rubbish slapfight he had with Ron not so long ago.

• Rick confronts Morgan, along with Carol and Michonne. Morgan freely admits that he let the Wolves that attacked Rick live. He also freely admits he has no idea if that was the right thing to do or not and he’s having a crisis of conscience about what Eastman taught him and if he can stick to it. The others, showing they’ve learned a lot since Rick banished Carol a few years ago, accept this and the matter is unresolved.
• Elsewhere, Rosita trains a group of Alexandrians in how to use a machete. Eugene is also in the class and clearly very uncomfortable. Rosita tears him apart verbally and the world’s most mulleted sort-of scientist strops off.
• Rick bonds with Tobin, an Alexandrian who comes to help him shore up the wall. Tobin admits that Rick did, and still does, scare them but works with him anyway, tacitly admitting that the Alexandrians are embracing the need to pull together.
• Rick later chats with Michonne about ways to get rid of the herd and suggests using a team that only consists of his close friends. When he tries to justify why, Michonne calls him on his nonsense and Rick seems to accept this.
• At the armoury, Ron uses a distraction to get a handful of bullets for his gun.
• Outside the walls, Glenn and Enid find some of the balloons used to mark the route for Rick’s failed plan. They take them and inflate more, hoping to use them as a signal. Along the way, Glenn quietly, but firmly, admonishes Enid for how short-sighted her JUST SURVIVE SOMEHOW mindset is. They arrive at Alexandria and realise just how bad things are.

• Inside the walls, everyone is distracted by the sight of Spencer trying to cross a rope outside the walls. He, of course, massively screws up and falls into the middle of the herd. Tara, demonstrating truly astonishing levels of badassery, climbs over the wall and hangs one handed WHILST PREGNANT, headshotting Walker after Walker until Spencer is pulled up. Rick yells at her, Tara gives him the finger. Tara is the best.
• Spencer on the other hand is the worst. His plan, to steal a car to distract the herd, is great. The execution is staggeringly poor and Spencer complaining about losing a shoe does not endear him to Rick. Neither does his surprisingly sensible point that had he come to Rick, there was a good chance that Captain JustMyChumsAreCompetent would have turned him down.

• Morgan visits Denise for a second time that day and this time admits what he wants; for her to see if a wound is infected. He makes it clear she may not want to get involved, but Denise heads out with him anyway, to tend to the wounded Wolf. Good work, Doc.

–

• Carol sees them and, with all her suburban ninja skills, hands off Judith to Jessie to follow them. Along the way she provides typically Carol-esque comfort for Sam, still horribly traumatised by seeing his mom commit murder. Carol confronts Morgan, demanding to know who he’s keeping in the cell.
• Nearby, Ron zeroes in on Carl, getting ready to kill him.
• Also nearby, Rick apologises to Tara who accepts it and gently reminds him that they really are all in this together. Deanna thanks both of them for helping save her son’s life.
• Michonne examines the plans for Alexandria’s expansion, clearly starting to feel like this is a place worth fighting for.

• Multiple people in town spot the green balloonsand Maggie sprints down to the gate, realising its Glenn.
• And then, after slowly crumbling all episode, the tower falls and rips the wall open…

–

Review:

Yay Glenn! Go Team Dumpster!

After four weeks of full on PT Barnum-esque showmanship, we finally get an answer as to how alive Glenn is this week. And the answer is a lot. Hurray!

OR IS IT?

At the very end of this review is a very spoilery section about Glenn in the comics. DO NOT READ IT IF YOU DON’T ALREADY KNOW AND WISH TO REMAIN IGNORANT

Moving on…

We also spend the entire episode catching everything up in a suspiciously neat fashion, which this show loves to do just before breaking the HORROR OH GOD THE HORROR dial off at 11. This season of The Walking Dead has sprawled to an epic degree with the herd and the Wolves attack on Alexandria splitting the leads up into multiple groups. This episode the housecleaning begins in earnest as we catch up with pretty much everybody aside from Team Zombie Wrangler. There’s some neat continuation of last episodes’ humanising of the Alexandrians, some pick-up from the Wolf attack and one of the best scenes of the show so far.

Let’s start with the Alexandrians. The focus on Ron and, briefly, Spencer this week serves to show us how the two groups are still miles apart. Ron abuses Rick’s basic practicality and is rewarded with an actual murder weapon he plans to use on Carl. Spencer attempts to pull off a scheme to solve the herd problem that’s as gutsy as it is stupid. Both are acting on their own initiative and the reason for that is perfectly summed up by the moment Spencer is rescued. Rick asks why he didn’t tell him what he was planning. Spencer responds by asking if he had, would Rick have listened?

And here’s the crucial bit: you can see that Rick realises he’s right.

This idea; that Rick’s starting to understand that his way isn’t the only way, has been at the heart of the show before. But it’s rarely been better handled than it is here. Multiple people, with varying degrees of good humour, tell Rick he’s full of it this episode and he actually seems to listen. You can see it in the talk with Morgan, which three seasons ago would have been much more tense. Here Rick is actively interested in Morgan’s point of view, and prepared to entertain putting his to one side. That’s a Hell of a chance from the days of the Ricktatorship.

The scene with Tara is, if anything, even better. While he’s listening to people tell him that the two tribes need to work together, his people are already demonstrating the fact with action. It’s a nice moment, and one that makes me feel optimistic that Alexandria might be sticking around. Michonne looking over the plans for the expansion certainly seems significant and I’d love to see what they do with the later Alexandria comic plots on screen.

That new-found cooperation is neatly echoed through the rest of the episode. Rick’s scenes with Tobin are especially great but it’s Glenn and Enid, who, oddly, carry the weight of this storyline. Glenn’s refusal to let Enid go off alone is the exact sort of pragmatic compassion we’re used to from the character but it clearly has an effect. Glenn, knowingly or not, seems to get through to the world’s most overlooked survivor that it’s possible to do more than survive.

Ultimately, that scene, and the episode, are about hope. The Alexandrians believe they can survive; Tara, Maggie and Michonne in particular certainly seem to agree. Morgan’s refusal to let the Wolf die, not to mention Denise’s readiness to help him embody the same thing and Deanna is nothing but hope now. Then there’s the balloons, a moment of whimsical humanity floating over a sea of horror. A realisation that something impossibly good has happened, just as something impossibly bad does.

The time for talking is over, the wall has fallen and now Rick will have to trust whoever’s next to him, regardless of where they’re from. They all, Ron aside, seem to be up for the challenge. Here’s hoping Rick is too.

The Good:

• A lot of other reviewers have complained about the ethical discussions this episode. I’m not going to join them. This is a show whose North is Walker DeathKill for sure but its south is always the moral and psychological cost of that.

• With that in mind, the entire Morgan, Rick, Carol and Michonne scene is a huge relief. Especially given the “THIS SEASON! RICK V MORGAN!”-style trailers. There’s no antagonism here, just two people with very different world views trying to work out whether either of them have a point. That’s not filler, that’s drama and the show is all the better for having more of this character focus now than it’s had in the past.
• “If they died, maybe those wouldn’t have been able to come back here. I don’t know what’s right anymore. Cause I did want to kill those men. I seen what they did what woulda kept doing. I knew I could end it. But I also know that people can change. Cause everyone sitting here HAS. All life is precious. And that idea… that idea changed me. It brought me back and it keeps me living.” I love that Morgan and Rick both have doubts about how they operate. This is such an honest admission from Morgan and you get the feeling the new mindset that will (hopefully) lead Alexandria is born in this scene.
• “Making it now, you really think you can do that without getting blood on your hands?” In any other show this would have been a confrontational line. Here, and delivered with such subtlety by Andrew Lincoln, it’s a genuine question. And the scene is all the stronger for that.
• “REALLY? We’re in here together. We’re catching our breath right now. Anything else is just excuses.” Rick really is a tone deaf plank this episode and it’s a delight to see people call him on it. Especially Michonne who’s often been the closest to Rick’s mindset.
• “I’m a weapons novice holding a significant blade here and there are people in my proximity with open-toed shoes.” Never change, Eugene.
• “Dying is simple. It all just stops. You’re dead. The people around you dying, that’s the hard part. Okay? Cause you keep living, knowing that they’re gone and you’re still here.” Rosita has been given so little to do you forget just how great Christian Serratos is. Here’s hoping she gets more to do this season. That hopefully involves not dying.
• “You’ve got to be strong enough to wait for your moment.” Carl is such a smug git this scene you almost, ALMOST, understand why Ron wants to kill him.
• “Things moved slow here. Then things started moving fast. Too fast. But don’t give up on us.” I love this scene, firstly because it’s nice to see Tobin being given more to do and secondly because of what he does. He’s essentially telling Rick they get it, they’ve got a lot to learn and they’re up to the challenge. The fact that Rick doesn’t notice says a lot more about his weakness than the Alexandrians’.
• “You honour the dead by going on. Even if you’re scared. You live because they don’t get to. You think your parents wanted you waving around a gun because you’re afraid?” Glenn, officially the Nicest Human on Earth.
• “I helped save him because he’s your son.” “Wrong answer.” Deanna’s new-found glow of faith plays a lot like complacency. But that may well be because she’s the last optimist standing. Plus she’s bang-on here with the last of the episode’s string of, “Get over yourself, Rick,” moments.

The Bad:

• This is a weird one but it’s valid. By spotlighting some lesser-used characters the show is exposing the fact that it’s underselling some key players. Poor bloody Rosita has, I think, got more screen time this episode than the rest of the season to date combined. Likewise Eugene, who’s always good value. Even Spencer and Ron, who were admittedly front and centre a lot in recent weeks, seem a bit under used. It’s a shame, especially as the way the show will solve this almost certainly involves a whole lot of character death.

The Random:

• Rick has really solid trigger discipline. His advice to Ron about when you do and don’t have your finger on the trigger is a piece of training that anyone who works with firearms and has any measure of ethics has drilled into them. Myke Cole, veteran and author of Gemini Cell and other excellent books would be very happy.
• Jason Douglas, who plays Tobin, the jovial carpenter chap who chats with Rick, has quite the genre resume. He’s been in From Dusk Till Dawn as Warren Pritchard, Breaking Bad as Detective Munn and provided voices for Dragon Ball Z: Battle Of Gods, Borderlands 2, One Piece, Psycho Pass, Soul Eater, Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 and Fairy Tail.

• Shot of the week. Tara, the pregnant gun-toting badass giving her asshole boss the finger.

Ludicrously Spoiler-y But Maybe Inaccurate Theory

Glenn may have survived just in time for something even worse to happen to him. The comics version of Glenn was infamously beaten to death by Negan, a baseball bat-wielding sociopath who ran the Saviors. The Saviors were a gang who “saved” survivor communities from Walker herds in return for protection. In reality they were thugs and the war against Negan united Alexandria and other local survivor groups. Jeffrey Dean Morgan has just been cast as Negan. Glenn, you might want to put that copy of War And Peace down…

Review by Alasdair Stuart

• Read more reviews of The Walking Dead season six

The Walking Dead S06E06 “Always Accountable” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on: FOX, Mondays, 9pm
Writer: Heather Bellson
Director: Jeffrey F January

Essential Plot Points:

• Team Zombie Wranglers are happily (well, happily-ish), leading the herd away. They go through an abandoned town and are ambushed by men with automatic weapons who chase them off. Daryl loses his pursuer in the woods while Abe and Sasha attack and kill the men following them, but lose their car in doing so.

• In the woods, Daryl conceals his bike but realises he’s being watched. He finds two women hiding by a nearby tree but doesn’t see their companion before he’s knocked out.

• Daryl wakes up to find his hands bound. He’s walked through the woods by the two women and the man who hit him, and discovers that the huge burnt area they’re walking through was caused by at least two of the trio, back when the apocalypse started. They get to a truck stop, which, to their horror, has been over run. Taking advantage of their distraction, Daryl grabs the duffel bag full of his gear and runs into the woods where he barely survives being attacked by a Walker. He also discovers a container of insulin in the bag and realises one of his captors is diabetic.

• Back in town, Abraham and Sasha evade their pursuers and hole up in an office, Sasha leaving marks for Daryl to find them as they do. Abraham finds the uniform of a former resident and realises he was a veteran. Abraham’s visibly troubled by this and outright horrified to find a “live” Walker in there but Sasha assures him it can’t get out of the room it’s trapped in. She also politely calls him on his growing bloodlust and all but asks if he’s trying to commit suicide by Walker. Abraham, enraged, refuses to admit it and stands watch.

• In the woods, Daryl returns to his former captors and disarms them but hands them the insulin. Suddenly a truck full of men arrive searching for them. Daryl, spotting a hole in the group’s search perimeter, leads his former captors to safety. Along the way, he tricks one of the men searching for them into being bitten and watches as he has his arm amputated.

• In town, Abraham goes for a walk and finds a Humvee with a box of Cuban cigars and a crate of rocket-propelled grenades in the back. Nearby, impaled in what’s honestly a fairly bizarre way, is a soldier-turned-Walker. And it’s carrying an RPG launcher. Abraham gives in to everything Sasha spotted in him and, instead of killing the Walker at range, crawls out onto ruined wire fencing at least two storeys off the ground and wrestles the Walker. Screaming with rage, he finally comes to his senses, steps away and lights one of the cigars.
• Abraham returns to the office and, in a very roundabout way, tells Sasha he wants to live and that he’s romantically interested in her. He also, sort of, apologises and the pair leave things at a good-natured impasse.

• In the woods, Daryl and his trio of survivors find what seems to be a greenhouse that’s been set alight. They’re horrified to discover two people inside, both known to the trio, who have been burnt but apparently killed beforehand. One of the trio, overcome with grief, goes to the corpses. They wake up and bite her.
• Later, Daryl and the two survivors are digging graves. Daryl asks them how many people they’ve killed and makes the call to take them to Alexandria. Taking them back to his bike, he lets slip how many people he has with him. The pair apologetically steal his bike and crossbow and drive off. As they go one says, “I’m sorry.” Daryl replies “You will be.”

• Daryl finds a fuel truck from the nearby depot and kills the Walker inside. He hotwires it, finds Sasha and Abraham and they head back to Alexandria. On the way, they pick up a voice on the walkie talkies saying one word: “Help”

Review:

There are three things going on in this episode. Two of them are great, one of them is interesting. None of them are Glenn. Again. Which is bad.

What’s good is the fact that we get closure on the fate of Team Zombie Wrangler and better still, a chance for three of the cast to flex their muscles a little.

Let’s start with everyone’s favourite tracker. Norman Reedus has been a lynch pin of this cast for years and this episode reminds you why. Daryl has, maybe, 400 words of dialogue in the whole thing but Reedus is working constantly. You can always see what Daryl’s thinking, always see the world the way he does. He’s not the semi-feral man he was a few seasons ago but he’s still an outsider and just how much of an outsider he is gets challenged this week. Scriptwriter Bellson cleverly has Daryl be quite at home in the woods and there’s only really one point where he’s in clear danger from a Walker. It’s a nice scene too and a testament to how tense the show is that you are genuinely worried for him.

But the real meat of Daryl’s plot, and the only real threat to his safety, is himself. This week he does exactly the right thing, asks people he trusts to join his community and loses two of his most prized possessions because of it. He makes no mistakes, does nothing cruel and still loses. It’ll be interesting to see how that changes him. It’ll also be interesting to see if we meet his captors again. That final, “We’re sorry.” ”You will be…” exchange could certainly be read as set-up.

Meanwhile, in town, Abraham and Sasha process their feelings in a remarkably grumpy, often very funny way. Martin-Green and Cudlitz are again two of the best people in this cast and they clearly relish a chance to show what they can do. Bellson’s script is a neat capstone to the “Abe is losing it” subplot too, with the big soldier being called on his antics and reacting by throwing a growly, monosyllabic tantrum and trying to kill himself in the stupidest way possible.

In the hands of a lesser writer, director and actor this would be painful to sit through. Here, though, it’s poignant, subtle and clever. Abraham being confronted with a Walker who used to be a soldier clearly makes him hugely uncomfortable, as does the confrontation with the RPG Walker on the overpass. Both remind Abraham of how far off mission he is. The suicide note from the Walker in the office is especially affecting and Cudlitz plays the seething emotions – and Abraham’s inability to process them – with his customary subtlety and intelligence. This is something The Walking Dead has excelled at this season; examining the effect a colossal wave of emotion has on men who are conditioned to bottle it up. We’ve seen it in Rick, Morgan, to a lesser extent Daryl and now Abraham. It’s a brave topic for a show like this to cover and so far it’s nailed it every single time. This episode is no exception.

Subtler but no less impressive, Sasha’s arc this episode establishes Martin-Green as one of the faces of the show. Sasha has been where Abraham is, knows exactly what he’s feeling and knows exactly what needs to be done to snap him out of it. Her resigned, gentle, compassion is the same sort of natural authority we’ve seen from Michonne and it marks Sasha out as something she wasn’t before; a leader. Here’s hoping the show realises that and gives her more to do. Based on Martin-Green’s subtle, smart work here it’s way past time.

So that’s the good news; three underappreciated characters get lots of stuff to do and one plot set up at the start of the season is well and truly done.

The bad news is that we’re not entirely sure why. The trio that Daryl find, and their pursuers, seem to have a lot of backstory we don’t get. That certainly seems to suggest we’ll be meeting them again soon. After all, they’re not exactly hundreds of miles from Alexandria and sooner or later the groups will meet. In the meantime though, this episode feels leaves a nagging feeling of being a lot of set-up without very much pay-off.

It’s not bad, don’t think we’re saying that. In fact, the show does some of its best work when it reminds us of all the other stories out there in its world. But, right now it feels like we’re edging closer to the unnecessary detours from the main plot that other reviewers have accused the show of for weeks. Here’s hoping next week changes that. Right after we find out who’s calling for help of course…

The Good:

• Bellson’s script is a remarkably clever, subtle breakdown of survivor mentality, in three different flavours. Sasha’s lost almost everything and has found peace in still being alive. Abraham realises he’s off mission and drags himself back on and Daryl makes a good call for the right reasons and gets punished for it. The end result is an episode that shows us how morally complex this world is and how no one has the right answer all the time. Like last week, it’s a low-key affair but like last week it’s no less impressive for that.

• The cast. Because the principle cast is so large now, a cull is surely coming but I’m honestly not sure who you can afford to lose. Reedus does wounded, cautious compassion like few other people, Martin-Green has incredible natural authority and Cudlitz has just been handed some really fun new stuff to do with Abraham. Which probably means Abraham’s dead soon and that’d be a real shame. But regardless, brilliant acting all round this week.
• January’s direction works in two very distinct ways here. The enforced, locked in intimacy of Abrhama and Sasha is basically a one-act, one scene play. January gets out of the actors’ way and it works so much better for that. Meanwhile, the charred woods are a wonderful backdrop for a more expansive, but just as tense character study that benefits from added scope and, again, subtle direction.

The Bad:

• The trio of survivors who cause so much trouble are never named. That’s either a deliberate stylistic choice as we’ll meet them again later or slightly annoying.
• Likewise the group who ambush Team Zombie Wrangler. There’s some speculation they’re Wolves or Saviors but aren’t mad enough for the former or competent enough for the latter. Again, the episode goes to great lengths to anonymise them as much as possible. It’ll be interesting in future weeks to find out if that’s going to pay off.
• NO! Not Daryl’s bike and crossbow! This calls for redneck vengeance! Dixon SMASH!
• Glenn. For serious now, we need to know if he’s alive or dead.

The Random:

• Comic crossover! Sort of. This week’s episode features a “Tribute Walker”. In this case one that looks a lot like Bernie Wrightson’s classic design for gooey DC superhero, Swamp Thing.

• “Just gonna give it a last little polish.” The trajectory of Abe and Sasha across this half season is perfectly summed up here. She’s just come out of a pit of depression and rage, he’s sprinting towards it screaming “DO YOU WANT SOME?!”
• “Best way to find a tracker is to stay put.” Sasha has been forged by the hrrific events surrounding Bob and Tyreese’s deaths into an endlessly calm, fiercely competent human being. She’s the designated adult this episode.

• “If I’ve not got my psyche situated straight it’s because the shit’s continually been hitting the fan. Without respite.” Michael Cudlitz can growl glorious lines of over-articulate macho dialogue like no one on Earth. Bellson’s script does great things for both Abraham and Sasha throughout, but this entire scene is a season highlight so far.
• “…But if you have a roof over your head, you have food, you have walls? You have choices. And without Walkers and bullets and shit hitting the fan, you’re accountable for them. I mean hell you’re always accountable, it’s just with all that other noise, you know people won’t notice.” Very gently, and relentlessly, Sasha is pointing out Abraham has either suffered a psychotic break or is suicidal, or both. The direction on this scene is just staggering, Sasha absolutely still and calm, Abraham a seething mass of moustachioed rage.
• “Stand watch or sleep.” “The former. Straight through the night. We’ll reassess in the morning.” “What do you mean?” “What the HELL we’re doing here?” Bellson’s script is incredible for these two. Abe’s chest pounding military machismo is perfectly communicated by those short, proud responses. He’s taking command! He’s in control! Of nothing. And Sasha leaves him to realise that.
• “We knock you over the head, tie you up and threaten to kill you. Why the hell did you come back?” “…Maybe I’m stupid too” Daryl Dixon. Possibly the nicest man left alive.
• “Where did you get that?” “It is the fruit of some off the charts stupidity. Some grade A buttsteak idiocy.” “Self-awareness is a beautiful thing.” “Yes it is.” I would honestly watch an entire half season of these two being Mametian at each other.
• “I know this group, and I know Rick. And whatever happened back there is being managed and kicked right up into its own ass one way or another I know that. We got beer. And air conditioning. And WALLS. The table is set for the rest of our lives and I hope those years to be long and fruitful. I see that time before me and I’ve been feeling the urge to make some plays. Before the great cosmic Pete comes to cut my throat unceremoniously and I gurgle my last breath. Things are gonna go on for a while before that. That hadn’t occurred to me before. Been kinda living check to check on that point. I like the way you call bullshit, Sasha. I believe I’d like to get to know you a whole lot better.” “That one of your plays? What makes you think I want that?” “A man can tell.” “Well… you got some stuff to take care of.” “Yeah. I do.” I make no apology for very nearly this entire scene being quoted here because it’s brilliant writing, directing and acting. Michael Cudlitz and Sonequa Martin-Green are on incredible form throughout this episode but this is the hub around which the whole thing revolves. Cudlitz plays Abe’s rage, refusal to accept it and eventual almost zen-like acceptance of his trauma with a bearish, over-articulate humour that’s just stupidly charming. So charming, in fact, that you almost forget Abraham and Rosita are at least a little involved, and that Abraham chatting up Sasha is well within sight of creepy as a result. But it’s Martin-Green that lands the entire sequence. Those last few lines tell you everything about how different these two are, while Martin-Green’s performance tells you that what Abraham’s suggesting is most definitely not off the table. It’s sweet and funny and sad and complicated and it’s going to cause so much trouble. But it’s a pleasure to watch.
• “Ain’t nobody safe anymore. Can’t promise people that anyhow.” “You can promise the people who wanna hear it.” That, right there, is the difference between Rick’s people and everyone else. Rick’s team know they aren’t safe and act accordingly. Everyone else can’t face that truth and twist themselves into awful, awful knots to try and survive inside that lie.
• “I’m from a place, where people are still like they were. Better or worse. More or less.” Daryl doesn’t exactly sell it but this is as sincere, and as touching, a compliment as he can give. He thinks they’re worthy, so he offers them a spot. And pays dearly for it.

• Shot of the week: Daryl and his captors, walking through a field of burnt, still aware Walkers and not paying them any attention. The world of the show in one excellent, horrific shot.

Review by Alasdair Stuart

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The Walking Dead S06E05 “Now” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on: FOX, Mondays, 9pm
Writer: Corey Reed
Director: Avi Youabian

Essential Plot Points:

• In the wake of the battle with the Wolves, Deanna climbs the wall to see if there’s any sign of the Quarry team. Nearby, Michonne breaks the news about Glenn to Maggie.

• Rick appears, sprinting towards the gate, pursued by the horde. He makes it inside but the town is now surrounded 20 deep.
• Rick tells the Alexandrians they can survive this but the town’s mood is shattered. Spencer barely stops a rush at the stores. Later, his mother congratulates him on it, only for a drunk Spencer to admit he did it to cover his own thievery.
• Deanna draws up a plan for how the town could become self-sustaining, including growing its own crops. She writes the phrase, “Dolor hic tibi proderit olim” on the plans – it translates as: “This pain will be useful”.

• Aaron sees Maggie prepping to go outside to look for Glenn as, nearby, Glenn and Nicholas’s names are added to the memorial wall. He tries to reason with her and finally shows her a way out through the sewers that may be easier.
• Carl and Ron get into an incredibly endearing and rubbish teenfight over whether or not Carl is going over the wall to look for Enid. Carl wins the fight. Ron threatens to tell. As a result, Ron wins the war.
• Jessie discovers an Alexandrian who’s killed herself rather than wait for the wall to come down. She euthanises the woman and then tells the stunned onlookers that things are different now and they have to adapt.
• Denise is still in the infirmary, disgusted at herself for not being able to save a dying patient. Tara arrives, gives her a brutally effective, Grimes-esque pep talk and Denise keeps working. She finds the solution, saves her patient and then finds and kisses Tara.

• Aaron and Maggie find the sewer exit is too close to the horde and are attacked by a pair of magnificently disgustingly rotted Walkers. They kill them and Maggie admits she’s pregnant, finally breaking down at the thought of losing Glenn.
• Deanna is attacked by a Walker who used to be a Wolf and died inside the fences. She stabs it to death with a bottle and, covered with blood, admits to Rick that she wants to live.
• As the episode finishes, Maggie and Aaron are cleaning Glenn and Nicholas’ names off the wall, Spencer is standing watch while eating stolen food and Rick and Jessie are kissing. Deanna walks up to the wall, pounds on it in defiance and then walks off. Unnoticed, blood seeps through a nearby slat…

Review:

Scott Gimple and the writers room on this show have nerves of steel. Any other team on the planet would have cut straight back to the fate of Glenn after last week’s Morganfest but not this one. No, they prod the bear for another week. The result is an episode that continues this ludicrously strong run of TV but does so by focusing on characters very few people are that interested in; the Alexandrians.

This is essentially the story of five Alexandrians; Deanna, Spencer, Aaron, Denise and Jessie and how they deal with their world ending. The fence still holds (for now…) but the illusion of safety the Alexandrians have laboured under is finally, and completely, shattered. They’re still the coddled, inexperienced cannon fodder Rick and co have had to work around for ages but now they’re aware of that and the result is fascinating.

Let’s start with Aaron. His confession that he inadvertently led the Wolves to Alexandria is brave, honest and the situation is so bad he may as well have not been talking. It’s an interesting position to be in and one that puts him next to Maggie in every way; both feel powerless, both feel like they’ve let people down, both want to make up for it. And they do, by not only trying to find Glenn but realising just how boxed in Alexandria is. It’s an interesting arc and one that Glenn fans will probably hate, with some reason. The episode flirts with closure there, but instead gives us Maggie opening up as Aaron reaches out. They bond in a way that few other characters have and their final scene is lovely. Maggie, in a moment of huge faith, wipes Glenn’s name from the memorial wall. Aaron does the same for Nicholas.

We know one of them is wrong. But both? Again, we’ll have to wait and see.

Which brings us to Spencer, who is both wrong and right. The only Alexandrian more clearly traumatised than his mum, Spencer has suddenly become one of the most interesting characters on the show. His passionate speech defending the store is brilliant. The fact he does it to cover his own thievery is even better. Hero? Villain? Neither. Spencer’s a survivor, something every Alexandrian will have to become.

Jessie’s changing too, as this episode shows. Her murder of an Alexandrian who kills herself rather than face the apparently inevitable end is difficult, ugly and clearly a line Jessie can’t cross back over. Like Spencer, she gives a big rousing speech. Unlike Spencer, she immediately begins trying to figure out if it was the right thing. Time and again, this show holds Rick up as the paragon of survivors but here it’s Rick who questions if Jessie’s okay. Again, she’s a survivor but she needs to be reminded that she’s more than that too.

Denise is trying to do the same thing: be more than she is. Her arc this episode is almost minimalist but it’s one of the most heartfelt. She refuses to leave her patient, even when she gives up on being able to save him. Because, when it comes down to it, she’s not given up. Denise is one of the bravest characters on the show and the courage to look her limitations in the eye and stare them down is at the core of her time in the episode. She’s not a doctor, not yet, but she’s what they’ve got and right now that’s good enough. Better still, she sees it is and her quiet little smile of triumph is one of my favourite moments in the show to date. Good job, doc.

But it’s Deanna who stays with you. Tohvah Feldshuh opens and closes the episode and it’s her face that becomes the embodiment of what the town goes through. She goes from numb and traumatised to frantic and, it’s implied, potentially suicidal. In fact, when Jessie kills the Walkers I first thought that was her.

But again she’s a survivor, even though she may not want to be. Her frantic dissection of a Walker and blood-stained defiance embodies not just her town but the corner it’s turned. Alexandria is going to fight to survive and there’s joy and pride in that. But, as the final shot shows, there’s blindness too. Is the wall cracking? If it is, she doesn’t see it. It’s a smart, mute testament to the Alexandrians; enthusiastic, good, hopelessly naïve people. They’re learning, but is it fast enough?

“Now” isn’t pacy, it doesn’t move any major plots along and it features very few main characters. Inevitably, it’s been criticised elsewhere as being a bad episode or filler and that’s neither fair nor accurate. It’s a typically clever script in a very strong season that provides welcome context for what’s to come. But for all that, it may be time to stop poking the bear.

Next week, we find out what’s been going on with Darryl, Sasha and Abraham. I’m sure they’ll be fine, right guys?

Guys?

The Good:

• Truth and consequences to quote another very odd episode of a very good show this week. This episode is the moment the Alexandrians stop being a liability and start working on surviving. It’s a vital narrative fulcrum for both the show and its supporting cast. Whether it should be placed where it is, well, we’ll get to that under The Bad.

• Deanna. I was honestly expecting this to be her last episode and the Alexandria map she lays out definitely looks like a preparatory last will and testament. But she’s not close to done yet and Tovah Feldshuh does amazing work showing us her journey this episode. The last time I saw this arc done this well was Mary McDonnell’s work on Battlestar Galactica. Feldshuh here is at least her equal and may just be edging ahead.
• Denise. I love that this episode we go back to her and she’s right where she was before. I love that she’s unconfident, that she doesn’t stop and that the possible relationship with Tara is dealt with so delicately. A really smart addition to a really strong cast.
• Spencer. Spencer’s speech at the stores is brilliant and subtle and heartfelt. His moment later where explains it was a cover for his own thievery is as heartbreaking as it is repellent. I love that the last time we see him is on the wall, having volunteered to take a shift, eating stolen crackers. He’s complex and difficult and interesting and more of him please.
• Weasly Ron, who really might have just saved Carl’s life. Or might be planning something. Or both.
• Jessie, now essentially alone in her house after her youngest son saw her murder that Wolf a couple of episodes ago. Again, she’s a compassionate, tough, brave community leader. She’s also a mom. She’s also a murderer. No one gets off easy in this show.

The Bad:

• No Carol, Michonne or Morgan. Although seeing Michonne break the news to Maggie about Glenn’s “death” (THERE IS HOPE!) from Deanna’s point of view was a nice touch.
• After last week’s Morgan-centric flashback some viewers are going to be justifiably annoyed that we get another episode playing coy around Glenn’s fate. That’s a fair criticism too and Scott Gimple’s playing a dangerous game of showmanship, in every sense, this season. But, so far, it’s working. But damn if they aren’t pushing their luck.

The Random:

• A lot of people are complaining that Deanna’s enthusiastic but unfocused stab fest at the Walker was ridiculous given how long she’s survived. On the surface it’s a fair criticism; even in Alexandria, they know to shoot or stab a Walker in the head.
• But her entire arc this episode is essentially Nicholas’s from “Thank You” just without the suicide. She sees all help die, sees her town surrounded and under siege and she withdraws, curls up as tight as she can in her mind and hopes it all goes away. The Walker shakes her out of it, forces her to fight and allows her to dump all the anger, rage and grief she’s bottled up out and onto its rotting frame. In that situation I’m not only surprised she wasn’t thinking clearly but amazed she isn’t still kicking its dead body.

• Alexandria as a base is paying dividends for how the show’s shot as well as its traumatised central characters. I like that we see the gate along the same approach Michonne and co came in through a couple of weeks ago. I also really like that we can have sequences like Aaron seeing Maggie prep, walk through to the remembrance wall and still have Maggie in the background. It gives the town a real sense of place and a feeling that this is somewhere worth fighting for.
• The slap fight between Carl and Ron is brilliant. No overblown choreography just two tired, scared teenagers flailing at one another.
• “The wall’s gonna hold together… can you?” You actually see Rick as a leader this episode which the show doesn’t always do. This speech is great, acknowledging what’s going on, putting a line in front of it and asking the Alexandrians to stand it with him.
• “Doing this will start us down a road where nothing matters. Where no one else matters. And then we’ll all look back at this moment right now as when we destroyed this place.” Such a great line and it makes Spencer’s arc this episode all the sadder.
• “I’ll tell your dad! He’ll go out there to find you then other people will too and then somebody’s gonna die. You saved my life now I’m saving yours.” This entire episode is about the Alexandrians waking up and smelling the ambulatory, carnivorous corpses. Ron is absolutely on the button here. Carl will go outside and die and get more people killed doing it. Or at least Ron believes that.
• “And if he’s dead I don’t wanna be waitin’ on him.” Maggie’s great this episode and this line in particular is her in a nutshell. Grieving, heartbroken, practical and looking at tomorrow.
• “I don’t get to know what will happen I don’t get to know why it happened I don’t get to know what I did right or wrong. Now I have to live with that and you do too.” And this one too. Maggie finally losing it, where no one but Aaron can see her, is all the more heartbreaking because of how tough she normally is.

• “It’s worth mentioning that Aaron, Erin, works for a boy or a girl. Depending on the spelling. Just saying.” And this is just adorable. Aaron gently needling this ridiculously tough, compassionate woman and having faith when she can’t bring herself to.
• “This is what life looks like now.” I love how this episode circles back around, with Spencer being both a liability and a hero and Jessie’s words getting back to Rick and, in turn, him calling her on it. The Alexandrians are finally starting to integrate and it’ll be interesting to see if the show lets the characters stay here not to mention how many it’s going to let live.

• Multiple kissings! This is the most romantic episode so far this season which – given it’s also the episode where Deanna beats a Walker to death with a broken bottle – speaks to the show’s versatility.

Review by Alasdair Stuart

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The Walking Dead S06E04 “Here’s Not Here” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on: FOX, Mondays, 9pm
Writer: Scott M Gimple
Director: Stephen Williams

Essential Plot Points:

• We see Morgan talking to someone in Alexandria, agreeing to tell them his whole story. Then, we see Morgan ranting to himself as a building burns around him. Then he’s out in the open. He kills zombies, build a bonfire and waits for more zombies to arrive, then he kills them, even one that comes through the fire at him. Less flambe, more zombe. 

• Slowly, Morgan creates a world for himself, a tiny space defined by punji stakes and the pile of zombies he’s killed. He does what he does; clears. Kills anything that isn’t him. Including two luckless scavengers whom he murders.

• One morning, out hunting, Morgan hears something impossible; a goat, alive. He tracks it and finds a beautiful cabin with a goat outside, tethered up. A disembodied voice asks him to put down his rifle and discuss matters. Morgan ignores it. He’s promptly knocked out and wakes up in a cell in the living room of the cabin.

• There, he meets Eastman, the cabin’s owner. Polite, friendly and a master with a bō staff, Eastman diagnoses Morgan with PTSD and reassures him that he will heal. Morgan is insistent Eastman kill him. Eastman refuses. Morgan is in this for the long haul.
• Finally, one day, Eastman tells Morgan the cell was never locked and gives him a choice between leaving or crashing on the couch. Morgan promptly tries to kill Eastman, breaking a piece of art on the wall as he does so. Eastman fights him into sumission, repeats the choice and Morgan storms back to the cell, closing the door behind him. Eastman opens the door and the stalemate continues.
• Later, he explains that he used aikido to beat Morgan, and that he started training in the martial art the day after his daughter gave him a lucky rabbit’s foot.
• One day, Eastman goes out and asks Morgan to protect Tabitha the goat. He sits, brooding, in his cell as Walkers appear and the terrified goat begins screaming. Finally, he snaps, runs out and kills the two Walkers. He’s on the verge of sliding back into PTSD when he sees the wedding ring around one Walker’s neck and realises they used to be people, with lives, too. He kills them, then brings Tabitha inside and disposes of the bodies.
• In doing so, he finds a graveyard Eastman has maintained of every Walker he’s had to kill.
• When Eastman returns, he helps Morgan and reminds him to use driver’s licences to identify the dead men. He also tells him he “fixed” his spear. Eastman has taken the pointy tip off. It’s now the bō staff Morgan uses in the present.

• The two men slowly become close friends, Eastman training Morgan in aikido and teaching him his belief that all life is sacred.
• One night, Morgan asks why Eastman has a cell in his cabin. He explains that he interviewed an inmate who was the only, truly, evil human being he’s ever encountered. Eastman describes seeing the man realise his charm wasn’t working, smiling then attacking Eastman. Eastman used aikido to defeat him and was instrumental in the inmate, Crighton Dallas Wilton, being denied parole. The inmate broke out anyway, slaughtered Eastman’s family in revenge then turned himself in.
• They begin packing for a trip. Eastman is cheerfully honest about not knowing where to go but has his eye on the coast and some of the islands offshore. He mentions they need some supplies and Morgan, repulsed by the thought of what he’s suggesting, tells Eastman he knows where to find what they’re looking for.
• They return to Morgan’s minuscule “safe zone” and find what they need. A Walker emerges from the trees and Eastman asks Morgan to kill it. He’s about to when he realises it’s one of the men he killed earlier. He blanks out, Eastman steps in to save him and is bitten.

• Morgan loses it and the men fight, but Eastman bests Morgan again. Visibly weakening already, Eastman takes the Walker corpse up to his graveyard.
• Morgan goes hunting, kills a Walker and, to his own surprise, saves two refugees. He’s about to go for them too when they offer him tinned food and a single bullet as thanks. Returning to himself, he leaves them be and returns to the cabin. He finds Tabitha being eaten by a Walker, which he kills, then carries the two corpses to the graveyard. He helps Eastman finish his work there and then gets his friend back home.
• Eastman, close to death, confesses everything. He kidnapped Wilton from the work gang he was put on, locked him in the cell and let him starve to death. That gave him no peace but his refusal to kill, anything, ever again, did. He offers Morgan the cabin but tells him he shouldn’t stay there but go find other people. Eastman reassures him that he’s ready for death and has a gun put to one side.

• We see Morgan, dressed for the road, leave the cabin. We see him pass Wilton’s grave in the graveyard and find the sign to Terminus.
• We see Morgan in the present day, talking to a Wolf he’s captured. The younger man accepts everything Morgan said but then points out the wound he’s carrying. He tells Morgan he’ll either die or have to kill everyone in Alexandria. Morgan leaves his prisoner then hears someone screaming for the gate to be opened…

Review:

Yet again: bloody hell!

Late in this episode, Eastman talks about how he kicked Morgan’s ass by redirecting him. That’s the basic principle of aikido, a martial art designed to be less about physical action on your part and more about using your opponent’s energy and decisions against them.

This entire episode is televisual aikido. It constantly surprises, constantly upends your expectations and never once takes the easy way out. It’s brave and difficult and immensely moving and quite unlike anything else the show has ever done before.

So much of that is down to the minuscule cast. A few other tiny guest roles aside, this is a two-hander. Lennie James, an actor who has never turned in bad work in his career, is on exceptional form here. He’s constantly working hard, showing us the gradual journey Morgan takes from the grief-stricken loner he was in “Clear” to the tormented but ethical ass kicker we met at the end of last season. It’s subtle, constant work that’s telegraphed in James’s shoulders and posture, in his repetition of some phrases and his constant numb demeanour. There isn’t a character on the show who’s escaped suffering but Morgan has suffered far more than most and been denied the luxury of company too. This episode, finally, we see what that cost him and it’s very nearly everything.

Then there’s Eastman. Played with endlessly calm, charmingly verbose restraint by John Carroll Lynch, he’s one of the most interesting characters the show has ever introduced us to. There’s more than a hint of the hippy to him – from the vegetarian diet to the obsession with cheese making and aikido – but he’s never a stereotype. Instead, he’s a man further along the path that Morgan’s on. He’s got the distance from his wounds, and crimes, to see them for what they are. Defining yes, but not controlling.

The equal ground that shared experience creates between the two never waivers, even when you expect it to. There’s no getting around the racial element to their relationship, especially as Morgan, who’s black, spends most of the episode apparently locked in a cell in the house of Eastman, who’s white. But time and again, the show not only addresses but subverts what you’re expecting. The fact the cell was never locked is clever. The fact that Morgan voluntarily goes back inside it is heart-breaking. The fact Eastman leaves the door open is quietly, patiently, hopeful. There’s no power dynamic here beyond compassion. No agenda beyond survival, healing and redemption.

The gradual changes in Morgan, the gradual unwrapping of Eastman’s tragedy and the fact we know this can’t last makes for an intensely emotional, moving episode. You want both these guys to be okay. You want, somehow, Eastman to live even though what’s coming even though you know he doesn’t.

That’s the genius of Gimple’s script and Williams’s direction. They put us inside both men’s heads and then, like them, show us the way out. Williams’s use of a tilt-shift style effect for Morgan’s perceptions is especially clever, showing us just how zeroed in he is. Likewise, the use of sound is incredibly smart. The fact that Morgan has a near panic attack when he realises he can hear the goat is one of the episode’s highlights precisely because it’s so subtle. It shows us just how hyper-attuned Morgan is to everything around him and just how dangerous he’s become. That makes his slow struggle to change, and Eastman’s trust in him, all the more emotionally charged.

The script is shot through with moments like that too. Morgan seeing the wedding ring around the Walker’s neck is one. The sight of the grave Eastman dug for the murderer of his family is another. Together moments like those create a script that’s both a fight and a conversation, just as all good martial arts are. On one side is the belief both men have; that all life is precious. On the other is the brutal, harsh reality of their world. There’s no clear victor by the end of the episode but there’s also no clear loss. Like Morgan says, “World hasn’t ended”. That’s not enough, but as starts go we could do a lot worse.  Especially if that prisoner Morgan’s keeping in Alexandria has anything to do with it…

The Good:

• Everything. Seriously this isn’t just a five star episode this may be the best episode the show’s turned in to date. But here are a few specifics:
• “Why don’t you put the gun down and we’ll talk. Have some falafel? Looks like you haven’t eaten in a while.” What makes Eastman work so perfectly is the combination of Lynch’s physicality and intellect. He’s a big, hulking guy who’s a clear physical threat but he’s also endlessly calm and articulate.
• “You saw it happen. That’s how it started, right? It’s all happening in front of your eyes, over and over? Your body’s here, but your mind is still there. There’s a door and you wanna go through it to get away from it so you do and it leads you right back to that moment and you see that door again and you know it won’t work but, Hell, maybe it’ll work. So you step through that door and you’re right back in that horrible moment every time. You still feel it every time. So you just wanna stop opening that door. So you just sit in it. But I assure you, one of those doors leads out, my friend.” To see a show like this peel away not just the layers of PTSD but the impact PTSD has on the psyche of a male lead is staggering. This is intensely brave, compassionate writing that explores the consequence of this world in a way The Walking Dead rarely, if ever, has before.
• “I don’t have any friends!” “Get to know me.” An episode like this lives and dies on its performances. This episode soars, thanks not just to Lynch’s good-natured chattiness but James’s constant, scowling, frantic presence. This exchange sums up the two men perfectly; one desperate to be alone and desperate to not be, the other calm and ready to let his friend come to him on his own terms.
• “We’re not built to kill. We don’t have claws or fangs or armour. Vets that came back with PTSD? That didn’t happen because we’re comfortable with killing. WE’RE NOT. WE CAN’T BE. WE FEEL. WE’RE CONNECTED.” The entire scene is the highlight of the episode but this line is the one that hits you right between the eyes. To hear anyone say that in the post-apocalyptic world of the show, let alone someone like Eastman, is a lifeline and one Morgan ultimately grabs with both hands.
• “It’s all a circle, and everything gets a return.” The show also never lets Eastman off the hook. As well as showing us what he’s capable of it also shows us what he’s pushing against. That philosophy isn’t just a life raft for him it’s a door he chooses to close on his past life. That realisation that he’s got blood on his hands too is what ultimately makes it work.
• “It was aikido. That was how I kicked your ass, earlier. Well… that’s how I redirected your ass.” – A perfect description of a gentle, politely brutal when called upon to be, martial art.
• “I don’t kill but I’m not giving up on chocolate any time soon.” And with this line, Eastman ascends to the pantheon of polite, over-articulate asskicking big guys.
• “What we’ve done, we’ve done.” This is the crux of the conflict, and dialogue, between the two men. Accepting and embracing the past rather than being trapped there, folding your failings into what makes up your life and doing something better with them. It’s enlightened compassion of a sort Rick and co haven’t been able to afford for a while and seeing it expressed here perfectly explains why Morgan is like he is.
• “I have come to believe that ALL life is precious. That’s why we’re having oatmeal burgers.” “You’re good at it…redirecting…” I love this exchange. Eastman is open, charming and evasive. And Morgan sees it and calls him on it. It’s the moment where we know Morgan’s back, even if he doesn’t quite know it himself.
• “Who did you lose?” “My wife and son.” “WHO you lost? Their names.” “Janet… and Dwayne…” Again this is a lovely encapsulation of their relationship. Eastman gently showing Morgan his wounds and forcing him to realise that his family were people, not just casualties.
• “If they caught me it’d have been fine… it’d have been better.” The final speech is heartbreaking but this line, and everything behind it is the killer. Eastman’s endlessly calm and aware and compassionate and, just like Morgan chooses to go through the door out of his PTSD, Eastman can’t ever quite go through the door that leads out of what he did.

The Bad:

• You’re going to see some, at least partially, justifiable criticism of this episode being put where it is in the running order. Coming the week after the apparent death of Glenn it looks a lot like gamesmanship on the part of Gimple to keep the tension up. That’s valid but this episode is so good and so unusual that you don’t mind.

• In an episode full of sublime subtlety, this thuddingly obvious visual metaphor comes across more like a bad pun. Pointless? Sharp pointy things? Yeah, we geddit.

The Random:

• John Carroll Lynch is the patient zero of ‘That Guy Who Was In That Thing That Time!’ actors. His CV includes movies like Fargo, Gothika, Zodiac and Shutter Island while his TV appearances take in everything from Voyager to Lie To Me and an upcoming episode of American Horror Story: Hotel. So we’ll be talking about him again shortly in those reviews.
• His character is named Eastman, I suspect, as a nod to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. One of whom, Donatello, uses abō staff as his weapon of choice. Lennie James’s trainer, martial artist Stephen Ho, is the fight double for Donatello. So, like the man says, everything’s a circle.

• Shot of the episode is this. Morgan, running forms one last time before leaving to join the road to Terminus and, from there, to Alexandria.

Review by Alasdair Stuart

• Read more reviews of The Walking Dead season six

Have you seem our Buzz exclusive Walking Dead interview yet?

The Walking Dead S06E04 “Here’s Not Here” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on: FOX, Mondays, 9pm
Writer: Scott M Gimple
Director: Stephen Williams

Essential Plot Points:

• We see Morgan talking to someone in Alexandria, agreeing to tell them his whole story. Then, we see Morgan ranting to himself as a building burns around him. Then he’s out in the open. He kills zombies, build a bonfire and waits for more zombies to arrive, then he kills them, even one that comes through the fire at him. Less flambe, more zombe. 

• Slowly, Morgan creates a world for himself, a tiny space defined by punji stakes and the pile of zombies he’s killed. He does what he does; clears. Kills anything that isn’t him. Including two luckless scavengers whom he murders.

• One morning, out hunting, Morgan hears something impossible; a goat, alive. He tracks it and finds a beautiful cabin with a goat outside, tethered up. A disembodied voice asks him to put down his rifle and discuss matters. Morgan ignores it. He’s promptly knocked out and wakes up in a cell in the living room of the cabin.

• There, he meets Eastman, the cabin’s owner. Polite, friendly and a master with a bō staff, Eastman diagnoses Morgan with PTSD and reassures him that he will heal. Morgan is insistent Eastman kill him. Eastman refuses. Morgan is in this for the long haul.
• Finally, one day, Eastman tells Morgan the cell was never locked and gives him a choice between leaving or crashing on the couch. Morgan promptly tries to kill Eastman, breaking a piece of art on the wall as he does so. Eastman fights him into sumission, repeats the choice and Morgan storms back to the cell, closing the door behind him. Eastman opens the door and the stalemate continues.
• Later, he explains that he used aikido to beat Morgan, and that he started training in the martial art the day after his daughter gave him a lucky rabbit’s foot.
• One day, Eastman goes out and asks Morgan to protect Tabitha the goat. He sits, brooding, in his cell as Walkers appear and the terrified goat begins screaming. Finally, he snaps, runs out and kills the two Walkers. He’s on the verge of sliding back into PTSD when he sees the wedding ring around one Walker’s neck and realises they used to be people, with lives, too. He kills them, then brings Tabitha inside and disposes of the bodies.
• In doing so, he finds a graveyard Eastman has maintained of every Walker he’s had to kill.
• When Eastman returns, he helps Morgan and reminds him to use driver’s licences to identify the dead men. He also tells him he “fixed” his spear. Eastman has taken the pointy tip off. It’s now the bō staff Morgan uses in the present.

• The two men slowly become close friends, Eastman training Morgan in aikido and teaching him his belief that all life is sacred.
• One night, Morgan asks why Eastman has a cell in his cabin. He explains that he interviewed an inmate who was the only, truly, evil human being he’s ever encountered. Eastman describes seeing the man realise his charm wasn’t working, smiling then attacking Eastman. Eastman used aikido to defeat him and was instrumental in the inmate, Crighton Dallas Wilton, being denied parole. The inmate broke out anyway, slaughtered Eastman’s family in revenge then turned himself in.
• They begin packing for a trip. Eastman is cheerfully honest about not knowing where to go but has his eye on the coast and some of the islands offshore. He mentions they need some supplies and Morgan, repulsed by the thought of what he’s suggesting, tells Eastman he knows where to find what they’re looking for.
• They return to Morgan’s minuscule “safe zone” and find what they need. A Walker emerges from the trees and Eastman asks Morgan to kill it. He’s about to when he realises it’s one of the men he killed earlier. He blanks out, Eastman steps in to save him and is bitten.

• Morgan loses it and the men fight, but Eastman bests Morgan again. Visibly weakening already, Eastman takes the Walker corpse up to his graveyard.
• Morgan goes hunting, kills a Walker and, to his own surprise, saves two refugees. He’s about to go for them too when they offer him tinned food and a single bullet as thanks. Returning to himself, he leaves them be and returns to the cabin. He finds Tabitha being eaten by a Walker, which he kills, then carries the two corpses to the graveyard. He helps Eastman finish his work there and then gets his friend back home.
• Eastman, close to death, confesses everything. He kidnapped Wilton from the work gang he was put on, locked him in the cell and let him starve to death. That gave him no peace but his refusal to kill, anything, ever again, did. He offers Morgan the cabin but tells him he shouldn’t stay there but go find other people. Eastman reassures him that he’s ready for death and has a gun put to one side.

• We see Morgan, dressed for the road, leave the cabin. We see him pass Wilton’s grave in the graveyard and find the sign to Terminus.
• We see Morgan in the present day, talking to a Wolf he’s captured. The younger man accepts everything Morgan said but then points out the wound he’s carrying. He tells Morgan he’ll either die or have to kill everyone in Alexandria. Morgan leaves his prisoner then hears someone screaming for the gate to be opened…

Review:

Yet again: bloody hell!

Late in this episode, Eastman talks about how he kicked Morgan’s ass by redirecting him. That’s the basic principle of aikido, a martial art designed to be less about physical action on your part and more about using your opponent’s energy and decisions against them.

This entire episode is televisual aikido. It constantly surprises, constantly upends your expectations and never once takes the easy way out. It’s brave and difficult and immensely moving and quite unlike anything else the show has ever done before.

So much of that is down to the minuscule cast. A few other tiny guest roles aside, this is a two-hander. Lennie James, an actor who has never turned in bad work in his career, is on exceptional form here. He’s constantly working hard, showing us the gradual journey Morgan takes from the grief-stricken loner he was in “Clear” to the tormented but ethical ass kicker we met at the end of last season. It’s subtle, constant work that’s telegraphed in James’s shoulders and posture, in his repetition of some phrases and his constant numb demeanour. There isn’t a character on the show who’s escaped suffering but Morgan has suffered far more than most and been denied the luxury of company too. This episode, finally, we see what that cost him and it’s very nearly everything.

Then there’s Eastman. Played with endlessly calm, charmingly verbose restraint by John Carroll Lynch, he’s one of the most interesting characters the show has ever introduced us to. There’s more than a hint of the hippy to him – from the vegetarian diet to the obsession with cheese making and aikido – but he’s never a stereotype. Instead, he’s a man further along the path that Morgan’s on. He’s got the distance from his wounds, and crimes, to see them for what they are. Defining yes, but not controlling.

The equal ground that shared experience creates between the two never waivers, even when you expect it to. There’s no getting around the racial element to their relationship, especially as Morgan, who’s black, spends most of the episode apparently locked in a cell in the house of Eastman, who’s white. But time and again, the show not only addresses but subverts what you’re expecting. The fact the cell was never locked is clever. The fact that Morgan voluntarily goes back inside it is heart-breaking. The fact Eastman leaves the door open is quietly, patiently, hopeful. There’s no power dynamic here beyond compassion. No agenda beyond survival, healing and redemption.

The gradual changes in Morgan, the gradual unwrapping of Eastman’s tragedy and the fact we know this can’t last makes for an intensely emotional, moving episode. You want both these guys to be okay. You want, somehow, Eastman to live even though what’s coming even though you know he doesn’t.

That’s the genius of Gimple’s script and Williams’s direction. They put us inside both men’s heads and then, like them, show us the way out. Williams’s use of a tilt-shift style effect for Morgan’s perceptions is especially clever, showing us just how zeroed in he is. Likewise, the use of sound is incredibly smart. The fact that Morgan has a near panic attack when he realises he can hear the goat is one of the episode’s highlights precisely because it’s so subtle. It shows us just how hyper-attuned Morgan is to everything around him and just how dangerous he’s become. That makes his slow struggle to change, and Eastman’s trust in him, all the more emotionally charged.

The script is shot through with moments like that too. Morgan seeing the wedding ring around the Walker’s neck is one. The sight of the grave Eastman dug for the murderer of his family is another. Together moments like those create a script that’s both a fight and a conversation, just as all good martial arts are. On one side is the belief both men have; that all life is precious. On the other is the brutal, harsh reality of their world. There’s no clear victor by the end of the episode but there’s also no clear loss. Like Morgan says, “World hasn’t ended”. That’s not enough, but as starts go we could do a lot worse.  Especially if that prisoner Morgan’s keeping in Alexandria has anything to do with it…

The Good:

• Everything. Seriously this isn’t just a five star episode this may be the best episode the show’s turned in to date. But here are a few specifics:
• “Why don’t you put the gun down and we’ll talk. Have some falafel? Looks like you haven’t eaten in a while.” What makes Eastman work so perfectly is the combination of Lynch’s physicality and intellect. He’s a big, hulking guy who’s a clear physical threat but he’s also endlessly calm and articulate.
• “You saw it happen. That’s how it started, right? It’s all happening in front of your eyes, over and over? Your body’s here, but your mind is still there. There’s a door and you wanna go through it to get away from it so you do and it leads you right back to that moment and you see that door again and you know it won’t work but, Hell, maybe it’ll work. So you step through that door and you’re right back in that horrible moment every time. You still feel it every time. So you just wanna stop opening that door. So you just sit in it. But I assure you, one of those doors leads out, my friend.” To see a show like this peel away not just the layers of PTSD but the impact PTSD has on the psyche of a male lead is staggering. This is intensely brave, compassionate writing that explores the consequence of this world in a way The Walking Dead rarely, if ever, has before.
• “I don’t have any friends!” “Get to know me.” An episode like this lives and dies on its performances. This episode soars, thanks not just to Lynch’s good-natured chattiness but James’s constant, scowling, frantic presence. This exchange sums up the two men perfectly; one desperate to be alone and desperate to not be, the other calm and ready to let his friend come to him on his own terms.
• “We’re not built to kill. We don’t have claws or fangs or armour. Vets that came back with PTSD? That didn’t happen because we’re comfortable with killing. WE’RE NOT. WE CAN’T BE. WE FEEL. WE’RE CONNECTED.” The entire scene is the highlight of the episode but this line is the one that hits you right between the eyes. To hear anyone say that in the post-apocalyptic world of the show, let alone someone like Eastman, is a lifeline and one Morgan ultimately grabs with both hands.
• “It’s all a circle, and everything gets a return.” The show also never lets Eastman off the hook. As well as showing us what he’s capable of it also shows us what he’s pushing against. That philosophy isn’t just a life raft for him it’s a door he chooses to close on his past life. That realisation that he’s got blood on his hands too is what ultimately makes it work.
• “It was aikido. That was how I kicked your ass, earlier. Well… that’s how I redirected your ass.” – A perfect description of a gentle, politely brutal when called upon to be, martial art.
• “I don’t kill but I’m not giving up on chocolate any time soon.” And with this line, Eastman ascends to the pantheon of polite, over-articulate asskicking big guys.
• “What we’ve done, we’ve done.” This is the crux of the conflict, and dialogue, between the two men. Accepting and embracing the past rather than being trapped there, folding your failings into what makes up your life and doing something better with them. It’s enlightened compassion of a sort Rick and co haven’t been able to afford for a while and seeing it expressed here perfectly explains why Morgan is like he is.
• “I have come to believe that ALL life is precious. That’s why we’re having oatmeal burgers.” “You’re good at it…redirecting…” I love this exchange. Eastman is open, charming and evasive. And Morgan sees it and calls him on it. It’s the moment where we know Morgan’s back, even if he doesn’t quite know it himself.
• “Who did you lose?” “My wife and son.” “WHO you lost? Their names.” “Janet… and Dwayne…” Again this is a lovely encapsulation of their relationship. Eastman gently showing Morgan his wounds and forcing him to realise that his family were people, not just casualties.
• “If they caught me it’d have been fine… it’d have been better.” The final speech is heartbreaking but this line, and everything behind it is the killer. Eastman’s endlessly calm and aware and compassionate and, just like Morgan chooses to go through the door out of his PTSD, Eastman can’t ever quite go through the door that leads out of what he did.

The Bad:

• You’re going to see some, at least partially, justifiable criticism of this episode being put where it is in the running order. Coming the week after the apparent death of Glenn it looks a lot like gamesmanship on the part of Gimple to keep the tension up. That’s valid but this episode is so good and so unusual that you don’t mind.

• In an episode full of sublime subtlety, this thuddingly obvious visual metaphor comes across more like a bad pun. Pointless? Sharp pointy things? Yeah, we geddit.

The Random:

• John Carroll Lynch is the patient zero of ‘That Guy Who Was In That Thing That Time!’ actors. His CV includes movies like Fargo, Gothika, Zodiac and Shutter Island while his TV appearances take in everything from Voyager to Lie To Me and an upcoming episode of American Horror Story: Hotel. So we’ll be talking about him again shortly in those reviews.
• His character is named Eastman, I suspect, as a nod to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. One of whom, Donatello, uses abō staff as his weapon of choice. Lennie James’s trainer, martial artist Stephen Ho, is the fight double for Donatello. So, like the man says, everything’s a circle.

• Shot of the episode is this. Morgan, running forms one last time before leaving to join the road to Terminus and, from there, to Alexandria.

Review by Alasdair Stuart

• Read more reviews of The Walking Dead season six

Have you seem our Buzz exclusive Walking Dead interview yet?

The Walking Dead S06E02 “JSS” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on: FOX, Mondays, 9pm

Writers: Seth Hoffman
Director: Jennifer Lynch

Essential Plot Points:

• We see an SUV, with a couple in it trying to work out how to fix the engine. Enid is in the back and scream when a pair of Walkers appear. Her parents reassure her but then more arrive. The camera smash-cuts to End, in the back of the car, watching the Walkers feed.
• We see Enid cowering, Walkers nearby. She writes JSS.
• We see her kill her first zombie and hide out in a new car. She writes JSS on the window.
• We see her find a tortoise and eat it raw, desperate to survive.
• We see her, filthy, exhausted and stunned by the sound of celebration coming from inside Alexandria.
• We see the gates open, Enid walks in. JSS written on her hand.
• In the present day we check in on the team who didn’t go to the quarry. Maggie helps Deanna lay out some new land for the vegetable gardens, and come to terms with the death of Reg. Carl finds himself increasingly jealous of Enid and Ron’s relationship while Ron rejects any attempt by his mother to talk about the death of his father. Elsewhere, Gabriel persuades Carl to teach him to fight and Carol cements her status as most terrifying housewife in Alexandria. She watches a neighbour, who she chastised into smoking outside, have a fag in the garden…

• Then she watches the woman cut down by a filthy, machete-wielding attacker. The Wolves have arrived.
• Across town, battle breaks out. Carol disguises herself as a wolf and heads to defend the armoury. Nearby new town doctor Denise gets the single worst first day anyone could possibly imagine. Carl and Enid stand guard over the baby while nearby Morgan rescues Father Gabriel. Countless Alexandrians fall and some can’t take the horror of the battle. The mystery of the truck horn from last week is solved when the Wolves use a zombie tied into a truck to smash through the walls of the town.
• Ultimately, thanks to Carol’s ruthless quick thinking, the Wolves are seen off. Along the way, Morgan and Carol clash over the necessity of murder and both find themselves on the other’s side. Carol finds a quiet moment to break down after the loss of her neighbour and her having to euthanise another. Morgan encounters the Wolf he met last season and, finally, realises he has to kill the man.
• While cleaning up, Aaron finds his pack on a dead Wolf and realises, to his horror, they found the town because of him…

Review:

Bloody hell. Again.

Lynch’s direction is amongst the best I’ve seen on this show, or any other. She constantly gives us a sense of the scale of the assault, but never lets us lose sight of the human cost of it. The abrupt butchery of Carol’s neighbour is one of the show’s most horrific moments but it’s Carol ending the life of the other woman that stays with both you, and her. It’s a single, quiet, awful moment of mercy in the middle of endless brutality and horror. It may not have broken Carol any more than she already is, but it’s a wound she’ll carry for a good long time. The emotional impact that has all comes from Lynch’s clever, subtle framing of the woman’s final moments.

There are many similar examples throughout the episode. Lynch is happy to lock her camera off and show events at multiple depths of field instead of running after everything like a Bourne movie on a sugar rush. It’s the best possible approach to Hoffman’s script and gives everything a measured, relentless, apocalyptic weight that neatly matches the flashback structure from last week. This season is two for two on experimentation and massive success. I honestly think they could pull off a musical episode at this point. Although the odds of it being all Nick Cave, all the time, are pretty high.

On the other side of the ethical divide from Carol the Doombringer, is Morgan though he’s having a similarly terrible week. It would have been easy for the show to set him up as a stereotypical pacifistic asskicker but it’s going somewhere much more fun. Morgan is in many ways the ultimate expression of Tyreese’s closing episodes; a man who refuses to kill but is prepared, reluctantly, to compromise if he has to. Director Lynch and writer Hoffman cleverly use the two fights in which Morgan is involved here to show us how he’s changing. The four-on-one with the Wolves where he scares them off plays like a father scolding children. Yes he’s phenomenally gifted with the staff (and judging by how many close-ups we get, most of that’s Lennie James) but he’s also making a little more noise than he should. Working as hard as possible to show them mercy.

The fight in the house at the end couldn’t be more different. It’s ugly, scrappy, up close and personal stuff that sees Morgan confronted with the very real consequences of his choices. It also sees him not so much cross a line as define one. Everyone gets a second chance with Morgan but, judging by this episode, no one gets a third. Regardless, he’s the only person hurt worse than Carol by the consequences of the Wolf attack and I can’t wait to see both more of that and more of those two working together.

Morgan and Carol get the majority of the heavy lifting this episode, although we get some good stuff with Maggie, Eugene, Tara and new character, Denise. Those last three in particular are an interesting study in how smart Hoffman’s script and Lynch’s direction both are. As well as cutting from moments of brutality to moments of silence, neither let these characters off the hook. Denise is a sweet, nervous, not-quite doctor on her first day. She’s terrified of losing people. She’s in the middle of a war. She loses people and she is really not okay with it. There’s no calm, no moment of sympathy, just her, Eugene, Tara and a dead woman. Tara’s final line to her, reminding her to destroy the brain of her dead patient, is a perfect embodiment of this show and this season in particular. It’s not bitchy or mean, it’s just a truth that the Alexandrians haven’t learnt and Rick’s people have; just survive, somehow.

Which brings us to Enid, and that incredible opening scene. Lynch and Hoffman fire on all cylinders throughout this episode but that opening is staggering. Katelyn Nacon’s work is haunting; her gradual slide into traumatised survival machine is another perfect embodiment of who the “walking dead” on the show really are. Even better, the episode leaves us with some chilling ambiguity about whether or not she led the wolves in. We see Aaron’s pack on a Wolf body but Enid’s “That’s how we…” line implies a lot.

It also shows just how great this episode is. There’s no resolution to last week at all, a second equally massive plot has been put in motion and we’ve got Alexandria rung like a bell by the incredible trauma they’ve all gone through. The only closure here is that the battle has been won. The war is another story and one that, if it’s delivered as well as the first two episodes have been, will be unforgettable.

Good:

• “Your dad used to hit you and he got himself killed. It happened. You live with it or it eats you up.” Carol, ultimate tough love auntie is just the best thing.
• “Everyone that’s here is here because of you. You need to show ’em you’re still here.” Lauren Cohan’s one of a couple of characters who’ve been given short shrift recently so this was really nice to see. It’s one of Rick’s people coming in from the cold, and shows the natural authority they have that the Alexandrians don’t. Plus it’s a really sweet tribute to Maggie’s dad.
• “Thumpers shouldn’t get dibs.” Eugene! All kids love Eugene! No one else does, but hey it’s still a great line.

• “You’re my first patient, and with that symptom I’m pretty sure I can’t kill you.” Thanks, Doc. Not only is Denise immensely good fun, and clearly one of the few competent and fairly together Alexandrians but she’s played by Merit Weaver. Weaver wins this week’s Cast Member In Cult Movie You Should See award thanks to her role in the excellent Series 7: The Contenders about a reality TV show based around competitive murder. She’s also appeared in movies like Michael Clayton and Birdman and had a recurrent role in Nurse Jackie for which she won an Emmy. Oh and she’s brilliant as Matt Albie’s endlessly competent, put upon assistance in the overlooked Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip.
• “Come by around three – we’ll start with the machete.” Chandler Riggs is another cast member who hasn’t had much to do recently but he’s on great form this week especially in this scene with Gabriel. It’s interesting too that Carl is so like his dad in mannerism but prepared to make exactly the opposite call to Rick with regards to Gabriel.

The Bad:

• Nothing. Seriously. From the clever business with Carol’s baking timer to the careful use of soundscape the episode was directed, scripted and acted incredibly well. Right now this is a show at the top of its game.

The Random:

• So is Enid a spy? The “JUST SURVIVE, SOMEHOW” note could certainly be viewed as a confession of sorts.
• Apparently Morgan learned his staff fighting skills from a “cheesemaker”. That Morgan flashback episode on deck for later this season honestly cannot turn up fast enough for me. (I wondered if it was a Monty Python reference – as in “Blessed are the cheesemakers” – because he was talking to a priest at the time and was just being sarcastic – ed.)
• WHAT ABOUT THE HORDE?!
• Carol’s unlucky neighbour smokes Morley’s, a fake brand that appear in numerous TV shows and films. Notable appearances include Psycho, Warehouse 13 and The X-Files in which, of course, they’re the favoured brand of the Cigarette Smoking Man.
• It’s a shot of the week triple crown this week. The first is this shot of Enid, exhausted, traumatised and almost unable to face the idea of safety.

• The second is this shot of the worst day in the town’s history. The bike, the blood, the running man. All wrong, all horrifying.

• And the last is this gloriously framed ambush. Lynch is an amazing director and I really hope, after this and her work on “Spend” in season five the show has her back.

Reviewed by Alasdair Stuart

• Read our other reviews of The Walking Dead season six

The Walking Dead S06E02 “JSS” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on: FOX, Mondays, 9pm

Writers: Seth Hoffman
Director: Jennifer Lynch

Essential Plot Points:

• We see an SUV, with a couple in it trying to work out how to fix the engine. Enid is in the back and scream when a pair of Walkers appear. Her parents reassure her but then more arrive. The camera smash-cuts to End, in the back of the car, watching the Walkers feed.
• We see Enid cowering, Walkers nearby. She writes JSS.
• We see her kill her first zombie and hide out in a new car. She writes JSS on the window.
• We see her find a tortoise and eat it raw, desperate to survive.
• We see her, filthy, exhausted and stunned by the sound of celebration coming from inside Alexandria.
• We see the gates open, Enid walks in. JSS written on her hand.
• In the present day we check in on the team who didn’t go to the quarry. Maggie helps Deanna lay out some new land for the vegetable gardens, and come to terms with the death of Reg. Carl finds himself increasingly jealous of Enid and Ron’s relationship while Ron rejects any attempt by his mother to talk about the death of his father. Elsewhere, Gabriel persuades Carl to teach him to fight and Carol cements her status as most terrifying housewife in Alexandria. She watches a neighbour, who she chastised into smoking outside, have a fag in the garden…

• Then she watches the woman cut down by a filthy, machete-wielding attacker. The Wolves have arrived.
• Across town, battle breaks out. Carol disguises herself as a wolf and heads to defend the armoury. Nearby new town doctor Denise gets the single worst first day anyone could possibly imagine. Carl and Enid stand guard over the baby while nearby Morgan rescues Father Gabriel. Countless Alexandrians fall and some can’t take the horror of the battle. The mystery of the truck horn from last week is solved when the Wolves use a zombie tied into a truck to smash through the walls of the town.
• Ultimately, thanks to Carol’s ruthless quick thinking, the Wolves are seen off. Along the way, Morgan and Carol clash over the necessity of murder and both find themselves on the other’s side. Carol finds a quiet moment to break down after the loss of her neighbour and her having to euthanise another. Morgan encounters the Wolf he met last season and, finally, realises he has to kill the man.
• While cleaning up, Aaron finds his pack on a dead Wolf and realises, to his horror, they found the town because of him…

Review:

Bloody hell. Again.

Lynch’s direction is amongst the best I’ve seen on this show, or any other. She constantly gives us a sense of the scale of the assault, but never lets us lose sight of the human cost of it. The abrupt butchery of Carol’s neighbour is one of the show’s most horrific moments but it’s Carol ending the life of the other woman that stays with both you, and her. It’s a single, quiet, awful moment of mercy in the middle of endless brutality and horror. It may not have broken Carol any more than she already is, but it’s a wound she’ll carry for a good long time. The emotional impact that has all comes from Lynch’s clever, subtle framing of the woman’s final moments.

There are many similar examples throughout the episode. Lynch is happy to lock her camera off and show events at multiple depths of field instead of running after everything like a Bourne movie on a sugar rush. It’s the best possible approach to Hoffman’s script and gives everything a measured, relentless, apocalyptic weight that neatly matches the flashback structure from last week. This season is two for two on experimentation and massive success. I honestly think they could pull off a musical episode at this point. Although the odds of it being all Nick Cave, all the time, are pretty high.

On the other side of the ethical divide from Carol the Doombringer, is Morgan though he’s having a similarly terrible week. It would have been easy for the show to set him up as a stereotypical pacifistic asskicker but it’s going somewhere much more fun. Morgan is in many ways the ultimate expression of Tyreese’s closing episodes; a man who refuses to kill but is prepared, reluctantly, to compromise if he has to. Director Lynch and writer Hoffman cleverly use the two fights in which Morgan is involved here to show us how he’s changing. The four-on-one with the Wolves where he scares them off plays like a father scolding children. Yes he’s phenomenally gifted with the staff (and judging by how many close-ups we get, most of that’s Lennie James) but he’s also making a little more noise than he should. Working as hard as possible to show them mercy.

The fight in the house at the end couldn’t be more different. It’s ugly, scrappy, up close and personal stuff that sees Morgan confronted with the very real consequences of his choices. It also sees him not so much cross a line as define one. Everyone gets a second chance with Morgan but, judging by this episode, no one gets a third. Regardless, he’s the only person hurt worse than Carol by the consequences of the Wolf attack and I can’t wait to see both more of that and more of those two working together.

Morgan and Carol get the majority of the heavy lifting this episode, although we get some good stuff with Maggie, Eugene, Tara and new character, Denise. Those last three in particular are an interesting study in how smart Hoffman’s script and Lynch’s direction both are. As well as cutting from moments of brutality to moments of silence, neither let these characters off the hook. Denise is a sweet, nervous, not-quite doctor on her first day. She’s terrified of losing people. She’s in the middle of a war. She loses people and she is really not okay with it. There’s no calm, no moment of sympathy, just her, Eugene, Tara and a dead woman. Tara’s final line to her, reminding her to destroy the brain of her dead patient, is a perfect embodiment of this show and this season in particular. It’s not bitchy or mean, it’s just a truth that the Alexandrians haven’t learnt and Rick’s people have; just survive, somehow.

Which brings us to Enid, and that incredible opening scene. Lynch and Hoffman fire on all cylinders throughout this episode but that opening is staggering. Katelyn Nacon’s work is haunting; her gradual slide into traumatised survival machine is another perfect embodiment of who the “walking dead” on the show really are. Even better, the episode leaves us with some chilling ambiguity about whether or not she led the wolves in. We see Aaron’s pack on a Wolf body but Enid’s “That’s how we…” line implies a lot.

It also shows just how great this episode is. There’s no resolution to last week at all, a second equally massive plot has been put in motion and we’ve got Alexandria rung like a bell by the incredible trauma they’ve all gone through. The only closure here is that the battle has been won. The war is another story and one that, if it’s delivered as well as the first two episodes have been, will be unforgettable.

Good:

• “Your dad used to hit you and he got himself killed. It happened. You live with it or it eats you up.” Carol, ultimate tough love auntie is just the best thing.
• “Everyone that’s here is here because of you. You need to show ’em you’re still here.” Lauren Cohan’s one of a couple of characters who’ve been given short shrift recently so this was really nice to see. It’s one of Rick’s people coming in from the cold, and shows the natural authority they have that the Alexandrians don’t. Plus it’s a really sweet tribute to Maggie’s dad.
• “Thumpers shouldn’t get dibs.” Eugene! All kids love Eugene! No one else does, but hey it’s still a great line.

• “You’re my first patient, and with that symptom I’m pretty sure I can’t kill you.” Thanks, Doc. Not only is Denise immensely good fun, and clearly one of the few competent and fairly together Alexandrians but she’s played by Merit Weaver. Weaver wins this week’s Cast Member In Cult Movie You Should See award thanks to her role in the excellent Series 7: The Contenders about a reality TV show based around competitive murder. She’s also appeared in movies like Michael Clayton and Birdman and had a recurrent role in Nurse Jackie for which she won an Emmy. Oh and she’s brilliant as Matt Albie’s endlessly competent, put upon assistance in the overlooked Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip.
• “Come by around three – we’ll start with the machete.” Chandler Riggs is another cast member who hasn’t had much to do recently but he’s on great form this week especially in this scene with Gabriel. It’s interesting too that Carl is so like his dad in mannerism but prepared to make exactly the opposite call to Rick with regards to Gabriel.

The Bad:

• Nothing. Seriously. From the clever business with Carol’s baking timer to the careful use of soundscape the episode was directed, scripted and acted incredibly well. Right now this is a show at the top of its game.

The Random:

• So is Enid a spy? The “JUST SURVIVE, SOMEHOW” note could certainly be viewed as a confession of sorts.
• Apparently Morgan learned his staff fighting skills from a “cheesemaker”. That Morgan flashback episode on deck for later this season honestly cannot turn up fast enough for me. (I wondered if it was a Monty Python reference – as in “Blessed are the cheesemakers” – because he was talking to a priest at the time and was just being sarcastic – ed.)
• WHAT ABOUT THE HORDE?!
• Carol’s unlucky neighbour smokes Morley’s, a fake brand that appear in numerous TV shows and films. Notable appearances include Psycho, Warehouse 13 and The X-Files in which, of course, they’re the favoured brand of the Cigarette Smoking Man.
• It’s a shot of the week triple crown this week. The first is this shot of Enid, exhausted, traumatised and almost unable to face the idea of safety.

• The second is this shot of the worst day in the town’s history. The bike, the blood, the running man. All wrong, all horrifying.

• And the last is this gloriously framed ambush. Lynch is an amazing director and I really hope, after this and her work on “Spend” in season five the show has her back.

Reviewed by Alasdair Stuart

• Read our other reviews of The Walking Dead season six