A TWD Recap and Review

So our second episode from the sixth season of The Walking Dead has aired and it is somehow even more jam packed with action then the first had been! As always with these reviews, watch out for the spoilers, they have a real bite to them.

We don’t see much of the characters outside of Alexandria this episode and instead we’re focusing on everyone who stayed behind. Life is seemingly normal as we watch Maggie and Deanna starting up a garden (Your daddy would be so proud Mags! Oh the Hershel feels) and having a very touching scene that will hopefully bolster Deanna up and make her be a leader again. Carl mostly forgives Gabriel for bad mouthing them to Deanna as he takes Judith for a walk. Jessie and her son fight about haircuts and Rick Grimes. Finally we see Carol start to bake and then everything goes to hell.

Carol sees Mrs. Neudermyer in her yard next door, blinks, and then sees her being murdered by a random man with a knife. I suppose he wanted that pasta maker a bit more than she did?

Carol of course goes straight into action, telling Carl he needs to stay in the house and protect Judith. Carl for the first time probably ever, does as he’s told. Not only that he also makes sure Enid stays safe and saves Ronnie too. Although he won’t go into the house, he’s the new Carl it seems. But you guys, CARL STAYED IN THE HOUSE. I can hear Lori crying tears of joy and saying ‘FINALLY’ from Heaven.

Back to Carol, she is to put it frankly, badass in this episode. I still don’t agree with how she is going about things. Lying about being inept and who she really is, being a little too kill happy. It’s shady business and Carol is far too good for such deceit, especially to the Alexandrians who I feel don’t deserve it. But back to Carol and taking care of business. As Alexandria is being overrun and the townspeople being taken by surprise and killed, she immediately gets not only weapons, but also a disguise in a moment of brilliance. She puts on the outfit of one of the enemy’s and even puts a W on her forehead. For anyone who hadn’t guessed yet, yes the people overrunning Alexandria are indeed ‘the Wolves.’

Strangely, none of them have guns. They even make a point of it when a few of them are duped by Carol’s disguise and they ask her how she got a gun. I say this is strange because how does anyone NOT have a gun by now? Even the most random stragglers we’ve seen have had guns. When Rick Grimes and crew get low on supplies, they are always able to acquire more guns. How do they not have guns? Also who is the leader? None of them seem to be as they go about helter-skelter rather than organized throughout Alexandria. I can’t help but wonder if there are more to the wolves than this rabid assault. Are they just the wrecking crew sent in first? A preliminary ‘see how Alexandria defends itself?’ Or are they really just a pack of wolves?

We find out about the horn from the first episode. Deanna’s other son is up in a watch tower and sees a semi barreling towards them. He shoots the driver, but the truck still heavily damages the gate. There the dead driver is tossed forward and his arm hits the horn. They’re able to stop this, but will it be too late and the walker parade will be showing up next? We won’t know until next Sunday. Morgan and Michonne show up then and go about also taking care of business.

I found one scene a bit irritating, although I know it went with the narrative they have of Carol and Morgan playing opposite to each other right now, of violence vs peace to survive. Morgan has one of the wolves defeated and tied up. My first thought was, ‘Yes! Now they can interrogate him and find out about these wolves. What they want, what their plans will be, where they are.’ Then Carol showed up and shot the guy without even a thought. Look I know you’re awesome Carol, but he was tied up and could have been useful. Use your head woman, you’re smarter than that.

We go on and see Carol have to mercy kill another Alexandrian and Morgan take on five wolves with his spear/staff. He not only defeats them, but talks them down and they run away. Morgan is also a badass. Don’t ever argue me about that, you’ll never win.

Meanwhile we also have an entire subplot going on in the makeshift hospital. AS I PREDICTED, (just saying) killing Pete has consequences, as in no one left is a doctor and they’ll need one or people will die. Sure enough there is a woman there, Denise, who is learning out of the books left, but actually has only a bit of education of being a medical doctor as she dropped out of it during school. The attacks occur and Tara and Eugene try to encourage her that she can do this. In a weak sub plot, Eugene had a great line telling Denise, ‘to not be a coward. You don’t want to be that.’ Which harkens back to when Eugene was a coward and we are reminded how much he has grown in such a short time. It works and Denise tries on a patient brought in, a neighbor of hers of course which makes this personal and harder, but with her lack of education and skills, the patient is lost. Denise is of course upset and orders everyone out. Tara had to make a last jab (I felt it was) that she wanted to remind Denise to kill the patient’s brain so she wouldn’t become a walker.

I feel Rick and crew keep making this mistake. While yes Alexandria has been far more peaceful and because of that have been able to hold on to some of their innocence, that doesn’t mean they’re stupid. They have actually survived. They have killed walkers. They know how this works. They’re just allowed to leave it outside of the walls. Does that mean some of them don’t need to toughen and smarten up? Of course not, but they shouldn’t have to continually be at the end of jabs about them either. It’s hard to root for Rick and crew when they keep acting like jerks with zero chill. Alexandria isn’t bad. Rick wanted somewhere safe and he’s got it. He needs to learn to sit on the porch and watch the grass grow and when enemies come at the gate to be able to deal with them and then let that violence go. No lying, no berating, no Ricktatorship. Rick and crew act more like the wolves than they do the people, if you get my meaning and that will never work as a basis for a society.

Back to the episode, Carol finishes up killing pretty much everyone (alright others probably helped, maybe) and we see her sitting on a stoop. Her hands are shaking and she somehow has a cigarette, like she needs it to calm down. It’s a throwback to earlier in the episode when Morgan told Carol she ‘didn’t have to kill people’ and she responded with ‘of course we do.’ He then asked/told her, ‘but you don’t like it.’ Carol never answered, but we can see here, Morgan is as usual, correct. Carol is starting to crack I’m afraid. After taking out and burning the two from the prison, having to kill Lizzie, take out Terminus and now this, Carol needs a vacation from killing. We then see Carol try to wipe the ‘W’ off her forehead, but it stays on. Lingering. She’s a wolf now.

I have yet to talk about Enid. The episode started with her, a breath in between the action packed two episodes. We get back story on her finally where we learn that she had survived with her parents. Then one day her parents are killed by walkers while she is safe in the car. She is forced to watch them being eaten and is now alone. She wanders through the wilderness and she keeps writing ‘JSS’ wherever she goes. Her appearance dishevels and we see her find a turtle that she eats raw, the blood around her mouth giving her a very walker-esqe appearance. She finally reaches Alexandria and decides to go in.

It rounds out her character nicely and she is much more than Carl’s possible love interest now. At the beginning of the episode after the flashback, she had come to tell Carl goodbye. He wouldn’t let her leave due to the attack even though she didn’t seem fazed by it. She stays and helps Carl defend the house, but he loses sight of her afterwards and just finds a note that has ‘Just Survive Somehow’ on it. I don’t think Enid wanted to get close to anyone anymore. I don’t think she felt safe within Alexandria. Not because of the people, but because she doesn’t believe that society can go back the way it was before. That this is a fools dream and she won’t be around for when it crashes down. She cares about Carl and so she leaves him with the only thing she still believes in, JSS. I hope we see more of her in the future and that TWD universe treats her kindly.

The episode ends with Carl finding that note and hearing a buzzer go off. He goes into the kitchen and turns off a timer. He takes out Carol’s casserole she had first put in at the start of the episode. All that’s happened and it’s only been an hour.

I am excited to see next week’s episode. I’m hoping the walker parade will show up at Alexandria’s walls and everyone will be together again as Rick and his helpers outside catch up and realize what’s happened to Alexandria while they were gone. I want to find out more about Sasha and Abraham. They had some definite perspective changes since the season five finale and I’m hoping for some back story on that, or I’m going to feel a little bit cheated. Also Glenn, I always want to see more Glenn.

The show comes on at 9/est on AMC every Sunday. I will be live tweeting it at @quietlikeastorm. Join me and tell me your thoughts!

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