Walking Dead [Season 2, Episode 1]
What Lies Ahead
Shown 16/Oct/11
The survivors try to make their way down the highway to the next town.
Unfortunately the way is still gridlocked with vehicles abandoned by refugees.
Shaun of the Dead
let its heroes PRETEND to be zombies by walking among them
Zombieland
used the same trick, with the survivor using make-up.
And in Season One, the trick was to cover yourself in zombie gore so the others could not smell you.
But now it seems that all you have to do is hold very still and hope they do not see you move.
As long as you are not bleeding profusely, they will not pay any attention to you.
The survivors end up going cross-country.
They get broken up into smaller groups.
The children are more vulnerable than ever.
The crossbow-wielding redneck, Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
), is turning into a real team player.
The spare cop, Deputy Shane (Jon Bernthal -
Eastwick
), feels like a spare wheel and is looking to quit the team.
The blonde woman Andrea (
Laurie Holden
) wants to go with him - just to get away from the others.
Walking Dead [Season 2, Episode 2]
Bloodletting
Shown 23/Oct/11
The deputies and Otis the hunter (Pruitt Taylor Vince -
Captivity
) take the boy to a nearby farmhouse.
The good news is, Hershel (the father of the group) is a doctor of sorts.
The bad news is, he is Pa Angel from Stallone's
Judge Dredd
Movie.
He has two daughters, one of whom is Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
).
Deputy Shane (Jon Bernthal -
Eastwick
) the sidekick and Otis the hunter go to the local aid station for medical supplies.
The place is zombie central, and the foragers do not have a plan.
Do they even get an escape route sorted?
The other party get back to the road.
Token black guy's wound is infected.
Luckily, Darryl the Hillbilly (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) has medical supplies.
Once again, he saves the day.
Walking Dead [Season 2, Episode 3]
Save the Last One
Shown 30/Oct/11
Deputy Shane (Jon Bernthal -
Eastwick
) and Hunter Otis (Pruitt Taylor Vince -
Captivity
) get trapped in the High School.
Can they both get out?
Will one of them make a heroic sacrifice?
After all, it is not the zombies you need to outrun.
Darryl the redneck (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) cannot sleep, so he goes looking for the girl again.
Andrea the blonde woman (
Laurie Holden
) joins him.
She is still considering suicide.
Walking Dead [Season 2, Episode 4]
Cherokee Rose
Shown 06/Nov/11
The travellers move in with the farmers.
It might just be a temporary situation.
However, they still have to find the little girl.
Also, one Deputy has a twisted ankle and the other donated three pints of blood.
They need time to recover.
One of the farm's wells has a zombie in it.
They want to pull it out so it does not contaminate the water.
However, someone has to act as live bait.
Glen the Asian kid goes scavenging at the local pharmacists with Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
, who now has a Texan accent -
possibly she only uses the English accent when she plays a villainous character).
Walking Dead [Season 2, Episode 5]
Chupacabra
Shown 13/Nov/11
Deputy Shane (Jon Bernthal -
Eastwick
) wants to keep moving, forget about the missing child.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) goes searching again, until the horse he borrowed gets spooked.
Then he is left injured and alone.
His subconscious manifests itself in the form of his brother (Michael Rooker).
Walking Dead [Season 2, Episode 6]
Secrets
Shown 20/Nov/11
Deputy Shane (Jon Bernthal -
Eastwick
) and Andrea the blonde (
Laurie Holden
) start to bond.
They go searching for the missing girl together.
Glen the Asian kid is keeping two sets of secrets.
One woman is pregnant, and asks him to get her the Morning After pill.
Will she keep the baby?
Walking Dead [Season 2, Episode 7]
Pretty Much Dead Already
Shown 27/Nov/11
Rick the Sheriff accompanies Hershel the Doc on a trip to add more zombies to his collection.
The old man feels that a cure is possible, despite what the CDC said.
Dale takes Rick's side, and wants to get rid of the guns.
The climax answers something we have been long awaiting - guns or zombies.
This show is a drama at its heart; the conflict is internal (like
BSG 2003
), not external (like
BSG 1978
). But it is nice to be reminded of the constant threat the zombies pose.
And finally we discover what happened to the little girl.
Walking Dead [Season 2, Episode 8]
Nebraska
Shown 12/Feb/12
Hershel is distraught after the events at the barn.
He goes into town to drown his sorrows.
Sheriff Egg and Glenn the scavenger go looking for him.
They discover that they may not be the only survivors,
and that the Walking Dead may not be the only threat.
On the bright side, there may be a colony of survivors in Nebraska.
Big, wide open spaces, and everyone has a gun.
Walking Dead [Season 2, Episode 9]
Triggerfinger
Shown 19/Feb/12
Sheriff Egg and his companions are trapped in a bar they were trying to loot.
Gun-toting rednecks have them penned in, and the gunshots have attracted zombies.
Elsewhere, Egg's wife Lori (
Sarah Jane Callies
) has crashed her car and is vulnerable to passing zombies.
Egg's sidekick Deputy Shane (Jon Bernthal -
Eastwick
) is willing to do unscrupulous things to protect her, and her unborn child.
Walking Dead [Season 2, Episode 10]
18 Miles Out
Shown 26/Feb/12
The ep starts with a phony cliffhanger,
then reverts back to several hours earlier to show us the setup for the climax.
Egg and his sidekick Deputy Shane (Jon Bernthal -
Eastwick
) take their prisoner to a distant location
where they will let him go ... or murder him.
There is much discussion on the subject,
along with other topics of debate
between Egg and the buddy who left him for dead and then banged his wife Lori (
Sarah Jane Callies
).
Their concern about the prisoner is actually a good point.
Winter is closing in,
and if the survivors can scavenge enough supplies
they should probably outlive most of the zombies.
When Spring arrives, about 28 weeks after the initial outbreak,
the greatest threat in the post-Apocalyptic era will be rival human scavengers.
The wives are at the country house, where they have joined a couple of new girls.
Yep, women can join Egg's harem but new men are not welcome.
Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
, best known as Bella from
Supernatural
) is the level-headed one, while her younger sister (
Emily Kinney
) is suicidal.
And Egg's wife Lori has very traditional views on the division of labour -
she berates Andrea (
Laurie Holden
) for standing guard with the men, not doing domestic chores with the women.
Walking Dead [Season 2, Episode 11]
Judge, Jury, Executioner
Shown 04/Mar/12
The young yokel is back in custody, as releasing him seems out of the question.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) decides to torture him for info.
The Sheriff's son Carl is turning into a child soldier,
brutalised by the constant violence.
Dale is the only one who thinks that murder is bad.
Walking Dead [Season 2, Episode 12]
Better Angels
Shown 11/Mar/12
Sheriff Egg decides to fortify the farmhouse for the winter.
The zombies will come knocking sooner or later.
And any gunshots will attract them.
Deputy Shane (Jon Bernthal -
Eastwick
) decides to make a play of his own.
He sneaks the prisoner into the woods, supposedly so he can join the brigands.
Then Egg, Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and Glenn start to search the woods.
But the real discovery they make concerns the nature of the zombie infection itself!
Walking Dead [Season 2, Episode 13]
Beside the Dying Fire
Shown 18/Mar/12
After last ep, a horde of zombies are on the loose.
They overrun the farm, causing a hasty withdrawal.
The group takes losses.
This makes a climactic end to the Season.
But it also sets up the next Season,
by introducing aspects from the comic series that have yet to be explored.
Walking Dead [Season 3, Episode 1]
Seed
Shown 14/Oct/12
The survivors are running low on supplies.
They seem to have driven in a large circle for the last few months,
and arrive at an abandoned prison.
The natural idea is to copy
Dawn of the Dead
by securing the building,
then taking zombies out one room at a time.
Elsewhere, Andrea (
Laurie Holden
) is still alive.
She has teamed up with the mysterious woman who saved her.
Walking Dead [Season 3, Episode 2]
Sick
Shown 21/Oct/12
The survivors encounter a small band of convicts,
who survived by being locked in the canteen for 292 days.
But are these potentially violent offenders trustworthy?
Or are Rick and his men becoming like the Brigands -
willing to kill other survivors merely because it is convenient?
Rick's son Carl is approaching puberty,
and begins pushing boundaries.
He goes foraging by himself,
confident because he can take out the occasional solitary walker.
But his overconfidence may end up getting him in trouble.
Worse, he rebels against his mother's overprotectiveness.
Walking Dead [Season 3, Episode 3]
Walk with Me
Shown 28/Oct/12
After missing her for an ep,
we catch up with Andrea (
Laurie Holden
) and her new friend, Michonne.
They are taken in by the Governor (David Morrissey -
The Reaping
) and an old acquaintance ...
Michonne is suspicious of the strangers -
but then, she is not a very trusting person.
Does the Governor have a deep, dark secret?
Of course!
The real question is ... is there only one secret?
Walking Dead [Season 3, Episode 4]
Killer Within
Shown 04/Nov/12
The prison is overrun with zombies again.
These are not convicts - they are outsiders,
let in because a saboteur deliberately opened a gate.
Worse, the alarm system is activated,
summoning even more zombies.
Rick and the others fight their way through the labyrinth of corridors
to find and disable the emergency generator.
Rick's wife Lori (
Sarah Jane Callies
) is heavily pregnant.
She must have an emergency c-section.
In Woodbury, Michonne wants to leave ASAP.
But Andrea (
Laurie Holden
) is warming up to the Governor (David Morrissey -
The Reaping
). Even Merle (Michael Rooker -
) is less of an asshole than he used to be.
Walking Dead [Season 3, Episode 5]
Say the Word
Shown 11/Nov/12
Michonne's paranoia about the Governor (David Morrissey -
The Reaping
) and his men leads to a confrontation.
Will she be allowed to leave?
Will Andrea (
Laurie Holden
) choose her or the Governor (David Morrissey -
The Reaping
)?
Back in the Prison,
Rick's psychosis leads him to clear out the Walkers single-handed.
The convicts help dig the graves, while Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) takes Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) scavenging for baby supplies.
Walking Dead [Season 3, Episode 6]
Hounded
Shown 18/Nov/12
Last week the Governor (David Morrissey -
The Reaping
) had Merle (Michael Rooker) release Michonne.
But it was all a ploy - Merle and a trio of goons are now out to hunt her down.
Unfortunately for them,
she uses her Ninja skills to solve her problems.
Back in the town, Andrea (
Laurie Holden
) comes to terms with how she feels about the Governor.
Rick has to come to terms with what has happened.
He talks to the voices on the phone,
but they may not have the answers he wants to hear.
Walking Dead [Season 3, Episode 7]
When the Dead Come Knocking
Shown 25/Nov/12
Glenn the Asian kid and Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) the farm-girl are interrogated by Merle.
He is a ruthless son of a bitch, but his methods are amateurish.
Michonne offers to take Rick and Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) to save the others.
She does not bother to mention Merle (Michael Rooker -
) or Andrea (
Laurie Holden
).
Walking Dead [Season 3, Episode 8]
Made to Suffer
Shown 02/Dec/12
Rick and the others stage a rescue mission.
They are armed with M-16 assault rifles and smoke grenades.
They have to shoot their way out,
but at least they use decent small unit tactics (like in Heat).
Michonne goes after the Governor (David Morrissey -
The Reaping
). She uncovers his nasty little secrets,
and he is left the worse for wear.
But the attack will have consequences,
for the Governor's wrath is a terrible thing.
Walking Dead [Season 3, Episode 9]
The Suicide King
Shown 10/Feb/13
The Governor (David Morrissey -
The Reaping
) makes Merle (Michael Rooker -
) and Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) fight to the death.
Walking Dead [Season 3, Episode 10]
Home
Shown 17/Feb/13
The Governor (David Morrissey -
The Reaping
) tells Andrea (
Laurie Holden
) he will not retaliate against Rick's group.
But can he be taken at his word?
Rick wanders off, seeing Lori's ghost.
This leaves Glenn the Korean kid trying to keep things under control.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and Merle (Michael Rooker) are wandering in the forest,
The newcomer group are all gone, which is a dumb move on Rick's part
considering they need the extra manpower to cover the broken perimeter.
The only question is, when will the next attack on the prison happen?
Walking Dead [Season 3, Episode 11]
I Ain’t A Judas
Shown 24/Feb/13
Andrea (
Laurie Holden
) visits the Prison.
And the Governor (David Morrissey -
The Reaping
) has some visitors himself.
Walking Dead [Season 3, Episode 12]
Clear
Shown 03/Mar/13
Rick decides to arm up, before the Governor (David Morrissey -
The Reaping
) attacks.
The best place to get a stockpile of weapons is from his old police station.
So he takes Carl and Michonne on a road trip.
Our merry band of survivors are not the only humans left alive.
They spot a hitch-hiker on the road.
Somehow, without weapons or backup, he managed to survive.
Of course, our heroes do not trust strangers
so they leave him to his fate.
The last time Rick was in town,
the only other living humans there were Morgan (Lennie James -
Jericho
) and his son.
Whatever could have happened to them?
Walking Dead [Season 3, Episode 13]
Arrow on the Doorpost
Shown 10/Mar/13
The Governor (David Morrissey -
The Reaping
) holds a sit-down with Rick.
But will he set reasonable conditions,
and can he be trusted to uphold them?
Walking Dead [Season 3, Episode 14]
Prey
Shown 17/Mar/13
Andrea (
Laurie Holden
) tries to escape the Governor (David Morrissey -
The Reaping
). He comes after her by himself.
And he is a tougher son of a bitch than anyone thought.
Walking Dead [Season 3, Episode 15]
This Sorrowful Life
Shown 24/Mar/13
Rick plans to hand Michonne over.
He has made some tough decisions - will he go through with it?
Merle (Michael Rooker) has plans of his own.
Walking Dead [Season 3, Episode 16]
Welcome to the Tombs
Shown 31/Mar/13
The Governor (David Morrissey -
The Reaping
) decides to throw EVERYTHING he has against the prison.
He is pretty much insane by this stage,
so it is not a good idea to be near him.
Andrea (
Laurie Holden
) is still a prisoner.
Will she escape before a biter gets her?
Walking Dead [Season 4, Episode 1]
30 Days Without an Accident
Shown 13/Oct/13
The group are adapting as well as they can.
They now have a ruling council, while Rick has tried to become a pig-farmer.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) takes a unit out foraging.
Animals in the forest are falling ill, as does Rick's pig.
One of the humans starts showing symptoms.
Walking Dead [Season 4, Episode 2]
Infected
Shown 20/Oct/13
A lethal epidemic has started in the prison.
And when a person dies, they become a zombie.
The way to get around this is to stab the infected in the head before they can turn.
Walking Dead [Season 4, Episode 3]
Isolation
Shown 27/Oct/13
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) leads a unit of foragers to find some medical supplies.
The sick have been segregated, but nobody in the prison is safe.
Walking Dead [Season 4, Episode 4]
Indifference
Shown 03/Nov/13
Rick and Carol go out looking for Daryl's foraging group.
They meet a couple of delightful young hippies, one of whom is Robin Lord Taylor (
Gotham
).
Walking Dead [Season 4, Episode 5]
Internment
Shown 10/Nov/13
The fences are near breaking point - literally.
Rick and his son have to hold off an invading herd of walkers.
Walking Dead [Season 4, Episode 6]
Live Bait
Shown 17/Nov/13
The Governor (David Morrissey -
The Reaping
) is abandoned by his surviving followers.
He wanders around on foot, until he is taken in by a couple of attractive young women ...
Walking Dead [Season 4, Episode 7]
Dead Weight
Shown 24/Nov/13
The Governor (David Morrissey -
The Reaping
) and his new-found friends learn that there are scavengers in the area,
killing off other groups of survivors.
Their camp will not be secure,
so the Governor suggests they take the prison.
All they have to do is kill Rick and the others.
Walking Dead [Season 4, Episode 8]
Too Far Gone
Shown 01/Dec/13
The Governor (David Morrissey -
The Reaping
) leads his new army against the Prison.
But if they penetrate the perimeter fence,
the security of the complex will be compromised
and it will be un-livable again.
The group's morality in in question.
Carl got his gun confiscated for executing one of the Governor's soldiers last time.
But we get a couple more cold-blooded killings this time.
The plan to sit out the winter and let the Walkers die from the cold may not work.
One of them has been buried for a reasonable amount of time, and is still dangerous.
Walking Dead [Season 4, Episode 9]
After ...
Shown 09/Feb/14
Michonne is back on her own, and goes back to her solo survivor tactics.
Unfortunately, she still feels the loss of her friends.
She starts to have flashbacks to her old life,
but is nearer to a breakdown than ever.
Rick and Carl manage to find a nice suburban house to crash in.
Unfortunately, Rick has come down with the flu
and may soon become one of the Walking Dead himself.
Carl is straining at the leash,
blaming his dad for everything that went wrong.
But can the kid manage to do things without getting himself killed?
Walking Dead [Season 4, Episode 10]
Inmates
Shown 16/Feb/14
The four-act structure allows the viewers ten minutes with each group of survivors.
Please note, they are not necessarily in chronological order
so the characters may not survive the episode.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) is looking after Maggie's sister (
Emily Kinney
).
Tyrese (the Token Black Guy) and the gun-toting children try to keep the baby safe.
Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) and a couple of other survivors go looking for the bus.
Glen wakes up, and teams up with the cop girl, Tara (
Alanna Masterson
).
Walking Dead [Season 4, Episode 11]
Claimed
Shown 23/Feb/14
Carl the kid and Michonne go exploring.
While Rick the Sheriff holds the house, it is invaded by Jeff Kober (
Buffy: Season 6
) and his gang of cut-throat survivalists.
Glen meets a team who want to get a scientist to DC.
He does not mention his trip to the CDC, or the info that Rick got there.
Walking Dead [Season 4, Episode 12]
Still
Shown 02/Mar/14
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and the blonde girl (
Emily Kinney
) hide out in a disused Golf Club.
This is a great piece of character drama, and Norman Reedus (
Boondock Saints
) really steals the show.
Reedus is not the only amazing actor in the episode.
The blonde girl is a teenager,
but like most teenage characters in US High School shows
the actress who plays her is really a decade older.
The thing is, this actress is actually convincing!
Walking Dead [Season 4, Episode 13]
Alone
Shown 09/Mar/14
Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) wants to go to the Terminus,
because she realises Glenn may be going there too.
The others are divided as to whether this is a good idea or not.
Would they be better to find a tall building in a town?
After all, a building would take a lot of work to clear and secure?
Also, towns are full of zombies and easy targets for brigands.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and the blonde girl Beth (
Emily Kinney
) hide out in a disused Funeral Home.
They start to slack off, which is never a good thing.
Jeff Kober (
Buffy: Season 6
) and his band of merry men make an appearance at the end.
About time we finally saw them.
Are they the same gang the heroes were hiding from in Season Two?
Walking Dead [Season 4, Episode 14]
The Grove
Shown 16/Mar/14
Tyrese, Carol and the children are following the train tracks.
They discover an abandoned house, out in the woods.
It is an idyllic setting,
but this only makes the events seem so much worse.
Even after the Governor's attack on the prison,
and everything that preceeded it,
this has got to be the bleakest episode so far.
Walking Dead [Season 4, Episode 15]
Us
Shown 23/Mar/14
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) manages to get along with the other hunters.
Well, most of them, anyway.
One of them takes every opportunity to bait him.
And only one will survive ...
Glenn and his companions come to a railway tunnel.
But there is no light at the end of it -
only the hissing and snarling of walking corpses.
Glen and the rookie cop girl Tara (
Alanna Masterson
) try to risk it, because Glen is in such a hurry to find Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
). The others prefer to go back and try the long way round.
Walking Dead [Season 4, Episode 16]
A
Shown 30/Mar/14
Rick, Carl and Michonne are still following the tracks.
But Jeff Kober (
Buffy: Season 6
) and his gang are still out for payback.
The survivors head to Terminus.
It is run by the friendly-looking Andrew J. West (
Once Upon A Time: Season 7
). But is it too good to be true?
Rick's gang in the prison took in strangers,
but so did the Governor (David Morrissey -
The Reaping
) in Woodbury.
Walking Dead [Season 5, Episode 1]
No Sanctuary
Shown 12/Oct/14
The show takes up where it left off at the end of last Season.
Most of the survivors of the Prison are together again.
We even get to see the blond-haired Robin Lord Taylor (
Gotham
), last seen in
Walking Dead [Season 4, Episode 4] Indifference
. However, that is the good news.
They are in a tight spot.
And when they discover the true purpose of Terminus,
it looks like things cannot get any worse.
While Terminus seems to have impregnable defences,
it turns out that a single person can take them out in a few minutes.
Seriously, despite a lack of planning or backup
the main threat is over by the end of the episode.
However, the get the nerd to Washington DC plot is still alive.
Walking Dead [Season 5, Episode 2]
Strangers
Shown 19/Oct/14
The survivors are on the road again, looking for shelter and supplies.
They rescue a man dressed like a preacher,
who claims he survived by locking himself in the church
with a stack of supplies from the canned food drive.
However, Rick has his doubts about the man.
He is Seth Gilliam, the vet from
Teen Wolf
, so he is helpful ... too damn helpful!
The Military man wants the group to go to DC to end the virus.
Can he persuade the others to join him?
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) still wants to track down the mysterious black car that abducted the girl.
But what are the chances of it driving past
while he is near a car that is fuelled up and ready to give chase?
Finally, nobody has given a second thought to Andrew J. West (
Once Upon A Time: Season 7
) and the survivors from Terminus.
They did not finish the last ones off,
or even disguise their own trail to prevent anyone from stalking them.
Walking Dead [Season 5, Episode 3]
Four Walls and a Roof
Shown 26/Oct/14
Rick’s team know something is wrong – three of them have not come back.
They interrogate the preacher (Seth Gilliam -
Teen Wolf
), but after the previous episode it is obvious that his sins are unrelated to this.
The military man wants to go straight to DC,
risking everything in the darkness despite not knowing the enemy’s disposition.
Rick prefers to risk everything on a pre-emptive strike on the enemy’s camp,
despite the enemy knowing a lot more about his forces’ disposition than he knows about the enemy’s.
Walking Dead [Season 5, Episode 4]
Slabtown
Shown 02/Nov/14
We get to find out what happened to the blonde girl Beth (
Emily Kinney
) after she got separated from Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
). One of the other inmates – oops, interns – is the young boy from
Lost
. He is all grown up now, but wants to get out and find his father.
The city folk are civilised, led by cops and including a doctor amongst their number.
But while they appear much nicer than the Terminus folks,
there is a nasty undercurrent of fear present.
Keisha Castle-Hughes
tries to kill herself, apparently because she was mistreated by one of the cops.
The story runs parallel to the entire terminus plotline.
As a result, the ep’s ending comes after Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and Carol started chasing the patrol car.
Walking Dead [Season 5, Episode 5]
The Choice AKA Self Help
Shown 09/Nov/14
Since the survivors have split into three groups, this episode features the third
– Glenn and the team heading for Washington DC.
The bus gets fifteen miles up the road before it crashes.
Any survivors have to fight their way through the nearby walking dead.
The flashbacks are of the military guy Abraham, trying to survive and protect his family.
Unfortunately his violent nature, so useful at defending them from zombies and brigands,
scares them and drives them away.
The wind changes, and they smell something horrible in front of them.
Like thousands of zombies, all coming towards them.
Of course, the military guy insists they keep going towards the zombies.
He has no plan, no super-weapon, just a blind insistence that they keep going.
He is going to get someone killed.
Walking Dead [Season 5, Episode 6]
Heart Drift AKA Consumed
Shown 16/Nov/14
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and Carol get to the Big City, but their car runs out of gas
before they can find out where the white-cross cars are coming from.
They run into a straggler, who steals their weapons.
However, they have the skills to survive in the city.
If only they had the skills to spot a tail and avoid an ambush,
they would have had an easier time of it.
The ep ends where two of the previous episodes ended.
Hopefully this will bring together three of the four plot threads.
Walking Dead [Season 5, Episode 7]
Crossed
Shown 23/Nov/14
Rick and the team head off to the big city.
He leaves Michonne to look after Carl and the Reverend (Seth Gilliam -
Teen Wolf
). Unfortunately, the Reverend seems to have ideas of his own.
The bloodstains all over his smashed-up church have not improved his state of mind.
Rick has a plan – a sneak attack on the Hospital, inflicting multiple fatalities on the cops.
The others offer a different plan – kidnap a couple of cops,
then do a hostage exchange.
We see the results of a napalm attack on zombies in a previous battle.
Glenn and the others have no viable transportation.
Worse, with one of their number concussed and possibly with spinal damage, they cannot move him.
Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) stands guard while Glenn and the other two girls go looking for fresh water.
Walking Dead [Season 5, Episode 8]
Coda
Shown 30/Nov/14
Rick and the team finally stage the hostage exchange.
Will it go well? Do they all get to live happily ever after?
On a completely different show, perhaps.
The Reverend (Seth Gilliam -
Teen Wolf
) realises the mistake he has made by leaving the sanctuary of the church.
Can he get back to it before he gets eaten?
Will Michonne and Carl let him in?
Will the Church itself get overrun?
Walking Dead [Season 5, Episode 9]
What Happened and What's Going On
Shown 08/Feb/15
The crew find the black kid's home, a suburban fortress that was overrun.
It is full of walking dead now,
but someone smashed the rear wall in.
Yes, it was human brigands who did the real damage.
This ep is from Tyrese's perspective.
He has been a supporting character for a couple of Seasons now,
but he gets a lot more to do this time.
Walking Dead [Season 5, Episode 10]
Them
Shown 15/Feb/15
Rick and the others are on their last legs.
They are caught in a heatwave, with no water supply.
Rick gives a rousing speach, pointing out the fact that
the survivors can only continue if the regard themselves as being The Walking Dead ...
Someone leaves a pile of water bottles on the road.
Is Morgan (Lennie James -
Jericho
) finally going to join the group for good?
Walking Dead [Season 5, Episode 11]
The Distance
Shown 22/Feb/15
The newcomer, Aaron, is taken captive by Rick’s gang.
They frisk him, search his bag and interrogate him.
However, his story remains straight.
He claims to represent a community of survivors,
and he offers Rick’s group sanctuary.
After Woodsboro and Terminus, Rick and the others are less than trusting.
Rick decides to do the opposite of everything Aaron suggests.
Instead of taking the safe and predictable route,
Rick decides to drive along the zombie-infested back-roads.
Instead of going by daylight, when you can see the zombies before you run into them,
Rick decides to drive at night with the lights off.
What is unusual about this episode is that,
half way through the fifth season,
we finally have the first openly homosexual characters!
Walking Dead [Season 5, Episode 12]
Remember
Shown 01/Mar/15
Rick and the others arrive at the settlement.
They meet a few of the locals, including the lady who runs things.
Carl tries to mix with kids his own age,
but he has nothing in common with them.
All except a mysterious girl, who survived alone on the outside for months alone.
Glenn goes on patrol with the locals.
Unfortunately, they are sloppy and tend to play stupid games with the zombies.
Walking Dead [Season 5, Episode 13]
Forget
Shown 08/Mar/15
Carol has a plan to get hold of some pistols, just in case things turn bad.
This involves breaking into the house where the chocolate is hidden.
Will she get distracted? Will it all go wrong?
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) goes out hunting.
He bumps into the recruiter, and they go hunting together.
Hunting for a horse, to be specific.
The recruiter has special plans for Darryl, too.
Walking Dead [Season 5, Episode 14]
Spend
Shown 15/Mar/15
Rick investigates his first big case – the mystery of the smashed-up owl sculpture.
It is property of
Alexandra Breckenridge
, the nice lady who did Rick’s laundry,
who is married to the suspicious doctor and is mother to the annoying brat.
The brat is also a partner in crime of Carol’s – after all, someone has to steal chocolate for her.
She was a mother and a battered wife, so she sees things that others might miss.
Abraham the big lumberjack earns a promotion.
The preacher (Seth Gilliam -
Teen Wolf
) has a crisis of faith,
and takes it upon himself to undermine the mayor's faith in Rick's group.
The Mayor's son and his sidekick lead a mission to get new processors for the electricity generator.
They discover a fenced-in area with some zombies in it,
but do not bother to kill the monsters when they have the chance.
Walking Dead [Season 5, Episode 15]
Try
Shown 22/Mar/15
The Lady Mayor is grieving at the loss of her incompetent son,
but she is also beginning to show hostility towards the newcomers.
Rick uses the chain of command, and tells the Lady Mayor about the wife-beater.
She knows everything (after all, she is good at reading people), but does not care.
After all, they only have one doctor and no death penalty.
Rick then takes it upon himself to confront the suspect.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and his fellow recruiter discover a campsite, and signs of cannibalism.
This is the very reason that exiling people is a bad idea.
The marauders are killing others survivors, and carving a W into their foreheads.
Sasha spent the night on overwatch,
but when her 12-hour shift ended she went hunting in the woods.
Walking Dead [Season 5, Episode 16]
Conquer
Shown 29/Mar/15
Morgan (Lennie James –
Jericho
) is on Rick’s trail again.
Somehow he has walked all the way from Georgia to Virginia,
probably a thousand miles.
Now he runs into trouble.
But somehow he became an expert at Bo-Jutsu (quarter-staff fighting).
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and the other recruiter discover a warehouse full of food.
But as always in this show, things are bound to go wrong for them.
Rick is in solitary.
The Senator lady wants a public debate on what to do with him.
Her gun-control policy (in the middle of a zombie apocalypse!)
takes precedence over wife-beating and other forms of disorder.
The climax involves three storylines intertwining.
Glenn follows the annoying guy into the woods,
unaware that the creep has a pistol to go along with his grudge.
Sasha the sniper girl, suffering PTSD since the death of her brother,
seeks help from the preacher (Seth Gilliam -
Teen Wolf
) – who has also got PTSD.
Finally, Rick wants to confront the Senator lady
– but the compound has been invaded by zombies!
Walking Dead [Season 6, Episode 1]
First Time Again (90 min)
Shown 11 Oct 15
The new Season starts by dropping us right into the action.
There is an enormous quarry filled with zombies, and they are about to break free.
Rick has a plan to lure them all away from the sanctuary.
The exact plan is not explained to us,
we are left to work it out for ourselves as the plot hurtles along at breakneck speed.
In a series of flashbacks,
We are given exposition that covers the time period between
the arrival of Morgan (Lennie James –
Jericho
) and current events.
To simplify things for viewers the flashbacks are monochrome,
unlike the flashback segments in
Lost
less than a decade ago.
It looks like visual storytelling has taken a major step backwards
in the last few years.
Rick is now grudgingly accepted as the protector of the self-sustaining suburb.
The villainous or incompetent characters who were responsible for events
in last Season’s climax have apparently been more or less forgiven.
A new antagonist appears this episode – Ethan Embry,
who exists merely to disagree with everything Rick says.
He has been molly-coddled by the sanctuary for far too long,
and finds Rick’s methods too extreme for comfort.
How long will it take the suburbanites to grow up
and realise the hell that they are living in?
Unfortunately, there is something they forgot about.
Morgan does not seem to have told them about the two Wolves he met in the woods.
Walking Dead [Season 6, Episode 2]
JSS
Shown 18 Oct 15
Carol and the other women try to get some domestic chores sorted out.
Unfortunately this is the day that Rick tries to reroute the Walker army,
so the regulars (AKA most of the combat characters) are out of town.
The Wolves (the villains who were foreshadowed in the previous Season)
have returned, and in greater numbers than before!
The good news is, the Wolves do not use the foghorn from the previous episode
to deliberately summon the walkers.
However, the onslaught is murderously swift.
The only one who can defend the entire camp is Carol,
who rescued the entire group from Terminus with minimum of effort.
The episode takes place in real time,
with the attack happening within the time it takes to cook a casserole.
Walking Dead [Season 6, Episode 3]
Thank You
Shown 25 Oct 15
Back on the open road, the herd has begun to disperse.
Rick has to divide his forces immediately to contain the situation.
The car crew and Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) must lead the main herd away.
Rick will go back and get the caravanette.
Michonne and Glenn must take the rookie crew back towards the sanctuary,
and delay or divert the herd back on track.
Naturally, the rookies start to get picked off one at a time.
But the regular team are also vulnerable.
Walking Dead [Season 6, Episode 4]
Here's Not Here
Shown 01 Nov 15
Morgan (Lenny James –
Jericho
) bookends a flashback episode where we see how he transformed
from the angry gun-toting psycho of previous Seasons
to the serene stick-fighting master we know him as today.
Morgan encountered a man named Eastman,
a serene and monk-like man who lived a life of simple contemplation.
Eventually, Eastman brings Morgan around to his way of thinking.
They have a lot in common, more than one might assume at first glance.
The standout performance of the show is from Eastman.
Despite playing against type (he is best known as a rent-a-villain)
he is able to hold his own in dramatic performance against Lennie James,
who is probably the best actor to have ever appeared on the TV show.
Walking Dead [Season 6, Episode 5]
Now
Shown 08 Nov 15
The inhabitants of Alexandria have to get used to living in a post-Apocalyptic universe.
They think that recent events are the end of the world -
but for everyone else, the world ended over a year ago and they have already adjusted.
The fat double-chinned people decide to loot the food stores,
risking a winner-takes-all situation that would ultimately
force everyone to fight to the death for a few scraps of food.
Luckily the Lady Mayor has a few loyal supporters who are willing to stand up and keep order.
She is still in a state of shock herself, and cannot function as a leader.
Glenn has still not returned or signalled.
Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) wants to go after him, and plans to do it alone.
Aaron the gay dude, despite having a spouse of his own, decides to go with her.
He shows her a secret sally port, via the storm drains.
Unfortunately this means an encounter with
two of the most disgustingly decomposed zombies we have ever seen.
This raises the question, just how long will it take for the zombie horde to decompose naturally
to a level where they are no longer a threat to anyone?
Walking Dead [Season 6, Episode 6]
Always Accountable
Shown 15 Nov 15
While Rick was dodging Walkers and the others were fighting the Wolves,
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and the car crew kept leading the walker herd away.
Unfortunately they run into a few car-loads of gun-toting idiots.
Our heroes shoot their way out of the ambush, but they get separated.
Sasha and Abraham the lumberjack find a secure location, but Darryl is on his own.
Darryl bumps into some civilians in the woods.
They are on the run from the gun crew, and they think he is one of them.
Can he convince the strangers to team up with him?
Walking Dead [Season 6, Episode 7]
Heads Up
Shown 22 Nov 15
Less than a day has passed from the opening scene at the start of the Season.
We have seen the same events from the perspectives of a number of different characters.
Now we see the consequences of the Wolves raid and the Walker Herd’s rerouting.
Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) was unable to find out what happened to Glenn,
but the teenage JSS girl is already outside the walls.
She goes looking for the aftermath of the botched re-routing.
The sanctuary is surrounded, and the Walker crush is growing.
Rick suggests getting someone over the wall,
off to find a car and draw some of the walkers away.
But nobody bothers to formulate a plan and get organised.
The teenage son of
Alexandra Breckenridge
gets Rick to show him how to use a gun. The youngster is obsessive,
and Rick seems to sense that something is off about him.
Will the boy attempt to take some kind of revenge on Rick or Carl?
Walking Dead [Season 6, Episode 8]
Start To Finish
Shown 29 Nov 15
The younger son of
Alexandra Breckenridge
is still a little mommy's boy, who hides in his bedroom to escape the real world.
Presumably he never watched scary movies,
played with army toys or aspired to any form of masculinity.
He leaves his dinner un-eaten, and it gets swarmed by ants.
This is a nice metaphor, because the suburb itself is now overrun by the mega-herd.
To get some phony jeopardy, when confronted with shambling slow-moving zombies our heroes all trip and fall.
They get split up into different groups.
Poor Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) is stuck up on the fence's watch-tower.
Deanna, the Mayor of Sanctuary, gets injured while helping Rick.
She has a circular pattern of teeth-marks on her flank.
Everyone assumes it is a zombie bite, and she starts to show symptoms.
However, they could just be psychosomatic;
we the audience saw her fall onto the teeth of a circular saw.
Will she shoot herself, or will she forget to save the last bullet?
Morgan (Lenny James –
Jericho
) and Carol get stuck in the same house as the Wolf prisoner.
They have the inevitable violent confrontation.
Carol is intent on killing him, and she will risk killing anyone who gets in her way.
This is all counter-productive - she may become a bigger killer than the Wolf.
Carl has to deal with the teenage git.
Is he the old Carl who shot the Governor's soldier in cold blood,
or is he mature and forgiving like Glenn?
And worse, is the younger kid an even bigger liability than the teenager?
In the after-credits sequence, we see what happened to Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
), Sasha and Abraham the big guy.
There is a biker gang on the loose.
Walking Dead [Season 6, Episode 9]
No Way Out
Shown 14 Feb 16
In the pre-credits sequence, we see what happened to Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
), Sasha and the big guy when they met the biker gang.
Darryl's crossbow is gone, but he has a new signature weapon!
Since the previous episode was the mid-Season finale,
it ended on a number of cliffhangers.
The younger son of
Alexandra Breckenridge
is haunted by Carol's threat of feeding him to the walkers.
His brother still wants to kill Rick and Carl.
In fact, the whole family is dead weight.
Will they all live happily ever after?
With Alexandria overrun and occupied by the Walking Dead,
will the survivors be able to retake their town?
Well, Rick starts by doing a one-man slash-and-stab attack on the horde.
Luckily someone else has a plan involving a lake of gasoline.
Walking Dead [Season 6, Episode 10]
The Next World
Shown 21 Feb 16
It is two months since the events of the previous episode.
Alexandria has been cleared up since the zombie invasion,
and Neegan's crew have not been seen since the incident with the rocket-launcher.
Michonne stands guard,
and she sees Spencer walk into the woods with a shovel.
Carl and the teenage girl are also going walkabout in the woods.
Strange how this show tends to pair off the survivors,
no matter how much the couples fail to excude any chemistry together.
Rick and Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) go on a scavenging trip together.
They find a truck loaded with food and supplies - just what they need.
However, on the way home they get distracted.
They run into a long-haired beardy white man,
but that is all he has in common with Jesus (except for his nickname).
The result is a Butch Cassiday and the Sundance Kid series of scenes.
Jesus is a real bag of tricks,
and the dynamic duo get easily distracted instead of getting the truck home ASAP.
Walking Dead [Season 6, Episode 11]
Knots Untie
Shown 28 Feb 16
Abraham wants to keep patrolling with Sasha.
However, she decides to swap with Eugene instead.
Also, Abraham is still in a relationship with the Latina girl.
This episode focuses on his personal problems,
and as we all know that means he will end up in mortal jeopardy.
Jesus scopes out the layout of Alexandria,
and realises that the locals might be suitable to trade with his own settlement.
He leads Rick and a group of Rick's friends to his home,
a Virginia mansion House with a colonial stockade fence.
The locals have a blacksmith who makes spears and daggers,
but they seem to be living a medieval existence.
The good news is, they are successful at growing crops.
The bad news is, they have few medical supplies and no real weapons.
The good news is, this makes them a great trading partner for Alexandria.
The local boss, Gregory (Xander Berkley -
Barb Wire
), is a tough negotiator.
However, he has other problems.
The villainous Neegan is extorting half the settlement's food and supplies.
Worse, his own guards seem unwilling to protect him,
and even threaten Rick and his crew when they help out.
Are these iron-age farmers more trouble than they are worth?
Walking Dead [Season 6, Episode 12]
Not Tomorrow Yet
Shown 06 Mar 16
Carol goes back to baking cookies.
She is the deadliest killer of the bunch,
but now we see a more vulnerable side to her.
It seems like the whole homemaker act is just a charade,
to cover the toll that the incredible strain is taking on her.
Rick puts his plan into action.
Well, perhaps the word plan is an overstatement.
He leads his team to attach the enemy bunker.
It is reasonably well-guarded and well-defended.
However, Rick's team are equipped for both silent killing and a noisy shootout.
They even display some basic skills at the start,
although they are basically a bunch of bumling amateurs.
The main problem is, Rick has not taken a few things into account.
He makes no allowance for perimeter patrols or other enemy forces.
As a result, the episode ends on a brutal cliffhanger.
Walking Dead [Season 6, Episode 13]
The Same Boat
Shown 13 Mar 16
We take up where the previous episode left off.
Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) and Carol are in the hands of Paula (
Alicia Witt
) and her crew. As the episode develops,
we discover that the captors are mirror versions of the prisoners.
After all, Rick's crew have started to make a few dubious decisions.
If Maggie and Carol had met Neegan before Rick,
perhaps the positions would have been reversed.
Carol seems to be suffering a mild case of PTSD.
This becomes apparent when we learn that her counterpart,
Paula, is okay with all the human kills she has made.
And Maggie does not make things better.
Maggie is always looking for a fight,
charging into danger and never watching Carol's back.
As a result, Carol is dragged along into danger
and left exposed as a result.
Small wonder that Carol has to get her hands bloody,
cleaning up Maggie's mess all the time.
Walking Dead [Season 6, Episode 14]
Twice as Far
Shown 20 Mar 16
A few days or weeks seem to have passed since the events of the previous two episodes.
Once again, the Alexandria people have fallen into a malaise of laxity.
They have a few people on guard,
and a crew is repairing the damaged perimeter wall.
However, they seem to have forgotten that they are now at war with Neegan's well-trained army.
Eugene takes Abraham on an excursion.
He has a plan to start industrialising Alexandria,
to make it more self-sufficient - especially in terms of defence.
At least someone is doing some thinking.
However, Eugene also feels the need to declare his personal self-reliance.
This will come back to bite him, so to speak.
The town medic asks Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and the Latina soldier to accompany her
on a scavenger run to get pharmaceuticals.
The road is blocked, so they decide to go for a walk.
Naturally they show no situational awareness,
and leave themselves open to all kinds of potential ambush.
The medic repeatedly wanders off by herself,
as if she is deliberately looking for trouble.
The episode's theme is to give is two background characters,
Eugene and the Medic, the chance to make the audience care about them.
In television shows such as
Lost
, this method of storytelling is used to make us care about a character
so that their death has more emotional impact.
Since there are two potential victims in this episode,
it is obvious that the writers are aware of this trope.
Speaking of tropes,
remember the way that when a character delivers a long-winded monologue
while standing on railroad tracks it means that they will get hit by a train?
There is a good side to this all.
Several episodes ago, Darryl got his motorbike back.
Now he discovers what happened to his crossbow too.
He reflects to Carol on how he should have killed the strangers before they robbed him.
In contrast, Morgan (Lennie James -
Jericho
) has turned his own basement into a professional-looking jail cell
so they do not have to summarily execute all their prisoners next time.
Will Carol choose to keep being a killer?
Walking Dead [Season 6, Episode 15]
East
Shown 27 Mar 16
Carol goes walkabout.
Rick and Morgan (Lennie James -
Jericho
) go looking for her.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) also goes walkabout.
Glenn and a couple of others go looking for him.
It is obvious where he is going -
to get revenge on the guy who stole his crossbow.
However, he seems to have forgotten a few things.
Firstly, the Saviours have predicted his moves so far,
and they will expect him to be coming.
Secondly, standing around in an exposed position
while loudly declaring your Soap Opera emotions
is a good way to get yourself ambushed.
Walking Dead [Season 6, Episode 16]
Something to Fear
Shown 03 Apr 16
Carol is still walkabout.
Morgan (Lennie James -
Jericho
) is looking for her, as is one of the Saviours.
Back at Alexandria, Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) needs medical attention.
Rick decides to take her to the doctor at Hilltop.
However, this has got to be the worst idea possible.
It means dividing his forces, leaving Alexandria in the hands of the B-Team.
Worse, all the surviving regular characters are stuck together in a road trip.
After all, Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and Glenn never made it back after the previous episode.
Rick and his team take the direct route.
Naturally, the Saviours have a roadblock waiting.
Our heroes try to reroute, but the Saviours have planned ahead.
Unfortunately our heroes do not have much of a plan at all.
The Saviours, on the other hand,
have an apparently limitless supply of manpower.
They are well-organised, co-ordinated (presumably by radio)
and they probably have a lot of maps.
In fairness, Eugene the genius gets a map as well
- but this is only as a backup plan, because they did not bother to plan their route in advance.
One can only wonder how they survived this long,
although long-time viewers will know that it is by brute force and ignorance.
The climax is breathtaking.
We finally get to meet Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) for the first time.
This looks like the toughest spot our heroes have ever been in.
However, the Terminus scene in
Walking Dead [Season 5, Episode 1] No Sanctuary
beats it in terms of pure suspense.
Walking Dead [Season 7, Episode 1]
The Day Will Come When You Won't Be
Shown 23 Oct 16
Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) takes Rick off in the caravanette for a private face-to-face.
The cliffhanger execution scene is shown in flashback,
and the identity of the victim is revealed.
Is it Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
)? If she lives through it, she will still need medical attention -
after all, it was for her benefit that they went right into Neegan's ambush.
Also of note, this scene is the first time that Bella and John Winchester
have been on-screen together.
CORRECTION - they recently played a married couple: Bruce Wayne's parents in
Batman vs Superman
.
The entire episode pretty much consists of Neegan mentally and physically torturing his victims.
This would be considered depressing if it happened on any other show.
Luckily, there is no hint of sexual violence
so as far as Feminists are concerned it is all good clean fun.
Walking Dead [Season 7, Episode 2]
The Well
Shown 30 Oct 16
Morgan (Lennie James -
Jericho
) and Carol are taken to the compound of a group of survivors.
Their leader, King Ezekiel (Khary Payton -
Astronaut: The Last Push (2012)
), is a man with dreadlocks and a pet tiger.
Carol plays along and pretends to be impressed.
However, she thinks the situation is utterly ridiculous.
Ezekiel is theatrical, but in a world without a chain of command
a leader needs the theatrics in order to impress the people he leads.
The survivors are mostly vegetarian.
They hunt wild pigs, but these are a surplus food.
Unfortunately the local economic system does not facilitate trade between settlements,
but they do have to pay protection to the Saviors.
Yes, Neegan's gang has Ezekiel's kingdom in their grasp.
Walking Dead [Season 7, Episode 3]
The Cell
Shown 06 Nov 16
While the other groups have been busy,
Dwight has been holding Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) prisoner.
Dwight's life is one of relative privilege in the secure compound they use as a base.
Serfs do the manual labour and grow the food,
while Dwight and the warrior class carry the weapons.
All in all, this is more of a feudal system than Ezekiel's mock medieval kingdom.
Darryl is held in solitary confinement,
the victim of psychological torture techniques like those shown in
The Men Who Stare At Goats
. Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) sees his potential, and wants to recruit him as a henchman.
Walking Dead [Season 7, Episode 4]
Service (85 min)
Shown 13 Nov 16
Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) decides to pay the team a visit.
He brings a small army of helpers, including Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
), to do all the heavy lifting.
The aim is to demoralize Rick and his crew.
To start with, the Saviors take most of the furniture.
This is clearly an act of psychological warfare
aimed at intimidating the victims.
After all, Neegan has the manpower and fire-power to control
and loot any shopping mall in the area.
Better still, he could take one over and fortify it.
However, he does not want beds - he wants RICK's bed!
This is all made clear in a somewhat obtuse scene at the end,
when Michonne discovers something that looks like a pile of tombstones.
Dwight sends Rosita (
Christian Serratos
) and one of the red-shirts to get Darryl's motorbike.
Rosita is keen to arm up again,
because when Dwight takes her guns she realises the Saviors will take ALL the guns.
Michonne has the same idea,
training with a sniper rifle so she can take a shot at Neegan.
Carl almost lost an arm to go with his missing eye,
but he is still dumb enough to pull a pistol on one of Neegan's goons.
Of course, Rick is the only one who realises that resistance is futile.
Walking Dead [Season 7, Episode 5]
Go Getters
Shown 20 Nov 16
With the group all split into different camps,
now we get to see what happened to Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) and Sasha.
They are at Hilltop, where they bury their dead and get free medical treatment.
However, what is blindingly obvious is that the Saviours will be back for revenge.
The leader, Gregory (Xander Berkeley -
Barb Wire
) is in a tough spot.
He knows that the girls will do something to annoy the Saviours
and bring down violent repercussions.
His own policy is one of conflict avoidance -
he will not even push an argument with Maggie if he can change the subject.
When it comes to Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) and his team of well-armed bullies,
this is obviously the best policy.
Even Rick did whatever Neegan wanted in the previous episode.
The teenage girl from Alexandria decides to walk all the way to Hilltop.
Not only would this be an exhausting trek,
since walking speed is only three miles an hour,
she could easily run into a herd of walkers or just get lost.
However, somehow she seems to know the route and it is only a few miles.
Carl decides to keep her company.
However, he has an ulterior motive.
His lost eye means he has no depth perception,
which means that when playing a game of darts he misses the board entirely.
However, this does not stop him from trying to drive a car.
His plan seems to be to kill Neegan.
Unfortunately he has not learned what it took two deaths to teach Rick.
Neegan is from the Vengeance Demon school of management.
He will not kill his enemy, he will kill his enemy's friend.
Carl's action is endangering Rick and anyone else Carl knows,
but Carl does not seem to care about anyone or anything except revenge.
Walking Dead [Season 7, Episode 6]
Swear (71 min)
Shown 27 Nov 16
Tara (
Alanna Masterson
) is washed ashore, victim of a violent encounter.
She has not been seen in nine episodes -
it turns out she and an Alexandrian were sent off on a scouting mission.
They ran into some walkers on a bridge -
some dehydrated-looking zombies
that look like something out of the 1970s classic Italian movie
Zombie Flesh Eaters
. If Tara looks out of shape
it is because the actress just had a baby a few months previously.
Tara finds herself in a remote, isolated commune of farmers.
The good news, especially for the show's last surviving out-of-the-closet lesbian,
is that the population is entirely female.
The bad news is that they have a standing policy of killing all strangers on sight.
Will she be able to negotiate a trade deal with them?
Tara needs to win their trust, but she starts by telling blatant lies.
Also, she does not ask the right questions.
They claim their men were murdered by another group.
She never asks what that group was called.
Was it the Saviours - or did the men just end up in the stew pot like at Terminus?
Walking Dead [Season 7, Episode 7]
Blazing Hell AKA Sing Me a Song (90 min)
Shown 04 Dec 16
Carl's insane quest for revenge on Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) takes its next step.
He goes after him single-handed, in a suicide mission.
However, Neegan has a better plan than simply killing the boy.
Instead he gives him a tour of the Saviours' headquarters.
Rosita (
Christian Serratos
) ought to know better,
but just like Carl she wants to stage a suicidal revenge attack on Neegan.
Carl may be forgiven because he is a traumatized adolescent,
but Rosita is an adult and a soldier.
She gets Eugene to help her make a single bullet.
This is more than self-loading, he has to create a new primer for a spent cartridge.
An awful lot of trouble to go to,
considering that Carroll and Carl both get access to guns relatively easily.
Rick is not running things at Alexandria,
and does not appear to have left anyone in charge in his absence.
No wonder everyone is wandering around on revenge missions.
He has taken it upon himself to locate and retrieve a survivalist's stash of gear.
Unfortunately the gear is in a well-protected location,
so he will probably spend most of the next episode looking for it.
Walking Dead [Season 7, Episode 8]
Exodus AKA Hearts Still Beating
Shown 11 Dec 16
Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) and Sasha are popular in Hilltop.
Gregory (Xander Berkley -
Barb Wire
) is less than happy about the prospect of being replaced as leader.
Maggie seems enthused at the idea of power,
despite having no skill or experience at anything
except driving tractors and killing zombies.
Also, she takes the opportunity to start eating for two.
Rick and Aaron complete their scavenging mission.
The Saviours should be grateful,
but the truth is they are just a bunch of violent thugs.
Carol settles down to a comfortable retirement.
Morgan (Lennie James -
Jericho
) drops by to deliver some fresh fruit for her to live on.
The Kingdom's top soldier also drops by,
to ask them for their help with a delicate matter.
He wants them to convince King Ezekiel (Khary Payton -
Astronaut: The Last Push (2012)
) to launch a pre-emptive attack on the Saviours.
Carol and Morgan do not bother to tell him that Rick already tried that,
and all it got him was a humiliating defeat.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) is sick of being treated like Reek in
Game of Thrones
, so he tries another breakout.
On the way out he shows how far he has descended into the abyss.
Back at Alexandria, Spencer tries to befriend Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
). It seems like a good idea, since Neegan is in a good mood.
Spencer blames Rick for everything falling apart.
This ignores the fact that his father's death at the hands of a wife-beater
was the fault of his mother's lax attitude to policing.
His mother's death at the hands of the quarry herd of zombies
was the fault of her own lack of interest in the world outside her walls.
Finally, his brother's death was due to his own incompetence.
Will Spencer fall victim to the same overconfidence
and ignorance that killed the rest of his family?
As of last week there were no less than FOUR of Rick's crew
who all had active plans to kill Neegan.
Yes, out of the survivors of the massacre there are four idiots
who do not seem to understand what happened.
Sasha roped Jesus into spying out Neegan's base.
Michonne took a Saviour hostage in order to find Neegan's base,
and seems surprised that he has a massive army of followers.
Was she not paying attention when his army surrounded them in the woods?
Carl took his shot last week, and Rosita (
Christian Serratos
) still has her home-loaded bullet.
The obvious backlash to this will be the deaths of two innocent Alexandrians.
They evidently do not remember that Neegan does not kill the person who offends him,
he always kills the one standing beside the offender!
Walking Dead [Season 7, Episode 9]
Rock in the Road (73 min)
Shown 12 Feb 17
Rick and his team try to talk Gregory (Xander Berkley -
Barb Wire
) into sending his farmers to certain death.
Predictably, Gregory is a coward and declines martyrdom.
However, some of the farmers drink the cool-aid
and agree to let Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) train them in fighting skills.
The next stop for Rick's team is at Ezekiel's Kingdom.
The good news is they meet up with their old friend Morgan (Lennie James -
Jericho
) and they find a safe place that Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) can hide out at.
The bad news is that while Ezekiel (Khary Payton -
Astronaut: The Last Push (2012)
) despises Gregory,
he is no keener for unnecessary death.
Third stop is the route to the Saviours' secret HQ.
In an example of complete amateurishness,
Rick decides to start interfering with a complicated system of defences on the highway.
Somehow he assumes that his team will be able to put everything back the way they found it
before anyone comes along and catches them in the act.
Worse, it never occurs to him that there might be boobytraps.
Of course, when they discover the boobytrap
- a massive series of bombs made with potentially unstable dynamite
- he decides to dismantle it and take it home with him.
The Saviours had set it up to wipe out a massive herd of zombies.
And just on cue, the zombies make their appearance.
Finally, they have to find Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam -
Teen Wolf
) who has gone walkabout.
Somehow, this links up with the previous episode's cliffhanger.
Walking Dead [Season 7, Episode 10]
New Best Friends
Shown 19 Feb 17
In Ezekiel's Kingdom, Morgan (Lennie James -
Jericho
) gets another reminder of how unpleasant the Saviours can be.
However, for the moment he is still unwilling to start a war.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) is keen to fight, but will he drag Carol into it as well?
Rick and his team are in the clutches of a group of strangers.
These newcomers have the strange dialect of a
Mad Max
movie, and their initiation for Rick is more like something out of
Z Nation
. In contrast, Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) is down-to-earth and only got Rick to fight NORMAL zombies.
And while Neegan did execute a couple of Rick's friends,
he spared the lives of the others - even though they killed a lot of people in their sleep.
Rick has been criticised for rushing into the war with the Saviours.
However, now he is willing to do the same thing again -
and now he has made an alliance with the strangers,
about whom he knows less than he origianlly did about the Saviours.
Walking Dead [Season 7, Episode 11]
Hostiles and Calamities
Shown 26 Feb 17
Eugene arrives at Neegan's headquarters, and tries to get used to things.
His first job is to improve the defences,
and his suggestion is to steal an idea from
Z Nation
. His reward is to hang out with Neegan's wives - no sex, just conversation.
He teaches them some High School chemistry tricks, and they ask him a favour.
Dwight has problems of his own.
Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) knows that someone let Darryl out on purpose.
Sherie has gone MIA, so she is the main suspect.
Will someone else get scapegoated?
Walking Dead [Season 7, Episode 12]
Say Yes
Shown 05 Mar 17
Rick and Michone go on a long-range scavenging trip.
They are not after items to appease Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
), they want to find a massive haul of weapons so they can betray him.
Also, they are still willing to rob other survivors just for some batteries and snack food.
Their luck improves when they find an emergency camp set up by the US Army.
The good news is, there are lots of guns and ready-packed meals.
The bad news is, the soldiers are now all zombies too.
Our heroes end up having to clear the entire camp of zombies.
The action spills over into the carnival next door, perhaps a reference to
Zombieland
. There are a lot of call-outs to previous episodes -
a collapsing roof, a close call with death and so on.
This is exactly the kind of thing that illustrates when a show has jumped the shark.
Back at Alexandria, Tara (
Alanna Masterson
) feels conflicted about holding out on Rick.
She knows the secret armoury at the community in Waterside.
However, since anyone who goes there to negotiate is likely to be shot on sight,
she is doing everyone a favour by keeping them well away from it.
Rosita (
Christian Serratos
) the Latina girl took a shot at Neegan a few episodes,
which only made him angry and cost Alexandria two residents.
Naturally she blames the Preacher instead of taking responsibility herself.
Worse, despite knowing that Rick has a plan
she decides to make ANOTHER suicide attack against Neegan.
This time she gets Sasha involved in her idiotic death wish.
Walking Dead [Season 7, Episode 13]
Bury Me Here
Shown 12 Mar 17
In Ezekiel's Kingdom, Morgan (Lennie James -
Jericho
) helps with the weekly delivery.
Unfortunately his trigger-happy comrade
is still keen to start a war.
Walking Dead [Season 7, Episode 14]
Strong Threats
Shown 19 Mar 17
The saviours pay a visit to Hilltop.
They get Gregory (Xander Berkeley -
Barb Wire
) to hand over his doctor, after Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) fired his own one.
Also, they take anything else they take a liking to.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) hide out together.
This gives them the chance to talk about what Neegan did to them.
Rosita (
Christian Serratos
) and Sasha go off on their mission of murder.
Somehow they have picked up a walkie talkie
that is tuned into the Saviour frequency,
which turns out to be useful.
Walking Dead [Season 7, Episode 15]
And Here We Are
Shown 26 Mar 17
Sasha tried to assassinate Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
). Now she has to suffer the consequences.
Luckily, Neegan believes life is cheap
but lady-parts are like gold-dust.
Gregory (Xander Berkeley -
Barb Wire
) tries to have a chat with Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
).
Tara (
Alanna Masterson
) leads Rick and his crew to Oceanside.
Their plan is to take every single gun,
and leave the women and children virtually
Despite having several good female soldiers
Rick deploys Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) as leader of the assault team.
Walking Dead [Season 7, Episode 16]
Do It Now
Shown 02 April 2017
Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) has a team at Hilltop, and Morgan (Lennie James -
Jericho
) has a team in Ezekiel's Kingdom.
But Rick decides to go ahead without them.
Rick's team in Alexandria are well armed
with the guns they stole from Oceanside.
They are reinforced by the scavengers who live on a garbage heap.
The strangest thing about the scavengers is their dialect.
In the time since the start of the Zom-Pocalypse,
a couple of years at most,
they have developed their own strange dialect and culture.
Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) told Sasha that he knows Rick is up to something.
He takes precautions against potential ambushes.
These include a new personal weapon -
a MAC-10 Ingram with scope and silencer,
just like Snake Plissken's sub-machinegun in
Escape from New York
.
The previous Season ended on a suspenseful cliffhanger.
This ends with a massive battle,
and instead of fear and dispair we are left with hope.
Walking Dead [Season 8, Episode 1]
Mercy
Shown 23rd Oct 2017
This is not only the first episode of a new Season,
it is also the hundredth episode of the show.
What started as a slow-burning, atmospheric drama
set in a post-apocalyptic world is now a shoot-em-up.
Rick has got his team to armour some cars.
They only do one side, but they use corrigated iron
which is about as bulletproof as tissue paper so it does not matter.
Rick's selling point on his scheme is that only one person needs to die.
Once Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) is dead, the good guys will make a peace deal with his replacement.
After all, Dwight and Eugene will fold easily enough.
Gregory (Xander Berkley -
Barb Wire
) just wants to be on the winning side,
preferably if he gets to maintain his status.
Walking Dead [Season 8, Episode 2]
The Damned
Shown 30th Oct 2017
Rick and his gang are still on a kill-crazy rampage.
Since their full frontal assault on The Sanctuary failed,
they have now split up to launch multiple simultaneous attacks.
Rick and Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) go after Neegan's secret stash.
Aaron and a group of Hilltop gunmen attack some Saviours.
They are led by a woman who is reminiscent of Paula from
Season 6
. This is not the only familiar aspect re-used from that Season.
Tara (
Alanna Masterson
), Morgan (Lennie James -
Jericho
) and Jesus lead a team to raid the Outpost.
This is the second time that the Outpost has been hit,
and the tactics are the same as last time.
They want to catch the enemy unarmed, and kill as many as possible.
Tara wants revenge, even though she was once the Governor's soldier.
Morgan is a killing machine, even though he once believed every life is sacred.
Luckily Jesus still has some human decency.
There is a major problem with the war that Rick has started.
There are five thousand zombies for every living human being.
Now, if there are a thousand humans still alive in Virginia
that means there are five million zombies.
If half the humans are Saviors, and Rick kills all of them
- while only losing two hundred of his own number -
then he has three hundred humans against five million zombies.
Walking Dead [Season 8, Episode 3]
Monsters
Shown 6th Nov 2017
Rick begins to realise that going on a kill-crazy rampage
will not make the post-Apocalyptic world a better place.
This becomes especially apparent to him
when he sees that Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) is obsessed with taking bloody revenge.
Morgan (Lennie James -
Jericho
) reluctantly escorts the POWs back to the Hilltop.
He has totally forgotten his old philosophy of every life is sacred.
Luckily Jesus is there, to save souls.
Gregory (Xander Berkley -
Barb Wire
) makes it back to Hilltop.
But what will happen to him then?
Walking Dead [Season 8, Episode 4]
Some Guy
Shown 12 Nov 17
King Ezekiel (Khary Payton -
Astronaut: The Last Push (2012)
) ran into trouble at the ends of the previous episode.
It turns out that he was not up against a lone sniper.
Neegan's men had deployed the belt-fed .50-cal machine-guns that Rick had failed to find elsewhere.
As a main character, Ezekiel became the sole survivor of his men.
How he lured the Saviours into the open in order to wipe them out is not explained.
However, he made the same mistake - perhaps the Saviors did a human wave attack as a decoy move.
Now Ezekiel finds himself in the same situation
that Rick inflicted on the Saviours a couple of weeks ago
- surrounded by the bodies of fallen comrades.
And just like them, he forgets to give the dead headshots before they rise again.
The Saviours made one mistake.
They failed to make certain Carol was the first one they killed.
Now she launches a one-woman counter-attack.
Of course, this means abandoning Ezekiel and the others.
Will she get the guns or save her friend?
Rick swerves his jeep in order to avoid zombies in the road.
After all, they might crack the windshield or something.
However, it turns out that the jeep can take a .50-cal hit to the radiator
(only one, even though the gun is a belt-fed automatic weapon)
and still keep going unhindered.
Walking Dead [Season 8, Episode 5]
The Big Scary U
Shown 19 Nov 17
Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam -
Teen Wolf
) is stuck in a portacabin with Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
). The Saviours have abandoned them both for dead,
so they must work out an escape plan for themselves.
But before Gabe agrees to help Neegan,
he insists on hearing Neegan's confession.
In a religious sense, that is - not a legal one.
Neegan's senior staff try to sort things out among themselves.
Unfortunately the fact they are surrounded by a herd of zombies
is a major problem.
The Sanctuary is running short on both water and fuel,
so hydration and air conditioning are both problematic.
All the senior staff can do is argue among themselves
and worry about having a mole in their midst.
Elsewhere, Rick and Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) try to recover the .50-cal machine guns.
However, Darryl has become obsessed with wiping out the Saviours.
He is willing to risk wiping out the civilian workers at the Sanctuary.
Will Rick agree to wage Total War on the rest of the human species?
Walking Dead [Season 8, Episode 6]
The King, the Widow, and Rick
Shown 26 Nov 17
Rick goes to the Whisperers to make a deal with their leader (
Pollyanna McIntosh
). Unfortunately he has nothing to offer her.
King Ezekiel (Khary Payton -
Astronaut: The Last Push (2012)
) is deeply depressed after the events of the previous episode.
His battle-cry of losing not one of our number was exposed as nothing but hyperbole.
However, he is the only leader that the people of the Kingdom have.
Carol will not let him abdicate his responsibilities.
Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) is unhappy about having a group of POWs on her hands.
Jesus wants to feed them spare turnips, while Gregory (Xander Berkley -
Barb Wire
) wants to lynch them all.
Will Maggie listen to the angel or the demon?
Michonne and the Latina girl go on patrol in a car,
armed with nothing more than pistols and a katana.
Most of the Saviors may be trapped within the Sanctuary,
a prison of their own making,
but they are not the only danger out there.
It is the height of stupidity to go out without a rifle,
but they do so anyway.
Carl goes walkabout in the woods,
looking for the homeless man that he and his father encountered a few episodes ago.
The man has had a high walker kill-count,
killing them in order to release their souls.
Well, everyone needs a hobby.
Walking Dead [Season 8, Episode 7]
Time for After
Shown 03 Dec 17
There are three different plot threads this episode.
The timeline is uncertain at the start, until they intersect.
Rick is still with the Whisperers.
He still wants to make a deal with their leader, Jadis (
Pollyanna McIntosh
). Unfortunately he does not have the option of leaving.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and the others do not want to wait for Rick and the Whisperers.
They have got the Saviours trapped in the sanctuary,
surrounded by a horde of zombies.
However, this is not enough for them.
They want to smash a garbage truck through the sanctuary's wall,
and allow the zombie horde access to the inner building.
Darryl claims that the workers will be safe,
but he is obsessed with revenge.
Eugene is trapped inside the sanctuary.
Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) and the Saviours are relying on him to get rid of the zombies.
Dwight and Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam -
Teen Wolf
) urge him to let Rick defeat Neegan.
Everyone tells him to do the right thing.
But Rick's minions are the ones killing everyone.
Any person with a conscience would have to pick Neegan,
because he is the lesser of two evils.
Walking Dead [Season 8, Episode 8]
How It's Gotta Be (88 min)
Shown 10 Dec 17
This is the mid-Season finale.
Generally at this point one of the major characters dies,
and unfortunately this tends to be a male person of colour.
Will it be Ezekiel (Khary Payton -
Astronaut: The Last Push (2012)
) or Morgan (Lennie James -
Jericho
)?
The Saviours are out of the Sanctuary.
Well, it was only a matter of time.
While Rick was off negotiating with the Whisperers,
he sent a couple of non-combatants to try and recruit Oceanside.
Yes, the times were obviously getting desperate.
Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) personally goes to Alexandria in search of Rick and Carl.
Dwight is in charge of blockading the rear door in case of an escape attempt.
He does a suspiciously poor job of it,
as neck-tattoo points out to him.
Simon catches Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) and Jesus, along with the Hilltop's tiny army.
He is merciful, especially considering the circumstances.
In fact he lets her go,
even though he has orders to bring Maggie to Neegan alive.
She repays him by becoming as murderous as she believes the Saviours to be.
Let us think of the fate of the Terminus crew.
Rick did not just kill the leader and then let the rest go.
In comparison, Neegan is a more honorable and humane man.
Walking Dead [Season 8, Episode 9]
Honour
Shown 26th February 2018
This starts with the Saviours escaping from the Sanctuary.
Then we flash foward to a bookend sequence of Rick some time in the future,
hosting a barbecue for his friends at Alexandria.
The Kingdom has been taken.
Gavin has Ezekiel (Khary Payton -
Astronaut: The Last Push (2012)
) as his prisoner, and plans to take him back to Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
).
Unfortunately, night is beginning to fall.
Gavin allows his men to linger around the area,
but does not bother to secure a perimeter.
As such, it is easy for Carol and Morgan (Lennie James -
Jericho
) to infiltrate
and wipe the poor bastards out, one at a time.
Morgan is very careful not to take prisoners,
so the human species will die out all the sooner.
Meanwhile, Rick and the others are hiding out in the storm drain under Alexandria.
Above them, the saviours destroy the whole settlement.
It is a pity that the most peaceful place in the post-apocalyptic world is now gone,
but their lack of security in a zombie apocalypse
meant they had already suffered multiple incursions.
In other words, it was as much a trap as a paradise.
Morgan's murderous rampage is contrasted with Carl's slow demise.
The boy recounts to his father the time he murdered a boy
whose only crime was to follow the Governor into battle.
It seems that Carl has recently been haunted by his own actions.
Perhaps Morgan will, for the second time,
feel remorse and take responsibility for his actions.
Rick confesses that everything he has done since he woke from the coma
was for Carl, so that their world would have a future.
How sad that Rick, by starting a war that will kill
up to ninety percent of the zompocalypse survivors.
Walking Dead [Season 8, Episode 10]
The Lost And The Plunderers
Shown 5th March 2018
The show has a convoluted series of interwoven storylines,
so every episode flips between different viewpoint characters.
This episode has title cards, to indicate who the viewpoint character is.
Michonne and Rick deal with the aftermath of the previous episode.
Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) sends Simon out to punish the Whisperers.
Of course, Simon is keen on killing everyone - just to be on the safe side.
His mood is not improved when Maggie's gift arrives from Hilltop.
Jadis (
Pollyanna McIntosh
) learns that Simon is a merciless bastard.
Well, we always knew that because he is basically an archetypal villain.
However, Rick is certainly not a hero.
How ironic that Jadis is now the most sympathetic character in the episode.
Walking Dead [Season 8, Episode 11]
Dear Or Alive Or
Shown 12th March 2018
Dwight has been leading Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and the other Alexandrian survivors to the Hilltop.
The good news is, he knows that Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) has only posted guards on the roads
but the swamp is unguarded.
It is still filled with fungus-infected zombies,
which further proves that survival is not simply a matter of waiting till they all die.
The bad news is, the lesbian girl still blames Dwight
for accidentally killing the only other lesbian in Alexandria.
Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam -
Teen Wolf
) is still severely infected after his escape from the zombie herd.
He and the Doctor discover an isolated bungalow.
This is the first in a series of fortuitous coincidences
that causes the preacher to re-discover his lost faith.
Perhaps there really is a supernatural element to the show.
After all, movies like
[Rec]
have Fast Zombies that are the result of demonic possession.
Neegan still has no idea who has been stabbing him in the back.
Will Eugene and/or Dwight get ratted out?
Walking Dead [Season 8, Episode 12]
The Key
Shown 19th March 2018
Thanks to Eugene, Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) has a new plan.
He loads the vans with gut-buckets,
and has a team of shooters drive out with him to attack the Hilltop.
However, they get ambushed by Rick on a one-man revenge mission.
This turns into a grudge match between the two of them.
Simon gets Dwight to ride in the truck with him.
They are both unhappy about the way Neegan is running things.
It is only a matter of time before the Saviours are under new management.
Meanwhile, Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) gets a message about a travelling saleswoman.
She takes a gew gunslinging girls along to investigate.
Yes, even though the Saviours should have blocked all the roads
there is still a way out.
The saleswoman is interested in building a trading network between settlements
and eventually rebuilding civilisation.
This is the kind of thing that Eugene should have masterminded,
and could have urged Neegan to start.
Instead we get the JSS girl seriously contemplating literal highway robbery.
Walking Dead [Season 8, Episode 13]
Do Not Send Us Astray
Shown 26th March 2018
Simon and Dwight get to the Hilltop.
Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) and Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) stage a half-hearted ambush,
but the lack of military planning and tactics is distractingly bad.
It seems that the whole idea was to lure the saviours into a killing zone ...
but for sentimental reasons, Maggie put the killing zone near Glenn's grave.
Yes, she put it INSIDE her perimeter!
The saviours take a lot of losses.
They do not manage to free the thirty-eight hostages,
but Simon does not seem to have much of a plan.
He is on a kill-crazy rampage,
and uses human wave tactics against a well dug-in enemy who have automatic weapons.
Tara and Darryl have a discussion about Dwight.
Tara reminds him that she was one of the Governor's soldiers.
Somehow she also heard about Darryl's brother,
Merle, who was the Governor's henchman.
Morgan (Lennie James -
Jericho
) is haunted by visions of Gavin.
This seems to be a setup towards him joining the spin-off show,
Fear The Walking Dead
.
The little boy, Henry, is a bloodthirsty little piece of work.
He refuses to believe Morgan and the others
when they told him that Gavin killed his brother.
Instead he goes hassling the hostages.
The murderous one is strangely silent for a change.
The battle against the Saviours ended quickly enough.
However, Maggie's security still sucks.
Nobody remembers that when people die they turn into zombies,
even though they used that trick on the Saviours a few episodes ago.
She and Carol do not seem to remember the flu outbreak in the prison.
Walking Dead [Season 8, Episode 14]
Still Gotta Mean Something
Shown 1st April 2018
Rick and Morgan (Lennie James -
Jericho
) go after the Saviours who escaped.
The plan is to hunt them down and slaughter every single one of them.
Has Rick gone completely over the edge?
Everyone claims that Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) is the murderous one,
but he only killed two of Rick's crew when he could have killed them all.
In comparison, Rick killed all of the Terminus crew.
Neegan is in the hands of Jadis (
Pollyanna McIntosh
), who blames him personally for the massacre.
She has something typically artistic in mind for him.
However, she is distracted by something else.
Before the massacre, Simon mentioned a helicopter pad nearby.
It turns out that this was Chekov's gun.
Walking Dead [Season 8, Episode 15]
Worth
Shown 8th April 2018
Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) is back home.
He discovered what Simon got up to, and it was not the first time.
It turns out that Simon was to blame for the Waterside massacre,
and it was before Neegan's time as leader.
Has Neegan become redeemed as a heroic character?
Eugene is targeted for kidnapping by Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
). Once again, Rick's gang are less forgiving than Neegan.
Walking Dead [Season 8, Episode 16]
Wrath
Shown 15th April 2018
Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) tries to trick Rick into a trap.
The plan is to get Rick's team to take a short-cut cross-country,
then surround them with a massive number of Saviours.
Eugene has supplied enough re-loaded ammo to do the job.
From a hilltop, our heroes spot a massive blur in the distance.
It is apparently meant to be a massive herd of walkers,
the largest ever seen on the show.
However, the human survivors are too busy killing each other to worry about zombies.
Does this final battle mean the end of the human species?
Walking Dead [Season 9, Episode 1]
A New Beginning
Shown 8th Oct 2018
This is set a year and a half after the end of the previous Season.
The children have grown noticeably, which is a good thing.
However, the walkers are still around.
In fact, we see the most degraded zombie so far -
it is practically a walking skeleton.
The plan to out-wait the zombies
and let the winter destroy them might work against Fast Zombies in
28 Weeks Later
but it is not a valid strategy in this particular zom-pocalypse.
The story starts with the main characters all together again,
on a mission to retrieve valuable items from the Museum of American History.
They want a plough, so the Hilltop blacksmith can make a copy.
The urgency to grow more food is because the Sanctuary is not self-sufficient.
Despite Eugene killing half the Saviours, and Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) ruling with an iron fist, things there are far from ship-shape.
Of course, helping the former victims of Neegan's oppression
is not something that the Hilltop people are happy about.
Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) has been elected Queen of Hilltop.
The election was Gregory's idea,
and it is not his final attempt to reclaim his former status.
Will she finally lose her patience with him?
She could exile him, or kill him in honorable combat.
However, she is a small-town Georgia farmgirl
where justice is a rope and a tree at midnight.
Michonne is the only one who has any apparent misgivings about Maggie's methods.
She is also from Dixie-land, but as an African-American she has a different perspective.
In the museum she noticed a poster from the Reconstruction era,
the aftermath of the US Civil War in the 1860s.
Will Rick's crew successfully reconstruct civilisation,
or will they devolve into a klan of murderous vigilantes?
Walking Dead [Season 9, Episode 2]
The Bridge
Shown 15th Oct 2018
The episode is narrated by Rick, as he brags to Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
). In order to get get the ex-Saviours working with everyone else
he starts to build bridges.
Literally, as the main road has been taken out and they need to rebuild the old bridge.
The Saviours do a lot of griping about their work. Justin (Zach Magowan -
Black Sails
) refuses to take responsibility for his actions,
and gets into a couple of fights with Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
). In all fairness, Darryl is looking for a fight
but the Saviour keeps giving him excuses.
Much like Gregory, the Saviours are two-dimensional bad guys
who are not allowed to develop past their own pre-established flaws.
Their world has taken a massive shift in the last year,
and yet they have not attempted to adjust to the new situation
and try to prove themselves useful to the new world order.
Shoddy writing, it seems.
Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam -
Teen Wolf
) starts to bond with Jadis (
Pollyanna McIntosh
), who now calls herself Anne.
She takes a night-shift standing guard,
but she is secretly on the look-out for the mysterious helicopter.
Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) has got prison cells in her basement.
Even Gregory did not go this far!
She could put them to a civilian use, such as storage of alcohol
that could be saved for special occasions like celebrations and feasts.
Instead she uses it for political dissidents,
like the old man who tried to kill her.
She says that everyone deserves a second chance,
and Gregory wasted all his second chances.
However, it is hard to believe that a canny politician like Gregory
did not realise that he could be more powerful if he made himself useful.
Walking Dead [Season 9, Episode 3]
Warning Signs
Shown 22nd Oct 2018
The Saviours have noticed that Justin (Zach Magowan -
Black Sails
) is missing, and some go looking for him.
When they find out what happened to him, they blame Rick's inner circle.
Jadis (
Pollyanna McIntosh
) is among the people who is singled out as a suspect.
The Reverend (Seth Gilliam -
Teen Wolf
) covers for her, but keeps a close eye on her.
She sneaks off to the trash heap she used to live in.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) go looking for the real killers.
They discover that the people doing it
were inspired by Gregory's lynching.
Yes, Rick's brave new world is rotten at the core.
Walking Dead [Season 9, Episode 4]
The Obliged
Shown 29th Oct 2018
Jadis (
Pollyanna McIntosh
) has the Reverend (Seth Gilliam -
Teen Wolf
) tied up, and intends to do with him
what she almost did to Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
).
Neegan himself is still locked in Alexandria's basement cell.
How there are any houses left there
after Neegan's men burned them all to the ground is not explained.
Anyhow, Neegan goes on hunger strike.
Michonne goes down to talk some sense into him,
before he martyrs himself for the Saviours.
Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) sets in motion her plan to murder Neegan.
She just wants to walk in the front door.
Rick has had Jesus keeping an eye on her,
and wants to stop her from destroying everything he has built.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) offers to give Rick a lift back to Alexandria.
However, this is a double-cross.
Darryl and Maggie have been planning it for sixteen months,
so this bit actually goes quite well.
Then Rick and Darryl fall into a deep hole.
Not just a metaphorical plot-hole, but a real one.
Whoever dug it is not apparent, but it seems fresh.
Now they must work together to get out.
The bridge-building project has stalled due to lack of manpower.
Since the Saviours were victims to a murder spree,
they have decided to withdraw their services.
Since Rick's people cannot or will not defend them,
we can hardly blame them.
Somehow they managed to work out who the killers were,
even though Rick (a trained police officer with access to the facts)
was unable to do so until Darryl told him the truth.
The Saviours come back, looking for revenge.
All this builds to a climactic cliffhanger.
The gunshots attract zombies - two herds worth, in fact.
And Rick is trapped between them.
Perhaps if he sacrifices the bridge,
the very thing he has hoped would unite the different communities.
To be continued next week -
in what is officially advertised as Rick's last-ever episode.
Walking Dead [Season 9, Episode 5]
What Comes After
Shown 5th November 2018
This is the much-publicised last episode of Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln -
). The cliffhanger left him impaled, and now he is slowly bleeding to death.
As he tries to escape the herd of walkers,
he has a fever dream about his fallen friends Shane (Jon Bernthal -
Punisher
) and Hershel (Scott Wilson -
Judge Dredd (1995)
). This is especially touching, since between the filming and broadcast of this episode.
Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) finally gets to Alexandria.
The only thing that stands between her and Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) is Michonne.
This allow us to witness a couple of great confrontations.
Jadis is still waiting for her pickup.
This storyline comes to a head as well.
The show was always about Rick Grimes.
He may have lost his wife and son, but his daughter Judith remains.
The story picks up six years later, with a new storyline.
Also, there is a set of spin-off movies, AKA
Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (2024)
.
Walking Dead [Season 9, Episode 6]
Who Are You Now?
Shown 12th November 2018
This picks up where the previous episode left off.
Judith has picked up a bunch of strays.
How they managed to survive this long is a mystery.
One of them is a deaf person, who needs a sign-language interpreter.
Of course, she is played by an actual deaf actor.
The token male (Dan Fogler -
Fantastic Beasts
) is short, fat, and used to be a music teacher.
The only one with any survival skills claims to be a truckstop waitress.
She used to be in
The 100
, a co-star of a dead saviour.
Most of the main cast members are the ruling council at Alexandria.
They sit in judgment over the newcomers.
The show has become a matriarchy, with Rick and the other males gone.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) is in self-imposed exile, camping in the woods.
Michonne is head of security, and does not trust the strangers.
She ha s a lot to protect – not only is she Judith's step-mother,
she also has a son by Rick Grimes.
A lot has changed with the regulars.
Carol has married Ezekiel (Khary Payton -
Astronaut: The Last Push (2012)
), and grown her hair long.
She and Henry – now a young man – take a wagon of vegetables to market.
They run into a few familiar faces –
former Saviours who became homeless when Sanctuary failed.
But only a total psycho would kill people over a box of carrots.
Especially by setting them on fire and doing the cliched slo-mo walk-away.
Eugene is now an action hero.
He heads out on a mission with the Latina girl, Rosita (
Christian Serratos
), who has paired up with Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam -
Starship Troopers
). They run into a massive herd of walkers.
Rather than play it safe, Eugene takes a risky jump
and cripples himself.
Yes, he is no use if he cannot outrun a zombie.
And these are no ordinary zombies.
Walking Dead [Season 9, Episode 7]
Stradivarius
Shown 19th November 2018
This is the directorial debut of the actor Michael Cudlitz,
who played Abraham Ford a few Seasons ago.
Carol is taking Henry to Hilltop, to be apprenticed to the blacksmith.
They stop by Darryl's camp.
Carol's plan is obvious.
She wants the two macho males to bond, like in a cheesy movie.
They both see through the ruse, but the situation requires them to work together.
Michonne is taking the newbies to Hilltop.
They stop by their old camp site to pick up a few items.
It turns out that Luke (Dan Fogler -
Fantastic Beasts
) has been carrying a collection of musical instruments around.
He makes a valid point that music is essential to human society and civilisation.
However, this asks one question.
How on Earth did he survive?
He has spent six years in a post-apocalyptic world
without losing any weight – his clothes still fit well enough -
and instead of hoarding weapons he hoards musical instruments!
Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) has been gone from Hilltop for some time.
Jesus has been running things in her absence.
He is not overly happy about this situation,
because he would rather be leading from the front instead of doing paperwork.
Nobody says it, but the office work was Gregory's strong suit.
Yes, they would be better off if they had left him alive.
Walking Dead [Season 9, Episode 8]
Evolution
Shown 26th November 2018
C Thomas Howell (
Peter Benchley's Amazon
) gets to Alexandria and spreads the word that Rosita (
Christian Serratos
) was injured. This is bad news for Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam -
Starship Troopers
), and distracts him from his task of looking after Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
). Neegan's scenes involve homages to classic scenes in
Silence Of The Lambs
, The Great Escape and the Morgan episode a few Seasons ago.
Henry starts his apprenticeship with the blacksmith.
He wants to hook up with Enid the JSS girl,
but she is older than him and hangs out with the ex-Saviour.
Instead he makes some new friends his own age.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and Jesus go out looking for Eugene.
They notice a herd of Walkers that is behaving unusually,
and the zombies seem to ignore the distraction tactics that usually work.
Eugene fills them in, but they do not know how to process the info.
Although the weather is bright and sunny everywhere,
suddenly the area around Eugene's hiding spot
is hit with a fog bank and a lightning storm at the same time.
Our heroes get chased into an old Gothic-style cemetery.
Finally we get a climactic battle.
The story ends on a couple of cliffhangers.
This is the mid-Season finale,
so it will be a few months until the audience get any resolution.
Walking Dead [Season 9, Episode 9]
Adaptation
Shown 11th February 2019
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and the others get back to Hilltop.
One of their own has been killed by the Whisperers - a declaration of war.
However, they also have a prisoner of war.
Darryl must interrogate her, since the heroes know nothing about their new enemies.
Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) makes good his escape.
The only one who notices is Judith,
either because she is the only one who is friends with him
or she is the only one who cares about perimeter security.
Once on the outside, he discovers how badly things have gone downhill.
The place is still overrun with walkers,
so years of decomposition have had minimal effect on them.
Normally each episode has one stand-out walker with super-special make-up,
but this episode is directed by prosthetics guru Greg Nicotero
so pretty much EVERY walker is a stand-out one.
Luke (Dan Fogler -
Fantastic Beasts
) tries to prove his usefulness to Hilltop by going on patrol.
He and a cow-orker go in search of some missing friends.
Of course, they do not know about the Whisperers
so they do not consider that they might be walking into a trap.
Walking Dead [Season 9, Episode 10]
Omega
Shown 18th February 2019
Luke (Dan Fogler -
Fantastic Beasts
) is missing, so his friends go looking for him.
They discover the patrol's horses, dead and butchered.
Yes, rather than trade the horses for food
the Whisperers just use the horses AS food.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) leaves Henry the horny teen in the cell next to the POW girl.
His hope is that she will open up and let Henry pump her for information.
Unfortunately, Henry is a gentleman and gives away more info than he gathers.
The good news is, the girl gives us some flashbacks to her childhood.
Her family survived the zom-pocalypse by hiding out in a basement in Baltimore, Maryland.
Her mother (
Samantha Morton
), an American played by yet another English person, revealed her ruthless streak.
However, there is always the danger that this might be a case of the Untruthful Narrator.
Walking Dead [Season 9, Episode 11]
Bounty
Shown 25th February 2019
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) tries to negotiate with Alpha (
Samantha Morton
), who wants to trade Luke (Dan Fogler -
Fantastic Beasts
) for her teenage daughter Lydia.
Unfortunately the daughter does not want to return to the Whisperers.
Henry the horny teenage boy takes it upon himself to help the girl.
Meanwhile, Carol and Ezekiel (Khary Payton -
Astronaut: The Last Push (2012)
) are back at the Kingdom.
They are visited by Jesus and Tara, so this is obviously a flashback.
Later the Kingdom crew go to a movie theatre.
They are in search of a new bulb for their projector,
so they can show some movies at their annual fayre.
It may seem like a terrible risk to take,
but to rebuild society they must revive culture and the arts.
Walking Dead [Season 9, Episode 12]
Guardians
Shown 3rd March 2019
The Whisperers head home.
Henry decides to follow them, and runs into Beta (Ryan Hurst -
The Postman (1997)
). Just like all good comic-book villains, Alpha (
Samantha Morton
) has to prove herself by being cruel to her minions.
Luckily, Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) has set out to save Henry from himself.
Michonne wrote the Charter of Alexandria,
and it gives the security chief a veto on every decision.
For example, she refuses to let them send people to the Kingdom's trade fayre.
Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) calls her out on it, and she wants to punish him for it
by putting in even stronger protections on his cell.
Walking Dead [Season 9, Episode 13]
Chokepoint
Shown 10th March 2019
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) has rescued the Romeo and Juliet couple,
but they are still far from safety.
Connie, the deaf girl, has a plan to save them.
She knows about a safe place at the top of an apartment block nearby.
The Whisperers will have to leave their zombie herd behind
when they come up the stairs.
Alpha (
Samantha Morton
) will not send an army if she does not need to.
She sends Beta (Ryan Hurst -
The Postman (1997)
), her best warrior.
Darryl plans to kill him first. But it might not be that easy.
The Kingdom have their own problems.
A group of Highwaymen, led by Angus Sampson from
Shut Eye
, have taken over from the Marauders that Carol murdered.
Now Ezekiel (Khary Payton -
Astronaut: The Last Push (2012)
) must negotiate with the strangers.
Walking Dead [Season 9, Episode 14]
Scars
Shown 18th March 2019
This episode has a series of extended flashbacks
to a few months after Rick's disappearance.
Michonne spends her time searching the river-bank for any sign of him.
However, she got some welcome news
when a group of survivors arrived at Alexandria.
One of them is Roslyn (
Rutina Wesley
), a friend of Michonne's from her time in college.
Roslyn had a group of children with her.
At first, she seems to be a well-intentioned do-gooder.
However, we must remember that only the toughest and most ruthless people
survived in the post-apocalyptic wasteland.
And when she raised those children to survive the Zom-Pocalypse,
she basically turned them into her own private army of child soldiers.
Michonne and Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) go off on a quest for justice.
They get split up, so Michonne has to deal with the problem single-handedly.
Finally we get to see what she meant a few episodes ago
when she said that she had to do things she was not proud of.
In truth she does not have much choice -
she is fighting for two, because she is heavily pregnant.
However, all this does is make it all look very contrived.
Walking Dead [Season 9, Episode 15]
The Calm before
Shown 24th March 2019
This episode starts by introducing a couple of new supporting characters.
They are just the usual kind of people who joined the settlements,
and performed menial work in exchange for food and shelter.
Then they set off for the trade fayre at the Kingdom.
Naturally for this show, their story ends as soon as they become interesting and likeable.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
), Carol and Michonne go looking for the Whisperers.
Unfortunately they have not worked out that Alpha's main tactic
is to lure her victims into an ambush.
If only the heroes had an army of their own.
If only Rick had not murdered half the population in his war against the Saviours.
The climax of the episode is something so horrifying
that it out-does the first appearance of Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
). However, this Season's structure and pacing
make the whole thing somewhat anti-climactic.
Walking Dead [Season 9, Episode 16]
The Storm
Shown 31st March 2019
This is set a few months after the shocking conclusion of the previous episode.
Everyone is still reeling from the aftermath.
The good news is that Eugene has gotten radio communications working
between the three settlements.
The bad news is that winter has finally arrived.
In theory it should destroy all the zombies,
but they have survived a decade of decomposition.
The Kingdom does not have the fuel to keep everyone warm in the snowfall.
As a result, they abandon the place and head towards Hilltop.
However, the storm is so bad they must seek shelter at the Sanctuary.
Their plan is to take a shortcut through Alpha's territory.
Yes, they will risk yet another ill-planned war just to save time.
Alexandria has things almost as bad.
The Preacher has to let Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) out of the cell,
rather than just let him freeze to death.
Just as well, because Judith wanders off into the snow
so she can save Darryl's doggie.
Like the first post-break episode this Season,
this episode was directed by Greg Nicotero himself.
Predictably, we get more of a focus on the zombies.
The snowstorm is also impressive, filmed inside a massive sound stage.
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 1]
Lines We Cross
Shown 6th Oct 2019
This takes up a while after the previous episode.
Carol took some time out from her marriage to Ezekiel (Khary Payton -
Astronaut: The Last Push (2012)
), and has been off looking for Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
). Now she returns to bond with Daryl again.
Since it is now the better part of a decade after the zom-apocalypse began,
an un-maintained satellite de-orbits over Virginia USA.
This is visible to both the populations of Oceanside and Alexandria.
The sonic boom is used as a marker within the storyline,
so we know where each character is at a certain point in time.
Eugenius sees the danger, and the possibilities.
If the satellite crashed at sea, it might cause a tsunami.
Instead it crashes on land, and causes a forest fire.
Eugene gets the heroes to fight the fire, and loot the satellite.
The Whisperers may be back in the area.
Rick's daughter finds a skin mask on the beach,
and Michonne's patrol finds a skin-suit in the woods.
Carol's hatred for the Whisperers means she crosses their border.
By incredible coincidence, Alpha herself is nearby and sees her.
Yes, things are going to get ugly again.
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 2]
We Are the End of the World
Shown 13 Oct 19
The main events of this episode take place concurrently with the events of the previous episode.
However, this time we see it from the perspective of Alpha (
Samantha Morton
) and the Whisperers.
Finally they get humanised.
The girl who was ordered to abandon her newborn baby last Season
is now suffering terrible stress over the guilt.
Her sister (
Thora Birch
) is unable to calm her, and she comes to Alpha's attention.
The flashbacks are of Alpha and Lydia many years previously,
when they first met Beta (Ryan Hurst -
The Postman (1997)
). He was a creepy silent guy with a mask and a machete, like Jason in
Friday The 13th (2009)
.
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 3]
Ghosts
Shown 20 Oct 19
Alexandria is under attack from zombie hordes.
This all started after the survivors entered Whisperer land and took the crashed satellite.
Is this a Whisperer plot, or is something about the satellite summoning the zombies?
Michonne takes a few main characters to speak with Alpha.
Unfortunately Carol starts to think for herself, and that generally involves violence.
Alpha does not want blood this time,
she merely punishes them by narrowing their borders and denying them certain hunting grounds.
This is obviously a plan of hers, part of a war of attrition.
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 4]
Silence the Whisperers
Shown 27 Oct 19
Things are hotting up at Hilltop, and the new characters are settling in nicely.
It turns out that the jailhouse lesbian is having an affair with the woman who used to be her lawyer.
This is a complete conflict of interest, but more importantly we must wonder
why Yumiko the lawyer did not do a better job during the immigration hearing at Alexandria.
Not only did she know the law and how to convincingly work a courtroom,
she also knew about her lover's criminal history and presumably her concealed weapons.
Lydia, the former Whisperer, is being bullied by some of the former Highwaymen.
Daryl says he will protect her, but does not bother doing anything about it.
Luckily Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) is around to help out.
Lucky for Lydia, not so much for Neegan.
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 5]
What It Always Is
Shown 03 Nov 19
This starts with one of the deaf black girls going on a hunting trip alone in the woods.
Unfortunately she gets jumped by a few zombies.
Who would have thought that being deaf and alone in the woods
would put her at a disadvantage?
This allows her and her friends to play a major part in the storyline this episode.
Someone has been stealing supplies from Hilltop.
Yumiko the lesbian lawyer is now a leading member of society there,
and leads the investigation.
The main suspect is her girlfriend, Magna the ex-con who used to be her client.
It turns out they have been together for thirteen years,
which makes it by far the most long-lasting relationship of the show.
All the straight relationships seem to have ended badly.
Unfortunately, it turns out that this particular lesbian relatioship was founded on a lie,
and the ex-con is hedging her bets with a secret getaway stash.
After his mysterious escape, Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) meets a new ally in the woods.
Brandon, a teenager from Alexandria, is a fanboy for Neegan and the Saviours.
Well, any society will develop a subculture of teenage rebels.
Also, as Brandon points out the Saviours and their families were forcibly integrated
into Alexandria's empire against their will.
But the moral of this particular story is that straight white male fanboys are villains.
The duo meet a family of survivors,
and Neegan has a creepy child-abuser vibe to him.
But will our favourite anti-hero blame himself for being a terrible role model
and inspiring Brandon the fanboy into doing terrible things?
The gay dude with the metal arm discovers that Gamma (
Thora Birch
) is dumping zombie carcasses in a stream.
Apparently Alpha ordered her to block the creek,
and she is also spilling zombie guts into the water so it will poison anyone who drinks it.
This is an extension of Alpha's strategy,
which somehow includes the mysterious tree collapse that damaged Hilltop's wall.
One of the Whisperers dares to question the wisdom of the war of a thousand cuts,
and ends up as the FIFTH one of Alpha's people who ends up getting killed
for undermining her position.
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 6]
Bonds
Shown 10 Nov 19
Alexandria has been overcome by a sudden plague of nausea and vomiting.
Apparently nobody passed on the word that Alpha had ordered Gamma to poison the water supply,
and as a result nobody has bothered to start boiling the water.
Siddiq delegates things to his sidekick, the former USN corpsman,
while he spends more time with his child.
Also, he is suffering from a bad case of PTSD.
Eugene is still at Hilltop.
He has modified the radio with the components he salvaged from the satellite.
After trying to expand the radio's range, he tunes into a woman from Philadelphia.
They seem to hit it off, but the woman knows not to trust strangers.
Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) tries to ingratiate himself with the Whisperers.
Beta (Ryan Hurst -
The Postman (1997)
) takes a dislike to him,
and tries to show him up by outdoing him at all the tasks.
This is another wedge between Alpha and Beta.
While Alpha sees Neegan's potential,
all Beta sees is the danger that Neegan represents.
Daryl and Carol go for an unofficial expedition in the Whisperers' territory.
The plan is to simply follow the Whisperers back to their base-camp,
then report back to Michonne and the Council.
Daryl does not entirely trust Carol,
after she decided to act on her own and take a shot at Alpha.
Will Carol go off the rails again?
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 7]
Open Your Eyes
Shown 17 Nov 19
This is largely Siddiq's episode.
He is still suffering from PTSD about the murder,
and relives the memories of the event.
Despite this he is in charge of investigation of the source of the plague.
It seems the reason nobody bothered checking the water supply
is because Eugene had set up a filtration system.
With Eugene taking a vacation at Hilltop,
nobody bothered to double-check it had not been sabotaged.
Carol and Daryl bring their prisoner home,
and lock him in the cell that Morgan put the Wolf-man in a few Seasons ago.
Will he crack under torture?
Well, the Whisperers are loyal to Alpha
because they think she sacrificed her own daughter for them.
Gamma (
Thora Birch
) is still meeting up with the one-armed guy.
While he tries to talk her round,
she is trying to get info from him to help Alpha make her attack plans.
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 8]
The World Before
Shown 24 Nov 19
The Whisperers' spy in Alexandria has been exposed.
To the audience, that is.
Will the characters themselves be able to deal with the situation?
Michonne takes Luke (Dan Fogler -
Fantastic Beasts
) and Rick's daughter to Oceanside.
They encounter a stranger named Virgil (Kevin Carroll -
The Leftovers (2014)
) who has been hanging around.
Is he a spy for the Whisperers?
Michonne wants him to hand over his group's supply of weapons,
so that she can wage war against Alpha.
This is similar to the original raid on Oceanside,
when Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) had confiscated Alexandria's weapons
and Rick had to re-arm and engage the Saviours.
However, Michonne now has several weapon stores available
and does not need to disarm another group of survivors in order to wage war.
Carol is obsessed with finding the Whisperers' horde,
in the hope of locating and assassinating Alpha (
Samantha Morton
). King Ezekiel (Khary Payton -
Astronaut: The Last Push (2012)
) offers to help,
but Carol assures him that she has her own people.
When the team foinally goes in, it includes Jerry.
Yes, it seems that Jerry is no longer Ezekiel's loyal bodyguard.
Gamma (
Thora Birch
) offers the good guys some info.
But is it a trap?
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 9]
Squeeze
Shown 23rd Feb 2020
Carol has gotten the entire team trapped in a series of mine-shafts.
Now they try to escape by squeezing out through a tiny cave -
but it turns out that Carol is also claustrophobic.
There are a few scenes when some of the supporting cast are in genuine jeopardy.
They discover some old dynamite sticks,
which are unstable because the nitro-glycerine is sweating out.
Can Carol be trusted not to act impetuously?
Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) suspects that Gamma (
Thora Birch
) has betrayed the Whisperers.
He tries to gain favour with Alpha (
Samantha Morton
). Will she have sex with him,
or ruin his leather jacket by dumping it in a pit of human excrement?
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 10]
Stalker (68 min)
Shown 1st March 2020
Beta (Ryan Hurst -
The Postman (1997)
) goes on a secret mission.
It involves a secret tunnel, which must have taken months to dig.
This leads up to a climax reminiscent of a 1980s slasher movie.
Alpha (
Samantha Morton
) and a few Whisperers pay a visit to the cave their horde is in.
For some reason she does not have Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) around - presumably he is back in her camp.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) has decided to hang around, and tries to capture or kill her.
Unfortunately she is a natural survivor.
Gamma (
Thora Birch
) turns herself over to Alexandria.
Of course, the locals are not exactly trusting of her
but she does not exactly have many options.
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 11]
Morning Star
Shown 8th March 2020
Neegan has his own Whisperer mask now,
moulded on Norman Reedus's face with a Joker smile carved into it.
He and Alpha lead their horde to attack Alexandria.
By some strange quirk of geography,
they will have to go through Hilltop.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and the other main characters prepare to defend Hilltop.
The place may have had defences built up for over five years,
but it suddenly appears incredibly weak.
Despite having taken in additional workers from Sanctuary and the Kingdom,
their militia seems very small.
Despite having whatever firearms are left over from the Saviour war,
they are reduced to their Roman shield-wall tactics.
At least Darryl has a cool-looking new weapon ... a morning star.
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 12]
Walk with Us
Shown 15th March 2020
The pre-credits sequence is the climax of the battle from the previous episode.
This is a great piece of film-making,
as the night-time onslaught of the zombies is joined by the Whisperers.
The main storyline starts in the morning,
when small groups of survivors flee through the woods.
Gamma (
Thora Birch
) is still being hunted by Beta (Ryan Hurst -
The Postman (1997)
), who loses his mask and gets recognised by a male Whisperer (William Gregory Lee -
Xena: Warrior Princess (S6)
).
Alpha (
Samantha Morton
) sends Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) to find Lydia for her.
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 13]
What We Become
Shown 22nd March 2020
Michonne headed off on a side-quest a few episodes ago,
and has not been present for the new Whisperer war.
She was lured off by Virgil (Kevin Carroll -
The Leftovers (2014)
) with a promise of a cache of weapons,
but this was obviously too good to be true.
Michonne halucinates an alternate timeline,
and we see what would have happened if she had abandoned Andrea
instead of rescuing her at the end of Season Two.
She would have been ignored and left for dead by Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
), as she and Rick did to the hitchhiker in Season Four.
Then she would have been recruited by Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
), perhaps replacing Paula in the hierarchy.
Finally she would have been just another unfortunate casualty
in Rick's bloody and unnecessary war against the Saviours.
This is Michonne's final episode.
However, like Morgan she may pop up in a spin-off show ...
specifically, the made-for-TV movies with Rick,
Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (2024)
.
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 14]
Look at the Flowers
Shown 29th March 2020
Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) discovers that Carol is unreliable and has her own agenda.
Worse, he runs into Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
).
Beta (Ryan Hurst -
The Postman (1997)
) tries to work out what to do now that Alpha is gone.
We discover his pre-zompocalypse identity,
which explains how he got recognised by a male Whisperer (William Gregory Lee -
Xena: Warrior Princess (S6)
) a few episodes ago.
Eugene tells the others about his arrangement to meet the woman in West Virginia.
Rosita (
Christian Serratos
) is injured, but Ezekiel (Khary Payton -
Astronaut: The Last Push (2012)
) and Yumiko the lesbian lawyer agree to accompany him.
This leaves the good guys undermanned in terms of recurring characters
in case the Whisperers launch another attack.
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 15]
The Tower
Shown 5th April 2020
Beta (Ryan Hurst -
The Postman (1997)
) captures Alexandria without any resistance.
Everyone has fled to The Tower,
except for a few who stayed behind to spy on the Whisperers.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and Rick's daughter Judith go patrolling in the woods together.
The little girl still has an objection to his treatment of prisoners.
Eugene, Ezekiel (Khary Payton -
Astronaut: The Last Push (2012)
) and Yumiko the lesbian lawyer have arrived at a city
where the sole inhabitant is a Latina woman who calls herself Princess.
She has been alone for so long that she has become like Will Smith in
I Am Legend (2008)
and set up dioramas of everyday events ... using zombies.
She offers to help our heroes,
but Yumiko thinks Princess is more trouble than she is worth.
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 16]
A Certain Doom
Shown 12th April 2020
Beta (Ryan Hurst -
The Postman (1997)
) has led his horde onto the street outside the building our heroes are hiding in.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and Carol lead an attempt to escape through the herd,
with the intent of leading it away.
Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam -
Teen Wolf
) intends to stay, to protect Judith.
There are also hints about the world outside.
Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) has been hanging around with a mysterious ninja type,
and Eugene's team is en route to meet his pen-pal.
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 17]
Home Sweet Home (62 min)
Shown 28 Feb 21
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and his deaf friend join Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) and her two buddies
as they hike back to where the rest of Maggie's band are hiding out.
It turns out that Maggie did not return just to fight the Whisperers.
The village she was living in Fell,
but she does not specify - and Darryl does not enquire.
It turns out that Maggie's band have a been driven out by an invasion.
Yes, now the Whisperers are gone we get a new bunch of villains.
These ones are called the Reapers,
and they have some military-style weapons and tactics.
Maggie's son Hershell has grown up to look like Short Round in
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
. This illustrates just how long she has been away,
and brings home how much change has occurred in that time.
Despite this, she still has not brought herself to forgive Negan.
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 18]
Find Me (63 min)
Shown 07 Mar 21
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and Carol go to investigate a cabin in the woods.
Darryl has an extended flashback to the missing five years,
most of which he spent camping in the woods
and searching the riverbanks for any trace of Rick.
He met Leah (
Lynn Collins
), the woman who lived in the cabin.
Over the course of the years they had a slow-motion relationship.
The ending is open.
Hopefully this story will be concluded in a future episode,
rather than be left hanging as an unresolved plot thread.
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 19]
One More (68 min)
Shown 14 Mar 21
Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam -
Teen Wolf
) and Ross have spent two weeks treking on foot.
They followed Maggie's map,
but every stop-off point she indicates is filled with skeletons.
Almost as if the Reapers followed her,
and murdered everyone they met along the way.
The mission seems to be a complete failure,
so our heroes make the most of it.
The pair get drunk on a top-quality bottle of whiskey,
and start to bond.
Gabriel reveals his belief that evil people are not the exception,
they are the rule.
Our heroes get captured by Maze (Robert Patrick -
Terminator 2
), who forces them to play russian roulette.
He wants to see if they give in to their darkest urges.
This episode is quite shocking,
as Ross discovers how low people can fall.
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 20]
Splinter
Shown 21 Mar 21
Eugene and his three companions have been captured
by a bunch of strangers in paintball armour.
The armour is not the dented plates of the Kingdom soldiers -
it is white and shiny, like stormtroopers in
Star Wars
. So are these troopers good or bad?
Princess gets separated from the others.
The isolation is not good for her.
After all, she spent what may have been years by herself
before Eugene's team bumped into her.
That said,
she has only known Eugene and the others for about a week.
This is the first episode that centres on her,
and it is all from her perspective.
When she communicates with the others,
they are all exaggerated versions of themselves.
Yomiko is whiny and badly injured,
Eugene is pompous and needlessly verbose,
and Ezekiel (Khary Payton -
Astronaut: The Last Push (2012)
) is aggressive to the point of being mean.
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 21]
Diverged (62 min)
Shown 28 Mar 21
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and Carol return from the cabin in the woods.
However, as per the ending of their previous episode
they split up and go their seperate ways.
Carol gets back to her house in the new Kingdom.
Jerry is hanging around to help out,
and Darryl's dog has tagged along too.
She tries to make soup,
but gets distracted by a mouse.
This is a low-key episode,
and the social distancing is really showing.
The episode is the slowest-moving in years.
Elsewhere, Darryl has to fix his motorcycle
so he goes scavenging for spare parts.
Unfortunately he runs into a couple of zombies
who are kitted out in military gear.
There is no sign of a military vehicle nearby,
so there may be a secret base in the area.
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 22]
Here's Negan
Shown 04 Apr 21
Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) and her son are now living at Alexandria.
To keep the peace, Carol moves Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) into the cabin where Leah used to live.
He starts to reminisce about events from years ago,
which allows us a peek at his origin story.
Twelve years ago, Neegan was a regular survivor
being interrogated by bad-ass biker Craven (Rodney Rowland -
Space: Above and Beyond
). The bikers want to know about a clinic
that Neegan got supplies from a couple of days previously.
In a series of multi-embedded stories,
Neegan tells the doctor about how his wife Lucille (
Hillarie Burton-Morgan
) got the worst news of her life.
Three pieces of bad news, in fact.
One of them is a radio broadcast with dialogue taken from
Night of the Living Dead
, indicating that the zom-pocalypse has just begun.
The date is 12th November.
Finally we get a concrete date to the kick-off event.
Bad things happened, but Neegan learned an important lesson.
He said goodbye to the world that was,
when he was Mr Smith the friendly gymn teacher,
and embraced the new consequences-free world of might-makes-right.
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 1]
Acheron: Part 1 (67 min)
Shown 22 Aug 21
With Alexandria's food supplies destroyed by the Whisperers,
they need to scavenge on an industrial scale to feed their population
until they can grow and harvest the next crop.
Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) takes Darryl and Carol on a mission to scavenge crates of MREs
from an old army warehouse.
Unfortunately it is filled with slumbering zombies.
Maggie takes a small band, including Darryl and C. Thomas Howell (
Red Dawn
) out to hit the group who took out her old base.
She mentions the enemy are small in number, but they attack by night.
Nobody realises the enemy probably use night-vision technology,
which will put Maggie and her group at an extreme disadvantage.
Maggie has another plan.
She brings Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) along, nominally as a guide.
Of course, she wants a chance to murder him -
which leads on to a great confrontation between them.
While Maggie leads her team down into the subway of Washington DC,
Eugene and his three comrades are in the hands of a group
called the Commonwealth.
As usual in this show's world,
any powerful group of authority figures is suspect.
After cooperating with a ceaseless bunch of invasive questions,
in which we discover that Eugene's memory is matched by that of Princess,
the quartet decide to leave the Commonwealth's custody.
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 2]
Acheron: Part 2 (74 min)
Shown 29 Aug 21
Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) left Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) for dead, but he should have realised that as a Main Character(TM)
she is practically unkillable.
Now he learns exactly how hypocritical she and her friends are.
They castigate him for abandoning the woman
whose stated intent is to murder him,
yet most of them are happy to abandon their friend who deserted the group.
They have a couple of stupid excuses -
one is that the door is too strong for the zombies to get through,
the other is that they do not have enough ammuntion to shoot their way out.
However, the door fails under minimal force from the zombies -
and the hypocrites have to shoot their way out anyway.
Darryl also got separated from Maggie's group,
and finds the other deserter (C. Thomas Howell -
Red Dawn
). Other than that, his storyline seems a pointless side-quest.
Eugene and the other three are back in their cell.
We cannot blame the Commonwealth for being careful about new admissions,
especially after Maggie tells her friends a true-life campfire story
from her time wandering in the wilderness.
Yumiko the lawyer woman thinks she can talk her way into joining the Commonwealth.
She and Princess insist on speaking to the guard's manager.
Yes, these two women of colour get away with a Karen move.
When his companions disappear, one at a time,
it all falls upon Eugene to pass the interview.
General Mercer (Shaw -
Blood and Treasure
) says that Eugene is a terrible liar,
although Eugene spent his first Season bluffing the entire cast
that he knew how to cure the zombie virus.
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 3]
Hunted (62 min)
Shown 05 Sep 21
Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) has led her team into an ambush, and they are scattered again.
She ends up having to trust Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
). We sort of saw this in the previous episode,
so it feels like a re-tread of sorts.
Maggie was happy enough to sacrifice someone to the zombies last time,
but now she is bitter against Neegan for suggesting they leave someone.
She blames him for the devastating war that weakened Alexandria,
but the truth is that Rick caused the attack on Negan's people ...
and started the rebellion that tore everything apart
and killed half the human population of Virginia.
Back at Alexandria, Carol is bored.
She realises that they need to catch some horses,
because without horsepower they are limited to human manpower.
To do this, she ropes in Rosita (
Christian Serratos
) and a couple of Dan Fogler's lesbian friends.
This all-female squad go looking for some horses.
While they are at it,
they should also find some other domesticated animals
such as milk-cows and egg-laying chickens.
Wild pigs are probably a bit too much to risk,
but it would show the humans actually trying to secure their food supply.
Instead all they have done is try to salvage some MREs in the first episode.
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 4]
Rendition (64 min)
Shown 12 Sep 21
The good news is, Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) finds out what happened to Leah (
Lynn Collins
). The bad news is, she teamed up with her old buddies -
a gang of well-trained private military contractors.
Now they put pressure on Darryl to see if he can be trusted.
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 5]
Out of the Ashes (67 min)
Shown 19 Sep 21
Carol takes some of the others to Hilltop,
to retrieve the old blacksmithing tools that were abandoned there.
Lydia realises that the zombies there are being herded.
Yes, some former Whisperers are still hanging out there.
The so-called good guys assume the worst,
and torture one of their defeated foes
in order to get info about any future attacks.
The truth is that without Alpha and Beta,
the Whisperers are just like any other community of survivors.
Eugene and his friends are inducted into the Commonwealth,
which is by far the most successful community of survivors.
Everyone is given a job based on their old life before the zompocalypse.
Except for Yumiko the lesbian lawyer, that is,
who meets up with her brother Tomi (Ian Anthony Dale).
She is happy enough to stay there,
but Eugene is desperate to communicate with Alexandria.
He conspires to get sneaky access to the radio transmitter,
even though this is a serious crime.
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 6]
On the Inside
Shown 26 Sep 21
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) has to prove himself to the bad guys by torturing someone.
Well, in the previous episode the so-called good guys tortured someone
- so it is clearly shown to be immoral.
Later, Darryl and Leah (
Lynn Collins
) are sent out to catch Maggie and the others.
Of course, our hero is trying to play both sides.
Back at Alexandria, Carol and the all-female squad
go looking for their missing lesbian friend.
It turns out that the Black lesbian who has not been seen since
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 9] Squeeze
was camping out nearby the whole time.
She has teamed up with a middle-aged Black dude,
and the two of them hide out in a big old house.
Because she has been so long without sleep,
she might be halucinating.
However, the house might also be a trap
run by a family of cannibals who look like Tarzan.
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 7]
Promises Broken (66 min)
Shown 03 Oct 21
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and Leah (
Lynn Collins
) are sent out to catch Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) and the others.
Maggie promises that if Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) teaches her and the others how to act like Whisperers,
she will cancel the grudge she holds against him.
Her plan is to lead a herd against the Reapers' base,
then raid it for food in the confusion.
But will she keep her word?
Eugene and the others have been sentenced to manual servitude.
They are killing zombies the old-fashioned way,
so that a housing estate can be cleared for re-occupation.
The Crown Prince drops by, and reveals himself to be a spoilt whiny brat.
Eugene may be book-smart, but he does not have street-smarts.
The Commonwealth may seem like a democracy,
but they are autocratic.
Only Yumiko the lesbian lawyer has any influence,
because as a Harvard graduate she is part of the in-crowd.
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 8]
For Blood (61 min)
Shown 10 Oct 21
Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) teaches Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) and the others how to act like Whisperers.
This is a very affective tactic against the enemy,
who have never encountered Whisperers before.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and Leah (
Lynn Collins
) are stuck in the compound that is now besieged by the zombies.
While Leah may be sympathetic towards Darryl personally,
his main flaw is his ruthlessness towards her friends.
He treats them as expendable, disposable villains.
Yes, finally this show has to take responsibility
and play down the pro-war attitude it has shown.
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 9]
No Other Way
Shown 20 Feb 22
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) makes a deal with Leah (
Lynn Collins
). After all, she is down to her last few soldiers.
Unfortunately Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) is a merciless bitch.
She seems to have taken the advice that Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
) gave her - be merciless with your enemies,
so they cannot start a destructive war.
There is an end sequence which ties in the Alexandria storyline
with the Commonwealth storyline we have not heard much about lately.
We also get some foreshadowing,
about a falling-out in six months time.
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 10]
New Haunts (67 min)
Shown 27 Feb 22
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and Espinoza are in training as soldiers of the Commonwealth.
Their live-fire training involves actual zombies.
Carol is in the Commonwealth as well.
She tries to help Ezekiel (Khary Payton -
Astronaut: The Last Push (2012)
) jump the queue for medical treatment,
by sourcing some high-quality booze for Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton -
) and the VIPs.
The Commonwealth has a Halloween festival,
open to everyone but aimed towards children and families.
That night the VIPs have a fancy get-together.
Princess recognises one of the workers as Trooper Davis,
who was demoted from guardsman when she beat him up in
Walking Dead [Season 10, Episode 20] Splinter.
Yes, apparently he was not just playing along to fool her.
Anyway, he draws attention to the potential for class warfare
within the supposedly Utopian Commonwealth.
But how would a purely egalitarian society work?
Every system has a hierarchy,
so there will always be VIPs and workers.
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 11]
Rogue Element (68 min)
Shown 06 Mar 22
Eugene tells Stephanie that he loves her.
A few hours later, she has cleared out her apartment
and moved to a different job in a different sector.
Either he has been ghosted, or she has been abducted.
He investigates, and discovers a secret conspiracy.
Carol helps Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton -
) in a labour dispute
at the farm that grows the Commonwealth's drug supply.
The journalists investigate the Trooper Davis story,
but get stonewalled.
This was directed by Michael Cudlitz,
formerly one of the regular cast.
He adds a lot of visual flair to the show,
making this the most visually striking episode so far.
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 12]
The Lucky Ones (66 min)
Shown 13 Mar 22
Eugene gets to know his new-old girlfriend again.
We get flashbacks from her perspective,
giving us some idea of life in the Commonwealth.
Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton -
) takes his boss Pamela on a tour of Virginia.
General Mercer (Shaw -
Blood and Treasure
) takes personal charge of security.
Alexandria is happy to join the Commonwealth,
but Oceanside will only join if Hilltop does.
Maggie (
Lauren Cohan
) refuses to join,
so she gets abandoned by anyone with sense.
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 13]
Warlords (64 min)
Shown 20 Mar 22
Lydia is thinking of quitting Hilltop,
and joining the refugees who fled Maggie's separatism.
Just then, a wounded stranger arrives on horseback.
Aaron and Gabriel have been recruited to help the Commonwealth
make a First Contact mission with a place called Riverside.
The locals are religious fanatics,
and their boss is a bloodthirsty warlord with a Desert Eagle.
However, things do not go as expected.
Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton -
) has sent an ex-CIA assassin
to retrieve some stolen weaponry.
This is something to do with his evil masterplan,
since he has been hoarding resources for something.
But he may be trying to start a war on purpose.
Just as the show tried to experiment with cinematography
a few episodes ago, now it attempts the same with narrative.
Each section is told from a different perspective.
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 14]
The Rotten Core (63 min)
Shown 27 Mar 22
The Commonwealth team tear Riverside apart looking for the lost shipment.
Since they only have the word of Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton -
) that the shipment ever existed,
they were basically sent on a suicide mission
by a manipulative office politicker.
Now they get picked off one at a time by the so-called good guys.
Maggie still wants revenge on Neegan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan -
Supernatural
), even though he is now helping the people of Riverside.
Yes, her husband has been dead for a decade
and yet his death is still motivation for revenge.
In contrast, a bunch of the Commonwealth's faceless stormtroopers are slaughtered
and the audience is not supposed to give a damn about them.
Back in the Commonwealth capital, Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and Rosita (
Christian Serratos
) have been given the role of beat cops.
Instead of patrolling their regular district,
the President's son has them assigned to a special duty.
He wants them to walk through a herd of zombies,
infiltrate a mansion and locate a stash of cash there.
This quickly turns into a rescue mission.
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 15]
Trust (66 min)
Shown 03 Apr 22
Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton -
) takes personal command of the investigation at Riverside.
He suspects Hilltop had something to do with it.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and the others have a chance to prove themselves.
Back in the Commonwealth capital, Rosita (
Christian Serratos
) tells her friends about the events of the previous episode.
They plan to write a newspaper article about it,
to start a mass popular uprising.
They even want General Mercer (Shaw -
Blood and Treasure
) to lead a military coup!
Eugene's girlfriend is the General's sister.
Ironically, despite this being a zom-pocalypse she still uses hair-straightener.
She is basically a generically beautiful girl
who is made to look like a generic nerd
with the addition of a massive pair of spectacles.
Ezekiel (Khary Payton -
Astronaut: The Last Push (2012)
) wants to help, but he has more pressing business.
He ropes the surgeon into performing an unauthorised surgery.
It turns out that the official hospital is rationing care.
Not according to need, but ability to pay.
Yes, the Commonwealth has duplicated the terrible US private healthcare system.
Luckily, Ezekiel has used the zoo's veterinary facilities
to run an illegal non-profit clinic.
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 16]
Acts of God (62 min)
Shown 10 Apr 22
Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton -
) takes personal command of the attack on Hilltop.
We flash back nineteen hours,
to see what happened before that.
Hornsby sent Leah (
Lynn Collins
) in, along with a team of his men.
He chooses the team at random, by flipping a coin.
Since his MO is like Two-Face in
The Dark Knight
, will he end up with severe facial disfigurement on one side.
Maggie leaves her boy in a Whisperer spider-hole with Neegan.
She and her remaining followers -
Lydia and the last two from her last-Season adventures -
go to ambush Leah and the Commonwealth soldiers.
Of course, Leah is far better at this kind of thing.
We get a great knife-fight between two powerful women.
In the Commonwealth,
Eugene gets his girlfriend to steal a file from her boss.
This has details of a secret project,
which the journalists want to publish.
Ezekiel (Khary Payton -
Astronaut: The Last Push (2012)
) has a network he uses to distribute the newsletter overnight.
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 17]
Lockdown
Shown 2nd October 2022
Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton -
) leads his men after the Riverside and Hilltop survivors.
Darryl (Norman Reedus -
Blade 2
) and the others send Neegan to get help.
Back in the Commonwealth capital, Rosita (
Christian Serratos
) and her friends have outed Sebastian,
and thus destablised the government.
They do not want mere accountability,
they want to destroy the entire system and replace it with anarchy.
Hornsby's secret crew go looking for the kids.
Carol hides them with Jerry, then gets proactive.
She and Neegan have to dodge the curfew patrols,
hoping to find Sebastian and use him as leverage.
A swarm of Walkers is closing in on the Commonwealth's capital.
The army may have jeeps with belt-fed machine guns,
but they seem undermanned since Hornsby took dozens of their men
for Darryl and the gang to slaughter.
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 18]
A New Deal
Shown 2nd October 2022
Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton -
) is arrested by General Mercer (Shaw -
Blood and Treasure
), so Pamela can use him as a scapegoat for her son's activities.
As Pamela tells Lance, he thought he was working his way up a meritocracy
but he was merely a minion of the aristocracy.
Darryl and his friends have a full Pardon from Pamela,
despite them slaughtering dozens of her soldiers.
However, Darryl insists on packing up and heading back to the wilderness.
No surprise, since he is a loner who abhors civilisation.
The others from Alexandria also want to go home ...
except for Rick's daughter, who wants to stay.
Strange, since she is too young to remember the pre-apocalyptic world
so she cannot regard the Commonwealth as normal.
In the Commonwealth HQ,
Eugene's girlfriend has an irrational urge to destroy Pamela's son.
She could help him to better himself,
since in the long run he has the power to improve the system.
However, she would rather destroy him and the system ...
replacing a functional government with anarchy,
in the middle of a zom-pocalypse.
Since Lance Hornsby is the most senior meritocrat,
he is her only obvious ally.
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 19]
Variant
Shown 9th October 2022
Eugene is on the run, accused of murder.
His only interest is in finding his girlfriend.
General Mercer (Shaw -
Blood and Treasure
) is in charge of the search.
Of course, since his sister is Eugene's girlfriend
he has something of a conflict of interest.
Aaron, Jerry, Lydia and the hockey-mask slasher
are caught on the road by a horde of zombies.
The good news is that they are able to shelter in a disused fun-park.
The bad news is that some of the zombies can climb fences and open doors.
Either the Whisperers are back, or these are actual smart zombies ...
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 20]
What's Been Lost
Shown 16th October 2022
A team tries to abduct Carol and Daryll.
They have no choice but to break Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton -
) out of jail.
He points out the illogical aspects of their plan
to undermine the government of the Commonwealth.
If Pamela is deposed there will be a power vacuum,
and fifty thousand people will be stuck in a civil war
in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.
Of course, Carol does not care.
Pamela wants Yumiko to prosecute Eugene.
She offers the stick (threats to Yumiko's brother)
and the carrot (info in the fate of the detainees).
Will Yumiko play ball,
or will she just make things worse for everyone?
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 21]
Outpost 22
Shown 23rd October 2022
Maggie wakes up in custody, with the Preacher and Rosita (
Christian Serratos
). They manage a breakout, but get split up in the woods.
Meanwhile, Carol and Daryll are trying to follow the train.
The so-called good guys take a couple of prisoners.
Of course, this show intends to make the Alexandria team look like the good guys
so whatever bad things happen to those prisoners
is conveniently not really their fault.
Neegan is in the prison camp.
His only potential ally is Ezekiel,
who is reluctant to accept his help.
The base of this disagreement
is their differing leadership styles.
Lisa Nicole Brown
, celebrity fan, has a voice cameo as a Commonwealth radio operator.
Yes, she is basically Lieutenant Uhuru.
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 22]
Faith
Shown 30th October 2022
Neegan is pressurised by the prison governor,
who knows they are kindred spirits.
This brings back the idea that Neegan was a bad guy
just because he had effective Imperial rule years ago.
Eugene is on trial for his life.
Governor Pamela testifies,
in a scene shockingly reminiscent of General Melchett's testimony
in the infamous trial of the Flanders Pigeon Murderer.
Eugene makes his own statement,
which has him apologise for his role as Neegan's chief engineer.
General Mercer (Shaw -
Blood and Treasure
) has to decide what side will he take.
Will the Commonwealth be improved if he leads a military coup?
In the final scene, he drops the show's first F-bomb!
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 23]
Family
Shown 6th November 2022
The Alexandria crew arm up, and head off to invade the Commonwealth.
They take the train, so it is a much quicker journey than in previous Seasons.
Pamela suspects that General Mercer (Shaw -
Blood and Treasure
) has changed his allegiences.
Since the Alexandrians are relying on him to get them inside the city,
it is only a matter of time before there is a confrontation.
A massive herd of walkers is closing on the city.
It seems the guards are leading them there on purpose,
joining three herds into one.
In spite of this, they are strangely overconfident
that the city's defences will hold out.
They do not suspect that walkers can climb,
which means they have never encountered the Whisperers.
Their former allies in Alexandria apparently never shared that info with them.
Worse, the war with Alexandria has probably killed off half the Commonwealth army,
with the rest busy repressing internal dissent and enforcing a daytime curfew.
The good news is that when the invaders inevitably break into the city,
only military personnel will be on the streets.
Walking Dead [Season 11, Episode 24]
Rest in Peace
Shown 20th November 2022
The team have infiltrated the Commonwealth city,
but now they have been sealed in with the zombie herd.
They regroup at the hospital,
where Darryl tries to save Judith by sealing her in -
like Shane saved Rick in the first episode.
The zombies seem to be a convenient threat
only when it is deemed important to the plot.
The main action takes place inside the gated community,
where she and her soldiers are hiding
while the regular people have been locked outside as zombie-food.
Will the Alexandria crew save the Commonwealth,
or will they let 50,000 people get eaten?
After the main plot threads have been neatly tied up,
we get a few new ones for spin-off shows.
Maggie gives Neegan a talking-to, a setup for
Walking Dead: Dead City (2023)
. Darryl rides off into the sunset,
no doubt in search of his own spin-off series
Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon (2023)
. And we get glimpses of what Rick and Michonne are up to.
This is hardly a spoiler,
since it asks more questions than it answers.
Luckily they will all be answered in a couple of years time, when
Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (2024)
is finally shown.
