Crackin’ wise with her dying breath.
What They Say:
Start to Finish – After a few moments of peace, trouble finds its way to Alexandria again with a threat that may be too big to defeat.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Answering the question of what happened to Glenn the last time around certainly was about what many expected, though a lot of that expectation is just made up of the way TV viewing is done these days compared to days of old where you didn’t have so much advance information, pictures and more of what was to come. That kind of lessens the impact of some things for many, but if you interact with people not in the know and avoid spoiling it for them you get to see how well such a little twist works for so many and why. Beyond that, the show started laying more of the foundations for the next threat to come while also dealing with some internal strife and character material within Alexandria that was expected and decent, though it lacked any serious impact at the moment.
Not surprisingly, the show does pick up with the fall of the tower through the wall and the chaos that comes from that. Setting it up with the ants in the prologue was kind of amusing if a bit too blatant when you get down to it, but the actual rolling in of the walkers into Alexandria certainly makes for a game-changing moment for the residents. AS much as they’ve faced, this is the most direct threat yet and there’s just so much of it that you can’t hide like they had before. The immediate side of it is that the kid trying to kill Carl gets delayed by this since even he’s smart enough to realize the larger threat here. The opening is enjoyable once it gets underway just to get a chance to see everyone reacting and doing a lot to survive and work together in doing so for the most part. There’s your expected stumbles and falls along the way and the moments of being overwhelmed as well, though you don’t expect any main characters to get offed in the first few minutes. That’s not to say there isn’t some tension though.
Simply put, the visual of the walkers roaming and spreading out throughout Alexandria, eliminating the peaceful moments that it’s provided for so long, is a great visual to have overall.
Not surprising is that the show does slow down for a lot of aspects of what it wants to do here. While the larger threat of so many walkers ambling through the town is there, most everyone seems to be able to get into the various residences and largely secure them for the moment. There are some good things to this as we see how the various configurations come together and prepare for what has to be done. Some are more chaotic than others and some are just plain tense, such as Morgan and Carol being holed up together and Carol making it clear that she’s intending to deal with what Morgan’s done. He has no problem with that but wants to at least work through it after they survive this. I really like the tension that exists between the two of them, rightly so at this point, and forcing them into this pairing amid the chaos is definitely amusing.
The material with Ron and Carl is something that plays out well overall as we know that Ron’s pretty much at the end of everything here and sees that things are coming to an end here from his limited point of view. So it’s no surprise that he sets things in motion to still take out Carl because if he’s going to die himself, and he does consider himself dead already, he’s going to take at least Carl with him. It’s a decent enough action sequence with some tension to it, but I love the way that Carl still works to protect him in the end. At least until he can get him alone and then Carl makes it clear that he’s not taking any crap from Ron anymore. Carl’s like a more understanding version of Rick overall, not having lost as much as he has of his humanity, but he’s also really not stupid overall and handles things with Ron better than most their age would.
There are plenty of struggles along the way to cope with what’s going on, some more blatant than others such as Rosita’s thinking this may be it, which is tied to Abraham’s still being lost, but I like that Tara continues to be the positive voice in so much of this after all she’s been through. The harder sequence to watch is that of Deanna, who we discover wasn’t just wounded but was bit hard earlier. She’s falling apart fairly quickly but she’s doing her best to be both motivational and positive throughout much of it as she wants to retain her humanity and who she is until the end. It’s an extended death sequence to be sure and has many of the familiar cliches that comes with it, but her position here and the handover to Rick that she gives is worth it. It may be poorly placed within everything else that’s going on with that whole being overrun by walkers, which makes for some weird pacing, but that’s been part of the structure of the series since very early on.
The final act is pretty nicely tense as it all comes together with Rick working a way for the group he’s with to escape from being overrun like they are. It’s an expected one, albeit one that puts a good bit of strain on those that haven’t been involved in the whole being covered by guts thing before, but it’s good to see that they do remember that this trick can work. There are some unfortunate slowdowns of course, notably with Sam and his understandable fear, but it mostly works as this is all forcing so many of the Alexandrians to really accept the reality of the world as it is now. This is certainly a grisly way to accept it of course – and even more disturbing when you factor Judith into it – but it’s a great way to close out the fall finale with some extremely quiet tension on top of the other uncertainties, such as Denise, Carol and Morgan’s fates.
In Summary:
As one would expect with a mid-season finale, there’s a lot of cliffhanger material in the mix here that certainly makes you want to come back to see how it unfolds. There are things that makes you want to smack characters to be sure, but that’s always been a part of the show. There’s a lot of slowdowns to be had here, which feels out of place considering the chaos at hand, but I liked what it did for the most part. With a few characters fates uncertain and one “main” character death that’s done well, The Walking Dead largely delivers here. I think it had stronger episodes earlier in the season with what it did, but this first half of the sixth season has been a strong one as a whole.
Grade: B+
