*Spoilers*

This week’s episode of The Walking Dead didn’t really push the current storyline too much further along than we already were at, other than showing us a little bit of what happened to Negan after he met up with Gabriel in that trailer at Sanctuary, but it did do a little bit of character building for the bad guys, as well as giving us a taste of Negan’s backstory (which has only just finished in the spin-off comic book “Here’s Negan”, detailing his origin story – which is not overly impressive and I am pretty glad that the show decided to only mention it, rather than dedicating a whole episode to showing it). This episode also showed us the growing tension between Rick and Daryl, which has been hinted at throughout the course of the season so far, helping to solidify my theory that Daryl might be on his way out at the end of the season (remember! You heard it here first!).
While I have yet to interact with anyone online or face-to-face at my work regarding this episode, I am sure that with the current trend, that people hated it. It was slow and not much happened. It mainly showed the only characters that we know out of the Saviors, and, as I mentioned earlier, it failed to really push the story forward. I for one did not mind it. It is nice to see things from the antagonists’ perspective and it helps give these characters a little depth, rather than being one dimensional and your standard enemies.

The Walking Dead does have a tendency to drag out the story which it is trying to tell, but it is still entertaining, and compared to some of the crap on TV, it is still worth the watch. However, I can see that people are becoming rather displeased with it, so the show really needs to kick itself up the arse for the second half of the season. It is a problem when something becomes THIS popular. Game of Thrones has managed to stay consistently good, but since people now expect a certain level of quality, when the show does occasionally dip (still making it massively better than 80% of the shows out there), people tend to moan and let others know that they thought the episode was boring or crap. The Walking Dead has a huge following and now it is finding itself really struggling to keep up with people’s expectations. It is trying too hard to please everyone, and almost failing at pleasing anyone. So try not get caught in the masses expectations of television quality and just enjoy it for what it is, and you will end up being entertained.

Anyway, that’s enough of my rant. Let’s get to the breakdown.
So the episode beings (after seeing Father Gabriel praying) with Gregory staying at the Sanctuary. We instantly realise that this takes place before Rick and the united armies show up. Simon appears and is doing his usual underhanded friendly act, telling him that he is a good boy for coming to the Saviors, rather than joining Maggie and her Hilltop revolt.
I really like Gregory and think he is a rather enjoyable character to watch as he politically slimes his way to survive, giving up anyone to anyone if it meant he can live another day.


So Gregory is invited to a big council meeting with the heads of the Saviors. Negan and Lucille sit menacingly at the top of the table, with all the other known Savior characters all around. Gregory tries to say that he had nothing to do with the revolt and that he is the man who runs the Hilltop. Negan rose an eyebrow for me at this point when he announces that he “Loves to Kill”, which is not really what the character is about, but thankfully he started to make his speech about how killing the right person at the right time can stop hundreds of others dying. So he loves killing the right people? Oh… okay then. I guess that sort of makes sense with his character.

Simon tries to formulate a plan and is instantly shut down by Negan, telling him that HE (Negan) is running the show and that he answers to him. I like Simon but a few people at work have pointed out that he tries a little too hard to be like Negan, so it was nice to see that this was addressed and he was put back in his place by the man in the bat.

At this point the united colony armies show up and shot the shit out the place, and we are treated to a brief moment of what the Saviors did before they appeared on the balcony in episode 1 of this season. They did mention a few things here and there which may put to rest some peoples’ nags about what the Saviors did or didn’t do in the first episode, such as where their men had gotten to, and the stuff about the snipers in the buildings. A lot of this stuff might have been overlooked, but it was nice to see that the writers were addressing some of these criticism.

One Savior I do like is that guy who always seems very unenthusiastic. I have no idea what his name is. He is one of the heads of the Saviors and always seems as if everything is a massive inconvenience. It just makes me laugh. I think it is because Simon IS quite similar to Negan, and we know Dwight enough to see him differently, but this other unenthusiastic Savior is a bit of nobody who could die at any moment, so it makes him a little more fresh and interesting.


Was that the que for the beginning intro? No… there is still more to go. Shit man, this is like 15 minutes long!
Fast forward to when Gabriel and Negan are inside the trailer after Gregory stole his car… and another point people moaned about has been addressed. “Why didn’t Gabriel just shoot him?” well he tried and failed. Negan was too fast and knocked him on his arse. At this point Gabriel has a sort of epiphany (hope that’s spelt right and not some other completely random word) and realises that he has been put in this moment, trapped with their primary antagonist, surrounded by a horde of the dead, to take Negan’s confession. Que the intro.
It’s actually quite a good idea for the story and would have been great if the comics had done it as well (as I would have loved to read that). I felt that it was an excellent use of Gabriel’s character, giving he is a reverend and all. The two of them discuss what makes them weak, and what makes them strong. Gabriel reveals to Negan his past where he locked his church so the congregation were eaten and he listened to them die, which if I remember, was really well done when it first came about in the show (such as the horrible words carved into the walls of the church).
Negan eventually confesses about Lucille (although he doesn’t mention her by name, he merely says his first wife… his real wife) and how he didn’t have the courage to put her down when she turned. He covers a lot of things that were shown in the prequel comic book “Here’s Negan”, which I have only just finished reading, so it was good to see it added into the show.
There is a moment when Gabriel tries to take a shot at Negan, takes his gun, and hides inside the wardrobe. Here the two exchange a real style confession, just like in a church. Although the scene was a little drawn out, I did actually enjoy this exchange between the two. I felt it gave Negan a purpose, as he, like Gabriel, wants to just help people. It shows us that what Negan thinks he is going is actually good. He isn’t just some evil antagonist. Although a few of his points are questionable, such as saying that he killed Glenn and “the Ginger”, but he didn’t get them killed. Hmmm well… you kind of did. But I sort of get what he is getting at.

Eventually the two use zombie guts to escape. If I am honest, I would be absolutely cacking it as I moved through the horde of creatures that could instantly killed me in one single bite, so fair play to Father Gabriel for doing it. As the guy is infamous for being a bit of a pussy.
It is a bit strange how they did manage to fight their way through the dead when the plan went tits up, but a little bit of zombie action never hurt the show, in fact people often moan that there is not enough of it!
By the end of this part of the episode, Negan has decided to show Gabriel his way and make him see the light of Negan. He has already done this with Eugene, so there is a possibility that Gabe could be swapping sides at some point in the future.
Even though this technically ended the episode, we will come back to this moment at the end.

Elsewhere Rick and Daryl were dealing with the aftermath of crashing the truck carrying the guns from the last episode. They find the drive who dies before their eyes, and Rick is having a moment where he is starting to see the horror of how this war is affecting everyone. As I said in a previous review, Rick has become a little less human and likeable, so it is clear that the writers are trying to bring the main character of the show back for us, but in doing so, they are intentionally pushing Daryl away, making him more focused on his revenge.
When they head down to the crashed truck, we are blatantly shown the petrol leaking from the bottom of it. The show does make it obvious at times that something is going to happen with this, and since the truck is full of dynamite (which seems random as I thought the focus was those large 50.cal machine guns), then we know that the whole thing is going to blow up.
Once the dynamite has been collected, Daryl says that they should blow a hole in the side of Sanctuary, allowing the dead to get inside and making the Saviors surrender, or more likely killing them. Rick knows that this is a bad move and will only result in the workers of Sanctuary siding with Negan and the soldiers, and joining the fight.
Daryl ignores Rick’s advice and says that he is going to do that anyway, and the two come to blows. The dynamite is lost and the truck blows up. Good one guys. Now you have nothing. In the end we see Rick heading off one way (one foot as his Jeep doesn’t start) and Daryl riding off on his bike another (what a dick! At least give Rick a backie!), showing the separation between the two main characters. I am sure we will see this evolve more as Daryl’s lust for vengeance, and Rick’s return to humanity, causing even more distance between them.

Finally the last story that was featured this week showed the Savior leaders discussing what they should do, now that they are surrounded by the dead. They discuss plans of using the workers as bait (but Eugene shoots that down in an incredibly unlikeable way), as well as the possibility that there might be a rat amongst them, as this meeting is the only time that the Savior leaders are together at the same time. Good spot unenthusiastic man. Dwight, shitting himself at getting discovered, brushes this aside and begins to take charge, now that Simon is feeling a little overwhelmed.
As the day goes on, Eugene goes to see Dwight to thank him for having his back, offering him some pickles and making a joke about it, but we see Dwight playing the game, making everyone think he is still a true believer in the Saviors way, knowing full well that most of these people are probably going to die when either the zombies get in or Rick gets his hands on them.
When the power is switched off, the workers begin to get restless. They demand to see Negan and begin a revolt, which Simon is poor to extinguish, before a blood soaked Negan and Gabriel return.
Watching everyone kneel before him, as well as how they look up to Negan, really opens Gabriel’s eyes. Someone shouts out “Thank you god for sending Negan to us” at the perfect time that there is a priest being slowly corrupted by Negan.
At this point I would like to ask why the hell Gabriel knelt when all the workers did. Why did he do that?


After this we see the Saviors discussing how the united armies got the guns, finding out that they are actually their own guns, confirming that there is a traitor amongst them. Eugene and Dwight keep exchanging glances, indicating that Eugene is starting to piece it together, and Dwight knows it.
Rick is shown heading down through the woods when suddenly he hears and sees a motherfucking helicopter fly over! Is he hallucinating or did that just happen? He follows it leaving us to have to wait and see what becomes of this.
It looks like the trash people are watching Rick, so we will soon see where these filthy stupid haircut people are hiding.

Finally, back at Sanctuary, Eugene is confronted by Negan, telling him that HE needs to figure their current situation out, because he will kill Eugene before he sees all the horrific things that happens when they run out of food and water. Putting Eugene in a very difficult place. He goes to see Gabriel, who is locked up in the same sort of place Daryl was in last season. He is sweating and appears to have a fever, so it is unknown if he has been bitten. The episode ends with Eugene trying to help Gabe as he tells him that they need to get Maggie’s doctor out of there.

Overall, while the episode did fail to push the main story forward, we were given a bit of story from the enemies’ perspective, which is always good for fleshing them out. Not much action happened, which will piss quite a few people off, but overall I really didn’t mind it. The idea of utilising Gabriel by making him take Negan’s confession was great, and it did address matters that people had pointing out in previous episodes, which is always helpful when looking back or rewatching it.


With three or so episodes left of this half of the season (as the show normally does 8 and 8), I am curious to see how much longer the writers can drag out this hour period of time that the entire first half of the season has been set within, although with the last few moments of the episode, I think the questions that they leave us with is enough for us to sink our teeth into. We will have to wait and see….

Please follow and like us: