10x12 Walk with Us

[6.8/10] Hey! Stuff is happening! Not all of it’s good, but we had at least some major developments, some great, some baffling, some seemingly pointless, but things are moving along! I’ll take the win where I can get it!

I had this episode totally wrong. I assumed this was going to be TWD’s annual giant battle for the whole episode. Instead, “Walk With Us” gave the audience some of the fog of war material before the opening credits, but then pivoted to more of a Terminus Arc type structure, where we follow different groups of people traveling on their own adventures and looking to reunite somewhere. It was a shot in the arm for the show back then, and hopefully it can do the same here.

Unfortunately this episode isn’t super promising on that front, but we got three semi-major deaths out of the deal, which is this show’s coin of the realm, so let’s talk about each in turn.

The first is Mary (aka Gamma), and it’s the most bizarre to me. It felt like we were building to some kind of arc for her here, proving herself to Alden by protecting her nephew and putting her own life at risk against the walkers. But it’s not like she dies doing something noble, she just gets killed out of nowhere by Beta and dies a regular death before the show’s really had a chance to develop her further. I don’t mind random deaths -- they would happen in this type of environment -- but it really felt like they were going somewhere with Mary and her story and now both have just ended suddenly.

But I guess we’re just positioning Beta as the Big Bad now? Hence him getting some extra shading with another random whisperer seeming to recognize him. He’s not exactly a dude who blends into a crowd so I don’t know why it took so long, but whatever.

The second death is probably the dumbest, but ultimately, also the most meaningful. Earl having been bitten by a walker while he’s responsible for looking after the children is a good setup. It’s not especially complicated, but he sells the slow degradation and hardship of it well. The catch is that him trying to impale himself on a pick is the dumbest method of euthanasia I can imagine. I get what he’s trying to do, and this show has always played fast and loose with how human anatomy works, but still, this felt especially stupid.

It turns out to be the most meaningful death on the show though, because of the impact it has on Judith. Hers is my favorite story in this whole thing. I really like the idea that she views herself as tough and capable of facing anything. She’s been tough as nails ever since we had this time jump. But now she’s not just killing walkers. She inadvertently killed a regular human being and then had to kill the zombified version of someone she knows and cares about. That’s the sort of thing that would shake even the toughest of young children. I love how disquieted she is about all of this, and the warmth of the scene where Daryl wraps his arm around her and comforts her.

The most baffling death is Alpha’s. At the end of the day, I don’t mind it. I’ve said my piece on Samantha Morton’s performance, and the character’s shtick had gotten tired, so it’s not like I’m going to miss her. But it feels like an odd time and an odd way to do it. Figuring out what Negan’s motivation is has gone from being a little unclear to being downright bewildering. Was this whole thing just a plot to take out Alpha, as his reassurances to Aaron and his final scene with Carol seems to suggest? If so, a lot of his prior choices seem puzzling when he could have accomplished this all long before.

Instead, we trade more overwritten monologues between him and Alpha (not to mention some deceptive editing involving Lydia) before the deed is done. There’s a solid idea there, with suggestions that Alpha reminds Negan of his cancer-stricken wife, that being the living dead (spiritually, not literally) isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and just an act from the Whisperers, and that Alpha’s gone far enough off the deep end to think that killing her daughter is nature’s will. But as always, the purple prose to get us there is pretty weak.

At least there’s a handful of cool images in the episode, from the aforementioned Daryl embrace of Judith, to some cool shots of Lydia with a blast of light in the background, to the blood-red final visage of Alpha. Director Greg Nicotera still knows how to let the aesthetics and his special effects work shine when he needs to.

That just leaves a handful of other random business that’s not too great or terrible. I could hardly care less about the latest chapter of Magna/Miko drama. Carol giving Eugene a “go to her” speech feels strangely romcom-y. The search for the kids feels like false jeopardy from the jump. And my patience for Lydia as a macguffin is waning quickly.

Overall, this one is...fine. The Judith stuff is good or interesting, but pretty much everything else feels like a reheated version of the sort of thing TWD has done many times over before. I’m vaguely interested to see where the Whisperers go from here without Alpha, but otherwise there’s not a lot of intrigue going forward. We’ll see if Michonne’s side quest can be the shot in the arm the season needs.