6x09 No Way Out

Maaaan, this episode was a mess, in both the best and the worst ways. Gonna start with what bugged me. This ep disregarded how the midseason finale had ended, and I like my continuity. I know Carl lost an eye in the comics, but how the fuck has he survived a shot to the head? Also it was a bit weird how walkers got that whiny little shit Sam just because he took a step to the side, and then they attacked Jessie for screaming like they could follow the sound to her vocal cords, instead of just attacking the general source which would be the whole group. Not gonna lie, I kept waiting for that whole nightmarish (and slightly ridiculous) sequence to end up being a figment of someone's imagination. Wolf having a sudden change of heart was a bit farfetched. But fuck that shit, I don't really care. Rick going berserk and everyone following him to clear up the streets was awesome. Daryl, Abraham and Sasha coming back at the right moment and saving the day by gunning down the dead fuckers and blowing shit up was... convenient, but also awesome, yeah. Fuck the nit-picking, this episode was the shit, definitely worth waiting and yawning during some of the previous ones. Keep it up.

That was really intense!! I mean, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time!!! Starting with that Negan group, I really didn't expect for that situation to get resolved that quickly, I thought they would be yet another problem in this episode to run along with the walkers invasion at Alexandria. And then when the guy pointed the gun at Abraham and Sasha I was worried!! That big explosion made me smile so much LOL Quite a way to open up with a bang
I felt so sorry for Sam... He was innocent, and it was realistic that a kid like him would freak out in a situation like that. Granted it was the worst time for him to be all frozen, but having him remember what Carol told him was a nice touch to show how traumatized he was.
Jessie on the other hand just stood there and died... that was lame... and the acting wasn't her best because I didn't really felt her pain of seeing her kid being killed. I am sad to see her go, I really hoped she would be around for a few more episodes.
Stupid Ron!! I knew that was coming but I was in denial (I didn't want the writers to have Carl get shot)... there was a lot of foreshadowing that he would ended up shooting Carl or Rick, and than the little prick does that.
Now Rick was one that shown pain really well!! My heart was breaking seeing his desperation.
I gotta say that I LOVED both Eugene and Gabriel!! Eugene finally stepping up and joining the fight was all that I wanted.
As for Gabriel I really wanted him to change, because after the last season finale where he and Sasha and then Maggie were at the church we saw that he really was lost. It's good to see that he is sorry about his behavior and was not a waste to have the group save him. He really changed and is now making up for his mistakes, first promising to take care of Judith (I really love that when push came to shove, Rick trusted him) and then guiding his flock to join the fight (that was exactly the kind of thing I would expect from a man of faith that prays in time of need).
Also, Denise is overcoming her fear and is becoming a good doctor, she was super focused and worried about her patients, now she just needs to learn how to defend herself
When Rick was fighting/blowing off some steam, and Michonne was all worried about him it was clear how much she cares about him... how cute was that Michonne kissed Carl's forehead?!! <3
I got goosebumps when everybody stepped up and joined the fight! It's just like Rick said in the end, they learned and were willing to fight for their home! It's about damn time! Now I want they all to try to build up the new world.
And it's official, Glenn really will give me a heart attack till the season is over! I was freaking out (again) just like Maggie.
I was missing Daryl being a badass, and he kind of saved the day twice in the episode LOL

It's relieving to see the Alexandrians putting up a fight, hand-to-hand, against the zombie menace. But if all this is triggered by Rick's sudden madness, it begs the ultimate question: why the hell didn't he do it since the infestation begin?!

Rick just needs a few experienced fighters (Glenn, Michonne, Abraham, etc maybe Aaron too). Back in Season 6 episode 5, they should have stood in front of the gate and cut the walkers to bits one by one like they just did in this episode. It should have not cost anybody's life--not to mention the life of a woman dearest to Rick! No need to gather the zombies far away and causing unintended consequences. Maybe all this is a ruse by Rick, to teach the Alexandrians a will to fight. A will to power. But it doesn't make much sense considering the cost and risk he ultimately pays. Especially since Rick is ultra-protective and should be calculative enough to realize that.

Putting that aside, with the Wolves leader dead, and Jesse's two annoying kids also dead too, I think the show kinda putting off the tense too early and too easily. The annoying little kid poses a classic, albeit cliched, zombie movie annoyance (scared little kids who ruin everything) and his older brother (Ron) could've been some sort of a rival to Carl (or a potential enemy, I mean he already bears deep hatred to Carl and Rick). Ron could've helped Carl's interesting character development. Perhaps Ron can be a Shane to Carl, leaving the audience the feeling of, "this guy is gonna give trouble but we're not sure how and when." The same goes with the Wolves leader. The show spent quite a time to built their characters for the audience to expect more. They could've made an useful, interesting tension like we had with Shane.

But they're all dead now, so it's kinda a waste, I guess.

There were two big themes coming out of "No Way Out," and their themes that have been with the show almost since the beginning -- the idea of community and the idea of how much this post-apocalyptic world changes you. The show was certainly a little overly didactic about these points at times, but for once, it dovetailed them nicely together.

The community part has been telegraphed from the beginning of this season, if not before. Rick has spent so much time decrying the Alexandrians and declaring that they are too much children of the summer and drawing a dividing line between them and his people, that you just knew he was going to accept them sooner or later. It was inevitable that some event was going to take place, and that he was going to see that they had potential and eventually accept them. It's not even the first time we've seen this arc with Rick.

But despite the predictability of it, I liked what the way they did it. It seemed like the show was giving into Rick's skepticism as to the Alexandrians being able to do what was necessary to survive in their new environs when it showed the deaths of the entire Anderson family, each death being emblematic of some flaw of the Alexandrian community as a whole.

Sam was too scared, too unmoored by the horror he was seeing to be able to proceed with the mission in the face of such grotesque images. Jesse was unable to let go, literally but more importantly figuratively, to save the rest of her family in the face of tragedy that inevitably strikes. And Ron is too willing to hold onto old grudges, to point fingers and count marks in the ledger that's covered in blood. It's a gruesome, unexpected scene that was as shocking as it was gripping.

Then, in a scene that felt very reminiscent of Season 2, Carl is shot and Rick goes running with his son in his arms to the nearest safe place. Except this time, in his grief and his anger, he stupidly tries to fight off the zombie horde single-handedly.

(Incidentally, Mischonne's little kiss for Carl before joining the fray is one of those brief-but-amazing little character moments that the show could really use more of in place of heavy-handed exchanges in the vein of Glenn and Enid's conversation. So much conveyed so succinctly.)

But a funny thing happens. Soon not only Mischonne goes to help him, but so do the rest of the Alexandrians who are holed up in the infirmary. So do the folks who just came to blows over whether to help one of the Wolves. So does the generally ineffectual Eugene, so does the standoffish Enid, so does the pacifistic Morgan, so does the viscera-repulsed Denise, so does the vacillating Father Gabriel, and in one of the show's most effective visual and editing flourishes, so does effectively everyone we've ever met in the show who still has a leg to stand on. From the sign above the door in the church, to Gabriel's quick speech, there's a thematic nod toward the idea of the divine rewarding those who act to make the change, to help themselves as the saying goes, and in the climax of the episode, all of Alexandria rises to that call.

At the end, they are a community. It's not subtle (especially considering Rick's incredibly blunt speech at the end of the episode), but it's effective. The show has divided its cast for so many seasons now (a choice I agree with), and it's cast has gotten so large that it's easy for the whole enterprise to feel somewhat scattershot and disconnected. But for once the disparate individuals in this show, who are separated by history, by ideology, by temperament, and by experience, are united. However clumsily he says it, Rick is right to have hope. While The Walking Dead employs more than a few narrative shortcuts to get there, the sequence of the town coming together, one-by-one, to repel the attack, is a triumphant one, and that triumph is earned.

That said, basically everything touched by the Darryl/Sasha/Abraham triumvirate smacked of deus ex machina solutions to plot obstacles. The cold open had a great energy to it, but the ending was pretty weak, not only because it strains credulity that Darryl could take out one of the henchman and load up a rocket launcher without making a peep, but because the head henchman gave a quality performance that we'll never get to see again. At the same time, that trio showing up just in time to save Glenn (and fix his fairly dumb plan), by miraculously firing machine guns in his general direction without so much as nicking him was pretty cheesy as well, and it was in no way helped by Abraham's cackle. And the way that Daryl was able to put a dent in the morass of zombies felt fairly convenient as well. But in the end, that's what this show is and what it's been. If you're watching it for logical consistency, you're going to be sorely disappointed, and that's not a new feature. I can accept that tack for what it is, even it makes me wrinkle my nose a bit.

I can accept it in part because of the personal themes of the extent to which people are changed by this new state of affairs. Carol is one of my absolute favorite characters on the show, and her transition from battered spouse to grieving mother to capable hand to hardened warrior has been one of the best elements of the show in its six-season run. But the next step in that evolution, of her wondering if the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction, with seeds planted in "JSS", is a powerful one that continues the character's tradition of having one of the show's most interesting arcs.

The episode's examination of these ideas is not, however, limited to Carol. It's much less subtle, but the same themes are at play in the conversations between The Wolf and Denise, and the intercut scenes with Glenn and Enid, and small moments with Morgan, Eugene, Rosita, and others underscore the way in which these people have a choice. They've all been affected by the downfall of civilization, but they can choose to give into the lawless state of nature they've been deposited into, or hold onto their humanity in an inhumane world.

"No Way Out" is an episode that name-checks a lot of lost souls from the series past, from recent losses like Deanna to ones as old as Dale. It brings together those themes with the idea that those who survive in this world carry the people who made them what they are with them through every step taken along the way to rebuilding civilization and society. It stands for the idea of not losing yourself in the carnage or cravenness of the world as it is now, a world where even a wolf has a conscience, a woman whose grown hard begins to feel the pain of what she's become, and a community unites for what feels like the first time. It's The Walking Dead, so much of the execution along the way is more than a little bit clumsy, but it's the right and earnest culmination of the ideas and themes introduced in the first half of the season, and in many ways, of the series as a whole.