7x14 The Other Side

[6.7/10] Fault is a slippery concept. It’s bundled up with intention, result, and a host of other complicating factors that affect whom we blame and whom we absolve. Some people wrong us, and don’t intend to. Some people mean to hurt us and give us what we need. And some people simply twist in the wind, unsure where they are or where they’ll end up. How we credit and blame others for such things says as much about us as it does about the person whose actions we’re trying to figure out.

But so does how we move past that, whether we’re blaming others or blaming ourselves. How we try to avoid or overcome the bad blood, the hurt feelings, the guilt, can decide how long it weighs on us. In “The Other Side,” Daryl blames himself, Gregory bends over backwards to avoid blame, and Sasha and Rosita hash their shared, awkward part in Abraham’s life and death, and what comes next.

It’s a solid idea, but a weaker hour in Season 7. The meat of the episode centers on the fraught relationship between Sasha and Rosita, and while each of the characters is decent enough, they don’t have much chemistry together, leaving the many scenes they share feeling uneven and miscalibrated. So many moments in this episode simply feature two people going back and forth, and when there’s not a connection between the real people having the conversation, those moments quickly suffer.

That may be part of why the episode’s most effective scene was the final one between Daryl and Maggie. The dialogue between them is as trite as anything in the rest of the episode, but in keep their scenes together short, “The Other Side” keeps them punchy and affecting enough before the emotion in the moment from being stretched too thin.

It makes sense that Daryl would refuse to look at Maggie because he blames himself for Glenn’s death. There was a clear warning; Daryl acted, and someone who’d been with him from nearly the beginning died because of it. Despite his warrior’s bent, Daryl is a surprisingly sensitive individual, and it’s not hard to imagine him looking at Maggie and only seeing what he took away from her.

But Maggie gives him absolution. She tells him it wasn’t his fault. However much he sees himself as an avenging angel now, all the more ready to kill to prevent a death like Glenn’s from ever happening again, she tells him to hang onto himself. She calls him one of the good things left in this world, like Glenn was, and her embrace is one of comfort and of strength, that forgives Daryl his trespasses in a way that only a grieving loved one can.

Gregory, however, has no interest in absolution, no interest in carrying the burden of lives lost or saved under his watch. He simply wants to protect his own interests, to keep himself in whatever small amount of power he has. He’s willing to kowtow to anyone, to sell anyone out, to write off any blame or shame as owing to forces beyond his control, in order to ensure things stay that way.

I’ve come to appreciate Gregory as a character. It’s not my favorite performance on the show, but there’s something true to life about him. He is not pure evil like The Saviors. He is not nearly as avaricious as some of the antagonists who’ve peppered The Walking Dead. He is the sort of person who would emerge in a setting like this – a petty tyrant with delusions of grandeur.

While Negan, however horribly flawed he is, shares Gregory’s narcissism, he’s backed it up with his horrid empire. Gregory is the man who shakes hands with power and thinks himself power. He is the quisling, the one who’s cowed but prides himself on being the plumpest bovine at the slaughterhouse. His doomed haughtiness, his faith placed in the wrong places, makes him as intriguing a foil as he is an ineffective schemer.

It helps that he’s often paired with Simon, who seems to find a new level of cheery unctuousness each time he appears. This visit to The Hilltop sees him absconding with their local doctor to replace the one at The Saviors’ compound. (Apparently they’re brothers, in a detail that adds next to nothing to the proceedings here.) Gregory complains to him that he’ll be blamed, that he’ll lose his people’s trust, if this goes down, and that he could be replaced with someone less accommodating.

Simon writes him a “pass” to the Saviors’ compound, and with this imaginary get out of jail free card, one sure to backfire should Gregory ever try to use it, Gregory tries to intimidate Jesus. (Jesus, meanwhile, finally feels like he belongs, which is in no way convenient or setup for him to step up when things inevitably go south with Gregory.) There’s a foolhardiness to the attempt. Gregory’s no chess master, and his threats and misplaced faith in The Saviors to save him from facing the consequences of any blame will no doubt leave him sipping far less tequila.

And then there’s Sasha and Rosita. It’s nice, in principle, that The Walking Dead is having the two of them address the bad blood between them. And there are some good moments between them where the tension between them is present but set aside for their shared goal. But the whole frenemy setup is a weaker one, and neither Sonequa Martin-Green or Christian Serratos can elevate it through performance alone.

That becomes most clear in the scene where they’re enjoying relative safety and have their heart-to-heart. (Really, this could be called “Heart-to-Heart: The Episode!”) We get some perfunctory backstory on Rosita. It turns out she’s so capable because she would drift from guy to guy after the outbreak hit, sticking around long enough to learn whatever skill they had while they were trying to “protect” her, and leaving when she’d mastered it.

But Abraham, apparently, was different. There’s truth and complexity in the moment where she attributes her anger to the fact that Abraham seemed to adjust to life in Alexandria, to not being on the run, while she needed more time to “figure shit out.” It gives shape and depth to her relationship with him, and makes her pain and disillusionment this season more real. And it adds tragedy to the sense that, as she tells Sasha, she was happy that he was happy.

The problem is that, as often hobbles The Walking Dead, the scene is also filled with trite truisms and forehead-slapping dialogue. It’s a long scene, much like the one between Morgan and Richard last week, and it serves the same purpose – to setup and explain the dramatic choice made at the end of the episode. It’s a moment of bonding for Rosita and Sasha, one that makes them part of the same thing rather than opposing forces. That’s a nice idea, even if the episode’s realization of it leaves something to be desired.

The finish to the episode is more setup than resolution. Eugene reaffirms his loyalty to Negan. Sasha rushes into the compound and keeps her comrade out of it so that she may live to fight another day. And Rosita crosses Dwight’s path. These are all steps as much steps toward the next chapter of the story as they are cappers to this one.

Still, the episode is at its best when it depicts its central figures understanding the titular “Other Side” beyond the attribution of fault that haunts them. It stands for Gregory, whose alliances begin to shift to a group who will no doubt set him adrift when he’s no longer useful. It stands for Daryl, who can, perhaps, start to forgive himself after seeing how Maggie’s forgiven him. And it stands for Rosita, who bares her soul, tells her side of the story, and is given, whether she wants it or not, the chance live for something else, no matter whose fault it is.