Spoilers through Season 6 of 'The Walking Dead' follow.
Sunday night's episode of The Walking Dead picks up the pace a little bit from last week's disaster, but we still find ourselves watching bits and segments of the full story rather than the whole thing.
This time around we get Daryl, Abraham and Sasha. That's a more sensible combination than the Rick/Maggie/Extras episode last week, but what we're left with is too many questions.
Glenn's fate remains an irritating mystery, growing more frustrating by the week (and really, there's only so long they can drag this out. The line between suspense and gimmick is thin.) The actual reunion and discussion between survivors has yet to occur, since last week Rick spent the whole time dawdling about instead of actually discussing what happened with the zombie plan and the Wolves' assault. Carol and Michonne and Morgan were mere blips on the radar.
Instead, this week we're introduced to a whole new suite of questions, characters, and conflict. That's not a bad thing, but the episode itself felt a bit disjointed, even though I enjoyed getting a bit more time with Daryl, who actually got a few lines in this time around.
The episode---"Always Accountable"---opens to an ambush.
Suddenly Sasha, Abraham and Daryl are being shot at by people---we don't know who---and the three are separated. Sasha and Abraham take out some of the attackers, and Daryl escapes on his motorcycle, wounded but not terribly. Their radios mysteriously fail to communicate and Daryl hides his bike and goes off to search the surrounding area. He finds two women and before he can find out who they are, a man attacks him from behind.
At this point, we follow two stories. In one, Sasha and Abraham go and wait for Daryl to come find them. The best way to find a tracker, Sasha says, is to stay put. So they hole up and wait. Abraham goes out and finds some rocket-propelled grenades and Cuban cigars while Sasha rests up in the company of a trapped walker. One thing leads to another, and we discover that Abraham has a thing for Sasha, though she doesn't reciprocate. I'm having a hard time tracking Abraham's motives here. His arrangement with Rosita seems to be pretty good, and I'm not sure how this new romantic interest has blossomed for him, other than---as Sasha puts it---he has some stuff to work out.
In the second story-line, Daryl finds himself a captive of these new, mysterious people. They're at once on the run from their previous group and searching out people they've left behind in the area. We also learn they've burned a bunch of the undead during a time when they were "fighting back." It's all pretty vague, and nothing goes according to plan. Daryl escapes and almost makes it out and back to safety when other members of this new group show up. Somebody named Wade seems to be in charge. There's bad blood between him and Daryl's former captors, who apparently took something from their former group and broke some rules.
Daryl, being the fine gentleman that he is, ends up helping the three of them escape. Later, a prone walker kills one of the women and Daryl offers the other two a spot at Alexandria. He's just doing his job, and he reads the man and woman as decent folk who could probably help. He's not necessarily wrong, but they don't trust him and he ends up getting his crossbow and bike stolen. So much for being a good guy and trying to help.
"I"m sorry," the woman tells him as they ride off. "You will be," he replies. Fortunately he isn't entirely stranded. He follows some clues to a fuel truck and goes back and picks up Sasha and Abraham.
So we're introduced to a new mystery. Who are these people and what is it about their former group that forced them to flee? The ambush was obviously set up to trap them, but why is it that Wade and his people want them back to begin with? And who is it on the radio that tells Daryl "Help!" at the end of the episode, just before credits roll?
Actually, perhaps readers can help me with that last question. A couple episodes back, I wondered who it was that said "Open the gate!" A reader who had his captions on was able to confirm it was Rick. I don't get captions in the screeners I'm sent from AMC each week, so I can only hazard guesses. Could it be Glenn? Could it be the man who just stole Daryl's bike? Could it be someone else entirely? It's hard to say, and even with a second listen I couldn't tell.
While new players have been introduced to the story and a new potential group of bad guys has emerged, I still can't help but feel like this is filler. That the way the story is being told is less about storytelling and more about dragging things out.
I don't particularly like dividing episodes up so much into separate partitions, either. I can understand why the show would do this, but too often The Walking Dead thinks that it's clever to make us wait to find out what happens next by telling one group's story at a time. Instead, it extends the drama to the point where real tension evaporates. In its place we're left with contrivance.
How many episodes will we have to wait to discover what really happened with Glenn? How many episodes will it take for Rick and Carol and Michonne to actually talk about what's going on and what just happened? How many episodes will it take for Daryl and co. to make it back to Alexandria? How long will they string us along before something important happens?
Meanwhile, only very vague threats exist beyond the horde of zombies laying siege to Alexandria. We have the Wolves, but we know next to nothing about them. We know there's one particularly villainous Wolf held prisoner by Morgan in Alexandria, but we don't really know his status or whether or not Morgan is telling anyone about him. And now we have Wade and this new, equally nebulous group of potential bogies tossed into the mix.
Lots of mystery, but it becomes almost incoherent at times because at every turn we're kept guessing. And not guessing in an interesting way like we were, ever so briefly, with the Governor and Woodbury, but in an almost mechanical sense. Just wait long enough and the answers will be made clear. In the meantime, things that don't matter much will happen.
Yes, patience is a virtue, but good storytelling matters and after the first three excellent episodes of this season, it feels like good storytelling has fallen off the deep end.
What did you think of tonight's episode? Shout out in the comments or on social media.
