Spoilers through Season 6 of 'The Walking Dead' follow.
Glenn is alive.
That's the big news from tonight's Walking Dead episode, "Heads Up." Of course, many of us will not be surprised. Even though I was, at first, quite convinced of Glenn's death, evidence quickly mounted that this was not, in fact, the case.
It's kind of a dirty trick on AMC's part, and it's kind of lame for a lot of reasons I won't go into right now. But mostly, I'm happy Glenn is still with us. Glenn getting killed by walkers because of stupid Nicholas being stupid is plenty lame, and I'd rather the show didn't kill off one of its best characters just yet.
Like many people had already guessed, Glenn survived by pulling himself under the dumpster that they had fallen off of, and then killing off the handful of zombies who notice him and then waiting it out. Nicholas was gutted on top of him, but Glenn got out without a scratch.
After the herd passes, Glenn clambers back out only to discover Enid up above. She tosses him a water bottle, which breaks, and he tracks her down asking about what happened at Alexandria. She's reluctant to tell him, and eventually gets away, though he catches up with her again later.
This seems to put an end to my theory that Enid was a spy for the Wolves. That just doesn't seem to be the case anymore (though who knows?) If she was with the Wolves, why is she hanging out alone now? I mean, granted, Enid is a pretty tough nut to crack. She's not exactly balanced. But surely she would have sought out her former clan after the assault on Alexandria if they were her people.
In any case, she doesn't want to go back to Alexandria but Glenn makes her because he thinks it's the right thing. I'm not so sure. If Enid wants to be alone, it's not really Glenn's call to force her to come back with him. And his reasoning---that Maggie would want him to do it---is paper thin. But they go anyways, and have something of a heart-to-heart, and then discover the town has been totally surrounded by the undead.
Alexandria
Several conflicts take place in Alexandria. Let's go over each briefly:
- Spencer the nitwit decides to leave town via grappling hook, crawling hand over foot above the swarm of zombies. He says he's leaving to draw away the herd, but I'm not sure he's brave enough. He's dumb enough to try such a ridiculous plan, but part of me thinks he was just leaving town to escape, not to help at all. Rick and Tara and some others end up rescuing him and Rick yells at Tara for sticking her neck out for "one of them." I'm as annoyed by the Alexandrians as the next guy, but Rick takes his scorn too far. He needs to spend less time mooning of Jessie and more time training.
- Speaking of training, we do see some of this in tonight's episode as well. The oft-neglected Rosita---The Walking Dead's most ignored core survivor---gets some great moments yelling at the coward, Eugene. Meanwhile, Rick continues to teach Jessie's son Ron how to shoot, never once guessing that the kid may be up to no good. He even gives him a gun with no bullets so he can get used to wearing one. Neither Rick nor Carl suspect anything.
- It's a shame neither suspect anything, and a bit nerve-wracking. Ron gets his gun and immediately goes and steals bullets from the armory. For some reason, nobody has thought to put an actual guard on the guns or lock them up or anything. The same lady who couldn't protect the food is in charge of protecting the arsenal. Not too bright, people. Ron gets his bullets, and as the episode draws closer to its tense finish, we see him following Carl, pulling the gun from his pants. Nothing happens, weirdly enough, but if we weren't clear on Ron's intentions before we can be now. He's going to kill Carl to get back at Rick. I don't think he'll succeed, but I'm worried.
- Speaking of Rick, he and Carol and Michonne all confront Morgan about his live-and-let-live philosophy. Rick wants to know why on earth Morgan didn't kill those five Wolves when he had the chance. Let's evaluate that real quick. Rick wants to know why Morgan didn't kill five people all at once with his bo staff. Really? No matter how good Morgan is with the staff---and he did stop the five Wolves from killing him---can you imagine how difficult it would be to kill five people with a stick? Even just fully subduing five people would have been an enormous challenge. So while I agree with Michonne that life is more complicated in the End Times than "All Life Is Precious" I don't really see how Rick, Carol and Michonne could question Morgan this way with a straight face. Rick only managed to kill the Wolves because he had a gun. If he'd been up against all five of them with a stick...Rick would have been dead meat.
- But it's not like Morgan is thinking clearly, either. He goes to the sort-of-doctor Denise to get help for his Wolf captive. Which is ridiculous. It's one thing to not kill but it's another to not turn the man over to the rest of the group, and it's downright stupid to bring Denise anywhere near the psychopath. Fortunately, Carol follows him and confronts him about the prisoner. We don't find out what happens next because...
- The creaky building that we're shown throughout the episode as it dillapidates piece by piece suddenly topples over, bringing down a big chunk of the wall and giving the walkers an easier (though not easy) way into Alexandria. The entire episode Rick and an Alexandrian were putting up bracers on a different section of wall, and it's all for nothing. They missed the true danger while they focused on the wrong priority. Sounds like exactly the sort of thing that's happened to them countless times before. The building collapses just as everything is about to reach a boiling point. Carol's confrontation with Morgan; Maggie sees the balloons Glenn and Enid released to signal their survival; Ron is tailing Carl with a gun. It's all about to hit the fan when the wall falls down. Does this mean the rest of these problems and hopes are forgotten, or will chaos simply overwhelm the entire town? Hopefully we find out next week rather than go back to Daryl, Sasha, and Abraham. But I'm not holding my breath.
Other than these main points, a few smaller things happen. Father Gabriel is putting up prayer circle pamphlets and Rick comes by and tears them down. I like Rick, but man does he do the petulant child thing well. His stubborn, petty side is in full swing at the moment.
Deanna comes to the survivors with her delusional grand scheme for Alexandria, also. It seems the only real way she can deal with the present is to ignore it in favor of a rosier future. That may be how hope works, but right now it comes across as silly. Her leadership bona fides are all but gone.
Finally a good episode.
This is the episode that should have happened two episodes ago. I was fine with the Morgan flashback. That was really well done and interesting. But the two following episodes were almost entirely unnecessary. Really, you could have taken the good moments from those---Maggie's revelation about her pregnancy and her and Aaron's trip through the sewers; Daryl's run-in with this new danger; Sasha and Abraham's conversation---and mixed them into the stuff from this episode and maybe eked out two full episodes or one long one. We had at least an hour and maybe more of pure fluff.
So yes, The Walking Dead returned to form Sunday night, but it took too long getting there. It took so long that almost all the tension over Glenn's death had evaporated. Rather than really wondering or caring, we'd all taken sides on the issue and then moved on to annoyance and boredom by the filler episodes. If we'd had to wait just one week (or at the outside, two) we would've had a much more satisfying reveal. I'm glad that Glenn is alive, but I wish we hadn't lost all of our dramatic momentum and tension over the past few weeks.
I also think it would have been a bolder move if they'd actually killed Glenn. A good head-fake is one thing, but this felt a bit over-the-top. The showrunners were toying with our emotions for way too long and the payoff just isn't there.
What did you think of tonight's episode? A return to form, or too little too late?
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