The Walking Dead Returns with “No Way Out”

Well it’s been three months and one very disappointing mid-season finale since we last saw our perennially-unlucky survivors in zombie-ravaged Alexandria. With the ante somewhat dulled from episode 8, could episode 9 live up to The Walking Dead‘s previous brilliant mid-season openers?

Our episode opens with Daryl, Abraham and Sasha still being held up at gunpoint on a road by the gang who swear allegiance to the yet-to-be-seen villain Negan. This gang seem to mean business and want more than just the trio’s weapons, they want Alexandria. After a brilliant piece of advice from the leader of the gang (“If you have to eat shit, best not to nibble. Bite, chew, swallow, repeat. Goes quicker”) and some death threats, they’re quickly despatched by a rocket launcher-toting Daryl. As you do. Then it’s back to Alexandria to rejoin Rick et al tandem as they try to navigate their way through the mass zombie-horde on the way to the armoury.

Suffice to say it goes suitably tits up at the first opportunity. Definite argument for pro-choice Sam freezes in fear upon seeing a child zombie in the pack and is quickly turned into the walking dead himself in a matter of seconds. This causes his far more likeable mum Jessie to be eaten too as she somehow musters up the time to grieve over her youngest mistake while the rest of the group in the chain frantically try and pull themselves free of the oncoming zombie horde. From this, Jessie’s other son Ron tries to shoot Rick in anger, but is unfortunately greeted by Michonne and her sword before pulling the shot straight into Carl’s eye.

Elsewhere in the cacophony of quaint housing estate and nightmares, Glenn is trying to desperately save his wife Maggie from a collapsing guard tower with Enid (still surviving somehow), Morgan and Carol holed up in another house trying to out-moralise each other and the Alpha Wolf with the horrific teeth still keeping Dr Denise at gunpoint as he tries to flee the carnage outside. Charge all of this with a Rocky-esque fightback at the end with the Alexandrians taking back their homes from the masses of the undead in a gory, but fundamentally satisfying, little sequence means you had a lot to keep up with this episode.

And a lot is going on in this episode and it shows, as some plot points worked really well and others fell by the wayside in comparison. In short, it’s The Walking Dead in a nutshell. The Daryl, Sasha, Abraham plotline was utterly ludicrous but was a lot of fun and in turn gave us a taster of what’s to come in the form of Negan, no doubt by the season’s end (furthermore Daryl’s status as badass #1 was well and truly established with that rocket launcher). In contrast to this, the utterly forgettable plot line of Carol and Morgan still debating the thou shalt not kill/murder anybody that crosses us angle was a complete damp squib. It didn’t advance the story or establish anything we didn’t already know. Morgan won’t kill, Carol always will. She showed this when she executed the Alpha Wolf member at the first opportunity after it almost looked like he’d earnt himself some redemption by ultimately sacrificing himself to save Dr Denise. Carol will always be Carol, it seems.

As per usual, the best storyline (i.e. the one with most emotional depth) fell to Rick. Seeing his eyes as he watched his son get potentially mortally wounded again by angst-personified Ron and the first woman he’s had feelings for in an age literally be eaten away in front of him was a sight to behold. He solidified this with the final scene of him giving Carl a speech telling him the he wants him to survive, to beat this world, which was note perfect.

So did this mid-season opener ultimately live up to its predecessors? On the whole, it did. It fired more than it misfired and it at last showed the Alexandrians as more than just cannon-fodder, as people we could potentially start to care about. Furthermore, we got to see where this season is aiming for in the inevitable clash of Negan’s gang and the revitalised, battle-hardened survivors of Alexandria.

Plus they killed off Sam. It can’t be all that bad.