The Walking Dead Winter Premiere: Lots of Guts, Lots of Glory

First Aired February 14th, 2016.

Negan’s followers prepare to rob Daryl (played by Norman Reedus) and his group and make them show them where Alexandria is. However, Daryl gets the upper hand and blows them all to hell with a rocket launcher.

Back in Alexandria, Rick (played by Andrew Lincoln) and his group move through the walker infested streets and plan to use cars to draw the walkers away. Father Gabriel (Played by Seth Gilliam) takes Judith somewhere safe while the others continue on. Denise (played by Merritt Weaver) has been kidnapped by the Wolf (played by Benedict Samuel) who hopes she can cure his infection. Tara (played by Alanna Masterson) wants to save her but with no means of escape is forced to stand down. Glenn (Played by Steven Yeun) and Enid (played by Katelyn Nacon) search the town’s church for hidden weapons to help a trapped and injured Maggie (played by Lauren Cohan). As night falls the walkers see through Rick’s group’s camouflage when Sam (played by Major Dodson) draws attention to himself. They attack and Sam and his mother, Jessie (played by Alexandra Breckinridge), are swarmed upon and eaten alive. Her son, Ron (played by Austin Abrams), prepares to shoot Rick and Carl (played by Chandler Riggs) but is stabbed by Michonne (played by Danai Gurira), but Rob gets off one shot that goes through Carl’s eye.

Talk about kicking things off with a bang. Daryl continues to demonstrate why viewers love him as a character. Killing a half dozen of the unseen Negan’s followers is a great setup for what will hopefully be a harrowing conflict between Alexandria and the fan favorite comic book villain. There was a lot of action and suspense and though there were many characters and storylines in the episode it never felt overstuffed because they all had relatively equal screen time. Jessie was turning into a great character but her annoying kids, not so much. Rick will be deeply affected losing his new love interest, especially after chopping her arm off to free Carl as she died. Fans of the comics saw the demise of Jessie’s family coming, but let’s be honest in this version they brought it upon themselves. Jessie bringing a frightened ten-year-old through a mob of walkers because he asked was outrageously stupid and made the character look dumber than she actually was. I was shocked because the show has deviated from killing the younger characters, unlike the comics. Perhaps this is a violent new turning point.

Carol (played by Melissa McBride) is furious that she didn’t kill Morgan (played by Lennie James) when she had the chance because his actions once again put others in danger. While running for the wall with Denise, the Wolf gets bit while saving her from a walker and Denise takes him to the infirmary to amputate it. While running through the streets Carol shoots the Wolf and he sacrifices himself to let Denise get to the infirmary. Rick and Michonne get a badly wounded Carl to the infirmary and Denise treats him. Devastated over the loss of Jessie and Carl’s injury, Rick runs outside and begins killing walkers in a blind rage. Michonne and everyone inside rush out to help him and soon other Alexandrian residents come out of their homes armed with knives and machetes and make a last stand. Glenn and Enid save Maggie before walkers knock over the tower she’s on. He is nearly killed before Sasha (played by Sonequa Martin-Green) and Abraham (played by Michael Cudlitz) gun them down.

Interestingly, it seemed that the Wolf genuinely bonded with Denise, kind of a reverse Stockholm syndrome and saved her because he cared. The character was very enigmatic so it’s hard to tell whether but it seemed like the Wolf saved her because he liked her not because she was just a hostage to him. Morgan would argue that makes his case for not killing people but that Wolf was far from being redeemed. If anything he just took a small step. This was however a huge turning point for the Alexandrians who finally stopped being victims and fought for themselves. Rick was always being told to accept and protect them and now that they’ve shown they are willing to fight to the death with him, that relationship has been cemented. Hell, even Gabriel and Eugene (played by Josh McDermitt), two of the biggest cowards this show has, got out there to fight.

As the townspeople continue fighting, Daryl dumps fuel from a truck into the lake and uses the rocket launcher to create a pool of fire. The walkers who aren’t drawn into it are burned to death while the Alexandrians slaughter the rest. The next day, Rick talks to an unconscious Carl and admits he was wrong about the Alexandrians lack of skill to survive and Carl begins to wake up. Daryl really seems to like that rocket launcher, I hope he doesn’t trade in his crossbow for it. It seemed like the walker herd was taken out a little too easily but they’ve been around since episode one it was time for them to go. As for Carl, I’m not sure how much story his new Governor look will generate but if anything he’ll look more badass.

Quotes & Thoughts

“If you have to eat shit, best not to nibble. Bite, chew, swallow, repeat. It goes quicker.”

I hope we get to see Negan soon instead of more of his lackeys.

“I should have killed you. You saved him for you, not us.”

The Alexandrians are now all badass walker killers. Now would be a good time for the show to make more of them real characters.

 If you enjoyed Manny’s walk, you can find the rest of his work right HERE on Sci-Fi Bloggers. You can also follow him on Twitter @KN_Manny.

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