The Walking Dead: Some Guy

First Aired November 12th, 2017

Ezekiel (played by Khary Payton) watches his soldiers say their goodbyes to loved ones as they prepare to fight the Saviors and gives them a rousing speech. The scene then cuts to Ezekiel crawling from under the bodies of soldiers who died protected him from Savior gunfire, when they reanimate his injured leg prevents him from running but he’s rescued by a surviving soldier.

A Savior kills Ezekiel’s last remaining soldier and takes him hostage and plans to take him to the Sanctuary, though it’s now overrun by walkers. Ezekiel and the Savior move on foot with Ezekiel’s reanimated soldiers right behind them.

Carol (played by Melissa McBride) sneaks into the building and takes out several of the Saviors who killed the Kingdom soldiers as they attempt to transport guns and ammo. Reinforcements arrive and the fight moves outside where they pin Carol behind a truck. When they come upon a locked gate the Savior prepares to kill Ezekiel remarking that Negan (played by Jeffery Dean Morgan) hoped to capture Ezekiel, Rick (played by Andrew Lincoln) and Maggie (played by Lauren Cohan) and use them as examples.

Ezekiel is saved when another Kingdom soldier Jerry (played by Cooper Andrews) slices the Savior in half with an ax. Carol feigns surrender and when a Savior gets close enough she takes him hostage but the others open fire.

This episode was a wakeup call for Ezekiel; he was sure in his authority as king and his people’s success that when it came crashing down the blow of their deaths was that much harder for him. The twisted imagery of his followers reanimating around him and then ‘following’ him in death as walkers really hammered that home. But this episode also made it clear that these nameless Saviors are just cannon fodder for the main characters and don’t pose much of a real threat.

If someone like Carol or Ezekiel were going to die it wouldn’t be at the hands of a nameless redshirt character. This guy’s role was to create some conflict for this episode, reveal Negan’s plan and die a brutal end. But being cut in half by an ax was unexpected and it’s got to be hard to come up with creative deaths eight seasons in. However that aside it was great to see new depths to Ezekiel’s character beyond his monologues and king persona.

Another flashback shows Ezekiel telling Carol the story of how he saved his pet tiger Shiva in the zoo which led to the animal’s loyalty to him. In the present, Ezekiel and Jerry are forced to fight the walkers head on while Carol gets the upper hand after walkers take down a few of the Saviors. She attempts to talk them down but notices Ezekiel and Jerry fighting walkers at the gates. She guns down many of the walkers but it allows the remaining Saviors to escape with the guns. But as the Saviors drive down the road they’re pursued by Daryl (played by Norman Reedus) and Rick. Daryl is knocked off his motorcycle by gunfire but he recovers and Rick manages to jump into the Savior’s jeep and throw him out, he crashes but escapes unharmed.

The second half of the episode wasn’t as exciting as the beginning mostly because of the aforementioned problem of the nameless Saviors. It wasn’t Carol fighting for her life it actually felt like she was killing time until the episode ended. The cameos by Rick and Daryl had the same purpose, a scene of shooting and action with two popular characters to entertain us for two minutes. Also after four episodes with lots of shootouts between the heroes and the Saviors it’s gotten kind of stale, action is a good thing but it’s become repetitive lately. It doesn’t help that a lot of it is Saviors being gunned down like target dummies.

Carol, Ezekiel and Jerry fight their way through walkers and Ezekiel asks to be left behind as he’s slowing them down but they refuse. They become trapped in a marsh but they refuse to leave Ezekiel, Shiva appears and attacks the walkers but is overrun and killed leaving Ezekiel devastated. They return to the Kingdom and the mood is somber when everyone realizes the rest of the army has died. Deaths are so easily telegraphed when the character (or animal) is given special focus in an episode. The emotional weight of the loss isn’t diminished but it would have more impact if we didn’t see it coming. But after several episodes of fighting and some loss it would be good to slow things down and check in with how these characters are handling the aftermath.

Quotes/Thoughts

“I ain’t no king, I ain’t nothing. I’m just some guy.”

It’ll probably be a while before we get any grand speeches from King Ezekiel, who may just go by Ezekiel now.

“Does Negan even know your name?” “I’m Negan.”

Speaking of Negan he’s been gone for weeks what’s up with that?

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