The Walking Dead seems to be jumping all over the place this season. While fans still wonder what happened to Glenn, this week’s episode centers on arguably the most popular character on the show – Daryl. When we last saw Daryl, he was riding his motorcycle in a giant zombie parade, helping Sasha and Abraham lead the zombies away from Alexandria. Meanwhile, The Wolves attacked Alexandria and Rick showed back up in town to take control.
None of that matters this week, because Daryl spends the entire episode in danger and running for his life.
Just when Rick, Sasha, and Abraham finish their mission and the zombies are walking away from Alexandria, they are attacked. At first, it appeared that The Wolves were still attacking, but there is one very important distinction to make here. The Wolves attacked Alexandria and had no weapons outside of knives. The attackers in this episode opened fire on our heroes with semiautomatic weapons.
Daryl skidded off and into the woods, suffering a pretty nasty arm injury in the process. Sasha and Abraham crashed their car into the town and then emerged from the wreckage, spraying bullets of their own. It was at this point that Abraham continued to go all-out crazy. Even after blasting the car with bullets, Abraham then walked up and continued to blast the dead bodies. He and Sasha ran for safety in town while Daryl was alone in the woods.
However, Daryl wasn’t alone. He ended up sabotaged and jumped by three people (Wade, Tina, and Sherry) and then he waked up tied up with his crossbow stolen. The three have taken him with them and they believe that he is part of the group that was shooting at him earlier. See, they escaped from that group and stole supplies and now they are being hunted. They also mention something about kneeling, that means only one thing – Negan is the leader of this group.
If you haven’t read the comics, just understand that an evil worse than The Governor is coming and he is bringing Lucille with him. Be afraid, be very afraid.
He then makes a run for it when Tina collapses, and then realizes that the bag he took, that his crossbow was in, also has a box of insulin. At this point, The Walking Dead pounds home the fact that this is a very different Daryl then we met in Season 1. He goes back and returns the insulin to help save Tina’s life.
The four of them continue on and end up almost walking into a trap from the attackers and Daryl saves their lives and gives Wade his gun back. Daryl saves them again, and they move on. Sadly, one thing leads to another and Tina dies anyway when a zombie gets hold of her, making Daryl’s return to help them almost worthless now. When they move on, they return to Daryl’s motorcycle. He offers them sanctuary in Alexandria, but then Wade pulls his gun on Daryl again. They take his crossbow and motorcycle, and as Sherry says she is sorry for robbing him, he lets her know that she will be sorry.
So, what about Sasha and Abraham? Well, they settle into the offices of an insurance agency and chill out. Abraham goes out for a walk and finds a military zombie with an RPG launcher and gets it as a nice new weapon. He tells Sasha, in the most awkward way ever, that he wants to get to know her better. Meanwhile, it seems that they psycho Sasha from last season has calmed down and is trying to calm Abraham down as well.
That is when Daryl shows back up in town with a large fuel truck he found in the woods and they all head back to Alexandria. While they don’t know there is a wall of zombies surrounding the town, it won’t matter because someone calls out for help on the walkie talkie they are carrying. The question then remains: is that Glenn (Norman Reedus says it isn’t) or could it be a trap set up by Negan?
It seemed like another filler episode, much like last week’s episode in Alexandria, but there was one difference. Daryl is very interesting and seeing him running for his life made me completely forget about Glenn. The story of Glenn’s fate needs to be told because they are stretching it out so far that no resolution will please all the fans. If he is dead, they will be pissed, but if he is alive, it will be hard to make them care too much because we are three weeks away from the fall.
Next week, we are back to Alexandria again, and with only two episodes before the Christmas break, something big is about to happen. I have a strong feeling that next week will be just another filler episode to set up for the explosive mid-season finale after Thanksgiving.
