SEASON 10; EPISODE 3
After last week's exploration of the relationship between Alpha and Beta, we switched our attention back to the good guys. The opening montage shows us that they're having to deal with wave after wave of walker attacks. They assume that it's the work of The Whisperer's (although Lydia disagrees). The colonists fight what seems like a neverending battle – but it's not a battle they can realistically keep fighting. The battle rages for the best part of two days and the Alexandrians are close to complete exhaustion when news arrives, in the form of Gamma. Alpha wants to meet at the border. You know, that fun place with all the spikes that used to have people's heads on?
After a little village meeting about what to do, Michonne ignores calls that they should go and kill Alpha. It's not a feasible plan and Michonne is concerned with keeping her people safe rather than avenging those they've lost. As Lydia said, if Alpha wanted to kill them all she would have sent the horde of 50,000 their way instead of a few dozen at a time. The Alexandrians know that to some extent they have no choice. They're kind of at the mercy of the Whisperer cult and have to play by their rules.
The episode then splits three ways.
At Alexandria we stay with Gabriel, Rosita and Eugene and co as they try and fend off the walkers. Jabbing them in the head with metal poles for hours on end is hard work and by the end of it, they're both sleep deprived and on edge. In her dazed state, Rosita decided to confront the elephant in the room – that being Eugene's unrequited love for her. She tells him that nothing will ever happen between them and that he isn't ever going to be father to her little 'nugget' either. As you'd expect he doesn't take it well. It all ends with him saying that he was only ever friends with her because he thought it could lead to something else. Pfff, typical bloke. This storyline feels a tad old at this point and I'm hoping that we don't dwell on this stuff too much. I'm still trying to get my head around the idea of Gabriel and Rosita being a 'thing' to be honest.
One of the other story threads sees Aaron leading a team to fend off the walkers coming from the south, before they reach Alexandria. Gabriel insists that Negan be part of that group, despite Neegs claiming that he's happy to just keep picking tomatoes. Aaron understandably doesn't want him along for the ride either but reluctantly accepts. It's another little segment that predictably follows Negan's redemption trajectory. Aaron doesn't let Negan use a crowbar to neutralise the walkers and instead lets him duke it out with a wooden stick. They then get in each others faces and accuse each other of being responsible for the death of their respective loved ones. Later, Negan has the chance to either leave a visually impaired Aaron to an uncertain fate or even kill him himself. However he chooses to save him just as he is about to get chomped on. Aaron invariably ends up having to trust him whilst he recovers during the night. Is Negan playing some long game here? I'm not sure – I think the writers are genuinely trying to reform him.
Meanwhile Michonne, Daryl and Carol head off to the border to see what Alpha has to say. She tells them she knows they have been across the border three times already and that she cannot let that go unanswered. However, she's apparently not in the killing mood – she'd rather claim some of the Alexandrian land for her self, and effectively move the border. Daryl is having none of it although Michonne is a bit softer on the idea. Carol only has one thing on her mind and after Alpha mentions Henry and how he screamed for Carol before his head was removed, she tries to shoot her – but Daryl manages to redirect the gun at the last moment. Alpha tells Carol that she should be scared of her but Carol informs her that she isn't scared at all. I believe her too. However Carol has other problems to contend with, most notably her mental state. Those pills that she's been taking to keep her 'frosty' are now causing issues with her sleep and that never ends well. She's having waking nightmares as well as dormant ones at this point and it almost leads to disaster. We're also seeing some new stuff from the show in terms of the psychological stuff – that home economics textbook that she imagines herself and Henry on the cover of is new territory for the show, but I kinda like it. Just as we start to think that Carol may be something of an unreliable witness, we learn in the final shot she wasn't imagining the fact that the Whisperers were on their side of the border.
So the relief that Carol hasn't totally lost her marbles is curtailed by the fact that the Whisperers had indeed been on their side of the border. Which does't bode well for the future.
