Photo by Gene Page/AMC © © 2015 AMC Film Holdings LLC
Written by Cherrelle Rand
This week and just in time for Valentine’s Day, the critically acclaimed show, The Walking Dead, returned premiering it’s ninth episode “No Way Out”. When we left the group the walls were breached and a walker horde invades the town. The episode starts off slow with a pointless (and admittedly comedic) scene where Daryl, Sasha, and Abraham are on the road back to Alexandria, but have been stopped by The Saviors. The confrontation is quickly ended when Daryl blows them up into little pieces with a rocket launcher.
It’s not until near the twenty-minute mark that the episode truly begins.
In walker-heavy Alexandria, Rick changes the plan from walking to the armory to heading towards the vehicles, to send the walkers back to the quarry. Father Gabriel takes Judith, from Rick’s reluctant grasp, heads towards his church to keep her safe. They continue on.
We knew Sam would crack. It was allured to in the midseason finale when the show ended with the word “Mom?” We saw it in his pale face, heavy dark circles under his eyes. His trembles of fear as he walked hand and hand through the horde covered in walker repellent. We knew he was going to crack we just didn’t know how and when.
And as much as we might have hope for a moment—when he begs his mom to let him continue on—that he was going to a make it. We knew he wasn’t, when he looked up at the walkers and heard Carol’s words echoing in his head, “The monsters will come. And you won’t be able to run away when they come for you. The ones out there. And they will tear you apart and eat you up all while you’re still alive.”
He goes down, and it’s quick and gruesome. Jessie watches her youngest son being eaten in front of her with tears in her eyes, then she goes down with him still holding on to Carl’s hand, which Rick quickly severs, triggering Ron to pull a gun on him but Michonne is quick and kills him on the spot. But the gun manages to go off and the bullet hits Carl in the eye. He collapses on the ground in shock.
It all happens so fast that you’ll questions if it happened at all. Brief flashbacks come to Rick—as he watches Jessie become the walker’s dinner—of when he met Jessie. But because of the lack of depth in the relationship it comes off as eye-roll worthy and contrived.
The rest of the episode goes by just as quickly. In a distressed state, Rick with axe in hand, opens the door back open, and heads outside to the horde. His group and the Alexandria residents see him outside fighting the walkers by himself—and what feels a little predictable—and decide to join him. Even Eugene toughens up and heads outside to uncertain death. It’s in these tense moments where we have close up shots of each resident killing walkers that they learn of the strength they had all along.
In the end, Rick’s group—though Glenn does have another near death experience—and a few of the Alexandra residents survive Rick admits to an unconscious Carl that he was wrong, that he can see what they can do if they worked together. Finally recognizing what others had from the beginning, and it only took several deaths to happen for him to get there.
