The Walking Dead – Adaptation

By: Kelly Kearney

The mid-season premiere is finally here and it set up what is bound to be the most chilling arc on the show to date. When we last saw our favorite zombie survivors Negan escaped his unlocked cell and was on the loose in Alexandria. At the same time, Michonne, Daryl and Aaron uncovered a shocking discovery when Jesus was struck down by a sword swinging zombie, that wasn’t a zombie at all, but a human in a skin mask! “Adaptation” picks up where the finale left off: Jesus is dead and the masked human hunters are lurking in the dead’s shadows, just waiting to kill anyone who crosses their path.

There’s a new sheriff in town

After Michonne (Danai Gurira), Daryl (Norman Reedus), Aaron (Ross Marquand) and company mange to escape the Whisperers onslaught and drag Jesus’ (Tom Payne) corpse from the misty graveyard, we head back to Alexandria where Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is on the loose and trying to live his best life. After a stop off at the tomato garden for a bite to eat, he heads to Michonne’s home with a shovel and a smirk that can only mean he’s ready to enact his own version of Savior justice for all the years he’s been locked up. When he arrives the house is empty so he swipes his buddy Judith’s (Cailey Fleming) compass from her bedroom. As the sun comes up the young sharp shooter catches her mother’s captive trying to climb the wall to his freedom and the two come to an understanding. Negan promises Judith that he won’t hurt anyone ever again and that her father once thought that he was meant for greater things and being in that cell wasn’t it. He swears to never come back to Alexandria and even jokes that if he did she should shoot him as he certainly would. Judith aims her pistol at him and lets Negan know that there is nothing beyond the walls for him, but in the end she agrees to let him escape. Perhaps she knows he will never settle into this world until he realizes there is nothing left of the one he created. He climbs the wall out of the ASZ (Alexandria Safe Zone) with the hope that the littlest Grimes was wrong and that there is still a world out there waiting for him to claim it. With a small bag of supplies and a shovel he heads out on the road towards the Sanctuary to see what, if anything, still remains of it.

Back at Hilltop, Tara (Alanna Masterson) is gathering together a search group for Jesus and the others and new recruit Luke (Dan Folger) offers to tag along with Alden (Callan McAuliffe) since his friends are among the missing. Little do they know their friends are making their way back with Jesus’ body while being watched in the shadows by the stalking Whisperers. Michonne and Daryl have a brief chat about how important it will be for Hilltop to bury Jesus and this leaves a dark cloud over the both of them knowing that Daryl couldn’t do the same for Michonne with Rick. He apologizes to her for never finding Grimes’ body, but Michonne thanks him for trying, “…and after,” which she leaves vague and definitely begs the question what happened during the time jump between these two?

Its not long before Dog alerts them to walkers up ahead at the covered bridge and the group, along with an injured Eugene (Josh McDermitt) asks if they are “the living kind or original recipe?” Daryl takes it upon himself to find out when he aims his arrow at the walker’s legs and sure enough a Whisperer goes down screaming which attracts the actual dead, unleashing a feeding frenzy on the imposter. Michonne draws her sword and starts hacking her way through the zombies when a Whisperer pulls out a dagger and charges towards her. The swordstress makes easy work of the masked assailant and together with Daryl manages to unmask one of them, a young girl (Cassady McClincy), and takes her hostage. Who better to lead them through this new nightmare than one of the Whisperer’s own? Michonne holds her blade to the young girl’s throat and threatens, “You try anything, you won’t have to pretend,” meaning she won’t have to play dead as she will kill the girl herself!

A King Without a Kingdom is No King at All

Meanwhile, Negan is trying to make the best out of his new-found freedom, but things aren’t going so well for the former King of the Saviors. First, he loses his meager supplies to a couple of walkers and then he winds up losing his lunch in the field he slaughtered Glenn and Abe in thanks to some tainted water he slurped down from a local stream. The world has definitely changed since he’s been locked in that cell and nothing is going to be easy for him. He figures that out when he’s window shopping for a new jacket and runs into three hungry dogs that chase him through a store front and into the waiting arms of a hungry walker! After trying to stick to his promise he made Judith and not put the dogs in any danger, he has no choice but to toss the walker at the dogs and make a break for it. Who knew freedom would be harder than prison? Well, Judith for one and Negan’s starting to realize the nine-year-old is a lot wiser than he thought.

Eventually, Negan makes it back to his old stomping grounds and it is definitely not how he remembered it. The factory is in ruins, flooded and torched, with the random meandering walker haunting its halls. The only thing that remains is its acoustics, which he tries out with his infamous whistle, but even that isn’t enough to put a smile on his face. It’s just a reminder of what he had, what he lost and what he will never be again. Glancing at the ruins of the world he built, he holds tight to Judith’s compass knowing she was right and his cell is where he really belongs.

Speaking of cells, Daryl, Michonne and the group make it back to Hilltop and along with Tara they drag their hostage down to the jail. Everyone is mourning Jesus and wants justice in his name, but first they need to get as much information from this girl as they can. All the communities need to know what they’re dealing with. Unfortunately, the girl is a liar and claims her group (run by her mother) is just a small bunch of good people who do not happen to have names yet hide among the dead and protect them as sort of a survival tactic. Michonne doesn’t trust anything she says and Tara agrees, but says she will have to question her more in the morning. For now, they need to prepare Jesus for burial. USadly, they will be questioning her tomorrow alone because Michonne has to go back to ASZ and inform her people of this new threat. She tells Daryl to get what he can from the girl but keeping her in Hilltop is a risk. If the she doesn’t talk, Michonne says, “You know what you have to do.”

Three Men, Rosita and a Baby?

After Siddiq (Avi Nash) snaps Eugene’s dislocated knee back together, the mullet man is grateful to be alive and takes a moment to express his feelings to Rosita (Christian Serratos). Just as he’s about to admit he loves her, Rosita turns green and runs outside to vomit. Siddiq follows her outside to see if she is ok and that’s when Eugene overhears her admit that she is pregnant with the doctor’s baby! Apparently, the two had some fun times before she hooked up with Father Gabe (Seth Gilliam) and now she’s suffering from morning sickness. Eugene’s crushed and it looks like his love will remain unrequited now that Rosita has a boyfriend and a baby daddy.

Speaking of fathers, Daryl is doing his best to stand in for the King with Henry (Matt Lintz), who is struggling to find his place at Hilltop. The two sit together and talk about hang overs and Henry apologizes to Daryl for getting thrown in the drunk tank his first night there. Henry might not know where he fits in Hilltop, but Daryl reminds him that for now his place is in that cell for another twenty-four hours because those are the rules.

The following morning Michonne gets ready to leave for ASZ and reminds Daryl that the Whisperer girl’s fate is in his hands. He doesn’t seem too comfortable being in charge, but Michonne thinks that without Maggie or Jesus that Hilltop will need his excellent judge of character. Sure, Tara would like to step in as leader of the community, but she will need help and Daryl is the one Michonne thinks Hilltop can rely on. Later on Daryl flies into a rage in the cells and demands their young captor talk. He wants to know her name, who her people are, how many of them are in their group and how long they’ve been watching the communities. It’s clear he is at the end of his rope and is just about to throw this young girl to the angry masses outside who are preparing to bury their leader. He lets her know he is the only thing standing between them and her and they would happily tear her limb from limb. At this point Henry yells from the neighboring cell for Daryl to leave the girl alone, “She’s just a girl,” but a girl that tells lie after lie and Daryl is fed up. He runs off in a huff leaving the girl, who we learn is named Lydia, with Henry as he eavesdrops through the cell window hoping the two teens will strike up a conversation that leads him to her group. It’s not a bad plan considering Henry feels like an outsider at Hilltop and he came to Lydia’s defense so maybe she will trust him enough to tell him the truth.

The Pint-Sized Sharp Shooter and her foul-mouthed friend

Judith warned Negan that if he ever came back to Alexandria she would shoot him and, boy, did she keep her promise. After realizing she was right and there wasn’t anything for him outside of his cell, Negan found a motorcycle and made his way back home. That is until Judith saw him coming and shot him right out of his seat and on to the side of the road. Luckily, she missed but it was definitely a warning shot and Negan, while shaken up, is highly impressed. She did warn him and he says, “You sure as s**t did,” to which the sassy little Grimes responds with, “Hey, language! I’m a kid, a**hole!” These two are definitely an odd match, but their friendship might be the one thing that makes Negan seem human. For years we only saw the whistling, bat wielding psychopath, whose only claim to fame was his out of control ego and the bodies he left in his wake. Now we see a gentler side to Negan and that is all thanks to Judith Grimes and their math lessons in the ASZ prison. Negan lets her know she was right about the world and he’s ready to go back to his cell, but he’s not sure what his pans are past that. He promises to let her know when he figures it out.

While Judith is escorting Negan back to Alexandria, Jesus is getting a full hero’s burial back at Hilltop. Everyone made it back to their communities except Luke and Alden and that has Enid (Katelyn Nacon) worried, especially now that she’s dating Alden and can’t lose another love…Not after Carl. The two men have no idea they are searching for people who aren’t even lost. Magna (Nadia Hilker) tells Enid not to worry, that Luke is a survivor and she expects them both to make it home alive. Unfortunately, it seems like Magna is wrong because while Alden and Luke are searching for their friends they end up caught in a trap set by the Whisperers.

After following what Luke thought was Yumiko’s (Eleanor Matsurra) arrows, the two men spot a rag tag walker herd. Only these aren’t Eugene’s original recipe zombies. These walkers seem human and form a circle around them. In what is an absolutely gut-wrenching end to the 90-minute premiere, Luke and Alden begin to panic when one of the Whisperers (most likely Alpha their leader) charges forward and raises a sawed-off shotgun at the two saying, “Your trail ends here.”

It does not look good for Alden and Luke, especially now that Lydia is a captive of Hilltop. What do these Whisperers want and will they continue to pick off our beloved characters one by one?