The Walking Dead – Walk With Us

By: Kelly Kearney

This week’s episode of The Walking Dead had fans glued to their self-quarantined seats as death, destruction and mayhem come to Hilltop. After the gates to their community are tested by Alpha’s horde and catapults, our survivors are forced to leave their home and scatter in small groups. What motivates them now is not protecting what they’ve built, but protecting each other as they go on the run from the Whisperers and their hungry horde.

Hilltop Burns

As the episode begins we are thrust directly into the chaos of the Whisperers attack on Hilltop. Carol (Melissa McBride) is on a perch above the gates shooting off arrow after arrow hoping to make a dent in the crowds of walkers entering the community. Alden (Callan McAuliffe) and Earl (John Finn) load catapults of random objects they can quickly grab as Aaron (Ross Marquand) wields a sword with one hand while skull crushing the enemy with his metal arm. Exhausted and overwhelmed, they all work diligently to take down the walkers and one by one the bodies begin to pile up. Eventually, the massive pile of the dead creates a gory barricade that blocks the enemy from marching on. The community has fallen and as the mansion that housed many of their leaders burns. There is nothing left for the survivors to do but flee. Everything they’ve worked so hard to build is reduced to ashes and rubble…again.

In the middle of this bloody battle that almost rivals a Game of Thrones episode, Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura) hits the breaks when she spots Magna (Nadia Hilker). The missing woman is covered in walker guts and slowly making her way to Hilltop with the horde! If she made it out of the cave then Connie (Lauren Ridloff) must have too! Only Connie is nowhere to be found and we later learn that the two got separated in the confusion of walkers and Whisperers.

While all of this horrific excitement is going on, Ezekiel (Khary Payton) gathers all the children together to get ready to run from Hilltop. There’s just one problem…Judith (Cailey Fleming) is missing! She took off as soon as the war began in hopes of defending her home and family, just like the adults were doing. When we find her, she is cutting down walkers with her sword and standing above a Whisperer. In her fury she knocked him down and as his pleads for her to spare his life she can’t help him. He is too injured and there’s nothing she can do. As she stands and watches the man die from the wound her own sword created, Earl shows up and drags her to safety. Everyone takes off running before the walker barricade falls like the fence did before it.

Meet at the Rendezvous

In the morning Hilltop is gone and so are its inhabitants. Daryl (Norman Reedus), Carol, Rosita (Christian Serratos) and the others make their way through the woods and towards their destination – a rendezvous point that they all agreed to if the community was ever in trouble. Next, we see Aaron who is dragging an injured Luke (Dan Fogler) and runs directly into the Whisperers new leather jacket wearing lieutenant. Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) immediately tries to calm the irate man down by telling him what he sees is not what it looks like. Meaning Negan might look like a Whisperer in his mask but in reality, he’s on Hilltop and ASZ’s side. Aaron doesn’t want to hear his lies and the two start quietly arguing. When it seems a fight to the death is inevitable, the feud is cut short by some interrupting walkers. Aaron has no choice but to flee with Luke since protecting himself and his friends means more to him than payback with Negan. As Aaron takes off in one direction and Negan finds Lydia (Cassady McClincy) in another. He kidnaps Alpha’s daughter and goes to tell crazy mommy what he found.

Elsewhere Kelly (Angel Theory), Mary (Thora Birch) and Alden make it safely out of Hilltop’s flames, but thanks to the wailing baby Adam they might not be safe for long. At first, Alden refuses to hand the baby over to his aunt who thinks she might be able to soothe him into silence. After it’s clear he doesn’t have the magic touch, he breaks his promise to Earl and hands the infant over. Mary does calm her nephew long enough for them to re-center their efforts on the rendezvous point. Unfortunately, the threat already found them and as Kelly, Alden and the baby climb into a rusted-out van for protection Mary decides to create a commotion that draws the herd away. It works too, until out of the blue Beta (Ryan Hurst) shows up and stabs Mary through the gut and chest! As she’s flailing from his knife Mary tears off a piece of Beta’s mask just as she falls to the ground and dies. With her dead Beta waits for her to turn, but Alden shoots an arrow into the young woman’s head ending Beta’s watch. As he gets ready to leave, another big secret is partially revealed! One of the Whisperers shows up and he is shocked by Beta’s recognizable face. Was Beta a celebrity before the world fell? Possibly, but whoever he is he doesn’t want his true identity getting out. He kills the nosy Whisperer and takes off back into the woods.

Boom! Right in the Kisser!

After Magna tells the story of how she survived the cave collapse and lost Connie an overwhelmed Yumiko is angry with Carol for putting them through this dangerous mess. She hauls off and punches Carol directly in the face! Maybe Yumiko is extra emotional because Magna just dumped her, but the punch is quite the wound up and it knocks Carol off of her feet. Eugene (Josh McDermitt), who is also traveling with this group, goes to check on Carol and the two have their very first on-screen conversation about love, loss and sacrifice. Carol admits she’s been obsessed with revenge and it’s cost her everything with nothing to show for it. Eugene can relate because he just lost any hope of talking to Stephanie again, not to mention any chances of that date they planned. That can’t possibly happen now…or can it? Carol thinks it has to and she tells Eugene to grab happiness where he can. Go get your girl, Eugene!

Elsewhere Daryl, Rosita and Jerry (Cooper Andrews) take another group of survivors to the rendezvous point and they all hope Ezekiel is there waiting for them. What they find is an empty cabin, one lonely walker, and the uneasy feeling like maybe The King and the kids were attacked. Thankfully, Earl got the kids to safety in another cabin, but since Daryl and the others don’t know this, they double back to Hilltop to see if hey can finds any survivors. When they get there, they find Ezekiel coming to after being buried underneath a large piece of metal and the King has news: the kids are with Earl and he knows where they are! Together they all head out on a mission to reunite with the children, but when they get there nobody was prepared for what they would find. Judith is crouched down on the floor over a very dead Earl. Hilltop’s blacksmith and proverbial boomer with the worst governing ideas ever was bit by a walker in the battle he insisted they fight! He was ready to impale his brains on a piece of metal rebar before Judith stopped him. The young girl promised to stay with him as he changed, but after a failed suicide attempt, she has no choice but to put walker Earl down. When Daryl and the others show up, he knows immediately what happened. He pops a squat next to the pint-sized warrior and the two commiserate in silence. In less than one day Judith lost her home, shed her first human blood and now had to put down a walker who was once her friend. The apocalypse is not made for children and yet this one is handling it better than most of the adults around her. It must be those Grimes genes!

Alpha’s Reign is Over!

In another location Lydia wakes up in a cabin tied to a chair. The teenager fights with her binds and ropes while just outside Negan tells Alpha (Samantha Morton) he has what she wants. The two talk truths and Negan asks why an Alpha, a mother lioness, would want to kill her daughter – the predecessor to her throne. Ever since his wife and child died Negan has had a soft spot for mothers. It’s not too surprising when he asks Alpha to explain how she could ever want to murder her own child, thrones be damned! Alpha smiles and claims it’s Lydia’s destiny to die. For this cult leader death is a rebirth and Lydia’s was written in the stars. Realizing he can’t talk this woman out of it, he has no choice but to lead this killer to her trapped prey. Only when Lydia breaks her ties and swings open the cabin door, we cut back to Negan and his brilliant trap! Sure, he captured Lydia, but it was only to keep her safe from her mother! When the wheels start turning in Alpha’s bald noggin, she doesn’t even get to ask why he betrayed her before Negan pulls out his knife and slits her throat! He holds the bleeding and gasping woman as he lowers her to the ground. With one final bloody kiss, Alpha slips away and dies quietly in Negan’s arms.

The very next scene cements many fan theories when we see Negan open a duffle bag and drop Alpha’s walker head at Carol’s feet! “Took you long enough,” she says!  Their partnership closes the case on who let Negan out of his cell. It was Carol, a grieving mother who knew the only one brutal enough to grant her the justice she so desperately craved, was the man who had nothing left to lose or live for.  It’s a paring nobody saw coming, but after years of never sharing the screen together it’s a partnership I hope we see a lot more of in the future.