The proverbial crap hit the fan, literally from start to finish. The midseason finale of The Walking Dead didn’t disappoint, giving us one of the most suspenseful episodes of the entire season, so far. And that’s not all, we even lost one of the newest members of our group, too. Alexandria is overrun with walkers, Glenn and Enid are still trying to find their way back to the community, and Daryl, Sasha, and Abraham meet a new threat on The Walking Dead: “Start to Finish.” Spoiler alert.
Walker Invasion
Last week on The Walking Dead, we spent a lot of time in Alexandria catching up with everybody after the whole wolves-attack thing, and more importantly we found out that Glenn, sweet Glenn, is still very much alive. Oh, and a huge tower collapsed on the wall, which obviously didn’t mean anything good for our people in Alexandria. This week on The Walking Dead, “Start to Finish” brought more drama, and no one, and I do mean no one, was unscathed. Well, except for Father Gabriel.
As one could imagine, it didn’t take long at all for the hoard of nearby walkers to figure out that they had a way into Alexandria after the tower came crashing down, breaking the wall for them. And while everyone, including Rick and many of the older members of our group were all trying to get to safety, Sam—you know, Carol’s favorite kid—was busy isolating himself from reality, passing the time listening to old records and drawing weird pictures. Yeah, “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” will never sound the same again, right?
Just outside of Alexandria, Glenn and Enid were forced to revise their original plan of re-entry after watching the tower collapse. That’s when Glenn had to take pause to talk some sense into Enid, who needed some reassurance that things were really going to be ok despite the obvious onset of crap hitting the fan. Granted, she had an interesting way of expressing herself, opting to go straight for the depressing “this is how it all happens” comment, which obviously got under Glenn’s skin. Ever the eternal optimist, Glenn was not about to entertain for one second that he wasn’t going to ever see/spend time with Maggie and their unborn child again. So, yep, he knows about Maggie being pregnant.
R.I.P. Deanna
Back to the drama in Alexandria, Deanna, who is like totally a walker killing badass now, met up with Rick, Carl, Ron, Jessie, Michonne, and Father Gabriel, to help take care of some of the walkers. She was brave and bold, but still ended up getting injured in a fall that actually proved to be more fatal than she originally thought. Rick and Michonne were the only two to ever find out that Deanna was actually bitten by a walker when she took that nasty fall and cut her stomach. Talk about a bad day. But Deanna, the strong woman that she is, took it all in stride and even managed to impart some serious wisdom on both Rick and Michonne before signing off.
To Rick, Deanna’s advice was simple: “guess what, they’re all your people,” referring to both her request to have him look after her son Spencer upon her passing on and their previous conversation last week when she asked him why he helped save him, then. At the time, Rick said he did it because of her, to which she replied “wrong answer.” She finally told him the right answer. But, of course, Rick had his rebuttal. Rick is a lot of things, pragmatic being one of them, so in his mind he’s simply taking the necessary time to fully embrace the people of Alexandria, even in spite of everything they have all been through together. Maybe Deanna’s advice will help expedite his acceptance of the people of Alexandria into his own group. Maybe. Feelings about the people of Alexandria aside, Rick is still a leader and will look out for those around him. So, it was no real surprise that by the end of the episode, Rick had implemented an early Walking Dead throwback plan of everyone covering themselves in walker guts so they could make their way through the hoard of walkers undetected. We’ll see if that works again, because from the looks of it Sam might sabotage things.
Deanna’s moment with Michonne, however, was much more motherly; although, technically the only reason Michonne was even there was to “assist” her in moving on. Even on her deathbed the frail co-founder of Alexandria was still doing her best to make sure that those around her were better off for having known her. After refusing Michonne’s assistance because she wanted to do it herself—it was her life from start to finish and all—Deanna passed on some words of wisdom. She told Michonne “someday this pain will be useful to you” and “give ‘em hell” after imparting on her fellow badass sister that she needed to figure out what she wanted. Epic advice, right?
Trust
Speaking of advice, or lack thereof, Carol and Morgan could have used some. Aside from the fact that Carol doesn’t trust Morgan, perhaps if they had some advice say from Rick they wouldn’t have both ended up on the basement floor, unconscious, and the captive wolf wouldn’t have fled the scene with Denise. Ok, in all fairness, technically that last part was due to the poor judgment of Tara, Rosita, and Eugene, but still. The situation would have been handled far better had they not decided to get into a fight. Sidebar, I thought Morgan was all about peacekeeping? He sure body slammed Carol without flinching, and for what to protect an potentially violent person that he didn’t even know. Wow.
Also on “Start to Finish,” Carl and Ron had yet another tussle. And while their fight ended up bringing walkers into Jessie’s house, the only real resolve came after Carl made Ron give up his gun via gunpoint. Finally, Carl does something smart when it comes to Ron. But then he went and called the boy’s father an asshole, which I’m guessing didn’t help in the way of any potential friendship down the line. Just saying. Truth be told, though, neither one of them had the time to deal with their issues with one another, there was the whole walker-invasion thing going at present.
Then, too, in the very final moments of the episode we saw that Daryl, Sasha, and Abraham ran into some trouble in the road on their way back to Alexandria. Ok, aside from the fact that their trip back is freakishly longer than anybody else’s was, this was the second time that poor Daryl met some unfriendly apocalypse survivors. And from the looks of things, being hijacked for just his bike and bow and arrow are going to be the least of his travel worries after coming into contact with these folks.
The Walking Dead returns with new episodes in February 2016.