‘The Walking Dead’ Episode 607: Calm Before the Storm?
By Jeremy Dick
AMC’s The Walking Dead hit the airwaves last night with its 7th episode into Season 6. It’s been a rough road since then with a rather intense start, but every episode has been rather solid— barring that snoozer two weeks ago, of course. The newest episode, Heads Up, rebounded with an excellent entry that’s likely setting up for one hell of a midseason finale this Sunday night.
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First of all, I want to give the show a lot of credit for last night’s episode. It definitely proved that the show can be compelling even when things aren’t going completely insane. There doesn’t need to be a massive raider attack or dozens of people getting ripped apart for The Walking Dead to be good; it just needs to continue to move forward the story in interesting ways. Heads Up really delivered on that front.
Two weeks ago, in the episode that last showed us the goings-on in Alexandria, there weren’t really many major plot developments (I’m glossing over last week’s Daryl-centric episode because I enjoyed it, but I’m still disappointed in the week before). Tara and Dr. Denise became a “thing,” I guess, and Maggie told Aaron that she was pregnant. The rest of the episode was much more forgettable and it just seemed like everyone was twiddling their thumbs, and I was just waiting for anything interesting to happen.
With Heads Up, while things remained rather calm, the story moved forward in many interesting ways. I loved finding out that Glenn had indeed survived (even if it proved my previous predictions wrong), and I really liked his random pairing with Enid in his quest to get back to Alexandria. Glenn continued to restore my faith in what’s left of humanity with his insistence on bringing Enid back home, even if I personally might not have done the same.
I also liked Spencer’s near-death experience by trying to shimmy across a cable above a mob of walkers. Yeah, Spencer proved himself to be an idiot, but seeing him dangling was an awesome throwback to an iconic scene from the comics. It also gave Tara a moment to shine by telling Rick Grimes that she thought he was #1.
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The other subplots touched on in the episode, such as the friction between Carol and Morgan concerning their ideologies on how to deal with threats in their current predicament, excellently moved things forward. I didn’t find myself bored for one second during Heads Up and in fact, I was always wanting more. With the show getting back on track, I’m really sad that the next episode will be the last of 2015 (did we get through half of Season 6 already?!).
The midseason finale of The Walking Dead airs this Sunday night on AMC. Judging by the fences of Alexandria finally breaking down at the end of Heads Up, though, I’m betting that this one may be just as deadly as when the Governor destroyed the prison— if not worse. So while we’re celebrating the fact that Glenn is alive, after all, you still might want to keep that box of tissues nearby.