The Walking Dead, “Now,” was written by Corey Reed and directed by Avi Youabian, who is better known as an editor and has worked on the show as such since 2013. While there is plenty of action in this episode, it feels a bit like a pause as we check in to see how many of the characters are coping. And really, that’s been an ongoing theme this season. How do people cope when their world is turned upside down. It’s interesting to revisit people this far along in the apocalypse who are essentially just losing their innocence.
Tovah Feldshuh delivers an amazing performance as Deanna. She is clearly shell-shocked as the episode begins – stunned by the violence and her inability to really help in any way. She climbs to the top of the wall, and we see she’s climbed up to Panel #1, erected by her dead husband. She watches as her people gather the dead and overhears Michonne (Danai Gurira) tells Maggie (Lauren Cohen) about Glenn (Steven Yuen). And then, the herd appears. Feldshuh’s face tells the entire story of her shock at coming literally face to face with what the world is like now.
Deanna’s horror is interrupted by Rick’s (Andrew Lincoln) screaming for someone to open the gate. My brain is almost 100% sure that they aren’t intending on killing off Rick any time soon, but that final run of his ahead of the herd – after we know how far and fast he ran to get to the RV and then him stumbling, still got my heart racing.
There’s a beautiful shot of the herd on one side of the fence and the townspeople on the other – and the numbers are heavily skewed to the herd which surrounds Alexandria 20 deep. Rick has gathered the survivors, and he tells them that the walls will hold, so they just have to hold on themselves. Rick promises that the others will return, they simply have to remain as quiet as a graveyard not to antagonize the herd. One of the women pipes up that the town is a graveyard.
At this point Aaron (Ross Marquand) jumps in to defend Rick. We really haven’t gotten to see much of Marquand at all yet this season, and he delivers a terrific performance in this episode. We should remember that the townspeople have no idea what happened at the quarry. They weren’t expecting the plan to go ahead until the next day. Aaron tells them what happened and insists that Rick’s plan wasn’t the problem. Aaron then takes responsibility for the wolves finding them. In fact, he takes more responsibility than he probably should. After all, the pictures had no people in them and no way to figure out where Alexandria is. Just as Nicholas defended Glenn and insisted that Glenn’s experience trumped his, Aaron does the same for Daryl (Norman Reedus) too. He tells them he lost his pack when he insisted on continuing when Daryl wanted to pull back. Deanna meanwhile simply wanders away during the meeting, taking no part in it.
It’s clear that the townspeople are having a hard time dealing with the sudden arrival of reality. There’s a run on the pantry that Olivia (Ann Mahoney) is utterly unable to deal with. The group sees no reason to ration when death is imminent. Interestingly, it’s Spencer (Austin Nichols) who stops them. He tells them that if they start down a road where nothing and no one matters, they’ll have destroyed this place. Deanna arrives to see the others put their plunder back, and she smiles.
This incident seems to inject some life back into her, and Deanna heads back to her house. She’s looking at Reg’s ring now, and suddenly pulls out a map and starts making plans to rebuild the community. After all this was Reg’s dream too and it looks like Spencer is also picking up the torch – until Deanna finds him getting drunk with a basket full of his own plunder. Spencer tells her that She’s the reason they’re so screwed. “You just wanted to dream. We were never safe here.” He’s not wrong, but on the other hand, she had built a community that was working on one level.
As Deanna takes the food back, she’s attacked by a walker. She doesn’t just give up. I loved that she’s so short she has little choice but to stab it repeatedly in the chest with a broken bottle. I did think she was just trying to get it on the ground so that she could stab it in the head, but it seems she isn’t clear on the whole you have to kill their brain thing. Luckily, Rick comes along and finished it off for her. She asks Rick if what she wanted for this place was just pie in the sky. Rick answers no. And of course, the entire episode is highly symbolic. Deanna created the heart of the community, but Rick will have to help it defend itself to keep it going.
The final shot of Deanna is a nice contrast to the beginning. She’s on the ground – literally grounded in reality. She moves to the fence and you can see the walkers’ silhouettes on the other side. They are the shadows that haunt her. She walks right up to the gate and pounds back at them – she’s ready to fight. As she walks away, you can see the wall is bleeding. I’m assuming it’s ooze from the walkers crushing each other into the fence.
We don’t see a lot of Carl (Chandler Riggs) in this episode, but he’s worried about Enid who he’s pretty sure went over the wall. He goes to Ron (Austin Abrams) for help. In Carl’s mind, Ron will help because Enid is his friend too. However, Ron is extremely jealous of Carl’s relationship with Enid. Ron insists he’ll tell Rick and that he’s doing it to save Carl’s life. The engage in a little pushing fight. Did anybody else wonder why no one had taught Carl how to throw a decent punch?
Later in the episode, Ron does go to Rick who is keeping guard on the wall. Ron tells Rick about Carl’s plan and Enid having gone over the wall. Ron offers to help watch, but Rick clarifies that the Walkers are the ones keeping watch now – the walkers are keeping them in as much as the wall is keeping them out. When Ron asks Rick to show him how to shoot, Rick gives him his gun and shows him.
Jesse (Alexandra Breckenridge) clears the dead body out of her house. When she tries to bury it, Rick tells her they don’t bury killers within the walls and to just wait – they’ll get rid of them later. On her way home, she sees that one of her neighbors is now a walker – she’s slit her own wrists in despair. Jesse opens the door just enough to get access and stabs the woman through the eye. Other townspeople stop and stare in shock. Jesse tells them that she used to not want to see the way things are – she’s clearly referring to not wanting to admit that her husband was abusing her – but also the danger they’re in. She insists, “This is what life looks like now. We have to see it. We have to fight it. If we don’t fight, we die.” And this is what the characters are doing – finding a way to fight.
Jesse tries to lure Sam (Major Dodson) down from his room with freshly baked cookies – something ordinary and normal. He refuses to leave the second floor because nothing has changed on the second floor. People have died in his kitchen after all. However, for most people this isn’t an option.
At the end of the episode, Rick tells Jesse that he wanted to wait with the bodies because of those who aren’t back yet. Jesse tells him they could still be alive, but it’s clear Rick is having his own doubts. Jesse tells him that this moment is what it is and he repeats her own words back to her – this is what life looks like now. She clarifies that she didn’t mean there was no future, but she wants Rick to help her find a way forward, to tell her there’s more. He does it by kissing her. Like Deanna and Ron – and the rest of the townspeople, Jesse looks to Rick to lead and show the way forward.
Meanwhile, Maggie must process the potential loss of Glenn. Cohen is simply excellent in this episode. I think the writers definitely wanted to give due time to Maggie’s feelings about Glenn because of the backlash over the lack of time given to Maggie’s feelings about Beth. Aaron sees that Maggie is gearing up to go out after Glenn and insists on coming with her – what happens if you twist an ankle? Maggie is completely resistant at first because she thinks Aaron is going to stop her, but he makes it clear he simply wants to help.
Aaron takes Maggie into the sewer in order to get past most of the herd. Aaron insists on coming because people have died because of him and he has to live with that – but he clearly sees this as a way to partially redeem himself. Maggie tells Aaron, “If he’s alive, he’s hurt or trapped, maybe taken. If he’s alive he needs my help. If he’s dead, I don’t want to be waiting.” She needs and wants to find out what happened to Glenn in order to try to make sense of it.
When the two remove a stuck ladder, Aaron is injured and they are attacked by two disgusting slimers! This entire sequence was shot in a set built on a soundstage and it’s amazing. The walkers were as well – how disgusting is it when Maggie’s hand goes right through one!?
When they finally get to the end of the tunnel, they are too close to the herd to get out. It’s Maggie who makes the decision not to carry on. And we find out she’s pregnant! Cohen is simply brilliant in this scene. She feels guilty over not going with Glenn – maybe she could have helped him and at least she’d know what happened to him. She tells Aaron she burned his last picture because she vowed never to leave his side again, and of course, the moment she does, she loses him. But she had to put the baby first and she does so again now. She tells Aaron, “I don’t’ get to know what happened or why. I have to live with that and you do too.”
Later, they are both also watching from the wall. Still vaguely hoping to see Glenn return. Maggie excuses herself and goes down to erase Glenn’s name from the list of the dead on the wall. Aaron follows her and begins to erase Nicholas. Aaron tells her – so sweetly! – that depending on the spelling, Aaron/Erin works for a boy or a girl….
There’s a nice moment on the wall between Spencer and Rosita (Christian Serratos). She tells him that he did good with the truck. He tries to shrug it off as luck, but she tells him what he really needs to hear – that he should just keep doing what he’s going. It’s making a difference. When Spencer joins Rosita on the wall, she’s crying. This is in contrast to when we see her earlier in the episode insisting that the others are still alive. She’s clearly also starting to give up hope that Abraham is still alive. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen her with Spencer, so I wonder if there will be more develop there.
Where there’s no doubt been a spark ignited is between Tara (Alanna Masterson) and Denise (Merritt Wever)! Tara goes to check up on Denise in the clinic. Denise has a patient that she can’t seem to help. She tells Tara that she just wants the roamers to go away, another doctor to show up, and to go back to reading War and Peace in her apartment! But that’s not what life looks like anymore. Tara sympathizes with her – “Being afraid sucks.” But Tara also gives her some hope – her patient isn’t dead yet!
Denise does have a eureka moment, and after draining the wound, the patient seems on the mend. She then goes directly to Tara and plants a big on her! Tara asks what it is and Denise replies the end of the world. Tara quickly replies no it isn’t. The world may be very different, but it’s far from over. Denise then says, “Being afraid sucks.” But it’s clear that at least part of her fear was about practicing actual medicine, and now she’s had a success at that. And perhaps she was also afraid to show Tara how she feels. Once again, we see a character come to terms with what her life looks like now.
This episode featured two powerful performances – from both Feldshuh and Cohen. I liked the way the theme of this is what life looks like now played out in several storylines. I also liked that the show once again, after a huge death, still manages to find a way to affirm life. Even if Glenn is dead, he will still live on through his baby – though how tragic is it if he never gets to meet him/her?! What did you think of the episode? Were you satisfied with Maggie’s reaction to Glenn’s fate? Were you surprised by Denise? Do you think Deanna still has a valuable role to play? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
About the Author - Lisa Macklem
I do interviews and write articles for the site in addition to reviewing a number of shows, including Supernatural, Arrow, Agents of Shield, Agent Carter, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, The X-Files, Defiance, Bitten, Killjoys, and a few others! I'm active on the Con scene when I have the time. When I'm not writing about television shows, I'm often writing about entertainment and media law in my capacity as a legal scholar. I also work in theatre when the opportunity arises. I'm an avid runner and rider, currently training in dressage.
