The Walking Dead - No Way Out - Review: "No one gets to clock out today"

The Walking Dead came back from its winter hiatus Sunday night with an adrenaline-pumping confrontation between the Alexandrian community (note that I’m now including Rick’s gang as part of the Alexandrian community) and a horde of walkers that have been slowly making their way to their community since the start of the 10th season.

The ninth episode of the season started with a few minutes teasing the upcoming big conflict (we met more of Negan’s gang), and then continued with bringing resolution to one of the bigger questions that drove the first 8 episodes of this season: whether the two groups, the Alexandrians and Rick’s group, can become one.

They can and did. Everyone stepped up in his or her own way - something Rick admits at the end that he didn’t think was possible. As Eugene put it, “No one gets to clock out today.”

We started off the episode with the town overrun by the dead, who had pushed through walls in the seventh episode. Rick, Carl, Michonne, Gabriel, Jessie, Sam, and Ron were making their way through the walkers, wearing walker guts to disguise themselves. Meanwhile the “wolf” that Morgan had captured had escaped and was holding Denise hostage, as he was injured and needed a doctor. Elsewhere, Daryl, Sasha, and Abraham faced off on the road against of crew of Negan’s thugs, who wanted their stuff.

The episode included many stand out moments that fell both in the categories of action and character development. For action, we had tense, and then sad moments, as Sam panicked among the monsters, and he and Jessie were eaten. Carl was shot by Ron. And the action gradually climaxed as the community made a stand to save their town with hand-to-hand combat in the overrun town.

As for character moments, just about everyone who had been shown to previously waffle stepped up. Gabriel finally redeemed himself in protecting Judith and then leaving safety to fight with the others. Denise learned to control her fear. Even the wolf who was holding Denise risked his own safety to rescue her.

On a lighter and slightly superficial note, my favorite character moment was seeing Daryl’s upgrade to a rocket launcher from the lost crossbow. We all mourned the crossbow when it was taken from him (although I’m guessing we’ll see it again), but I understand why now. The rocket launcher is an awesome upgrade, which he put to good use not once, but twice during the episode.

We also saw tie-ins to a number of the events that built up to this episode. The group covering themselves in walker guts to hide among them was a nice call back to season one. The rocket launchers that Abraham found a few episodes back were put to good use in killing Negan’s gang and starting a fire that lured in the walkers. Rick’s reaction to Jessie’s death and Carl being shot (to go and kill walkers) was reminiscent of his response after Lori died. Also, Daryl used the story he was told about the walkers walking into the fire to save the town (Note: Because I liked the episode so much I’m choosing to ignore the continuity gaffe in that walkers weren’t seen in the early seasons to be anything more than mildly curious about fires. When Hershel’s barn burned, and the walkers didn’t incinerate themselves in it).

I appreciated the scene with Glenn explaining to Enid about how you lose your connections to those you lost if you lose yourself in the present. While some character’s motivations have made more clear, Glenn is one the characters whose development I think has suffered from having such a large cast. He’s been on the side of peaceful solutions, and I understand Hershel was a big influence with that, but I’ve been having trouble putting my finger on what was driving him. This scene helped clarify it. Thanks Enid for asking the question of what he had meant about losing yourself!

While this was mostly a morally black and white episode, with the right choices being clear, a grayer storyline was the continued philosophical divide between Carol and Morgan. Whereas Carol doesn’t take chances when it comes to the safety of her group, Morgan has made a commitment to not killing, even that endangers the group. In the previous episode, when the wolf escaped, taking Denise as hostage, Morgan appeared in the wrong. But this week we saw a different result. Even though the wolf could have ever become part of the community, he did show signs of changing, which strengthens Morgan’s argument that every life is precious. And while while Carol has found strength through her fear, that fear transmitted to Sam got the Anderson family killed. Carol was also the one to kill the wolf right after Denise observed that he may have changed.

One of tenser moments of the episode, when it looked like Glenn might really be killed this time saving Maggie, ended with a miraculous save and a happy resolution. Maggie and Glenn finally got their renunion. What are your thoughts on how Glenn keeps skirting death? He’s appearing to have more lives than a cat and wasn’t even nicked in this episode after a rain of machine gun fire from Sasha and Abraham that hit all of the targets around him but left him unharmed. My theory is the show’s writers are trying to condition us to believe that Glenn will never be harmed only to knock us down later.

Let me know what you thought of this episode in the comments. Are you looking forward to what comes next with what is sure to be more confrontations with Negan’s gang?