Well, this was the best episode of the season so far. It’s just too bad there was so much garbage in between it and the season-opener.

I guess the show justified all the disparate locations so they could wrap up this half by having the 90-minutes filled with scenes in every spot we’ve (been forced to have) visited every episode since the premiere.

We begin with Negan doing his best Steven Keaton impersonation – having a shave; cuddling the children; making spaghetti – until Rick gets back from his supply run. Why, he’s even trying to console Carl with words of wisdom from a guy who’s been there before. (Although, I would hardly consider CORAL! an Alex P. Keaton type, but I need this metaphor.)

Rick, meanwhile, is still out with Aaron, trying to decide whether they can get the cache of guns & stuff from the location in the middle of Lake Zombie. Using a leaky boat and some wood panelling for oars, they manage to pull it off…

…but not without a couple of hiccups along the way. And when they return with their bounty, The Saviors they meet decide on a thank-you ass-kicking for Aaron, showing Rick the value of hard work.

Then there’s Daryl. He decides to finally take advantage of the escape opportunity he’s been given and busts out, beating Fat Joseph to death.

Somehow, in a dark hour, along comes Jesus! He found Daryl just as he finished Abraham-ing Joseph’s head, and together they made their way to Hilltop aboard stolen Saviors motorcycles. (I’m sure part of one Winter episode will be devoted to determining who helped Daryl escape.)

Michonne! Her road trip with the captive Savior ends when she comes across the main Savior compound and she realizes what a big undertaking taking down Negan will be.

Her temporary solution? Kill her captive & work her way back to Alexandria to fill Rick in on those details she’s picked up.

Hilltop! Maggie is wearing Glenn’s old hat,

having supplanted Gregory as head of the colony. Why, she even took his apple from him, emasculating him in front of people who don’t care about him at all. This does not bode well. Meanwhile, both Sasha & Enid are on board with whatever Maggie has planned. Enid especially wants in on the ground floor this time.

Carol & Morgan! They are still in the Kingdom. One of Ezekiel’s lieutenants approaches them to see if they’ll help sway The King into attacking The Saviors first, because of the danger they clearly pose. Their reactions show they haven’t yet moved away from their new-found love of pacifism.

Clearly, something bad is going to have to happen for that to occur. Since people love Carol, because otherwise she’s headed down a very boring Andrea path, it’s most likely “goodbye Morgan” sometime during the second-half of the season.

Spencer! His plan for convincing Negan to let him take over for Rick looked good but smelled bad. Right after dinner & drinks, the two of them decide to shoot a little pool.

It’s during this encounter that Negan plays his hand – that Rick “swallows his hate & gets shit done to help save his people”, but Spencer is a sneaky prick who “doesn’t have the guts” to do his own dirty work. He then spills said guts onto the street as a message and a lesson.

This leads Rosita to waste her bullet on an assassination attempt, which miraculously hits Lucille,

causing Negan to demand another death in exchange. As is par, he leaves the offender alive to cope with the guilt their actions caused, so Rosita will have to live with Olivia’s death on her hands. The he takes Eugene away, so he can be made to make bullets for The Saviors, like Jesse was forced to make meth for the skinheads.

The episode concludes with Rick concluding what the others have known for a while, that they will have to take Negan out because he is just going to bleed them to death until they serve no more useful purpose. So they decide to head out to Hilltop to talk with Maggie about how to begin this plan. Maggie is happy to see them, and seems glad Rick has come to his old-Rick senses. The episode ends with them going into the house for a chat.

My immediate reactions were:

1. FINALLY! an episode where shit actually happened to develop the plot.
2. Oh God, the first episode back is going to be one big discussion around a table, like the worst “Sons of Anarchy” episodes.
3. The war won’t actually start until next (Fall 2017) season; the rest of this season will be sending emissaries around to the other locations seeing who wants to be part of the alliance.

On the whole, the episode seemed better than it was, mostly because the previous 5 episodes were absolute shit. We saw a bunch of storylines come to a reasonable conclusion (based on current circumstances), and they avoided a cliffhanger ending because they want people to come back in February.

The telling point seems to be Daryl returning to the flock and giving Rick his gun back. 

It’s almost like it represents his manhood!

Was it a great episode? No. It was good, and served the purpose of foreshadowing where the second-half of the season would go. It also brought some buzz back to the show, because people could talk about this episode and not get mocked for anything outrageous that happened. That guaranteed they wouldn’t lose too many viewers in the interim.

But there were some issues, namely:

• Why is Carol being so pissy? And where was Ezekiel the whole time?
  • also, MOAR TIGER!
• Why was Daryl’s escape seemingly so anti-climactic?
• Couldn’t Spencer’s death have been more obvious? And painful?
  • we did get to see him turn, and Rick have to put him down. So, so satisfying.
• What about Maggie’s pregnancy?
• Wither Judith (again)?

Finally, they had a post-credits scene of people being watched. WHO WILL IT BE?!

Frankly, I am relieved this season is now done for two months. I just want to watch football on Sunday nights and not have to find words to recount what has been a very frustrating TV-watching experience. And I can’t let Roger Goodell win.