For a while there Sunday night, things seemed right in the world inhabited by Rick Grimes and his band of occasionally merry, mostly morose skullstabbers.
Oh, sure, there was still the dread virus or whatever it is that broke down the basic structures of society and turns dead people into ravenous, lurching cannibals.
But it’s now season 7 of "The Walking Dead," and that zombie stuff is almost wallpaper. As the show returned Sunday after its winter break (Ft. Lauderdale? South Padre Island? An AMC corporate retreat?), there was happiness to be found in seeing Rick and what’s left of the crew all in one place beginning to work toward a common goal.
The first half of the season was basically a long slog through dangerous swampy water. The principals were split up, dispersed among various societies, most with the potential to be allies and one, of course, that was consolidating regional power and forcing all other communities to stock its larder.
That would be the Saviors, headed by one Negan, a type whose actions, brutal as they were, were not nearly as sadistic as his dialogue, dreary witless twaddle about his own magnificence. I think I enjoyed Sunday’s episode so much because — spoiler alert — we didn’t have to see Negan and only heard him a little bit, through a stolen walkie-talkie.
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And Rick, in the season’s first half, was eating crow, trying to be obedient about paying Negan and the Saviors their regular tribute of what goods remain in the world in order to fend off further beatings. Actor Andrew Lincoln hadn’t been this weaselly since he made a play for his best friend’s new wife in “Love Actually.”
It was no way to live, and finally, with nudging from new-ish partner Michonne, Rick decided to slough off the yoke and fight the Saviors. Which is what brought the gang back together and led us into the opening of the second half of this heretofore arduous season.
Here are five thoughts recapping “The Walking Dead” Season 7 Episode 9, The One in Which the Gang Leans Forward Again:
1. Getting people to fight Negan ain’t going to be easy. Meeting first with Hilltop leader Gregory, Rick, Maggie, et al. start trying to line up allies in their potentially quixotic battle against a superior force. But Gregory is a strict adherent to the philosophy of Neville Chamberlain: Appease, appease and then appease some more; appease them in the streets, appease them on the beaches, etc. “What are you going to do, start a platoon of sorghum farmers?” he asks. Gregory is no freedom fighter, but he’s pretty good with the snappy lines. I’ll miss him after the show makes him die a horrible death.
So they move on to the Kingdom, where King Ezekiel — he is, in a nice touch, a former community theater player — has been shielding his people from knowledge that they are paying protection to the Saviors. Pet tiger by his side, he hears Rick and Jesus’ impassioned pleas to rise up, but, in the end, he decides it’s not worth the risk. Not even Rick’s parable about the rock in the road changes his mind. Usually in entertainment, when a major character tells that long of a story so fraught with relevance, it’s persuasive. There is still hope here.
2. Leaving Daryl behind as a diplomat (!) could be like the NBA deciding to let James Harden call his own fouls. Daryl spent the first half of the season being held by Negan before finally escaping. He is a man of superior tracking and hunting skills, but when it comes to using his words (and also: washing his hair), difficulties arise. “You’re either with us or you ain’t,” he blurts to Gregory, which is practically a soliloquy for him.
Still, as the gang departs the Kingdom, they leave Daryl there. It’s partly because Ezekiel has offered to protect him from Negan’s hunters, but Rick has faith in Daryl’s powers of persuasion with the king. “Stare him into submission. Whatever it takes,” Rick says, another pretty funny line. Not only might Daryl use his hypnotic powers, but his old pal (and thwarted love interest) Carol is in the woods outside the Kingdom, where Ezekiel has also taken a shine to her. There is power in triangles.
3. The most epic clotheslining scene ever was glorious, but also, just maybe, a bit self-indulgent? On their way back to Alexandria, the crew encounters a highway roadblock booby-trapped with dynamite. Instead of just grabbing, carefully, the munitions, Rick and Michonne decide to have some fun.
Tying barbed wire between cars on opposite lanes of an interstate, they slice off the tops of a horde of zombies in the median. It’s inventive walker killing, for sure, a policy of extreme detorsofication. It’s splatter-riffic, a reward to the folks who watch “Walking Dead” for the body count. And it’s a good lesson about highway safety. But to what end? Rick and Michonne spend precious time on what is, essentially, a joy ride — and one whose aftermath will warn the Neganites that there is potential trouble in the land. That’s a strange way to start a revolution.
4. Gabriel has a plan, is my bet. In the only other major story thread this week, Alexandria’s tortured soul of a pastor sneaks out of camp with a lot of the remaining canned goods and a car. He leaves behind his bible and a clue that he’s headed to the boathouse, apparent home of the mystery boot-wearer we glimpsed as the first half of the season ended.
Is his sneaky maneuver as dastardly as it seems? I’ve got to believe Gabriel has something in mind that will help achieve the goal of de-throning Negan. Otherwise it’s the most abrupt character 180 since Negan showed mercy toward Carl, Rick’s impetuous one-eyed son, after the latter sneaked into the Saviors’ camp with assassination in his heart.
5. Rick is smiling at episode’s end because: guns. Let’s size this coming battle up. They’ve got a smattering of people from Alexandria, but only two guns. The Hilltoppers who live under Gregory appear to have the will to fight but no experience. Folks in the Kingdom are potentially more potent; they conduct regular boot-camp-style training and teach everyone archery. And there’s the dynamite purloined from the highway.
But, still, Rick knows it won’t be enough to beat the Saviors. So when they are trying to track Gabriel and get captured by scores of female fighters pointing guns at them, Rick’s response isn’t, “Here we go again.” It’s a big happy smile. He knows these people and their firearms — surely the Oceanside community we met briefly earlier this season — can help turn a hopeful coalition into a winning one. Or maybe he’s just excited to see the new female-to-male population imbalance.
sajohnson@chicagotribune.com
Twitter: @StevenKJohnson
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