In the penultimate episode of season nine, The Walking Dead delivered an episode filled with hope and heartbreak. Ever since the Whisperers made themselves known to the group, civilisation has been pitted against survival of the fittest mentality, with the groups clearly shaken by the skin-wearing enemies, but possibly undermining the lengths Alpha will go to to assert her leadership. “The Calm Before” gave everyone good reason to consider her one of the most terrifying threats our survivors have faced yet as one of the most brutal moments from the comics comes to screen. Beware: spoilers follow!
1. H
The tone for “The Calm Before” was set from the get-go, as the cold open combined cheerful optimism with stark dread. In a series of quick flashbacks leading to the present day, a couple stumble across Hilltop on their anniversary. Five anniversaries later, they’re living in the settlement, contributing woodworking skills to the community. The woman has made a coin carved with the letter H, but isn’t totally sure what it should stand for. Her partner tells her it could mean a number of things: Hilltop, Home, Hope. In the present day, they load up a cart for the Kingdom’s fair and set off, with the woman carrying a box filled with the coins and marked with ‘ H’ in the lap of her pretty sundress. It’s a crisp, cheery opening symbolising everything the communities have worked to build: safety, belonging, and a sense of normality.
There’s a stark change as the scene cuts to the cart, toppled over, items spread across the ground. The bright colours from the previous scene appear to have been bled, switching to dull, bleak tones as a familiar voice lightly sings Lydia the Tattooed Lady. We see the woman from Hilltop lying on the ground, and Alpha crouching down to scalp her. Before it even cuts to the opening credits, the episode reinforces that everything the cheerful ‘H’ represents can be cutdown by dark forces intent on destroying civilisation.
2. The Fair
The chilling cold open creates a sense of dread which lingers over the colourful, bustling fun of the Kingdom’s fair. Ezekiel addresses the gathered crowd, preaching community and dedicating the day to Jesus, Rick, and Carl, before pronouncing the “fair of new beginnings” open. It’s truly a celebration of everything the communities have worked to build. As we get to look around the fair, we see stalls teaching life-saving skills and trading a variety of goods. There are even games for the children. In one particularly delightful scene, Judith expertly knocks Eugene into a dunk tank.
There are genuine moments of friendship and bonding between many of the characters at the fair. We get to see Judith embrace her childhood, playing with Jerry and his family. Luke convinces Alden to perform with him as a musical duo, while Alden and Enid’s romantic future is filled with the hopeful possibility of young lovers. Kelly and Connie have a touching reunion, skilfully underlined by the swelling score. Rosita and Eugene continue their awkward friendship, working on a radio device together. Henry is reunited with his parents and even shares a kiss with Lydia, who is totally overwhelmed by the community she never thought could exist. All of the relationships feel completely natural, and it was difficult not to be captivated by the joy as the episode continued.
It’s been quite a while since I genuinely cared about any of the characters in The Walking Dead. The past two seasons have been such a slog that any sense of dread was drained, and lost characters felt simply like collateral damage. I think Glenn’s was the last death I was moved by and we’ve lost some key players since then. However, this season has worked so hard to re-establish a tight sense of community and work on genuine character development. It can’t be easy to weave stories from three large communities together, but season nine proves it can be done without storytelling or characterisation having to suffer. All season long, I’ve found myself reconnecting with the show, but this episode made me realise that I’m invested in these characters again. As I became sucked into the fun and frivolity of the fair, anxiety bubbled in the pit of my stomach—I don’t want anything to happen to these characters, even the minor ones, because I care about them again.
Continued below3. Infiltrator
Naturally, when The Walking Dead makes the characters and viewers feel happy and relaxed, it usually means tragedy is about to strike. Amidst the hustle of the fair hid a viper, waiting to strike: Alpha entered the fair wearing the long blonde hair of the woman she scalped at the beginning of the episode. She moves amongst the people, listening to snippets of gossip, picking up just enough to fool those she has conversations with. With a clean face, flowing hair, and a dainty sundress, she looks just the part, but is truly creepy as she encounters Ezekiel. They have what could be considered a pleasant conversation, but all of Alpha’s lines are quietly drawn out, almost hissing like a snake. Her meek performance is an interesting parallel to Carol’s when the survivors first reached Alexandria. Instead of offering home baked cookies, Alpha enquires about clothing stalls because she feels it’s going to be a “hard winter.” She’s not wrong.
Alpha finally tracks Lydia down, too. Sitting at the back of a movie theatre waiting for Henry to arrive, Lydia begins to relax and enjoy the cartoon being screened. But her happiness is cut short as the empty seat reserved for Henry is filled by someone else: Alpha. Lydia asserts that she wants to stay, telling her mother that she believes in the people she has met and that they believe in her in return. Alpha replies with her ever-chilling whisper, assuring her daughter that she was trying to make her a survivor, risking everything to save her before walking away.
We later re-encounter Alpha as she and her army surrounds Daryl, Carol, Michonne, and Yumiko in the woods, wiping a bloody knife after encountering some “trouble” on the road. Split off from a group returning to Hilltop, the four survivors walked straight into a walker trap. As they slice their way through looking for “skins” (their nickname for the Whisperers), it’s evident that this new threat is terrifying for them, even as they adopt their standard tight formation. Instead of killing the four, Alpha instead peels Daryl away from the group and leads him to a huge quarry filled with an incredible number of walkers. The sound was so vast, I at first thought she was leading him to a waterfall. Alpha confesses that she has to assert her authority to maintain her leadership (later backed up as she kills a Whisperer who was unfortunate enough to spot her shedding a tear over Lydia), and their communities are only alive because she’s letting them live. She believes they can take care of Lydia but warns them not to cross into their territory if they want to live in peace. Cross, and she’ll lead the herd to their doors. The border has been clearly marked.
Alpha’s quiet demeanour is chilling in contrast to her brutal actions and makes her all the more terrifying, which leads us to the biggest talking point of the episode…
4. Pikes
I have to admit, The Walking Dead caught me off-guard here. As a comics reader, I knew issue #144 would come into play this season, but fully expected the show to follow its old form and end with the reveal of ten pikes marking the Whisperer territory in the finale. As the realisation gradually dawned on me that we would see it this episode, I was devastated: I wasn’t ready to lose anyone yet.
The reveal has to be one of the most brilliantly played out scenes in The Walking Dead: savagely brutal and utterly heart-breaking. Once again, the bright colours which had soaked the episode drained, leaving a grey, saturated sky as the backdrop to the horrors that Daryl, Carol, Michonne, and Yumiko encounter after being released by the Whisperers. They find Saddiq, alive and in shock, tied to a tree. He leads them up a hill, fully expecting to find the remainder of their group dead. What they find is much worse: ten reanimated heads on pikes. Among them are two of the Highwaymen (who never got to see the movie after all), teenagers from the Hilltop community, Tammy Rose, Enid, Tara, and Henry.
As the scene gradually worked through the victims, it interspliced with friends and family at the fair looking for their loved ones. Alden looks out over a crowd as he sings, noticing that Enid isn’t there. Gabriel looks for Tara. Lydia tells Ezekiel that her mother was there, only for the shot to cut to Daryl rushing to Carol, telling her to only look at him. There are some dreadful losses here. Enid and Tara were finally getting the opportunity to explore their characters more, emerging from the background. But Henry’s loss was the most. As frustrating as his rash actions have been this season, Carol’s reaction was difficult to watch, and the parallels between her finding Sophia in the barn and seeing Henry’s impaled head were tragic. Carol has now lost four children (Sophia, Lizzie, Mika, and Henry)—it’s difficult to imagine what that must do to somebody.
Continued belowThe victims are a departure from those lost in the comics, but I liked that they went with the unexpected. Building upon the dread built throughout the episode by combining hope with tragedy, anyone could have been on the pikes. The audience was kept guessing throughout, and it worked in the show’s favour.
5. Mutual Protection Pact
While Alpha may have hoped to destroy the communities by setting her bloody border, she only appears to have united them further. Early in the episode, the community leaders meet to talk frankly and rebuild their friendships, finally signing the Community Charter. Their future is together. With Alexandria agreeing to grant Lydia asylum, all of the communities (including the forgotten Oceanside) form a mutual protection pact, agreeing that if one community is attacked, they are all attacked, cementing themselves as allies in times of trouble.
This is reaffirmed after the reanimated heads are discovered. Saddiq addresses the communities with the story Alpha wanted him to tell before delivering the story he wants to tell. Avi Nash gives a deeply moving performance as he disregards the message of fear Alpha intended in favour of a message of hope. He knows this was a ploy to drive communities apart, dividing them once again. But he recalls how every one of the victims fought back—they may not have known each other, but they were willing to fight to save one another until the bitter end. His speech was interspliced with shots of the characters standing up to the Whisperers, with the Highwaymen discovering the captives and trying to save them. This was every bit as moving as the reveal of the heads and is bound to unite the communities further.
As the episode draws to a close, Lydia accompanies Daryl to the border and lays a coin with a ‘H’ at the base of a pike. ‘H’ stands for Hope, Hilltop, and Home, but also for Henry. Light snow begins to fall, and the hard winter Alpha promised looks as if it has arrived in more ways than one.
It will be interesting to see how the communities cope with this loss, the border marking, and a difficult winter, especially as battling the elements has never been explored in the show’s nine seasons. Alpha has set up for war, pitting civilisation against survival of the fittest. As we go into the season finale, the real test will be whether or not the old world really is dead or if humanity is stronger than animal instincts.
