Season nine has seen a gradual return to form for The Walking Dead. “Bounty” was a hugely enjoyable episode, mixing light, comedic moments with plenty of tension and horror. The scares and the characters are what originally drew such a huge audience to AMC’s survival-horror, so it’s encouraging to see genuine thrills and character development return ahead of what will likely be a dark and gut-wrenching arc with the Whisperers. Beware, spoilers follow!
1. Flashbacks
We catch up with The Kingdom in this episode, opening with a flashback. Picking up mid-way through the second time-jump of the season, Jerry, Carol, and Ezekiel are waiting at a meeting point to trade with the Hilltop, met by Jesus and Tara. Jesus riding in, casually beheading walkers with his sword on horseback, showing off his skills as a fighter, is a stark reminder that he was woefully underused on the show, killed off before getting his chance to show his true potential.
We discover a little bit more about the division of the main camps in this opening. Tara reveals that she has fled Alexandria with more supplies than Michonne agreed to and that she won’t be returning, hinting once again at that tense relationship that has developed between our heroes. We’re still none the wiser as to what happened to cause such a wedge between the groups after Rick’s death, and it looks as if they’ll be teasing that mystery until later in the series (likely to be explored in episode fourteen, titled “Scars”). In the meantime, we’re left guessing. Fortunately, there’s enough going on in this episode to keep us distracted.
Tara also reveals that she has stolen something from Michonne for Ezekiel. The Multi-Community Charter of Rights and Freedoms which Michonne was so diligently working on at the start of the series was sitting gathering dust. Ezekiel desperately wants to reunite the communities. Declaring himself the keeper of the path forward, we jump back to the present where Ezekiel examines the unsigned document and reveals that he hopes to unite the leaders at the upcoming community fair, encourage them all to sign the document, and cement solidarity within the groups. It’s a very hopeful start and Ezekiel’s hope for the future is contagious. Amongst the good news shared in the opening is that the immensely likeable Jerry is now a father of three. Such an optimistic opening tends to lead to bad news on The Walking Dead, which leads us to…
2. Operation: Movie Night
In the present day, Ezekiel is leading a small group of Kingdom soldiers on a secret side-mission—one the king had hoped to hide from Carol, but failed to sneak past his ever-watchful queen. Knowing better than to argue with her, Ezekiel brings Carol with them. What is their super-secret side-mission? Break into an infested cinema to steal a projector bulb. In the past, supply runs like this have occasionally felt like filler. This one, however, was a very welcome addition of good humour, entertaining action, and character building. By the end of the mission, I felt as if I had a better understanding of life at the Kingdom, getting some fun walker-action along the way.
Ezekiel believes in art. The new projector bulb would bring the Kingdom together, introduce films to children who had never seen them before, and share the wonder of storytelling. Entertainment separates them from the animals, and he firmly believes that life should be about more than just survival. Starting families and going on missions to collect projector bulbs gives us a sense that everyone feels safe in the Kingdom. It’s a positive outlook on life—one that will likely be dulled when the folks at the Kingdom eventually run into Alpha.
There are some genuinely entertaining moments in the movie theatre scenes. A walker being scalped by a popcorn machine made me recoil in disgust and delight—the first time in a while I’ve been grossed-out by new ways to de-brain the undead. Ezekiel lures walkers out of the theatre with a ‘Mission Mix’ cassette blaring out of a boombox, Jerry nodding and miming along to it happily, and Carol giving him a bewildered look. The warm bond between Ezekiel, Carol, and Jerry felt very authentic and made for some laugh-out-loud moments. Cooper Andrews really shines as Jerry—the much-needed light-hearted comic relief he provides feels naturally good natured rather than awkwardly forced. Likeable characters being given more screen time has been an ominous omen in the past, particularly if things are going well, and I fully expected to see him reveal a bite before the end of the episode which added to the tension. But The Walking Dead subverted their own trope, and Jerry (thankfully) remains alive and well. Which doesn’t bode well for future encounters with the Whisperers…
Continued below3. The Trade
The upbeat expedition with our heroes at the Kingdom was certainly needed to even the balance against the rest of the episode as Hilltop confronted Alpha and her gang of Whisperers. Alpha has come to collect Lydia.
As a comics reader, I’ve been both dreading and looking forward to the Whisperers’ introduction to the show—and their aesthetic is much creepier than I could ever have imagined, their masks truly horrifying. Samantha Morton is particularly chilling as unmasked Alpha, her face smeared with dirt, almost appearing as if she’s slowly decaying, straddling the stage between life and death itself. This coincides with her belief that they live like wild animals, following the laws of nature—a complete contrast to Ezekiel’s view about there being more to life than survival. The entire encounter with her is tense as she quietly but confidently observes the group’s every move, as if looking for weaknesses.
Reluctant to return Lydia to an abusive parent, Daryl refuses at first. But when Alpha reveals that they have Alden and Luke, he knows a trade needs to be made. To no-one’s surprise, Henry has let Lydia out (more on Henry shortly), shown her the secret back entrance to the Hilltop, and hidden her in the Hilltop teen’s hideout. After a confrontation with Enid, Lydia willingly returns to her mother. The trade finally happens. It makes for uncomfortable viewing as Daryl reluctantly walks the young girl towards her mother, Lydia looking frightened. Alden and Luke are returned to loving embraces by their friends at the Hilltop, while Lydia receives a sharp slap across the face and a tight hug from Alpha. It’s evident this decision won’t sit right with Daryl, but he knows that sometimes we need to live with difficult choices.
4. Children of the Corn(fields)
The show fully immersed itself in horror during one of the episode’s stand-out moments. As the Whisperers stand outside Hilltop’s walls, waiting for a decision to be made, Daryl notices one Whisperer carrying a baby in a sling. As a herd of ‘original recipe’ walkers appear, the baby begins to cry. The mother attempts to quieten the child, all the while looking to Alpha for instruction. With an ice-cold, unflinching stare, the evident order is to sacrifice the baby. The mother lifts the sling off of her chest and sets it down on the ground for the walkers. Alpha shrugs the matter off, citing natural selection as the ultimate ruler of who lives and dies in this new world.
Remember last week when Connie inexplicably dragged behind the group and darted into the cornfields as the Whisperers approached? It came in handy here! Luke spots Connie hiding, signing to her—an excellent use of their silent communication skills—that a crying baby is lying on the ground and a herd of walkers is approaching. Connie takes a brief second to consider her decision and bolts to the baby’s rescue, taking out a couple of walkers before running back into the cornfield for cover. As she does, the sound drops. We can hear nothing but the muffled sounds of the blood rushing through the body—kind of like when you plug your ears—plummeting us into Connie’s experience of the apocalypse. It was a fully immersive scene as the camera quickly ripped through the corn, walkers appearing with no warning around Connie. Being deaf and having her visibility impaired by towering rows of crops must be terrifying enough, but she also carries a loud beacon drawing danger directly towards her. She fights her way through regardless and is eventually saved by Daryl. The baby returns to Hilltop, adopted by Earl and Tammy—the blacksmith and his wife—a nice touch given they lost their son earlier in the season.
It’s interesting that Alpha allows for Daryl, Earl, and Tammy to dart into the fields to look for Connie and the baby, telling her troops to stand down and watch. They easily could have used the opportunity to breach the Hilltop or add to their captives for increased bargaining power, but they choose to observe. Perhaps Alpha knows they don’t have the weapons or the numbers to take on the Hilltop; or perhaps she’s trying to suss out this new enemy and find their weaknesses. Regardless, this episode has established her as a sinister force to be reckoned with in Alpha.
Continued below5. Henry
With Lydia back in her clutches, Alpha may well leave the Hilltop colony alone—but it seems highly unlikely now that Henry has run off after her. Henry continues to make one bad decision after another. While he’s taking over Carl’s Whisperer arc from the comics, Carl at least had years of good decisions and heroic moments to soften the annoyance that came with his reckless rush to danger all in the name of young love. Henry, unfortunately, doesn’t have that luxury, leading to moments of fist-shaking frustration.
Throughout the episode, Henry is reassured that sometimes life throws you a crap-covered curveball and you just have to live with it, but you can’t let the bad things change you. It’s a bitter pill Henry isn’t willing to swallow, even after Lydia decides to return to her group. We discover at the end of the episode that Henry has run away in search of Lydia. Judging by the teaser for next week, it looks like it will only lead him into trouble, even with Daryl, Connie, and dog hot on his tail—Daryl no doubt feeling obliged to keep the boy safe due to his friendship with Carol.
Henry’s desire to see the good in others and his rash actions show that he’s grown up behind walls in the safety of the Kingdom. Raised with the idealistic Ezekiel as a father, it’s not totally surprising that he has a starry-eyed view of the world. It appears he hasn’t learned anything from his adoptive mother, Carol, about the dangers of the reality outside of the manmade walls. I suspect he’ll quickly learn that actions have consequences when he catches up to the Whisperers.
This episode of The Walking Dead saw a strong return to the elements which originally made the show so compelling: the episode flowed at a quick and exciting pace, character relationships were expanded upon, gruesome kills and scary sequences gave us a return to horror, and Alpha has cemented herself as a cold, unflinching villain. As we go forward, we’ll see whether the new world can regain its joyful grip on humanity or if it’s really lost to the animalistic laws of nature.
