The Walking Dead is still ticking away at a decent standard creatively, but it’s undoubtedly let the pace slacken in the last few episodes.
Even last week’s slightly snappier episode still felt a little too much like filler – a solid hour of television, but not an instalment that felt essential to the season arc.
Still, it saw signs of progress, and ‘Heads Up’ continues that gradual regaining of the tension and pace that marked out the first chapter of the season. It’s undoubtedly a table-setter whose main purpose is to lay the groundwork for the carnage to come in next week’s mid-season finale, but it’s still an episode that stands alone as a pretty decent slice of zombie action.
Before diving into the goings-on in Alexandria, it’s worth addressing the elephant in the room: Glenn. Yep, after four episodes of obfuscation and/or generally ignoring the issue entirely, ‘Heads Up’ wastes no time in revealing that Glenn survived that walker horde in exactly the way most would expect. I’m glad the plotline has finally been resolved, but I can’t really offer up anything but slight apathy on the issue.
This is undoubtedly a clear misstep for The Walking Dead – a cheap fake-out that the show failed to truly explore the consequences of in the interim – but perhaps the biggest indictment of this misinformed storyline is that the revelation of Glenn’s survival barely elicited a reaction from this reviewer, given how long it’s been dragged out.
If there’s an upside to the tedious Glenn reveal, it’s that there appears to be a few lasting consequences for the character. He’s snippier, tougher, and weary, indicating that almost getting killed by the guy whose life he saved just days prior has taken a toll on his boundless idealism.
That’s just about the best thing The Walking Dead can do with Glenn’s fake-out – and while it likely won’t retrospectively improve this storyline, at least his near death experience is being meaningfully used for substantial character development.
Back at Alexandria, things are on a much evener keel. The Alexandria-set ‘Now’ was often tedious, due to the way it focused on ancillary characters the audience cared little about.
Thankfully, ‘Heads Up’ pushes the focus back onto the central, powerhouse characters we know and love, daring to meaningfully challenge characters’ ideologies in a more complex and balanced way than The Walking Dead usually does.
After several episodes apart, ‘Heads Up’ finally sits Rick and Morgan together in a philosophical debate that takes place across the episode.
Morgan’s pacifism is challenged using the very legitimate example of his choice to let the Wolves go – and that exploration is intriguing enough, establishing Morgan as a reasonable man with a streak of pragmatism that doesn’t overshadow his principled desire to stick to his moral code. It’s interesting stuff, but a challenge of pacifism and idealism is hardly unexpected for a show that’s often unashamedly nihilistic.
It’s the fact that Rick’s ideology is also meaningfully challenges that’s surprising here, given how, despite his brutal methods, the guy always ends up being right. ‘Heads Up’ doesn’t deliver a scathing criticism of Rick’s beliefs, but it does provide a very reasonable case against them as delivered by Morgan, showing this season’s gradual progress in introducing a broader spectrum of legitimate worldviews held by characters.
Furthermore, there are actually flickers of a change for Rick, as he risks his own life to save Spencer despite the inherent stupidity of Spencer’s error. It’s likely that this change will take place over a considerable period of time, but ‘Heads Up’ effectively gets the ball rolling on what could be a huge change for the series as a whole.
If there’s a criticism I had to level at ‘Heads Up’ not regarding Glenn, it’s that it still feels like The Walking Dead in second gear.
The episode does a much stronger job than ‘Now’ of establishing the walker herd as a threat, and the slowly crumbling tower provides a ticking clock that lends the episode a great deal of dread and impetus, but the episode still feels like a collection of character vignettes without a truly consistent story. That’s natural for a table-setter, but considering how fragmented ‘Now’ also felt, it’s a little more frustrating than usual.
Still, despite that niggle, it’s undoubtedly true that ‘Heads Up’ delivers a knockout cliffhanger. The tower was always going to fall, but there’s still considerable shock value in watching it gracefully topple over, pulling a large section of the wall with it. It’s a cleverly composed ending moment, utilising the previous moments of hope and dissonantly peaceful music to make the moment feel almost surreal – a classic ‘what the hell just happened?’ moment.
There’s a true sense here that there’s no hiding or delaying now – with the herd pouring inside Alexandria’s undefended walls, next week’s mid-season finale is almost certainly going to be one hell of a bloodbath.
Good luck, Alexandria.
Aired at 9pm on Monday 23 November 2015 on FOX.
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