After a whole half-season of building up to the walker invasion of Alexandria, The Walking Dead finished 2015 on a flat note with a disappointingly uneventful mid-season finale.
‘Start to Finish’ introduced some intriguing ideas about a potential rebirth of Alexandria and appeared to pick up the pace at the end, but it didn’t leave The Walking Dead’s turbulently paced sixth season in a particularly stable place.
Thankfully, with ‘No Way Out’, The Walking Dead has thrillingly corrected its course.
‘No Way Out’ is everything that the mid-season finale was not: action-packed, thrilling, audacious, shocking and surprisingly uplifting. It delivers nearly everything you would want from a blockbuster episode of The Walking Dead, and leaves the season as a whole in a much more positive place by the time the credits have finally rolled.
It also resolves every one of the numerous cliffhangers ‘Start to Finish’ left, resulting in the first wholly satisfying episode this show has delivered since Morgan’s bottle episode early on this season.
The opening, which picks up from the stinger of ‘Start to Finish’, does relatively little to sketch out the oncoming threat of Negan and his group, but it’s an enjoyably intense opening that actually delivers some decent humour (a rarity for a typically dour show), with an explosive punchline that’s sure to get the gears moving on the conflict with Negan and his foes – while Negan’s group aren’t seen again this episode, it’s hard to imagine that Negan is going to take the death of his men particularly well.
Like all the best episodes of The Walking Dead, ‘No Way Out’ knows when to deliver a gut-punch that galvanises the episode’s pace.
The key scene that sees the remaining three members of the Anderson family die in brutal fashion in turn before ending with the sickening sight of Carl weakly asking for his dad with a gory, gaping hole in his face (a precise rendition of the iconic visual from the comics) is an impressively brutal, shocking exercise in slowly increasing dread.
It’s almost like the domino effect in how a stable situation escalates into pure chaos through a precisely engineered series of unfortunate events, seeing an entire family of three topple in brutally rapid succession. Plus, this means that we’ve seen the last of the bizarrely dysfunctional Anderson family, and The Walking Dead is likely going to be all the better for it.
It traffics in the same shocking brutality that most episodes of this show also wallow in, but what really distinguishes ‘No Way Out’ is the way it quietly subverts this show’s nihilistic brand of ‘every man for himself’ individualism.
It’s is a genuine ensemble piece, giving almost every important character (including some that have been ill-served by this season, such as Aaron) a chance to shine – and even allowing previously dislikeable, cowardly characters such as Father Gabriel and Eugene to step up to the plate with their own displays of courage.
There’s not much room for character within ‘No Way Out’, but it nonetheless stands up as a tribute to the extended ensemble that The Walking Dead currently sports.
It’s that ensemble philosophy that feeds into the crucial, climatic scene of ‘No Way Out’ in which the Alexandrians band together to defeat the walker herd. It’s a terrific set-piece, and not just because of its sustained entertainment value – there’s a genuine thematic undercurrent to this final action scene that really augments its effectiveness.
Since their introduction Alexandrians have been routinely portrayed as naïve morons who shouldn’t be allowed to venture out of the house without supervision – but ‘No Way Out’ substantially changes, and even challenges that portrayal by ensuring that the entirety of the town steps up to the plate by contributing to the victory over the walkers.
This portrayal of the Alexandrians has commonly led to the grimly pessimistic visuals of the dumb townies becoming walker food on the numerous expeditions cooked up by Rick’s (infinitely more capable) group, so the inversion of that portrayal leads to an action scene that’s genuinely uplifting in its own way, showing that The Walking Dead doesn’t have to be mired in pessimism to deliver enthralling action scenes.
The sense throughout the episode that this is something of a narrative turning point for The Walking Dead is finally cemented in Rick’s final scene with the gravely wounded (but, somewhat miraculously, alive) Carl.
Rick’s speech is superbly delivered with raw emotion by Andrew Lincoln, but what really makes it effective is the startling difference it possesses to Rick’s typical spiels, indicating that the thrilling events of ‘No Way Out’ have had a monumental impact on Rick’s worldview.
The Walking Dead has covered and re-covered the same ground with Rick’s character ever since his turn to pragmatic brutality in Season 4, so it’s very encouraging that the show appears to be re-calibrating its central character in a major way.
There are some niggles here that prevent this from being a completely flawless outing. Glenn’s miraculous rescue thanks to the intervention of Sasha and Abraham is a little ridiculous given the close proximity of this episode to Glenn’s dumpster escape.
Furthermore, the considerable potential of the remaining Wolf to stay around as a rogue element who is slowly learning morality is cut brutally short by his death, which doesn’t seem to serve a particular thematic purpose. And the execution around Carl’s eye is a bit spotty, mainly because it’s grounded in the ridiculous and illogical teen angst of Ron.
It’s not the most tightly-written episodes, with moments that don’t stand up to close scrutiny, but the generally heightened action-movie atmosphere just about alleviates these small nitpicks – and after all, these are merely minor points that could have been tweaked.
Nonetheless, ‘No Way Out’ is one of those rare episodes that instantly feels like a landmark. It’s thrilling, looks terrific thanks to Greg Nicotero’s atmospheric direction, and leaves the show in good stead as it dives into the run-up to Negan’s first appearance in the season finale.
For those disappointed by the season’s first half, this could be just the ticket.
Aired at 9pm on Monday 15 February 2016 on FOX.
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