Spoilers will be at your throat.

(Photo: Gene Page/AMC)
(Photo: Gene Page/AMC)

We’re getting really minimalistic with the titles for The Walking Dead 6×05: Now. I’d call this one Walkers At The Gate. And it’s just a filler of an episode in which the news from Glenn not coming back are relayed back to Maggie. We do get one big news item, but there’s so much nothing around it that I just feel it will be better to mention it later or you’ll just stop reading.

Still with me? Ok, here’s the meat of this review. It’s just not entertaining to go through the entire plot. So, here’s the gist of it. Rick makes it back, followed by quite a large-looking herd of walkers. He has to do some damage control since everyone is looking really depressed about it. Deanna has lost the will to fight or lead or anything until she rans headlong into a walker and has to kill him. She takes her time stabbing him until Rick arrives because she’s not going for the head. She’ll find new resolve from that last kill, apparently.

Maggie could be at the center of this episode because she’s the only one that actually does something, albeit something debatable. After getting the news about Glenn and Nicholas from Michonne, she writes his name down on the wall because apparently that’s a thing we do now? I had not a clue. Anyhow, she wants to go find him. Aaron follows her and insists on coming. They take a secret path outside through the sewers. Wouldn’t that be a way that needs to be sealed and/or locked down? Anyhow, in the sewers they meet these zombies that have become pretty decomposed and gross with sewage. Icky fight.

But once they reach the locked gate from where they can see the street above with lots of walkers, Maggie breaks down. She knows the odds, she doesn’t want to go there anymore. She confesses to Aaron she’s pregnant. That’s the shocker.

Stick with me, people, we’re almost done. In Alexandria, we get a lot of people losing it and trying to get more than their usual rations of food. Spencer (Deanna’s son) makes a speech to stop people from doing that, then he gets found with some stolen rations himself by Deanna. Jessie finds one of her neighbors has turned to the dead side and kills her while people watch. Speech time again. Tara gets a kiss from Dr. Denise. Jessie gets one from Rick. And people are sad all around except for a few that got a kiss or got to kill something.

Because that’s the way things are now. Sigh. Ok, filler episode. Spencer, stop hogging the crackers and give me one.

Highs/Lows/Crackers:

  • The disadvantage of making great episodes is you can’t make bad episodes. Morgan’s Jedi-in-training backstory was engaging. You literally could have gone back and tell us more backstories rather than going gloom city. I understand that we’re going to wait until we hear something from Glenn, but there’s plan for the interim, right?
  • If Maggie is pregnant, does that increase or decrease the chances of Glenn being alive? Real world answer: it makes no difference. The world behind these series does have moments of compassion and we’re all hoping for one, but at the same time it gets pretty ironic too.
  • Ron (Jessie’s son that goes out of the house) is being sneaky. He tells Rick about Enid leaving and Carl’s initial intentions to go look for her. Then he asks him to show him how to shoot. Rick is a bit smarter than this, but I suspect not around teenagers.
  • Sam (Jessie’s son that doesn’t go out of the house) doesn’t want to come downstairs. And I find myself have no sympathy whatsoever. I should. He’s gone through a lot. He was abused by his Dad. Now he saw his mom killed someone in the kitchen. Sorry, we’ve gone through six seasons, unless he pulls his own weight, he’s dead weight.
  • Spencer. Might turn to be a problem. He seems able to inspire people but then does the wrong thing.
  • The softened Alexandrians. Do we have any sympathy for them? No. Are we done here? Ok, nowhere to go on the next episode but up then.
  • The blood coming through a crack on the wall after Deanna banged on it. Obviously a walker getting squished by his brethren. Could also be a sign that the wall is giving way.

That will do for now.