Monday, October 31, 2016

The Walking Dead: Season 7 Episode 2 - The Well


Hello friends and welcome back!  Season 7 of The Walking Dead took us by storm last week and decided to slow things down a bit this week.  Some may complain, some my cry out in praise.  As the show has done in recent seasons, we focused on one specific storyline for the entire 40+ minutes.  I'm sure they know that Carol and Morgan can carry an episode on their own.  Hopefully, we won't be getting a Tara/Heath romp through the forest solo episode!  We certainly learned a few things in this episode, met some new characters and saw a bit of how the larger world ties together.  Let's dive in and discuss!

Discussion Points
When last we left Carol and Morgan, Carol was shot by the saviors and some mystery dude(s) came to her rescue.  The episode opened with a few people on horseback carting Carol back to the Kingdom.
  • Now, it's tough to tell if the opening was a dream sequence with Carol recalling the events of how she ended up in the Kingdom or if she was hallucinating in real-time.  But, she was not in a good state.  She was seeing walkers as living people and she ran off during a scene with a massive run-in of walkers.  
  • Morgan and crew saved her yet again and got her inside the kingdom.  We then find out she was sleeping for 2 days.  
  • Morgan and Carol work on a consistent "fibbing" of their story of how they ended up there.  Carol went back into Suzy Homemaker mode when meeting King Ezekiel of the kingdom.  Her facial reactions to Shiva the tiger and the King himself were classic.  Morgan's preparing of Carol for the sight was pretty hilarious too.  But, I had a soft spot personally for Jerry, Ezekiel's right hand man.  Totally not pulling off the act of a King's Guard.  
  • Ezekiel's rules are pretty simple.  "Drink from the well.  Replenish the well.  Carol is offered fruit and she declines.  
  • The town looks like another form of Alexandria with a bunch of people being shielded from the true horrors of the zombie apocalypse.  The show does a good job with limited screen time of showing how established the kingdom is.  We see kids being schooled, we see a choir singing and the choir director is pregnant, choosing to go on with life in these crazy times.  There is little fear amongst these people. 
  • Carol sees right through the BS though and wants out of there as soon as possible.  More classic Carol moments follow with her wheeling around town stealing knives, clothes and whatever she needs as she recovers. 
  • Morgan's moral compass has changed a little from last season where he ended up having to kill a man to save Carol.  He's now been asked to help Ezekiel and crew with a a few events outside of town.  First we see them on a hunt.  It seems pigs have ransacked the city (Anyone know what city this is supposed to be?) since it has been deserted.  They used walkers as bait to draw in the pigs and then let the pigs fill their bellies with walker meat as well.  Morgan saw this as unusual.  We got a reminder to what gunshots in the city do with walkers.  They are drawn to the sound.  I did always wonder why using guns in the woods was permissible when they made it clear in the first season that it draws a crowd.  They make the distinction in this episode.  6 years later!  
  • The next mission is a meet-up with another group.  Turns out those pigs weren't being slaughtered for the Kingdom.  It was their tax to the Saviors.  And they were just as big of a-holes as the ones we've already met.   Well, the main guy didn't seem too bad.  Just doing his job.  But there was the other one who was taunting the Kingdom-ites(?).  Richard, who has been pretty annoyed the whole episode, took the bait and punched the annoying savior.  This led to a stand-off between the 2 groups.  Ezekiel told his people to lower their weapons which led to the savior getting a few licks in on Richard.  They were told that next week will be produce and have a list of what they need to provide.  So, we get a little sneak peak at what Rick and the Alexandrians will be asked to do.  But, I do love the detail that the Kingdom provided 8 pigs with bellies full of walker meat to the saviors.  Nasty stuff! 
  • Morgan is shown to be quite useful with his staff during these outings.  Ezekiel asks him to take young Benjamin under his wing and teach him the ways of the staff.  Ezekiel called Ben very important to his cause.  Morgan is reluctant at first but then agrees.  We then get a training montage that turns Ben into a hardcore Akido master in a matter of minutes.  I guess we're meant to think 2 weeks go by where Carol is able to recover as well.  But 2 weeks and he's a master of the staff?  Maybe a bit of a stretch, but I'll go with it!  
  • Ben gets a little bit of a backstory with losing his father due to one of Ezekiel's building clearing missions.  He's also raising a kid, Walt (WAAAAAAAALLLLLTTT!!!  Sorry, it's the name.  Can't disassociated it.) It's unclear whether this is his younger brother or just a random kid.  All we know is Walt took a liking to Ben's dad, likes movies and is not a huge broccoli fan.    
  • Near the end of the episode we catch Carol trying to make her escape.  She entered the garden to grab some fruit and then split town.  Ezekiel joined her with some fire theatrics and a little bit of honesty.  Ezekiel saw through Carol's homemaker act and could tell Carol saw through his King act.  
  • We then get Ezekiel losing the accent and being real for a few minutes explaining what has gone down.  Basically, people love following a leader.  They need the facade to go on living.  He stepped up to the challenge.  He was a zookeeper in a previous life that had saved a Tiger, Shiva from a concrete moat.  Shiva took a liking to him after that.  During the apocalypse's early days, Ezekiel and Shiva survived together.  Now, he uses the tiger as a means of authority and lets the stories spread about how he beat the tiger into submission.  He also said he was a local stage actor and played his share of kings.  He played the part until he became the part.  He fights for life and says "where there's life there's hope.  Where there's life there's life."  He wants to help Carol find that hope again and asked her to embrace the contradiction.  To go, but not go.  It seems Carol agreed to this. 
  • Morgan escorts Carol outside the Kingdom gates to a house she saw with a walker in the window.  We saw Morgan mark the mailbox at this house in the beginning of the episode.  I thought he was laying a trail for Rick, but now I just have no idea what he was doing.  He says his goodbyes to Carol and they admit their mutual respect for each other which is a long way from where they have come.  Morgan then lowers the mailbox flag and is on his way.  
  • Carol makes a home for herself at this house and then gets a visitor.  It's Ezekiel with some more fruit.  We see the hint of a smile from Carol.  A genuine smile. 
There you go.  So, we had heard of other establishments of people out there other than Alexandria.  We heard that they're all under Negan's thumb.  And now we're seeing that in action.  If I had to guess, we might eventually see some alliance form between the 2 towns.  I have no comic knowledge to base this off of, nor do I really want to know yet what happens in said books.  But, if people have had enough of Negan and his demands, surely a secret coup can be formed eventually!  

That's about all I have for this episode.  I look forward to our discussion in the comments. Hope you enjoyed my ramblings and I'll see you next week!    

14 comments:

MJ said...

I have been dying to see Carol utter the words 'I have no idea what is happening in the most wonderful way' little did I know an even better line would follow to Morgan - 'Are you shi**ing me ?' LOL That was great. Morgans hesitance to introduce Carol to Ezekial was so well played. Loved that Ezekial saw right thru her crap too and told her so - and liked his solution to letting her go and stay. he is a very clever man - and obviously knows the staus quo with the saviours cannot last and wants to have people in his camp who have beaten them.

MJ said...

I could watch the Carol and Morgan show for days ! But no - not a Tara/Heath ep. Heath I think is not even on the show any more - he went to another show. Always thought that the random guys we were meeting seemed to be in almost an armor type protection. LOL SO armor and the 'kingdom'.

Loved the makeup with the walkers turning human as they were killed in Carol's sickened mind. Looked awesome.

Yeah - Gerry was very funny. Sure there is a purposeful meaning to the fact that he keeps offering her that pomegranite.

Guess it's no-wheres-ville Virginia. Surprised no one from the Saviors have gotten sick from eating the pigs full of rotten flesh yet. Was it just me or did Richard really look like the governor ? Was freaking me out.

LOl on the 2 weeks. Guess if you practice all the time it's possible. But really - its just moving with the stick in certain motion at this point - seems doable in less then 2 weeks to me. OMG - was the kid named Walt ? LOL Don't think I caught that.

Yeah - i also thought Morgan was marking the trail for Rick - or even for himself to go back out - but was it erased from that mail box ? DId putting the flag down just mean that someone was living there now ? Up means mail in it - down means no mail. Not sure what it means now.

Agree - Alexandria, Kingdom and Hilltop will all for some sort of alliance at some point and take down the saviors.

Mike V. said...

Was Carol's "wonderful way" line in the trailer? I can't remember. lol But yeah she was in classic form this episode.

If I was the actor playing Heath I would've left too. He barely had a role!

Yeah It does look like the Kingdom folk have signature armor they wear to distinguish them from other groups.

The whole opening sequence was pretty impressive with carol's messed up head...so I agree the makeup was effective! lol

Are you saying there might be some symbolism in offering the pomegranate or do you think there was something in the fruit?? Yeah...I was getting the whole Adam/Eve vibe from the fruit offering...but I can't imagine the Kingdom folk being worse than the saviors.

Richard did kind of resemble the governor...didn't even think about it when watching. Crazy!

I'm pretty sure his name was Walt (WAAAAAALLLLLT!!! There I go again...can't help myself!) Good point on the 2 weeks and what Ben has proven so far. Being able to do it in the field is different.

I have no idea what the symbolism with the mailbox was. Maybe it has something to do with someone residing there....but how would anyone track that? I mean it was down when they first got there and there was a walker in there with no one else living there. lol

Forgot about Hilltop....yep that makes sense. I'm sure there are other communities too but for budgetary reasons I'm not sure if they'll introduce anymore to us! And I have no idea what's in the comics...but we have a few readers in these threads now. I'm sure they'll give their spoiler-free thoughts! ;-)

MJ said...

yeah - pomegranite instead of apple with Adam and Eve - a whole 'trust me' thing. Honestly think he was just saying - yeah - you agreed to leave but not leave so take some fruit - which he earlier described and sweet surrounded by tart or bitter - something like that. Another lesson on take the life you have I felt.

Didn't get to Talking Dead last night - or the strain finale

wrong posting I know - but besides Hurd on Falling Water thought i saw Jack Bender's name too

Mike V. said...

Ahhh right...forgot about the whole description of the fruit. Those guys are getting deep in the writers room. lol

Talking Dead - I watched about 5 minutes and then was falling asleep. nice on Jack Bender for Falling Water...that's one I do want to check out. As always my fall list of shows just gets overwhelming. I've been managing it well so far. Once Luke Cage is done I'll be able to put another binger in the latter half of each week.

Jason B. said...

As far as the pomegranate goes, I've seen many people say that it was somehow a reference to Hades and Persephone. I haven't even looked it up, but that's what I heard if you guys want to check it out haha. Not sure about the mailbox thing though, I'm hoping that there will be an interview with Lennie James or someone that brings that up.

As far as the Kingdom goes, wow. The Hilltop is pretty small compared to the comics, which I do think was a budgetary issue. Unless they just wanted it to be small in comparison to the Kingdom? I don't know. They did build that place from the ground up though, so props haha. Anyway, the Kingdom is great so far. It's honestly way underdeveloped in the comics, so there is really no reason that it shouldn't come out better on the show. It already has more named characters than it ever has in the comics haha. Not only named, but in the comics it feels like Ezekiel is the only important character from the Kingdom, whereas we're already seeing some development from other characters on the show.

Yeah... I am pretty sure that we will be getting a Heath and Tara only episode. I'm hoping that, at least starting in the second half of this season, they begin to switch between stories from all of the different communities in each episode rather than splitting them up. And yeah, it won't be too surprising if Heath dies during that episode... That would really suck because there aren't many Alexandria characters left honestly haha, but I can understand the actor choosing a lead role in something else over this. My hope is that the filming schedules work out to where he can still show up sometimes on this show, rather than having to be killed off. I guess we'll see.

Mike V. said...

Thanks for the info on the pomegranate Super J! Naaa...I'm good with that level of information. I never thought to look too deep on this show. :) lol

Interesting comparison of the Kingdom from book to show. Sounds like they definitely took the opportunity to flush it out more on the show.

Ugh...really??? I mean I fully expect to see Tara and Heath again, but I would think they would do a split storyline on that one. I'm sure it will still be entertaining and may even give their characters more depth. Yeah...if he has limited screentime it may allow him to do multiple shows. That's a good point.

MJ said...

I don't know - the comings on Talking Dead showed Daryl. That is all I will say. ;-D

Mike V. said...

I think next episode will be focused on his captivity (at least for part of it if not all)....I doubt it means anything significant in terms of his life expectancy on the show! lol

Mike V. said...

Ohhhh wait...nevermind I misunderstood. I thought you meant Norman R. would be on the next Talking Dead. I don't think I watched the TD clip from last week but based on the preview it looks like we'd see what he'd be up to.

Jason B. said...

Yeah I'm not totally sure about the Tara and Heath episode, but based on last season with the Daryl episode and the season before with the Beth episode... I would say that it's likely haha. In all three cases they had their own little snippets at the end of the comic con trailers. In any case, Tara's return is going to be far from happy. Denise, Glenn, and Abraham were all very close to her.

Episode 4 is apparently an 85 minute episode, although last week when AMC's site listed the episode as being 76 minutes it was only like 66 minutes haha. This one actually seems to have been announced though, as well as being on their website's schedule.

MJ said...

You never know - sometimes this show kinda glosses over peoples reactions. Maggie - famously - hardly mentioned or mourned one of her losses. Think it was Beth.

Mike V. said...

It's been so long I've practically forgotten Denise was killed. I don't even remember how it happened.

I think you're right about Beth, MJ.

Mike V. said...

Confirmed 4th episode will be extended.

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/11/03/walking-dead-extended-fourth-episode-season-7