HBO just released a Game of Thrones season 6 teaser poster with a certain supposedly dead, know-nothing face on it. Many are heralding as confirmation that the 2016 season will still come with another heavy forecast of snow. While it may have been long planned reveal, you have to wonder if maybe, just maybe they just got sick of having to dodge the same questions all the time. 10 months is a long time to maintain a cliff-hanger, especially in this over-connected age. You have to love the idea of some fed-up HBO executive bellowing in a meeting, “Ah screw it! Just tell them the bastard’s coming back!”. The longer you string out the uncertainty of a character’s fate the more difficult it becomes to maintain. The Walking Dead has been breaking the Internet for a month now over the fate of its beloved “go to town guy”. A question that finally gets answered this week...
Heads Up – After days of refuge under the dumpster, Glen tries to make it back to Alexandria with a surprising companion. Inside the walls, Rick and the group start to formulate plans for drawing the walkers away from them, believing time is on their side.... or is it?
Maybe loose ends make writer Channing Powell’s ass itch too because he wastes no time tying up the big one as the episode opens on a catch up with a still living Glenn. Despite a few hopeful Internet memes, it seems Oscar the Crouch didn’t save him but instead, the show proves the popular theory that he managed to crawl under the dumpster. It’s incredibly well done as well. Director David Boyd’s heavy use of facial close-ups really capture the surreal blur that Glenn finds himself in mere moments after Nicholas killed himself, still fighting against grabbing arms while under the dumpster until the walker pack dissipates several days later. The heavy use of close shaky cam techniques focus nicely on his dazed of his mindset as he suddenly has to think about survival again after a couple days of waiting with his life in the hands of fate. The music is effective too, giving off an odd but meaningful sports movie vibe. Yet by far best decision the episode makes with Glenn’s story is quickly giving him the elusive tortoise-eating Enid as a sidekick. As the episode progresses, the pair become a lot of fun together with Enid’s sarcasm taking the edge of Glenn's more serious tone. The two also make some good arguments over giving up verses struggling on. Glenn becomes the personification of the group survival spirit after enduring one of the biggest living hells the show has ever produced in the knowledge he had to get back home to his now pregnant wife. Whereas Enid’s “JSS” philosophy is the mirroring argument of self perseveration over camaraderie as she makes multiple attempts to walk away and even questions whether it’s worth still surviving; “The world is trying to die, we’re supposed to just let it”.
The Alexandria story has some ground to catch up after last episode’s absence but manages to cover as much new ground as it back-paces. The creaking watch tower makes for an excellent impending disaster. From the first early glance at its damaged exterior, we know that’s exactly how the episode will end: with the tower taking plenty more down with it, in setup for next week’s (now epic-looking) mid-season finale. This presents the TV show’s equivalent of the No Way Out comic storyline. There’s also wonderful metaphor to the slow burning nature of the disaster: that for all the big problems you’ll face, it can often be the little ones that creep in under the radar that grow into your downfall. This outcome was set in motion the moment The Wolves truck crashed into the tower following Spencer shooting the driver. Elsewhere, other dramatic pieces are put into place for next week. The most difficult to judge is young Ron being armed dangerous following Rick and Carl teaching him to work and a gun. Ron’s final scene implies clear intent and we’re certainly meant to believe he’s painted a crosshair on someone’s back, but this has a significant feel of miss-direction to it. There’s enough more logical/less murder orientated reasons to explain his actions dropped in the dialogue. At the very least, we’ll see him viewing the sudden brown spray coming off the fan as poor time to settle any scores. A much clearer note is the setup of Morgan vs. Carol over Morgan’s captive member of The Wolves. The pair gets pitched as completely opposing views and the episode makes clear effort to reinforce both. Morgan’s “All life is Precious” philosophy gets reinforced by examining the consequences of his previous mercy and several alludes that Morgan may be forced into a “must-kill” situation again. Then by contrast, we have Carol/The badass that also bakes. She makes her opposition to Morgan’s stance clear in the meeting and further reinforces that with her pro-killing remarks to Jessie’s agoraphobic younger son Sam, “The only thing that will keep you from turning into a monster is killing”. So now we have two of the show’s big characters in thunder dome over whether the wolf should live or die.... and there’s every chance one will kill the other next week!
The episode makes a good attempt to fit all notable cast members into this episode (likely in preparation for some serious kill offs next week!) and struggles only with the overwhelming quantity. The likes of Tara and Eugene get some good little moments with potential foreshadowing implications. Tara giving Rick the finger would steal the episode were it not for the bigger story developments and Alannah Masterson deserves some applause for her fence scaling, being heavily pregnant while this episode was filmed. Denise’s medical cheat sheets are quite a charming moment as simultaneously shows her slow growth in confidence over her job but still very much effected by nerve and self doubt. The biggest waste is Father Gabriel’s brief walk by. Mainly because it quickly makes us realize we just haven’t missed his absence. If the others wanted to stake him down (or maybe up on a cross?) as walker bait next week, I think we could all live with it. Spencer’s reckless act of stupidity (although he gets bonus points for using a grappling hook) makes a good action break up in the episode to stop it getting too talk heavy.
Overall, it’s strong enough episode with the biggest criticism being that Rick is too heavily involved with everything, and sharing the story out more would have worked better. Glenn’s return was always going to struggle to carry dramatic weight (when set photos of Steven Yuen have been all over the damn Internet) so underplaying it in this fashion is the right call. If your ass still has a little tingle, it’s because we still don’t know who the radio “help” was from last episode (probably next week, signifying that Daryl & co finished that episode a bit further ahead on the timeline). Above all else, Heads Up achieves its biggest goal: it positions us for a spectacular end to The Walking Dead in 2015.