The Other Side – While The Saviours are making a surprise visit to recruit Hilltop’s doctor to their compound, Sasha and Rosita slip out to make their assassination attempt on Negan but is Rosita too determined?
It’s a long while since we’ve had one but sadly this is The Walking Dead slipping back into delivering less inspiring transitional episodes and it’s easily the worst offering of this season. By all means give us extensive character exchanges and arty dialogue free montages (that intro sequence was great) but make sure the episode still has plenty of purpose. Despite half of this episode revolving around Hilltop there’s almost no development there. Sure the doc gets conscripted but we start and end with Gregory as a resented leader and the wider community, under Maggie’s instruction, training up for a fight. We really needed something significant to happen. More than anything else this was the perfect time for Maggie to usurp Hilltop leadership with the community seeing the Doc’s departure as incompetence on his part. Yes, it does give us the impression that Gregory is being setup for a fall in believing he’s earned Saviour lieutenant Simon’s friendship but just giving him a little chat with Jesus at the end is hardly meaningful consequences. Speaking of the J-man, my condolences to Walking Dead fans in Russia, Malaysia and Alabama that may now find the show banned for implying that Jesus is gay.
Thankfully the Sasha and Rosita story was better by exploring the interesting relationship between the pair. The very thing that divided them, their feelings for Abraham, now becomes the very thing that unites them in their desire to see Negan answer for his death. It also marks the first real examination of Abraham’s death since the big guy was batted out. So far we’ve only seen people sad about it in passing at best. Sasha and Rosita’s almost hold a wake for him and there’s a great emphasis on just how meaningless his death was. How as a soldier they knew he would have wanted to go down fighting, preferably to save those he cared about but that was stolen from him which ultimately becomes the bitterest part. You could liken it to losing a loved one to cancer of or any sudden fatal illness. It all seems such a pointless waste; like they died for nothing. These scenes also gave Rosita some much needed character development as she finally confides her back story in Sasha. It almost makes her out to be a Sarah Connor like character as she talks of getting her wide skill base from an assortment of ex-boyfriends used for their teachings and then discarded (in T2 John implies Sarah did something similar in the years between T1 & T2). There’s an enjoyable duality of need to relationship too. Rosita’s unflinching believe souring Sasha into believing they can succeed while Sasha convincing Rosita to look beyond the mission makes her less suicidal.
Although his overly pretentious radio message is the comedic highlight of the episode I really liked the dramatic notes of the girls encountering Eugene is his new Saviour capacity. It builds well on his prior episode as we see him instinctively being driven by cowardice even when the chance for freedom. In terms of the climatic events, while it’s difficult to judge the time frame of different locations while the show is hoping about so much, it looks like this will be the triggering event for the season finale (which they’ve confirmed will not be another big cliff-hanger). The twist involved was good and as for the shadowy figure with what’s unmistakably a crossbow on their shoulder; this is most likely Daryl but I’d go with an outside bet of Dwight. If they’re going to start Dwight on a more anti-Negan direction this would be an ideal opportunity.
While the Hilltop story was all filler no killer the Sasha/Rosita story was enjoyable enough at though I standby this being the worst of season 7 it is not a bad episode. There still feels like a lot of ground to cover in next week’s episode before crying havoc and letting loose the Daryl’s of war against The Saviours.... but next week is another day.