It’s time for a break away from the madness of Negan and the Saviors in the second episode of The Walking Dead. However, it’s a momentary thing, because going inside The Kingdom is, in a way, a madness in itself, albeit a little more complicated.
This week, we follow two other characters, Morgan and Carol, who were both outside of Negan’s lineup. Last season, we saw that they were being chased by a Savior, one that Morgan put down to save Carol. And they encountered the first of The Kingdom’s people on horseback.
The Kingdom’s people bring Carol and Morgan into their realm, but it seems that Carol still has her own demons very much active inside her. Almost quite literally, especially when we see her hallucinating walkers as real people during their travel. Is this her way of being overtaken by her demons and the wishful hoping that she can see things from a pure perspective once more?
Enter The Kingdom, which is a safe haven that reminds us heavily of Alexandria. The place screams sustainability, from its vegetation and crops and a little teaching corner for the younger ones to the horse stables and normal homes. There’s a creeping fact that this is another idyllic scene in the making, only to be overtaken and destroyed as a season ender episode.
That’s where the comparisons with previous homely communities we’ve seen, however. And it’s all thanks to The Kingdom’s odd ruler Ezekiel. It’s all theater and pomp and circumstance with him—the fact that you see him in his own throne in the middle of a what used to be an auditorium.
It’s a disconcerting disconnect from the post-apocalyptic world. When you hear words like “it pleases me” and “perhaps you think me mad,” not to mention a character with a tiger beside his throne, I think I’d have the same reaction as Carol did. The appearance of the Carol the Housewife’s smile says more than enough.
However, the entire community seems to house its own secrets, at least the ones who are in Ezekiel’s own court. They were trained fighters, knights so to speak, who were capable of keeping zombies at bay thanks to their skills, makeshift armors, and horses.
It also speaks volumes of the difference that The Kingdom fighters have with Alexandrians. If the latter only tried learning to fight the moment Rick and the gang arrived in the community to teach them about the dangers of the outside world, The Kingdom already has a few tricks up its sleeves that could be a good match for Carol and company.
One of these game plans may involve pigs. Yes, pigs. At first, we see The Kingdom’s fighters herding some pigs outside of the community. Then we see that apart from herding the pigs, they use walkers as bait—but for good reason. The pigs are fed walkers as a regular diet. Even more telling is how one of Ezekiel’s men tells Morgan than no one back home in the Kingdom should know about it.
At first, the common sense reaction would be—are those pigs safe to eat? Are we seeing a worse version of Terminus, only indirectly causing grief this time? But the big reveal here is that the pigs are actually meant for The Saviors. Ezekiel informs Morgan that The Kingdom also has an arrangement with Negan’s group.
He doesn’t expound on what exactly their plan is with the rotten-on-the-inside pigs, but surely they were introduced for a reason. The fact that everything is a contradiction of sorts—that hint from the structure of the pomegranate is very telling—may be an assurance that this is as far from Alexandria as a community can get.
For all its eccentricity and weirdness, The Kingdom is definitely more sensible than Alexandria ever was. Though I agree with Carol’s observation that it was a farce in the current Walker World, it lets the people thrive. People need a leader to follow. Look at Rick (well, before that season premiere episode), Negan, even The Governor. Their followers were comforted by the fact that someone was in charge. And that was what Ezekiel was to his people.
If there was something to like about Ezekiel’s approach to his rule, it would have to be his purposeful deception. He keeps his arrangement with Negan a secret from his people, mostly because he feels that they would want to fight instead of be oppressed. But it may not entirely be because he is a cowardly king.
If anything, Ezekiel may already have a plan a few steps in the making in his head. He doesn’t want to fight, not because he doesn’t think they’ll win. But rather the win may come at the cost of losing a lot more people.
This difference—what he keeps calling a contradiction—is something that he embraces. And it may be this difference that will provide Ezekiel to be a more useful and wiser ally this time. He did call out Carol’s Stepford housewives attitude without contempt, but rather to open her mind. This contradiction may be valuable for when they finally meet Rick and the gang later on down the road.
It does make me wonder, what could’ve happened if Rick’s group crossed paths with The Kingdom before Hilltop? The Kingdom is a pretty sustainable and fiercer community, one that could’ve led to a more fruitful strategy with Rick—fighting when you know when you can do it, instead of fighting blindly to avoid oppression.
Or better yet, now that Rick’s group has a new psyche following Negan’s very brutal first meeting, what exactly would happen when these two groups meet?
The Walking Dead airs every Sunday on AMC.
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