The Walking Dead: Not Tomorrow Yet (6x12)

Yikes. This is not a good situation. I'm really, really nervous right now... This show is freakin' stressful sometimes. Let's take a look.

Cons:

I really hate Abraham. I don't mean to sound rude, but seriously. Screw this guy. This episode starts off in Alexandria, with Rick and the others planning the assault on Negan's men. All of a sudden, Abraham decides to break up with Rosita, telling her that when they met, he thought she was the last woman on earth. Now that he knows that's not true, he doesn't want to be with her. What the heck, dude? Could he have picked a more insensitive way to break it off with her? I've never found Abraham particularly interesting, and over the last two weeks I've lost pretty much all sympathy for him.

I'm also a little confused about what they're doing with Morgan's character. There was a lot of talk this week between Carol, Morgan, Rosita, and some of the others about how they're keeping what happened with the Wolf a secret. Why? So that the rest of the people of Alexandria don't know that Morgan could have gotten them all killed. Okay... that's fine, I guess, but Morgan's whole "don't kill people" thing gets a bit swallowed up by what ends up happening in this episode, don't you think? I'm just not sure what the long game is with his character. Is he supposed to emerge as an opposing force against Rick, with a peaceful attitude that sways some of the others? I just don't know what to think.

Pros:

The pacing in this episode, and indeed in this back half of the season altogether, has been excellent. Here, we get the first half of the episode showing Rick and the others discussing and planning how they're going to take down Negan's crew. Then, we actually see them execute said plan. There's no drawing it out - it's go time. I appreciate the fast pace enormously.

In the planning half of the episode, we get the above-mentioned flaws with Rosita and Abraham, and the stuff with Morgan trying to argue against this murderous plan. But we also get a lovely batch of scenes with Carol. She makes cookies using beets and harvested acorns, and gives them out to the whole community, including Tobin, a man she appears to have gotten close to since things have settled down. Tobin admires Carol's toughness, and how she's become a sort of mother figure to the whole group. But not to him - he sees her in a different light. The two even share a kiss! I'm happy for Carol, but also terrified that this extra attention means they're going to kill her off. I'll pitch such a fit if that happens. Carol also leaves one of her cookies on Sam's grave, which I thought was a lovely (if somewhat disturbing) call back to her strange relationship with the poor kid.

Also in Alexandria, we get Tara and Denise. Tara tells Denise that she loves her, and Denise promises that she'll say it back when Tara returns. Later, as Tara, Gabriel, and Jesus are sitting outside of Negan's compound waiting for the others to finish their raid, Tara confesses that she told Denise that she loved her to cover up what she was thinking about - she had been thinking about the last time she attacked a group of people she didn't know or understand. She's having some doubts about what they're doing. I love Denise and Tara's relationship, from what little we've seen, and I will riot if Tara dies. Given what just happened over on the CW, I think the world of television has seen just about enough of dead lesbians. But hopefully that's not what's coming. I loved Tara's confession in the car, especially since she was confessing to Father Gabriel and a man named Jesus. Ha! Tara's character is so fascinating, because she did start out as an enemy of our main group. Now, she's their family. Given what she's been through, it's difficult to justify the actions that Rick and the others are taking, in slaughtering men without even trying to understand them first.

And let's talk about that slaughter, shall we? Using a couple of the men from Hilltop to get them to the base, they cleverly decide to use a Walker head and pretend it's the head of Gregory. The men at Negan's compound are fooled by the deception, and bring out their hostage in exchange for this proof of Gregory's death. Rick and the others are ready, moving silently to kill both the guards and get inside. They sneak around, quietly killing the men where they lay sleeping. One man discovers them and manages to pull the fire alarm, thus turning the formerly quiet mission into a loud battle. Glenn and Heath (an Alexandrian) nearly get killed, but Jesus enters the building from where he had been waiting outside for fear of being recognized, saving their lives. They all exit the building, but one survivor rushes out on a motorcycle. Just as Daryl and Rick are about to kill him, a voice comes over the loudspeakers - it turns out that Maggie and Carol, who were guarding the perimeter, have been taken hostage by an as yet unknown woman. Dun dun dun...

There are so many things to talk about here. First of all, I loved the highly detailed and flawlessly executed plan. Despite the ickiness of it all, there's something satisfying about the whole group swiftly and silently taking out their targets and getting out unscathed. I mean, hell, no casualties at all during an operation like that is pretty amazing! The idea about the Walker head was also pretty funny, in a gruesome sort of way. Did anybody notice that one of the potential heads looked a lot like Johnny Depp?

There was a really heartbreaking character arc here for Glenn and Heath, both of whom confess that in all this time, neither of them has had to kill a human. In Negan's compound, Glenn kills men where they lay sleeping, and you can just see that his entire perception of life and of himself has changed dramatically. It's so crazy to think that there's still some innocence of this type left in the world, especially when you contrast the look on Heath's face when he's shooting up his assailants with the easy way Rick has taken down so many in the past. Yikes.

Gabriel also gets his own character moments here. He continually insists that he's still the same person he's always been, but now he knows how to handle a gun and be of use to his community. He waits in the car while the slaughter takes place, but he ends up killing one of the men who escaped outside. He guns him down while reciting verses from the bible, which is just... ugh. I've never been Gabriel's number one fan, but this plot thread has actually got me interested in him again. There's nothing more dangerous than a man who finds a way to believe wholeheartedly in his own righteousness.

Carol insists that she stay with Maggie out guarding the perimeter. She seems angry with Rick for letting her come, and angry with Maggie for wanting to. As she tells Maggie, "you're supposed to be someone else." Basically, Carol can't believe that Maggie would risk her child in this way. Impending motherhood should have changed her completely. It's an interesting dilemma, where on one side you have a young mother-to-be and on the other you have a woman who has lost a child. Now that the two of them have been kidnapped, it'll be interesting to see if there's further development on that front.

I loved the cliffhanger. The entire time the men were in the compound killing Negan's people, I was holding my breath, waiting for somebody to jump up, waiting for the moment when somebody got killed. My anxiety abated when they were all outside and getting ready to take off, and then bam. That's when they hit you. No deaths, but Carol and Maggie have been kidnapped. I've been so busy worrying about Daryl over the past few weeks that I didn't really consider the fact that killing off Carol would fill a very similar narrative beat on the show. It would be effective as hell, and after just setting her up with a bit of romance, showing her importance to the community, and her worry about Maggie's new role as a mother... well, let's just say I won't be surprised if she's the one they're killing off. And that is just devastating.

This season of The Walking Dead has been kicking some serious ass. I'm impressed. And I'm scared. They've got to save Maggie and Carol! They've just got to! And maybe we'll finally get to meet Negan? They're sure dragging that one out a lot, aren't they?

9/10