The Walking Dead: Bounty (9x11)

Oh, man, that was actually quite a good episode.

Cons:

I want to be on board for Ezekiel and Carol, but sometimes it just makes me roll my eyes. I get it - surviving isn't enough, you really have to live. That's the theme of this episode, and it's an important one for a show like this to dwell on. But risking four people's lives over a projector light so that the Kingdom can play movies at the festival? I hate to be a spoil sport, but someone could have died. Would it have been worth it for the Kingdom to lose its leader, or for Jerry's baby to lose its father? Come on.

Henry is essentially Carl 2.0 at this point, and while I don't uniformly hate every scene Henry is in anymore, I will say that Carl was at his most annoying when he was being dreamily optimistic, and Henry isn't an improvement on that. This show seems to think we need a wide-eyed innocent to remind the hardened adults what they're fighting for. I'm not so sure that character trope has ever been pulled off without being incredibly irritating.

Pros:

So, like I said, the theme here is about living vs. surviving. It's a pretty clear dichotomy, and it's one that this show has already tapped into plenty of times, but here we're seeing it as a community vs. Whisperers dichotomy as well, and there's actually a lot of really great material in support of this theme.

First of all, I will admit that the flashback scene at the beginning of this episode hit me right in the feels. Ezekiel and Carol learn that Jerry's girlfriend is pregnant, and they celebrate that. We also see Jesus and Tara come to drop off some supplies, and a copy of a constitution that is meant to be signed by all of the nearby communities. Due to whatever mysterious thing happened in the six year time jump, Alexandria has obviously pulled out of talks for such a union, but Ezekiel keeps the constitution, and maintains hope that one day it will be signed. Seeing Jesus was a punch to the gut, and a good reminder of what's at stake, and what we have to gain, as well as lose. Ezekiel can be something of a ridiculous figure, sure, but he's also brave to be so continually optimistic.

That's actually something I'll say for Ezekiel and Carol's plot thread over all: it positions optimism as brave and heroic. Sure, risking multiple lives for the sake of screening some movies is maybe a little extreme for my particular taste, but the message is clear. What exactly is the point of surviving if we can't find joy in life?

In Hilltop, the Alpha of the Whisperers demands that Lydia be returned, in exchange for Alden and Luke. Daryl doesn't want to give up the poor girl, but eventually it's decided that this is the only option. Henry reluctantly agrees, only when Lydia says she wants to go back. However, as the episode ends, we see that Henry has sneaked off to bring Lydia back, and Daryl goes out after him, followed by Connie, who insists that she can't live with what they've done to Lydia.

This was a powerhouse episode for Daryl. You've got this guy who has been living in the woods, isolating himself from the world around him since the loss of Rick. He believes in the communities, but he doesn't necessarily believe in his own place among his friends. And here he is, trying to be a moral compass for Henry, trying to save Alden and Luke while not giving Lydia up, suddenly thrust into a leadership position that falls to him so naturally, but that he's tried to reject. Hardship can force people together, and I think maybe that's what's happening here a little bit. Daryl might be forced to become part of a community again by virtue of this new external threat.

The best scene in the whole episode for me was Connie saving the baby. The Whisperers are outside of the gates of Hilltop, and the crying of an infant is drawing a hoard of Walkers towards them. The mother of this infant sets the baby down, ostensibly to leave it to be eaten by the Walkers. Why? Well, Alpha explains that they are all animals, and that this is just natural selection. Connie, who is hiding in a cornfield on the edge of Hilltop, is able to see Luke. His hands are tied behind his back, but he manages to sign to her to tell her about the baby. She runs forward and grabs the infant, then has to make her terrifying escape through the corn field and back to safety.

There are two levels on which this scene worked for me. The first, more superficially, is that I'm always pleased when this show can come up with a new scary scenario with the Walkers. Having a Deaf woman holding a baby running through a tight, enclosed space... that was certainly a new and terrifying scenario. I was on the edge of my seat, even if I was pretty confident that Connie and the baby would get out.

The second level is thematically - saving that baby was an incredibly risky thing to do. Caring for another infant isn't going to be easy, and while Hilltop is doing okay, resources are not unlimited. But of course Connie risks her life to save a baby. Of course Luke tells her where the baby is. And of course multiple people in Hilltop create a ruckus to try and divert the Walker hoard away from their desired snack. This is a community of people who don't even hesitate when it comes to saving a child's life. Throughout the course of this show there have been plenty of evil people taking advantage of the harshness of the apocalypse to do horrible things to other people. But the inherent goodness of humanity is still on display. A baby's in trouble? Every decent-minded person in the area stops what they are doing and fights as hard as they can to save that baby. It might seem like an obvious thing for our heroes to do, but I think it's still important to clearly state this philosophy in opposition to what we're seeing from the Whisperers, and what we've seen from so many other antagonists over the years.

I think that's all I've got for now. I'm excited to check back in with Michonne next week. I feel good about this half of the season. Precocious little Judith turned me off from the time jump stuff at first, but she's playing a minimal role, and there's a lot of stuff here that I find really interesting. I'm particularly loving the focus on Daryl as a character, and I hope we keep up with that.

9/10