The Walking Dead “Now” Review

Are you ready to finally discover Glenn’s fate? Are you ready to see if he got away and it was, in fact, Nicholas that was being eaten? Well so am I but, unfortunately, you’ll have to wait longer. This latest episode of the Walking Dead is still dancing around what may or may not have happened to Glenn. The name of Steven Yeun (who plays Glenn) was again absent from the opening credits of this episode of the Walking Dead. They were last week as well; however, I did not notice this until after I posted my review. Speculation continues to swirl and AMC just continues to leave us in the dark on this matter, so no you will still not see what happened to Glenn in this week’s “Now” episode. Let’s move on to the actual episode.

The episode opens with Rick on foot running to Alexandria with a very large number of unwanted guests following. While Daryl, Abraham and Sasha were able to lead half of the walkers from the quarry away, the other half were drawn to Alexandria due to the blaring horn from when the Wolves attacked. Rick does make it inside, but the residents are now severely outnumbered by the walkers outside their walls. Panic and fear begin to set in as Rick tells them there are enough walkers outside to surround them “20 deep.” These residents still aren’t fully behind Rick; however, Aaron steps in and reminds them how Rick has helped them so far and tells them his own lost bag from last season is the reason the Wolves found Alexandria.

The rest of the episode jumps around to several different people within Alexandra and how they are coping with what has and is happening. One of the most notable is Deanna. We’ve seen Deanna lead the group when things were peaceful, but now with the chaos that has gone on and the loss of her husband and one son she has become almost completely detached from things. She wanders away from a group meeting without saying a word and when the pantry in town begins to get raided by hopeless town residents she barely steps into object. She finally unleashes all these pent up emotions when she is attacked by a walker on the streets of Alexandria. The walker is one of the wounded Wolves that had escaped and died somewhere in town hiding out after the attack. With a broken bottle, Deanna relentlessly stabs the walker in the chest spraying blood all over her. At this point, I like to think she knew to go for the head for a kill and she was just releasing all those emotions. Rick jumps in eventually and kills the walker. Deanna, now practically wearing a crimson mask, looks at Rick and tell him she wants to live.

We also see more of both Jessie and Spencer in this episode. Spencer steps up and gives a speech to stop the residents of Alexandria from taking whatever food they wanted from the pantry when his mother wouldn’t. Then we find out later he himself has stolen some supplies and drunkenly blames his mother Deanna for the death of his father and brother. Jessie begins to come around and see things how they really are and how she has to be in this world. A resident of the town distraught over the walker situation at the gates takes her life only to become a walker herself when Jessie finds her in her home. She quickly dispatches her with a knife through the eye and follows with a speech to the onlooking resident about finally accepting the way things are.

The biggest bombshell this week came when Maggie set her sights on going over the wall to try and find Glenn. Aaron found her loading up on supplies to head out and after failing to talk her out of it, decided he was going to help her. Aaron is clearly suffering from some guilt over the attack by the Wolves. It was his bag that he lost last season which contained information about Alexandria that led the Wolves there. Aaron shows Maggie an entrance to a sewer system which runs from the town to outside the walls. After a close encounter with some rad looking zombies, they reach the end of the tunnel where Maggie begins to hesitate to go any further. She reveals to Aaron that she is pregnant. Aaron tries to push on alone, but a very loud refusal from Maggie draws several of the walking dead to their exit sealing that route out.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ0awKX5gR8[/embedyt]

The pacing for “Now” this week on the Walking Dead was again a slowdown from the first three episodes in the season. Not that that’s a bad thing; however, on a few occasions I did feel my attention begin to wander as we continually jumped around to different characters but not really spending much time with any of them. While last week’s episode slowed the pace down as well, it still kept me very engaged in the two onscreen characters. Daryl, Abraham and Sasha were also noticeably absent this week, leading me to believe we will see an upcoming episode focused solely on them.

What did you think of this week’s episode? Let us know in the comments below and tune into an all-new Walking Dead next Sunday, 11/15, at 9 pm Eastern Time.