So this week’s episode of The Walking Dead just aired and as a bit of a caution in case anyone reading this hasn’t seen the episode, there are spoilers in this post episode discussion. So watch the episode first before reading this review.
After last week’s episode aired, I wasn’t too sure about this season. I’ve always love the show, but I do still really miss Rick. Last week’s episode wasn’t one that I thought was that great and I wondered if I should even keep covering the show each week. But this week’s episode was an improvement and I found it very interesting.
In this week’s episode we delve into the backgrounds of both Alpha and Beta who for the most part have been quite enigmatic characters so far. The episode features a few flashbacks to how these characters came to be the way that they are today and how they met.
It turns out that Alpha and Beta met really by accident. In the early years, Lydia and Alpha were just trying to survive. This week’s episode opens with them in danger from being eaten by some Walkers and we witness some of the more gruesome and gory scenes I’ve seen in this show, in the first scene of this episode. We pretty much see someone’s face get torn apart and eaten. Kind of crazy!
After escaping the Walkers and finding a place to rest in an abandoned building, Alpha encounters Beta. My impression of Beta in the early years is that he’s a bit mad and also quite drawn away from the world. Alpha is also quite crazy and seems to have gone mad long before she met Beta. But the two eventually start to get along and bond after some traumatic times together. We also slowly see how they start to become interested in walking around with the herds.
The origin story of Alpha and Beta in this episode was well done and towards the end, I felt that the writers had somewhat humanised the Alpha character.
Much of themes of the episode do focus on the mother and child relationship between Alpha and Lydia. This is contrasted with the woman who was made to leave her baby with the Walkers many episodes ago. Alpha seems to feel something out of all of this, but resists it I think. It was interesting. I think some of the plot this season may see us watching Alpha try to get Lydia back.
In the end, I quite liked this episode and I felt that it helped to develop the Alpha character a little more and this was very much needed. This is probably one of the more important episodes of the season. I’m looking forward to seeing more next week.
