The Walking Dead S07E14 Review: Team-Up

The Walking Dead, Season 7, Episode 14: The Other Side

A good chunk of this episode is honestly just devoted to Rosita and Sasha's tag-team. Which is nice. Both Rosita and Sasha are characters who really didn't have much to do before -- Rosita has always been a love interest who could shoot a gun and someone I always forget existed; Sasha was always defined by the others around her. Tyreese's sister. Bob's girlfriend. Angry at both their deaths. Abraham's new girlfriend. Maggie's protector. Rosita's rival. But now both characters are finally given a chance to shine and it's actually pretty decent. Of course, this does mean that I had to sit through thirty minutes of Rosita being a passive-aggressive bitch to Sasha, before they finally make up in the end as they bond over their attempted hatred of Negan and Rosita's backstory of latching on to many ex-boyfriends to learn their skills.

It's not just that, of course. There are other bits of buildup, like Hilltop's politics game with Gregory throwing in his lot with the Saviours completely (well, specifically Simon and his amazing mustache) and trying to undermine Maggie and Paul. Simon takes Maggie's Obs-gyn doctor to the Sanctuary. There's a tense bit where Enid tries to hide the fact that Maggie and Daryl are actually hiding in a basement while a Saviour inspects the goods, and a very, very well-done moment where Daryl nearly goes all ballistic and murder that one Saviour, before breaking down and apologizing to Maggie that he's so, so sorry that he got Glenn killed. 

So there are three good moments exactly in this episode that I admit is written amazingly well. Gregory and Simon's deal. Maggie and Daryl's tender moment of acknowledging Glenn's loss. Rosita and Sasha finally bonding over mutual hatred. The rest, though, is a bit of a slog, with so many scenes of just characters going around the same beat. None of it is practically bad, but by god it's boring.

The final scene is also a rather abrupt bit to show the bit plot twist that Sasha locks Rosita out of the compound, and that Eugene refuses to even be rescued, having truly succumbed to the dark side. But it happens rather abruptly near the end, and while they are relatively great plot twists that feel organically developed, I still kind of find it slightly hard to really care for this particular leg of the plot. I never bought that either Rosita or Sasha will be successful in their attempt to even harm Negan, so I'm more curious about what Negan's going to do to Sasha more than what our heroes are, which isn't exactly the type of reaction you want to get from your audience.

So yeah, it's not a bad episode in the traditional sense of the word, but I still find it relatively unenjoyable for the simple fact that a lot of the episode's parts kind of fell flat and are stuff I didn't particularly care about.