The Walking Dead, Season 6, Episode 2: JSS
So, as anyone who's paying attention to season five's conclusion and season six's premiere, the Wolves have attacked Alexandria. They have an army of psychopaths... and Alexandria has Carol and Morgan. It's not a fair fight, even with Morgan pulling his punches.
Oh, as with any huge cast addition to the Walking Dead, a bunch of unnamed redshirts die brutally, including that one lady that hangs around Harmless!Carol early this episode, but I don't think anyone important died. Anyone who's named from the previous season survived, though I'm not sure if we ever got to see Eric (Aaron's husband) at all in this episode. We still have no conclusion to last episode's cliffhanger, because this episode focuses on the Wolf attack that happens concurrently to Team Rick's "lead the giant zombie horde away" plan from the previous episode. There were a couple of migrants from the Team Rick members, like Morgan, Maggie and Aaron who show up around the second half, but a good chunk of this episode is just establishing the idyllic life in Alexandria (including the still-pretending-to-be-a-housewife Carol) and the chaotic attack.
Oh, and Enid randomly gets a flashback. Which is nice, I guess? I don't see why this is relevant now instead of the previous season, other than Enid disappearing and leaving Carl behind at the end of the episode.
The Wolf attack was brutal, but at the same time it's excessive brutality. They take their gleeful sweet time hacking up the Alexandrian bodies that are already dead -- allowing Carol to quickly dispatch them with headshots before moving on. And while Aaron, Jessie and Spencer manage to pull their weight somewhat, they are woefully unprepared for this kind of thing. It's Carol and Morgan who do most of the heavy lifting. Morgan with some awesome monk staffwork with the 'thou shall not kill' creed, and Carol by disguising herself as one of the raiders, systematically murdering every single one she meets. The likes of Carl, Tara, Enid and even cowardly ol' Father Gabriel are far, far more competent than everyone else in Alexandria combined. It's all going around the 'baptism by fire' theme that Rick has been preaching... except, well, there's not a lot of people that's alive to actually listen now.
It's a pretty cool episode. There's chaos everywhere with many, many sub-plots happening all around the place. We've got Denise, the replacement doctor (she used to be a psychiatrist) who is, well, a normal lady! She's very unsure about stepping up to this position, she's more panicky than a cool-headed 'I'm a vet but let's see what I can do' Hershel four seasons past, and she has to deal with having to perform surgery to save her friend from bleeding to death. There's Carl protecting Judith and his jealousy at Enid hanging out with other boys before the terror of the setting jars him back into 'child soldier' mode. There's Enid leaving behind the titular JSS (Just Survive Somehow) for Carl to find. There's Deanna, who's in a bit of a personal funk where she notes what a load she would be in this kind of situation. There's Jessie's little angry debate with her son, Ron, who's unaccepting of everything surrounding Rick, and Jessie being forced to brutally overpower one of the Wolves. There's Father Gabriel finally getting that stick up his ass and apologizing and wanting to not be the load anymore. There's Aaron, who finds out that it's his backpack, left behind so many days ago in a big zombie trap, that led the Wolves here.
Carol and Morgan, of course, are the highlight as they debate whether it's right to murder or not. Morgan points out a truth about Carol -- she doesn't especially enjoy killing. But she's damn good at it... and as her crying scene at the end of the episode shows, yeah, the world hasn't completely broken her either. But at the same time, it's starting to break Morgan as he's forced to (possibly, we don't get to see the final scene) kill one of the Wolves. There's a very stark contrast where Morgan begs his attackers to leave (or be forced to leave), tying up the ones he defeats... only for Carol to come and callously put a bullet in the tied-up dude's head without a single word.
Everyone's tired and bummed out and shit, which is very apparent by how Morgan, Carol, Denise and Carl are at the end of the episode... and they still have a sea of zombies going their way. Life's not nice for these guys, yeah? Great episode. Mostly it's just a 30-minute long action scene, but it's a well-delivered one.
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