I can’t remember the last time The Walking Dead delivered a “bottle show”, but as usual, such a format tends to serve two purposes.  On the pragmatic side, it allows the production team to keep the budget for the episode relatively low, allowing overruns on bigger episodes to be more easily absorbed.  On the creative side, they provide the perfect opportunity to delve into the psychology of a handful of characters, hopefully providing new insights.

              

 

The vast majority of the episode centers on Carol and Maggie, who have been taken hostage by a handful of the remaining Savoir women who were away from the Sanctuary when Team Grimes attacked.  Needless to say, Paula and her friends are not at all pleased with the situation, and they are ready to take things out on Carol and Maggie.  The episode becomes a chess game as Carol uses everything at her disposal to survive the ordeal.

 

It’s not as simple a situation as one would suspect.  Carol is struggling with a crisis of conscience herself.  As suggested in the previous episode, Morgan’s philosophy has rattled her sense of clarity, and even killing in self-defense isn’t as clear cut as it used to be.  And if it were simply her own survival that was at stake, maybe that internal struggle might have cost her.  But there was also Maggie and the baby, which provided Carol with not only more motivation, but more opportunity.

 

 

The slow and steady pace of the episode allowed the audience to watch as Carol used each and every possible piece of information about her captors to weave a false narrative, playing on their confidence and allowing them to assume her weakness.  It’s not the first time we’ve seen this; there was also the “meek housewife” persona that she took on when the gang first arrived in Alexandria.  It’s become one of her greatest assets: Carol is a chameleon when the circumstances warrant.

 

Which means at first glance, this is hardly the most exciting of episodes.  Much is happening under the surface.  And one also cannot discount Maggie’s own psychological shift.  Not that Maggie was entirely meek in past situations, but her willingness to go savage on those threatening her child is a nice counterpoint to Glenn’s tortured expression when he had to kill in Sanctuary.  Both did what was necessary, but I think Maggie would have happily beaten a few more people to death if she had the chance!

 

The final act is Carol’s return to form, at least in coming to terms that she’s not going to be able to keep her list of human victims to a bare minimum.  The Carol that wasn’t sure if she wanted to shoot Paula quickly realized that burning several enemies alive was the most efficient means of winning the battle.  She will continue to struggle with the cost of her actions, as each character will need to do in turn, but there’s little reason to think she’ll hesitate going forward.

 

Perhaps the most worrisome development in this episode was the idea that Rick, Carol, and the rest of the team might actually believe that Primo was Negan or, more likely, that Negan is some kind of fictional construct used by the Saviors to terrify their victims/enemies.  It may not seem like that should matter, but it does: it’s one thing to fight disorganized stragglers and quite another to fight survivors led by a homicidal maniac.  If Team Grimes was a bit overconfident walking into Sanctuary and wiping out a good chunk of the Saviors, they could pay all too steep a price if they dismiss the legend of Negan.