The endgame for the Reapers begins.

This is, on paper, absolutely the standard ‘and then they fiiiiight!’ brutal infantry war between the Alexandrians and their opponents of the week. But this feels different, plays differently and the entire episode becomes less about the catharsis of battle and much more about how little it matters.

The much vaunted weaponised herd and DIY rocket launcher from the previous episode are, if not damp squibs, then certainly not game changers. Instead they clear the board, leaving the Alexandrians and the Reapers alone to settle their differences in a manner which is as revealing as it is weirdly pathetic. And I don’t mean the show is pathetic either, I mean the stakes. This is a show which for the last few seasons has explored every possible iteration of ‘Our heroes must battle a group of militaristic nihilists’, and this is by far the most successful one because this is also, by far, the smallest scale. The entire back half of this episode is a series of often one-on-one, always scrappy, always brutal fights and it’s as sad as it is frightening. The world is very small; these people are going to war, executing horrific violence on one another, for food and a barely functional place to live.

The Walking Dead has often been accused of rolling in the offal of its nihilism and at times that’s true. It’s not been true for some time though, at least on a macro scale and this episode proves that. The war with the Reapers is concluded, peacefully, just. Because even after everything that’s been done, and especially because Daryl and Leah were together, they’re just tired. There’s a moment at the end of this episode where while no one’s happy and one Reaper is about to pay with his life for what he’s done, it’s over.

And then Maggie picks up a gun and commits murder.

What follows is as brutal as it is tragic and both Lauren Cohan and Norman Reedus do great work here. Cohan’s Maggie is just her rage, now as dark as she thinks Negan still is. Reedus’ Daryl is furious, disgusted he has to be the adult even after all this time, especially with Maggie. His final scene here with Leah is clearly not her final scene in the show but it speaks entirely to that. Daryl is enough of a leader to move people towards something better but even he’s trapped in the past. Both he and Maggie know they are, but they take very different paths and pay very different prices. For Maggie, it’s the loss of Alden, left behind when he began to turn. For Daryl, it’s individuality as the time jump at the end of the episode reveals he’s signed on with the Commonwealth and may be about to invade Hilltop. And for Negan? It’s the realization Maggie will never trust him and, one day, will turn on him. So he, the poster child for toxic masculinity, leaves before they have to kill each other.

It’s a brave note that ends a brave episode and sets the stage for an act which looks to be very different, and welcome, to the bloodshed that preceded it. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart