A short warning: This episode is built entirely around pregnancy issues. For some of those directly affected it’s going to be a lot to deal with.

It makes perfect sense for Michael E. Satrazemis to be brought in to direct this episode, as a veteran of basically every iteration of the show. For the episode to work it has to be visually confident and visually unique and he absolutely nails that. The lurid pink foliage, the slight over-exposure. It all feels like Rick’s visions of a possible future in the core show, with a dusty Texan overlay.

But there’s more to it than that. The Walking Dead has, every now and then, flirted with the supernatural. An early episode of FTWD infamously features a clearly intelligent shambler in a hoodie staring straight at one of the leads for example. Likewise the core show has had multiple possible ghost sightings and Rick’s idealized future, one we now know doesn’t occur. FTWD too has done near whole episodes in characters’ dreams and that’s exactly what we have here. Grace, concussed in a car bomb detonation, imagines her life sixteen years in the future and, being the good scientist she is, hacks her brain’s misfiring images to work out how to wake up.

This is all really good stuff and distinctly poignant too. Old Strand and Daniel good naturedly bickering about haircuts is very sweet, as is ‘Doc Dorie’, still wearing John’s hat but now with grey curls. What got me right in the heart-strings though was Morgan’s axe. Driven into the ground episodes previously, now overgrown. A beautiful fantasy of pacifism.

This is essentially a Karen David spotlight episode and it’s a very, very good one. She plays Grace with the exact combination of scientific calm and desperation she needs and the moment where the world breaks around her is brilliantly handled. You can see Grace fold and then slowly put together what she’s seeing, the pattern in the chaos. One of the show’s most consistently under-used characters is also one of its strongest and it’s great to see that this week. Special praise too to Sahana Srinivasan who establishes a presence so likable you’re genuinely sorry to see her go.

For all this, the episode’s bravest turn is its least likable. That’s the point but it’s also the problem. As Grace goes into labour, playing the mix tape she made for herself (and that dream Athena had) we relax as we expect a feel good ending.

We don’t get it.

Athena is stillborn.

The ending reminded me of nothing more than infamous BBC grimfest Threads, in which the after-effects of a single nuclear detonation are chillingly explored. It finishes with a mother reacting in horror to her baby, born post-bomb. Here there’s nothing so visceral, but rather the repeated phrase ‘I don’t understand’ from Morgan. Lennie James does stunning work every time he’s on screen and the weight he puts being ‘I’m sorry’ here, as David shows us Grace coming apart at the seams is heart rending. Two brilliant, compassionate, idealistic people are faced with something impossibly tragic and it breaks them just for a moment. David lands the final line, the explanation for what we and she has seen in a manner that honestly makes you glad the episode is over. It’s terrible in the best way, horrific and personal and intimate.

Verdict: This is going to be a very hard episode to like. It’s also an episode it’s impossible to look away from. This is the show’s bravery worn on its sleeve, and it’s ugly, untidy, tragic and a big indicator of where things are going. Difficult, and vital. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart