Carol and Ash stop in Greenland and make unexpected acquaintances. Laurent is kidnapped and in rescuing him Daryl and Isabelle discover the truth about Losang.

The next phase of The Walking Dead, embodied in these six episode seasons, plays like a change of pace from the long form season era. But look closer and you see this is the same kind of storytelling, just focused and concentrated down. The same long form exploration of consequences and worldbuilding that made the final seasons of the core show so interesting, just in espresso form.

That espresso comes in two flavours this week. The first is the Daryl plot as he and Isabelle begin to discover that the Nest is a far more complex place than it first looked. There’s some great use of setting here, and the idea of hiding Laurent in functional plain sight makes a lot of sense given the Nest’s immense size and byzantine structure. That structure also maps onto the intrigue as we see that Losang is not quite the clear-cut villain we were shown last week and the complex nature of Laurent, and the shape Laurent is being hammered into. Fundamentally, this plot is an exploration of deep religious faith in a post-apocalyptic world. It’s Daryl and Isabelle, among others, facing a group of people who believe the possibility of a child being murdered in the most horrific circumstances is a worthy risk to take just in case it leads to a miracle. It’s a cheap reach this week especially I know, but seeing faith curdled into zealotry like this is more horrifying than any of the Walkers encountered so far. It also speaks to the franchise’s willingness to explore what happens after the world ends and how much more complex and dangerous that is. Eun and Hanna, played by Minami Bages and Maria Erwolter, feel fully realised in the way the best Walking Dead characters always do. That doesn’t excuse any of their choices, but it does make them matter

That being said, the moss-covered Nordic Walkers Carola and Ash encounter on their layover in Greenland are a pleasingly gooey entry in the franchise’s long-standing roster of Stunt Undead. Eun and Hanna, the scientists who save them, are also a welcome snapshot of how the end of the world is different for everyone. Hanna’s reluctance to commit murder speaks to her humanity even in the face of the apocalypse. Eun’s determination to save the world by repopulating it, starting with Ash, speaks to how broken she is. Neither of them are villains, both of them are antagonists and their complex motivations, as well as how Ash and Carol approach them, is everything the show does well in a nutshell.

Verdict: As ‘Moulin Rouge’ closes the show is about to upend itself. Carol is in Paris, Daryl is in trouble and the Nest isn’t a home. The odd pacing is starting to fall away. Let’s see what’s next. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart