In flashback we see Negan help Ginny search for a lost toy. In the present, Negan, Maggie and the Manhattan Tribe form a plan of attack but not everyone is on board. Meanwhile, the Croat tests Perlie to near destruction.

There are three elements of this episode we need to talk about and two of them are fantastic.

The first is the way Staskiewicz’s script shows us, and Negan, everything he truly is. The flashbacks with Ginny are some of the best work Jeffrey Dean Morgan has done in years and for the first time in years we’re actually reminded that the founder of the Saviors used to be a teacher. He’s really good with kids, and Mahina Napoleon is a great screen partner for him. The combination of this big, overly talkative murder teddy bear and the small, silent child he’s looking after is both oddly charming and instantly tragic. This is a relationship that’s going to fall apart, because of how desperately they’re holding it together. Negan sees that, and knows just how much darkness he’s carrying and knows it’ll come out. We see it later when he kills Luther to stop the other man turning him in and we see it in one of the other standouts, the scene where he opens up to Maggie. The element of that which works is the second of silence after he’s finished talking and the silent, anguished emotional war on Lauren Cohan’s face. Maggie is overcome with sympathy for this monstrous human who destroyed her life but she also can’t get past what he did. The fact she throws a cheap gag his way is the only solidarity she can offer and he sees that. It’s a brilliant moment, in a scene I loathe for reasons we’re about to talk about and a reminder of just how good Cohan and Morgan are.

The other element that works here is the Croat, who is established as a very different kind of villain. The idea he’s a former science teacher (were he and Negan on the same faculty, I wonder?) is interesting, but the way his knowledge has been curdled by over a decade of tragedy is horrifying. Using the methane from the dead as a resource is brilliant, and terrifying, and establishes him as a very different kind of threat. Kudos too for the fact his principal base of operations is a stadium with an MMA octagon still set up. The all too often toxic masculinity of that sport permeates it the same way broken violence permeates the Burazi. Nicely done.

Now the bad news. The reveal that Negan let the monster out because Annie, his wife, was beaten and raped is the single laziest trope the show could possibly have gone for. This isn’t even low hanging fruit, it’s fruit rotting on the ground that anyone in their right minds wouldn’t touch. The casual, offhand degradation of women to give bad men good motivation isn’t quite everything terrible about post-apocalyptic but it’s comfortably 50%. It’s made all the more maddening because  Medina Senghore did the near impossible job of making Annie interesting and nuanced in just under half a season. Now she’s just an angst truck stop on a main character’s roadtrip back to Murderville. Lazy, offensively stupid storytelling that stands out even more because the rest of the episode is so good this is the first real bum note the show has played and it is a DOOZY.

Verdict: That aside, if you can get past it, this is the best episode of the show so far. Just be aware of the massive, gaping hole you’re going to have to step around to finish it. 6/10

Alasdair Stuart