Maggie discovers you can come home again. But you may not like who lives there now.

We live in strange times, as people seem to have been saying for a year now and it turns out, so do the survivors of The Walking Dead. Within their fictional universe, this episode sees the return of fan favorite Maggie who brings some new friends and a terrifying enemy with her. In our universe, this is the start of season ‘10c’ a block of six episodes filmed under quarantine conditions that zero in on small groups of characters. The show’s characters have spent a decade adapting and surviving; now the show, preparing for its epic eleventh and final year is doing the same.

From our perspective, any worry about how odd the show may look is restricted to feeling a little uncomfortable at characters standing close together with no masks on. That fades pretty quickly though, and what soon becomes apparent is this veteran series and team have made an asset out of a terrifying worldwide change of circumstances. Not only is the episode an intimate deep dive into a small group but it’s a small group in a large world. We see people move in the distance frequently, see the scope of the world around our characters but rarely if ever do we see them bunch up. This Earth is quiet, apart from the dead, and the change in focus gives the episode both an epic and a more mournful air. The latter especially appropriate after the exhausting felt at the end of the Whisperer war last season.

From the show’s perspective, this hour is owned by Lauren Cohan. Maggie was always one of the show’s strongest characters but her time away has given Cohan an angle of attack on the character that’s radically different. There’s a moment here, several in fact, where Maggie sets off at a dead run towards the screen which are genuinely physically intimidating. Her fight with the Reaper too is a genuinely surprising action set piece, as Maggie and Daryl not only utilize rock solid tactics but hit the guy repeatedly only for him to shrug off arrow and knife wounds. The Reapers, a group who slaughtered Maggie’s last community, look set to be the new villain and if they are? Everyone is in a lot of trouble. These are soldiers, possibly Special Forces Operators, clearly highly trained, possibly pharmaceutically enhanced and utterly ruthless. The fact Maggie doesn’t back down an inch in the face of one tells you a lot about her. The fact it doesn’t matter, tells you a lot about them.

Most of all though, this is a story about family, and what happens when it’s not found but found again. Maggie and Daryl open up cautiously to one another. Carol and Maggie doubly so given Carol released Negan – and the man himself? In two scenes, eyeline locked with Maggie, clearly terrified, clearly prepared to pay the price for what he did. Maggie and Glen’s son, Hershchel, is an adorable new addition but he’s also a reminder of the past, the past Negan murdered. There needs to be a reckoning for that, and everyone knows it. It’s just a matter of when. But when it does come? It will be as up close and personal as this show has ever been.

Verdict The Walking Dead has been one of the most interesting longform horror stories told in the West for years. This episode only builds on that. Assured, masterfully written, acted and directed and a good jumping on point for newcomers. The end of the world continues and that, given how good this is, is something to be thankful for. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart