Trapped in Alpha’s cave, the group fight to survive and escape. Negan, in the meantime, wins. And it really worries him.

This is not the episode anyone was expecting. It’s also exactly the episode people were expecting and that’s the problem.

The weird stuff first. The show is either genuinely going to have Negan throw years of slow redemption away to take over the Whisperers or this is the longest of long games. Either way it’s getting dangerously to that unlovable combination of weird and tedious. This week Alpha declaims, Beta grunts and Negan manipulates them. Alpha then has the most terrifying sex Negan has ever had with her and it’s…odd. And dissonant. And feels like we should be thinking about it in a different way the episode hasn’t quite tried to explain to us.

Likewise Carol who is laden down here not only with sudden plot convenient claustrophobia but near hysterics. The once deadly, once retired survivor is now a liability. She leads the team into the cave (an environment we now know she knows she can’t function in), she slows them down and then she causes a collapse we’re supposed to think has killed two people. Daryl’s disgust with her is earned, certainly, but it also feels oddly rote. This isn’t the raw horror of Henry’s murder anymore, but fuel for the endless meat grinder the show is often wrongfully accused of being. Hopefully Carol doesn’t check out this year but they’re certainly wanting us to think she does.

So what’s good? Well, do you like caves? Because basically this entire episode is set in a cave and all the cave stuff that happens in cave episodes happens. There’s hopscotch, narrow passages, Jerry again being the patron saint of big dudes everywhere (I hear you on the plane seat thing, brother) and some decent action. Michael E. Satrazemis shoots it well and the script by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick has some nice lines but the whole thing feels a little like an engine slowly firing up. The cast are, as ever, excellent but this is the first episode in a long time where the episode itself… Is not.

Verdict: Lumpy, predictable but weirdly entertaining this isn’t a strong mid-season premiere but it’s not a bad one either. Here’s hoping the rest of the season breaks stride. 7/10

Alasdair Stuart