In the tunnels, things get much, much worse. In the Commonwealth, things get  much, much better.

What an episode of two halves this and, while that’s a terrible truism, it’s both borne out and proved wrong here. How? Well! Traditionally that phrase is used to describe something which is half good and half awful. Here, distinctive as the two plots definitely, they’re both examples of the show at its best.

The tunnels first. The Negan/Maggie cliffhanger of course isn’t. Maggie’s fine, Negan’s called on what he did immediately and not unreasonably reminds people she wants him dead. By this time everyone’s hiding in a subway train and it is going absolutely pear shaped at a rate of knots. The Walkers just keep coming, the ammo just keeps dropping and they can’t open the clear carriage ahead.

And then, one of the folks who got separated returns. In the carriage the Walkers are making their way down. He begs Maggie to unbolt the doors and she, clearly horrified at what’s going to happen, tells him they don’t have time. He begs the others and as dissent splits the group and the Walkers close in all they can do is watch. Watch as he tries to kill himself. Watch as he fails. Watch as he becomes the first Walker in the pack coming to kill them.

This may be the single nastiest thing the show has done since Carl’s death and it is horrifying. It’s horrifying because writers Angela Kang and Jim Barnes let the scene breathe and show us just how terrible everyone feels. Horrifying because of the damage it does to the already fractured group and horrifying because by saving them in the short term, Maggie makes their situation one Walker worse and one death more painful. Just fantastic, horrific stuff. Daryl and Dog, meanwhile, separated from the group, find themselves forced to fight for survival to get back and in doing so hand the show what at first feels like a cathartic action scene it hasn’t quite earned. Kevin Dowling’s tracking shot of Daryl striding down the carriage, dropping every Walker with precision shots from his last ammo is massively fun but also feels like a character we know can’t die using that plot armour to save the day.

Until the next wave of Walkers keeps coming, in single file, to kill them. Daryl who has picked up a grenade on his travels saves the day again but it’s so skin of the teeth, so close that it feels tense and panicked and real. Doubly so the ending, where the team get out, head to a supply depot and are immediately attacked by large, armoured men with axes. This plot is getting brutal and it’s taking character development along with it and it works so very well.

By contrast the Commonwealth plot is quiet and sweet and funny. Yumiko flexing her lawyer muscles to get them expedited is genuinely hilarious (and as the partner of a lawyer, plausible) while the Brazil-esque ‘disappearance’ of Yumiko, Princess and Ezekiel gives Josh McDermott a chance to do panicky. He is very good at panicky, culminating in a faceoff between Eugene and Michael James Shaw’s wonderful Mercer, two men who couldn’t be further apart in approach and mindset but who find surprising common ground. The Commonwealth’s methods are deeply unsettling but it honestly seems like because Eugene and the others told (a version) of the truth, they’re being accepted. That has to be good, right?

Right?

Verdict: Complex in scope, intimate in focus and just really well put together, this first story of the show’s final season sets a lot of dominos up. Now let’s see where they fall and the damage they do. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart