Rick discovers just how sideways things have gone. Maggie is given an ultimatum. Ezekiel makes a choice. And Carl has a secret.

This is a difficult episode to write about. Not just because of the gutpunch of a reveal that closes it but because of the fact it ends three things at once. The first half of the season, the possibility of Rick’s vision being true and the show being a relatively close adaptation of the comic all end here. And end so definitively it’s almost impossible to imagine what comes next.

By the end of this episode, it seems likely that the show could go one of two ways. The first is a version of the Old Rick flashforward we got at the top of the season; a time jump a couple of years ahead that sees the show catch up to a version of the settled, well defined civilisation of the comic.

Alternately it could finally bow to the specific gravity of its relentless, endlessly grim premise and become the bleakest piece of genre TV in recent history.

Honestly, it’s a coin toss as to which one we get. But being completely honest, and given who the death this week is, I think the second may be more likely than the first.

That is a conversation bigger than this review. The issue of whether or not the show can survive this descent into yet more Hell, the nascent controversy that appears to be building over the circumstances of the death, the possibility that the show may be going one or many more PT Barnum twists too far. All of that is a conversation that will unfold over the next eight episodes.

The issue here is smaller and easier to process and it’s this; this episode doesn’t quite work.

It’s not the central plot. That’s elegantly and cleverly laid out features note perfect performances from Dani Gurira, Andrew Lincoln and Chandler Riggs. It’s the rest that’s a problem, and honestly., that problem may be the biggest one the show has to deal with.

This episode drops a monstrously unexpected death on us, has the Saviors escape, Alexandria destroyed, Dwight turn, Eugene pick a side, Daryl and Tara be faced with the consequences of their actions, Michonne struggle to recover her inner balance, Enid and Aaron arrive at the season 8b plot early. Rick and Negan engage in the most annoyingly inconclusive punch up this side of any ‘80s cop show, the Kingdom fall, Ezekiel take a stand, Maggie make a choice and Alexandria be completely destroyed. Oh and monologues from Simon, Gavin and Negan because, for some reason, the writer’s room thinks we like hearing the Saviors talk.

It’s an hour long. It’s jam packed. And somehow it feels dull. None of these stories are given quite enough room and while the incident rate is heavy, the pace is strangely lumpen. Only that main plot really flies. Most of the others plod and two actively stumble. Aaron and Enid, both of whom deserve way more air time than they got, encounter the next main plot in a manner that’s both understandable and massively annoying. Worse still, the Rick/Negan fight teases the way it plays out in the comics but is manufactured catharsis that doesn’t actually do anything. Besides setting up yet more misery for Rick when Negan strikes back. Again.

I’m normally a fan of this iteration of The Walking Dead. The show does serialised storytelling brilliantly and it’s juggled its huge cast with aplomb. This week it drops the ball, several times and the result is an episode that’s flat, and even dull, when it should be soaring, terrifying and huge.

Season 8b has a lot of work to do. And not all of it is because of how this episode ends. The show needs to make a call, and soon, about hope. Because right now, it looks like hope is in shorter supply than the characters, or the audience want.

Verdict: Good, because it almost always is. But it should have been so much better. 5/10

Alasdair Stuart