Still on the run and with Beta hot on their heels, Daryl, Connie, Henry, and Lydia hide in one of Connie’s old shelters. It’s a high rise building with a supply drop and fortifications and they dig in just as Beta arrives. Elsewhere, Ezekiel and Carol find a very odd solution to a very odd problem, the arrival of a new group. One called the Highwaymen…

I’m always there for comedy episodes of The Walking Dead and I still rank ‘The Next World’ (Rick! Daryl! Jesus! A truck full of supplies! Shenanigans!) as one of the five best hours the show has ever done. This isn’t quite a comedy episode but it’s very close. What it is, all the way down, is fun.

Let’s talk about Die Hard: The Walker Years first. Connie and co’s old hideout is very well supplied which suggests there’s more story there both about how it got that way and why they had to leave. Regardless, Connie’s growing friendship with Daryl is great and seeing them wrangle their mildly useless charges is as entertaining as it is exasperating. Plus? Daryl vs Beta with twin knives. Then straight up wall punching. Finishing with an elevator shaft in the face.

It’s a brilliantly raucous fight which tells us a lot about Beta (He’s massive, very skilled and either just plain ornery or on something to deal with pain) and Daryl. Norman Reedus has quietly stepped into the spotlight in these post-Rick days and Daryl is more interesting than he’s ever been. Reedus channels his character’s fundamental decency and total lack of comfort with people beautifully, and here wraps it around some wonderful spur of the moment improvisation. Rick would have stood toe to toe with Beta until one of them was dead. Daryl throws him down a mine shaft and runs like Hell. They both make compelling arguments, but I have to say I’m with Mama Dixon’s boy on this one.

So all this is fun but it is not the best part of the episode. That, by some distance, is the Kingdom plotline. Jerry is robbed by a group of thugs who, instead of killing him, steal his sword and send him home with a note. The Highwaymen have decided they own the roads around the Kingdom and want payment for them. Ezekiel and Carol, after some discussion, have other ideas…

This is possibly my favourite thing the show has ever done. The Kingdom as an ideal has always been fun but here for the first time in a while, it’s also practical. The roads aren’t safe, the Highwaymen can’t sell the stuff they’ve stolen so… two and two make a surprising new partnership and give Carol a chance to deliver the line of the season with ‘When was the last time any of you saw a movie?’. Plus Jerry gets his sword back and we get to see the look on Tara’s face when the Highwaymen ride to her team’s rescue at the end, twangy guitar theme and all. Goofy? Certainly. But also heartfelt and kind and those are two increasingly defining traits for the show.

Verdict: This is great. A ton of things happen, there’s an action movie worthy fight scene and a ton of people get a moment to shine. Another top notch episode in a great season. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart