The Walking Dead finally provides us answers on the question of Glenn! Check out Josh’s recap, as well as our thoughts on the whole Glenn situation, plus the rest of what happened in this episode of The Walking Dead in this week’s episode recap of Heads Up!
Don’t need the The Walking Dead episode recap for Heads Up? Click here to jump directly to Violet’s thoughts on the episode!
To see Josh’s thoughts on this week’s The Walking Dead episode, Heads Up, click here to get directly there!
Episode Recap of The Walking Dead, Season 6 Episode 7: Heads Up Recap Overview
Glenn’s Resolution
So on this episode of The Walking Dead the answer has finally arrived! The episode begins right where the climax of Glenn had left off, with Glenn tumbling off the dumpster after Nicholas blew his own brains out. On the ground, we see the walkers chowing down on entrails, but as I and much of the internet speculated, those entrails were not Glenn’s, but Nicholas’. Glenn was able to shimmy underneath the dumpster, another theory people posed as a way Glenn would have survived. He thrashes at the walkers with his knife as they reach out for him, and eventually he passes out from exhaustion.
He wakes up, and much time has passed–a full day it seems like. The walkers seemed to have left, and you can tell that Glenn is not doing well, because he is dehydrated. He squirms his way out from under the dumpster, and sees a broken flare gun on the ground. But he also finds an unlikely face–Enid. She tosses him a water bottle from a rooftop, and takes off. Glenn pursues Enid to figure out what is going on. He asks about why Enid is out here, what happened back home, but Enid is being a typical teenager and not really providing any good information. Enid then takes off despite Glenn trying to get her to come back to Alexandria. Glenn seems to give up on her, and heads back to Alexandria alone. He gets to the now infamous tall fence where Michonne nearly died, and the Alexandrian trying to get back to his wife did actually die. Glenn finds the note to the now dead Alexandrian’s wife, and picks it up. This triggers something in his head, and he goes back to look for Enid.
He finds her inside an abandoned building, and tries to convince her to go back. Enid gets pretty agitated though, pulling a gun on Glenn. Glenn isn’t buying her aggression though, and disarms her. Glenn then finally convinces her to go back, though she isn’t happy about it. As they make their way back, Glenn tries to talk sense into Enid, telling her to not be so easy to just give up on people and basically stop trying to be alone. On the way back, the two come across a helium tank and balloons. The two decide that filling up some balloons might not be a bad idea, as they could provide a distraction to the walkers.
They make their way closer to the walls of Alexandria, and they see what has happened–the herd has surrounded the walls. Enid panics and wants to flee, but Glenn makes sure she doesn’t. Then they come up with a brilliant plan–release some of their balloons in the air so that Alexandria can see them. More on that after we catch up on the other storylines…
Alexandria
Inside Alexandria there is a lot going on. Rick spends a lot of the episode checking out the walls and also reinforcing the weaker feeling areas. But he also has a conversation with Ron, and gives him a basic rundown of shooting a pistol. (One quick aside, that I didn’t find too important to the episode, but I found hilarious, was Rick walking by the gazebo, and Father Gabriel puts up a prayer session sign with duct tape. Rick nonchalantly walks by and tears them down without even looking at Gabriel. Gabriel sighs and gets a couple more signs to put up). Rick even gives Ron an empty gun to carry around just to get a “feel” for it. Carl is also milling about while Ron is being trained, and Carl kind of eggs Ron on, insulting Ron’s lack of knowledge on pistols. Ron seems to take it in stride…on the surface.
When I say on the surface, I mean that later we see Ron head to the supply house. He creates a distraction outside so that he is able to sneak into the armory area, and steals a few bullets. He loads up his gun. No good can come of this. Later in the episode, we see Ron approaching Carl from behind–drawing his weapon…but something else interrupts what would happen here. Another cliffhanger! Let’s get to some other storylines.
Another person that Rick has an interaction with is Tobin. He hasn’t had a lot of screen time, but here he offers to help Rick reinforce the walls. As they work, Tobin talks with Rick and tells him that the Alexandrians have been living a much slower paced life, and they aren’t used to his new ways, but that they are learning, and seems to be wanting to get Rick to help show them the way. This is all interrupted by someone trying to rappel across the wall. Rick jumps into action, heading up the wall, and finds that it is Spencer trying to get across. Rick yells for him to come back, but Spencer doesn’t listen. Meanwhile we see Tara talking with Eugene, and she also jumps into action. Spencer’s line begins to loosen, and eventually breaks, causing him to swing down into the middle of the horde of walkers. Tara takes aim and shoots at a bunch of walkers, trying to save Spencer as best she can. Meanwhile, Rick, Tobin, then Morgan all pull Spencer up the wall.
Rick asks what Spencer was thinking, and Spencer tells Rick he was going to try to get across the wall and get a car to lure the walkers away. Rick is pretty ticked about this, since Spencer didn’t run this plan by him. Spencer tells Rick he didn’t think he would give his plan any thought anyway, so he just decided to act. Rick also has words for Tara risking her life for Spencer to which Tara just responds with the big middle finger. But Rick and Tara talk later in the episode, and things seem to have smoothed over with their talk.
Another big part of this episode revolved around Morgan. He seems to be struggling to figure out what to do with his Wolf he has held captive. He sort of meanders to the “hospital”, and Denise greets him. Morgan is coy about what he is after, and is interrupted by Rick asking for him to chat later on. Morgan decides to hold off on his conversation with Denise for now.
Later in the episode, Rick finally has that chat with Rick, which turns out to be more than just Rick, adding in Michonne and Carol. Rick asks Morgan about what happened with the Wolves, and tells Morgan that Carol thought Morgan might have let a couple escape. Morgan confirms that he did, and Rick tells Morgan about his encounter outside the walls with the Wolves. Rick and Michonne tell Morgan that surviving in this world is going to take some killing, but Morgan’s response is that Rick should have possibly killed him back when he was crazy and he didn’t. He also says that if Daryl and Aaron died when rather than Morgan rescuing them, maybe Alexandria wouldn’t have been attacked. He acknowledges that he doesn’t know what is right or wrong anymore, but if he goes back to killing, he might lose himself again. It seems Morgan might be at an impasse with Rick and the group.
Then later, we see Morgan wander back over to the hospital, and finally talk to Denise. He tries to make nice with her, reassuring her abilities as a doctor, and even quizzing her on some of her “cheat sheet” notes she has now. Then Morgan decides to come clean about his reasons for being there–to possibly get some medicine for the Wolf if it is needed. Morgan says he isn’t sure if he should involve her, but eventually does. So the two head back to where the Wolf is being held, and guess who sees something suspicious going on? Carol.
Carol is babysitting Judith, but she follows Morgan and Denise some. Intrigued, she heads to Jesse’s house and asks her to watch Judith, using the lie that she has to cover the wall. Jesse offers to, but has to put some things away. Carol heads inside the house, and Sam yells to her from the second story. He asks her where the monsters come from, and Carol sums up things with saying that to stop the monsters you have to kill…
Carol then heads back outside to follow Morgan, and she uses her key on the door. But inside Morgan pops his head out. She demands to know what is going on inside, but before we get an answer, the episode cuts away…
A couple of other quick notes about the episode:
Rosita is training various people in Alexandria in weaponry, starting with the machete. Eugene is among the “class”, but seems to be failing so far. Rosita tries to give him a pep talk, but he freaks out and leaves class.
Another tidbit comes from Deanna, who presents the new plans to Rick and Michonne for the expansion of Alexandria. Rick says they have a lot of other things to worry about, but Deanna seems to now have hope for the future. later in the episode, Deanna thanks Rick for saving Spencer, and Rick also says that he had an opportunity to let Spencer die and get outside the walls to potentially lure the walkers away, but he didn’t take it. Deanna seems to think this move was a sign of compassion that Rick still has inside, despite Rick’s sort of denial. We also see Michonne reviewing the notes that Deanna made for the new expansion. She seems intrigued. But this is also interrupted by the climax of the episode…
Also, we see Maggie maintaining her position on the wall, hoping to see Glenn. Rick reassures her that the 4 still outside the wall are alive, as they have been through a lot worse. He also tells her that they need to figure out how to get these walkers away from the walls so that those outside are able to get back inside, as well as give the people inside a chance to get more food, as right now they can’t do supply runs.
So remember how Glenn and Enid released those balloons? Well Maggie saw them. She runs to Rick telling him that it has to be Glenn. Everyone’s gaze has gone to the sky, seeing these green balloons floating just outside the wall. It seems like an intense moment of happiness. But not all is happy. All episode, there have been quick shots of this tower just outside the wall, and it looked to be in pretty bad shape. It was in bad shape. The episode ends with this tower tumbling down, into the wall as Tobin runs away from it. The walls are down. To quote Plants Versus Zombies…The Zombies….are coming….
Josh’s Thoughts: The Walking Dead, Season 6 Episode 7: Heads Up
Finally, we get some answers! Glenn is alive! Typically, I find these situations of “fake outs” as cheap ways to create drama, and I do think the amount of time to do the reveal was excessive, and unnecessarily drawn out. But the way the scene was shot, I found it totally believable. I think this is in large part due to the acting ability of Stephen Yeun, who I have in my top 3 actors/characters for the show. A lot of people have been critical of this method of survival, saying how impossible it was, but the argument I would pose is this: It was an impossible situation, but sometimes people get lucky. In reality sometimes people are in a car accident that demolishes the car, but the driver is able to get out and walk away barely injured. This could be one of those situations where he did the only thing he could, and he just barely squeezed himself under that dumpster, and was lucky to not get bit. I am also very glad that we didn’t lose Glenn, as I said before—he is in the top 3 characters in the show for me, and the show would be missing something without him. But I think this does leave the door open for his storyline with the villain Negan, and I am curious to see how this will play out, hopefully next season.
As for the rest of the episode, starting with Rick, I think that while he is trying to maintain his “hard-ass” approach to the Alexandrians, and willing to let them die if it’s not worth saving them, he still does care, which was shown when he rescued Spencer. He certainly hated doing it, and thought about leaving him to die, but the point is he didn’t. I hope we see Rick come back to who he was earlier in the series, but maintain the hard edge he has, which makes him so tough.
I want to know what that little punk Ron is up to. I knew his desire to work with Rick to learn to shoot was for nefarious purposes. What was his end game after he shoots Carl, if that was his goal? Rick would probably have killed him, even if he has a thing for his mom. I hate this Ron kid. Although I have to give praise to the actor–he does a good job of being a jerk.
Then Morgan. He comes from a newfound admirable position, of not wanting to kill. But Rick and Michonne are right. Things are not that simple. The mantra should be to avoid killing at all costs, but in the event it is necessary, it should be done. This of course leaves the door open to asking, “Well, what defines necessary?” But, when your town is being invaded by murderous, rampaging invaders, I think killing is warranted.
As for his hidden prisoner, that is not something that he should be allowed to be doing when other lives are at stake. I won’t hash this out too much as I have already before, but sure he wants to try to offer this man the same chance his Aikido buddy gave him, but they were the only two people around. How can he risk this guy getting loose, and murdering other people? Hopefully Carol gets answers, and maybe some good resolution can come from it. If the town were open to building a prison, then I might be willing to let him live. But regardless, no one should be able to keep a secret murderer hidden in their house.
But finally, the episode ends on such a bittersweet note. Glenn is now known to be alive, but the wall has come crashing down. I think we will be seeing a lot of death next week. Ultimately, I am hoping to see Glenn and Enid step up and save the day hopefully. That is about the only way I can think of this not ending in total destruction. They could perhaps create a big enough ruckus outside that the majority of the walkers leave. Or perhaps others can go out the front entrance to assist with the distraction outside the fence. The other option I can think of is the town figures out a way to temporarily block the gaping hole in the wall, to prevent the entire horde from coming in. Either way, I am hoping for a lot of excitement next episode. It is too bad that one couldn’t be the 90 minute episode…
The one last worry I have though, is the Wolves or this new mystery group. Once the walkers are cleared, Alexandria could have its defenses down, and in comes a new crew to take out the weakened town. We will have to see what happens….
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 6 Episode 7 of The Walking Dead: Heads Up
What a nice surprise! I actually was not expecting to see anything about what happened to Glenn until the next episode. I figured the show wanted to drag out the mystery about Glenn as long as they could, and that they would wait until the Mid-Season Finale. Regardless, it was annoying that the show made us wait this long in the first place. A solid 4 weeks since it happened. Honestly, it was just way too much time to let the conspiracy theories fly, and to make people angry that week after week, they’re leaving us hanging. By the time this episode aired, did anyone actually believe that Glenn was dead? I mean, even by the Talking Dead episode that followed the Glenn episode, most people started to suspect that Glenn was still alive, just based on the fact that Glenn’s name was not in the “In Memoriam” and that Stephen Yeun did not appear on Talking Dead. By this revelatory episode, I’m pretty sure everyone had already figured out that he was still alive. I suppose it was still a matter of how, though the dumpster theory was the most logical, based on the fact that no one else was in the area. There was also the question of whether Glenn would make it out completely unscathed, or if he would get bitten and make it back to Alexandria for one last farewell to Maggie. Luckily, the walkers were apparently too distracted by Nicholas’s entrails to get a bite on Glenn before he was able to scurry under the dumpster.
But then, it turns out that someone was in the area after all (or at least came into the area later): Enid. I wasn’t sure that we would see her again, so I thought it was interesting to bring these two characters together, and have them travel back to Alexandria just in time for all hell to break loose. Again.
Going back to Alexandria, it seems like while Rick is still operating on an “us vs. them” mentality in regards to his group versus the Alexandrians, several of his group, or at least Tara and Michonne anyway, are of the opinion that they have all merged into one big group, just an “us,” no “them” anymore. This may stem from the fact that Tara and Michonne were once part of the “them,” they weren’t a part of the original group, and had to later get assimilated into the group. At this point, there aren’t very many original group members left anyway, and many of Rick’s group were once outsiders as well. There also are many less Alexandrians left than there were before the Wolves attacked. Now with the tower knocking down the wall and the walker horde breaking through, there will probably be even less Alexandrians left. They better hope that training session with Rosita was enough to help save their lives! Whoever is left standing after all this, I’m guessing Rick will deem them worthy to be an official part of his group.
I thought this was a good episode to start building the action back up, as things have overall been slow as of late. It looks like we’ll end this half of the season the way we started it: with lots of exciting walker action!
Scenes from The Walking Dead, Season 6 Episode 8: Start to Finish
Here are scenes from the next episode of The Walking Dead, titled Start to Finish:
I knew Glenn was still alive!!! Very curious as to how they’ll go about with Negan. They like to switch things up with characters/ timing from the comic so we’ll see.
Cannot wait for the next episode