WiC Watches: The Walking Dead Season 10
By Ashley Hurst
Samantha Morton as Alpha – The Walking Dead _ Season 10, Episode 10 – Photo Credit: Jackson Lee Davis/AMC
Episode 1010: “Stalker”
I wasn’t sure if it would be possible for the latest episode of The Walking Dead to improve upon last week’s excellent midseason premiere, but “Stalker” might just do it. It delivers on everything you would expect from a horror movie. It’s filled with action, emotion, suspense, and all the blood and gore the production could afford.
With standout performances across the entire cast, it’s hard to single out actors, but let’s give the Whisperers some credit. Ryan Hurst channelled his inner Michael Myers as Beta in a disturbing attack on Alexandria to retrieve Gamma. I must also point out Samantha Morton (Alpha), who gave us her most complex performance on the show so far, delivering a stellar range of emotions.
The opening scene nicely foreshadows the terrors to come, as Rosita sees a Whisperer pull a knife on her child in a nightmare. This actually works well in establishing her untrusting attitude towards Gamma later in the episode. Of course, in the premiere, it was established that Gamma — now we know her name is Mary — was the spy, so Alpha sends Beta is sent to obtain her, unharmed.
When Gamma (Thora Birch) arrives at Alexandria to see her nephew, she promises to relay the information she knows regarding Alpha’s horde and the trapped Alexandrians. But in a war, enemies are seldom trusted, and Father Gabriel decides to lock her in a cell until further notice.
While Gamma tries to get Rosita and Gabriel to trust her, we get some nice insight into her backstory, learning that she actually killed her sister under orders from Alpha. At one point, Rick’s daughter Judith speaks to her. Eventually, Gabriel decides he believes Gamma’s intel that Alpha has moved her horde of Walkers and locked Alexandrians in a cave, and puts together a group to adventure out and find the survivors.
“Starker” shows us a side of Father Gabriel we haven’t seen before. He’s always been a fairly calm character, at least when he wasn’t perpetually scared. However, this episode completely flips Gabriel’s personality as he goes to great lengths to protect the people of Alexandria now that he finds himself in a position of power. “We broke her [Gamma], completely,” he says at one point. “And if we can break her, we can break others.” He even suggests that the most effective way is to cut off fingers and rip out teeth!
Meanwhile, after narrowly escaping from the cave and losing Connie and Magna in the process, Daryl sets out to find and kill Alpha. There’s a well-filmed fight sequence between the two before Daryl backs away into a gas station, closely pursued by Alpha. The two suffer extreme injuries, with head blows and knife slashes aplenty. But Daryl gets the worst of it with a blade stuck in his thigh.
Alpha realizes that she doesn’t have enough strength to continue their fight, so she attracts Walkers to the gas station by banging her shotgun against the wall. I love this scene, it’s like a dinnertime bell for the Walkers! When the Walkers approach Daryl, he is forced to rip the blade out of his thigh (Ouch!) to kill them, suffering immense blood loss in the process. The two remain together for the night until the arrival of Alpha’s daughter Lydia (Cassady McClincy), who’s been living alone in the forest.
Alpha pleads with her daughter to kill her and take over as leader of the Whisperers, but Lydia declines. “They’re human,” Lydia says about Daryl and the survivors from the other communities. “Not perfect. Just human. It’s all I ever wanted. It’s what you never gave me.” She saves Daryl but does not kill her mother.
I always like it when the two leaders face off against each other. It’s intimate, and the crew only has to work with two characters rather than over 10. I loved a similar scene from season 8 where Rick faced off against Negan in an intense fight.
While this was a solid storyline, it was overshadowed by Beta’s badass solo attack on Alexandria. He’s able to enter the community via tunnels made by former Alexandrian-turned-spy Dante. And when he enters, well, he causes absolute mayhem. The performance by Ryan Hurst is suspenseful and terrifying. During his attack, he faces off with Laura, a former Savior who has been a part of the show for three seasons. Beta kills her, a shocking moment for fans who thought she was a key player going forward. We don’t actually see her die, but it was later confirmed on the chat show, The Talking Dead.
Next up for Beta was…Judith? Yes, like her father, Judith shows no fear and shoots Beta in the chest, though unfortunately for her, Beta is wearing a bulletproof vest. After that, the Whisperer nearly kills Rosita before Gamma gives herself up and reluctantly allows him to return her to Alpha, where punishment awaits. Rosita realizes that Gamma is against the Whisperers, after all.
On Beta and Gamma’s journey back to the Whisperer camp, they run into Gabriel and are attacked. Beta manages to escape while Gamma is once again left to plead her innocence to Father Gabriel.
It would be difficult to improve upon this episode, but I think it would’ve benefited from Negan, who has knowledge of both the Whisperers and Alexandria. Negan would have brought a bit more humor to the table, too. In such a dark episode, that would be appreciated.
We’ll have to wait until next week to see how Carol manages to cope following the events of the premiere. There’s also the mysterious ongoing conversation Eugene is having with a lady on the radio. But we can’t have everything in one episode, can we?
Overall, I yet again have no real complaints after another amazing episode of The Walking Dead. Since Angela Kang took over as showrunner in season 8, things have been looking up. Not every episode has been as brilliant as the last two, but my expectations are rising. The board has most definitely been set for some gruesome battles to come. I’m starting to think Angela Kang was right when she said “massive things of importance” would happen each week in season 10!