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The Walking Dead: ‘Knots Untie’ Reviewed

The Walking Dead - Knots Untie

The latest episode of is a mix of the funny and the dramatic… but is it just marking time before its next Big Bad appears..?


‘Jesus’ manages to convince and the Alexandrians that he’s no threat to them and that he wants them to join in a wider initiative. He’s a scout from his own group , based at the ‘Hilltop’ and notes that the two communities could mutually benefit from trade and an alliance. Rick needs to be convinced and so  he, Michonne, Glenn, , Abraham and Daryl head out in the RV with Jesus to see  for themselves.

The Hilltop does indeed seem to be a solid community. Their ‘leader’ Gregory (Xander Berkeley) may be an arrogant ass, but there’s real potential to expand if the two groups can find some common ground.

Unfortunately, during negotiations, some of the Hilltop’s other scouts return and explain that they were captured by and were released to send the Hilltop a message – a knife to Gregory’s guts. Rick intervenes and Jesus manages to stop the situation sliding into an even bigger bloodbath. Gregory survives and is amenable to an alliance… and Rick suggests that taking out this mysterious ‘Negan’ might be a good place to start…

But will it be quite so easy?

After the dramatic mid-season return and the lighter tone of last week’s episode, ‘Knots Untie‘ largely sticks to the middle-ground having moments of levity and drama but really all about moving some of the pieces around to get them ready for what’s to come.

There’s time for some quips and banter, but there’s more than a sense of foreboding here – not so much a Sword of Damacles’ hanging just off camera, so much as a ‘Baseball Bat of Negan’ . There’s also a palpable arrogance on display from Rick and his fellow survivors that can come to no good. Yes, they’ve earned a certain amount of confidence having survived what must be two years or so in the post-apocalyptic wasteland and taken on the likes of The Governor and countless zombie encounters, but the come-and-have-ago-if-you-think-you’re-hard-enough attitude from Rick to dealing with the threat of Negan (even without the foreknowledge of what his counterpart is capable of) seems unwise from the start.  While Daryl is right that the (still off-screen) Negan’s threats could be all smoke and mirrors, the group surely knows they should always err on the side of caution – haven’t the survivors been through enough to know that willfully taking on a team of ruthless human killers could be fraught with consequence.

There’s many moments concerning Glenn and Maggie’s pregnancy and dreams of parenthood including them handing around a sonograph provided by the Hilltop’s medic. I can’t be the only ome reminded of that scene from the Hot Shots comedy where the pilot essentially says “Sure, I’ll sign that prominent life insurance policy when I get back from this dangerous mission. I’m sure everything will be fine!’ I have a distinct feeling that this happy nuclear family might be exploded before the credits roll at the end of the season.

Some sequences come right out of the (such as Rick’s casual ‘What?‘ after he knifes an opponent to death) but it will be itneresting to see if the comic and the series draw closer or take some radical departures. With Carl coming to terms with Rick and Michonne getting together (that’s not in the comic) and Abraham wondering if he’s with the right person (which is), there’s also a sense that, Negan-related or not – various threads may come together or unravel entirely as the personal stakes get higher travelling through the tail-end of this current run…

8/10

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