I rate it a 9.5. A slight slow down when Virgil was talking to Connie at the end. But otherwise an absolute STELLAR episode

 

My emotions ran the gamut with this epi. from annoyance, to genuine fright, disbelief then relief and happiness. What a roller coaster ride!

What I found annoying was how Connie was acting for much of the episode. I kept thinking really? This woman was a fighter, not a complete scaredy-cat, hysterical type. Now granted, she’s been through hell but that should have strengthened her. At the beginning of the episode I kept wondering why they had no weapons, not even a pointy stick? It wasn’t until she started showing some sense when fighting the cannibal people then covering herself with guts and letting the walkers in to finish them off, did I think, there’s the Connie I know.

I found it hard to believe this cannibal group were acting like feral jungle animals. Even the folks at Terminus maintained a civilized settlement…..except that they ate other people, lol, but still. Made for a terrifying romp through the house but how they could have regressed like that was beyond me. C’mon. They didn’t even walk upright.

I was a little upset that Daryl was cutting off fingers but I realize that he’s trying to blend in. I don’t know what Pope thinks he got out of the now dead Frost but he gave me the creeps there at the end…more than usual…and I hope Daryl sleeps with one eye open from here on in.

Of course I was thrilled that Connie and Virgil were rescued by our Xenas and the sister’s reunion was sweet. Made it all worthwhile.

I’d rate it a, I don’t know, maybe an 8 cause it did keep me on the edge of my seat even if I didn’t like a lot of what I was watching.

 

9/10. Point taken for the somewhat unbelievably depraved human creatures with almost supernatural skills of mobility, but otherwise a fantastic episode with immense suspense in both storylines, brilliantly entwined.

Virgil has redeemed himself for sure.

It’s been just wonderful to have Connie back. Amazing acting from Lauren. The reunion between Connie and Kelly was beautifully moving. I might have shed a few tears.

Daryl is forced to play a very dangerous and brutal game and so far he’s been doing very well but it seems the trickiest part is just coming. The ending of the episode was absolutely brilliant, Pope making Daryl wonder what the hell he might have got out of Frost before he killed him, or whether Pope’s just playing mind games with Daryl and Frost confessed nothing. Also there was a strong suggestion that Leah might be getting somewhat sidelined and that’s quite exciting to speculate how this whole thing will unfold now with the Reapers. Leah getting anxious, Daryl biding his time, a final confrontation between the two groups imminent. Can’t wait to see what happens next!

 

I think her state of mind was due to having not slept for 48 hours on top of all the trauma she’d been through. Lauren has done that so well, Connie struggling to keep holding onto her sense of reality and gut feeling that this place was unsafe.

 

The torture scene was brutal and damn this Pope character forcing Daryl to do these things. “Done worse” Daryl says… and yes he has. But that doesn’t make it any better or more acceptable. Bloody hell. This Pope dude needs to die and I hope they won’t drag this one out beyond 11A.

That last scene was done so masterfully!

 

I agree, this made no sense - just the same as how these creatures could be so regressed yet kind of supernatural. (Well, we are watching a zombie show , so I can let this one go.) But the idea that they were herded into this house… yes, that could have worked but then what made no sense to me in that situation is that why would they have not pounced on them as soon as Connie snd Virgil walked through the door? With no weapons? And why was it so difficult for them to open the door the first place?

They were trying to squeeze a few horror elements too many in this story - but if we can get past that, I think they did very well with the execution of it.

 

I thought the horror aspect of the episode was extremely well done by Nicotero. The feral humans were scary as hell. I don't understand though how they would degrade to that level. Maybe after one generation in the zombie apocalypse it'd make sense, if kids had grown up alone. But right now all the kids are just Judith's age. These were adults. If you suspend all belief though it was very good.

Not a fan of the road they have Daryl on, torturing that guy. The point I guess was that he was trying to get the info and keep the guy alive.

I wish they'd just had an initial fight with Daryl/Maggie/Negan against the five people from Pope's group. Also once that guy found the trap door that should've been a clear sign people had been there. Daryl was only standing over it the whole time and that guy was overly suspicious prior to finding it.

It was good that we finally had the Connie and Kelly reunion, and that Virgil didn't revert back to his earlier craziness.

 

That line took me out of the episode for a bit. I was thinking, what did I miss?

They obviously weren't led there. They were seeking shelter from the walkers. And if they had seen one of those things prior to entering the house they would've taken their chances in the woods with the walkers. Strange.

 

Yeah that was my thought too. It's why they had Virgil repeating that she needed rest, and that her seeing something was due to her fatigue. It was also a different sort of threat. She didn't know what was in the house and where it was coming from. Once she was able to gather herself a bit and team back up with Virgil she was able to handle things better.

 

It's similar to the story Maggie told about what she walked into with Hershel while on the road. The people she found there were too far gone as well. She was though actually lured to the place, unlike Connie and Virgil.

 

I liked this episode, and I even read the spoiler before it aired. I found it creepy, like the Home episode on the XFiles.
I kind of took it that these people were inbred in the first place. Maybe they were children at the start and had no one to teach them.
None the less, creepy.

For being mercenaries, Daryl seemed to know more than them. But I guess they are only following the script. I honestly can’t wait for their story to be over.

I’m giving it a 9, because when that creeper came out of that hole in the wall behind Virgil, it kind of freaked me out.


The truth is out there

 

Perhaps. That makes a lot of sense but since Virgil found her on the ground and they had been on the road together, I’d assume he had no more sleep than she did. I think what annoyed me so in the beginning was her insistence that they keep running in the absence of any visual threat that I as a viewer could see. Virgil didn’t seem as jumpy. He assumed it was because she was over tired, and that may have played a part but calming down and trying to logically figure out their next move would have seemed more natural to me. If she had been alone, her hysteria might have come across as making more sense.

In retrospect however, not being able to hear but picking up cues from her other senses and not being able to make sense of them would have been terrifying I suppose. If it weren’t for her hyper alert senses, Virgil having declared the house safe, would have been been killed in his sleep and so would she.

 

That’s the thing. In any story that has supernatural elements, there are rules. Up until this episode the zombies were the only unnatural things….and that was explained away as the result of a virus.

All the other groups our “family” crossed paths with since the beginning of the ZA were humans who were coping with the new world in different ways. Some were unhealthy and aberrant but they kinda made sense in the context of the story.

While these creatures were truly terrifying they didn’t fit in with what one would expect to encounter as time went on. It’s been what, 10yrs more or less into this mess and nobody, much less a group as big as this one would be in such a state. Even the Whisperers, while they found a coping strategy of emulating the walkers, therefore using them as both a shield and a weapon, would act as humans when they were in their own camp. Their rules were primitive but they walked normally, talked, and did everything else much like anybody would within the context of their own little society.

This was over the top and reminded me of why I don’t particularly watch a lot of “horror” films.

 

Well, that story was way out there too. One of the “butchers” was acting normally and as you pointed out lured Maggie and her son to their house with a promise of food, if I remember correctly, for their help.

I personally couldn’t believe that these “men” were doing major multiple amputations in you know, what has to be less than sterile conditions with no antibiotics. If I think back in history, to men injured in old wars, they often fought the idea of having a severely injured limb amputated in a field hospital because you were as likely to die from the surgery as you were from the injury without treatment.

If by some miracle one of their victims survived, you would be stuck with basically a person who could not take care of or do anything for themselves, who would need round the clock care. I don’t think these guys would be up to the task….and how many women could they find wandering around alone in the woods anyways? How many died as a result of their tender ministrations? BS.

With this bunch, I can believe they holed themselves up in their house, but if it came down to cannibalism they would be more successful by again, luring people to their doom by the promise of food and a safe place to hold up….but we had that story line already, didn’t we, lol. As for their lack of attire and crawling around in that simian stance, again BS. Try it at home yourself. I’d bet your back would ache big time and you wouldn’t be that fast and why would you need to do it? Not only that but didn’t they look pretty well nourished for people who were “hungry”? There should have been more bones in the cellar.

Oh well. I hope the writers don’t force me to try to suspend my disbelief to this extent again as the show finishes up. Lordy, isn’t Pope and his bunch of mercenaries trouble enough?

 

That's a good point regarding her behavior outside. She shouldn't have been as skittish there. At the time I took it as her not fully trusting Virgil so it didn't stand out as much to me.

The other thing that seems a bit off is the timeline. It feels like more time has passed with our Alexandria group than with Connie.

Overall I think the whole Pope thing would've been better if they'd moved this episode up earlier in the season and had Connie captured by them after the house. Virgil is left for dead and then our group finds him. He explains what happened and the plan is to rescue her. Daryl also is never captured and evades them after a run-in with Leah. Instead I think we're going to end up with yet another battle at Alexandria.

 

At least though with horror films what happens occurs in a world you're just introduced to. As you said the TWD rules have already been set.

What's funny is that after the episode I thought about the person we'd seen the worst off since the apocalypse began. And that came in one of last season's extra episodes where Robert Patrick played both brothers. When Aaron and Gabe found the brother that was chained up next to the dead bodies, he deranged and just wanted to die. But even he wasn't anywhere close to these feral people, and he did not have the same choices they had.

 

The other thing too is if they're in the state they're currently in, why haven't they turned on each other? They just crawl along and leave each other alone? At this point in the apocalypse too there's no way that people are just randomly going to go into that house. The only reason Connie and Virgil entered it was due to the walkers.