The moral of this Sunday's episode of The Walking Dead is, when Carol tells you to stop smoking, you better quit cold turkey. The episode started off with a "meanwhile, back at Alexandria" look at what everyone was up to while Rick and his team were at the quarry. Then, all of a sudden, the Wolves attacked the Alexandria Safe-Zone on The Walking Dead. It was a thrilling, action-packed episode that didn't even include Rick, Michonne, Daryl, or Glenn. That's one of the things I love most about this show. The B-Team episodes are just as good.
We did figure out who was blowing the horn in the previous episode. It was sort of an accident, actually. A truck that was being driven by a Walker crashed into the wall surrounding Alexandria, which set off the horn. However, that's a problem Alexandria will have to deal with later. At that moment, the Wolves, a group of truly brutal killers, were the only thing on their minds.
The main survivors on The Walking Dead, the ones that roll with Rick Grimes, have been talking about how people in Alexandria are not capable of handling the outside world. This episode put that theory to work and, I have to say, they were pretty much right. If it weren't for Carol, Morgan, Aaron, Jessie, Maggie, Rosita, and Carl, they would have been in trouble. The Monroe family was shocked by their dose of reality. However, the best thing that came out of this is that we got to see Carol reverse the "wolf in sheep's clothing" act that she'd been playing in Alexandria and become a sheep... in Wolf's clothing. That was definitely deliberate. She's not making cookies and threats anymore.
What do the Wolves want? Were they looking for new houses? This wasn't about survival, as the title "JSS" suggested. This was an attack in cold blood, and the group doesn't even seem to have a leader or a purpose. Did you notice how easily Morgan talked some of them out of it? He was surrounded, and talked most of the Wolves down to the point that they left Alexandria entirely. That seemed relatively fast, though as an audience member I know that the walker herd is still on the way. The trials of the Alexandria Safe-Zone are just beginning on The Walking Dead.
Image: Gene Page/AMC
