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The Walking Dead 11.06 Review – ‘On the Inside’
Photo Credit: Josh Stringer/AMC
Loading...This week on The Walking Dead, Connie is back and starring in her very own horror movie while Kelly desperately searches for her sister. Meanwhile, Daryl tries to both prove his loyalty to the Reapers while keeping his friends safe.
The plot: Virgil and Connie flee from walkers through the woods and take refuge in what looks like a large abandoned house. Once inside, however, things are no less creepy and Connie is uneasy despite Virgil saying the place is empty. Soon, they find out how wrong he is as they begin to be hunted by a group of feral humans who’ve taken to cannibalism. After some terrifying close calls, including Virgil getting stabbed in the back a few times, they let walkers in to take care of the group, and are ultimately rescued by Kelly, Carol, Rosita, and Magna. Connie and Kelly embrace, sobbing as they are reunited at last. Meanwhile, Daryl has to take part in torturing Maggie’s friend Frost to prove himself to the Reapers, even taking off one of his fingers. He gets a description of a house they’re supposedly going to be hiding in, which in reality is in the same neighborhood as where they are but not the place itself. Daryl’s able to use a few subtle signs to warn them so they can head, and is able to give some information to them out loud in their hiding space via conversations he has with the Reapers. Though the hiding space is found, Maggie’s group is gone by the time the Reapers find it. One of the Reapers, Carver, is especially suspicious of Daryl, and gets Daryl to admit that no, he doesn’t care about the Reapers aside from Leah, but he’ll follow her lead and word. When they return, they learn that Pope tortured and killed Frost while they were out, and it looks like something about this might not sit well with Leah.
Connie and Virgil’s part of this episode is one of the most effective creepy house horror movies I’ve ever seen! With only a limited amount of screentime to work with, this plot moves quickly and efficiently. The action is tightly delivered, the set is perfectly creepy and used for maximum effectiveness, but so much of this one is sold on the performances. Lauren Ridloff is quite frankly amazing. I am never not impressed with her acting, and this episode is no exception. She sells this absolute terror so well, from her facial expressions to her physical movement. The way you can easily read her fear, the trauma and exhaustion she’s fighting already, and the determination to push through, to keep fighting, and what’s more, to keep fighting together with Virgil.
This is frankly one of the reasons I think we all love Connie so much as a character. It would be so easy for her to focus on her own needs and survival first and foremost, because I imagine so few people have been interested in helping her, even before the apocalypse, and Virgil is insistent even on her putting her survival first. But she won’t hear of it, and when Virgil is stabbed, she doesn’t hesitate to help him and keep carrying him with her rather than take her survival over his. Speaking of that moment with Virgil, I have to applaud Kevin Caroll’s performance as well. He fully sells Virgil’s struggle with who he is and what he’s done, and his need to make this second chance count for something, to make up for those things he’s done in the past. I hope he manages to survive his injuries, though that one feral definitely got him good a few times there. I didn’t catch what kind of weapon she had, but still, ouch! Plus with the state of that house and those people, you know that thing wasn’t clean!
And finally, once Connie and Virgil escape from their journey ‘on the inside,’ that reunion with Kelly! The tears! The hug! So nice to see a reunion like this, something uncomplicated in its goodness, and to see these two awesome sisters back together.
Meanwhile, Daryl’s coping with his own ‘on the inside’ situation, which is also horrifying albeit in different ways. For starters, there’s torturing someone whom he doesn’t know well, but who is still on the same side deep down. Daryl and Frost do an impressive dance of selling their non-relationship, with Frost even holding out on giving information to the point of losing a finger to help sell Daryl’s new loyalties. It’s impressive, in a way, because it was clear that they were going to start cutting off his fingers before it actually happened. He had chances to give information before that, but he stuck it out knowing what would happen. Likewise, while Daryl says he’s done worse than this before–has he, actually?–this is a lot. He keeps up the act impressively, though, going through with this and continuing the act. He’s a very effective spy, really, but I also wonder what this will do to him in the long run though. He’s not only done this, has to exist around these people he’s unquestionably opposed to, needs to keep up the act while also being genuine enough to sell it, with Carver breathing down his neck and Pope being the kind of guy who may shove your face into the fire to kill you, regardless of how long he’s known you! On top of that, there’s the Leah of it all.
And what is Leah’s deal anyways? She makes it clear she’s pissed about nearly being burned alive with no warning, and there are moments of pause around Pope’s actions lately. But she’s outwardly still very loyal indeed, and I don’t really doubt that right now she’d still take his orders over the alternative. There may be space there for Daryl to work on her sympathies…actually, I wonder if that’s even the right word. They have a romantic history, sure, but Leah’s a soldier and this is her squad. I think the loose bolts, as it were, aren’t so much her sympathies as her logic, her analysis of Pope’s actions. I would be interested in that conversation and why her opinions may be changing, because it doesn’t sound like Pope has changed much in their time together. If there’s a change in how he’s acting now, it needs to be made more clear. Or, maybe she’s wondering about the people Daryl was with, starting to question her actions with the Reapers compared to this other group, with whom she shares a seemingly tangential connection in Daryl? Hard to say, so I hope we get a conversation between them about this soon.
For all that this episode had a lot of great things going for it, and impressive as the concise horror story we got to reintroduce Connie was, the content of it had nothing to do with the larger story here and that’s a bit of a letdown. This is the final season, we all know it, this isn’t really the time for random one-off set-piece storylines! In anything other than the final season, I’d not have a problem with a one episode off-shot like this, at least not one this well done, but in this case it bothered me. But, it got Connie back to us and for that I’m glad!
What did you think of the episode? Sound off in the comments below and I’ll see you back here next week!
