Lauren Ridloff as Connie, Kevin Carroll as Virgil
Finally The Walking Dead finds its feet in the sixth episode of Season 11. While I did enjoy the first couple episodes, since then the show has stumbled from one lackluster episode to the next.
Even the first two felt weaker as the story dragged on, and we all started to question AMC’s decision to make a 24-episode long final season.
But ‘On The Inside’ makes up at least a little for the episodes that came before. It’s the scariest Walking Dead episode in a very long time, calling to mind classic horror films like The People Under The Stairs.
The episode features Connie (Lauren Ridoff) and Virgil (Kevin Carroll) who we last saw in Michonne’s final—and utterly ridiculous—episode. He’s made his way into the Greater Alexandria Metropolitan/Rural Area and run into Connie, though we’re not entirely sure how.
House Of Horrors
The episode opens to these two running away from someone or something. They find an abandoned mansion surrounded by zombies but that doesn’t deter them. Clearly they’re running away from something more frightening than the shambling dead.
They fight their way inside and barricade the door and Virgil makes his way around the house to ‘clear’ it while Connie watches the front door. Virgil’s sweep reveals nothing and he urges Connie to rest. She doesn’t think it’s safe and heads off to do a search of the house instead.
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Scenes from Connie’s perspective are extra-tense since she’s deaf and the scenes are dead silent. Not being able to hear a zombie around the next corner—or whatever it is chasing them—is pretty terrifying.
She goes into a bathroom and looks inside the mirror medicine cabinet. There’s a hole in the back where you can deposit old razers and as she looks through it an eye suddenly appears. It’s a good jump-scare and Connie turns and flees back down to Virgil. He goes back with her but they don’t see anything, so he suggests another sweep of the house. He’s convinced that she’s hallucinating due to sleep depravation but as they walk down the hall, a false wall drops between the two of them cutting one another off.
Kevin Carroll as Virgil
What follows is one freaky moment after another in this house of horrors. As Connie walks down the hall slowly and panicky, not a single sound coming from our speakers, we see a blurry shape rush past. Then suddenly there’s a thing behind her—a man, it looks like, but crouched on all fours, walking like a spider. It chases her and she runs, finding herself in a basement filled with bones.
The rest of the sequence is great. Virgil getting snuck up on by one of these horrific people as Connie watches from a hole in the wall, desperately banging on it at first to get Virgil’s attention and then to warn him of the danger.
In the end, they get away with an old trick. Connie covers herself in zombie guts, shields Virgil with her body, and opens the door to let a flood of zombies in just as the creepy monster people are about to close in.
Yes, these people are absolutely over-the-top and preposterous. No, there is almost no grounding in reality here whatsoever. Had it not been so well acted, filmed and directed I might have written it off as a gimmicky segment worthy of Fear The Walking Dead, but it was really exciting and scary and fun, a nice change of pace for The Walking Dead and easily the best episode of the season so far.
Kelly To The Rescue
One of the side plots involves Kelly, and later several others including Carol and Magna, searching for Connie after they were given a helpful clue by the Whisperer last week. Not a ton happens here. Kelly finds Connie’s old camp. Carol and the others catch up with a bit after.
They track Connie all the way to the house of horrors and show up just in the nick of time, with Kelly taking out the last two monster people with a slingshot. There’s a tearful reunion and nobody rushes over to help poor Virgil, though I don’t think his wounds are fatal.
Daryl To The Rescue
Ritchie Coster as Pope, Dikran Tulaine as Mancea
There’s a bit more substance to Daryl’s latest outing with the Reapers. He’s told to help torture the other Maggie follower the Reapers captured and he does so in order to maintain his cover, going so far as to cut the poor guy’s finger off. He probably assumes the guy is toast one way or another.
Another Reaper, Carver, clearly has it out for Daryl. He’s mad that Daryl takes over the torturing. He warns him not to kill the guy. He even draws his gun, but Daryl gets the info they need: The location of Maggie’s hideout.
So Pope, the leader of this goofy group, sends Leah, Daryl, Carver and a couple others to go search for Maggie. The first house they search is a dud, but the second turns up some clues. Fresh bandages, I believe. Daryl notices a trap door, covered by a rug, in the floor of the living room and does his best to hide it better. But when he suggests they go track them, Carver is suspicious.
It’s very much like the scene from Willow when Madmartigan and Willow and Elora Danan are hiding out under a similar trapdoor, only in The Walking Dead they don’t get caught and Madmartigan doesn’t take Sorsha hostage. In this version, Carver does find the trapdoor but Maggie and her people have already snuck out the back to safety.
When they return to Pope, he doesn’t seem upset by the news. The guy being tortured apparently spilled some extra beans before they killed him, and the news has Pope all giddy with excitement. Does he know more about Daryl now? Or maybe just the location of Alexandria? I suppose we’ll find out next week.
Verdict
All told, a really solid episode that might have been even better if they’d just focused on Virgil and Connie’s story instead of constantly setting that story down and picking up less interesting ones. Not that the Kelly/Daryl scenes were bad, they just took us away from the good, scary horror stuff that really made the episode fun. I rarely say this, but Sunday night’s episode might have actually benefited from just having two characters and one storyline instead of distracting us with all the rest.
I still don’t understand how Connie hasn’t found Alexandria after all this time. It has been a while since she was cut off from the group. We saw her walking with the zombie horde after Hilltop. What stopped her from finding her way back to a place she’s not unfamiliar with? That feels like a plot hole, but whatever. At least they gave her a really exciting episode for her return.
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