The Walking Dead Midseason Premiere, “Rock in the Road” Plot Summary:
Rick (Andrew Lincoln), Michonne (Danai Gurira), Carl (Chandler Riggs), Daryl (Norman Reedus), Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green), Rosita (Christian Serratos), and Jesus (Tom Payne) go to The Kingdom to try and recruit King Ezekiel (Chary Payton) in their fight against Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).
Walking Dead fans let’s be honest with ourselves. I mean truly honest for a moment.
Every time The Walking Dead comes back from break whether it’s for a brand new season, or a midseason premiere — we get the same exact type of episode.
It’s a really good episode, in fact it may even be a great episode. It’s the type of episode that fills us with a ton of hope. This hope is that maybe, just maybe this will be the half-season the series returns to form. You cross your fingers the show won’t devolve back into a chore to watch. You pray to the old gods and new that the storylines won’t veer off into long, indulgent tangents that won’t pay off for another season (if they pay off at all). And you really hope that there won’t be anymore more episodes that dedicate 90 minutes to some side character no one really has investment.
But, if we’re being honest with ourselves we know this probably isn’t going to happen.
Remember last year when the show returned to answer the question, “Who is Negan going to kill?” Remember how controversial, and let’s be frank — awesome — that episode was? Remember the really strong follow-ups with the introduction of King Ezekiel and then Daryl imprisonment episode? Those were all really positive things that had us thinking things were finally getting ironed.
But then it went to complete and utter hell. We don’t need to rehash things — we all know how poorly things turned out…and how a lot of audience members tuned out.
So how was this episode, titled “Rock in the Road?”
It was really, really good.
They delivered one of the better “big action” sequences in a while with Michonne and Rick racing cars tethered by high tension wire, and mowing down an entire herd of walkers. The sequence was not only visually cool, but it also reinforced the danger surrounding walkers. The impending fear of the herd approaching, then our heroes being swarmed were the kind of claustrophobic moments the series made its bones on.
There was also a plethora of terrific acting — with Ezekiel at the center of all of them. His interactions with Rick were damn fine moments, and it’s been a while since we’ve seen a Rick performance that’s not filled with yelling, screaming, or uncontrollable sweat.
Should you go out of your way to watch this episode? Absolutely.
Should you keep your hopes up that this half season will return to form? If you’ve been following the show for the past few years — you already know the answer.
