'The Walking Dead' Season 11, Episode 5: "Out of the Ashes" Recap and Review
A FEW STUMBLES ASIDE, 'THE WALKING DEAD' ADVANCES THREE STORYLINES IN A BALANCED, COHESIVE HOUR THAT CONTINUES THE FINAL SEASON'S STREAK OF CONSISTENTLY GOOD EPISODES.
"Out of the Ashes," tonight's episode of "The Walking Dead," once again returns to the larger ensemble of the show after last week's entry, "Rendition," took a detour to focus solely on Daryl (Norman Reedus) and his encounter with the Reapers. Three storylines get about equal airtime this week, the first of which opens on Aaron (Ross Marquand) and his adopted daughter Gracie in the woods when they are surrounded by various antagonists - a walker, a Whisperer, the sound of Negan's whistling - who swarm Aaron and stab him repeatedly. It is only as he hears Mays (Robert Patrick) shout "stop!" - in a flashback to "One More" - that Aaron wakes up from this nightmare, safe in Alexandria to find Gracie also safe and sound near him. This safety is undone the next morning, however, as another section of Alexandria's wall collapses, sending walkers streaming in and causing at least one death. The town manages to take down enough of the herd to bring the wall back up and reinforce it, but for a moment it almost looks like the defenders could be overcome.
On the other side of this action-packed opening, we're greeted with a cheesy public television-like commercial for the Commonwealth narrated by Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton) who espouses the virtues of the Commonwealth, a community that are "more than 50,000 strong" and appear to operate like a small city, though forebodingly one of the final images shown in the ad isn't of friendly townspeople or charming shops, but instead is of the Commonwealth guards, clad in their signature white armor, patrolling the town. The commercial concludes with an ode to Pamela Milton, who appears to be the President or some other equivalent head of state for the Commonwealth. This "Breaking Bad"-like interlude shifts to reveal that Princess (Paola Lázaro), Ezekiel (Khary Payton), Eugene (Josh McDermitt), and Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura) are watching the commercial as part of their orientation, at which point each are handed various documents.
Princess gets a $2 bill back - one which had been previously confiscated from her by Mercer (Michael James Shaw) and she, Ezekiel, and Eugene also receive work and living quarters assignments. Yumiko, on the other hand, is given a letter from the Commonwealth's state department requesting her audience. Eugene immediately suggests a "course correction," pointing out that their goal was not to move to the Commonwealth but rather to obtain assistance for Alexandria. Deciding to still use this opportunity to learn more about the Commonwealth, the group heads into town sans Yumiko, who inquires about her letter as well as the whereabouts of her brother to a Commonwealth staffer, who promptly treats Yumiko with some some level of reverence compared to the boilerplate canned responses he gave the others, Yumiko's letter apparently giving her some status in the Commonwealth.
Meanwhile, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) continue on to a supply stash on the way to Meridian. They have another standoff in the woods where Negan again questions why Maggie hasn't "just put [him] down," which Maggie responds to by hurling a throwing knife all of an inch past Negan's face...to kill an approaching walker. It's a memorable moment - Greg Nicotero, veteran "The Walking Dead" director and producer, helms this episode - but some of the dialogue feels like it's been cut and pasted from the scripts of "Acheron" and "Hunted," as if to provide the three people who are tuning in tonight but who haven't seen the previous four episodes with the necessary exposition. Morgan is always electrifying to watch and Cohan rises to the challenge of matching him in any of their scenes, but the back-and-forth of whether or not they understand one another is getting a little tedious.
Thankfully, their next scenes together make up for the repetitiveness, as they arrive at the stash house. Negan moves to gather up whatever supplies he can to take back to Alexandria, but Maggie insists that they wait for the others. Negan challenges that they should cut their losses and bring what they can back to their people, and when Maggie counters that “those losses were people,” Negan agrees, telling Maggie that she still has more people back home, daring to invoke her son Hershel’s name. In a lesser episode, Maggie might have retorted with an overdone, “you don’t get to talk about him”-type response, but instead she uses her people as the reason they need to press forward. Negan obliges Maggie’s request to wait for the rest of their group, but only until sundown. When the sun begins to set, Negan begins to leave with a bag of supplies, but Maggie physically stops him, engaging in a physical scuffle that mostly consists of her hitting him while he simply holds her back. It’s a far more satisfying explosion of their conflict than another back-and-forth of “why don’t you just kill me”/”I wonder that every day” like we’ve been getting, as Maggie gets to take her frustrations out properly on a man who caused most of her problems. It gets cut short, however, when Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) and Elijah (Okea Eme-Akwari) arrive as well. We knew Gabriel survived the Reapers’ attack in “Hunted,” but it seemed like Elijah was done for. However, aside from learning that the two found eachother in the woods, for now we don’t learn how Elijah got away. Maggie is rejuvenated by the duo’s survival, and Gabriel stands by her in her decision to stay and wait for Daryl.
When we pick back up in Alexandria, the town is still reeling from the walker attack earlier as they try and lure the walkers away to more fortified sections of the wall. Out of options, Aaron, Carol (Melissa McBride), Lydia (Cassady McClincy), and Jerry (Cooper Andrews) confer about Alexandria’s future. Lydia states the reality of the situation: if Alexandria cannot be defended, they have to find somewhere else. Aaron counters that Alexandria is their home, and they aren’t going to just give it up. The group decide to make one last Hail Mary play: a chance at finding better blacksmithing tools in the burnt ruins of Hilltop. When the four arrive at the destroyed community, they first come across those lost in its destruction, now roaming within the walls as walkers. After putting their former friends down, the group then sees a herd of walkers roaming in circles, the way the Whisperers used to herd them. The four quickly take down all of the walkers, isolating the lone surviving Whisperer and subduing him. He claims to be the only Whisperer left, merely herding the walkers around to protect himself, but Jerry and Aaron don’t believe him, tossing him into Hilltop’s burnt out cellar to interrogate him.
When the group arrive downstairs, they find three more Whisperers cowering in a cell, and Aaron unleashes his inner Jack Bauer on the Whisperer who lied to him, while Jerry, upon finding a piece of his wife’s clothing that was abandoned when they fled Hilltop, is incensed enough to back Aaron up. After the Whisperer makes a vain attempt to slash Aaron with a knife - allowing the others to escape but trapping himself - Jerry strings the Whisperer up while Aaron baits a walker towards him. When the Whisperer won’t give him answers, Aaron deliberately lets the walker bite his fingers on one hand. Lydia walks away in disgust, and before Aaron can send the walker back in, Carol kills it with an arrow. Aaron is incensed, repeating some of Mays’ words about how there are people who cannot be saved and applying them to the Whisperer. It’s clear at this point that the events of “One More” have traumatized Aaron, and that combined his sorrow over Hilltop’s destruction has created a darkness inside him that we haven’t really seen before. Carol talks Aaron down, pleading with him that he is headed down a path he doesn’t want to go down, similar to what Carol did after Alpha killed her adopted son Henry, a chain of events that ironically led to Hilltop being destroyed. Aaron relents, giving the Whisperer a knife with which he can cut off his infected hand before it spreads.
Back in Alexandria, Judith (Cailey Fleming) confronts a group of older boys who are playing with a walker that is poking its head through a hole in the wall. When she tells them to get away from it, one of the boys pushes her and taunts her about Michonne (Danai Gurira) “abandoning” Judith. Judith responds by holding her sword to the boy’s throat, scaring him and his friends away. Later on, she returns home only to find that the same boy has broken the piece of wood where Carl (Chandler Riggs) made handprints with Judith when she was a baby, all the way back in “Honor” when Carl was dying from a walker bite. Judith mourns the damaged board and is comforted by Rosita (Christian Serratos), who recounts the story of when she saw Carl and Judith make the handprints. Judith worries that she’s going to forget the people she lost, and asks Rosita if it ever gets easier. Rosita is honest with Judith, telling her that it probably won’t. This is a really touching scene between two of the last surviving characters from the early seasons of the show; it’s just unfortunate that the setup for it is a bit weak. The acting from the boy who taunts Judith isn’t particularly strong, and Judith pulling a blade on a bully seems a little out of character for her.
When we return to the Commonwealth, Yumiko enters a bakery - a fully functioning, fully stocked, clean bakery - having apparently been sent there from her inquiries about her brother Tomi, and she barely has time to take in this piece of the old world before Tomi (Ian Anthony Dale) shows up in front of her, complete with a slapstick shot of Tomi dropping the cake he had just finished in shock. That overused reaction aside, Dale is a pleasure to see on “The Walking Dead.” He’s an excellent performer who has had a prolific career on television, always turning in memorable and charismatic performances regardless of what show he appears on. Dale - a Minnesota native - puts on a really good British accent to play Tomi, and his subsequent scene with Matsuura gives us a glimpse into Tomi and Yumiko’s relationship. We learn that they’ve been separated since the apocalypse began, if not before that, and Tomi used to be a surgeon before the Commonwealth’s “curated employment system” assigned him as a baker. Yumiko questions this change, but Tomi counters that he’s “truly happy” for the first time in a long time. Yumiko presses Tomi about whether or not the Commonwealth is truly as good as it seems, and Tomi replies through a grin that “it’s better.”
Eugene and Stephanie (Chelle Ramos), meanwhile, bond over ice cream and talk a little about the Commonwealth. Eugene confides his situation to Stephanie, that he and his friends didn’t intend to stay there permanently and that they need to both communicate with and deliver aid to the people back home. Stephanie admits that an official requisition to use the Commonwealth’s radio could take weeks to acquire, just as Ezekiel arrives and says that the group is looking at a similar timeframe just to see a “head supervisor.” Stephanie suggests an “unofficial” use of the radio, which Eugene readily accepts. The pair sneak into the broadcast booth while Ezekiel and Princess keep watch. Princess sees Mercer and attempts to distract him, both flirting with him and thanking him for returning the $2 bill to her. There’s a bit of a hint of the flirting being genuine on Princess’ part, but either way, her distraction doesn’t get the group very far. Eugene barely manages to get a “hello” out - connecting with Rosita for all of ten seconds - before Mercer barges into the booth and places him under arrest, with Princess and Ezekiel already in handcuffs. Stephanie, meanwhile, is left alone. Later, the three are informed of the charges against them, that they will be put in front of a judge, and that - if found guilty - they will be banished forever from the Commonwealth, a likely outcome given that they have been there for less than a day. Princess counters that they want their lawyer, Yumiko, involved, but at that point Lance Hornsby barges in with Stephanie and demands that the group be let go. The Commonwealth government stooge says that can’t be done as they are awaiting a hearing, and Hornsby demands that they at least not be moved before he heads off, presumably to meet with Pamela Milton. Stephanie reassures the group that they will be let go, but not without a penalty: they will pay for this, “one way or another.”
Finally, as Aaron and his party leave the Hilltop with all the tools they could salvage, they question the Whisperer - alive, but with his infected hand severed - one last time, and he admits that he saw Connie (Lauren Ridloff) escape the cave alive after it collapsed during “Squeeze.” Finally, eleven episodes after the audience found out Connie is still alive, at least one other character has been informed as well. Carol, probably out of guilt for putting Connie in that predicament to begin with, tries to insist that the group look for her where the Whisperer last saw her, but Aaron stresses that it is about to get dark, and that they will look for Connie at first light. With that, “Out of the Ashes” comes to an end.
After the way all of the other storylines in “Out of the Ashes” ended - particularly the one centered around the Commonwealth - this is a somewhat lethargic, anticlimactic ending to the hour. Part of the problem is that we’ve known Connie is alive for so long that having any of the characters learn about it in such a sudden, unemotional way doesn’t really feel rewarding. It also makes this storyline feel a little bit messy, with Aaron’s torture of the Whisperer functioning solely as a way to give him and Carol their moment together where she sways him from doing something he can’t come back from. I don’t know where they’re going to find Connie, but I almost wish that the episode had instead had the Whisperer be forthcoming to begin with, send the characters on the first part of their search, and have some kind of hint about Connie’s whereabouts, whatever peril she may or may not be in, end the episode instead. I don’t need - nor want - cliffhangers at the end of every episode of “The Walking Dead,” but I also think the episode was capable of something bigger than going “hey, Connie’s alive!” and then having four of the characters ride off slowly in a cart to go find her. Still, “Out of the Ashes” is a perfectly fine episode of “The Walking Dead,” and between the intrigue of the Commonwealth thread and that final scene between Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan, I think we’re in for three pretty exciting entries leading up to the first of two midseason breaks.