Episode 5 of The Walking Dead focused on the Hilltop as well as Carl and Enid. I can start this review by letting you know it wasn’t the most riveting of episodes, even with Steven Ogg playing the role of Simon pretty well, the whole episode was unremarkable – in large part due to the semi-focus on Carl and Enid.
Right of the bat, we find out how Maggie is getting on following her traumatic experience in losing yet another loved one and we see that the baby is fine but the placenta has separated from the uterus but she it to take it easy and Dr Carson recommends she stay at the Hilltop for the duration of her pregnancy.
After this, Maggie visits the graves of Glenn and Abraham with Sasha, upon which Jesus arrives and places flowers on the graves. Gregory then approaches and immediately becomes the shows second most annoying character, by demanding that Maggie and Sasha leave the Hilltop despite the fact that Maggie is pregnant and needs to be under the supervision of Dr Carson. Also, he kicks up a bit of a stink about burying bodies, even though it’s what the Alexandrian’s do. But his main reasoning for wanting Maggie and Sasha gone is so that the Saviors don’t know that they have been colluding with Alexandria following the disaster of what happened.
There was a fair amount of setup for future episodes, with Rick and Aaron leaving for a supply run and a question mark hanging over Gregory’s suitability to lead the Hilltop. Especially when the Saviors setup a lure for the walkers within the Hilltop, by opening the gates at the dead of night, setting large bonfires and setting up a locked car with classical music blasting out of it. Jujitsu Jesus and Sasha took to the zombies who wandered in, whilst Maggie tried rallying the others within Hilltop whilst she ran the seemingly impenetrable car with a tractor, stopping the music and crushing the car, farm style.
I suppose it would be wrong of me to write up about this episode without mentioning Carl (The Walking Dead’s most annoying character) and Enid. Enid decided that she wanted to go to the Hilltop to be with Maggie, and Carl abruptly told her that he’s done with saving her. Shortly after, we see Enid on a bike coming across a lone walker, which is taken out by a mysterious car. The car was being driven by Carl, which took her by surprise and when asked he said he just felt like going for a drive. Yawn. Later we see them walking down a long road, talking about wanting to kill Negan, you know, young love, talking about murder…we’ve all been there. They then come across 2 pairs of roller blades – which both happen to fit by golly gosh! What are the chances?! They hold hands as they start roller-blading down the road – I think the point of this was to show their blossoming romance, as they held hands and smiled together, otherwise I really didn’t see the point.
As they approached the Hilltop, they saw Trevor from GTA V…I mean Simon organizing the loading of a truck, and Carl again said that they should go kill Negan. She wasn’t overly keen, blah blah and they kissed. The next thing we know of them both, she is in the Hilltop and claims to have gotten there alone, and at the end of the episode – after Sasha asked Jesus to find out where the Saviors lived – Jesus jumped on the back of a truck that was open to see that Carl was already on there. Although, to me it looked as though he was taking a dump behind the boxes…
Which leads me on to the utterly stupid couple of moments in this episode. Firstly, when Carl and Enid arrived at the Hilltop, Enid had a sudden epiphany, realizing that Carl wasn’t just out for a lovely afternoon drive, but had come out for her. I mean really? I thought guys were meant to be dense when it came to gestures like that, not ladies. But the second stupid thing is the above scene in the back of the truck – firstly, we have Jesus, obviously not wanting to be detected, wearing all black and looking kind of like a ninja version of WWE’s The Undertaker, then we have “stealth mode” Carl, wearing a big, giant sheriff’s hat – that Negan knows he wears and sticks out like a sore thumb on his stupid face.
I’m sorry if there are any Carl fans out there, but the character of Carl annoys me to the point that I can’t help but drown him out in thoughts of white-noise in my brain. I hope to god that the rumors are true and that Chandler Riggs’ time on the show is coming to an end with his acceptance into University.
All in all, this was a massively forgettable episode, showing mainly that Maggie is a leader-in-waiting while Gregory is far to subservient to the Saviors (more so than Rick), showing that Simon is basically Trevor-lite from GTA V and that Carl and Enid could be killed off tomorrow with little to no effect on the overall storyline, apart from an episode or two of Rick crying while wailing for “Coral!”. I dare-say that when I re-watch this series, this will be an episode that I skip.
By all means disagree with me, but so far this is the undoubted low point of the series and hopefully the only way is up insofar as quality is concerned. Let us know in the comments below, the RGM Forums or on Twitter. If you like what you’ve read then feel free to share this article on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pintrest or Reddit using the buttons available!
