The Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 7 Review: Heads Up
Sean McKenna
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It was a shocking and upsetting moment when Glenn, a character who’s been around since The Walking Dead Season 1, seemingly died on The Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 3.
And as much as I was disappointed and saddened to lose Glenn (and that it wasn’t in some heroic fashion), it really highlighted how anyone – even fan favorites, even original cast members – could die.
There weren’t superheroes on the show, and sometimes, bad situations could take the most prepared and seasoned person.
It was a ballsy move for The Walking Dead, but then questions started to arise if it was actually Nicholas’ guts being ripped out. And then the after show, The Talking Dead, as well as anyone associated with the show, refused to answer if Glenn was alive or dead. And then we had to have that possibility hang over three episodes before finally, finally getting the truth.
Turns out, Glenn miraculously survived.
Don’t get me wrong, on the one hand, it’s great to see Glenn back, but the show pulled a ridiculous and lame fake-out.
Maybe, if The Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 7 was the episode that followed The Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 3, I wouldn’t be as annoyed. Would I be surprised that he managed to not get bit, that he managed to crawl away to safety, and that the massive amount of walkers just sort of got bored and left? Sure, whatever, but for the show to wait for as long as it did really just felt like it was jerking viewers around because the writers thought it would be a fun cliffhanger or something.
It would have been far more of a viable cliffhanger if Nicholas had said “thank you,” lifted the gun, screen goes to black with the sound of a gunshot. Then you have no clue what happened and can debate if Nicholas shot himself or he shot Glenn or any number of scenarios that didn’t seem like an obvious death sequence. Then when you get to the next episode, everything plays out like it did, but we see the escape, too, rather than having to wait weeks for an answer.
It just was an annoying and unfortunate way the show chose to handle the situation.
As for the rest of the episode, it really was just prepping for The Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 8.
Glenn managed to work his way back to Alexandria with a mopey Enid just in time for the walker party.
Morgan got to have his sit down and talk about how all life is precious before he brought Denise in on his little Wolf secret. Of course, Carol would be the one to track him down, but I wonder what she will do when she learns.
Or maybe she won’t have to with the tower coming down and the walkers set to invade.
The same could be said for Ron looking like he’s about to shoot Carl.
Though, let’s be honest, Carl was rather obnoxious during Ron’s training. Why did he even need to be there? And why did he need to comment after everything Rick said? Ugh, Carl.
Of course, the hour also felt it was a requirement to have unnecessary walker drama as Spencer stupidly decided to do a high-wire act over a bunch of walkers. It just reminded me of when Glenn decided it was a genius idea to head into the well with the walker on The Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 4.
It was ridiculous and clearly only there to add some walker action to the episode. What a waste.
Again, maybe this would have played better if it was right after the episode where Glenn looked like he was getting eaten, and if we hadn’t just had three relatively slower hours.
But “Heads Up” was rather boring and just filling time before all hell breaks loose on the midseason finale. Sure, it’s great to see Glenn back, but I’m still annoyed by how his survival and the reveal of it all played out.
Were you glad to see Glenn alive? Did the show handle his "death" correctly? Sound off below! And before the midseason finale, make sure you watch The Walking Dead online to catch up!
Note: The Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 8, "Start to Finish," airs November 29 at 9/8c.
Sean McKenna was a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. He retired in May of 2017. Follow him on Twitter.
