The Walking Dead 1010 – Stalker
There’s a barbarian, more specifically a Whisperer at the gates of Alexandria. Gamma has arrived bringing word that there are members of the community trapped in a cave and in need of help. The ones in peril are the group that included Daryl, Carol, Magna and Jerry. While all of them save Magna and Connie escape the cave in, this fact is unknown to everyone in Alexandria.
Father Gabriel and Rosita lead the unwelcoming party and give Gamma a hard time, even though she is bringing them valuable intel. Siddiq’s death is still fresh and their thirst for revenge bubbles near the surface. Even though Gamma reveals that the baby left at Hilltop is actually her nephew and that she can lead them to her friends she finds herself locked up, but not before she’s floored by a wicked right cross from Rosita.
Meanwhile Daryl is hot on the trail of some Whisperers who were guarding the cave where Alpha relocated her hoard of walkers. After a bloody showdown Daryl finds himself wounded and struggling to fend off walkers and a lone, injured Whisperer, none other than Alpha herself. Daryl’s injury is a gruesome one that leaves him at the mercy of his enemy but Alpha’s only in slightly better shape. With all of the knife wounds between the two of them, perhaps the deepest cut is when Lydia arrives on the scene. Thinking that her estranged daughter is here for her, she’s shocked to learn that Daryl is the one she’s there to rescue.
Stalker employs a little bit of Trojan Horse trickery when Beta uses some misdirection to breech Alexandria’s walls. During the confusion he creates he eventually makes his way to Gamma’s cell and frees her before things get a little complicated. Gamma’s short time in Alexandria has opened her eyes to Alpha’s lies and mental manipulations and she resists Beta’s call to freedom.
Stalker unravels some of the mystery behind Gamma’s backstory but also exposes the emotional damage living in the apocalypse can exact on a person. Gamma, who refers to herself as Mary more than once during the episode reveals through her backstory just how easy it is to go off the rails in the wrong circumstances. Her chat with Judith is particularly poignant as she comes face to face with what could have been her past with the right people around to guide her.
Alpha’s invincibility takes a hit in Stalker and sets things up for a battle to cap off Season 10. Sometimes it’s not the masks, but the veils that need to be lifted from one’s eyes for them to be able to see things clearly. Blind faith and the inability to question has its advantages but when the truth is revealed the pillars that once held things fast can soon come crumbling down.
