Danai Gurira visited AOL BUILD recently, describing the sheer brutality in store for the second half of Season 6's The Walking Dead. Since then, the show has premiered its first episode for the continuing season; and Gurira did not exaggerate. Episode 9's "No Way Out" delivered a near perfect episode, bringing together elements of the show that make it so successful--undead, gore, drama, character building, and overwhelming intensity, while condensed it all in a single installment.
The Walking Dead is almost always at its greatest when it builds directly off of the graphic novel, something the new executive producer Scott Dimple has done moreso than any previous show runner. Which is why I believe season 6 has been such a hit with fans and critics as opposed to previous seasons. "No Way Out" featured one of the most iconic moments from the comics, and displayed it nearly identical to the source material, adding its own spin that actually made the moment even better.
You may be wondering what moment I'm talking about. Well, below will have spoilers a-plenty on said moment. Scroll below at your own risk!
Carl got his eye blown out!
Yes, the moment comic readers were wondered would ever happen on the show, actually happened. There was always a possibility the show would skip over that moment, given the fact Rick never lost his hand during his interactions with The Governor as it did in the comic. But it did, and it did so in glorious fashion. Probably because it's more expensive to CG a missing hand than it is to throw on an eyepatch each episode.
The scene plays out almost like a dream sequence. As if Rick was imagining the worse possible outcome of his plan going to shit. But savvy fans of the franchise knew the deal, making it all the more sweeter.
On Talking Dead, Andrew Lincoln stated in an interview that reading this bloody moment made the script "the most insane script I've ever read." Seeing the deaths of every glimmering light in Rick's life--his love interest Jessie, her son Sam overcome with fear (at the fault of Carol's brutal honesty of Walkers in previous episodes), and Ron being stabbed as he lets of a gunshot, near fatally killing his son Carl can only be described as living out a nightmare.
I loved the foreshadowing at the beginning of the scene too. Carl's hat covering the eye that would soon be blown from his head. I love that the show showed the devouring of Sam, a child, on television. The brutality of it, his screaming, and the anguish on his mothers face made the moment truly devastating. Walkers chomped down on Jessie seconds later. The blank, emotionless expression on her face really drove home the hopelessness of the situation. But what I loved the most were the flashes Rick saw as he watched her die. Cuts to her smiling, of passionate moments he and Jessie have shared, then cutting to Rick quietly mourning his loss of not only her, but of his loss of hope as well.
I felt more enveloped in that moment watching the show as opposed to reading the comic. At that particular point in the comics, the death of Jessie's family and the shooting of Carl's eye came across more as shock value since it wasn't as built up as it was in the show. It's possible because most fans knew the outcome based on the comic, the writers of the shows were able to capitalize on it and make more of an impression than the novel did. It makes me glad that Ron was added into the show to really give that bullet more significance than it did in the comics, where the bullet really had no intentions of hitting Carl.
The only issue I had with that moment is that it should have happened much sooner. The end of the first half of Season 6 led viewers to believe things would ratchet up for Rick and the gang as soon as their story picked up in the premier episode, but it waited for some reason. Although the episode has a rather explosive (pun intended) moment to kick off the episode, I feel as though the pacing of the episode as a whole would have benefited from a quicker kickoff. In the comics, the deaths of Jessie and her family happen almost immediately, as does Carl's unfortunate fate.
As a fan of both the television series and the graphic novel, I'm waiting with baited breath to see the introduction of the mysterious Negan. And hopefully, writers will treat the next "OMG" moment involving him and another character with as much grace and connection with the source material as they did here.
