After the letdown that was Fear the Walking Dead, I had my reservations about the start of the new season of the parent program. AMC’s The Walking Dead has been a roller coaster ride right from the start; a love/hate relationship that I keep going to back to even though I know she’s going to hurt me once more.
The episode, titled First Time Again, did the exact opposite though. After the cliffhanger at the end of season five I was sure that we’d be off to a slow start with more blood soaked soap opera. I could not have been more wrong. The episode shifts in and out of a then-and-now timeline using black and white for flashbacks. Rick and his crew are clearly wielding more power within the community than at the end of the last season and Deanna seemingly trusts them completely. This is a very good thing as the danger they are facing is bigger (literally) than ever before.
In something akin to a cattle drive, our ragtag rescuers attempt to wrangle herd of now well-aged, leather-faced walkers away from the town they have adopted as their own. Does it all go according to plan? Obviously not. Rick is on the edge, and not in a bad way at all. He has unshakable determination to do what is needed, not what is necessarily good. Morgan seems to have taken the role of his new stick-wielding zen sidekick who intends to keep him morally in check. Father Gabriel is being given the cold shoulder after betraying his fellow survivors last season, while Glenn has given Nicholas a second chance after his cowardly behavior resulted in the death of Noah and the injury of Tara. Everyone else seems pretty content to let Rick lead for now, although the locals of Alexandria are still a little untrusting and understandably so.
The episode was action packed with a great pace and a lot of flair. If this was any indication of what is in store for us this season, we are truly in for a treat.
Catch the Season 6 trailer and Episode 2 sneak peek down below
