So the community of women have run away from the Saviours (albeit not very far, surely in a place that is really quite big such as America, they'd have got more than a few miles away, eh?), and have a stupid shoot-to-kill policy that makes no sense, then about fifty of them armed with high-powered weaponry manage to completely miss Tara with several million rounds, making enough noise to attract anyone and anything within a 50 mile radius. VERY SMART.

I assume that Tara had deduced that the two guides weren't actually going to let her go and were instead planning to kill her, hence her escape attempt, but this was not very well indicated and had to be worked out retrospectively. In a show where so much time is given over to fluff and filler, this really could have been better explained.

The return to the zombie bridge with Cindy was stupid. Of all the ways to approach the situation that was probably the dumbest, Ian has already pointed out the look of astonishment on Cindy's face when her clip of ammo runs out, despite the fact she's the one who's best with guns apparently. Not only did she not think to reload, they'd also apparently done no assessment of how many shots were in the clip, how much cover she could thus provide, and so on.

The 'Heath-esque' zombie. Really? We're going with that absolutely insane coincidence, are we? THAT'S THE BEST THING YOU COULD THINK OF?

Also, another new community and group of people. Because we need that.

ALL THAT SAID it wasn't a dreadful episode on reflection, Tara is a pretty good character, the narrative structure was alright, and there was some emotional heft as Tara learns all the bad shit that's gone down in her absence.

Then again, the extent to which the show is content to completely ignore the main storyline in favour of characters we haven't seen for eons (I couldn't even remember Heath's name until Tara called him Heath), means the whole thing is plodding along aimlessly at something of a glacial pace with no particular sense of direction. JUST LIKE A ZOMBIE HA HA LOLS.

Had forgotten who Tara was or why she was there and then she waan't killed at least five times when opportunity arose. It needed brooding danger, not a rubbish paranoid camp

The lack of transforming spoon really spoiled the mandela-inspired continuity

No, not Nelson.

I know there's that whole 'OH WE HAVE TO BE TRUE TO THE COMICS!' thing going on, but fuck that, killing off Glenn and Abraham was fucking idiotic, two of the better characters annihilated from the roster after they'd needlessly fed other good characters to the zombies or whatever other random shit has been bumping them off. Assfaces.

I actually thought that episode was a bit of a slow one, and a bit too long. First one this season that hasn't really done it for me.

Carl didn't take the shot on Negan. He was clearly on a suicide mission as there was no way he was going to get into the compound, kill Negan, and get out again. AND HE HAD THE SHOT. He had Negan a few feet away, with a powerful automatic rifle AIMED AT HIS HEAD, and he didn't take the shot.

The first half could have been completely jettisoned IMO, or at least condensed into five minutes. I don't recall anything happened, apart from Rick and Aaron apparently losing their minds and trying to row to the houseboat thingy in a smaller boat that was clearly going to quickly sink in the middle of all the zombies. (And which they readily acknowledged themselves.) This felt terribly shoehorned in just to get the episode a tick in the 'has a zombie in it' column.

The second half however was a lot better, in fact the entire episode should have just started when Rick and Aaron returned to Alexandria.

Negan seemed a little less pantomimish (although I think the 'where are your guts' routine probably played out better in the comic), it was all quite tense and well done, yay Spencer got killed, fuck knows how Rosita missed Negan at point-blank range, oh Olivia got shot as well and Negan made more fat jokes.

If we were supposed to get all emotional about Rick and Daryl's reunion it didn't much work for me, and that sequence at the end where they showed all the faces for a few seconds each seriously overestimated how much most people care about this lot, see also, final sequence with Rick and Michonne.

Oh and then customary post-credits teaser.

It was the guy from the houseboat thingy, the one with the barbed wire wrapped round his boot, spying on the Alexandrians using binoculars. (I assume he's the 'owner' of the houseboat and wrote the 'you still lose' note).

So he might have a part to play in the upcoming shenanigans, or it could be another one of those pointless 'fuck you it means nothing' misdirections they like to put in there all the time.

Anyway, it'd better kick off at the start of the next episode, once Negan finds out that Daryl has escaped and killed one of his men, on top of the two that Carl killed, he's going to be after kicking some retaliatory ass. If they decide to devote an episode to a stray dog we last saw in Season Four, on its quest to find a tin of Pedigree Chum, I shall be cross.