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Review: ‘The Walking Dead’ Season 6, Episode 6, ‘Always Accountable’: Make Your Play

Review: 'The Walking Dead' Season 6, Episode 6, 'Always Accountable': Make Your Play
Review: 'The Walking Dead' Season 6, Episode 6, 'Always Accountable': Make Your Play

Whose Episode Is It?

Time to check in on Daryl, Abraham and Sasha, who are still herding the remaining walkers away from Alexandria.

PREVIOUSLY: Review: ‘The Walking Dead’ Season 6, Episode 5, ‘Now’: Later, Soon

Current Glenn Status

Still MIA. Fortunately, none of the characters in this episode even know he’s missing, so the story doesn’t dwell on it. Could the garbled walkie talkie plea of “Help,” at the end of the episode be from Glenn? Doesn’t really sound like him, but hey, we live in hope.

Yet Another Human Faction

The walker plan goes great, with the herd being successfully led far away from Alexandria. Our heroes start to head back, when they’re attacked by a bunch of guys with machine guns. Abraham and Sasha’s car gets wrecked, so they’re stuck on foot. Daryl takes a nasty spill on his bike, but he gets it running again and manages to get away. Their attackers aren’t Wolves, since they have guns and appear to be at least somewhat in their right minds, so I’ll call them Hunters for the time being, since that’s what they’re doing this episode.

Daryl hides his bike in some bushes, but gets jumped by three people who are on the run from the Hunters. They think Daryl’s one of them, so they tie him up and bring him with them. The trio make a bunch of vaguely ominous statements about the Hunters’ community, like how people have to “kneel,” and that “people will do anything for safety,” but this episode is all set-up with little payoff, so this story thread is pretty trying. The trio of escapees gets little development other than “we want to get away,” and any threat posed by the Hunters is vague, at best. Their leader, Wade, doesn’t even get his face shown, so he comes off as just an exasperated pair of boots. Between this episode and last week’s snoozer, we’ve definitely reached the “treading water” portion of the first half of Season 6.

A Shred of Humanity

Daryl manages to escape the trio and steal their pack (since Daryl rules and everyone else drools), but is discouraged to find that the pack contains not just his stolen crossbow, but also a big case of insulin. Well, shoot. Daryl returns the insulin to the trio just in time for the Hunters to show up, and Daryl helps everyone escape, proving he’s not one of them.

Abraham and Sasha, meanwhile, hole up in an abandoned office to wait for Daryl to return. Abraham admits that he came along on the mission to keep an eye on Sasha, since she was in such a bad place last season. Sasha maintains that she’s much better now (and certainly appears to be), but calls Abraham out on taking a lot of unnecessary risks. Now that they have a home with some stability, she tells him, he needs to acknowledge that he’s accountable for his actions. Abraham sulks off to go take another unnecessary risk.

Abraham finds a Humvee with rockets still in the back, only the launcher is on the back of an impaled walker who’s suspended over a big drop. Abraham goes and wrestles with the walker, not bothering with the easy kill, and eventually just yells in its face. He retreats, but the struggle was enough to weaken the walker’s flesh so that it falls away, leaving only the launcher. Well, that’s some luck.

He returns to Sasha, bragging about how he got the rocket launcher through some “buttsteak idiocy” and admits he’s been messing around but now that he sees the possibility of his life before him, he’s interested in “making some plays.” First play on his list? Telling Sasha he super wants to kiss her face. Sasha seems interested, but tells Abraham he has some stuff to take care of first. Well that was unexpected. Abraham’s lacked any real direction since the fallout of Eugene’s revelation, so this seems like a good idea as any, even if it comes out of left field. Poor Rosita. It always hurts when you’re dumped for characters who are in the opening credits.

Most Embarrassing Death

There have been some really embarrassing deaths this season (looking at you, Ethan Embry), so it’s time to shine a spotlight on them. Sure, it’s pretty sad this episode when one of the Hunters gets bitten by a rotted walker pinned to a tree by a boulder (c’mon, dude), but that’s nothing compared to trio member Tina’s decision to place flowers on two dead bodies that, surprise, aren’t so dead after all. It might be one of the dumbest moves made by any character in “The Walking Dead,” and that’s saying something.

Man Is The True Monster

While burying Tina, Daryl floats the idea of taking the remaining two to Alexandria. They seem amenable, until Daryl shows them his bike and admits that he has no backup, and then Trio Guy pulls his gun. (I combed this episode, but the only named member of the trio I could find is Tina, and the full IMDB credits for this episode aren’t up yet. The double-edged sword of screeners. If I just missed the other names somehow, feel free to flood the comments.)

Anyway, the remaining duo strip Daryl of his crossbow and steal his bike. Daryl asks if they’re returning to the Hunters, and their lack of response seems to indicate that they are. Guess they weren’t that bad. Although it seems they ran because they stole the insulin for Tina, so with her dead and a shiny new bike to trade, they probably figure they can make it square with Wade. They’ve been wronged before, so they figure it’s better to go with the devil you know. Obviously the audience knows that’s the wrong call, since if there’s one thing you should never do, it’s mess with Daryl’s crossbow.

Grade: C+

READ MORE: December TV: Why Midseason & Winter Finales Make Shows Better

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