I asked for the season to get going and the Walking Dead delivered big time.  This was an action episode.  It was another parallel episode, and it also managed to leave us scratching and puzzling where we are headed in the Alexandria Compound.

The show starts with a very long and convoluted journey of Enid alone before her arrival.  She scribbles JSS cryptically wherever she manages to hide.  We see her arrive at the Alexandria compound somehow get inside looking much the worse for wear.  I’m not sure how much it adds to her character but it seems like she is being setup for something bigger.

Covert soccer mom carol is still playing super domestic talking about how she uses things no one wants in her cooking to try and use it up, and chatting up the other pantry shoppers, even counseling one of them, Erin that smoking will kill her and she should quit.   She’s still the nurturing (hard-ass style) to Sam, the small boy she terrified into silence (with brownies), who is obviously very sad about the loss of his Dad, by telling him to essentially get over it.

Ron wants nothing to do with his mom (Jessie) because she is Ricks “friend”.  Diana struggles with the loss of her husband.  Does she still want the Alexandria group to grow and survive?

They also introduce a new character: Denise (Merrit Wever, who was a nurse Zoe in nurse Jackie) as a psychiatrist who will now try to stand in as the new town doctor.

Tara who is still recovering from her coma is complaining about a headache which bodes ominously.

Gabriel admits to Carl that he told the Alexandria group to be Leary of the newcomers, and Carl councils him that he should come clean about it.

In short it looks like it’s going to be another slow backstory driven episode.

And then quite suddenly as Carol is somewhat wistfully watching her neighbor (Erin) step outside for a smoke, a large dirty man runs into the yard and Erin is machete’d down harolding the arrival of the wolves.

Yeah, they are in the gates!

Soon the town is under full scale attack.  And these guys are brutal.  Inside the walls, the compound has little defense against a horde of rabid madmen. Carl manages to convince Enid (saying her goodbyes???) to stay and help protect Judith.  Carol is badass as usual (Even having to kill one of her neighbors who is fatally stabbed in the attack.)

The horn mystery from episode 1 is reviewed to be a wolves semi-slammed into the wall after a tower watchman seemingly foils a barricade ramming maneuver.  Nice twist writers! We assumed it was a deliberate move by the wolves.  You got us.  We can admit it.

Morgan arrives back in town just in town and is also in ninja a badass mode, still wont kill anything but walkers, but manages to distract a wolf long enough that Carol can come in for the kill.

Spenser, who still seems to have a yellow streak of cowardice about a mile wide finds  his mom (Diana) outside the gates inspecting the planned farming expansion with Maggie.  Maggie wants to join the fight and get them back inside, but Diana (wisely??) realizes she would be just another person (hapless victim) to save inside.

The psychiatrist is still afraid to treat a dying patient (blond guard girl, we hardly knew you) until Eugene (in a moment of true insight) tells her she doesn’t want to live as he has… a coward.  Ultimately she isn’t able to save her patient, but at least she gets involved and tries.

Carl saves Ron from a wolf and has to kill or be killed.  But Ron won’t stay for protection and gets home just in time to see his mom Jessie unleash a blizzard of abused wife rage all over an intruder bent on stealing her gun (That should teach Ron not to talk back and to take his damn haircut when she tells him too.)

Carol in disguise as a wolf is able to reach the armory, where she kills a bunch of wolves and finds Lydia (terrified and mouse like) is hold up inside a closet next to the guns.  She gives a brief gun training arming Lydia and telling her if anyone comes inside keep shooting until they stop, grabs as many weapons as her recyclable shopping tote will carry and is back out in the fight
Morgan is forced to take down a wolf but is still refusing to kill him.  Carol is quick to take care of the problem with a single head-shot.  It’s interesting that Carol had to nurse Rick through his bout pacifism.  I don’t know if she has the time or energy to help Morgan through his as well.  In a seeming moral victory Morgan is able to reason, after giving them a major beat down, with a whole gang of wolves and tells them his people have guns and they are pretty much dead if they continue the attack.  They do run off but he lets one of them grab a gun before they run out he gate.  (Thi will come back to bite the whole town later quite obviously.)

This episode is not without some ironic humor as Carol stands over the dead Erin looking at her pack of cigarettes, and looking very much like a woman who is ready to take up the habit herself.

Aaron is going around double tapping the dead to make sure they don’t come back and discovers the backpack he lost when he and Daryl were captured by the wolves and had to be rescued by Morgan (yes it was last season but crap comes back to haunt us in this show) and of course it is filled with the promotional pictures and layouts they use to attract new compound members. He is left with the horrifying knowledge that he gave them everything they needed to successfully attack the town.

Diana now understands she has to learn and adapt.  Is she just as cowardly as her son?  Will she be able to adapt?  Guess we will find out this season.  Enid leaves Carl a note at the door showing that JSS means just survive somehow, and is gone.  Where? Why?  We don’t know…yet.

Morgan encounters the same scumbag wolf leader (he fought last season again…see people clean up your messes!!!) hiding in one of the homes and is forced to defend himself.  The wolf wrongly assumes he cannot kill.  But it seems Morgan can or at least can knock out.  He is also seemingly leaving with a lunch bag in hand.  Is he going to recover the gun that was lost or does he realize now that the wolves are something not human and worth saving?

AND what is happening on the other side of the walking dead horde now storming the gates of the city at a snail like pace?

Stay tuned…(but sharpen your weapons while you can)