TWD Season 7 Episode 2: The Well

This week The Walking Dead fans can rest a little easier as this hour follows a completely different group of characters than the season premiere. Spoiler alert - no one dies a horrible, awful, gory, disgusting death tonight so we have that going for us. "The Well" focuses on Morgan and Carol, their entrance into The Kingdom, and the strange leader and followers they meet there. Here's what went down in episode 2....

I'm Gonna Be A Mighty King

Carol wakes up in a horse drawn cart with Morgan walking by her side. They are attacked by Walkers and the cart breaks. Carol hoists herself up and staggers into the woods away from Morgan and the spear carrying men. Side note: I love these guys. I'm pretty sure they could jump into that portal from the Epic animated movie and easily fit in. Anyway, Carol stops in front of a deteriorating house and sees an old woman in the window beckoning for her to come in...well, she thinks she does. That old woman is actually a zombie. She staggers some more and leans against the fence. Several Walkers are closing in on her now and Morgan and the spear guys (oh heyyyyyyyy, Daniel Newman) arrive and save her. The strange thing is - each time Carol watches a Walker killed, she sees who they were when they were alive. Carol, you've got issues darlin.'

Carol wakes up a second time in a comfy bed with Morgan sitting in a chair next to her. Seems to be a theme tonight. He tells her she's been asleep for 2 days and then takes her on a wheelchair tour of their new surroundings. "The people here call this place The Kingdom. They've been helping you so I've been helping them." This is a fast paced wheelchair tour and Morgan doesn't give Carol too many other details as he takes her to meet the man in charge. Just as he's rolling her into the, um, throne room, he tells Carol she is about to meet King Ezekiel. This is fun on it's own right? But it gets better. Ezekiel not only goes to Michonne's hairdresser, he has a tiger. HE HAS A TIGER. 

Carol's face is priceless throughout this entire scene. King Ezekiel calms Shiva the TIGER (seriously, file this under "pets I would never expect anyone to have during a zombie apocalypse"), who is not too thrilled with this unknown person. Shiva takes a chill pill though as Carol tries to figure out wtf to say to this King. She ends up turning into golly gee Baker Carol and makes me laugh out loud when she cheerfully says "I don't know what the hell is going on in the most wonderful way!" You and me both!

Working On My Roar

Morgan goes hunting with Ezekiel and some spear people and they heard a bunch of hogs into a room with a tied-up Walker. Why a Walker? So their bellies will be full of rotten meat. Uh...these hogs aren't going back to The Kingdom for dinner are they? While Morgan also ponders this, a whole bunch of Walkers approach. Ben, a spear guy in training, is assigned the first Walker to dispose of, and Ben must be in the early stages of training because he stabs the Walker in the neck with a machete. Ezekiel ends up killing it and Ben will have to go back to Zombie Killing 101. As other Walkers attack, Ezekiel notices Morgan's skill with a staff. Morgan explains that a friend trained him and Ezekiel asks Morgan to train Ben. Morgan reluctantly agrees, though I think he is internally excited about the opportunity to mentor someone. 

Turns out Ben is a quick study and a neat kid. There is definitely a bond brewing there. The two join Ezekial and the spear people out on another mission. They wait in an abandoned parking lot and when a suspicious truck pulls in, the reasoning behind feeding the hogs dead meat becomes clear. These animals are offers to The Saviors. Damn, Negan is everywhere! Only a handful of people from The Kingdom know about the deal with the Saviors and Ezekiel asks Morgan to keep the secret. The Saviors in this pick up group are, of course, douchebags and one in particular throws some punches at Richard who seems to be Eziekiel's right hand man or close to it. Ezekiel doesn't condone violence though so Richard heads home with a bloody mouth...even though Richard looks more than capable of beating the shit out of all of those guys.

Free To Do It All My Way

Morgan wants to report what he has seen to Carol but she is nowhere to be found when he reaches her room. She has spent the day as Baker Carol, rolling herself around The Kingdom collecting supplies where she could...some clothes here...a knife there. She was never planning to stay in The Kingdom long. I beleive her exact words to Morgan post-throne room were "You're shitting me right? This place is a damn circus!" 

Carol waits on the outskirts of The Kingdom until dark and starts to leave the community. Ezekiel finds her in the garden and she does the whole "Well gee I'm leaving cuz what good am I here?" thing and the King calls bullshit. Really. He stops his sonnet style talk and says "never bullshit a bullshitter." Carol tells Ezekiel that The Kingdom is a joke and he's selling his people a fairy tale. He doesn't necessarily disagree. The King tells her that people want someone to follow, to make them feel safe. Ezekiel (he reveals that Ezekiel is his actual name) had been a zoo keeper before the apocalypse and Shiva had fallen into a concrete moat in an exhibit. The moat was empty and her leg tore completely open. Ezekiel jumped in, knowing the risk, wrapped his shirt around her to stop the bleeding and ended up saving her life. She was his protector from that point on. When you're a dude with a tiger, it's easy for people to talk you up and make you a leader. And of course...his experience in community theater didn't hurt either. 

This story is all fine and dandy but Carol still wants to peace out. Ezekiel encourages her to "go but not go" and I have no idea what the hell he's talking about until Morgan and Carol are standing in front of the house from the opening scene of the episode. So Carol isn't leaving, but she wants her own space outside of The Kingdom. That's a decent compromise I guess. Morgan drops her off, lowers the flag on the mailbox and heads back to his protege. Carol clears the house and makes it her own. In the final moments of the hour Ezekiel and Shiva show up bearing fruit. Just a friendly neighborhood "hello!"

Oh, I forgot to mention...
Ezekiel has a tiger. 

The episode ends there and in spite of the tiger...yes in spite of the post-apocalyptic tiger...I found "The Well" fairly underwhelming. I allllmost said "dry" but I stopped myself. Kinda. Maybe it's because all of this is a slow setup to Morgan "finding himself," or Carol understanding that she's more valuable (and much more safe) with a community than she is moping on her own, or the rise of the next generation of spear carriers, or the kickoff of Extreme Makeover: Zombie Edition, or whatever the case may be for The Kingdom and its people. While I appreciate that I never felt the need to throw up during this hour, I do wish I felt the need to say "I can't wait for the next Carol/Morgan episode" when it ended. Will Ezekiel and his hair liven up this story line? Can the tiger somehow summon He-Man and become the Battle Cat? Maybe? Oh come on...you think that's a stretch when we already have Jesus on this show? We'll see what happens when the TWD returns next week. Until then, I leave you with a picture of my favorite part of "The Well."