This week’s episode of The Walking Dead brings back a couple of characters that haven’t been seen for a long time.
The last time viewers saw Connie (Lauren Ridloff), she was discovered, nearly dead, by Virgil (Kevin Carroll) on the side of a road. Virgil, himself was a relatively new character and many viewers were not expecting his story to continue after Michonne (Danai Gurira) left him to search for Rick (Andrew Lincoln) in Episode 13 of the tenth season.
Now, the pair have burst onto the screen in Episode 6 of The Walking Dead.
But, before we get to how Connie and Virgil wound up in a legit house of horrors, let’s step back just a little and check in on where Carol (Melissa McBride) is at.
The hunt for Connie begins
Last week’s episode of The Walking Dead saw a surprise return to the Whisperers storyline. After Carol and a few others headed to the destroyed Hilltop community to search for blacksmith tools, they found a few stragglers from Alpha’s antagonistic group.
While the initial contact was heated, eventually, Carol insist the Whisperers be spared and one returned the kindness by letting them know that Connie was likely still alive.
This install got Carol chomping at the bit to go searching for her in order to redeem herself for Kelly (Angel Theory). And, while she was talked down about leaving in the morning rather than so late in the day, once Kelly found out, she was hot on the trail and took off before anyone else was up.
It was a good thing she did, too, as she managed to find an old camp belonging to Connie and Virgil. There, she found one of Connie’s writing books and discovered that her sister thought they were being tailed.
Carol, Magna (Nadia Hilker), and Rosita (Christian Serratos) managed to catch up to Kelly at this point and now they are all in on the search for Connie.
But, more on that in a moment.
Connie and Virgil get stuck in a house of horrors
Connie and Virgil are on the run. It’s dark, there are walkers everywhere and they grab the first house that they can shelter in.
This was absolutely the worst move.
Inside, Virgil is all for getting some rest after giving the house a quick check over. Connie, however, is peaking on no sleep and convinced that the house is still unsafe.
She checks it over as well and, when searching the medicine cabinet, she sees an eye peeking through the razer slot. Obviously terrified, she dashes downstairs to tell Virgil but breaks the pencil she is using and has to resort to using a knife and carving out the words “not alone” in a painting.
Virgil isn’t entirely convinced at first but then they get separated and mysterious creatures start chasing the pair of them.
Like, human creatures but they only have scraps of clothing on and crawl super fast on all fours. Yeah, so horrifically terrifying creatures.
Seriously, I thought after 10 seasons of The Walking Dead, I’d lost the ability to be creeped out on this show. But, nope, AMC throws in feral cannibal crawlers.
That’s right, they also like to herd humans and eat them.
Connie is still on the run, and AMC decides to make part of this chase entirely without any sound, not panting or growling, or even background music. Dead silent. This way viewers get to experience the horrifying ordeal from Connie’s perspective.
Eventually, the pair meets up again, but not before Virgil almost stabs Connie. Then, they team up as they try to escape.
They get cornered by one of the ferals and Virgil ends up getting stabbed a few times in the back. However, Connie is not letting him hang back and die. Oh no, she is hauling his a*s out of there and they get to the front door before the ferals close in on them.
Connie smears herself in walker guts and then opens the front door, letting in all of the walkers that were still chilling outside the house.
And, just like that, before viewers can even gather a backstory about these strange humans, they are gone, devoured by the undead.
Still, trouble still lurks for the pair as there are still plenty of walkers outside. Connie is prepared to fight to the bitter death but, have no fear, Kelly turns out along with Carol and the others, and — finally — the siblings get a tearful reunion.
Honestly, I’m not crying, you’re crying.
Daryl is playing both sides to stay alive
Meanwhile, Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) is still playing at being a Reaper. And, seriously, it sucks to be Daryl this episode.
Frost (Glenn Stanton) is being interrogated and Pope (Ritchie Coster) decides Daryl should give it a shot as well.
Daryl goes in full hog, after all, he is playing a carefully managed game here. Gone are the days when a hot-headed Daryl will get people he loves immediately killed.
Except, he has had to weigh this up against whether Frost should be rescued or potentially save many others by giving the torture option offered to him a go.
Daryl chooses torture.
He manages to get the location of a yellow house out of Frost but, as soon as Daryl, Leah (Lynn Collins), and few other Reapers arrive there, viewers will have noted that Frost sent them to the house next to the actual rendezvous point.
Daryl gives a quick shake of some downed powerlines to alert Maggie’s (Lauren Cohan) group and they promptly hide.
Once the yellow house is searched, Daryl thinks everything is sweet but Leah wants to search the whole area and they immediately head next door, where they find evidence of people being there recently.
It doesn’t take Daryl long to work out Maggie’s group is hiding in a small hidey-hole under a rug and spends as much time as he can standing on the rug.
A search is done and all looks clear but one of the Reapers finally notices that there’s something under the rug and promptly opens the hatch.
Luckily, Maggie’s group has managed to slip away through a window by then and make it out alive.
Finally, Daryl and the Reapers head back to camp and are welcomed with a walker-fied Frost.
Also, Pope has gotten some further information out of him before he died and I’m pretty sure Daryl is going to be in another world of pain when The Walking Dead returns to his storyline.
Season 2 of The Walking Dead: World Beyond will premiere on October 3, 2021, on AMC.