The Walking Dead Season 7 Episode 6 Review

The Walking Dead

Swear

Season 7 Episode 6 Review

**SPOILERS FOR THE SHOW, EPISODE AND COMICS FOLLOW, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK**

Back in last season, after Rick and company assassinated a bunch of Saviors while they slept (they thought they had killed them all, including Negan, those foolish people), Tara and Heath decided to depart for a two-week supply run.  It was weird that it was the two of them, since they never really had any connection on the show, but in reality it was because Corey Hawkins (Heath) was filming his new show "24: Legacy", and Alanna Masterson (Tara) was about to have a baby.  So the writers sent them off to accomplish those real life goals, and they were blissfully unaware of the terror the rest of Alexandria has faced, including Negan's subjugation of the colony, the deaths of Abraham and Glenn (the former would totally wreck Tara since Glenn was the one who rescued her after the Governor's attack on the prison), and the death of Denise, who was Tara's second girlfriend on "The Walking Dead" to die.   I was hoping Tara wouldn't return because she is one of the few upbeat, positive, funny characters on the show and seeing her completely wrecked would really suck.

So we finally get an episode entirely centered on Tara and Heath, two fan-favorite characters with a lot of on-air screen time beforehand and people audiences have been lambasting the directors to give more airtime.  Not really.  Actually forgot who Heath was, and even though I absolutely love Tara, she didn't need an entire episode to herself.

The show split the events out of chronological order,  but I'll review it in chronological order.  Tara and Heath aren't finding much in the ways of supplies, and Heath wants to go back, but Tara wants to go farther.  Heath is still shaken up over killing those Saviors, but Tara said it needed to be done.  They try to cross a bridge but Tara accidentally unleashes a horde of Walkers that were trapped in some form of dirt or cement or something, and the two get separated.  Heath tries to protect Tara but gets surrounded, while Tara falls off the bridge into the water.

She washes ashore where two girls - Rachel the younger (who has strikingly eerie resemblances of former psycho girl Lizzie) and Cyndie (the older, more rational girl) - find her unconscious.  Tara comes to and follows Cyndie back to her community, which is hidden in the woods and entirely comprised of women.  I can't help but laugh at this fact, since Tara is the only openly lesbian character on the show, and seeing a town full of only women would probably be the best thing for her, except she thinks she still has a girlfriend back home (unfortunately, she had been shot through the eye with an arrow while Tara was away).

The community discovers her and shoots on sight, but since they're about as proficient with firearms as an Imperial Storm Trooper, they manage to miss her at every shot.  She manages to get the upper hand on one of the women but chooses not to kill her, which causes Cyndie to once again save her life.  The leader of the community, Natania, is Cyndie's grandmother and she and two other women (one of whom is the one Tara spared) interrogate her, and Tara lies (terribly) that she and Heath were alone for years trying to survive, and Natania invites Tara to dinner.  There she offers Tara a home at Oceanside, but Tara doesn't want to live there, and comes clean about Alexandria and how they massacred the Saviors at their outpost (not the best topic for dinner conversations).  She then asks why there's no men, and Natania tells her that they had a run-in with the Saviors, and they massacred any male over the age of ten.

The next day Natania lets Tara go with two scouts, but it's not as happy as it seems because Tara senses something is off, and escapes as the women try to kill her per Natania's orders.  They don't want anyone outside the community to know they're there, and will kill anyone outside their community.  Thankfully Cyndie once again saves Tara, and the two make it to the bridge, where they fight off the Walker horde - thankfully Cyndie is a great shot and takes out several of the Walkers from a distance.

Tara doesn't find Heath, but locates fresh tire tracks signaling that he made it past the horde and either escaped on his own, or with other people.  She makes it back to Alexandria where Eugene tells her of the horrors they've encountered since she was gone.  Rosita then confronts her and asks if she found any community where there would be guns, but having sworn an oath to Cyndie to never tell anyone about Oceanside, Tara tells her that she didn't find anything useful.

"Swear" is another episode that was way too drawn out and could've been incorporated with another B-story.  While I absolutely adore Tara's character and the actress who plays her, she couldn't hold an entire episode on her own. Still, her charisma, childlike innocence and dry wit was entertaining enough if there had been something going on in between.

We did get introduced to Oceanside, another new community mentioned in the comics.  However, in the comics, it's not introduced until after the war with Negan, has both men and women, and are only really mentioned in one comic.  They have a trade deal with Alexandria and Hilltop and supplies fish for the communities, and it's there that Michonne sets sail and becomes a fisherwoman for awhile.  Clearly, they're heading in a new direction with this town on the series, and I hope to see it again.

There was one scene that was downright insulting to the audience, and it happened after Tara crossed the bridge.  All the Walkers were covered in white dirt, but there was one Walker that wasn't.  A Walker that was wearing a blue shirt (like Heath), dreadlocks (like Heath), and African American (like Heath).  Tara - and us - thought Heath didn't make it out alive, but when the Walker turned we saw that it was a woman.  It was a clear way the producers tried to manipulate the audiences' feelings, much like the ill-fated Glenn dumpster save, and wasn't really necessary.

The other disappointing scene was at the very end.  Tara thought everything in Alexandria was hunky dory.  Glenn and Abraham were alive, Negan was killed, and Denise would be waiting for her with open arms.  Instead, Glenn - who rescued Tara back at the prison - was dead.  Abraham - who was very close with Tara - was also dead.  Negan was alive and well and tormenting the town.  And Denise was also deceased.  This would've been a goldmine of acting talent on the part of Alanna Masterson in dealing with all these terrible events, but it was done in a montage moment where we only see her after hearing the news, now just in a shellsock kind of state.  A true waste of a really talented actress.

The Score: B-