It’s a shame, but we’ll cross that bridge (or dither away a few episodes figuring out if we even want to) when we come to it. Considered on its own, season 6’s mid-season premiere finds The Walking Dead in fine form. Over the course of the 42-minute opener, a tolerable amount is spent on characters bemoaning their present circumstance, or reanimating the same “What’s the point of going on?” conversation that gets beaten to death every other week. Stable director Greg Nicotero spends far more effort on guiding the various cliffhangers from November to entertaining conclusions. But in the process, he captures The Walking Dead at its most visceral and appealing.
The show always gets a little extra leeway to recalibrate after coming back from break, but “No Way Out” does one better, decisively lopping off dead weight as if it were a zombie-noshed extremity. It doesn’t take a particularly nuanced approach to address some of the show’s problem elements (ask any two people, and they’ll offer completely different lists of what those are), but the premiere makes sacrifices that help to restore the air of momentum and danger that escaped The Walking Dead well before the Glenn debacle. The best thing I can say about “No Way Out” is that it puts seemingly invulnerable characters in tight jams at multiple points, and you often don’t know how merciful or brutal the resolution is going to be.
These bite-sized thrills are what The Walking Dead is good for, in addition to the reliably stellar work from the production team. We’re long since past the point where the show could develop a worldview more complicated than “Boy, people sure can be awful,” and when The Walking Dead’s rubber-band nihilism temporarily snaps back to offer a glimmer of hope, only a fool puts any stock in it (based on online chatter, we’re heading into territory from the comics that’s significant because… someone important dies horribly. Sounds like fun.). The show’s gross-out bravado and action are still top drawer, however. Nicotero manages more than a half-dozen moodily striking or grimly hilarious images before the hour is done, and the hints of John Carpenter that synth composer Bear McCreary added to the season’s score continue to work wonders.
“No Way Out” spares no dramatic or financial expense, which sets an exciting pace for the season’s final eight episodes. But with each of the premiere’s close-ups of gruesomely detailed walker guts or lovely effects-assisted compositions, you’re left to wonder which episode later on is going to have to pick up the tab. On the whole, The Walking Dead continues to be just good enough to offset its lengthy troughs with sudden highs like “No Way Out.” It’s just unfortunate that it can’t always be operating in the red.
