9.10: The Walking Dead - Omega

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A captive or a refugee? A new arrival at the Hilltop opens up about the leader of a group of mask-wearing savages. A search party sets out on a daring mission to find two missing friends.

 

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I really didn't guess that this was Whisperer's leader Alpha centric episode. If my memory serves well, we have only seen Governor's and Martha's backstories before. Negan never got one. Wolves were never explained and Terminus was passed completely. Nevertheless, Hail Alpha, the angry mum of the Skinwalkers AKA Whisperer's! You are truly terrible (in a horrible kind of way).

It didn't surprise me that some people thought there were going to be able to sit out the zombie apocalypse in a fallout shelter at some house basement. The hind sight would have told them to read the Zombie Survival Guide and find shelter from upstairs, after demolishing the stairs. It's just TWD world never had zombie genre and all things came as a surprise.

I'll bet they didn't had much of horror genre literature either and we can skip all things dead in their culture. Well, almost all as the Mexico still have their Day of the Dead.

I think Daryl made a right choice by listening in to the cell mates conversation. It makes me to believe that he did do some time in Juvenile Correction Facilities before the apocalypse, as he would recognise that the cell mates share their stories.

I loved that Henry the Horny Teenager used line: "I'm not gonna lie but walking around wearing dead people skin is pretty horrible." But he didn't understood that same way he was getting to know Lydia, he was revealing details to Alpha's daughter.

Why is that he cannot understand that revealing details is no good as without information the Whisperer's will imagine things that might not be there? Not that it would matter anyway, because Alpha had already acquired hostages and put them in between the rock and hard place to reveal the information.

Lydia claimed that Alpha is much like Henry's "mum" Carol, but the way I see is that she's more closer to Martha's madness than Carol's restrained psychopathic tendencies. They are all strong females, there is no doubt about that, but as it was with Martha Alpha lost it. And then the dead became the way for the survival.

When Alpha was doing her first victim, she was shouting: "You are weak." I guess she's right, because it takes a lot of willpower to be able to cross the country with a hoard and be wearing that awful skinsuit all the time.

It certainly would mess your mind to be always with the dead.

Those are not some random cuts. They are the first sing that you're marching towards death by your own hand. Maybe the suicide is an option for Lydia, but I'm pretty certain if that would happen, it would drive Alpha totally bonkers.

I don't think the Rickland can stand the wrath of a mum, who can control the Dead. But then Lydia went and claimed that her mum was doing the beating and it stank to high heaven. There is not a word that I would've believed coming from Lydia.

How do we really know that the flashbacks aren't fabrication of Lydia's reality? When Henry the Horny Teenager took her out for the stroll, she showed a series of flashes that showed ever deepening madness that is Lydia's life. In a way Henry is right, normality could heal her, but seeing her fiddling with a hammer tells me: "No."

Although Henry's interventation might have broken Lydia, it also told us that her mum is leading their group at the edge of madness. The Whisperer's are true nomads, and because they can control the dead, they are truly scary.

I assume that they have at least 50 living and hundreds, if not thousands of dead in their group. Against bows and spears they are scary? So does this mean that Eugene stopped making ammo or did he finish reloading all of it and they stockpiled it somewhere for the rainy day?

 

[REBerg]

This episode spent a lot of time "turning" Lydia. I hope it will be worth the effort.
She was close to rearranging Henry's noggin with that hammer before a crying baby made her think that places like the Hilltop may be possible, despite her mother's brainwashing. I still wouldn't turn my back on her.
Too much time was also spent on Alpha's backstory. Was that an effort to make Lydia's mother seem like a sympathetic character driven to evil by apocalyptic circumstances? I was not convinced.
Why didn't the Hilltop archers take immediate advantage of the Whispers appearance for a little target practice? They were all lined up so nicely, with Alpha right up front.
Taking Alpha out might not have ended the crisis, but cutting off the head of the snake is standard practice when dealing with an organized enemy. An golden opportunity wasted.

 

[ctg]

Why didn't the Hilltop archers take immediate advantage of the Whispers appearance for a little target practice? They were all lined up so nicely, with Alpha right up front.

I thought they had people in the fields and they couldn't risk agitating the group for the risk of putting them out there as targets.

Taking Alpha out might not have ended the crisis, but cutting off the head of the snake is standard practice when dealing with an organized enemy. An golden opportunity wasted.

She's an easy target for a rifleman. They all are. I'd say bring out the dakka-dakka's and let loose, because we know there's going to be a fight sooner than later. To me Alpha seems like a person who you cannot negotiate with at any circumstances. She's more like a give-her-a-finger and she'll- take-whole-arm type of person.

 

[REBerg]

To me Alpha seems like a person who you cannot negotiate with at any circumstances. She's more like a give-her-a-finger and she'll- take-whole-arm type of person.

I have no doubt about the finger she has coming.

 

[svalbard]

Henry is the village idiot.

 

[nixie]

Henry for a surviour he is very naive, he's been too sheltered. Judith has better instinct. Leave them both to fend from themselves my money would be on Judith to be the one to come through.

Lydia, I don't trust, learned to play the victim she'll turn as soon as opportunity arises.

I agree, alpha is closer to Martha than any other villain we've seen.

 

[svalbard]

Ignoring my own glib post up above this was a very good episode. As an introduction to Alpha(I love Samantha Morton, she is a fantastic actor) it was excellent.

Part of my problem with Henry is that the guy playing him is not a good actor and his naivety just comes across as stupidity. Conversely I am perplexed by Lydia. I want to believe her but she has disaster for Hilltop written all over her face.

 

[ctg]

Lydia, I don't trust, learned to play the victim she'll turn as soon as opportunity arises.

Conversely I am perplexed by Lydia. I want to believe her but she has disaster for Hilltop written all over her face.

You are both saying the same thing. Nobody should trust Lydia or anything that comes from Alpha's mouth. It's very likely that they are both too far gone to the dark side that it would take far too long to get it straight, even if they had real psychiatric help.

Did all shrinks die in the apocalypse?

 

[nixie]

Well they do have medical training, not a good omen for survival.

 

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The situation is really complicated because Whisperer's started slaughtering Rickland citizens. Lydia claimed that they've avoided larger groups before for their own survival. Now, in this time, they did strike first, therefore they made communications really difficult, instead of sending in a diplomat/ambassador first to open negotiations.

 

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In Sunday night's Episode 9x10, The Walking Dead gave Alpha a backstory which was unique to the TV series (complete with a husband named Frank). "It’s a dream within a dream within a flashback within a what is real? Because we all have that anyway," Morton explained of the origin story to EW. "You can go into a room and have a meal with somebody, and both of those individuals have then said, 'Okay, write down your versions of what happened at dinner and how you’re feeling,' and they’ll come up with totally different interpretations." The actress is referencing Lydia's memory of the early days of the apocalypse which were influenced by the lifestyle which followed it.

In those sequences, Alpha took on her true-to-the-comics look by shaving her head in an on-screen sequence. "That was my real hair," Morton explained. "What we did, my hair was kind of down to my waist, and I stupidly cut it before going to Atlanta, thinking that would help me when I went bald. But I didn’t realize we were going to go back, and that you saw the long hair. And so we decided that we were going to keep my hair, which was in a bob, and then just cut it on camera. Just go for it."

Morton really is just going for it. By the end of the episode, she was seen in full Alpha mode, complete with eye-black and a bald head outside of the Hilltop. As a result, some of the other cast members are sometimes intimidated by her presence.

"I think people do find her scary, so that’s a good thing, I think," Morton explained. "They genuinely do. So I’m chuffed with that because I can just be the character then. I don’t have to kind of behave like some villain. I think you just be, don’t you? And then I think all that makeup really helps. It’s a bit mad."

Morton is certainly enjoying the darker side of her character in the present timeline but telling the story of how she became the shows next villain was a particular treat for her. "I loved it," she said, going back to the sequence in which she cut her hair off. "It just feels very real, and what the audience is seeing is real, you know? And there’s emotions about that, but the practicalities for pre-Alpha is that the hair, she’s turning herself into something. She’s metamorphosing from a caterpillar to a butterfly, but not the nicest butterfly, you know? She’s completely changing who she is, and whether that’s trauma and something to do with the brain, or that she just found her true self that she’s able to be because of what’s happening to the world."

'The Walking Dead': Samantha Morton Dives into Whisperer Flashback Story

Some Walking Dead viewers aren’t feeling the growing relationship between Henry (Matt Lintz) and Lydia (Cassady McClincy) of the Whisperers.

Talking Dead host Chris Hardwick on Sunday revealed poll results asking fans if they “ship” Henry and Lydia, with Hardwick reporting 73 percent of audience members polled voted against the budding romance.

Henry and Lydia, both jailed at Hilltop, quickly grew close after Henry defended the captured Whisperer against intense interrogation under Daryl (Norman Reedus). Insisting she’s a good person, Henry later temporarily freed Lydia from her cell and held her hand when comforting her overnight.

Henry, who doesn’t exist in The Walking Dead comic books, is a surrogate for Carl Grimes (Chandler Riggs) as result of the latter being killed off midway through last season.

The books established a relationship between Carl and Lydia, laying groundwork for conflict between parents Rick Grimes and Alpha.

That plotline is expected to play out in the show between Henry’s adoptive mother Carol (Melissa McBride) and Alpha (Samantha Morton) after 910, ’Omega,’ foreshadowed a clash between the dangerous mothers.

Though Daryl manipulated Henry into opening up to Lydia in an attempt to draw forth information about her mysterious group, Daryl found himself connecting with Lydia when she admitted a traumatic history under her cold and abusive mother.

“I think Norman plays all the stuff related to that character’s abuse so well, just all the complexities of that. That Lydia has the upbringing that she has, we just immediately kind of jumped to Daryl as such an interesting character to cross with her because he has had a horrible childhood,” showrunner Angela Kang told EW.

“He’s kind of risen above it in so many ways, even though there are still parts of himself that he struggles with. We thought that that was a really interesting opportunity to tell stories with people who have such trauma in their lives and are just trying to cope with it as they move forward in this apocalypse.”

Henry’s empathy towards Lydia is inspired in part by parents Carol and Ezekiel (Khary Payton), standing in direct contrast to Lydia’s upbringing under the barbaric and nomadic Whisperers.

“Henry really is the one that’s outside of that in some ways, but trying to empathize. He’s had a very lovely childhood,” Kang said.

“Obviously, fraught with loss, but has had loving, supportive people raising him, which is just a completely different kind of background for him. He has such sympathy though and empathy for these people who weren’t as lucky as him in that way. That’s been really fun for us to write too.”

‘The Walking Dead’: 73 Percent of ‘Talking Dead’ Voters Oppose Henry and Lydia Romance

 

[Judderman]

Hilltopcannot give Lydia back due to her knowledge from Henry The Imbecilic. So may as well open fire while they can cull their numbers down.

 

[Dave]

Yes, Henry wasn't in on the deal. He really is just an imbecile. I think they want to show him as "young" but the trouble is that no one would be so "young" in a place where you must grow up fast or die. When taken together with the earlier, drinking episode, and contrasted with the depiction of Judith, he just appears incredibly thick.

Hilltop is in need of a strong leader. Everyone just does their own thing now. That's dangerous.