After weeks of Megaherds, Wolf attacks and more megaherds, last week’s episode of The Walking Dead might have seemed a little tame. Similarly, this week’s episode – despite focusing heavily on fan favorite Darryl Dixon – might have seemed a little slow. Although despite its rather straightforward and uneventful plot, this week’s episode gave us some EXTREMELY important set-ups for future episodes – including confirmation on … THAT spooiler-filled thing.

So with only two episodes left this midseason, let’s take a Closer Look at this week’s episode of The Walking Dead “Always Accountable”.

Episode Meaning – Learning To Be “Always Accountable”:

As always, the episode title has more than just one reference point, which makes sense since this episode followed two stories. The obvious meaning of this title is found – and literally said – with Sasha and Abraham storyline. Last season we saw Sasha becoming more and more detached after Bob and Tyreese died. With everyone close to her dead, she grew reckless and lost herself in the thrill of the kill. She felt as dead as the walkers around her and sought to kill as many as she could – even at the cost of her own life. This is why in the “Previously On” intro we saw her lying in that walker grave again.

Abraham currently has been going through a similar withdrawal, but for much different – albeit reminiscent – reasons. Abraham hasn’t lost anyone and to be honest everything seems really chill at Alexandria. So what’s the problem? The problem is that like his past two freak outs, he’s lost his mission. Things are too calm at Alexandria and with no real mission, he’s looking for his rush in other ways. He thinks he’s reached the end of the road. Though just because everyone is safe, there are still battles to come. No one is always safe and they can’t loose their heads and think only of themselves and the rush. They will ALWAYS be ACCOUNTABLE and they have to act accordingly.

So where does Darryl’s story fit into this narrative thematically? Well we don’t learn that until the end when after everything Darryl’s done, the people he saved turn on him and return to their ‘saviors’. I’ll get to the Saviors in a moment; but if you’re wondering WHY they’d go back to them simple. They told us already. When Darryl said that the ‘promise of safety’ is a clear lie in this world, we hear how if you’re desperate enough you’d believe it. These two might be good people; but they ARE that desperate. They are afraid to “always be accountable” for themselves, and would rather trust their safety to the group they know.

The Saviors Have Risen:

Who in the apocalypse has enough vehicles, weapons and manpower to mount a ‘revenge trip’ just to track down three runaways? Well as comic fans would have quickly surmised, this episode just introduced us to the infamous survivor group called “The Saviors”. In the comics – and as we learned in this episode – the Saviors were a group of survivors who rose to power by offering people protection in exchange for goods. By trading goods, you earned their protection and stealing from them – or hindering their progress – was not a recommendable path.

With the mega herd surrounding Alexandria at this moment, it’s safe to say the Saviors won’t be expanded upon this half season; but the battle with them has already begun to be set up and will most likely take center stage in the next half of this season.

Quite Bites – Easter Eggs, Quotes & Other Notables:

• This episode begins before the end of last week’s episode considering it is still daytime.
• It’s a miracle that Tina made it this long in the apocalypse as a diabetic. Constantly needing insulin and testing your sugar would have been exceptionally difficult in this world. This paints a picture of just how much the Saviors have in terms of supplies.
• Let’s add “Loose ends make my ass itch” to the long list of Abraham gems
• If you climb out on a mangled fence just to fetch an RPG off a live zombie’s back and then have a screaming match with it … you MIGHT have a problem.
• Did anyone else think that RPG would fall, explode and blow everything up?
• A crate full of RPGs and cigars, I think we just found out how to take care of the mega herd… and celebrate after lol
• Wait, was that Glenn’s voice? Was the theory of him climbing under the dumpster as Nick was ripped to shreds right? He sounded super tired and shaken though… which makes sense.
• When the newcomers said they’re sorry and Darry said “You will be”, will that foreshadow “vengeance” or them being punished by the ‘Saviors’. Guess we’ll see them again … or at least part of them.
• FYI, Patty was the truck Darryl later found. It’s hard to understand if that was the originally truck they used to light the walkers on fire or a new truck hidden by a mystery person. Additionally, it’s hard to know why they wanted the truck again if it was a new truck.

Next week we head back to Alexandria for the most part as we set the stage for the massive midseason finale. Glenn’s possibly still alive? The walls are bleeding, which could mean that the walkers are crushing walkers and might eventually break the walls – or climb them? There’s only two more episodes this midseason, so the lull of the last two episodes will be more than made up very soon.

So check back next week as the sh*t starts to hit the fan… I mean walkers hit the walls.