AMC’s The Walking Dead
11×06: “On the Inside”
Directed by Greg Nicotero
Written by Kevin Deiboldt

* For a recap & review of 11×05, click here.
* For a recap & review of 11×07, click here.
We see Connie again with another familiar face, Virgil. They’re trying to get someplace safe, away from walkers. They make it to a big old house, breaking their way inside. But there are a lot of zombies out there, slowly piling up on the doorstep. At least Connie and Virgil have a place to hide for a bit. Quite the eerie Gothic manor. Virgil takes a look around upstairs to see if any walkers are hiding, or anyone else. Seems like the house is relatively safe inside. Yet Connie can’t relax, and she, like most of her friends, carries a lot of trauma around because of all she’s seen.

More of the Reapers.
Daryl sees the crew torturing someone ruthlessly, pulling out fingernails, but as he tells Pope: “I‘ve done worse.” Not great to see him becoming part of the Reapers, even if it’s only for the sake of survival currently. He’s playing Guantanamo Bay with his new friends and that’s troublesome, trying to extract info from Frost. Daryl threatens to cut the guy’s fingers off. Still, nothing. So Daryl cuts off a finger, threatening to take another, and the guy tells him about a yellow house. Even if what he’s doing is self preservation it’s awfully fucking nasty.
That house where Connie and Virgil are is super unsettling, even more so when she looks around the place and sees all the photos on the walls have their eyes crossed out. Definitely serial killer-type shit. Also really enjoy the moments when The Walking Dead places us directly in Connie’s perspective, using the sound design to elaborate on what her post-apocalypse world is like being deaf. I find the series is at its best, especially the older it’s gotten, when it explores different types of people, apart from straight, white, able-bodied folks.
Daryl goes out with a few Reapers, including Leah, to check out the yellow house. He’s not quite trusted by anybody but Leah. But he’s along for the ride nonetheless. While the others head for the yellow house we see Daryl keeping back and trying to signal his friends, who are nearby, in the place where Maggie and the others are hiding. The Reapers obviously find nothing at the decoy yellow house, but they’re determined to keep hunting the area.

Very creepy scene when Connie sees an eye peering back at her from behind the medicine cabinet upstairs. They’re not alone. That doesn’t convince Virgil. And quickly, they’re cut off from one another in the house as a door slides across the hallway, trapping Connie in the boarded up hallways. She tries to feel her way around, hearing something coming behind her, and it’s a horrific person, maybe a zombie, crawling on all fours trying to get at her. She hides away behind another door to escape.
The Reapers and Daryl end up at the house where Maggie’s hiding. They find nothing, though Daryl knows his friends are hiding. He tries to get the Reapers out and one of the assholes has a problem with it, wanting to keep searching the place. Leah’s sick of the male bullshit, so she orders them to do another sweep. “You‘re either with us, or you‘re not,” she tells Daryl. Carver nearly discovers Daryl’s pals beneath the floorboards but they’ve slipped out the back of the house already, escaping into the trees. When Leah, Daryl, and Carver get back they see Frost is dead. Pope says he got more info out of the man. Oh, fuck. Might spell danger for Daryl.

Whatever’s chasing Connie it seems more human the zombie. Something strange about it. Connie finds a bunch of human bones in the room where she’s trying to stay hidden. Then she sees the place shaking and the terrifying thing hunting her is almost inside with her. Although The Walking Dead is horror it’s not always traditional horror, and a lot of the terror comes out of the horrible things real people do to each other. This scene feels like something out of a classic 1980s flick with both Connie and Virgil running from whatever awful thing is in that house with them. Great stuff! Even the score becomes super classic horror music.
Virgil’s soon fighting for his life against that thing in the house. He gets help from Connie banging on the walls, distracting the thing, giving him time to stab it. The thing slinks away bleeding and Connie tries to get Virgil’s attention, though he starts stabbing the wall, sure it’s some other creature, zombie or otherwise, trying to get at him. Thankful for us ALL, Connie gets an arm through the wall before Virgil does any more stabbing.
WHAT IS THAT THING? Tell us more. Now! This is something else I enjoy about The Walking Dead, and something they haven’t done enough of—expanding the world within the show. Whatever that thing is in the house, it’s not your typical zombie. There are lots of hideous things happening in a world after the zombie apocalypse, from human-on-human crime, to experimenting on zombies, to god knows what else, and I love when the series touches on that deep darkness.

Also, there are a BUNCH OF THE THINGS! They’re like primitive people, men and women alike. One of them fucks Virgil up before Connie runs it off. The pair wind up cornered by a few of the things, so Connie uses zombie guts to cover herself, protecting Virgil, and she opens the front door, letting zombies in to fight the creatures. This gives them time to escape. But Virgil’s near death. Connie prepares to fight the things and she’s surprised by the arrival of none other than Kelly along with Carol and the others. Yet another wonderful reunion in this series.