Warning: This article contains spoilers from “The Walking Dead” Episode 615 The nice way to look at the latest “Walking Dead” episode is as the calm before the storm — i.e., next week’s finale, due to feature the much-trumpeted arrival of arch-villain Negan. This guy is getting more entrance hype than a WWE heel. Which is not cheapening “The Walking Dead,” no, not at all. The not-so-nice way of looking at Sunday’s episode is as a total snooze: “East” was one of the show’s most boring installments ever. And I have a very high tolerance for meandering detours — the Morgan-centric Season 6 episode “Here’s Not Here” is among my favorites. In “East,” the non-action alternates between two search parties, both of which take their sweet time to go nowhere. Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Morgan (Lennie James) take off after Carol (Melissa McBride). It’s still unclear why Carol felt the urge to leave the compound and her friends. What is she trying to accomplish exactly? What brought on her moral crisis? And why now? If only the writers had spent as much time exploring Carol’s motivations as they have drumming up Negan. By the way: Negan is going to be here soon, and he’s really bad! Just wanted to make sure you’re in the loop. Anyway, Morgan and Rick figure out that Carol ran into trouble on the road. (She did, but turns out this crybaby can still lay waste to any number of baddies.) Eventually, Morgan confesses to Rick that he’d kept a Wolf prisoner during the Battle of Alexandria. Problem is, this is rehashing old news at this point. Rick seems to feel the same, because he’s all like, “OK, that sucks, but where’s Carol?” He does realize that his newfound optimism was an illusion, though, as there are more Saviors left than initially thought. “We didn’t end it,” Rick says. “We started something.” Meanwhile, Daryl (Norman Reedus) goes out to find Denise’s (Merritt Wever) killers, and is followed by Glenn (Steven Yeun), Michonne (Danai Gurira) and Rosita (Christian Serratos). But it’s they who end up being ambushed, by Dwight (Austin Amelio) — the Two-Face of “The Walking Dead” — and his posse. Promptly, Dwight shoots someone who appears to be Daryl. “You’ll be all right,” is the last thing we hear. To sum up, this episode told us a whole lot of stuff we already knew: Carol is still badass. There are more Saviors than Rick thought. Walkers aren’t the most dangerous thing out there. When someone says, “Everything is going to be OK,” he’s 100 percent wrong. Oh, and haven’t you heard? Negan’s turning up next week.
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