Major spoilers for The Walking Dead below.
Remember at the end of last season when we were all like, “What are the Wolves, and why are they drawing Ws on people’s faces?” and “How many people are there besides those two guys that tried to kill Morgan?” Well, “JSS” didn’t exactly gives us any book cover-biography about everyone in the destructive group, but it showed us what their current goal is/was: stabbing people who live in Alexandria. Not a plan worthy of laminated blueprints, but an effective one just the same.
Last week’s fantastic premiere seemed like it might be hard to top this week, but the show was impressive on all fronts, as it filled the first episode’s narrative blanks and packed in a bunch of great moments. (Not the least of which was Carol cosplaying as Aphid and straight murdering fools.) The Wolves may not have proven themselves to be unstoppable opponents, but they were potent nonetheless, killing just about everyone in Alexandria that isn’t a main character. Wise choice they made there to do that.
"First Time Again" ended with a loud horn sounding off in the woods surrounding Alexandria, and it turned out to be a big truck that one of the Wolves rammed into an outer wall. But the murderous pack had already breached the boundaries and started shanking people with machetes. There was something more monstrous about this attack, though, as some of them were seen stabbing people way more than necessary. Of course, that was later shown to be happening on the Alexandrians' side, too, when Jessie overkilled that one cretin in her house as Ron watched.
More so than hacking into unrecognizable extras, the Wolves' presence in "JSS" taught us just how everyone in this crowd would reach in such a situation. Maybe it had something to do with Rick and Daryl being absent from the mayhem, but Carol stepped up as the biggest badass of all time, killing both for survival and for mercy, even while that bastard Ed wasn't far from her mind. Carl proved that he's not terrible at staying safe without adults around (although he still almost got himself killed.) Aaron, Spencer, Deanna and Ron are all at differing levels of survival knowledge, and Father Gabriel is still just a sad sack.
Then there's the always mysterious Morgan. He showed off just how superb his "stick" skills were, but it happened the most in a scene where he showed his hand and proved that he's apparently incapable of killing people now. Life is precious and all that, but he let a group of murderers go free, and then got all pissy with Carol when he killed off the person that he was probably going to let go free. He seems to actually kill that guy at the end of the episode, but I wouldn't be surprised if we just found him tied up next week. Don't go making me hate you already, Morgan.
Find out next week if the Wolves survivors bring their revenge back to Alexandria, or if it's just that massive herd of walkers that will give these guys trouble. The Walking Dead Season 6 airs Sunday nights on AMC.
