Heads Up (The Walking Dead)

"Heads Up"
The Walking Dead episode
Rosita berates Eugene over the loss that will come to him if he doesn't learn how to fight.
Episode no.	Season 6 Episode 7
Directed by	David Boyd
Written by	Channing Powell
Original air date	November 22, 2015 (2015-11-22)
Running time	43 minutes
Guest appearance(s)
Merritt Wever as Dr. Denise Cloyd Jason Douglas as Tobin Kenric Green as Scott Ann Mahoney as Olivia Austin Abrams as Ron Anderson Major Dodson as Sam Anderson

"Heads Up" is the seventh episode of the sixth season and 74th episode overall of the post-apocalyptic horror television series The Walking Dead, which aired on AMC on November 22, 2015. The episode was written by Channing Powell and directed by David Boyd.

This episode reveals the unresolved fate of Glenn Rhee after the episode "Thank You" and builds tension for the mid-season finale "Start to Finish." It adapts the rope-climbing scene from issue #81 of the comic.

Plot

Following the events of "Thank You", the walkers tear into Nicholas' corpse, which is on top of Glenn. Glenn crawls underneath a dumpster and stays there until the next day as the walkers disperse. Enid throws Glenn a water bottle; he follows her into a thrift shop and she tells him she fled when the Wolves attacked Alexandria, and runs off. Despite his concerns for Maggie's safety, when Glenn kills a zombified David and reads his note for Betsy, Glenn realizes he has to go after Enid.

In Alexandria, Rick inspects the walls then with Carl gives Ron handgun lessons. Ron is eager to shoot, but Rick won't let him touch live ammunition. Later, Ron sneaks into the armory and steals cartridges for his pistol.

Carol informs on Morgan who admits to Rick and Michonne that he let the Wolves, that subsequently attacked Rick in the RV, escape. Morgan points out how Rick once spared him, and he saved Daryl and Aaron from a Wolves' trap, which helped lead the Wolves to attack Alexandria. Morgan confesses that he doesn't know what's right anymore and wanted to kill the Wolves for what they'd done but also knows people can change, and wants to uphold his belief that all life is precious.

Glenn tracks Enid to a family restaurant and refuses to let her go, even when she brandishes a handgun, Enid begrudgingly gives in to his determination. On their way back to Alexandria, Enid finds green balloons and decides to use them to distract the walkers. The two arrive at Alexandria, but find it surrounded by walkers.

Having earlier noticed the bullet hole in the wall with blood spilling out of it, Rick busies himself reinforcing that part of the wall. Tobin joins him and explains that Rick's group brought a lot of changes with them but the Alexandrians are adapting and he shouldn't give up on them. While Rick loudly hammers on the wall, many walkers can be heard gathering on the other side.

Meanwhile, Spencer decides to escape Alexandria by using a grappling hook to climb to the new church just beyond the wall. The hook breaks, and Spencer slams into the wall before falling to the ground. Tara climbs onto a beam onto the other side of the wall, shooting walkers around Spencer as Rick and Tobin pull him up. Rick scolds Tara for risking her life to save him before yelling at Spencer. Spencer explains he wanted to find a car to draw the walkers away, the same plan Rick had earlier proposed to Michonne but refused to include any Alexandrians.

Morgan visits Denise and while reluctant to get her involved tells her that someone else has been wounded in secret. Carol sees Morgan and Denise leaving the infirmary and watches them go into his house. She follows them and tries to sneak into the basement apartment, demanding to know who Morgan is keeping inside.

Ron, carrying a handgun, walks behind Carl, but everyone is distracted by the green balloons in the sky. Maggie realizes it's a signal from Glenn and runs to Rick and Deanna. The burned out tower of the old church which had been shown deteriorating throughout the episode tips and falls onto the wall right where Rick and Tobin had been reinforcing it.

Production

With this episode, Steven Yeun, who plays Glenn, is added back into the opening credits. His name had been removed for the previous three episodes after "Thank You" had left his status unknown.

Reception

Critical reception

The episode received mixed reviews from critics. It currently holds a 52% rating with an average score of 7.2 out of 10 on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The critics' consensus reads: "with "Heads Up", The Walking Dead offers the resolution to a major cliffhanger, but with frustrating results."^[1]

Matt Fowler of IGN gave it a 7.0 out of 10 and wrote in his verdict: "The best parts of "Heads Up" were definitely the beginning - which finally cleared up the whole Glenn debate/debacle - and the very end when the building came crashing down, breaking the town's big barrier. Everything else was just there to lead us up to bigger things. Bigger developments. Better stories. This one contained a lot of recycled themes, including Rick still considering everyone outside of his group (with Deanna as the exception, and Gabriel as the reverse exception) as the equivalent of "Redshirts" on Star Trek."^[2]

Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave it a B and wrote, "'Head's Up' opens and closes with a bang, the former metaphorical, the latter implied. In between those two dramatic explosions, there's a lot of talking."^[3]

Brian Moylan of The Guardian gave it a less favorable review, saying: "Glenn is alive, and The Walking Dead will never be the same.... It would rather kill off a main character than pull a lame switcheroo. Until now."^[4]

Ratings

The episode averaged a 6.7 rating in adults 18-49 and 13.22 million viewers overall,^[5] a rise from the previous episode, which averaged a 6.5 rating in adults 18-49 and 12.87 million viewers overall.^[6]

References

External links

• "Heads Up" at AMC
• "Heads Up" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Heads Up" at TV.com