The Walking Dead Season 7: 3 Ups & 6 Downs From 'Swear'

2. Still Hardly Any Progression

The best/most interesting episode of the season so far was, for me, The Well. It introduced a very intriguing new community, with an eccentric and charismatic leader (and his pet tiger!), and had two of the show's strongest stalwarts at its centre. That was episode 2, and we've not seen the Kingdom, Ezekiel, Carol, or Morgan since.

The second best episode was The Cell. We got to explore the Sanctuary, it fleshed out Dwight far beyond just being a Saviour, and worked hard on breaking down Daryl. That was episode 3. Since then, we've not returned, Dwight's gone back to being one of Negan's loyal attack dogs, and Daryl has been briefly seen but not heard.

There's a pattern emerging there. The Walking Dead's seventh season has used single episodes to establish a location and character arcs, then totally left them behind for multiple episodes. One away from Carol and co would've been fine. Two understandable. Three is pushing it. Four? Come on.

All of the tantalising threads of this season get left hanging, as they pile new location on top of new location. Maggie's grief wasn't explored until episode 5. That, in turn, established Jesus and Carl were on their way to the Sanctuary - another potentially interesting story ignored here. They do go back to Rosita at the end, which is something, but don't build on her story - the bullet, the desire to kill Negan - in a truly significant way. Even the meat of this episode doesn't progress too much, although it's likely we haven't seen the last of Oceanside. It's just another week of trudging along, while most of the interest stories stand still.