The Walking Dead - S7E6 - Swear
Previously on The Walking Dead, “Go Getters”
The Walking Dead - S7E6 - “Swear” | Starring: Andrew Lincoln, Danai Gurira, Lauren Cohan, Chandler Riggs, Melissa McBride, Lennie James, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Sonequa Martin-Green, Norman Reedus, Alanna Masterson, Josh McDermitt, Christian Serratos, Seth Gilliam, Ross Marquand, Khary Payton
This week we meet another community of survivors after Tara (Masterson) and Heath (Corey Hawkins) get separated while on their run. They’ve been out for two weeks, and don’t have much to show for it. After killing the Saviors at their outpost, Heath has a very different outlook on this z-poc life. When a small herd of walkers cause them to split up, it’s not certain if Heath’s new “every man for himself” attitude led him to leave Tara behind or if he’s dead.
The bulk of the episode follows Tara as she washes up on the shore of a new community, Oceanside. It’s filled with women and young girls who all have a “shoot first; ask questions never” policy. Thanks to the kindness of their leader’s granddaughter, Cyndie (Sydney Park), Tara is spared an immediate death, but is handcuffed and questioned.
When it appears that they’ve decided to trust her, they offer Tara the opportunity to stay with them. The other alternative would be death to ensure Tara can never lead people who mean them harm to their community. Tara opens up about where she’s from, their run-in with the Saviors, and suggests they can work together.
They accept and two members of Oceanside plan to accompany Tara to where she last saw Heath and then travel back to Alexandria to start building relations with them. At this point it felt like the show wasn’t doing what we all assumed they would: make Oceanside shady or evil. From the moment Tara arrived, we were waiting to find out Oceanside killed all of their men and ate them; and things were looking a bit too good to be true. And it was. We should have trusted that instinct. The women try to kill Tara in the woods, and it’s because Tara gave them a bit too much information.
They are well aware of the Saviors, having watched them execute every man and boy over 10 in their community. Instead of putting up with Negan’s extortion, they ran and hid. Alexandria’s attack on Negan’s outpost is not something they want to be associated with, and who can blame them?
Once again, Cyndie saves Tara, but makes her swear she won’t tell her people about Oceanside. Tara promises. After a false alarm where Tara happened to find another black walker with braids near where she last saw Heath, Tara finds his glasses near tire tracks and a card with PPP on it. She hopes it means he got away, and via flashback we see he had her back until the moment they were separated.
After Tara makes it home, she finds out about Denise, Glenn, and Abraham, yet still keeps her word to Cyndie. When Rosita asks if she found anything that might help them fight back, Tara says no. I suspect we’ll see this coastal community again, but later rather than sooner.
While “Swear” wasn’t the most exciting episode - it really only served to introduce this new community and explain Hawkins’ absence while he works on 24 - I did throughly enjoy it. Alana Masterson is a delight to watch. When the character was first introduced, I wouldn’t have believed she’d get an hour to herself. They went for it, and the parts that worked are in large part to her. Masterson portrays Tara as honest, funny, loyal, and capable. Hopefully, they’ll continue to give her more to do.
The Walking Dead S7E6 = 7.6/
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Plot - 7/107/10
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Dialogue - 8.5/108.5/10
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Action - 7/107/10
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Performances - 8/108/10
For the podcast
It was an ok episode. Not the best but definitely not as bad as The Cell.
Tara was a lot of fun if a little to open about Alexandria. I like Cindy but Rachel gotta go. Kill first, ask questions never is a little too hardcore for a little girl. Is it bad that I really enjoyed Tara giving her the 🖕?
Nice to know Heath didn’t outright abandon Tara. He can pop up whenever now if he wants to.
That little bobble head was so cute. And so sad cause Denise is no more. So how long do you think it will take Tara to spill the beans about Oceanside? Will our folks be able to convince them to join the fight against the Saviors? Or at least get fish & guns from them.
Clearly the women in Team Family seem more ready to take on Negan. But could that be because he’s less likely to kill them than the men? Why did he kill all the men in Oceanside? That just seems like overkill. Maybe he hadn’t perfected his intimidation methods yet. It seems counterproductive if you ask me.
That’s it. While I don’t think we needed a whole episode of just Tara, it was nice to see her. Can’t wait to hear the podcast!
I feel like Negan himself isn’t doing all this. I feel people under him are.
While I was interested to see Tara and Heath again.. I did have low expectations as I just assumed it’d be a hour of them just looking for shit.. I’m happy I was wrong. I’ve always enjoyed Tara so I’m happy she got spotlight, I’m glad they kept Heath’s fate ambiguous as I feel has potential to be a big player and his character looks like they just took it off the comic pages and put it on screen. I’m also happy this community of women weren’t just another evil group. They weren’t saints (except for Lizzie 2.0) but had a valid enough reason for doing what they do IMO. I’m glad we’re at the point in The Walking Dead where there’s more then one good group in the show
I”ve been critical of the show often introducing very likeable people and then killing off them off fast for the advancement of plot or another character’s progression. I get it, I understand it, but it just annoys sometimes. I feel like Tara could’ve easily been that character but I’m so happy that in the post Glenn/Abraham WD that characters like her Rosita, Jesus, Ezekiel, Sasha, Aaron are able to step up and hopefully become new favorites
I’m personally mixed on bottle episodes. I feel the second half of 4 did it the best but I don’t mind this season’s approach as there hasn’t been any gimmick to have you completely not focus on what episode your watching and I enjoy the world building aspect. Placement wise, I feel this was way better with then the Morgan episode, a episode I really enjoyed but I feel it didn’t get it’s respect because it was RIGHT after “Did Glenn die?”. I’m enjoying this first half way more then I did the first half of 6 anyway.
Lastly, I don’t have any comic info so maybe this theory I have is off completely or the show will debunk as quickly as next sunday but I would like you guys take on it. I don’t think Negan is directly dealing with EVERY community that’s under his reign. I think it was guys like Simon, that dude on the bike from last season and the Paula chick who directly deals with these groups under his name and handles issues themselves like what they did to that library group in the finale. It seems that if the issue drags, that’s when it gets back to Negan. The people at Hilltop only knew of that one station and Kingdom seemed to have made a deal from the gate (aka. they ain’t want dem problems) and thus didn’t have to feel the Savior’s true force. Just my thoughts, can’t wait for the podcast
For the podcast:
I felt really badly for Tara when she comes back home and sees everything has gone to shit. She’s gotta be thinking, “I left lesbian paradise for this?!”
Also I was feeling for Alanna Masterson knowing she’s gotta be doing all this running and car-climbing so soon after having a baby. It ain’t easy doing all that jumping around with new-mommy titties.
For the podcast: I’m not a big Tara fan but i enjoyed this episode.
1. Oceanside group-that Aretha Franklin/eurythmics duet “sisters are doing it for themselves” comes 2 minds. The women rincluding bad seed rachelle seem more than well equipped 2 take care of themselves. I thought it cool rather than submit to negan & co they escaped & founded their own community. They appear 2 be formidable allies in the upcoming war against negan.
2. Were those 2 woman taking Tara 2 the bridge planning 2 kill her or Tara just decided to escape?
3. That scene @ bridge w/Tara & Heath then Tara & Cindy vs walkers was scary-I jumped a few times.😄
4. Any theories on Heath? Alive/dead? I forgot about him-did he always wear glasses? That bandanna is keeping those edges in check😄
5. Tara’s return to Alexandria was heartbreaking w/all that happened including losing Denise .
That’s all I have-hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend.
FOR THE PODCAST:
While I was happy to see Heath back, with facial hair, this episode was dumb. I don’t know if this is supposed to be considered a filler episode, but it didn’t move the plot forward, other than getting Tara back to Alexandria, and Heath in Kirkman’s new “black character purgatory.” Instead of killing him, we’ll probably just never see him again. The No New Friends lady camp was pointless, other than to show us Negan’s reach. Duh, we know that. All this was pointless. And I didn’t like how cool Tara was showing up Heath-less. Also, I lived in Alexandria, VA for a lot of years. There is no beach close to this area. The closest is in Virginia Beach, or Ocean City in MD. And they don’t look like THAT. It’s so obvious they’re filming in GA and that annoys me.
Whatever. Get some sleep, Nina! Can’t wait to hear the podcast!
Yea Nina take yo ass to 😴 so I don’t have to snitch 😏
For the podcast:
For the podcast
I’m pretty sure you guys are gonna talk about how ho him this episode, so let me go in another direction.
I never understood why you guys called Tara “Tits McGee”. I just thought she was just a normal woman. Man I was wrong. Her titties are huge. I promise I’m not a misogynist. Some of my best friends have big tits. In fact, I don’t even see titties. #AllTittiesMatter
They tried have her wear baggy clothes or strap them down, but she had too much screen time for me not to notice this time. Man I didn’t know. I didn’t know😞
For the record, we don’t call her that. Devin does.
Project Fandom
Duly noted. I knew I heard it somewhere
For the podcast:
Hope I’m not too late. This episode was trash. Why do we need even more random characters when we should be developing the ones we’ve got. I thought of Devin when Tara was hopping from car to car, but that is the only time I wasn’t bored out of my mind in this episode. Then again, I had just watched Westworld, which was quite literally fire.
Sure enough, we are going to skip over any kind of hatred Tara might have to the group for, I don’t know, getting her doctor girlfriend killed. Sure, any tears that she would have for losing Glenn are nothing in comparison to the fear she briefly experienced when mistaking Heath for a walker lady simply because, as we said before, the RPG hair sliders are too limited in the ZA apparently. At least we got bad jokes and fist bumps tho, when we could be getting to the good shit.
This season is going at a glacial pace, without developing anyone. By the time we get back to Zeke’s crew, Zeke and Carol will probably have made a whole family of Woke-a Mocha babies. Trash. Ass. Episode.
Dialogue was trash, direction was trash, plot was trash, music was trash - was this the Suicide Squad of episodes?
FOR THE PODCAST:
Sup fam, I really enjoyed this episode but I get why some don’t!! It didn’t need to be however long it was and I feel this leads to a question I have!! Seeing as though I compare everything to the greatest show on HBO Got, would the walking dead be better served to take the jumping around approach instead of this stand alone 💩 they seem to like doing?!? I feel if u the last 2 episodes were combined the story wouldn’t get as stale and you wouldn’t have the same reaction!!
Speaking of game of thrones, is Oceanside what Pyke will be like if Asha is in charge?!?!
Lastly is over/under how many episodes Rosita got left, ill set it at 1 1/2?!!
That’s all I got and I’m so glad to have Tits McGee byke!!! Can’t wait to hear the podcast ✌🏾️