The Walking Dead Awards: Welcome to Ezekiel’s Kingdom

Season 7, Episode 2: It’s fruit time!
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The Walking Dead The Well
Ezekiel

Photograph by Gene Page/AMC

(Spoilers ahead)

Each week, we comb through the guts of The Walking Dead, much like a horde of hungry walkers, to bring you the episode’s best moments, surprises, and other post-apocalyptic curiosities. This week: Ezekiel eats a pomegranate. Carol eats a chocolate. The Saviors eat a pig.

Season 7, Episode 2: “The Well”

Brilliant agricultural solution: Did you notice that some of the planters were actually file cabinets? As the Kingdom used to be a Washington, D.C., high school, we’re really hoping the permanent records that once lived in those cabinets are now mulch.

Biggest question: Breakfast cobbler is pretty easy to figure out, but what on Earth goes into a lunch cobbler? Is it just a deconstructed ham sandwich?

Second biggest question: Ezekiel’s metaphor about filling the well after you drink from it is a great example of how to run a community, but did anyone actually see a well anywhere in the Kingdom?

Spoiler alert: Ben wouldn’t spoil the ending of the air conditioning repair manual for Morgan, but a quick Google search revealed the number one problem with HVAC units is busted fuses.

Chronic dry eye: Watch the scene where Ezekiel meets Carol and tell us if he blinks. Seriously. The man does not blink. It’s highly unsettling.

Best CGI: Shiva the Tiger looks way better than the first time we saw Abigail the Boat on Fear the Walking Dead. (Shiva is also half animatronics, according to executive producer Greg Nicotero.)

Best cameo: Fans of fellow filmed-in-Georgia AMC drama Halt and Catch Fire will immediately recognize Jerry, Ezekiel’s right-hand man, as Yo-Yo (Cooper Andrews). Best of all, he’s basically the same character in both shows.

Fun fact: Cooper Andrews is also a Boom Operator.

Most petty revenge: If you had to give half your stuff to Negan, and that stuff included freshly slaughtered hogs, you might as well make sure their last meal was zombie meat. It’s the post-apocalyptic version of spitting on the Saviors’ food.

When you play the game of thrones . . .  Did anyone else think back to the garden scenes from season one of Game of Thrones when Ezekiel and Carol were talking in the Kingdom’s gardens?

Biggest green thumb: In case you were wondering, you can actually grow pomegranates in Washington, D.C., but getting them through the winter may be tough.

Best line: “I don’t know what the hell is going on in the most wonderful way.” —Carol

Best kill: A walker being eaten alive (well, undead) by feral pigs.

Most disturbing image: The walker whose face falls off after being axed by a knight of the Kingdom. Adding to the ick factor, the ax didn’t strike down on the walker; it hit horizontally. The face fell off solely due to decay.

Episode MVP: Has any TWD character had a more intriguing backstory than Ezekiel? Yes, he is totally profiting from being king of, well, the Kingdom, but the reason why, as he explains it to Carol, seems very genuine: The people need a leader; he can be what they need. Plus, he saved a tiger’s life. Twice.

And sadly, Rick was absent from this episode, so we can’t pinpoint him on the Rick calm/crazy scale. But based on last week’s episode, we’ll give you three guesses as to his current emotional state.

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