The Walking Dead Review: The Cell (Season 7 Episode 3)
Season 7 overall has been off to a pretty slow start plot-wise, and that continued in The Walking Dead Season 7 Episode 3, “The Cell.”
For comparison, by the end of Season 6 Episode 3, a huge herd of walkers was on its way to Alexandria, and the Wolves had invaded. That episode also ended with the controversial “is Glenn dead?” cliffhanger.
The first three episodes of Season 7 have mostly been spent just getting to know new communities and characters.
Just like how a good deal of last week’s episode was spent getting to know King Ezekiel, much of “The Cell” was spent getting to know Dwight, played by Austin Amelio, who was promoted to series regular this year after making a few appearances in Season 6.
“The Cell” does show Daryl’s failed escape attempt from the Saviors, but Dwight is the one who really dominates the hour.
Going back to the Season 6 comparison, those first three action-packed episodes were followed by “Here’s Not Here,” a Morgan-centric standalone that was fantastic, but very poorly placed within the season, slowing its momentum down somewhat.
With that in mind, the insight into one of Negan’s top men is welcome so early in the season this year considering that things haven’t really gotten rolling yet. It’s better do it now than to slow things down later once the action does get moving (which will hopefully be soon).
Although both this week and last week’s episodes were light on plot, the expanded look at Dwight was more interesting than the introduction to Ezekiel, which dragged a bit.
We learn about Dwight’s history with Negan, and it definitely feels like they’re setting him up to potentially turn on Negan at some point down the line.
Dwight believes he made the right choice by becoming one of Negan’s men, but he also seems to desperately need others — Daryl and the man who escapes the Saviors — to make the same choice so he can continue defending his decision. Daryl even cuts him some slack, saying he understands Dwight made his choice to protect his wife, but that doesn’t seem to reassure him.
“The Cell” also provides more of a look into what life with Negan is like without really going into detail, but again, we’ve done the “introduction to the new community” episodes before. Gradually revealing things about the compound that are relevant to the plot is much preferred over a grand tour of the place.
Now that we’ve seen the Kingdom and Negan’s compound, and we’ve met Ezekiel and gotten to know Dwight better, hopefully things can get moving in next week’s episode.
The slow pace of “The Well” and “The Cell” was understandable, and it gave fans some time to cool off after the gory deaths in the season premiere. But now all the players are established, and it’s time for them to do something.
What did you think of “The Cell”? Share with us in the comments below!
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The Walking Dead airs Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.
Katie Houlis
Katie is a recent college graduate who spent most of her free time at school binge-watching shows like Battlestar Galactica, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Fringe, and Hannibal. She has watched every single episode of Lost at least ten times each (yes, even “Stranger In A Strange Land”). Current favorites include a bunch of comedies, lots of superhero shows, and a few shows with quite a bit of murder in them.