'The Walking Dead' recap: Dying is simple

Spoiler alert! The following contains spoilers for The Walking Dead season 6, episode 7 "Heads Up." To read our recap of episode 6, click here.

Even in a fictional world like the one presented to us in The Walking Dead, there are rules. For example: There are only certain ways to be infected by the virus, everyone who dies turns into a walker, and you must destroy a walker's brain in order to kill it, just to name three. Even in a fantasy or sci fi story, you need the rules to keep the story grounded, to create a sense of realism in the midst of the fantastical, the create stakes and obstacles and intrigue. And to keep a story grounded it can be something as simple as letting a character die when the odds stacked against them. Because when a regular human suddenly develops a superhuman ability to stay alive (against really, really ridiculous odds), that realism and those stakes are instantly gone.

So that's why, after a month of the show avoiding the subject, the big reveal in "Heads Up" that Glenn did, in fact, survive being dropped into a mob of zombies in a dead-end alley is so very disappointing. Because after this episode, the stakes on The Walking Dead are never going to be the same again. If that situation, that un-winnable scenario that would spell certain death for 99.9% of the population is winnable for one of our core cast members, how is anything ever going to be dangerous again? How are we ever to believe that Carol or Daryl or Maggie or especially Glenn's life will seriously be in danger? How will we be entirely certain that anyone has actually died if seeing guts being ripped out of a body is not definitive proof of death? How, in other words, are we supposed to keep taking this show seriously after this?

Because if people who can't even see a building crumbling before their eyes constantly survive the impossible, why do we really care about them?

He's aliiiiiive!

Here's how Glenn survived being toppled into the waiting arms of a horde of walkers in a dead end alley with a dead body on top of him. First, every walker in the vicinity, while grabbing without discrimination or very good aim at the two bodies in front of them, only managed to get Nicholas. Underneath Nicholas, as his friend's flesh is being ripped to shreds, Glenn gets not a single scratch or bite on his skin. Instead, while the walkers are busy munching away on Nicholas, Glenn scoots his skinny little body underneath the dumpster he and Nicholas were standing on before. While under the dumpster he is apparently unreachable by any of the walkers, who eventually give up and clear out of the alley, and Glenn is able to come out.

OK, so there's a lot wrong with Glenn's miraculous survival. Even if you accept that not a single walker got a single fingernail or tooth on him while Nicholas was on top of him, and even if you accept that he could fit under that dumpster and that while he was under there no walker could get to him, what, exactly, made the walkers leave him alone? Time and time again the show has demonstrated that walkers won't leave an area (especially if there's a food source they can hear, see or smell) unless there's a reason (see, for a very, very recent example, the walkers outside Alexandria that Rick needs to try to distract away). So why did the walkers leave Glenn? Because the plot needed them too, unfortunately.

Once Glenn's unlikely escape plan is played out, we suddenly find ourselves in a very odd version of Thelma and Louise as he and Enid (who has made a nest of sorts in the town that Glenn, Nicholas, Michonne, Heath and friends were holed up in fighting for their lives a few episodes ago, just to extend the believability of this show to its very limits) team up and hit the road for Alexandria. The two make an interesting pair, Glenn having always been one of the more optimistic members of the gang and Enid being entirely pessimistic. The zombie apocalypse has given Glenn a wife, a community and a sense of purpose (also a kid on the way but he doesn't know about that yet), so it's logical for him to think the world that's left can't be all bad. Enid, on the other hand, has lost everything and gained nothing but a drive to survive strong enough to take away her compassion. From her point of view the world is ready to end and all the survivors are just standing in the way. From Glenn's, the end is more of a beginning.

The two manage to 1) finally explain all the balloons we've been seeing so far this season (but not very well) and 2) make it back to Alexandria and release said balloons. This is a clear signal to Maggie that her husband is alive (yet another logical leap, since there's no reason to think that Glenn had balloons with him or that someone else couldn't have gotten their hands on the helium tank). Maggie gets a glimmer of hope in just enough time for a building just outside the wall to come crashing down, destroying the wall and bringing the walkers with it. But hey, the balloons were pretty.

All life is precious (still)

In addition to checking in with Glenn for the first time in several weeks, the episode also found its way back to Morgan, who is still dealing with his Wolf prisoner and his distinct moral disagreements with Rick and Carol. Rick finds a way to blame Morgan for being attacked by the Wolves in the RV (another instance of person surviving unbelievable odds, but alas, I digress). Morgan is still fighting the same battle, trying to get Rick and co. to find a way to exist in this world without killing as much, to appreciate life more. It's a losing battle, but he gains an ally in Denise the almost doctor, who agrees to try and help him with the Wolf's wound. Carol, of course, manages to figure out what the two are up to and confronts Morgan about it, a confrontation that will either be exacerbated or put on hold with the wall coming down.

Our people

Since arriving at Alexandria last season, there has always been a definitive distinction between our core group of survivors and the rest of the inhabitants of the community. And while Rick (and certain others in the group, cough Carol cough cough) hasn't been too obtuse about his feelings when it comes to the Alexandrians, he is finally, openly declaring an us and a them. First while making plans to deal with the zombies knock, knocking at Alexandria's door with Michonne, he pretty openly states that it's only a plan to get the core team out. Later in the episode when Spencer, who is, validly, the stupidest person left alive in that world, gets himself in a lot of trouble while trying to help, Rick openly chastises Tara for risking her life to help the poor guy. Tara, who is slowly but surely turning into the show's best character, does what the rest of us have been wanting to do for six seasons and flips Rick the bird. They're all on the same team, she reminds Rick. He doesn't listen.

This us vs. them mentality is certainly does not seem like it will be a good strategy going forward, especially since Rick and the rest's fates are tied up with the people of Alexandria, whether they like it or not. Yes, our guys been on the outside and are better trained than the Alexandrians (a fact Rosita, second best human after Tara, is trying to fix with her machete training sessions) but when it comes down to it, everyone is trapped inside that place with a horde of zombies heading right for them. A mistake from Spencer or Deanna or Jessie or Sam could spell the end for Rick or Carl or Carol or Maggie. So they are going to have to work together, eventually.

Or maybe not, because now even Spencer can drop into a mob of zombies and come out the other end having only lost a shoe. So logically we might assume that no one on this show will ever die again.