"On the Inside" is the sixth episode of the eleventh season of AMC's The Walking Dead. It is the one-hundred and fifty-ninth episode of the series overall. It premiered on September 26, 2021. It was written by Kevin Deiboldt and directed by Greg Nicotero.[1]
Plot
Escaping from walkers, Connie and Virgil hide in a house occupied by mysterious creatures. Pope tests Daryl's loyalty to the Reapers with a conflicting mission. Kelly leaves Alexandria in search of Connie.
Synopsis
Connie and Virgil flee from something in the woods. Virgil suggests they seek refuge in a nearby house, but Connie insists they keep running. They sense something approaching and run. They race up to a large house, but the door is secure. Connie forces the front door open, and they hide inside. Walkers swarm the front door.
Back at Alexandria, Carol and Aaron argue about a strategy for finding Connie. Magna notices that Kelly has gone missing. Kelly gallops down a road on horseback to find Connie on her own.
Virgil searches the house while Connie waits in the den. Virgil tells Connie that the house is empty, but Connie shakes her head. Virgil reminds Connie that she hasn't slept in days and urges her to sleep, but Connie worries that the house is unsafe. She decides to search the house herself.
In Meridian, Carver tortures Frost and demands to know where his people are. Frost gives up nothing. Pope and Daryl watch from outside the room. When Pope asks whether the torture bothers Daryl, he replies that he's done worse. With Carver getting no results, Pope orders Daryl to take a turn interrogating Frost. Carver secretly draws and conceals his pistol. Frost tips off Daryl to this action. Daryl puts Frost in a chokehold and orders him to give up his friends' location, but he refuses. Daryl chops off one of Frost's fingers and again demands to know the location of his friends. Frost finally reveals the location of the supply depot. Pope dispatches Leah to scout the location with a crew of Reapers.
Connie searches the house. She opens a medicine cabinet and sees a wild eye staring back at her through a slot in the wall. She races back to Virgil and tells him they're not alone.
Daryl, Leah, Carver, and a crew of Reapers approach the supply depot. When they go towards the house, Daryl quietly shakes a drooping power cable to warn Maggie of their arrival. Maggie, looking through a gap in the window boards, sees the wire swaying. The Reapers burst into the supply depot and search the house. No one is there. Leah orders them to search the entire town.
Kelly finds Connie's abandoned camp in the woods. She finds Connie's notebook and cries.
Virgil checks the medicine cabinet and doesn't see anything. He wonders if Connie was hallucinating due to her lack of sleep. Connie refuses to stay in the house and leaves the room. Someone slams a door behind her, cutting her off from Virgil. A feral human scrambles toward her on all fours. Connie flees into the basement stairway and slams the door behind her. The feral bangs against the door.
The Reapers search another house. Leah finds some wet, bloody bandages, indicating someone was recently there. Daryl notices a trap door under a rug and quietly slides the rug over the door. He offers to track Maggie's group outside. Carver suspects that Daryl is up to something and confronts him. Leah sends Carver upstairs to sweep the rooms one more time and warns Daryl not to anger Carver. Maggie, Negan, Gabriel, and Elijah listen from the hidden space beneath the floor.
Carol, Rosita, and Magna find Kelly in the woods. Kelly tells them she found Connie's camp. Magna reads Connie's notebook, which reveals that Connie and Virgil were being followed. They continue their search.
Connie holds the door shut until the feral quiets down on the other side. She enters the basement and sees human bones littered all over the floor. The shelves rattle as another feral wakes up and bursts into the room. Connie hides in a crawl space between the walls.
Virgil escapes into a room and slams the door shut. A feral pummels the door on the other side.
Connie peers through a hole in the wall and sees Virgil in the next room. She pounds on the wall, drawing Virgil's attention. A feral sneaks up on Virgil and attacks him.
Virgil fights the feral. "Hungry!" it screeches. Connie pounds on the wall, momentarily distracting the feral. Virgil stabs it in the chest. Connie continues pounding on the wall. Virgil plunges his knife into the wall, nearly stabbing Connie. Connie punches her arm through the wall. Virgil realizes it's Connie and pulls her through.
Daryl and Carver argue. Daryl criticizes the Reapers' plan of attack and slyly incorporates intel about the Reapers as he talks, knowing that Maggie's group is listening. Carver accuses Daryl of being disloyal. Daryl admits that the only reason he joined the Reapers is because he cares about Leah, but says he will follow Pope out of fear. Carver notices the trap door and opens it. The basement is empty.
Maggie's group quietly sneaks out of the basement and escapes.
Carol's group searches for Connie into the night. They reach a crossroads. Kelly picks a direction.
Injured and weak, Virgil gives Connie his knife and urges her to make a run for it. Connie refuses to abandon him. They hear the creatures stir upstairs and rush into the room, weapons in hand. Ferals attack from all directions and Virgil is stabbed by one of them. Getting an idea, Connie covers herself in walker guts and flings the front door open, letting all of the walkers inside. The walkers devour the ferals while ignoring Connie, who is blocking Virgil in a corner with her own body, due to the walker guts.
Connie and Virgil stumble outside and collapse. Two ferals escape the house, but Kelly shoots them with her slingshot and tearfully reunites with Connie.
The Reapers return to Meridian. Carver tells Pope that Maggie's group got away. Pope reveals that he continued to interrogate Frost after they left and got all the information he needed. They see Frost tied to a post: he is now a walker. Pope confers privately with Carver as they head inside. Leah looks at Daryl.
Other Cast
Co-Stars
Uncredited
- Brandon Heath Jones as Feral Survivor
- Chelsea Reuter Goddard as Feral Survivor
- Alex Hill as Feral Survivor
Deaths
- Frost (Alive, Off-Screen)
- Several unnamed ferals' victims (Confirmed Fate)
- 8 unnamed feral survivors
- 1 horse
Trivia
- Only appearance of the Ferals.
- Last appearance of Frost. (Alive)
- The title of the episode, "On the Inside", refers to Daryl's true allegiances i.e. who he really is "on the inside."
- This episode was made available for streaming to subscribers of AMC Premiere on September 19, 2021.
- In this episode, Margot Bingham (Maxxine Mercer) is billed before Josh Hamilton (Lance Hornsby) under "Also Starring".
- This episode marks Jeffrey Dean Morgan's 50th appearance on the TV Series.
- Connie and Virgil running through the field is a homage to Night of the Living Dead.[2]
- In an early draft of this episode, Virgil would've been secretly bitten and eventually reveal it to Connie, using his little time as his motivation to get her out of the house.[3]
- Connie's notebook reveals that she was forced to walk with the herd for days after the collapse of part of Alpha's Cave with no light or food and very little water.
- In an interview discussing the actors' favorite moments, Lauren Ridloff reveals that Connie's on-screen reunion with Kelly was Lauren's real life reunion with Angel Theory. The episode was shot right after COVID and Lauren asked Greg Nicotero to keep them from meeting again on set until they actually shot the scene.[4] In the same interview, Angel revealed that the emotions expressed by both them and Lauren were real and not acting.[5]
- At the beginning of the episode, the piece of music playing as Connie and Virgil run up to the house features a very similar part to a piece of music used in "Too Far Gone", from the scene in which the Governor first places the katana to Hershel's throat.
Episode Highlights
- According to Connie's notebook, Virgil doesn't know where Michonne has gone other than that she was looking for someone. He was also hoping to find her when he came back to the area.
- It's revealed that the reason that Connie didn't return to Alexandria following Virgil finding her is that they didn't know where it is and they were trying to find it. Ironically, according to the location given by Keith in "Out of the Ashes", they weren't far away.
- This is presumably because Virgil only ever saw Oceanside which was abandoned when he returned to it and Connie's only known excursions to Alexandria were when she was accompanied by Judith Grimes and Daryl in "Who Are You Now?" and "Scars" respectively. Most of the time that Connie had spent in the area was around the Hilltop rather than close to Alexandria.
- Connie uses the walker guts trick once again to hide herself and Virgil before letting a herd in to deal with the Ferals. While Virgil doesn't use it, Connie covering him with her own body in a corner is enough for the walkers to ignore him.
References
- ↑ https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-walking-dead-season-11-episodes/
- ↑ https://twitter.com/kdeiboldt/status/1442293369460297729
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20210927021451/https://twitter.com/kdeiboldt/status/1442311704784814084
- ↑ https://ew.com/tv/walking-dead-cast-favorite-moments-ever/?slide=e8a00e7a-92c8-4918-99f9-bf2261906cf5#e8a00e7a-92c8-4918-99f9-bf2261906cf5
- ↑ https://ew.com/tv/walking-dead-cast-favorite-moments-ever/?slide=987ee2d4-bf9d-4641-8b8b-1700de78d7f9#987ee2d4-bf9d-4641-8b8b-1700de78d7f9