The Walking Dead season 10 episode 5 review: Everyone wears a mask

Secrets take center stage on The Walking Dead and both Alexandria and Hilltop residents are keeping several that could leave the communities vulnerable.

The Whisperers aren’t the only ones wearing masks on The Walking Dead, as the writers have been stealthily pointing out throughout season 10 so far. In season 10 episode 5, “The Way It Always Is”, a number of secrets are revealed that show there are cracks below the surface in the communities that could make them all weaker and more vulnerable to attacks by the Whisperers.

It’s revealed that Alpha’s plan is to squeeze the communities into destroying themselves, and it looks like the pressure she’s putting on them may already be causing cracks to grow. The survivors are paranoid and stressed out, and some of them are already turning on each other. Now that their hunting grounds have been cut off and Alpha has begun contaminating the water with a dam of dead and gutted walkers, the communities will face additional pressure that may cause them to implode.

Alpha may not need her walker army to bring down the communities. She can just let them destroy themselves. It’s a genius tactic that would prove to her followers that Alpha is right and that communities cannot survive in the post-apocalypse world. That would shore up her power and reinforce the idea that her way is the only way.

The only way that the communities could stand is if everyone inside the walls pulls together and in episode 1005 a lot of secrets came to light and based on the secrets that are being kept it’s hard to imagine that these communities could unite behind one purpose even if they had to do it to survive.

Has Negan Changed?

Brandon gave Negan the perfect opportunity to return to his former glory as the leader of the Saviors. He even gave Negan back his leather jacket and made him a wire-wrapped bat, although it wasn’t Lucille. Brandon had been secretly longing for the days of the Saviors and was hyped up by tales his Savior father had told him about the days when they were in charge.

Brandon’s weird obsession with the Saviors even caused him to kill two innocent people. It was interesting that Negan killed Brandon after telling him to never kill a kid when Negan presumably knew about and ordered the slaughter of the men and boys at Oceanside that was carried out by the Saviors. Maybe his rules have changed since then.

While Negan ultimately did put on the jacket and pick up the bat it was to cross into the Whisperer lands instead of to turn on the communities. Has Negan changed? Or is he just looking for an opportunity to align himself with a more powerful group? Hopefully his time in Alexandria has changed him and he’s going to try and help the communities by doing whatever it is he’s doing with the Whisperers.

What’s Going On With Magna?

Last week Magna and Yumiko were fighting and that continued this week. Yumiko first took Magna’s case because she thought Magna was innocent, but Magna tells her that she was actually guilty of the crime that she went to prison for. Apparently she killed someone for molesting a girl.

Magna is the one stealing supplies from Hilltop too, and she stashing them in the woods. Is she getting ready to bolt? Stealing supplies puts all of them at risk because if her theft is found out all of them could be kicked out. It seems like Alpha’s psychological warfare is taking a toll on Magna and that’s starting to impact her relationships with the people closest to her. Hopefully she can pull it together before her actions have consequences that can’t be reversed.

Aaron Makes A Bold Move

Aaron is becoming highly unpredictable. He almost killed Negan out of anger that Eric died more than 8 years ago now in All Out War. But in “What It Always Is” he had the perfect opportunity to kill Gamma as she created a gutted walker dam in their drinking water supply and instead he gave her a roll of gauze after she sliced her hand open by accident. He spoke to her calmly and insisted she take the gauze instead of just killing her.

His actions make sense if he is trying to curry favor with Alpha to keep her from attacking Alexandria. Helping one of her favorites survive should win some points with her. However, with everything that Alpha has done it’s hard to believe that he wouldn’t just kill Gamma out of revenge. If he was willing to kill Negan for Eric’s death that Negan why wasn’t he willing to kill Gamma in order to hurt Alpha, who caused Jesus’ death and has killed so many of the survivors? His lack of consistency could become a problem later on.

The Long War

Aaron’s actions, Alpha’s plan, and Negan crossing into the Whisperer lands all point to the battle against the Whisperers being a long game. This isn’t a fight like the fight against the Saviors where a few short battles and it was done. Alpha is a different kind of enemy who already has what she needs to win. The survivors on The Walking Dead are going to need to come together and fight a long war if they’re going to beat the Whisperers.

New episodes of The Walking Dead air Sundays on AMC.