The Walking Dead season 10 episode 7 review: Alpha is always watching
By Sonya Iryna
During this week’s dark and shocking episode of The Walking Dead, things radically changed for Alexandria and for a few beloved characters.
It’s redundant to say that an episode of The Walking Dead is dark, but “Open Your Eyes” is dark even by The Walking Dead standards. The episode opens with Siddiq fighting through another PTSD-induced flashback to the massacre of his friends in the barn by Alpha and the Whisperers.
We’ve gotten to see glimpses of the murder scene before through Siddiq’s eyes, but this time we see more than we have before. But the images are jumbled and out of sequence, the way they often are for people with PTSD who are reliving trauma.
Siddiq’s been struggling with his PTSD and survivor’s guilt for a while, so when Carol’s Whisperer prisoner dies suddenly before they can really interrogate him and it’s revealed that Dante has given him hemlock “by mistake,” it’s easy to believe that it might have actually been Siddiq’s mistake.
But the end of the episode reveals that it wasn’t and that Dante most likely killed the Whisperer on purpose before he could give up any information. That’s because Dante is a Whisperer, and he’s been making everyone in Alexandria sick and purposely goading Siddiq to make his suffering worse.
Alpha is firmly at the top of the most evil villains The Walking Dead has ever had. It is some next-level terrorizing to plant someone in the community just to get information and to mess with their lives. And if she has a spy in Alexandria, does she have one in the other communities as well? Is Alpha watching the communities from the inside as well as the outside?
The realities of PTSD
There were some scenes in this episode that were difficult to watch. Avi Nash, who plays Siddiq, did a magnificent job of portraying PTSD realistically. People that suffer from PTSD often have intense and vivid flashbacks that feel real. They often have survivor’s guilt and the combination of fear, horror, and shame can be debilitating.
Throughout this story arc Avi has done a wonderful job showing what the reality of living with PTSD is like. It’s important to have realistic portrayals of PTSD on TV to help people better understand what it’s like to live with it. Portrayals like this can go a long way toward destigmatizing PTSD, and that’s a great thing.
That didn’t make it any easier to see horrifying images of what happened in the barn, or to hear Enid’s screams in his flashbacks. It’s going to be a long time before those images are forgotten.
Gamma could be the key to bringing Alpha down
Surprisingly, Gamma and Aaron are striking up quite a friendship. It’s clear that Gamma is still very uncertain about her conversations with Aaron. It was significant that, when Alpha asked her about the man with the metal arm, Gamma responded by using his name. The Whisperers don’t use names, so Gamma using Aaron’s name shows that she may be returning to thinking like a survivor instead of one of Alpha’s brainwashed cultists.
If Aaron can truly get through to Gamma, he may be able to use her to get information about the Whisperers or even bring down the Whisperers from the inside.
Lydia tells Carol early in the episode that the idea of hope and the idea of community are dangerous because those ideas can lead to revolution. Aaron has laid the groundwork to start spreading hope among the Whisperers. Now that Gamma knows Lydia is alive and that Alpha didn’t kill her as she claimed, that could be what pushes her over the edge into trusting Aaron and trying to overthrow Alpha.
Carol’s crossed the line
Carol’s behavior in this episode is highly problematic and definitely crossed the line. Everyone understands her need for revenge, but she’s put a lot of people at risk now. Daryl — the person who means more to her than anyone else living — asked her specifically to leave Lydia out of her plans because Lydia has been through so much already. But Carol refused to listen to him. She used Lydia as a pawn anyway, and now Lydia is gone.
Aside from the ethical issues of Carol’s behavior, there’s a very pressing security issue that she’s now caused. Michonne asked Daryl to keep Lydia safe at all costs because Michonne thinks that Alpha hasn’t attacked Alexandria directly, since Lydia is there and Alpha doesn’t want her in danger.
So when Alpha finds out that Lydia isn’t in Alexandria anymore, she could launch the horde at the community in retaliation. Daryl was upset by Carol’s actions, and he needs to call her out for crossing the line. Someone needs to get her to back to thinking clearly and strategically again.
Goodbye Siddiq
Doctors never fare well in the apocalypse, but Siddiq had a better run than most. Because of Carl’s sacrifice, Siddiq got to have almost a decade more of life. He was able to see his child and experience life as part of a thriving community instead of struggling on his own.
Much like Jesus, Siddiq was an underutilized character and it’s a real shame we didn’t get to see much of Avi Nash’s considerable acting skills until the last couple of episodes. RIP Siddiq and a huge thanks to Nash for bringing this character to life so beautifully.
Next. The Walking Dead "Bonds" review: Never underestimate Carol. dark