‘The Walking Dead’ season 6, episode 14 review: Denise’s speech (and then a bloodbath)

Well, “The Walking Dead” has figured out a way to completely shock us yet again. About two-thirds of the way through Sunday night’s new episode, we started to figure that this was just going to be one of those slow-moving character episodes, and as strange as that may have been at this point with the Saviors running around out there, we kind of liked that.

However, all of that turned on a dime thanks to Denise, feeling suddenly empowered thanks to taking out a walker, proclaiming herself to the world. Some of the Saviors ended up hearing her, which in turn led to one of the most brutal deaths we’ve seen on the show in some time. We loved Denise! She was an underdog, and while she hasn’t been a long-term staple, she is someone who has shown herself to be valuable for some time.

What made this whole moment even crazier was that as Daryl and Rosita watched Denise’s body hit the ground, they realized that these people also had another member of the group with them: Eugene, who had split up with Abraham earlier in the episode after a spat.

Interestingly, it was the spat that ended up giving Eugene and Abraham a way to save Daryl and Rosita, and Eugene tricked the group into looking for Abraham before literally biting the guy in the you-know-where. Everyone else survived, and eventually they managed to force the rest of the surviving Saviors away. Electric stuff, but it didn’t make up for the sadness we felt over losing Denise. She was one of the closest things Alexandria had to a doctor, so her knowledge will be missed.

As a whole, though, this episode was excellent. It was about teaching moments, survival (of course), and the evolution of some people. Also, we have the terrible cliffhanger now of Carol’s absence, who realized that she couldn’t handle killing anyone else. Devastating. Grade: A-.

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