The Walking Dead Season 9, Episode 13 Review: 'Chokepoint'

(Photo Credit: AMC)

The Walking Dead

Season 9, Episode 13

By Garrett Yoshitomi

You expect trailers for movies and TV shows to tease, entice, and generally enhance audience interest for new releases and future episodes. Trailers, at least for me, are interesting because while they can be immensely popular – trailers for properties like The Avengers and Game of Thrones routinely get tens of millions of views – they actually divulge very little information and can sometimes be outright misleading. So, what is it about trailers that captures the attentions of so many anxiously awaiting fans? It’s the payoff. The moment when that awesome scene you snuck a peek at in a trailer makes its way into the main event, not only makes the trailer retroactively better, but raises our level of excitement at the prospect of future trailers delivering on the same promise. The midseason trailer for season nine of The Walking Dead was no exception to this. As soon as the trailer hinted at Beta and Daryl’s epic, knife twirling clash, their inevitable fight has been gaining Clegane Bowl levels of hype within The Walking Dead fandom. The thirteenth episode of season nine, ‘Chokepoint,’ delivers on this hype in a major way, and the fight between Daryl and Beta could very well go down as the best in Walking Dead history.

(Photo Credit: AMC)

Last episode was the first time we saw Beta onscreen, but this week represents his true coming out party, as we finally get to see what Alpha’s main lieutenant is fully capable of. A man of seemingly few words, Beta is a hulking figure, one of the largest the show has seen. And, although the only physicality he’d shown up until this point was shoving Henry around, his sheer size alone lends us to believe that he should be more than a match for fan favorite, Daryl. Suffice it to say, this fight is epic, and Beta definitely lives up to his billing as The Whisperers’ most lethal member. The way he immediately starts ragdolling the highly capable Daryl sets the stakes high for this encounter, but Daryl manages to get his licks in, too, in a way that feels believable and true to the latter’s clever and skilled fighting style.

The back and forth action in this scene is great, and almost creates its own mini narrative for the two minutes these characters spend grappling. And, even though the overall outcome of the fight seems somewhat assured, watching it climb to that conclusion is quite simply, a thrill. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for some of The Walking Dead’s other previously hyped up brawls. For instance, Rick’s encounter with the Governor in the season four midseason finale started off with a bang, but quickly devolved into a predictable straddle-punch-fest. More recently, Rick and Negan’s slap fight in the season eight finale lacked all the excitement of its comic book counterpart, resulting in a highly underwhelming conclusion to the show’s disappointing adaptation of the All-Out War arc. However, if the Daryl-Beta confrontation is any kind of indication, our days of lackluster Walking Dead fights could be coming to a close, which is perfect timing as the season zooms forward with the rest of The Whisperers storyline.

(Photo Credit: AMC)

The Whisperers storyline is interesting because while primary antagonists Alpha and Beta grab all the headlines, the storyline itself is actually driven by Lydia. Even though Lydia has shifted into the background in recent episodes, it’s her absence that’s forced The Whisperers into pursuing Daryl, Connie, and Henry, in order to rescue her. Lydia also straddles the line between both camps in a subtle, genuine way. This isn’t the classic “can’t trust the outsider” trope that The Walking Dead has often played with before. It truly seems like Lydia is fighting back a real sense of loyalty to The Whisperers, to allow her to explore new and equally real feelings for Henry. For now, it does seem like Lydia’s cast her lot in with Team Family, but does that commitment start and end with Henry, or does it extend to the rest of The Hilltop, The Kingdom, and Alexandria? One thing’s for sure, this episode won’t be the last time we see Lydia’s allegiances tested.

The Hilltop’s not the only one making new friends, though. This week, The Kingdom encounters a group of “Highwaymen,” who initially threaten the safety of the roads leading to The Kingdom’s upcoming trade fair. The Highwaymen are a new group, unique to the show, and believed to have stepped into the power vacuum created when Carol dispatched of Jed’s rogue group of Saviors back in the midseason premiere. It’s cool to see this little ripple effect take hold, and this minor plot point actually goes a long way in lending a sense of realism to this fictional, apocalyptic world. The show so often focuses on just a few key groups, that it creates this feeling of a bubble between this one small corner of Virginia and the rest of the world. But there are other survivors out there, and it makes sense that they’d be vying for not only resources, but territory, as well.

(Photo Credit: AMC)

So, when The Kingdom rallies its forces to fight back against this new, looming threat, a sense of déjà vu starts to set in for viewers who are all too familiar with what happens when a gang of ne’er-do-well’s cross paths with Queen Carol. And yet, what could have easily been another ho-hum side adventure turns into a rather pleasant surprise, as The Highwaymen subplot takes an unexpected turn, avoiding the type of murder-y conflict and exasperated pleas that everyone can “walk away from all this,” that The Walking Dead typically succumbs to, instead delivering an enjoyably light snack amid the weighty entrée that is The Whisperers arc – an outcome that is as unique as the group of would be bandits who perpetrate it.