Reviewed by John Hussey.

As established in last week’s episode, “Knots Untie”, things are kicking off in the narrative as we get closer and closer to unveiling Negan. Unfortunately, before reaching the juicy stuff we had to sit through a lot of unnecessary pieces, or pieces that made me feel a little annoyed.

A lot of focus was given on Carol this week as she begins to question things and becomes an obstacle again. We had already established how far she was willing to go in Season 4 in order to maintain order within the community and now she seems to be pulling similar strings that are quickly becoming dangerous.

Firstly, Carol still hasn’t informed Rick about Morgan. This, I feel, will soon backfire in everyone’s face. She had the best possible opportunity this week to tell Rick the truth after Morgan spoke out against Rick’s judgement. Again he tried to showcase his ridiculous ideals of not killing despite Rick explaining they had to act fast before the Saviors found them and did them harm. He also reminded the community about the Wolves and how they managed to find and infiltrate Alexandria, resulting in high casualties through their attack and the aftermath caused by the walkers they unintentionally attracted.

Morgan was once a reasonable character, and one I thought had good intentions and morals. Through his solo episode last year, which explained the origins of his new persona, I did feel he had a lot of good points to back up his way of thinking, especially in honouring the man that helped him out of his despair. However, once this way of thinking started to put others at risk I quickly changed my opinion and started hating his character.

If anything, it is selfish. I know where he’s coming from, he doesn’t want those around him to lose their humanity. But there’s a difference in becoming no better than the walkers and losing your sense of self-defence. If someone attacks you, and they mean to kill you, there isn’t much choice but to fight back and potentially kill the enemy. Plus there is the consideration of protecting those around you and making sure the same threat doesn’t strike again. Look what happened when the Governor got a second chance to attack.

Morgan’s way of thinking is going to get people killed, and if he’s not careful it will cost him his own life. If Rick feels Morgan’s a danger, then he will not hesitate to kill him. I believe this is what the season is leading up to. There’s going to be a confrontation, and judging by Morgan’s attitude during the meeting, the fact that he feels he is in the right, and his actions at the end of the episode, things will kick off soon.

Secondly, Carol tried telling Rick what Maggie should and shouldn’t do on the field. It has nothing to do with but despite this she believes she knows best, similar to when she thought she knew what was best when killing innocent people because they were ill. This resulted in a major issue, i.e. her and Maggie being captured by the end of the episode on the account Carol refused to let Maggie re-join the others.

I thought she had come around since her return but now she is making the same mistakes again and becoming a dangerous character. In fact, it was her fault that Sam, Jessie and Ron died. If she hadn’t have scared Sam with her statement last season then he wouldn’t have broken down in ‘No Way Out’ and caused the chain-reaction that followed. This was referenced through Carol visiting his grave and leaving him a biscuit, along with the guilt on her face.

Also, it would be good if the series stopped introducing pointless love stories because they seem to be cropping up left, right and centre at the moment and they don’t add anything, or worse make the characters involved weaker or less likable. Carol randomly fell for one of the Alexandrians, Rick and Michonne’s relationship wasn’t even spoken about this week and Abraham decided to ditch Rosita due to the fact that she’s no longer the only woman alive anymore, re-emphasising Abraham’s new feelings for Sasha from the previous episode.

After delaying the action with either pointless, or slow scenes, the episode finally picked up when Rick and his group stormed the Savior’s base and killed everyone in sight. Surprisingly, this turned out alright. It was obvious that the stealth approach would fail but despite this the attack worked. The Saviors were struck down without any casualties. I generally thought something was going to go wrong, i.e. the Saviors thought back and became ruthless, or that Glen couldn’t find the courage to kill another human being.

This part of the episode was well directed. Like a montage, flicking backwards and forwards between the different characters, it showcased them all as animalistic as they took down the Saviors. They were relentless in their attack and didn’t stop until the deed was done. Even Gabriel got in on the action. His character was originally hated by me because, similar to Morgan, he was a deluded character, worsened by the fact he was religious. I have nothing against religious people but it’s always the cliché of these types of programmes that the religious person uses their faith in a dangerous manner, often getting others killed.

As the series has progressed, so has his character. Now he has seen the truth of the world around him and has become one with it. It’s actually great to see him helping out now and declaring to Rick he wants to do his bit. When he killed one of the Saviors, it was generally a badass moment, added greatly by his final line of “amen”.

However, as I predicted last week, Rick’s ideas of attacking Negan head on would ultimately backfired. He thought he had the upper hand after attacking the base but in reality he was one step behind. With Maggie and Carol hostage, Negan now has Rick at a disadvantage. Rick has fired the first shot and because he failed to deliver the final blow he must now face the consequences. Negan will now be interested in showing Rick, and his community, what happens when survivors try to pick a fight with him.

Verdict: 7/10

Despite the good action sequences in the second half of the episode, “Not Tomorrow Yet” was a shaky episode that was riddled with either unnecessary segments or segments that didn’t really add anything to the on-going narrative. These segments, mostly from the first half of the episode, hindered the quality of the overall product.

I believe the problem with the series at the moment is “build-up”. There is little substance at the minute as the episodes continue to throw hints of what is to come. After the mid-season opener, the episodes have had little individual value and more there to add to the on-going story-arc which is destined to have an explosive outcome in the finale. I feel as though the series would be better appreciated if I viewed it in a beige sitting than waiting each week for it. Each episode needs something to happen and not just anticipation for the following week.