The Walking Dead: Season 10: Episode 5 Breakdown & Ending Explained

Welcome to the Heavy Spoilers show, I’m your host Deffinition and like a bat out of hell named Lucille, Negan is on the run.

Episode 4 felt like a none stop onslaught that slowly escalated the stakes and showed just how difficult that it is to survive in the land of the undead and it ended on a pretty big cliffhanger that has a lot of fans excited.

Throughout this, I’m gonna be breaking down everything that you need to know about the latest as well as what we can take from the ending.

There will be heavy spoilers here so if you haven’t had a chance to watch the episode yet then I highly suggest that you turn off now.

That’s your last chance to back out but with that out the way, I just wanna give a huge thank you for clicking this video, now let’s get into Episode 5 of Season 10!

Episode 4 Recap

Previously on the Walking Dead, Zeke doesn’t know how to talk to Carol, Kelly doesn’t know if anyone is talking to her and Negan just wants to talk his way out of everything.

Season 10 Episode 5 Breakdown

These all kinda set up the key events of episode 5 and it’s very much centered around these characters and what they are going through. We open with Kelly who is pretty much trying to prove to herself that she is of value and can overcome her rapidly deteriorating hearing and it’s quite easy to sympathize with the character.

I’m sure we’ve all had setbacks in our lives where we’ve done something to prove that we are actually better than our worst aspects and it sucks seeing the character just hit with blowback after blowback, becoming rapidly aware that she probably isn’t cut out for this life. The intro has us questioning what will happen to her and this is mirrored in Negan.

With him now out on the run we are left asking who set him free, where will he go next and where the heckins is his leather jacket. Yes, I said Heckins, this isn’t a PG website, we go hard here.

Negan’s escape couldn’t have come at a worse time, mainly because the Christmas Sales on Leather Jackets haven’t started yet and also because the camp is at it’s lowest point. In the wake of last week’s horde attack, a lot of supplies have been stolen and the survivors of Alexandria pretty much have to stay back and put their own home in order before going after everyone’s favorite baseball star.

Negan And Brandon

Negan, joined by Brandon who pretty much works as his parole officer this episode is revealed to be the one that released the villain because his father idolized him and now he does too. Those who’ve read this comic will have seen this coming a mile off and similar to the character in his source material depiction, Brandon just wants his hero to return.

It differs slightly from the comic book depiction and in that Brandon’s father was killed by Rick in self-defense so he unleashed the character in order to start a war between the Whisperers and the Camp.

In Negan, he’s let the beast out the cave and though he initially doesn’t make his motives clear, it becomes apparent that he is trying to get the character to reveal his real side, gifting him his famous infamous leather jacket and Lucielle which is still probably covered in Glenn’s brains.

Brandon really acts as the devil on Negan’s shoulder this episode and throughout he constantly tempts the character. It’s an awesome aesthetic and watching him shout ‘damn classic Negan’ is hilarious.

I have been saying that this episode would be something special for a while now and it didn’t disappoint, watching old Neags get back into the swing of things, pun intended is brilliant and it really makes me want to see a lot more focus on the character in the future.

He meets two more survivors out on the road, a mother and son that Brandon tries to use in order to manipulate Negan into remembering that people should be used in whatever way possible to live another day. This kinda plays into the end and it shows that though Negan may not be the old Negan, he still has a dark side.

In other parts of the camp, Daryl is out and about with Connie on the hunt for Kelly, it’s clear that she’s run into some trouble and after the cliffhanger opening, her fat comes into question throughout the episode. I’m glad that the Walking Dead is really at a point now where every character’s death feels like it could come at any moment and this manhunt, or sorry womanhunt is a nice little subplot for the main action of the episode.

The Whisperers

Elsewhere in the episode, we learn that though the Walking Dead, Whisperers and such still live, the group also has to deal with the real-life diseases that often come with being a human. This comes in the form of Zeke who, though we don’t know for certain, has developed Thyroid Cancer. Natural diseases and things like this are something that I’ve always wondered about in this world and it’s great that we are finally at a point where they are tackling it and it reminds us of just how screwed he probably is. There are no doctors, no surgeons and no chemo so if Zeke’s diagnosis is indeed correct then he’s probably fresh out of luck.

In other parts of the camp, Earl is spouting off his conspiracy theories about how Alpha attacked the camp, the grassy knoll and how the moon is made of cheese. Turns out he’s right though and we do get confirmation this episode that the Whisperers indeed have been trying to off the group. She clearly wants to wear the survivors out but it the Whisperers and us I guess, are questioning why she doesn’t just unleash her massive horde.

The show does what it has to do and answers this subtly by having Alpha kill the dissenter for questioning her leadership and to me, this cements that the reason she refuses to do it is because of Lydia. Alpha has the means to kill them outright but deep down she knows that she will kill Lydia in the process and as much as she claims she wants to do it, she clearly doesn’t.

Maybe she should just sneak into the camp one night and do some nut tapping. Remember don’t aim too high.

Gamma And Aaron

Gamma is clearly struggling with her strategy too and after Aaron helps her it hints that she might be the weak link in the chain that ends up making it snap. Later in the episode, we learn that Alpha wants to use Gamma as bait to draw Aaron out and get an in at the camp and it’s gonna be interesting to see how this develops.

Kelly is found asleep in the wood, it’s revealed that she took the supplies and this raises the distrust. Through this arc, we discover that Magna spent time in jail due to her going Batman on a man that ended up doing no crime for assaulting her young cousin. Yumiko defended her because she believed Magna was innocent but it turns out she wasn’t It’s a nice reveal that shows she is one of the good guys deep down and it shows the parallels of the current world. In the old one, this was a crime but here, now we know just how low people can sink, it’s not that bad.

What is bad though is that Brandon kills the mother and son that he and Negan discovered in order to try and set off the character. He gets his wish but not in the way that he expected and Negan finally unleashes, smashing his head in with a rock. I guess you should never meet your heroes

We watch as the hero or villain…well hero yeah, he’s the best part of the show, heads into Whisperer Territory. He says ‘what’s a fella got to do to get eaten around here?’ and it’s clear that the old Negan is back and he’s here to stay.

As he starts taking down Walkers like it’s nothing he is grabbed by Beta and it looks like the two are going to face off which is when we cut to credits.

Episode 6 Predictions

Now going forward it’s clear that Negan will be indeed joining up with The Whisperer and integrating with their camp. I’m gonna go into heavy comic spoilers here that could happen in the show so if you don’t want to know anything about one of the deaths of the BIG villains, then I highly suggest that you turn off now.

If you’re still here, then thanks for sticking around.

But in the comics, Negan does indeed manage to meld in with the Whisperers and he pretends to love Alpha in order to get really close to her. Through their conversations, he realizes that she is still harboring emotions for not only Lydia, but people in general. Alpha breaks down and cries and this gives Negan the perfect opportunity to slit her throat, killing her in the process.

Last week I did say that I didn’t think that the show was gonna go this way but actually now we’ve kinda see the way things are progressing with the death of Brandon, Negan approaching the camp and so on, I actually think that they will.

There are three episodes left before the big mid-season break and this could mean that Negan gets rooted into the camp for the next episode, begins to make his play in the following one and then the finale ends with him killing the character.

It’s a really exciting prospect and it could end this half of the season on a big big moment.

The Walking Dead this year has really hit its stride again and this has been one of the best seasons that we’ve had in a long time with this also being a really good entry that feels like a great character piece for Negan and the survivors.

Going forward it looks like Carol is gonna arm up too and who knows, maybe she will be the one that gets Alpha whilst Negan causes a distraction. Either way, I do think that the home run hitter is doing this all as a plan to show that he is worth bringing back to Alexandria and killing Alpha may be his only way home.