Ezekiel suffers identity crisis in Walking Dead

Vice Arabia launches in Middle East

This week’s episode of “The Walking Dead” is all about King Ezekiel (Khary Payton). While it has been fun for the past season or so to root for the character, this episode delves back into the depressing agony of Season 7 as it explores what makes the king the king.

This week begins with a flashback to the Kingdom just before its citizens set out to join the battle against the Saviors. Ezekiel prepares himself in front of a mirror before stepping outside. He delivers a rousing speech to his people, at the end of which they gather around him in celebration. The scene then abruptly cuts to the aftermath of the end of last week’s episode, in which the Kingdom’s soldiers were gunned down just outside a Savior outpost. Ezekiel crawls out from beneath a pile of bodies, uttering a painful wail as he realizes how many of his people are dead.

His chance to grieve is short-lived, as the bodies begin reanimating as walkers. Ezekiel, with a wounded leg, tries to get away but cannot walk due to his injury. A surviving Kingdom-ite appears and helps him to his feet.

Inside the outpost, a group of Saviors break down the heavy machine gun they used to wipe out Ezekiel’s troops. Unbeknownst to them, Carol (Melissa McBride) is inside the outpost. As they move the guns, she shoots them while she is hidden in the drop ceiling. But before she can do anything with the guns, more Saviors arrive and chase her. They decide to let her go in order to move the guns faster and get them to the Sanctuary.

Outside, Ezekiel and his soldier continue to move but encounter more walkers. Before they can figure out what to do, the soldier is shot in the back by a Savior who looks like the lovechild of Jeffrey Dahmer and Chucky. He forces Ezekiel to continue on at gun point, telling him that he plans to take Ezekiel to the Sanctuary and deliver him to Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). He berates Ezekiel along the way, telling him he is a con man for convincing people that he really is a king.

Meanwhile, Carol has covertly followed the Saviors outside to a waiting truck, where they are loading up the guns to deliver them to the Sanctuary. Carol makes her move but gets pinned down behind a pickup truck as the Saviors open fire. Built Ford Tough must be more than a slogan because despite the Saviors pumping hundreds of rounds into the truck, not a single one makes it through to Carol.

Ezekiel and the Savior make it to the outside of a fence, on the other side of which is the Saviors with the guns and Carol. Ezekiel makes his move and tries to stab the Savior, but he is knocked to the ground before he can. The Savior mocks him again, painting Ezekiel’s face with blood. They arrive at a gate, but it is shut with a lock and chain. Rather than help Ezekiel over the fence, the Savior decides it will be easier to kill him. As he prepares to kill Ezekiel, Jerry (Cooper Andrews) shows up out of nowhere and splits the Savior in half with his axe.

Decide

On the other side of the fence, the Saviors decide to save a few bullets, at which point Carol tells them she can reveal the locations of her comrades. One of the Saviors steps forward to disarm her, at which point she grabs him and uses him as a human shield. These being Saviors, of course they decide to shoot through their friend to get to Carol, forcing her to once again take refuge behind the truck. Unbeknownst to them, however, Carol hit a button that opened a different gate, allowing walkers to pour in and attack the Saviors.

Jerry picks off a few of the walkers approaching he and Ezekiel, but more are coming. When Jerry refers to Ezekiel as “your Majesty,” Ezekiel says there’s no need to call him that. Jerry disagrees. He is also unable to break the lock and the walkers close in on them. He and Ezekiel stand side by side and begin fighting off every walker they can.

Carol now has the remaining Saviors pinned down, but she notices Ezekiel and Jerry on the other side of the fence out of the corner of her eye. She runs to assist them, allowing the Saviors to jump into the truck carrying the guns and escape.

In a flashback, Ezekiel tells Carol more about himself before the apocalypse, of how he was meek and timid in real life and acted out his fantasies of being courageous on stage. He and Carol share a moment as they reminisce on how they became the people they are today.

As they try to figure out how to stop the truck carrying the guns from getting to the Sanctuary, Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Daryl (Norman Reedus) arrive and give chase. Daryl, on his motorcyle, engages in a high-speed shootout with the Saviors on the truck while Rick follows in a jeep. Daryl wipes out trying to avoid fire from one of the machine guns.

Also:

LOS ANGELES: Vice Media launched into the Middle East on Monday with its new Vice Arabia platform and its first local original production, an hour-long documentary about Arab millennials titled “Bil Arabi” (“In Arabic”).

The documentary was shot in 12 cities in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Syria, the UAE, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, and the Palestinian occupied territories. Vice calls it an attempt to provide “an honest and unflinching lens” on young Arabs from different nationalities and walks of life, a kind of “cinematic Arab youth census” that will spawn further local productions covering “topics ranging from religion, drugs and politics through to love, media and money.”

Islam Alrayyes, editor-in-chief of Vice MENA, called the documentary “a testament to the important work we’ll aim to do at Vice Arabia in representing the many voices of young people across the region.”

Vice’s new Middle Eastern operation, announced earlier this year, is based in Abu Dhabi. It will produce lifestyle content in multiple languages including Arabic, English, Farsi, Turkish and Urdu. Content is to be translated and published across all of Vice’s global platforms, shining an international spotlight on the region but also throwing up potential challenges amid growing turbulence and fears that Arab media is being increasingly muzzled.

Alrayyes, who previously served as head of digital content at Abu Dhabi Media, will lead a team of writers, editors, directors and producers overseeing Vice Arabia’s output.

Heading the Middle Eastern operation as managing director for Vice MENA is Jason Leavy, who was previously managing director of UAE-based marketing agency Edelman Dabo. In addition to editorial and content divisions, Vice Arabia’s Abu Dhabi office will house the regional hub of its in-house ad agency, Virtue Worldwide, headed by newly appointed CEO, EMEA, Rob Newlan, formerly of Facebook.

Vice Media’s Middle Eastern launch comes as the youth-oriented company continues to expand its global footprint via multi-platform partnerships with players around the world, including Afghan media company Moby Group in the Middle East, African telecom company Econet (for Vice’s planned 2018 launch in sub-Saharan Africa), Brazil’s Globosat, and Times of India in India. Vice expects its content to go out in more than 80 territories by the end of the first quarter of 2018. (RTRS)