The Walking Dead: 4 Developments From Season 7, Episode 2 [SPOILERS]

Carol and Morgan have headed into the world, on their own, away from Alexandria and The Saviors. They find themselves in a new community called The Kingdom, where a king rules over the land. However, new faces and a new setting aren't the only the only developments from this week's episode of The Walking Dead.

Negan killed not one but two characters off in the Season 7 premiere of The Walking Dead. It was one of the toughest episodes for longtime fans to watch. Luckily, the second episode of the new season had a more uplifting tone as fans were introduced to another community of survivors. Here were the major developments for the second episode of Season 7 of The Walking Dead.

Warning: Spoilers for the October 30 episode of The Walking Dead are below.

The Kingdom: A New, Untarnished Community

Viewers are introduced to The Kingdom, a community run by a man named Ezekiel. Everyone seems to be happy there, and food is plentiful. They are completely shut off from the outside world, like the apocalypse never happened. It's a utopian society in a dystopian world.

Fans have never seen a community like this before. While The Kingdom has its own skeletons in the closet, they're not engaged in battle with anyone else, and their day-to-day life seems very peaceful. This is the closest to normalcy the viewers have seen any community, even though Alexandria had its moments in Season 6.

King Ezekiel Isn't as Crazy as He Seems

King Ezekiel, who has a tiger named Shiva (you can learn more about his comic book counterpart here), leads the people of The Kingdom. He seems a bit unhinged as he acts like a king and speaks in a dialect that doesn't fit the real world. However, during a private conversation between Carol and Ezekiel, we learn his backstory.

Ezekiel was a zookeeper who saved Shiva's life, and when other's found out he had a tiger by his side, his legend grew. He embraced that and became the king. People wanted someone to follow, and as Ezekiel put it, "I faked it until I made it."

The scene between Ezekiel and Carol exists in the comics, except that it is Michonne who he opens up to about his past. In the television series, the audience gets to see both sides to the character: the showman and the real person behind the curtain. He's a very quirky character and part of the allure of him is that he's such a bizarre, charismatic leader in this new world.

The Kingdom is Feeding Walkers to Pigs

Throughout the episode, we learn more and more about The Kingdom. At one point, we see pigs feeding on walkers, under the watch of some of the members of the community, including Ezekiel. Morgan heads out with the group and Ezekiel tells him that the people in The Kingdom cannot know about this. It raises quite a few questions, at first: "Are they feeding the walker-fed pigs to their own people?"

This is the first moment when the audience realizes there is more to this town than meets the eye. What the group is doing seems a bit suspicious, especially when it's mentioned that no one else can know about what they are doing. If we learn this about them right away, what else is going on at The Kingdom?

The Saviors Are Everywhere

While The Kingdom may be secure and secluded from everything else we've seen so far, it turns out that they're also dealing with The Saviors. Ezekiel, Morgan, and some of The Kingdom's men take eight skinned pigs to a location where a group of men meet them: Negan's men, The Saviors. The Kingdom has an agreement with the tyrants. Ezekiel gives The Saviors the pigs, who have been eating walkers, and The Saviors won't kill them.

It's amazing to see how large The Saviors' stranglehold is over all the communities. They have tremendous reach, resources, and numbers over everyone else. Obviously, it's going to take all the communities--Alexandria, Hilltop, and The Kingdom--teaming up together to take down Negan and his soldiers.

Tonally, this was a tremendous shift from the season premiere. Last week, fans collectively wept as Negan bludgeoned two members of Alexandria to death in an intense and brutal episode. This week, fans were left scratching their head, mainly because King Ezekiel is such a bizarre character. This episode showed us that there is hope in this new world, and everything can return to normal, as long as you give The Saviors what they want.

Khary Payton did a phenomenal job at portraying Ezekiel. He may not have been as boisterous as his comic book counterpart, but he truly embraced who this man is. While Ezekiel had a heart-to-heart with Carol, his slow slip into his normal voice and vocabulary was fantastic. It took a second to realize that he wasn't pretending to be a king anymore.

It was tough, if not impossible, to follow up the season premiere, but "The Well" did a solid job at introducing the audience to the community and its cast of characters. At times, the episode dragged a bit, but that was only in comparison to last week's episode. On it's own, "The Well" was a well-paced and well-executed episode of The Walking Dead, and its only fault was that it followed the most emotional episode of the series.