
Just like the prison, there's tension in the ranks, and it manifests itself in a lot of different ways depending on who is involved. Food slowly running out, tension all around, and zombies stacked against the walls 20 deep.

That's important, because this episode is based heavily on the Alexandrians and how they're responding to the sort of certain-death situation that Rick and the gang have been involved with dozens of times at this point. However, they're slowly starting to trim the Alexandrian fat and give the characters more memorable traits. Maybe I don't know who they are because they don't know who they are? Or maybe I just don't know who they are because they're not terribly memorable (or they don't say their names often enough).

We don't know the characters because they don't know themselves the survivors are battle-tested and tempered by violence and bloodshed, but the Alexandrians are soft, still stick in a pre-apocalypse mentality. They're not the familiar people even someone relatively underdeveloped like Tara or Rosita is more familiar than the average Alexandrian, and that seems like also part of the design. I get that we're supposed to be in the shoes of Rick and Daryl and the rest we're meeting a whole host of new people and expected to remember who they are, just like they are. I'm not sure if the issue is me or the characters themselves. Most of the others are boiled down to simple descriptions: the doctor girl, the pantry lady, that balding guy, Alexandra Breckenridge. I'm aware that Carl's little frenemy is Ron, but it takes some digging despite being the best name anyone could ever have. However, when it comes to the rank and file, I'm hard pressed to keep track of anyone else.

Some of them I remember Aaron springs to mind pretty well, and Deanna is hard to forget thanks to her name being turned into a meme. I am having a lot of trouble remembering the names of all the characters from Alexandria. I am going to confess something that I find a little bit shameful.
