The Walking Dead season 7 episode 15 review: 'Something They Need' is an unusually tame build-up to next week's finale

*Spoilers for The Walking Dead season 7 episode 15 follow*

Last week's episode of The Walking Dead built to a thrilling climax that threw the fate of one of the show's lead characters into uncertainty; that AMC would rob said character's fate during the promotion of the show's latest outing undercuts much of the excitement (well, dread) you experience sitting down to watch it. Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) is alive following her 'suicide mission' glimpsed at the climax of the previous episode, and instead of showing how things went down, the first time we see her she is locked up in a cell very similar to the one that Daryl spent the majority of the first half of season seven locked in. She's been spared the “Easy Street” treatment, thankfully.

Her extended sequences opposite Negan bubble with tension, as we see his would-be killer come face to face with the man who murdered the person she loved. Making Negan's first act of the episode to murder one of his men who tries to rape Sasha - a famous moment from Robert Kirkman's comic book series counterpart - was a switched on inclusion, almost humanising the malevolent foe. While never truly thinking that Sasha is in danger of defecting and joining The Saviours (unlike Eugene), it's rather tragic to watch a character being so helplessly manipulated by her arch nemesis to the stage where the failed mission has rendered her fate rather meaningless. Knowing that Negan will use her to throw Rick and company into danger, Sasha begs Eugene to provide her with poison so she can kill herself instead.

At this stage of the series, Sasha's doom seems a certainty - it's a sure bet she won't make it out of the finale alive. it's unfortunate then that, in one of the episode's most misjudged moments Sasha's big reveal is merely heard in favour of being shown from the viewpoint of Eugene who is listening outside the door. - something of a head-scratcher.

The episode's other crux sees Tara (Alanna Masterson) lead her fellow Alexandrians to Oceanside, the community she clashed with back in episode six. While these scenes zip along at a fair pace, the outcome's inevitability - that they'll acquire new guns and allies in their war against The Saviours - seems like a done deal the minute they embark on their journey robbing these scenes of much tension. if anything, they only serve to add a layer of skin to Tara's character, somebody who hasn't registered on the same level as, say, Rosita this season, but has more than marked herself as character you'd mourn should it ever come to that.

It's an old-fashioned walker set-piece that stands out as an episode highlight: as Oceanside are attacked by a horde of the rotting undead, the latter spark into action alongside Alexandria, sparking into action having had no reason to use their weapons for a while. If anything, it serves as a preview of how the communities will work together to defeat The Saviours in the season to come, each Oceanside character being established as more than just faces with their very own dedicated action shot.

It seems like as good a time as any to point out that, while season seven has struggled to match the quality of previous seasons, the score, from composer Bear McCreary, has proved he's one of the best working in TV today with an array of pulsating compositions that have matched whatever an episode had thrown his way; we're sure he'll have his work cut out for next week's finale.

The Walking Dead airs in the UK tonight (27 March) at 9pm on FOX.