 John Griffiths , writing for Us Weekly , felt the installment was haunting enough to " make viewers leave their lights on afterward " , and opined that the character development and the progression of the storylines served as the episode 's highlights . John Serba of The Grand Rapids Press stated that " Vatos " was the most emotionally poignant episode of The Walking Dead so far . Expressing similar sentiments , IGN 's Eric Goldman evaluated the episode as " strong " , ultimately giving it a nine out of ten , signifying an " amazing " rating . Leonard Pierce of The A.V. Club , who issued the episode a B grade , was less enthusiastic than the general consensus . Pierce felt that the bulk of the episode was " mushy " and concluded that it " didn 't solve anything involving the ongoing plot and introduced a bunch of arbitrary , needless complications that had no payoff , [ and ] bogged it down quite a bit . " 
