Cody digs reviews of The Walking Dead Season 7 episodes out of the archives.
The following reviews originally appeared on ArrowintheHead.com
You can find out what I thought of the first half of The Walking Dead season 7 HERE.
Season 7, Episode 9: Rock in the Road
PLOT: Our heroes run into roadblocks both figurative and literal as they try to start rising up against Negan.
REVIEW: Although I have been a dedicated viewer of The Walking Dead on AMC since episode one, I have only read the first TPB of the comic book source material, so I have never seen a full Negan story on the page. Even though I'm not a reader of the series I became very aware of the Negan character as time went on, and I saw that fans were looking forward to the day when he would make his television debut with eager anticipation. Now that Negan is finally on the show, and has been brought to life in such a captivating way by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, I've been surprised that the reactions to this season have appeared to be so split. The Negan storyline isn't working for some viewers; I keep seeing people say that they're giving up on the show. I don't get it - for me, the arrival of Negan has breathed new life into The Walking Dead. I am more interested now than I have been in a few seasons, I can't wait to see what horrible thing Negan will do next, or to hear what terribly inappropriate thing he might say. And I can't wait to watch him get his comeuppance.
As promotional materials have made clear, the theme of this second half of season seven is "Rise Up", and we're going to see Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and the rest of our heroes take a stand against Negan. They're going to take their lives back or die trying. The resistance has begun, but it's off to a bumpy start.
This midseason premiere also got off to a bumpy start as far as I was concerned. There weren't exactly a lot of thrills in those first 30 minutes. As we watched Rick and his cohorts talk and talk with the leaders of other communities, unsuccessfully trying to get them to join the fight against Negan, I was starting to think that a better title for this episode would have been "Chatting with Chickens". I mean, Hilltop leader Gregory (Xander Berkeley) not getting on board was to be expected, the guy's a sleazeball coward, but the Kingdom's King Ezekiel (Khary Payton) also opting out? What a disappointment this guy is. Well, we already knew he's a total pussycat when he drops the royal theatrics, which is unfortunate. At this point he's coming off like a joke. In fact, everything about the Kingdom came off as kind of silly tonight, as its environment doesn't really mix well with most of the characters from Alexandria.
More than halfway into the episode, I was concerned that my favorite thing about Rock in the Road (which takes its title from a story Rick tells Ezekiel that has no impact on the man) would be the "Alright!" reaction Kingdom resident Jerry (Cooper Andrews) had to a moment in that story. Then our heroes happened across a roadblock created by Negan's Saviors and found a cable rigged with a whole lot of explosives. Finally there were some walkers and some action in this episode, and the discovery of those explosives was exciting, because surely they are going to be very handy in future episodes.
Our heroes didn't accomplish much with the other communities tonight, although they do have some support at both the Hilltop and the Kingdom. While Morgan (Lennie James) holds on to hope that there can be a more pacifistic solution to their problems, I like that his Kingdom protégé Benjamin (Logan Miller) is ready to fight. I loved Benjamin's line, "If you're asked to be the hero, be a hero." Damn right.
Things left off on a very interesting note, with the reveal of a community that fans have been referring to as the Garbage Pail Kids. I'm looking forward to seeing what this bunch is all about, and to hopefully watching the anti-Negan resistance grow as the remaining episodes play out. The Hilltop and the Kingdom need to face their fears. It's time to go to war.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: The sequence where the massive zombie herd is approaching the roadblock while Rick and co. are trying to finish collecting the explosives was great, the tension building as the walkers got closer and closer. And then, the bloody climax.
GORY GLORY: The obvious standout moment; when Rick and Michonne drive through the herd with a cable strung between their cars, slicing through dozens of zombies. It was a very cool moment that would have been incredibly cool if it weren't also so incredibly CG.
FAVORITE SCENE: This episode was all about that herd scene.
Season 7, Episode 10: New Best Friends
PLOT: Trouble is brewing at The Kingdom while Rick tries to form an alliance with The Scavengers.
REVIEW: I'm a George Romero devotee, so part of the reason why I was so hyped for The Walking Dead in the build-up to its premiere on AMC was the fact that then-showrunner Frank Darabont showed so much reverence for the creator of the zombie sub-genre. Darabont had even decreed that no zombie on the show should ever move faster than Bill Hinzman's Cemetery Ghoul at the start of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. When we were introduced to members of The Kingdom at the end of season six, I had to laugh at the sight of these modern day knights - the Romero influence had gone beyond the DEAD films and they were now working in a touch of KNIGHTRIDERS.
I was all for it. When I saw those first knights appear on screen, I thought this group was the answer - these guys were going to save our main characters from Negan and his Saviors. I built this group up as badasses in my mind, building myself up for a letdown. Letdown from the fact that King Ezekiel (Khary Payton) isn't really as regal as he seems, and that the group is so servile to The Saviors. In fact, one of the only good things about The Kingdom at this point is that one of its residents is quickly joining the ranks of my favorite characters: the jovial Jerry, as played by Cooper Andrews. I just love this guy's attitude, he always brings a bit of fun to any scene he's in. So I better not get too attached to him, because he's probably not long for this world. Fun he may be, but the character also seems rather expendable.
I hadn't imagined that talking The Kingdom into fighting The Saviors would be so complicated, my greatest wish tonight was that the knights would just decide to go ahead and wipe out the junior Negans they had their messy meeting with. Instead, they just take their licks and give up Morgan's stick. Just when Morgan (Lennie James) finally showed a willingness to use it, too!
Sure, this is all good drama, building anticipation until the big blowout that is sure to come, but it gets frustrating. Kingdom resident Richard (Karl Makinen) is one of the few people there who knows what needs to be done, and he wants to hit the fast forward button to that big blowout, so much so that he is even willing to sacrifice Carol (Melissa McBride) to get Ezekiel to be proactive. Unfortunately for Richard, but fortunately for Carol and the audience, he picked the wrong person to help him set this up. Daryl (Norman Reedus) has to give him a talking to about that... But I'm not sure Richard really learned his lesson. I have a feeling Carol is still in danger.
Whatever the future holds, this episode did give us the sight of Carol and Daryl being reunited, sharing the screen for the first time this season. I have to admit, as Carol talked about her reason for leaving Alexandria, and as Daryl held back from giving her devastating information, I kind of got a little choked up watching these two interact again. That was a good scene.
Speaking of Alexandria, we did get resolution to last week's cliffhanger of Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and company getting captured by the junkyard-dwelling group we were calling the Garbage Pail Kids but now know are The Scavengers. In the pages of the comic, the group called The Scavengers were just six people who rolled around in a van. This version of The Scavengers is something very different, a group of like-minded weirdos who apparently gathered up every stitch of black clothing from the stores in the surrounding area. This group teeters on the edge of seeming completely absurd, coming off as even sillier than a group of knights led by a man with a pet tiger. There's something hive mind about them, like they all share the quirks of their leader Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh of THE WOMAN and TALES OF HALLOWEEN).
Jadis herself displays an unwillingness to speak in complete sentences, and her habit of dropping words, cutting her dialogue down to the bare minimum, and the special way she and her followers have of referring to things - like calling the top of a trash heap the "up up up" - reminded me of a MAD MAX film, like these people have been living in the post-apocalypse so long that the language has evolved. They're a goofy bunch. Maybe they'll be some help in the long run, but man they're goofy. They were also a pain in this episode, but now that Rick has proven himself by defeating their pet zombie maybe they'll be more agreeable next time we see them.
So, in the aftermath of New Best Friends I'm feeling iffy about The Scavengers, and I still want to call them the Garbage Pail Kids. I'm feeling touched by the Carol / Daryl reunion. I'm eager to see the next stages in the build-up to war with The Saviors. I'm worried about the trouble Richard might cause for Carol. I want to see Carol become the warrior everyone fears she'll become if she hears that Glenn and Abraham were killed. And I'm wondering if Tara (Alanna Masterson) is going to tell Rick and the others where they can find a lot of guns...
New Best Friends was a decent episode. Nothing mind-blowing storywise, but it pushed things forward a couple more steps and introduced us to a group I'm not sure I wanted to be introduced to.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: Of course, this episode was owned by Winslow, the pet walker of The Scavengers. This guy was a formidable opponent for Rick and looked really cool while at the same time being a ridiculous concept. Looking at him, I could only wonder how much time The Scavengers had wasted sticking those spikes into him and making that helmet. It's incomprehensible, but it was fun to see Rick trying to fight Winslow off while getting cut by his spikes.
GORY GLORY: There wasn't a whole lot of gore in here, but Rick having to impale his own hand on a spike to hold Winslow back was a nice moment.
FAVORITE SCENE: I'm tempted to say the scene where Jerry happily hands Carol a cobbler, but I have to give "favorite scene" honors to the Winslow fight. Just like last week's episode, the best zombie moment was also my favorite scene.
Season 7, Episode 11: Hostiles and Calamities
PLOT: Eugene is welcomed into Negan's Sanctuary while Dwight deals with the aftermath of Sherry's betrayal.
REVIEW: When The Walking Dead narrows its focus down from the wider cast of characters to just one or two of them, it risks putting off some members of the audience who may not be so crazy about the characters chosen to carry the episode. Such was the case for me and Hostiles and Calamities, which focused on Eugene (Josh McDermitt) and Dwight (Austin Amelio).
I'm fine with one of these characters being the focus of an episode and not so fine with the other, and the one I didn't like spending so much time with tonight may not be the one you'd expect.
We've been given plenty of reason to hate Dwight, the sleazeball lackey of brain-bashing villain Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). He's a total creep who's trying to be the evil, bootleg Daryl and he killed my fellow Ohioan Dr. Denise last season, very soon after she warmed my heart by referencing "pop" on the show. And yet I'm intrigued by this guy and his love triangle with Negan and their sort of shared wife Sherry (Christine Evangelista), I want to know more about him, I want the show to get into his head. I am confident it's only a matter of time before he turns against Negan, and I want to follow him on that journey.
Dwight can be a shady, hard to read character. You can see him struggling with his place in Negan's Sanctuary, but then he'll go and do something awful that makes you wonder just how long it's going to take for this guy to snap. He took some strides down that road tonight, though. When he goes so far as to make it look like a devoted Negan follower has betrayed their leader, getting that person killed in a terrible way, it looks like he's not far from completing that 180 turn. It's going to be tough to root for Dwight after all we've seen him do, but it's going to be nice to see Negan take that loss.
Good or evil, Dwight is interesting. Eugene, on the other hand... Eugene has been on the show for three years now, but he's not a character I developed any strong emotions about until recently. He was a liar, he looks ridiculous, he was good for a laugh every now and then. I wanted him to grow as a person, to become less of a coward. Then it began to seem like every time he makes some progress, he then regresses back further. Eugene has been intensely annoying to me in season seven, ever since the deaths of Abraham and Glenn. Sure, he's seen some bad things. The Saviors are scary, I get it. But it has been frustrating that a character who started as a coward has become even more cowardly just when he had shown signs of having some testicular fortitude. This entire season, he has had this weak, quivering, sad sack expression on his face that has irritated me to no end, and he has been nothing but a pain. By the mid-season finale, I was actively rooting for him to be killed. Unfortunately, Negan only took him captive.
Nothing about the time we spend with Eugene during Hostiles and Calamities has changed my mind about the character. Not his science skills, not his prowess as a gamer, not even the line "I was gifted these pickles." In fact, I may have even more reason to dislike him by the time the episode comes to an end. Not only does he keep making a creepy groaning sound when women are around, but he also appears to be a traitor. Maybe he is actually being brave, maybe he's pulling some kind of long con on Negan, we know he's bluffing his way through the situation, resurrecting his old "fight fire with fire" nonsense, but when he says he's giving himself over to Negan I don't doubt it for a second.
Whatever Eugene's doing, I would still be glad to see him get violently removed from the show. The most interesting aspect of his storyline to me was the revelation that at least three of Negan's wives are ready and willing to kill him. That's a good sign for the future, and that's three more Saviors our heroes won't have to fight in the coming battles.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: The walkers don't get much time to shine in this episode, just milling along the fence line at the Sanctuary. There isn't really a "best" zombie moment, there just happens to be some zombies on the screen at a couple points.
GORY GLORY: There wasn't much in the way of gore, either. The best you've got is when the spiked fence zombie splits in half and we watch its guts pour out.
FAVORITE SCENE: The scene that got the "Easy Street" song stuck in my head again? No, I would give favorite scene to the one in which Dwight returns to the house where he and Sherry used to live and we hear, in voiceover, the contents of the letter she left behind for him. It was a good emotional moment that pushes Dwight closer to some sort of redemption.
Season 7, Episode 12: Say Yes
PLOT: Rick and Michonne enjoy each other's company and lay waste to a whole lot of walkers on their quest to gather guns for the Scavengers.
REVIEW: I remember back when, in the wake of GRINDHOUSE, Eli Roth was planning to make a movie called TRAILER TRASH, which would have consisted entirely of faux trailers for non-existent films. Roth said he planned to have special effects artist Greg Nicotero contribute a trailer to the movie because Nicotero had been itching to direct. TRAILER TRASH never happened, but Nicotero has gone on to gain a hell of a creative outlet in the form of The Walking Dead, which he has directed nineteen episodes of over the last six seasons. You can usually expect a Nicotero episode to offer up something special, especially since he tends to direct premieres and finales. The fact that Nicotero plays such an important role in the creation of a zombie show seems perfect because the first movie he ever worked on was George A. Romero's DAY OF THE DEAD.
Nicotero doesn't just direct the big episodes, he directs random ones throughout the seasons as well, like tonight's episode, which seemed tailor made for someone with makeup effects experience to take the helm of, because it featured a ton of zombies.
Say Yes finds Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) on the road alone, searching for the "a lot" of guns they agreed to deliver to the junkyard-dwelling Scavengers in exchange for the Scavengers helping them in their upcoming war against the Saviors. The couple raids homes, gathers supplies, has sex a couple times even though they both must smell awful, finds no guns. Until they come across a school carnival where something very bad happened. It's left up to our imagination, but whatever occurred at that carnival involved the expenditure of many rounds of ammunition and has left the place crawling with zombies - civilians, soldiers with their guns still strapped to their bodies, walkers who have their hands tied together. Being several years into the zombie apocalypse at this point, Rick and Michonne are so confident in their abilities that they decide to roll right into the carnival and take on dozens of zombies by themselves. They need those guns the soldiers have.
The tone of this episode was a complete 180 from those that made up the first half of this season, which some viewers felt was too dark and bleak. Here Rick and Michonne are having fun, smiling, laughing, cracking jokes, taking down walkers like it ain't no thing... until it becomes a thing. There comes a time when it appears that Rick may have been killed by a group of walkers. But come on, we know that Rick isn't going to die at this point. There's no question, the only question is how long are they going to draw out the moment before we get the reveal that he's alive and well. This is like the Glenn dumpster thing all over again, but thankfully it plays out in minutes instead of over multiple episodes.
There were a lot of makeup effects in this episode and a good amount of gore. Nicotero and his FX crew often pay homage to Romero with the designs of certain walkers, and Say Yes was no exception. I wouldn't have caught it as a reference if Nicotero hadn't pointed it out on his Instagram account, but a shot of a zombie inside a ticket booth was supposed to be a nod to the CREEPSHOW poster art.
But this wasn't all about action and zombie kills, there was also a strong essence of heart and soul. We had Tara (Alanna Masterson) debating whether or not she should tell our heroes about the well-armed community she encountered, confiding in the only person around who couldn't tell anyone. We had Rosita (Christian Serratos) advancing her plans for revenge and complaining to Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam), who had a line that I loved: "Anything is possible until your heart stops beating."
And we had the deepening romance of Rick and Michonne, which allowed for some very emotional moments, including a scene where Michonne echoed the first half of my favorite exchange of dialogue in THE CONJURING: "I can't lose you." Rick's response was much different than the CONJURING reply, but effective in its own way.
Speaking of dialogue, we then have a scene with the Scavengers, and wow. This group does not need to be given much screen time, because their unique way of speaking with their abbreviated sentences is already grating the second time we hear it. People are going to die in the battle with the Saviors, and hopefully all of these knuckleheads will be among the casualties.
The Scavengers aside, Say Yes was a really good episode, both touching and fun. The war machine keeps chugging forward.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: There's plenty to choose from in this episode, but I have to go with Rick's messy removal of the zombie who is stuck through the windshield of a car. It's not just the gore that gives it the win, either. The makeup on the zombie and his reaction to feeling Rick pulling him apart but not being able to get to him reminded me of the first zombie movie I ever owned a copy of, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD PART II.
GORY GLORY: The windshield zombie wins again. He had guts.
FAVORITE SCENE: The emotional scene in which Rick tells Michonne he hasn't been able to sleep, tormented by the loss of Glenn, and in which she tells him "I can't lose you."
Season 7, Episode 13: Bury Me Here
PLOT: The relationship between the Kingdom and the Saviors reaches its breaking point.
REVIEW: Kingdom knight Richard (Karl Makinen) is a character I have grudgingly been on the side of. I've never really liked the guy, but he had the right idea about wanting the Kingdom to strike against the Saviors before it was too late. But then again, his plans to get the fight started have been questionable - like the one he tried to put in motion a few episodes back, which would have involved getting our beloved Carol (Melissa McBride) killed.
Richard wisely abandoned that idea, opting for the backup plan seen in tonight's episode. A plan that fell apart around him and wasn't all that exciting to watch play out. As much as I like Carol, I have to admit, it would have been much more thrilling and intense to kick off the war with some Saviors getting ambushed and their buddies going out hunting for her. The events of tonight's episode were more sedate than that.
We did lose someone due to Richard's manipulations of the situation between the Kingdom and the Saviors, but I don't think anyone's going to be too heartbroken to see Benjamin (Logan Miller) go. Sure, he was a good kid, I liked him, but we barely knew him, and I didn't see a long future for that character on the show. Maybe a little longer than this, but not long.
Truly, it was only a matter of time before something went really bad during a Kingdom / Saviors meeting, and the Kingdom really got unbelievably lucky that Gavin (Jayson Warner Smith) was the Savior assigned to them. From a community that could have given them the likes of Dwight, Simon, and various other reprehensible douchebags, including Negan himself, they get Gavin? Gavin's team may have a bad apple in the bunch with Jared (Joshua Mikel), but even he is low-key compared to some of the other options. The people of the Kingdom can be a bit dim, and Gavin has shown them nearly infinite patience, being one of the few Saviors who isn't prone to violence. Even when his patience ran out tonight, it was more like he was being forced to act than him actually wanting to act. Under the right circumstances, I could even see Gavin bailing on the Saviors.
Benjamin's death may not have a great impact on the audience, but the loss is felt at the Kingdom, and especially by his aikido mentor Morgan (Lennie James). We see just how much of an impact it has on Morgan with a sequence that shows him raging in the streets, contemplating slitting his wrists, and having flashbacks. A sequence cut together in such a way that I found it to be laughable and cringe-inducing, capped off with an awkward, clunky flashback to a moment earlier in the episode when Morgan realizes what caused things to go wrong. If I were to describe the Morgan breakdown montage in one word, it would be "atrocious".
Throughout the episode, Bury Me Here was often riding the line of getting a 6/10 rating and being called a disappointment. I worried that the episode was going to keep things hanging, as The Walking Dead so often does. I was concerned that it would end with Carol still not knowing the truth about what happened between the Saviors and Alexandria, and that we wouldn't know Morgan's mindset, just like we were left not knowing what's going on in Eugene's head after Hostiles and Calamities. If we didn't find out what Morgan was thinking, the episode would have felt empty. He just displayed loyalty to the Saviors, smoothed things over between them and the Kingdom, and if we weren't told that the Kingdom was ready to fight after this, it would have been pointless.
Thankfully, the makers of the show decided to be merciful to us this week. They assured us that Morgan is locked into badass murder mode and ready for war. Carol got the information she needed and is ready, too. Even King Ezekiel (Khary Payton) is showing a willingness to fight. That's progress. Those final moments made the episode worth it, pulling it up a point and saving it from the disappointment brand.
Richard really wanted to sacrifice himself to the cause tonight. Benjamin wasn't supposed to be hurt. However, between the two of them Benjamin was clearly the right death to get the war rolling. Poor dumb Richard, the Kingdom would not have gone to war to avenge you. Maybe you realized that in your final moments, when everyone just stood rooted in the spot, mouths agape, and watched Morgan kill you. That scene could have been presented in a better way to give the impression that someone there cared about him. There was some yelling, but that's it. As if that softie Gavin would have had someone killed for trying to intervene.
Bury Me Here wasn't so great, but it moved things forward.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: Carol killing her way up to the gates of the Kingdom. Benjamin thought it was quite a feat that she took down five walkers on her own. Pfft. He should have seen Rick and Michonne last episode.
GORY GLORY: Obviously the standout was Carol using a sign post to jab zombies in the head, but that was a bit too CG for my taste. I'll give the gore honor to the head wound on the zombie Carol had left writhing in the street. Not only was it a good looking wound, but it also brought a creepy feeling with it, as it made you wonder "Who was out there to finish off that zombie?"
FAVORITE SCENE: Morgan telling Carol what happened to Glenn and Abraham. It had to be done, because she has asses to kick.
Season 7, Episode 14: The Other Side
PLOT: Rosita and Sasha move forward with a plan to assassinate Negan while the Saviors make an unexpected visit to the Hilltop.
REVIEW: The build-up continues. While I have expected The Walking Dead to wait until the very last episode of the season to get to the war against Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and his Saviors that this second half has been leading to, I did have some hope that the show would break from the established pattern that causes a spike in viewership for the premieres and finales. Casual viewers know that's when they can tune in to see some action. So I would suggest shaking things up a bit. Get to the battle a little earlier and have it last through the last few episodes. But that's not what the powers that be are doing. The battle with Negan didn't officially start tonight, the preview for next week's episode shows that it will also be a build-up story, and so there we have it - we're not getting that fight until the last episode.
In the meantime, we must judge the episodes on the way to the battle based on how much closer they get us to that point, and on their own merits. It's not giving me war, but what is it giving me?
What The Other Side delivered was some strong interactions between a handful of the characters. There was a conversation between Jesus (Tom Payne) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) in which we learn some things about Jesus's history and he comes out as being gay while admitting that he has had trouble getting emotionally close to people, including boyfriends. The reveal of Jesus's sexuality is getting some press for some reason, as if having a gay person on The Walking Dead is something new. It's not, and who Jesus is attracted to is irrelevant to me, this was just a nice scene between the two characters, ending with Maggie advising him to try getting close to someone sometime, even if it doesn't last. I can relate to struggling with emotional connections. They are tricky, mysterious things. But I agree with Maggie, making those connections is worth it, even with all the ups and downs that come with them.
Maggie had another dramatic interaction later in the episode, when Daryl (Norman Reedus) apologizes to her for getting her husband and baby daddy Glenn killed back in the season premiere. If Daryl hadn't stood up to Negan, Glenn would still be alive, and he's been carrying that guilt ever since. Maggie lifts that guilt off his shoulders, telling him he's "one of the good things in this world." That scene hit me right in the feels and had me getting choked up along with the characters.
That exchange between Maggie and Daryl occurs while they're hiding from the Saviors, who have made an unexpected stop at the Hilltop because they need to take the community's doctor to replace theirs, who got tossed into a furnace by Negan a few episodes back. The Saviors visiting Hilltop means we get to see more interplay between two guys who I find to be delightful to watch in a "love to hate" sort of way; spineless Hilltop leader Gregory (Xander Berkeley) and Negan's right hand man Simon (Steven Ogg).
Every Savior says they're Negan, but Simon is more of a mini-Negan than any of the others. I could easily see Ogg putting on the leather jacket, picking up Lucille and playing Negan himself. This guy is not one to be trifled with; if he had been in charge of the Kingdom's tribute drops instead of Gavin (Jayson Warner Smith), the Kingdom would have been screwed long ago. Simon is such a douche that I can't help but be entertained by him, and the same goes for Gregory when he's at his most obsequious. The Saviors' visit to the Hilltop should not have taken up so much screen time this close to the finale, but at least I got to watch Simon and Gregory talk to each other some more.
The last of the character interactions that made this episode worth watching was between Rosita (Christian Serratos) and Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green), who were doing their best to hit the accelerator on this war machine. They just can't wait for the finale like the rest of us have to. The women have issues with each other, since Negan victim Abraham left Rosita for Sasha, but each is the other's only ally on an ill-advised, likely suicidal mission to assassinate the leader of the Saviors. While they wait for their chance to take a shot at Negan, they let their guards down, open up to each other, do some bonding. The air is cleared between them by the end of this episode, which surely must mean that one of them will be dying soon.
Given the final moments, I'm placing my bets on Sasha at the moment. She ends up in a very bad situation, partially by choice, taking her opportunity to go out fighting and have her death mean something, and partially due to that cowardly bastard Eugene (Josh McDermitt) continuing to be a cowardly bastard. Whether he's pulling off a con or he has really turned to the dark side, he's still working as a Negan lackey, walking around the Saviors' Sanctuary barking out orders. Rosita and Sasha had Eugene in their rifle crosshairs so many times while they were waiting for Negan and I just wanted them to pull the trigger... After how he acts when Rosita and Sasha get up close to him, Rosita probably wished she had pulled the trigger.
The Other Side wasn't an exciting episode and some of it felt like wasted time, but there were enough good, emotional character scenes to save it from feeling too wasteful, and I'm sure this mess Rosita and Sasha have gotten themselves into will play a major part in getting the battle going. Not in the next episode, but the one after that.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: I couldn't blame someone if they forgot there were any zombies in this episode aside from the ones stuck on the Sanctuary fence, but Rosita and Sasha do get past some on their way to the Sanctuary. At one point they set a car on fire to distract some zombies, so there's your best zombie moment, pretty much by default.
GORY GLORY: Well... a few walkers are nonchalantly stabbed in the head.
FAVORITE SCENE: That moment between Maggie and Daryl. "You're one of the good things in this world." I have something in my eye.
Season 7, Episode 15: Something They Need
PLOT: There's a hostage situation at the Sanctuary and a power shift at Hilltop while the Alexandria group raids Oceanside.
REVIEW: Something They Need was an episode I had been looking forward to with a certain degree of dread. I knew Tara (Alanna Masterston) would have to break her promise and tell her fellow Alexandria residents about the Oceanside community at some point - the community's weapons are going to be very useful in the fight against the villainous Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and his Saviors. But I was worried about how our heroes would handle the confrontation that would surely follow the sharing of that information. If Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and his crew went too hard on Oceanside, they could come off as being just as bad as the Saviors. I was concerned that we were going to see a very dark side of our heroes right when they're about to go into battle against the "big bad" of the season.
I needn't have been so worried about all that. The Alexandria crew handled the Oceanside raid in about the most harmless way possible, even finding support from some unexpected sources in the process. The only trouble really came from Oceanside leader Natania (Deborah May), a frightened old woman who could not be swayed and made herself a major pain. Even the situation with Natania worked itself out, though. As it went on, I came to realize that I should have had a very different concern about Something They Need: I should have been dreading how uninteresting the episode would be. I just didn't know it was uninteresting until I was knee deep in it.
There wasn't much about this episode that felt truly inspired, it just felt like the show was going through the motions on the way to the finale, checking off items on a list of things that need to be done before we can get to the action. Of course, that's basically what the entire second half of this season has been doing, but it was especially obvious in this episode. It's like even the powers that be behind the show are getting tired of their long build-up at this point.
While the "we need to pay off this storyline and take these steps" part of the episode played out at Oceanside, the previous episode's cliffhanger involving Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) entering the Saviors' home base the Sanctuary was also followed up on. The scenario could have provided some action and thrills, but instead it's presented in the most sedate way possible. Did you think maybe Sasha might be stalking the halls of the Sanctuary, taking down Saviors as she went, leading to some kind of violent confrontation with Negan? Don't get carried away imagining the possibilities, because she's already locked up in a cell by the time the episode begins. And in a cell she sits for the duration of the episode - having some dramatic interactions with Eugene (Josh McDermitt) and Negan along the way. Eugene proves himself to be exactly the cowardly scumbag I suspected him of being, while Negan almost comes off as being something of a good guy... if only we didn't know him as the guy who murdered Abraham and Glenn and a few more people since. Those season premiere kills are tough to get past, and we can't be lured over to Negan's side right when we're about to get the fight against him we've been waiting for all season.
There were some intriguing aspects to Sasha's time in her cell, but we'll have to wait to see where they're going.
Mixed in with these plots were also a few scenes at Hilltop, scenes that are clearly setting up Maggie (Lauren Cohan) as the new leader of the community while current leader Gregory (Xander Berkeley) falls from his throne. It was only a matter of time before that would happen. The shocking thing is that Gregory was ever considered to be leader material in the first place.
Something They Need was a stepping stone episode that I didn't enjoy very much overall. After all this waiting and building, I really hope we're in for an epic and awesome finale next week. It needs to make episodes like this one worth it.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: The Alexandria / Oceanside stand-off is interrupted by the arrival of a herd of some of the most disgusting zombies this show has had to offer, a water-logged, barnacle-encrusted bunch that has risen from the sea.
GORY GLORY: There's nothing too special about the way any of the walkers were dispatched on this episode, so I'll go with Negan sticking his knife through the neck of the Savior who will forever be known as Rapey Davey.
FAVORITE SCENE: Gregory showing off his incompetence with a group of Hilltop residents nearby to witness.
Season 7, Episode 16: The First Day of the Rest of Your Life
PLOT: The residents of the Alexandria Safe Zone prepare for war as the Saviors come for a visit.
REVIEW: The Walking Dead has its ups and downs, but even at its lowest points there is still no other scripted show on television that can manipulate my emotions the way this show does from time to time, whether it's being relentlessly depressing or just giving me the good time of watching gruesome zombies getting dispatched en masse. There's no other show I can tune in to and feel the sense of dread I had while watching the season seven finale, worrying that something terrible might happen to a character I like. No other show can keep my heart pounding for the duration of an episode like this one does.
It does all that even while it's frustrating me, as it did during the finale with the number of flashbacks Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) had to the final moments of domesticity she had with Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) before they set out on the excursion that ended with him being killed in the season premiere, murdered by the villainous Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). These flashbacks provided what turned out to be a good, emotional send-off for Sasha, but I felt like there could have been fewer of them, we could have gotten to the point quicker.
Sasha was having these flashbacks while a captive of Negan and his followers the Saviors, being transported to a meeting with the residents of the Alexandria Safe Zone. We knew that the people of Alexandria, led by Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) were waiting for the Saviors with weapons ready, prepared to kick off the multi-community war this season has been building up to, and that build-up has been so long and drawn out, I was desperate to get to the action and bloodshed.
Eventually we do reach the end of those flashbacks, eventually shots are exchanged between the Saviors and people they've had under their thumbs all season, but nothing goes as expected. I could fully understand if viewers felt that the ensuing battle was an underwhelming pay-off to a season's worth of build-up and emotional baggage, I'm wavering on the edge of that feeling myself, but there were some cheer-worthy moments during the fight and I take further satisfaction from the knowledge that this wasn't really the war we've been waiting for. The war has only just begun. This was the first battle. The fight will continue in season eight - and our heroes have a numbers issue to overcome.
In the end, I came away from this season finale feeling content with the way things went, feeling anticipation for the battles ahead, and feeling vindicated, as my distaste for certain "Are they good or are they bad?" characters has turned out to be well-founded. The members of the junkyard-dwelling Scavengers community, a.k.a. the Garbage Pail Kids, got on my nerves real fast with their odd behavior and way of speaking, and now we know that these annoying people are a bunch of traitorous scumbags. Also confirmed to be a traitorous scumbag is the cowardly Eugene (Josh McDermitt), and if this episode had featured that character's death it would have instantly ranked as one of my favorites in the series.
I have no use for Eugene or for any Scavengers, although one of the highlights of The First Day of the Rest of Your Life was Scavenger leader Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) stating her intention to "lay with" Rick.
For a finale, I found this to be surprisingly low-key (compared to my expectations, at least), but it was an entertaining hour. The war got started, and we said farewell to a character who has been around for more than half of the series.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: This was largely a "other humans are the true threat in the zombie apocalypse" episode, but there is a very important zombie moment that marks the official beginning of the war with the Saviors.
GORY GLORY: There were some good moments of throat and face chewing in this episode, committed by both that important zombie and another bitey beast.
FAVORITE SCENE: In a callback to the premiere, Negan has Rick and Carl (Chandler Riggs) down on their knees and is about to bash heads and remove hands. His baseball bat beating reprise is interrupted by the arrival of Shiva, the tiger that belongs to King Ezekiel (Khary Payton) of the Kingdom community. All season long, a friend of mine has been saying that Shiva had to be the one to take down Negan. She very nearly got her wish.
Season 7, Episode 9: Rock in the Road
PLOT: Our heroes run into roadblocks both figurative and literal as they try to start rising up against Negan.
REVIEW: Although I have been a dedicated viewer of The Walking Dead on AMC since episode one, I have only read the first TPB of the comic book source material, so I have never seen a full Negan story on the page. Even though I'm not a reader of the series I became very aware of the Negan character as time went on, and I saw that fans were looking forward to the day when he would make his television debut with eager anticipation. Now that Negan is finally on the show, and has been brought to life in such a captivating way by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, I've been surprised that the reactions to this season have appeared to be so split. The Negan storyline isn't working for some viewers; I keep seeing people say that they're giving up on the show. I don't get it - for me, the arrival of Negan has breathed new life into The Walking Dead. I am more interested now than I have been in a few seasons, I can't wait to see what horrible thing Negan will do next, or to hear what terribly inappropriate thing he might say. And I can't wait to watch him get his comeuppance.
As promotional materials have made clear, the theme of this second half of season seven is "Rise Up", and we're going to see Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and the rest of our heroes take a stand against Negan. They're going to take their lives back or die trying. The resistance has begun, but it's off to a bumpy start.
This midseason premiere also got off to a bumpy start as far as I was concerned. There weren't exactly a lot of thrills in those first 30 minutes. As we watched Rick and his cohorts talk and talk with the leaders of other communities, unsuccessfully trying to get them to join the fight against Negan, I was starting to think that a better title for this episode would have been "Chatting with Chickens". I mean, Hilltop leader Gregory (Xander Berkeley) not getting on board was to be expected, the guy's a sleazeball coward, but the Kingdom's King Ezekiel (Khary Payton) also opting out? What a disappointment this guy is. Well, we already knew he's a total pussycat when he drops the royal theatrics, which is unfortunate. At this point he's coming off like a joke. In fact, everything about the Kingdom came off as kind of silly tonight, as its environment doesn't really mix well with most of the characters from Alexandria.
More than halfway into the episode, I was concerned that my favorite thing about Rock in the Road (which takes its title from a story Rick tells Ezekiel that has no impact on the man) would be the "Alright!" reaction Kingdom resident Jerry (Cooper Andrews) had to a moment in that story. Then our heroes happened across a roadblock created by Negan's Saviors and found a cable rigged with a whole lot of explosives. Finally there were some walkers and some action in this episode, and the discovery of those explosives was exciting, because surely they are going to be very handy in future episodes.
Our heroes didn't accomplish much with the other communities tonight, although they do have some support at both the Hilltop and the Kingdom. While Morgan (Lennie James) holds on to hope that there can be a more pacifistic solution to their problems, I like that his Kingdom protégé Benjamin (Logan Miller) is ready to fight. I loved Benjamin's line, "If you're asked to be the hero, be a hero." Damn right.
Things left off on a very interesting note, with the reveal of a community that fans have been referring to as the Garbage Pail Kids. I'm looking forward to seeing what this bunch is all about, and to hopefully watching the anti-Negan resistance grow as the remaining episodes play out. The Hilltop and the Kingdom need to face their fears. It's time to go to war.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: The sequence where the massive zombie herd is approaching the roadblock while Rick and co. are trying to finish collecting the explosives was great, the tension building as the walkers got closer and closer. And then, the bloody climax.
GORY GLORY: The obvious standout moment; when Rick and Michonne drive through the herd with a cable strung between their cars, slicing through dozens of zombies. It was a very cool moment that would have been incredibly cool if it weren't also so incredibly CG.
FAVORITE SCENE: This episode was all about that herd scene.
Season 7, Episode 10: New Best Friends
PLOT: Trouble is brewing at The Kingdom while Rick tries to form an alliance with The Scavengers.
REVIEW: I'm a George Romero devotee, so part of the reason why I was so hyped for The Walking Dead in the build-up to its premiere on AMC was the fact that then-showrunner Frank Darabont showed so much reverence for the creator of the zombie sub-genre. Darabont had even decreed that no zombie on the show should ever move faster than Bill Hinzman's Cemetery Ghoul at the start of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. When we were introduced to members of The Kingdom at the end of season six, I had to laugh at the sight of these modern day knights - the Romero influence had gone beyond the DEAD films and they were now working in a touch of KNIGHTRIDERS.
I was all for it. When I saw those first knights appear on screen, I thought this group was the answer - these guys were going to save our main characters from Negan and his Saviors. I built this group up as badasses in my mind, building myself up for a letdown. Letdown from the fact that King Ezekiel (Khary Payton) isn't really as regal as he seems, and that the group is so servile to The Saviors. In fact, one of the only good things about The Kingdom at this point is that one of its residents is quickly joining the ranks of my favorite characters: the jovial Jerry, as played by Cooper Andrews. I just love this guy's attitude, he always brings a bit of fun to any scene he's in. So I better not get too attached to him, because he's probably not long for this world. Fun he may be, but the character also seems rather expendable.
I hadn't imagined that talking The Kingdom into fighting The Saviors would be so complicated, my greatest wish tonight was that the knights would just decide to go ahead and wipe out the junior Negans they had their messy meeting with. Instead, they just take their licks and give up Morgan's stick. Just when Morgan (Lennie James) finally showed a willingness to use it, too!
Sure, this is all good drama, building anticipation until the big blowout that is sure to come, but it gets frustrating. Kingdom resident Richard (Karl Makinen) is one of the few people there who knows what needs to be done, and he wants to hit the fast forward button to that big blowout, so much so that he is even willing to sacrifice Carol (Melissa McBride) to get Ezekiel to be proactive. Unfortunately for Richard, but fortunately for Carol and the audience, he picked the wrong person to help him set this up. Daryl (Norman Reedus) has to give him a talking to about that... But I'm not sure Richard really learned his lesson. I have a feeling Carol is still in danger.
Whatever the future holds, this episode did give us the sight of Carol and Daryl being reunited, sharing the screen for the first time this season. I have to admit, as Carol talked about her reason for leaving Alexandria, and as Daryl held back from giving her devastating information, I kind of got a little choked up watching these two interact again. That was a good scene.
Speaking of Alexandria, we did get resolution to last week's cliffhanger of Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and company getting captured by the junkyard-dwelling group we were calling the Garbage Pail Kids but now know are The Scavengers. In the pages of the comic, the group called The Scavengers were just six people who rolled around in a van. This version of The Scavengers is something very different, a group of like-minded weirdos who apparently gathered up every stitch of black clothing from the stores in the surrounding area. This group teeters on the edge of seeming completely absurd, coming off as even sillier than a group of knights led by a man with a pet tiger. There's something hive mind about them, like they all share the quirks of their leader Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh of THE WOMAN and TALES OF HALLOWEEN).
Jadis herself displays an unwillingness to speak in complete sentences, and her habit of dropping words, cutting her dialogue down to the bare minimum, and the special way she and her followers have of referring to things - like calling the top of a trash heap the "up up up" - reminded me of a MAD MAX film, like these people have been living in the post-apocalypse so long that the language has evolved. They're a goofy bunch. Maybe they'll be some help in the long run, but man they're goofy. They were also a pain in this episode, but now that Rick has proven himself by defeating their pet zombie maybe they'll be more agreeable next time we see them.
So, in the aftermath of New Best Friends I'm feeling iffy about The Scavengers, and I still want to call them the Garbage Pail Kids. I'm feeling touched by the Carol / Daryl reunion. I'm eager to see the next stages in the build-up to war with The Saviors. I'm worried about the trouble Richard might cause for Carol. I want to see Carol become the warrior everyone fears she'll become if she hears that Glenn and Abraham were killed. And I'm wondering if Tara (Alanna Masterson) is going to tell Rick and the others where they can find a lot of guns...
New Best Friends was a decent episode. Nothing mind-blowing storywise, but it pushed things forward a couple more steps and introduced us to a group I'm not sure I wanted to be introduced to.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: Of course, this episode was owned by Winslow, the pet walker of The Scavengers. This guy was a formidable opponent for Rick and looked really cool while at the same time being a ridiculous concept. Looking at him, I could only wonder how much time The Scavengers had wasted sticking those spikes into him and making that helmet. It's incomprehensible, but it was fun to see Rick trying to fight Winslow off while getting cut by his spikes.
GORY GLORY: There wasn't a whole lot of gore in here, but Rick having to impale his own hand on a spike to hold Winslow back was a nice moment.
FAVORITE SCENE: I'm tempted to say the scene where Jerry happily hands Carol a cobbler, but I have to give "favorite scene" honors to the Winslow fight. Just like last week's episode, the best zombie moment was also my favorite scene.
Season 7, Episode 11: Hostiles and Calamities
PLOT: Eugene is welcomed into Negan's Sanctuary while Dwight deals with the aftermath of Sherry's betrayal.
REVIEW: When The Walking Dead narrows its focus down from the wider cast of characters to just one or two of them, it risks putting off some members of the audience who may not be so crazy about the characters chosen to carry the episode. Such was the case for me and Hostiles and Calamities, which focused on Eugene (Josh McDermitt) and Dwight (Austin Amelio).
I'm fine with one of these characters being the focus of an episode and not so fine with the other, and the one I didn't like spending so much time with tonight may not be the one you'd expect.
We've been given plenty of reason to hate Dwight, the sleazeball lackey of brain-bashing villain Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). He's a total creep who's trying to be the evil, bootleg Daryl and he killed my fellow Ohioan Dr. Denise last season, very soon after she warmed my heart by referencing "pop" on the show. And yet I'm intrigued by this guy and his love triangle with Negan and their sort of shared wife Sherry (Christine Evangelista), I want to know more about him, I want the show to get into his head. I am confident it's only a matter of time before he turns against Negan, and I want to follow him on that journey.
Dwight can be a shady, hard to read character. You can see him struggling with his place in Negan's Sanctuary, but then he'll go and do something awful that makes you wonder just how long it's going to take for this guy to snap. He took some strides down that road tonight, though. When he goes so far as to make it look like a devoted Negan follower has betrayed their leader, getting that person killed in a terrible way, it looks like he's not far from completing that 180 turn. It's going to be tough to root for Dwight after all we've seen him do, but it's going to be nice to see Negan take that loss.
Good or evil, Dwight is interesting. Eugene, on the other hand... Eugene has been on the show for three years now, but he's not a character I developed any strong emotions about until recently. He was a liar, he looks ridiculous, he was good for a laugh every now and then. I wanted him to grow as a person, to become less of a coward. Then it began to seem like every time he makes some progress, he then regresses back further. Eugene has been intensely annoying to me in season seven, ever since the deaths of Abraham and Glenn. Sure, he's seen some bad things. The Saviors are scary, I get it. But it has been frustrating that a character who started as a coward has become even more cowardly just when he had shown signs of having some testicular fortitude. This entire season, he has had this weak, quivering, sad sack expression on his face that has irritated me to no end, and he has been nothing but a pain. By the mid-season finale, I was actively rooting for him to be killed. Unfortunately, Negan only took him captive.
Nothing about the time we spend with Eugene during Hostiles and Calamities has changed my mind about the character. Not his science skills, not his prowess as a gamer, not even the line "I was gifted these pickles." In fact, I may have even more reason to dislike him by the time the episode comes to an end. Not only does he keep making a creepy groaning sound when women are around, but he also appears to be a traitor. Maybe he is actually being brave, maybe he's pulling some kind of long con on Negan, we know he's bluffing his way through the situation, resurrecting his old "fight fire with fire" nonsense, but when he says he's giving himself over to Negan I don't doubt it for a second.
Whatever Eugene's doing, I would still be glad to see him get violently removed from the show. The most interesting aspect of his storyline to me was the revelation that at least three of Negan's wives are ready and willing to kill him. That's a good sign for the future, and that's three more Saviors our heroes won't have to fight in the coming battles.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: The walkers don't get much time to shine in this episode, just milling along the fence line at the Sanctuary. There isn't really a "best" zombie moment, there just happens to be some zombies on the screen at a couple points.
GORY GLORY: There wasn't much in the way of gore, either. The best you've got is when the spiked fence zombie splits in half and we watch its guts pour out.
FAVORITE SCENE: The scene that got the "Easy Street" song stuck in my head again? No, I would give favorite scene to the one in which Dwight returns to the house where he and Sherry used to live and we hear, in voiceover, the contents of the letter she left behind for him. It was a good emotional moment that pushes Dwight closer to some sort of redemption.
Season 7, Episode 12: Say Yes
PLOT: Rick and Michonne enjoy each other's company and lay waste to a whole lot of walkers on their quest to gather guns for the Scavengers.
REVIEW: I remember back when, in the wake of GRINDHOUSE, Eli Roth was planning to make a movie called TRAILER TRASH, which would have consisted entirely of faux trailers for non-existent films. Roth said he planned to have special effects artist Greg Nicotero contribute a trailer to the movie because Nicotero had been itching to direct. TRAILER TRASH never happened, but Nicotero has gone on to gain a hell of a creative outlet in the form of The Walking Dead, which he has directed nineteen episodes of over the last six seasons. You can usually expect a Nicotero episode to offer up something special, especially since he tends to direct premieres and finales. The fact that Nicotero plays such an important role in the creation of a zombie show seems perfect because the first movie he ever worked on was George A. Romero's DAY OF THE DEAD.
Nicotero doesn't just direct the big episodes, he directs random ones throughout the seasons as well, like tonight's episode, which seemed tailor made for someone with makeup effects experience to take the helm of, because it featured a ton of zombies.
Say Yes finds Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) on the road alone, searching for the "a lot" of guns they agreed to deliver to the junkyard-dwelling Scavengers in exchange for the Scavengers helping them in their upcoming war against the Saviors. The couple raids homes, gathers supplies, has sex a couple times even though they both must smell awful, finds no guns. Until they come across a school carnival where something very bad happened. It's left up to our imagination, but whatever occurred at that carnival involved the expenditure of many rounds of ammunition and has left the place crawling with zombies - civilians, soldiers with their guns still strapped to their bodies, walkers who have their hands tied together. Being several years into the zombie apocalypse at this point, Rick and Michonne are so confident in their abilities that they decide to roll right into the carnival and take on dozens of zombies by themselves. They need those guns the soldiers have.
The tone of this episode was a complete 180 from those that made up the first half of this season, which some viewers felt was too dark and bleak. Here Rick and Michonne are having fun, smiling, laughing, cracking jokes, taking down walkers like it ain't no thing... until it becomes a thing. There comes a time when it appears that Rick may have been killed by a group of walkers. But come on, we know that Rick isn't going to die at this point. There's no question, the only question is how long are they going to draw out the moment before we get the reveal that he's alive and well. This is like the Glenn dumpster thing all over again, but thankfully it plays out in minutes instead of over multiple episodes.
There were a lot of makeup effects in this episode and a good amount of gore. Nicotero and his FX crew often pay homage to Romero with the designs of certain walkers, and Say Yes was no exception. I wouldn't have caught it as a reference if Nicotero hadn't pointed it out on his Instagram account, but a shot of a zombie inside a ticket booth was supposed to be a nod to the CREEPSHOW poster art.
But this wasn't all about action and zombie kills, there was also a strong essence of heart and soul. We had Tara (Alanna Masterson) debating whether or not she should tell our heroes about the well-armed community she encountered, confiding in the only person around who couldn't tell anyone. We had Rosita (Christian Serratos) advancing her plans for revenge and complaining to Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam), who had a line that I loved: "Anything is possible until your heart stops beating."
And we had the deepening romance of Rick and Michonne, which allowed for some very emotional moments, including a scene where Michonne echoed the first half of my favorite exchange of dialogue in THE CONJURING: "I can't lose you." Rick's response was much different than the CONJURING reply, but effective in its own way.
Speaking of dialogue, we then have a scene with the Scavengers, and wow. This group does not need to be given much screen time, because their unique way of speaking with their abbreviated sentences is already grating the second time we hear it. People are going to die in the battle with the Saviors, and hopefully all of these knuckleheads will be among the casualties.
The Scavengers aside, Say Yes was a really good episode, both touching and fun. The war machine keeps chugging forward.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: There's plenty to choose from in this episode, but I have to go with Rick's messy removal of the zombie who is stuck through the windshield of a car. It's not just the gore that gives it the win, either. The makeup on the zombie and his reaction to feeling Rick pulling him apart but not being able to get to him reminded me of the first zombie movie I ever owned a copy of, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD PART II.
GORY GLORY: The windshield zombie wins again. He had guts.
FAVORITE SCENE: The emotional scene in which Rick tells Michonne he hasn't been able to sleep, tormented by the loss of Glenn, and in which she tells him "I can't lose you."
Season 7, Episode 13: Bury Me Here
PLOT: The relationship between the Kingdom and the Saviors reaches its breaking point.
REVIEW: Kingdom knight Richard (Karl Makinen) is a character I have grudgingly been on the side of. I've never really liked the guy, but he had the right idea about wanting the Kingdom to strike against the Saviors before it was too late. But then again, his plans to get the fight started have been questionable - like the one he tried to put in motion a few episodes back, which would have involved getting our beloved Carol (Melissa McBride) killed.
Richard wisely abandoned that idea, opting for the backup plan seen in tonight's episode. A plan that fell apart around him and wasn't all that exciting to watch play out. As much as I like Carol, I have to admit, it would have been much more thrilling and intense to kick off the war with some Saviors getting ambushed and their buddies going out hunting for her. The events of tonight's episode were more sedate than that.
We did lose someone due to Richard's manipulations of the situation between the Kingdom and the Saviors, but I don't think anyone's going to be too heartbroken to see Benjamin (Logan Miller) go. Sure, he was a good kid, I liked him, but we barely knew him, and I didn't see a long future for that character on the show. Maybe a little longer than this, but not long.
Truly, it was only a matter of time before something went really bad during a Kingdom / Saviors meeting, and the Kingdom really got unbelievably lucky that Gavin (Jayson Warner Smith) was the Savior assigned to them. From a community that could have given them the likes of Dwight, Simon, and various other reprehensible douchebags, including Negan himself, they get Gavin? Gavin's team may have a bad apple in the bunch with Jared (Joshua Mikel), but even he is low-key compared to some of the other options. The people of the Kingdom can be a bit dim, and Gavin has shown them nearly infinite patience, being one of the few Saviors who isn't prone to violence. Even when his patience ran out tonight, it was more like he was being forced to act than him actually wanting to act. Under the right circumstances, I could even see Gavin bailing on the Saviors.
Benjamin's death may not have a great impact on the audience, but the loss is felt at the Kingdom, and especially by his aikido mentor Morgan (Lennie James). We see just how much of an impact it has on Morgan with a sequence that shows him raging in the streets, contemplating slitting his wrists, and having flashbacks. A sequence cut together in such a way that I found it to be laughable and cringe-inducing, capped off with an awkward, clunky flashback to a moment earlier in the episode when Morgan realizes what caused things to go wrong. If I were to describe the Morgan breakdown montage in one word, it would be "atrocious".
Throughout the episode, Bury Me Here was often riding the line of getting a 6/10 rating and being called a disappointment. I worried that the episode was going to keep things hanging, as The Walking Dead so often does. I was concerned that it would end with Carol still not knowing the truth about what happened between the Saviors and Alexandria, and that we wouldn't know Morgan's mindset, just like we were left not knowing what's going on in Eugene's head after Hostiles and Calamities. If we didn't find out what Morgan was thinking, the episode would have felt empty. He just displayed loyalty to the Saviors, smoothed things over between them and the Kingdom, and if we weren't told that the Kingdom was ready to fight after this, it would have been pointless.
Thankfully, the makers of the show decided to be merciful to us this week. They assured us that Morgan is locked into badass murder mode and ready for war. Carol got the information she needed and is ready, too. Even King Ezekiel (Khary Payton) is showing a willingness to fight. That's progress. Those final moments made the episode worth it, pulling it up a point and saving it from the disappointment brand.
Richard really wanted to sacrifice himself to the cause tonight. Benjamin wasn't supposed to be hurt. However, between the two of them Benjamin was clearly the right death to get the war rolling. Poor dumb Richard, the Kingdom would not have gone to war to avenge you. Maybe you realized that in your final moments, when everyone just stood rooted in the spot, mouths agape, and watched Morgan kill you. That scene could have been presented in a better way to give the impression that someone there cared about him. There was some yelling, but that's it. As if that softie Gavin would have had someone killed for trying to intervene.
Bury Me Here wasn't so great, but it moved things forward.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: Carol killing her way up to the gates of the Kingdom. Benjamin thought it was quite a feat that she took down five walkers on her own. Pfft. He should have seen Rick and Michonne last episode.
GORY GLORY: Obviously the standout was Carol using a sign post to jab zombies in the head, but that was a bit too CG for my taste. I'll give the gore honor to the head wound on the zombie Carol had left writhing in the street. Not only was it a good looking wound, but it also brought a creepy feeling with it, as it made you wonder "Who was out there to finish off that zombie?"
FAVORITE SCENE: Morgan telling Carol what happened to Glenn and Abraham. It had to be done, because she has asses to kick.
Season 7, Episode 14: The Other Side
PLOT: Rosita and Sasha move forward with a plan to assassinate Negan while the Saviors make an unexpected visit to the Hilltop.
REVIEW: The build-up continues. While I have expected The Walking Dead to wait until the very last episode of the season to get to the war against Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and his Saviors that this second half has been leading to, I did have some hope that the show would break from the established pattern that causes a spike in viewership for the premieres and finales. Casual viewers know that's when they can tune in to see some action. So I would suggest shaking things up a bit. Get to the battle a little earlier and have it last through the last few episodes. But that's not what the powers that be are doing. The battle with Negan didn't officially start tonight, the preview for next week's episode shows that it will also be a build-up story, and so there we have it - we're not getting that fight until the last episode.
In the meantime, we must judge the episodes on the way to the battle based on how much closer they get us to that point, and on their own merits. It's not giving me war, but what is it giving me?
What The Other Side delivered was some strong interactions between a handful of the characters. There was a conversation between Jesus (Tom Payne) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) in which we learn some things about Jesus's history and he comes out as being gay while admitting that he has had trouble getting emotionally close to people, including boyfriends. The reveal of Jesus's sexuality is getting some press for some reason, as if having a gay person on The Walking Dead is something new. It's not, and who Jesus is attracted to is irrelevant to me, this was just a nice scene between the two characters, ending with Maggie advising him to try getting close to someone sometime, even if it doesn't last. I can relate to struggling with emotional connections. They are tricky, mysterious things. But I agree with Maggie, making those connections is worth it, even with all the ups and downs that come with them.
Maggie had another dramatic interaction later in the episode, when Daryl (Norman Reedus) apologizes to her for getting her husband and baby daddy Glenn killed back in the season premiere. If Daryl hadn't stood up to Negan, Glenn would still be alive, and he's been carrying that guilt ever since. Maggie lifts that guilt off his shoulders, telling him he's "one of the good things in this world." That scene hit me right in the feels and had me getting choked up along with the characters.
That exchange between Maggie and Daryl occurs while they're hiding from the Saviors, who have made an unexpected stop at the Hilltop because they need to take the community's doctor to replace theirs, who got tossed into a furnace by Negan a few episodes back. The Saviors visiting Hilltop means we get to see more interplay between two guys who I find to be delightful to watch in a "love to hate" sort of way; spineless Hilltop leader Gregory (Xander Berkeley) and Negan's right hand man Simon (Steven Ogg).
Every Savior says they're Negan, but Simon is more of a mini-Negan than any of the others. I could easily see Ogg putting on the leather jacket, picking up Lucille and playing Negan himself. This guy is not one to be trifled with; if he had been in charge of the Kingdom's tribute drops instead of Gavin (Jayson Warner Smith), the Kingdom would have been screwed long ago. Simon is such a douche that I can't help but be entertained by him, and the same goes for Gregory when he's at his most obsequious. The Saviors' visit to the Hilltop should not have taken up so much screen time this close to the finale, but at least I got to watch Simon and Gregory talk to each other some more.
The last of the character interactions that made this episode worth watching was between Rosita (Christian Serratos) and Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green), who were doing their best to hit the accelerator on this war machine. They just can't wait for the finale like the rest of us have to. The women have issues with each other, since Negan victim Abraham left Rosita for Sasha, but each is the other's only ally on an ill-advised, likely suicidal mission to assassinate the leader of the Saviors. While they wait for their chance to take a shot at Negan, they let their guards down, open up to each other, do some bonding. The air is cleared between them by the end of this episode, which surely must mean that one of them will be dying soon.
Given the final moments, I'm placing my bets on Sasha at the moment. She ends up in a very bad situation, partially by choice, taking her opportunity to go out fighting and have her death mean something, and partially due to that cowardly bastard Eugene (Josh McDermitt) continuing to be a cowardly bastard. Whether he's pulling off a con or he has really turned to the dark side, he's still working as a Negan lackey, walking around the Saviors' Sanctuary barking out orders. Rosita and Sasha had Eugene in their rifle crosshairs so many times while they were waiting for Negan and I just wanted them to pull the trigger... After how he acts when Rosita and Sasha get up close to him, Rosita probably wished she had pulled the trigger.
The Other Side wasn't an exciting episode and some of it felt like wasted time, but there were enough good, emotional character scenes to save it from feeling too wasteful, and I'm sure this mess Rosita and Sasha have gotten themselves into will play a major part in getting the battle going. Not in the next episode, but the one after that.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: I couldn't blame someone if they forgot there were any zombies in this episode aside from the ones stuck on the Sanctuary fence, but Rosita and Sasha do get past some on their way to the Sanctuary. At one point they set a car on fire to distract some zombies, so there's your best zombie moment, pretty much by default.
GORY GLORY: Well... a few walkers are nonchalantly stabbed in the head.
FAVORITE SCENE: That moment between Maggie and Daryl. "You're one of the good things in this world." I have something in my eye.
Season 7, Episode 15: Something They Need
PLOT: There's a hostage situation at the Sanctuary and a power shift at Hilltop while the Alexandria group raids Oceanside.
REVIEW: Something They Need was an episode I had been looking forward to with a certain degree of dread. I knew Tara (Alanna Masterston) would have to break her promise and tell her fellow Alexandria residents about the Oceanside community at some point - the community's weapons are going to be very useful in the fight against the villainous Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and his Saviors. But I was worried about how our heroes would handle the confrontation that would surely follow the sharing of that information. If Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and his crew went too hard on Oceanside, they could come off as being just as bad as the Saviors. I was concerned that we were going to see a very dark side of our heroes right when they're about to go into battle against the "big bad" of the season.
I needn't have been so worried about all that. The Alexandria crew handled the Oceanside raid in about the most harmless way possible, even finding support from some unexpected sources in the process. The only trouble really came from Oceanside leader Natania (Deborah May), a frightened old woman who could not be swayed and made herself a major pain. Even the situation with Natania worked itself out, though. As it went on, I came to realize that I should have had a very different concern about Something They Need: I should have been dreading how uninteresting the episode would be. I just didn't know it was uninteresting until I was knee deep in it.
There wasn't much about this episode that felt truly inspired, it just felt like the show was going through the motions on the way to the finale, checking off items on a list of things that need to be done before we can get to the action. Of course, that's basically what the entire second half of this season has been doing, but it was especially obvious in this episode. It's like even the powers that be behind the show are getting tired of their long build-up at this point.
While the "we need to pay off this storyline and take these steps" part of the episode played out at Oceanside, the previous episode's cliffhanger involving Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) entering the Saviors' home base the Sanctuary was also followed up on. The scenario could have provided some action and thrills, but instead it's presented in the most sedate way possible. Did you think maybe Sasha might be stalking the halls of the Sanctuary, taking down Saviors as she went, leading to some kind of violent confrontation with Negan? Don't get carried away imagining the possibilities, because she's already locked up in a cell by the time the episode begins. And in a cell she sits for the duration of the episode - having some dramatic interactions with Eugene (Josh McDermitt) and Negan along the way. Eugene proves himself to be exactly the cowardly scumbag I suspected him of being, while Negan almost comes off as being something of a good guy... if only we didn't know him as the guy who murdered Abraham and Glenn and a few more people since. Those season premiere kills are tough to get past, and we can't be lured over to Negan's side right when we're about to get the fight against him we've been waiting for all season.
There were some intriguing aspects to Sasha's time in her cell, but we'll have to wait to see where they're going.
Mixed in with these plots were also a few scenes at Hilltop, scenes that are clearly setting up Maggie (Lauren Cohan) as the new leader of the community while current leader Gregory (Xander Berkeley) falls from his throne. It was only a matter of time before that would happen. The shocking thing is that Gregory was ever considered to be leader material in the first place.
Something They Need was a stepping stone episode that I didn't enjoy very much overall. After all this waiting and building, I really hope we're in for an epic and awesome finale next week. It needs to make episodes like this one worth it.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: The Alexandria / Oceanside stand-off is interrupted by the arrival of a herd of some of the most disgusting zombies this show has had to offer, a water-logged, barnacle-encrusted bunch that has risen from the sea.
GORY GLORY: There's nothing too special about the way any of the walkers were dispatched on this episode, so I'll go with Negan sticking his knife through the neck of the Savior who will forever be known as Rapey Davey.
FAVORITE SCENE: Gregory showing off his incompetence with a group of Hilltop residents nearby to witness.
Season 7, Episode 16: The First Day of the Rest of Your Life
PLOT: The residents of the Alexandria Safe Zone prepare for war as the Saviors come for a visit.
REVIEW: The Walking Dead has its ups and downs, but even at its lowest points there is still no other scripted show on television that can manipulate my emotions the way this show does from time to time, whether it's being relentlessly depressing or just giving me the good time of watching gruesome zombies getting dispatched en masse. There's no other show I can tune in to and feel the sense of dread I had while watching the season seven finale, worrying that something terrible might happen to a character I like. No other show can keep my heart pounding for the duration of an episode like this one does.
It does all that even while it's frustrating me, as it did during the finale with the number of flashbacks Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) had to the final moments of domesticity she had with Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) before they set out on the excursion that ended with him being killed in the season premiere, murdered by the villainous Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). These flashbacks provided what turned out to be a good, emotional send-off for Sasha, but I felt like there could have been fewer of them, we could have gotten to the point quicker.
Sasha was having these flashbacks while a captive of Negan and his followers the Saviors, being transported to a meeting with the residents of the Alexandria Safe Zone. We knew that the people of Alexandria, led by Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) were waiting for the Saviors with weapons ready, prepared to kick off the multi-community war this season has been building up to, and that build-up has been so long and drawn out, I was desperate to get to the action and bloodshed.
Eventually we do reach the end of those flashbacks, eventually shots are exchanged between the Saviors and people they've had under their thumbs all season, but nothing goes as expected. I could fully understand if viewers felt that the ensuing battle was an underwhelming pay-off to a season's worth of build-up and emotional baggage, I'm wavering on the edge of that feeling myself, but there were some cheer-worthy moments during the fight and I take further satisfaction from the knowledge that this wasn't really the war we've been waiting for. The war has only just begun. This was the first battle. The fight will continue in season eight - and our heroes have a numbers issue to overcome.
In the end, I came away from this season finale feeling content with the way things went, feeling anticipation for the battles ahead, and feeling vindicated, as my distaste for certain "Are they good or are they bad?" characters has turned out to be well-founded. The members of the junkyard-dwelling Scavengers community, a.k.a. the Garbage Pail Kids, got on my nerves real fast with their odd behavior and way of speaking, and now we know that these annoying people are a bunch of traitorous scumbags. Also confirmed to be a traitorous scumbag is the cowardly Eugene (Josh McDermitt), and if this episode had featured that character's death it would have instantly ranked as one of my favorites in the series.
I have no use for Eugene or for any Scavengers, although one of the highlights of The First Day of the Rest of Your Life was Scavenger leader Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) stating her intention to "lay with" Rick.
For a finale, I found this to be surprisingly low-key (compared to my expectations, at least), but it was an entertaining hour. The war got started, and we said farewell to a character who has been around for more than half of the series.
BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: This was largely a "other humans are the true threat in the zombie apocalypse" episode, but there is a very important zombie moment that marks the official beginning of the war with the Saviors.
GORY GLORY: There were some good moments of throat and face chewing in this episode, committed by both that important zombie and another bitey beast.
FAVORITE SCENE: In a callback to the premiere, Negan has Rick and Carl (Chandler Riggs) down on their knees and is about to bash heads and remove hands. His baseball bat beating reprise is interrupted by the arrival of Shiva, the tiger that belongs to King Ezekiel (Khary Payton) of the Kingdom community. All season long, a friend of mine has been saying that Shiva had to be the one to take down Negan. She very nearly got her wish.
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