The Walking Dead: Season 8

Cody unearths the reviews he wrote of every episode of The Walking Dead season 8.

The following reviews originally appeared on ArrowintheHead.com

Season 8, Episode 1: Mercy

PLOT: "All-Out War" begins as the other communities attack the Sanctuary of Negan and his Saviors.

REVIEW: Just one week after Fear the Walking Dead finished its best-yet season with back-to-back episodes, its companion series The Walking Dead has returned to AMC airwaves with an episode that is not only the season 8 premiere but also the 100th episode of the series overall. Unfortunately, this milestone episode wasn't quite the epic viewers might have been expecting. Nothing all that substantial seemed to happen in it, aside from some scenes that were reminiscent of the first episode of the series.

Sure, Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan), and King Ezekiel (Khary Payton) led the people of the Alexandria, Hilltop, and Kingdom communities on an assault on the Sanctuary, the base of the villainous Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and his people, the Saviors... But really, what did this assault accomplish? Other than putting Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) in a bad spot and busting out the Sanctuary's windows, I'm not sure it accomplished much of anything. This despite the fact that Negan gave his enemies a golden opportunity to do something very subtantial - they very easily could have killed him. He walked right out into the open to address them. All it would have taken is one bullet. But instead of taking Negan out, the group proceeds to fire upon the Sanctuary in a way that could kill anyone in there except Negan, given where they were aiming.

I almost suspect that Rick secretly likes having Negan around, he bungled this chance so terribly.

The Walking Dead's showrunner Scott M. Gimple has said that season 8 will be action packed, that we won't even reach a quieter episode until five episodes in. I would argue that Mercy could qualify as a quieter episode itself, it had its share of quiet moments. There were certainly action beats in there, though, mostly consisting of wild gunfire and things exploding. Usually not important things, but random objects that were blown up to rile the walking dead. These things can be considered action, but it's not an especially thrilling sort of action.

Some of the quieter moments involve something I could do without entirely: "flash forwards" to a few years down the line, when Rick is sporting a short haircut and a long grey beard, and is getting around in his happy home with a cane. Fans are calling this future Rick "Old Man Rick" and "Grandpa Rick", among other things, but I think he's just trying to emulate the style of Bryan Johnson, a star of a different AMC series, Comic Book Men. Regardless, I couldn't be less interested in these glimpses of a dreamy future.

More interesting are flash forwards to a different time, when it appears that the "all-out war" against Negan and the Saviors has taken a toll on Rick - it looks like he will, at some point in the future, revert to the teary-eyed, beaten-down Rick we saw last season. Hopefully he won't be in that state for very long, because we already got our share of that version of the character. This season is supposed to be about him rising above that fear and pain to get his guts back.

Mercy was a rather middle-of-the-road episode. It would have been fine for a random episode in the midst of a season, but as a season premiere and as the 100th episode it was a bit of a letdown. Here's hoping the action will be more exciting in future action-packed episodes, and that the show won't be wasting too much time with that future Rick stuff.

BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: Rick cuts loose a tangled-up zombie so it can munch on a Savior.

GORY GLORY: Aside from some gross-looking zombies, there wasn't any particularly glorious gore.

FAVORITE SCENE: My favorite image of the episode was of Tara (Alanna Masterson) doing her zombie herding work with a piece of licorice hanging out of her mouth, but my favorite scene was a moment in which we see various members of the different communities interacting with each other, like Jerry (Cooper Andrews) giving some armor to Enid (Katelyn Nacon).



Season 8, Episode 2: The Damned

PLOT: The assault on the Saviors continues in multiple locations and a long-lost character returns.

REVIEW: This is more like it. The second episode of The Walking Dead's eighth season is, like the season premiere, all about the united communities' assault on the Saviors, the people led by baseball bat-toting villain Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). But this episode improves on what came before by dropping the fractured timeline editing and the dopey "flash forward" visions that tested my patience and at times confused me last week. This one was just 41 minutes of straightforward action, with attacks on Savior outposts taking place in multiple locations simultaneously.

Last season, the events of this episode probably would have been stretched out over a few different episodes, because they would have devoted an episode to each of the different groups attacking the Saviors. Thankfully, this season they're moving fast and widening the focus, so within just one episode we can see Aaron (Ross Marquand), Eric (Jordan Woods-Robinson), and cohorts participating in a gunfight at the same time that we see Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Daryl (Norman Reedus) search for a weapons stash, Morgan (Lennie James), Jesus (Tom Payne), and others infiltrate a satellite outpost, and Carol (Melissa McBride), King Ezekiel (Khary Payton), and more pursue a Savior through the countryside.

We don't get to see what's going down between Negan and Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) in that zombie-surrounded trailer we last saw them in, but we can't expect The Walking Dead to toss out all of its old tricks. Other familiar tropes on display in this episode were a character losing their hold on sanity (Morgan... again) and another deciding to take a non-violent approach to their enemies (Jesus picking up the pacifism Morgan dropped).

Despite Jesus sparing lives, a whole lot of Saviors die over the course of The Damned, and maybe some notable good guys die as well. We'll have to wait and see about that. Before the episode aired, executive producer Greg Nicotero hinted that we'd be seeing the return of a familiar face in this one, a character "we may have thought was dead". That character turned out to be Morales (Juan Gabriel Pareja), who was featured in four episodes of the first season. We haven't seen this guy since season 1, episode 5, Wildfire, which aired one month shy of seven years ago. Most viewers have probably forgotten he ever even existed by now, so it's a good thing Rick did some remembering for them. Personally, I never assumed he was dead, and though I knew it was possible that we could see him again at some point, I really didn't do much thinking about him at all.

When Morales exited the series in Wildfire, he was headed to Birmingham, Alabama with his family. It's quite strange, then, that the next time we see him he's hanging out with the Saviors near Alexandria, Virginia. The show has some explaining to do now to tell us how exactly Morales got so off-track on his trip from Georgia to Alabama and oh-so-coincidentally ended up in the exact same place as Rick and the others he knew from season 1. It's seeming like quite a logic leap right now, even for a show that features the walking, flesh-eating dead. It's a small post-apocalyptic world after all.

The return of Morales stands out as the big event of The Damned (at least other than when Shiva the tiger feasts on a Savior), but there were plenty of good smaller moments mixed in amongst the copious amounts of gunfire. Moments like Rick finding a baby and realizing he had just killed her father, Morgan knowing that he's going to be fine during the satellite raid ("I don't die."), and King Ezekiel pouring on his King Ezekiel act to keep his people moving forward with confidence - while telling Carol "Fake it 'til you make it" in private.

There were also some annoying moments, thanks to Jesus. I can't imagine that letting a troublesome Savior like Jared (Joshua Mikel) live is a decision that's going to pan out well.

While The Walking Dead is providing me with the action I've been wanting this season, I'm still feeling like it's lacking something. I haven't connected with either episode so far on any deeper level than "Oh, that was cool" or "What the hell's with this Old Man Rick nonsense?" But this episode was better than the last, so that's progress.

BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: Saviors engaged in a gunfight with some of our heroes realize their opponents don't have to move in on them to wipe them out because the fallen Saviors are going to become zombies and attack the others.

GORY GLORY: My favorite bloody death in this episode was dealt out to a zombie by the always awesome Jerry (Cooper Andrews). It was just a simple battle axe swing to the head, but it left a really nice blood splatter across the front of a building.

FAVORITE SCENE: King Ezekiel talking to Carol. "Do I feel the supreme confidence, or is my lot, my job, to simply project such certainty? No, and yes, yes and no, and then finally, yes to both. Fake it 'til you make it, baby."



Season 8, Episode 3: Monsters

PLOT: Heroes disagree over how to treat their enemies while the battle between communities continues.

REVIEW: AMC's The Walking Dead tied off a loose end that has been left dangling for almost seven years with the episode Monsters, and I found the way in which it was handled to be quite amusing. In the cliffhanger ending of the previous episode, a character who had only been featured in four episodes of the show's six episode first season made his return in season eight... and even though he was gone for a long time, I can't say his return was a long-awaited one. I don't think many, if any, viewers really cared if we would see Morales (Juan Gabriel Pareja) again, but here he was, a different man than when we last saw him. In his final moments on the show back in season one, Morales was given a gun by Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) before he and his family left Atlanta, Georgia for Birmingham, Alabama. The next time we meet Morales, he's holding a gun on Rick somewhere near Alexandria, Virginia, now a member of the Saviors - the community led by the villainous Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). The community most of the other groups on the show are now waging war against.

The fact that Morales was brought back in the midst of such a situation might have made you imagine that he was going to have some kind of substantial role in the rest of the season. We needed to find out what happened to him on the way to Birmingham, Rick needed to catch him up on what he has missed over the years. There could have been some interesting character stuff done with Morales. Or, you know, the show could just resolve the cliffhanger by unceremoniously killing him off fifteen minutes after he pulls a gun on Rick.

As it turns out, the return of Morales was something of a joke. The cliffhanger was the set-up, his quick death the punchline. I expected so much more out of his return, I had to laugh when he was killed so soon. As Daryl (Norman Reedus) says after firing an arrow into Morales's head, that guy "Don't matter. Not one little bit."

Sure, there is a non-humorous element to the moment of Morales's death. Rick does seem to be disturbed by how trigger happy Daryl is being in this scenario. But aside from that, it was pretty funny. At least Pareja was given some emotional dialogue to chew on in an intense situation before being removed from The Walking Dead for good. Within the first 15 minutes of Monsters, we were given enough of Morales's back story and Rick did manage to catch him up on what he missed. I guess they checked off all the necessary boxes.

The Morales stuff is but a small part in an episode that was packed, as were the previous two this season, with fights and gunfire. While King Ezekiel (Khary Payton) and a group that includes Carol (Melissa McBride) have great luck in their battles with the Saviors... up to a point... another group that includes Morgan (Lennie James), Jesus (Tom Payne), and Tara (Alanna Masterson) are fighting amongst themselves over whether or not they should be taking Saviors prisoner or just executing them. One thing's for sure, there is at least one Savior they have captured who should be executed immediately, and that's Jared (Joshua Mikel).

Jesus wants to lock up their prisoners, Morgan wants to kill them, and the two feel so strongly about their positions that they waste some time using martial arts on each other. As a friend pointed out to me, lately there always seems to have to be a character on the show who will push the "I/we can't kill" stance to a maddening degree. Morgan has been the pacifist before, Carol chose a very frustrating time to give up on killing, and just when these two have come around to the idea that they need to wipe out some Saviors, Jesus has to step up and be the "no more killing" character. If Jared wasn't one of the people he was sparing, it would be a lot easier to take. Just let Morgan have that one, Jesus.

Things also aren't going so well for a group that includes Aaron (Ross Marquand) and his boyfriend Eric (Jordan Woods-Robinson). Morales isn't the only notable character who makes his exit with this episode. This is also the end of the line for Eric. While his death is sad, I don't feel much of a loss as I watch him go. During his time on the show, Eric barely registered as a character to me. He was just "Aaron's boyfriend". I didn't really know him, so I won't miss him. Sorry, Eric.

Monsters featured some good action, some emotional beats, and made me laugh at the death of a character I expected more from. All in all, it was a good way to spend 41 minutes.

BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: The danger of other humans is getting a heavy focus at this time, but Monsters did still find a way to fit in some zombies, having a herd come tumbling down a hill to disrupt Jesus's prisoner transfer.

GORY GLORY: Some of the zombies in this episode were awesomely gruesome, and blood was spilled as they chewed into tied up Saviors.

FAVORITE SCENE: The death of Morales.



Season 8, Episode 4: Some Guy

PLOT: King Ezekiel struggles to survive after his companions are cut down by machine gun fire.

REVIEW: Previous episodes of AMC's The Walking Dead, like season 6's Twice As Far, had led me to believe that bullets would soon be scarce on the show. Way back then, Eugene Porter (Josh McDermitt) was ready to get to work manufacturing bullets so our heroes wouldn't be running out of them... But obviously the bullet supply in the Alexandria, Virginia area wasn't nearly as close to dry as Eugene thought it was, as more bullets have been fired in these early episodes of The Walking Dead's eighth season than in a RAMBO sequel, and characters have been filling the air with them like they have no concern that they're going to run out of them any time soon.

Some Guy continues a four episode streak of large shootouts, and I am somewhat astounded by just how empty these action-packed episodes have felt. I'm not making the sort of emotional connection with them that I usually get from watching an episode of this show - I've felt almost nothing aside from being tired of seeing shootouts. That said, this episode does end with our heroes suffering one of the most tragic losses possible at this point. That was sad and disappointing. I'll soon be watching this episode again with a friend, and I'm not looking forward to seeing the reaction she's going to have to that ending.

The "some guy" of the title is King Ezekiel (Khary Payton), the average dude who presents himself as being badass, confident royalty to his followers in the Kingdom community. He has spent the last couple episodes assuring his "knights" that they will not lose one member of their party during their battle with the villainous Saviors, but while they had a good run, that party has now been decimated by .50 caliber machine guns... putting a crack in the King's confident facade.

King Ezekiel may not be all he's cracked up to be, but Payton is fantastic in the role, and he has a couple solid companions still on his side: Carol (Melissa McBride) and Jerry (Cooper Andrews). Some Guy didn't do all that much for me overall, as there wasn't really all that much to it, but those three characters are a good trio to spend 41 minutes with. If I were asked to pick three characters I'd want to see an episode focus on, those three would be high on the list.

In addition to them, we also get a notable appearance by a Savior who gives Ezekiel some trouble, a fellow who held my attention because he looked like a young Gary Busey clone. Not a first generation clone like Jake, but a couple down the line. This pseudo-Busey was also given a great exit from the episode.

Carol is given a good amount of action to take part in here, and Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) show up briefly to participate in a vehicular chase, but it's really Payton who carries this episode, giving it some emotional depth as Ezekiel is beaten into the ground by the events. The king isn't much of a king anymore. Ezekiel has paid a heavy price for the act he has been putting on. In future episodes, it will be interesting to see if he will return to his leadership role to continue inspiring his people, or if he's going to fade into the background as just some guy.

My disinterest in the action aside, Some Guy was a decent time killer. I'm really hoping we're going to have a break from the shootouts soon, though. These people need to start running out of bullets.

BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: This isn't really a "best" moment in a positive way, it's simply the most notable zombie moment in the episode. The moment in which a group of walkers have a confrontation with Ezekiel's pet tiger Shiva.

GORY GLORY: The Gary Busey-looking Savior is split in half with Jerry's axe. We don't get to see much of his split body, but we see enough to let us know what sort of awesomeness has happened here.

FAVORITE SCENE: Busey 3.0 taunting Ezekiel while leading him to what the Savior believes is the king's doom.



Season 8, Episode 5: The Big Scary U

PLOT: Pieces of Negan's back story are revealed while the Saviors try to figure out how to handle the strikes against them.

REVIEW: If the villainous Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) could receive text messages during the zombie apocalypse, someone at some point might have referred to him as "the Big Scary U", but the title of The Walking Dead season 8's fifth episode isn't actually a text speak way of letting someone know they're frightening - the U in question is the unknown. In that case, "the Big Scary U" could have been used to describe the history of Negan, but by the time this episode comes to an end Negan's back story isn't completely unknown anymore. While trapped with Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) in a trailer surrounded by flesh-hungry zombies, Negan reveals some details about the man he was before all the community enslaving and head bashing we've seen him get up to since he entered the show as the leader of the community known as the Saviors.

I've seen a lot of fans express the opinion that The Walking Dead jumped the shark when it introduced Negan, but I feel the opposite. For me, the presence of the Negan and his Saviors in the seventh season reinvigorated the show, making it more interesting than it had been in a while. After four episodes of The Walking Dead's more noble characters engaging in shootout after uninvolving shootout with Saviors, it was a relief that this season finally calmed down a bit with this longer-than-usual episode and decided to show us how Negan and his people are dealing with the war that's being waged against them. Finally we get a break from valiant speeches and heroic actions, digging into the dirt with the assortment of sleazeballs and douchebags Negan hangs out with. I couldn't have been happier to be getting an episode that starts out with a meeting between Negan, his right hand man Simon (Steven Ogg), and the Hilltop community's cowardly leader Gregory (Xander Berkeley). Let the slime ooze off the screen.

This meeting occurs moments before the attack on the Saviors' home base as seen in the first episode of this season, and it's not the only Saviors meeting we see in The Big Scary U. Later, after the bullets have started flying and zombies are at their door, Saviors higher-ups Simon, Dwight (Austin Amelio), Gavin (Jayson Warner Smith), Eugene (Josh McDermitt), and Regina (Traci Dinwiddie) discuss how to handle the situation now that Negan appears to be dead - unaware that he's busy talking about his past with Father Gabriel. The Walking Dead threw me for a loop when it introduced Regina as one of Negan's lieutenants in the season premiere. The Saviors have been around for all this time and we've never seen this woman before, even though she's apparently a major player in the community? For a while I was thinking that Regina was a replacement for Negan's lackey Arat, since the actress who plays Arat (Elizabeth Ludlow) had signed on for a role in Michael Dougherty's upcoming GODZILLA sequel. Maybe there was some kind of scheduling issue? But no, The Big Scary U shows us that Arat is still around, and while she lurks in the background Regina is establishing herself as a worthy, hateful addition to the cast. She's one of those Saviors viewers will love to see get their comeuppance somewhere down the line.

We need Saviors we can root against wholeheartedly, as I find Negan too entertaining to want to see him get a comeuppance that would remove him from the show. I don't think the producers are in any hurry to get rid of him, either. After spending an entire season building up to the hero characters striking back against him, drawing things out so long that viewers got desperate for all-out war to begin, the show is taking efforts to humanize Negan now that the war is underway. We now have an idea of his former occupation, know about his "real" wife, and have gotten further insight on his personal philosophies. These seem like steps on a road to redemption to me.

I would have been content to spend the entire episode at the Saviors' Sanctuary, but there were also some unexpected cutaways to Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) out in the battlefield. The Big Scary U doesn't contain any extensive shootouts (something to be thankful for as we enter the week of Thanksgiving), but it does have Rick and Daryl engaging in a fight... with each other! And this fight leads to a callback to one of my favorite lines in Walking Dead history, a line from the first season that was one of the first things I ever loved about this show.

There's another callback when characters slather zombie guts on themselves so they can walk among the living dead without being attacked. This was a tactic first seen in the first season, and it's somewhat surprising how little it has been put to use since then (although The Walking Dead's companion series Fear the Walking Dead was overusing it in a major way for a while). As it turns out, rubbing zombie guts on yourself might have dire consequences. Those Fear the Walking Dead people got lucky.

I haven't been having a great time with The Walking Dead's eighth season so far, and I found this episode to be a welcome change of pace. Less gunfire and more Negan is exactly what I've been hoping for, and while delivering that The Big Scary U also managed to include some very intriguing set-ups for things to come.

BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: Negan and Father Gabriel slap on some zombie guts so they can get out of the trailer, but their escape attempt doesn't go very smoothly.

GORY GLORY: Those guts the escape artists were covered in looked nice and disgusting.

FAVORITE SCENE: Negan, Simon, and Gregory sitting around a table, exchanging dialogue.




Season 8, Episode 6: The King, the Widow, and Rick

PLOT: Michonne and Carl disregard Rick's wishes while Maggie decides what to do with the captive Saviors.

REVIEW: The title of this episode of The Walking Dead is a paraphrase of a line spoken by Negan, head of the villainous Saviors community, in the previous episode (Negan's exact wording had been "Rick, the widow, and King Assface"), and it refers to the leaders of the three communities that have been waging war against the Saviors since this began: Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), head of the Alexandria community; Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan), the widow of Glenn and the head of the Hilltop community, having taken it over from the weaselly Gregory (Xander Berkeley); and King "Not Assface" Ezekiel (Khary Payton), ruler of the Kingdom. As the title implies, the episode makes sure to check in on all of the major characters on the hero side of the war, but it's not really the most fitting title because the King and Rick didn't do all that much during its 45 minutes.

Rick's part of the story is bookended with nudity, and begins with the return of characters I would have been fine with never seeing again. I only welcome them back because they're a loose end that needs to be tied off. Those characters are the Garbage Pail Kids - excuse me, the Scavengers, the junkyard dwellers who are led by Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) and are so lazy that they can't even be bothered to speak in complete sentences. I can't stand this bunch, and I'm hoping that Rick's visit to the junkyard, which doesn't appear to go that well for him (but I have no idea what Rick was expecting, so I can't say for sure that he didn't anticipate being stripped and locked in a shipping container), is just the lead in to them being massacred in a future episode.

So that's just setting up something that will get paid off down the line. There's not much substance there. The King's part in the story is the worst, because it's an utter waste of time. All our visit with him does is confirm that he's still moping around about being a fraud and a failure, and not even a motivational speech from Carol (Melissa McBride) is enough to pull him out of his funk. So that went nowhere. Maybe the King is an assface after all.

Thankfully, "the widow" Maggie brought something more to the table, as she wrestles with an issue that was debated before, long ago, in her family home back in her debut season, season 2. The question of what should be done with sketchy prisoners in this zombie-infested post-apocalyptic world. This is a problem on a much larger scale now, though. If Maggie decides that the Saviors captured by Jesus (Tom Payne) need to be executed, she'll be ordering the deaths of a bunch of people. Sure, some of the people they have locked up - like that douche Jared (Joshua Mikel) - should be taken out of the equation because they're always going to be trouble... but are all of these people really a threat? It's quite a dilemma that Jesus has brought to the Hilltop, with weighty arguments to be made on both sides. Despite the fact that there are more lives hanging in the balance, the debate isn't as intense as it was back in season 2.

The King, the Widow, and Rick gave more characters than just the titular ones things to do, and most of the other characters are making choices that are ill-advised. Like the grieving Aaron (Ross Marquand) heading out into the war zone with young Enid (‎Katelyn Nacon); Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Tara (Alanna Masterson) deciding to turn against Dwight (Austin Amelio), their man inside the Saviors compound, before the battle is even over; and both Rick's son Carl (Chandler Riggs) and girlfriend Michonne (Danai Gurira) going against his wishes.

It's really no surprise that Carl has decided to venture out into the countryside in the midst of a war. Carl's going to Carl. He's on a quest to find Siddiq (Avi Nash), a character who was briefly introduced back in this season's premiere episode. Carl wants to bring Siddiq into Alexandria, and as it turns out this is one of the better choices made, because Siddiq seems like he could be a nice addition to the cast, if he sticks around for a while. He's a very experienced zombie killer and seems to be a good guy.

Seeing Michonne back in action was one of the better aspects of the episode for me, as I've been missing her while she's been sidelined so far this season. Along with Rosita (Christian Serratos), she heads into the battleground for what's supposed to be a quick trip out to take a look at things and instead lands them in some violent trouble. When that trouble involves the effective firing of an RPG and the heroic use of a garbage truck, I can't complain.

The King, the Widow, and Rick provided some good drama, action, and sets up some intriguing situations for the upcoming episodes to deal with, so I was left feeling mostly satisfied despite some wasted moments here and there.

BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: Siddiq and Carl take on a group of walkers while making their way through the woods.

GORY GLORY: I wish the guy who got shot with the RPG would have exploded in a wave of blood and guts rather than a cartoony fireball. The moment that did deliver a good glimpse of gore is when Siddiq rams a zombie's head into a tree.

FAVORITE SCENE: Michonne, Rosita, and Daryl (with Tara riding shotgun) team up to stop some Saviors from luring zombies away from their home base.



Season 8, Episode 7: Time for After

PLOT: Eugene ponders his allegiance to the Saviors while trapped inside their zombie-surrounded Sanctuary.

REVIEW: Time for After is an episode of The Walking Dead that I greatly enjoyed despite the fact that it, for the most part, centered on the character I despise more than any other on the show. More than Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who used a baseball bat to bash in the head of a beloved character last season, and more than any other member of his army of douchebag lackeys and cohorts. My most hated character on this show is Eugene Porter (Josh McDermitt).

My contempt for Eugene comes from the fact that he is such an infuriating coward. At one time I found the character to be somewhat amusing, but when the going got tough he turned against the heroes of the show and joined with Negan. This wasn't any long con feigned allegiance, either. Eugene went deep with his new dedication to Negan, quickly rising in the ranks to become one of the most important of Negan's Saviors. Something he's quite proud of himself for. Something I've grown to hate him for more and more every time he repeats that "I am Negan" crap.

Time for After begins what could be a redemption arc for Eugene, but of course for this character it's not easy for others to convince him that maybe he shouldn't be subservient to someone who has brutally murdered his former companions and regularly murders or mutilates others. The question of whether or not he should stick with this guy is something Eugene has to wrestle with in his mind as he continues to frustrate and infuriate me. You have to have that drama, though.

Eugene wavers, but there are signs that he might do the right thing at some point. But even if he does, that's not going to be his redemption in my eyes. To me, he can't be redeemed. As long as Eugene is on this show, I'm going to be hoping to see him get removed from it in some horrible way. But that doesn't mean he can't be useful on his way out the door.

Last season, The Walking Dead tended to focus on the story of only one character or pairing of characters at a time, and showrunner Scott M. Gimple and the writers have learned the lesson that viewers weren't too pleased with that approach to storytelling. Last season, this episode would have only been about Eugene, his moral quandary and his interactions with Negan and fellow Savior Dwight (Austin Amelio), who has turned against Negan and is working with the other communities to bring the guy down. But rather than stick with Eugene in the Saviors' zombie-surrounded home base the Sanctuary for every minute of the episode, this one also includes some welcome cutaways to characters outside the Sanctuary.

Some of these characters are Daryl (Norman Reedus), Tara (Alanna Masterson), and Morgan (Lennie James), who work together to advance the assault on the Sanctuary at a quicker pace than planned. These cutaways were good for providing some action and zombie mayhem. While I'm glad this episode features less action some of the previous episodes in season 8, because I like watching the show's characters interact more than I like watching them shoot guns, it's also nice to get some destruction and bloodshed in there.

Speaking of the copious amount of gunfire that has been featured in this season's seven episodes, I was glad that the issue of a bullet shortage was finally brought up in this one.

In this episode we also get a couple scenes with Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), in the clutches of the junkyard dwellers the Scavengers (a.k.a. the Garbage Pail Kids), where he's once again forced to face off with one of their art project walkers. This zombie isn't as memorable as the Winston zombie they made him fight last season, but it still serves its purpose. Although I can't stand the Scavengers, there were some funny moments with their leader Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh).

Overall, Time for After was a solid 45 minutes that advanced the "all-out war" storyline and got some interesting moments out of a flawed character who has find himself in quite a predicament. Things are really getting intriguing now... just in time for next week's mid-season finale.

BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: Daryl smashes in a Sanctuary wall, allowing the gathered zombies to flood into the building and start munching on Saviors.

GORY GLORY: Rick tears off the Scavenger zombie's head and brokers a deal with the group while holding a Scavenger's face down near the head's still-chomping jaws.

FAVORITE SCENE: Dwight tells Eugene what has driven him to turn against Negan and their fellow Saviors. This guy is a traitor I can get behind because he has turned against Negan not out of cowardly opportunism but because he has legitimate reasons to.




Season 8: Episode 8: How It's Gotta Be

PLOT: The Saviors try to bring the war among communities to an end.

REVIEW: With How It's Gotta Be, the eighth season of AMC's The Walking Dead has reached its midseason finale, and as we enter the break period between the season's first eight and last eight episodes, I'm left thinking that maybe this show needs some fresh creative blood behind the scenes. It really feels like the current team is running on fumes, because somehow they have managed to make a storyline called "All-Out War" play out on the screen in a very dull and unengaging way. The first half of this season is the least interested and involved I have ever been with a stretch of Walking Dead episodes since the show began... or at least since that hospital stuff at the head of season five.

They have to find some way to course correct, because this isn't going well at all. How It's Gotta Be almost felt like intentional sabotage. There has been a lot of talk over the last year or so about the fact that The Walking Dead has been losing viewers, hitting lows it hasn't hit since it was building up its viewership. Casual viewers have noticed a pattern: if they just tune in for premieres and finales, they can still keep up with the major events and don't feel like they missed all that much. Given that more people are likely to tune in for this midseason finale, I would think showrunner Scott M. Gimple would aim to deliver something exciting and spectacular to try to convince those casual viewers that they actually are missing something by not tuning in weekly. Show them, "The Walking Dead is must-see TV!" But no. If How It's Gotta Be made casual viewers think anything about the overall show, I'm thinking it would be that "The Walking Dead is so dull now, not even the midseason finale was worth watching."

If someone only watched the season premiere and this finale, I couldn't say they missed much in the episodes in between. Probably nothing they'd care about, aside from maybe the death of the tiger Shiva. Now that they tuned back in, they still didn't see much of any interest.

Somehow the villainous Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and his people, the Saviors, have escaped from their zombie-infested home base called the Sanctuary and are out to get the situation between the warring communities back under control. Top representatives are sent to the Hilltop, the Kingdom, and Alexandria communities to tell them to stand down. This mission results in some destruction that will be troublesome for our heroes and there are some casualties, but I didn't find any of it to be particularly exciting.

How did the Saviors escape from the Sanctuary? Don't worry about it, the show didn't even think that event was worth showing to us. Who dies? Well, in the final moment it looks like someone important is going to bite the dust, but the people who die before that are probably not people you ever thought much about, if you ever took note of their existence at all. And remember when Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) convinced the junkyard-dwellers called the Scavengers to join him in the fight against the Saviors at the end of the previous episode? It might as well not have happened, because it has no bearing on this episode.

I'm not saying there wasn't anything good or notable about How It's Gotta Be. It did have its moments. King Ezekiel (Khary Payton) getting back on his feet, Maggie (Lauren Cohan) making a tough decision and showing resilience, the last moment reveal... that was great stuff. But overall this super-sized episode (63 minutes without commercials) felt like a slog.

There was a truly terrible moment in there, too. Aaron (Ross Marquand) and Enid (Katelyn Nacon) set out on their own personal impossible mission to recruit the women of the Oceanside community into the fight, even scoring a truck loaded with goods from a distillery to offer to them as a gift. They whizz this plan down their legs almost immediately, when Aaron is jumped by someone from Oceanside and Enid shoots them dead without even a word of warning or a warning shot. It was a moment so stupid that it was comical.

How It's Gotta Be was a rough episode to get through, and it's getting tough to care about what's going on when it doesn't even feel like the people putting these stories together care anymore. The show feels tired, like the creative team is just going through the motions. It needs to be rejuvenated somehow, and I really hope the second half of this season will be better than the first half was. Otherwise the show is just going to continue losing viewers, and I will be able to understand why people don't want to watch it anymore.

BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: This moment didn't involve a zombie doing something on screen, but the ending reveal that someone very important has received a zombie bite... and on a part of their body that can't just be cut off to save them... was one hell of a zombie-related moment.

GORY GLORY: There wasn't much gore, but Michonne (Dania Gurira) did get a couple good kills in with her sword.

FAVORITE SCENE: Odd to say, but my favorite scene in this midseason finale was an intentionally comedic moment when Rosita (Christian Serratos) has Tara (Alanna Masterson) carry a large stack of heavy items for her.




Season 8, Episode 9: Honor

PLOT: While Carl slowly succumbs to his bite wound in Alexandria, Carol and Morgan go on a mission to save King Ezekiel.

REVIEW: Whether it was a wrong-headed creative decision or, as some fans theorize, a decision that was made simply because AMC didn't want to deal with negotiating a new contract with actor Chandler Riggs now that he's a legal adult (and given the fact that they've seemingly given up on negotiating a new contract with Riggs's co-star Lauren Cohan, that theory doesn't seem too unlikely), it's a decision that has been made and put into action: the character Carl Grimes has been written off The Walking Dead.

Carl revealed at the end of the season 8 midseason finale that he had been bitten by a zombie in a spot that made his death a certainty - you can hack off an arm or a leg, but you can't cut out a torso bite. This midseason premiere is all about saying goodbye to Carl, with a whole lot of scenes consisting of his father Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and basically-stepmom Michonne (Danai Gurira) crying by his side while he ties up loose ends.

Carl has never been a favorite character of mine, in fact I've often found him to be annoying as hell, but removing him from the show is a shocking move because he basically is the point of the show. As Rick tells him in Honor, everything he has done in this series to this point has been for Carl, starting from the very first episode when Rick woke up from a coma and had to travel through zombie-infested Georgia in hopes of finding his family. There's a reason why fans and cast members alike thought the show would end with Carl going off into the sunset: it's all been about keeping him safe. So while taking him out of the equation, the show has to give Rick a reason to keep going. That reason is the vision Carl has for the future of the Alexandria community, which finally explains that goofball "Old Man Rick" flash forward we saw in the season premiere.

The episode also has to touch on things that have now been rendered virtually meaningless. That time when Carl was a callous little bastard and looked like he could grow up to be a post-apocalyptic serial killer. His mother's dying moment, one of the most heartrending scenes in the show's entire run, when she told her little boy he was going to beat this horrific world he was growing up in. These things are addressed in an effort to give them a final purpose. I don't agree with the choice to kill off Carl, but at least the show did go back to these important points rather than just kill him and be done with it.

This was an emotional episode, with Riggs doing some heavy lifting in the drama department. I'm sure other productions will take note and we'll be seeing more of him in his post-Walking Dead future. Carl has touching moments with Rick and Michonne, although Rick was doing quite a job keeping his grief in check. He was much more reserved than I would usually expect from that character.

So as not to have an entire hour of bedside chit-chat, Honor also has a B plot in which Carol (Melissa McBride) and Morgan (Lennie James) infiltrate the Savior-packed Kingdom to save King Ezekiel (Khary Payton). That adds in some appreciated violence and gore.

Honor was decent, but didn't really need to be the 15 minutes or so longer than the average episode that it was. Rick promising a dying Carl that he'll make his vision of the future come true almost seems like it could have been a series-ending promise, but this is far from the series finale, and the whole issue with baseball bat-wielding villain Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) still has to be resolved.

Now we'll see how the hell they're going to proceed from here.

BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: Some zombies get mowed down, and there's a flashback to show the moment when Carl was bitten, but the best zombie in the episode doesn't even do anything other than lie on the ground. It's an awesomely grotesque, rotten walker that has gotten its leg caught in a "string and tin cans" security system.

GORY GLORY: It's a great display of cringe-inducing badassery when Morgan ends a fight with a gut shot opponent by sticking his hand into the man's wound and pulling out a strand of intestine.

FAVORITE SCENE: About ten years ago, I came across a folk rock song called "At the Bottom of Everything" by Bright Eyes. I liked the lyrics, listened to the song a good amount of times, and then it faded away. So when "At the Bottom of Everything" kicked in at the head of this episode, it was a blast from the past - I was reminded this song existed, and I enjoyed listening to it again while watching a montage of Carl going through his day and preparing for death. The montage is so long that the song even restarts for a reprise of the first verse, that was a bit odd, but this was still my favorite part of the episode.



Season 8, Episode 10: The Lost and the Plunderers

PLOT: Simon, Michonne, and Rick all check in on the Scavengers while Aaron and Enid deal with Oceanside.

REVIEW: Rarely have I ever cared less about what was going on in an episode of The Walking Dead than I did while watching The Lost and the Plunderers, and that's even after the slog of the first half of this season.

I've only read the very first collected volume of Robert Kirkman's Walking Dead comic book, so I never got anywhere close to the All-Out War storyline. I did hear a lot of the comic's readers talking about it over the years and they seemed hyped about it, so I assume what was on the page was great. Something just doesn't work about the way it has been brought to the screen this season. All-Out War has turned out to be a tedious mess that has run the show into the ground. Who would have thought such a popular storyline could cause so much damage to the show?

Taking us further through the tedium, this latest episode was broken up into chapters, each named after a character to let us know who we're supposed to focus on during this space between commercial breaks. The Enid chapter lets us know that the Oceanside community is going to spare the lives of Enid (Katelyn Nacon) and Aaron (Ross Marquand) after their laughably stupid blunder of killing the community's leader. That's good for them. The Negan chapter lets us know that the show's current villain, who is played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan and is gradually being softened because the show is obviously going to keep him alive beyond this war, has a serious difference of opinion with his right hand man Simon (Steven Ogg) on how they should be handling situations. While Simon is vengeful and homicidal, the man introduced bashing in the heads of Abraham and Glenn is really a good guy deep down.

The chapters dedicated to Michonne (Danai Gurira) and Rick (Andrew Lincoln) mainly served to show me that Rick has really come along way and hardened his heart a great deal from the days when he was a blubbering mess after the death of his wife Lori, so distraught that he was tripping out, hallucinating, answering phone calls from ghosts... Now he has lost the most important person left in his world, his son Carl, and he's soldiering on quite well.

It wasn't until the Simon chapter about halfway into the episode that I really got some enjoyment out of what I was being shown. That's because Simon goes against Negan's wishes and decides to massacre the Scavenger community. The Garbage Pail Kids get wiped out, and I couldn't be happier to see them removed from this show. The episode earned a couple extra points just for that moment.

The trauma of losing her community is so great that Scavengers leader Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) even starts speaking in complete sentences! That's almost enough to make me consider this the best episode of the season... But it really wasn't.

They say the choice to kill off Carl was a creative decision, as the loss of his son was necessary to make Rick realize that he might be able to make peace with Negan, that he should stop crying over spilled Glenn brains and let bygones be bygones. To teach Rick that he doesn't have to kill so many people. It's a lesson that Rick hasn't quite learned yet, as he ditches Jadis so she has to handle the zombies that were her fellow Scavengers alone, a moment of "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you" reasoning, and then continues to threaten Negan's life in a terribly written dialogue scene. A dialogue scene that ends the episode and leaves me anxious to get this season over with already.

I'll be as glad to see season eight end as I was to see the Scavengers get taken out of it.

BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: The only thing better than watching the Scavengers get killed is getting to watch them get killed twice. Left to deal with her zombified friends, Jadis finds a way to lead them into an industrial grinder. One by one, these formerly annoying characters drop into the machine and get broken down into ground beef.

GORY GLORY: The conveyor belt of ground Scavengers looks pretty gross, but the shots of the characters actually dropping into the grinder are too CG for my taste. My favorite effect in the episode was when a zombie gets its face ripped off on the broken gate of the Alexandria community.

FAVORITE SCENE: Simon makes wishes come true when he tells his Saviors to "light up" the Scavengers.



Season 8, Episode 11: Dead or Alive or

PLOT: While things are looking dire at the Hilltop, some characters are going to need a miracle to get there.

REVIEW: One thing The Walking Dead has proven to do well is find a way to redeem characters once perceived as irredeemable, which is certainly a skill it's going to have to put to use in a major way when it keeps Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) around beyond the current "All-Out War" storyline. One example of a character redeemed is someone who was a major player in the Dead or Alive or episode, Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam), who was despicable and rather worthless when he first showed up on the series. Now Gabriel is a devoted member of the "good side", and he has retrieved Dr. Carson (R. Keith Harris) from Negan's Sanctuary so he can get him back to the Hilltop, where he's needed to aid recently appointed Hilltop leader Maggie (Lauren Cohan) during her pregnancy.

With Gabriel one of the leads, Dead or Alive or felt like one of the most Christian pieces of televised horror since the days of The Stand, and features some unbelievable things that seem to be the result of divine intervention - not quite on the level of the hand of God in The Stand, but along the lines of the "God came down from Heaven and stopped the bullets" moment in PULP FICTION. While making their way toward the Hilltop, Gabriel definitely need such intervention, because these are two of the most hapless bastards you could ever find. Even with God carrying them on the way "Footprints" style (Gabriel references that popular poem early on), pretty much everything that could possibly go wrong for them does go wrong.

It was sort of fun to watch the nearly-blind Gabriel lead Carson down the path of faith, and I guess I can't complain about the believability of some of the things they experience on a show about an apocalypse of flesh-eating corpses. I could complain about how pointless it all felt in the end, but I guess I'll wait and see where the story goes with Gabriel and Eugene (Josh McDermitt)... a despicable character himself who is so far whiffing every time he steps up to the plate to take a swing at redemption.

With how things are going at the Hilltop, and with the situation there looking to get even worse in the next episode (thanks, Eugene!), Gabriel might be better off at the Sanctuary anyway. I do like that Eugene is finally attempting to get into the mass production of bullets business, so long down the line from when that idea was set up. These folks had a hell of a lot of bullets, if they weren't using them up shooting at each other Eugene could have been waiting years for his bullet-making skills to be of any use.

Gabriel and Carson weren't the only ones trying to get to the Hilltop, as a group that included Daryl (Norman Reedus), Rosita (Christian Serratos), Tara (Alanna Masterson), and Dwight (Austin Amelio) were also making their way through the wilderness in that direction. Dwight is another strong example of a successful redemption on this show; he has become one of my favorite characters, which I never would have expected in the days of him killing Denise and Eugene munching on his junk. He has been useful in the fight against Negan, so I have forgiven him for killing Denise. Denise's girlfriend Tara has not, so in this episode I was given the sight of one of my favorite characters (Tara became one of my favorites as of that much-maligned episode she carried last season) attempting to execute another of my favorites.

As Tara walked Dwight off into the woods with a deadly ulterior motive, I was reminded of earlier seasons, my thoughts going back to the very early days when Shane would be a threat to people in the woods from time to time. I couldn't help but wonder, now that Rick's wife Lori and son Carl are both dead: would Shane have been better at protecting them, as he so strongly believed? That question makes me want to see a "what if?" episode - or hell, really shake things up and make it a whole "elseworlds" season - that shows what would have happened if Shane had killed Rick back in season 2 and gone off into the apocalypse with Lori and Carl.

Dead or Alive or was a middle-of-the-road episode for me. It didn't feature anything all that great, but it told a decent story, and it never got as frustrating as so many other episodes have been this season. It has me looking forward to seeing what comes next, which is nice.

Also nice: for the dialogue he had to deliver in this episode, Reedus (mostly) dropped that ridiculous growl he's been doing lately. I fondly recall the days when Daryl could speak, and was glad to hear that he still can.

BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: Daryl's group has to traverse a dangerous, zombie-filled swamp on their way to the Hilltop, so he and Siddiq (Avi Nash) slash a path through a bunch of slimy, mossy, disgusting walkers.

GORY GLORY: Negan coating his barbed wire-wrapped bat Lucille in zombie blood was a nicely done effect, especially when he digs the wire into the dead man's cheek.

FAVORITE SCENE: Swamp zombies for the win!




Season 8, Episode 12: The Key

PLOT: As Rick tries to stop malevolent forces from reaching the Hilltop, the community has a benevolent visitor.

REVIEW: AMC's The Walking Dead made some important strides toward wrapping up the "All-Out War" storyline with tonight's episode, shaking up the hierarchy in the antagonistic Saviors community. Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) has been replaced by a more dangerous leader, his bloodthirsty former right hand man Simon (Steven Ogg). Simon has been going rogue lately, disagreeing with Negan and going against his orders, even choosing to murder the entire Scavengers community, sparing only one when Negan had told him to do the opposite and kill only one. Now he has seen and seized an opportunity to take over his community. I have a feeling that doing this and ditching his boss was a bad move on Simon's part, because there are only four episodes left in The Walking Dead's eighth season, and I don't think he's going to hold his new job position into season nine.

It was, of course, Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) who managed to knock Negan off his throne - an act that involved him actually knocking Negan's car off the road, out of its placement in a convoy that was heading out to intimidate the Hilltop community with weapons dipped in zombie blood. After the build-up of the final moments of the previous episode and the beginning moments of this one, it is kind of a letdown that we didn't get to see the Saviors put their bloody weapons to use... but there's always next episode.

What we got instead was an extended confrontation between Rick and Negan that starts with a car chase. And even though The Walking Dead is the most popular show on television, this episode did not have the budget to pull off a cool car chase through empty city streets, even skipping over a chase-ending stunt and just cutting to an unconscious Negan waking up in his overturned car. Thankfully, the Rick vs. Negan portion of the episode continues beyond that point, with Rick chasing his adversary into an abandoned building while demonstrating what The Talking Dead host Chris Hardwick described as "stormtrooper aim". I hope Rick was purposely missing Negan with all those shots he fired at him, because it would be pretty pathetic if a former police officer living in a zombie-infested post-apocalyptic wasteland had aim that terrible.

Their fight does build up to an awesome moment that had me thinking of George A. Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD, which began with a SWAT team locating a room in the basement of a building that had been used to store the living dead. Here Rick takes hold of Negan's beloved baseball bat Lucille and uses it to knock open the door to a similar room. I suspect the existence and placement of this room was a nod to DAWN...

Or at least, I thought Rick and Negan had gone into the basement, until they were suddenly busting out of it through a tall window. That was weird.

Also weird was the new character who stopped by the Hilltop community to offer its leader Maggie (Lauren Cohan) the "key" of the title - a book with tips on how to turn Hilltop into a functioning society, medieval style. It felt very strange to see this fifty-something woman named Georgie (Jayne Atkinson) appear on this show in her immaculate pantsuit, flanked by her bodyguards Hilda and Midge (Kim Ormiston and Misty Ormiston), offering knowledge in exchange for musical (not spoken word!) records. It wasn't quite as strange as the Scavengers and their refusal to speak in complete sentences, but it was up there. People have gotten very eccentric while living in the land of the dead. I really didn't like the whole "visit from Georgie" thing and I'm confident Maggie would have figured out a way to get Hilltop running smoothly without being given a book by a random stranger, but the way the situation was handled was one of the show's attempts to make viewers believe that the recent death of Carl Grimes had a purpose.

Negan isn't leading the Saviors, the Hilltop has a key to the future, Michonne (Danai Gurira) is trying to inspire people by preaching the hopeful word of Carl... The Walking Dead really is starting to look beyond All-Out War.

The Key was a decent episode that brought a sense of relief, because within it you can feel that the end of the war is coming soon.

BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: Rick didn't just use Lucille to knock open a door to a room full of zombies, he set fire to that baseball bat and started whacking zombies with it, catching them on fire. Rick and Negan fighting while surrounded by burning zombies was a cool scene.

GORY GLORY: There was some good gore on display as the Saviors coated their weapons in zombie blood, spilling walker guts in the process.

FAVORITE SCENE: It doesn't get better than Rick and Negan fighting amongst zombies, some of which are on fire.



Season 8, Episode 13: Do Not Send Us Astray

PLOT: Now led by Simon, the Saviors attack the Hilltop, armed with weapons meant to infect the wounded.

REVIEW: There have been several action-oriented episodes during the eighth season of AMC's The Walking Dead, which is a necessity when the theme of a season is "All-Out War", and Do Not Send Us Astray is another episode built around confrontations between warring communities. But while a lot of the action this season just didn't click with me for one reason or another, I found this episode to be more engaging than some of the seemingly endless gunfights that have preceded it.

The setting is the Hilltop community, where new leader Maggie (Lauren Cohan) is getting an high approval rating despite admitting that she has been purposely trying to lure the villainous Saviors there so she can kill their leader Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). But Negan isn't around by the time the Saviors raid the Hilltop in this episode, he was knocked off course by Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and is now off somewhere else waiting for a resolution to the cliffhanger ending he received in last week's episode. The Saviors who attack the Hilltop are following Negan's former right hand man Simon (Steven Ogg), whose plan to bring a "proper slaughtering" to the place is definitely going against what Negan would want. So here's why the action in Do Not Send Us Astray was more effective for me: Simon has established himself as a despicable scumbag, and it was fun to see his assault on the Hilltop go quite wrong for him and his followers. There have been too many bullets flying around this season, but it's not so bad when they're flying in the direction of this particular bunch of Saviors.

The attack isn't a total loss for Simon's group, though. For one thing, Simon manages to live to fight (and hopefully die) another day, but there also happened to be two stages to the attack, and the second stage is more devastating for the people gathered together at the Hilltop - residents of not just the Hilltop, but also of the Kingdom and Alexandria communities. That's because the Saviors were using a tactic set up a couple episodes back, attacking with blades and arrows that had been slathered with the blood and guts of zombies. Those who are wounded by those weapons fall ill, and several of them die and become zombies themselves, leading to an unexpected outbreak of the living dead within the Hilltop during the middle of the night. Taking the fight to this biological warfare level was a clever move on the parts of both the Saviors on the show and the writers who came up with the idea.

The good guys lose more members during this episode, but I'm not sure how much of an impact these losses are going to have on viewers. Most of the victims are just random residents, while another is a character who hasn't had a lot to do in the last couple seasons. Introduced in season five, Tobin (Jason Douglas) was an Alexandria resident who was engaged in a romantic relationship with Carol (Melissa McBride) at one point - a relationship which happened so long ago, I wouldn't be surprised if most viewers had forgotten it even happened. Thankfully, it's a relationship that is addressed and given some closure before Tobin, who basically became a glorified extra after Carol left Alexandria back in season six, makes his exit from the show.

Another ill-fated character is a doctor named Dana (Peggy Sheffield), who has only been referenced in the past; she's from the Kingdom, and King Ezekiel (Khary Payton) once said he had "a woman of talent" working as his community's doctor. The fact that she is now hanging out at the Hilltop makes the desperate attempt made by Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) to get Dr. Carson back to the Hilltop seem even more pointless than it seemed by the end of the episode Dead or Alive or... Her presence in this episode almost seems like the show regretted having that reference to her before, and needed to introduce her just to kill her off so Siddiq (Avi Nash) can officially become The Only Medical Hope he has been getting built up as.

The only downside to this attack on the Hilltop for me is the fact that Tara (Alanna Masterson) also happened to be wounded by a Savior weapon. She hasn't turned yet, but there's a chance she might. I really hope she doesn't, because I like having her around on the show, especially now that she's sticking up for Dwight (Austin Amelio), starting to trust that he really has turned against the Saviors. There was some backlash against Tara after the Dead or Alive or episode, with viewers feeling she was being a hypocrite when it comes to Dwight's change of heart. She was accused of having forgotten that she herself was once aligned with a major villain on the show, the Governor, and was then able to see the error of her ways and be accepted by the people her leader was attacking. Here it is made clear that she hasn't forgotten her past; it's another piece of continuity, like Tobin's relationship with Carol, that I'm glad was addressed.

There were some disappointing events in Do Not Send Us Astray, but I'm looking forward to seeing what those will lead to. It was annoying to see that Morgan (Lennie James) is now hallucinating the ghost of a fallen Savior, though. I'm not so enthusiastic to see where that's going. In the meantime, I was glad to be entertained by this episode.

BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: The whole "zombie outbreak at the Hilltop" portion of the episode was pretty enjoyable, but I especially liked those dark and creepy moments right at the beginning of the outbreak, when the dead begin to rise around 3:30am and start picking off victims.

GORY GLORY: Plenty of people get killed or wounded in the battle, then there are zombies munching on people and getting speared in the head, but nothing really stood out to me as being gloriously gross. My favorite zombie kill was when Jesus (Tom Payne) kicks a walker against a wall and holds it in place with his leg so Michonne (Danai Gurira) can stick her sword through its head.

FAVORITE SCENE: The living dead have a feast at the Hilltop.



Season 8, Episode 14: Still Gotta Mean Something

PLOT: Morgan and Rick deal with escaped Saviors while Jadis confronts Negan.

REVIEW: We're now just two weeks away from the big crossover event when the season eight finale of AMC's The Walking Dead will apparently lead directly into the season four premiere of the companion series Fear the Walking Dead, following the character of Morgan Jones (Lennie James) from one show to another... And the Walking Dead episode Still Gotta Mean Something has really made me realize how wary I am of that crossover. Just when the frequently frustrating Fear the Walking Dead was winning me over (I enjoyed season three of that show more than I've been enjoying season eight of this show), decisions are being made that have me concerned for its quality. It looks like the show, which had previously been set earlier in the zombie apocalypse timeline than The Walking Dead, will be jumping ahead some years to accommodate the crossover, which is disappointing, and Morgan wasn't only the least likely character to be crossing over from one show to the other, he's also one of the least inspiring, because this guy can be a major drag.

I bring the crossover business up now because Still Gotta Mean Something is a prime example of why I find Morgan to be one of the most maddening characters on The Walking Dead at times. I get so tired of watching him waffle back and forth between his "I'm a pacifist"/"I'm a maniac" modes, his mental breakdowns, his hallucinations, his ramblings. I wish he would just pick a path and stay on it. This time around, he's regretting being talked into sparing the lives of some members of the Saviors community, members who have now escaped from the pen they were being held captive in at the Hilltop community. Morgan hunts them down, determined to kill them, driven forward by cryptic visions, while I sigh, roll my eyes, and dread watching him drag his crises over into Fear the Walking Dead.

Morgan gets on my nerves, but even with him having such a prominent role in this episode while acting off-balance once again, this did still turn out to be an episode I had been waiting to see for about a year and a half, ever since Joshua Mikel stepped onto the screen as the Savior named Jared in the second episode of season seven. This was the episode in which Jared is finally put out of our misery and given the nice, bloody death he deserved. His death actually happens at the hands (and mouths) of a herd of zombies, but Morgan helps it along, so okay, I'll give him some points for it.

While Morgan's on his quest, he gets a talking-to from fellow waffler Carol (Melissa McBride), then gets an assist from Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), who is, of course, dealing with his own emotional issues, having recently lost his son Carl. He still can't bring himself to read the letter Carl left him for, but he does display signs of being willing to show mercy to the Saviors, like Carl wanted him to and like friendly Savior Alden (Callan McAuliffe) has asked him to. And then he helps Morgan and the zombies kill all of them. This mercy thing is still a work in progress for him.

Meanwhile, former Savior leader/former "big bad" Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is in the clutches of former Scavengers leader Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh), whose people were massacred by Saviors at the order of Negan's traitorous right hand man/new Saviors leader Simon (Steven Ogg). I had figured that Simon purposely left Jadis alive as an extra "screw you" to her after killing the Scavengers, but a flashback shows us that she had to use some trickery to get through the situation. Now that she has Negan subdued, she has concocted some kind of convoluted revenge that involves burning his beloved baseball bat Lucille, drawing a helicopter to her junkyard home with the use of flares and fire, and wheeling around another of her twisted zombie art projects. As far as revenge tactics go, this is one of the worst I've ever seen. When torturous vengeance can be foiled by a man strapped to a mechanic's creeper, there has either been some very poor planning or almost a complete lack of planning. This scenario really only succeeds in allowing Negan to show emotion (presumably so we'll go along with the fact that the show is going to keep him around as a less-than-villainous character) and to deepen the mystery of the helicopter that has been flying around for a while now. One of these days that damn thing is going to land, and I'm not sure the answer of who is on board is going to be as interesting as the question.

Still Gotta Mean Something was a troublesome episode packed with nonsense, but it had its bright spots and made for an enjoyable enough viewing experience. It has successfully removed Jared from the show, so that made it all worthwhile.

Bonus: It was confirmed that Tara (Alanna Masterson) is going to be just fine after being shot with a Savior arrow in the previous episode. Although the Saviors were attacking with weapons that had been dipped in zombie blood and guts, so they would infect anyone who was wounded with them, Tara was shot with a clean arrow fired by Dwight (Austin Amelio), saving her from being shot by Simon. This has finally, completely convinced Tara that Dwight is working against the Saviors from within, so he is now forgiven for that time when he shot an arrow through her girlfriend's head. That's good news to me, because Tara and Dwight have become two of my favorite characters.

BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: As cool as the junkyard zombie looks, nothing about it is as wonderful as the moment when the herd of zombies tear Jared to pieces.

GORY GLORY: The gore isn't even all that disgusting or bountiful in Jared's death scene, but just the fact that he's the source of the gore makes it a glorious sight.

FAVORITE SCENE: There's a theme here. My favorite scene was Jared's death scene.




Season 8, Episode 15: Worth

PLOT: Negan has some house cleaning to do before the Saviors' final assault on the remaining people of Alexandria, the Hilltop, and the Kingdom.

REVIEW: The Saviors, the group of zombie apocalypse survivors led by the baseball bat-wielding Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), have been a thorn in the sides of the lead characters on AMC's The Walking Dead for a long time now. The show's eighth season has focused on an "all-out war" being waged against the Saviors by the other survivor communities in the area - the people from the Alexandria Safe Zone, the Hilltop, and the Kingdom (with a failed attempt at assisting from the Scavengers). With only one episode remaining of this season, I'm optimistic that the days of the Saviors being the antagonists on this show are coming to an end... and the thought that this two and a half season ordeal is almost over was my only solace as I sat through one more episode of "all-out war" storyline tonight. It's not that Worth was a bad episode, but I'm exhausted of tuning in to The Walking Dead every week just to see more of our heroes plotting against the Saviors, the Saviors plotting against our heroes, Saviors plotting against Saviors, and on and on. I'm ready to get past all this so the show can finally focus on something else. I'm not excited to see the conclusion of this storyline, there's just a sense of relief as I watch the clock run down to the final minutes.

The relief brought by the thought that this is all going to end after only one more episode allows me to hold back from going off on another hateful rant about the character Eugene (Josh McDermitt), once an Alexandria resident, now making bullets for the Saviors and a devoted follower of Negan. I've expressed a lot of rage over Eugene in the past, as he is one of the most despicable, traitorous cowards I have ever seen. With nearly every moment of screen time he has, he can usually be counted on to disgust and frustrate me, to make me very angry, and he achieved that once again in Worth, where he is taken away from the Saviors' home base by Alexandria's Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Rosita (Christian Serratos), former companions of his... and rather than seek forgiveness for what he has done while he has been with the Saviors, he instead chooses to literally projectile vomit all over any chance of redemption and scuttle back to the villains. Oh, this made me very mad. But there's only one more episode of this story. Things are going to get shaken up for the Saviors, I believe Negan is going to be taking a hard fall, and Eugene will soon see that he has been hiding behind the wrong person. Just one more episode.

Negan isn't taking his fall just yet, in fact he seems to be in a pretty good place this episode, after spending a couple episodes in the dumps. (He was even held captive in an actual dump for a while.) An attempted coup by his former right hand man Simon (Steven Ogg) has been thwarted. And wow, did Simon make a very bad move by trying to take this recent opportunity to become the new leader of the Saviors. It was an ill-fated decision from the start, never expected to go well at all, but when you step back and realize that Simon's lunge for the throne and his downfall in this episode all unspooled within just a couple days it really drives home just how pathetic his power play was.

Simon does get one moment of glory in Worth before it all comes crashing down on him. That comes early on, before Simon knows Negan is back at the Sanctuary after being left for dead, in a scene where former Hilltop leader Gregory (Xander Berkeley) - another weaselly, cowardly character, but one who somehow still isn't as unlikeable as Eugene - is trying to get back in Simon's good graces. For once, Gregory displays some bravery while claiming to have been "reborn as a certified shit-kicker", and Simon brings this display to a hilarious end by slamming Gregory face-first into the floor with a very simple move.

After that, well... at least Simon got to go down fighting.

While Negan is cleaning house at the Sanctuary and Eugene is puking on people, there's also a minor side story with Aaron (Ross Marquand) running himself down while living in the wilderness outside the Oceanside community, trying to get them to join the fight against the Saviors. I don't care about Aaron or the Oceanside people, so I didn't expect to get much out of any scenes involving them, but I was surprised when Aaron actually got the best action scene in the episode, taking on a bunch of zombies in the muddy forest.

Worth also contains scenes in which characters finally get around to reading notes the late Carl Grimes left behind for them, or have the notes read to them. Notes in which Carl shared his hopes for the future beyond his death, his wish for the Saviors and the other communities to find peace with each other. Chandler Riggs, who played Carl, got to do a vocal cameo reading what was written to his father Rick (Andrew Lincoln), which was a nice touch. It's good to see them doing whatever they can to try to make Carl's death make any sense at all, and it's even better when those attempts give Riggs some extra work.

This was a decent, entertaining (except for the Eugene scenes) episode overall. Now I hold on to the hope that every storyline in it is going to get some kind of satisfying resolution in the next episode. Just one more episode to go this season. I'm ready to see Negan get knocked from his throne for good, and I'm really hope Eugene will get his comeuppance.

BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: Hanging out in the wilderness in the pouring rain, Aaron single-handedly takes on multiple zombies, flailing on the muddy ground with the infectious walking corpses.

GORY GLORY: I didn't find that there was anything too special in the gore department here, just the usual zombie head wounds. It was gross when Eugene hid in the ashes of torched bodies, but that wasn't as gross as when he puked on Rosita.

FAVORITE SCENE: Gregory stands up to Simon and ends up facedown on the floor.



Season 8, Episode 16: Wrath

PLOT: The survivors of the Alexandria, Hilltop, and Kingdom communities have their final confrontation with the villainous Saviors.

REVIEW: It's all been leading to this. After two and a half seasons, the battle between the group of zombie apocalypse survivors known as the Saviors, who are led by the baseball bat-wielding brainsmasher Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and the survivors from the other communities the Saviors used to rule over - the Hilltop, the Kingdom, the Alexandria Safe Zone - has reached its conclusion. The theme of The Walking Dead's eighth season has been "all-out war", but if you were expecting to see a lot of action in the season finale, and I figure a lot of viewers did tune in with the hopes of seeing a substantial finale battle (I know I did), those expectations should have been tempered. There's not very much action in Wrath at all.

There is, as you can usually expect from The Walking Dead, a long build-up to the main event we're waiting to see, as we watch the characters get in place for the "ambushing of an ambush" action. Finally, the gunfire starts... but then it's over quite quickly. Although I was hoping for a more exciting finale, I can stir up some appreciation for the fact that Wrath didn't subject us to another shootout. We've had plenty of those this season, most of them ranking among the least engaging firefights I've ever witnessed in a film or television series. So I am glad that this episode wasn't just packed with more shots of people firing a ridiculous amount of bullets. The reason the gunfire stops so quickly also makes for a great moment, one which is meant to redeem a reviled character. This moment of fun isn't enough for me to let that particular character off the hook just yet, though. They've done too good of a job of coming off as being despicable slime lately, I'm not prepared to forgive and forget.

We do get some explosions in here when the members of the Oceanside community make a "surprise" entry into the fight against the Saviors. It's not really a surprise, because if they didn't join the fight most of the scenes involving that community up until this point would have been a waste of time. Good for Rachel (Mimi Kirkland): after repeatedly suggesting that people be murdered in her previous appearances on the show, that bloodthirsty little girl finally got to cause some bodily harm in this episode.

Action was not Wrath's primary concern, though. The battle ends earlier than anticipated so the show can spend some time wrapping things up and setting up other things. There was maybe 4 minutes of action sprinkled into this episode's 48 minutes.

What Wrath was really concerned with was trying to make sure the death of Carl Grimes in the mid-season premiere had some kind of meaning in the end. I still think killing him off was a mistake, because of what his death takes away from his father / Alexandria leader Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and because of the stories from the comic book source material that were left to be told with him in them. I think there were other ways to get Rick and his companions to come to the conclusion they come to here without having them trying to honor Carl's last wishes, but the show did do a decent job of attempting to justify his death.

Showrunner Scott M. Gimple has said that Wrath was meant to function as a finale not just for season eight but for the first eight seasons of this show as a whole. When Angela Kang takes over as the new showrunner next season, the show will apparently be quite different. The "honoring Carl" element, which comes complete with flashbacks of Rick taking walks with his young son, does give it some sense of being a more expansive wrap-up, but for the most part it felt like me like less of a conclusion and more of a stepping stone. It finally brings the Saviors story to an end with some obligatory violence, then begins setting up the new situations we'll be checking in on when season nine arrives later this year.

Wrath is an episode I've been desperate to see come along, because I have gotten very tired of the Saviors story. I'm glad to see that finished, I'm glad this season is over. But these glad tidings were delivered in an episode that was pretty underwhelming to me. Like most of the season that preceded it.

BEST ZOMBIE MOMENT: There are a lot of zombies seen strolling around, but the threat of flesh-eaters is greatly overshadowed by the threat of other people.

GORY GLORY: It doesn't come with an exceptional special effect, but someone very deserving of having their throat slit does get a throat slitting.

FAVORITE SCENE: Before going into battle, Kingdom resident Jerry (Cooper Andrews) didn't believe that he was experiencing the last of shit, he wasn't accepting shit, and he didn't plan on losing shit.