The Walking Dead S06E08 Review: Serpents in Heaven

The Walking Dead, Season 6, Episode 8: Start to Finish

I, for one, am glad that I am not watching this season in real-time. Because, shit, Wikipedia tells me that this is apparently the mid-season finale for the season, and that kind of means that this season is halfway done and we haven't accomplished all that much -- the whole quarry zombie sea plan ended up still not being resolved, the Wolves are still cryptic and hanging in the air, and the entire season's been an exercise of waiting for a bunch of the badasses to get back to town because they're all split up. This particular episode does somewhat to alleviate the utter stagnation that has plagued the last three or four episodes I've watched prior, mostly because actual conflict is happening, but dang, season six, despite its more ambitious nature, ended up kind of being as slow as the second season in the farm, huh?

This episode starts off very strong, having a pretty exciting zombie invasion scene (I'm a sucker for action scenes) as a huge swarm enters through the collapsed wall and people are just running into their homes and hide out. We don't actually see much of the generic Alexandrians, but most of the cast are holed up at Jessie's house. Tara, Eugene and Rosita, the 'hey, these guys exist!' members of the main cast in the previous seasons, hang out on another, while Morgan and Carol find themselves at each other's throats in regards of what to do with Wolf the Wolf, who still doesn't have a name.

The mid-season finale sees the death of Deanna, who's been spending the last few episodes trying to draw up plans for an expansion. I get that she's a idealist looking for the future, but maybe deal with the horde outside your walls before you draw up plans for expanding outside said walls. During the huge zombie invasion of Alexandria, Deanna ends up being bit and falling down on a saw, and she has some great exchanges of lines with Rick and particularly Michonne, talking about how she's going to choose how she's going to die and stuff, how Michonne has to choose how to proceed in the future, and even as she lies dying, with her gun aimed at her chin... she decides to give these zombie fuckers at least one last fight, using the bullets to blow up the heads of the zombies outside the room she's in and roaring a challenge at them before the scene cuts away. She's dead either way, though, unlike Glenn, because of the zombie bite. 

Ron (Jessie's older son, I had to keep checking) misses his chance to shoot Carl in the street -- what the fuck was he attempting to accomplish, I wonder -- but decides to do so when everyone's hiding in their house barricaded against the zombie onslaught. Yeah, good fucking plan, Ron. Shoot him in the garage, and blow out the windows and cause the zombie hordes to come in. Worst of all, Ron didn't even have the decency to die, mostly just standing around like the goddamned moron that he is while Carl and the adults do everything. And Carl even has to cover up for him, saying that no, they weren't fighting each other, they were fighting the zombies. I guess it's easier than to explain to Jessie why they have to tie up and/or kill Ron, but still. It also means that Ron is an unstable gun waiting to go off, so there's that.

Also an unstable gun waiting to go off? Sam. One part of me pities the poor kid due to the pile of emotional shit that he's been dealt with (Carol's speech, his father's death, the implied paternal abuse before that, and now the fucking invasion of the undead), but the other part really wants to slap him upside the face and tell him to man the god damn fuck up. Like, shit, I get that he's confused about what's happening, but seriously, that cliffhanger, with him going 'Mom?' and attracting zombie attention? Or earlier in the house when he's just playing his music loudly despite everyone telling him to keep the noise to a minimum? He's going to get his ass eaten one way or another. And honestly, a good chunk of the time he just has the potential to do something moronic or insane considering the stress he's under. Honestly I'm just afraid anytime Judith is placed remotely near him -- he might potentially be as bad as that crazy psychopath kid that Tyreese and Carol looked after in season four.

But seriously, when Ron and Sam are the two main sources of human conflict in this show, jeez, you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel. 

Morgan and Carol's fight is pretty cool... but at the same time underwhelming. Both parties have a point, but both parties are also being unreasonable assholes about it -- Carol's insistence that they kill the Wolf RIGHT NOW instead of, oh, I dunno, after the zombie invasion, or having the dicussion after he's tied up, or something, is stupid. But Morgan's willingness to fight and knock Carol out and getting his own ass handed to him by Mr. Wolf? Yeah, not very smart either.

Carol's point is instantly proven right after a relatively prolonged standoff, with Morgan aikido-ing Carol, then the Wolf getting the drop on Morgan, before making off with dr. Denise. So, yeah, Morgan's naivete and sparing of the Wolf ends up biting him on his ass. I suppose it's small mercy that neither Carol, Morgan or Team Rosita (who shows up after the scruffle) didn't all get shot to death by the Wolf, but he walks out into the zombie-infested streets with Denise in tow, which honestly doesn't seem like it's going to end well. I dunno. Wolf the Wolf is just a cipher that of course he's going to go wild. I mean, it's not like Morgan's actually tried to rehabilitate the man other than telling him his flashback story, right? Like, this is where some of the season's filler episodes could've been replaced with a filer episode about Morgan and the Wolf. I dunno. The confrontation happened but it wasn't entirely interesting to watch.

What else? Glenn and Enid have some brief moments outside the walls -- Enid continuing to be emo, and Glenn telling her to go on -- but otherwise I think I covered most of the basics. There's the absolutely great moment of Carl telling Ron that "your father is an asshole!" which is amazing, but since Carl didn't shoot Ron in the face, or at least call him an asshole, there's a bit of a missed moment there .

It is still a lot better than the previous few episodes, I'll give you that, and at least things are happening and unfurling instead of just a lot of waiting around. It's not great quality, and I am hard-pressed to think of any episode in this season so far that I enjoyed, and it's honestly bad news since I'm nearly halfway through already.