The Walking Dead, Season 7, Episode 10: New Best Friends
It's basically a direct extension of the previous episode, where this time around, we're getting yet another community, namely the Junkions. I mean, the Scavengers, as the internet tells me. Again, the rather rapid pace that we're moving separate plotlines alone is definitely something I'm a fan of. I've been bitching about how bad season 6 and parts of 5 are for a while, and here, while the structure is a relatively predictable "Gondor Calls For Aid" type of storyline that'll probably culminate with all the various communities banding together to fight Negan in the finale, it's at least delivered relatively well. So far, we've got two communities that are more or less allied with the Alexandrians, which is Hilltop (the boring one) and the Kingdom (the tiger one), and there's also Oceanside (the triggerhappy one) though it's been puzzlingly kept vague beyond the obligatory flash-to-Tara's-guilty-face shot every episode.
The Scavengers are a bit of an oddity. They live in a gigantic junkyard, there's a whole lot of them, and... and they speak like cavemen for some reason. Has it been that long that some people's language capabilities have deteriorated? I mean, I guess. They're like these crazy junkyard warriors that you'd think to find in a post-apocalyptic world where the apocalypse happened like a couple generations ago, not like, three, four years tops. They're led by Jadis, who, has a cool bob hair and a cool bit of dress, and they kidnapped Gabriel last episode. I have really grown to enjoy Father Gabriel's character in the past two seasons (despite loathing the dude in season 5) and that moment where he shoves a knife to a random Scavenger's throat, and how Rick always believes throughout the episode that Gabriel did not sell them out is amazingly done.
But let's get to the core bit -- Jadis pushes Rick down into like this junkyard gladiator arena, where there is this insane iron maiden knight zombie waiting for him who would look more at home as a miniboss in Resident Evil more than in Walking Dead. We've had some unique-looking zombies in the past, like the well zombie, or the drowned zombie, or the fall-through-the-ceiling mall zombies, but nothing, I don't think, as absurd as this. And I love it. Zombies have kind of lost their threat over the past few seasons and rightfully so -- our heroes are getting more and more prepared and experienced in killing zombies, but at the same time the title of the show is the Walking Dead, so how do you make zombies interesting? Well, short of going full-blown video game and making body horror bosses, this is definitely a nice bit.
Rick, of course, beats knight zombie and earns Jadis's respect, but they talk in business deals, apparently, wanting lots and lots of guns in exchange for their manpower in manning them. The Scavenger community is a bit weird in that I'm not entirely sure if every single one of them is actually a bit nuts (in the kingdom, Ezekiel knows it's all an act; and Negan's just a maniac) but eh, whatever. I'll take slightly-unrealisticc-but-feasible compared to boring humdrum any day.
The Scavengers plotline isn't quite strong enough -- even moreso than any of the other plotlines this season -- to carry an entire episode on its own, so thankfully we have some Kingdom stuff to tide us over, which, thankfully, brings Daryl back to form. We've got the bit with Ezekiel and Morgan first, though, because tensions are rising high in their meetings. The Saviours evidently aren't that big of a dick to non-Alexandrians who honour their deal, because they kind of back off relatively quickly when Ezekiel tells them that, hey, the deal was for however many watermelons, count properly.
But at the same time, the Saviours are all kind of dicks, and Richard, who's always ready to fight the Saviours judging from last episode, kind of antagonizes them. Morgan tries to step in, but while he did prevent people from dying he got his precious stick taken from him. I absolutely loved how restrained Morgan is, and how polite how he asks for his stick back because it's from someone precious to him -- I almost expected Douchebag Saviour Kid to snap the stick in half and drive Morgan berserk.
Whatever the case, though, Richard is angry at this and tries to enlist Daryl, who is clearly not a pacifist non-killer like Morgan. It's a bit of a convoluted gamble, but Richard plans to kill a bunch of Saviours, and plant a bunch of clues to lead them to Carol, causing the Saviours to attack and/or kill Carol and causing Ezekiel to be driven into a rage. Daryl is confused why Richard is being so glib about the identity of the lady, figures out it's Carol, and that is a big no-no even if he wants to hurt the Saviours real bad. Daryl and Richard fight, they miss their window, and it's interesting to see what Richard's going to do now. He's not the most well-developed character and right now is just more plot device than actual character, but I'm interested if he'll go full-in with the Carol plan or if he's going to try something else.
Daryl and Carol finding each other is definitely one of the show's most emotional scenes. It's been... a while since they're separated, yeah? Since before the season 6 finale madness, with all the convoluted piece-moving to get the characters to be separated? That's an awesome bit between those two where it's not even an outright romance like Glenn/Maggie, but the bond between Daryl and Carol is easily one of the most organic things in the show and I really can't help but go 'awww' at that. On the other hand, Daryl doesn't tell Carol about the deaths of their friends because... I'm not sure why, exactly. I guess he doesn't want to see her become even more broken and blame herself for not being there? On the other hand, one way or another Carol's going to find the truth, but in the heat (or the warmth) of the moment I can't say that I can't at least empathize with what Daryl's trying to do.
So yeah, definitely a decent, if far from perfect, episode.
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