The Walking Dead, Season 8, Episode 1: Mercy
(Yep, we're still doing this)
(The show's title sort of describes the show itself, really, at this point)
(As well as my attitude)
Been a fair bit since I actually talked about the Walking Dead. It's a weird series that I'm not particularly in love with, but one that I didn't mind watching. So that kind of allows me to actually review its episodes really quickly and use it to bulk up my reviews in empty stretches like this month. So last we left off, I finished season 7, not actually aware that season 8 had came and debuted a good chunk of its episodes last November. Whoops!
So this is me playing catch-up. And after season 7 ended with Rick's army building up forces with the Kingdom and Hilltop to take the war to Negan, this episode thankfully doesn't bullshit around and just shows us that. The thing is... it doesn't show us much else. There's this very weird subplot of Carl giving food to some random dude, there's some weird scenes of what I think is a 'what-if' sequence for Rick or something? I dunno. But the majority of the episode is just the Rick Army making their way to Negan's fortress and besieging it, with a particularly awesome scene being Rick's agents taking out guards as he crosses things off a checklist, as well as the revelation that their big plan is to herd a gigantic zombie army to lay siege to Negan's fortress. Dwight is also squarely in the Rick Army camp, working as an inside man feeding intel to Daryl.
There's some rather sad bit of writing where Gregory, who has been treading the line between 'sympathetic weasel' and 'jackass villain' finally makes his way to villain side (while Dwight is squarely on the 'good guys'), blotting out one of the few characters whose motivations and allegiances are somewhat interesting. He straight-up leaves Father Gabriel to get eaten by zombies, despite the Father going back to save him. Gabriel ends up hiding in a room that just happens to be where Negan is hiding, which can't be good for the man.
Negan himself is still a fun psychopath, and there was a bit where it seems like he saw what Rick's big plan was, but it ends up that his big play is just to drag Gregory out to get the Hilltop reinforcements to retreat. Which... isn't very impressive. And that's been a problem with Negan all throughout season 7. His competence and power wavers a lot as the plot demands, and when you do that enough times with a character he ends up being as threatening as a Saturday morning cartoon villain. I dunno. I just hope they actually find something more interesting to do with Negan is all. I don't know... the actors are trying their best, the action scenes and zombie makeup are pretty perfunctory, but when I booted up this episode I really feel like the show's turned into one of those zombies it touts around and I'm wondering if the season will even have any good stories left to tell. We'll see, shall we?
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