The Walking Dead, Season 8, Episode 10: The Lost and the Plunderers
After the previous episode wrapped up with Carl's death, this episode should, in theory, get things moving again in this mass of jumbled-up and prolonged storylines. And it's... okay, in that something big actually befalls one of the many factions that were built up in the past two seasons. In that the garbage people, the weird-ass caveman-speaking, junk-painting and constantly double-crossing people living in the junkyard is finally taken out of the picture. That's kinda cathartic, really, because after the first couple of times that the garbage people have betrayed our heroes, it's kind of been a bit 'come on, why do we even need them?' And that was the exact reaction I had when we first saw Rick and Michonne apparently go to regain the garbage people as allies in the first scene.
There's also this weird running theme throughout this episode about how each character's... POV, of sorts, starts off with a black screen and the character's name written in white block letters, which doesn't actually work well because there's no real character focus in any of the sections beyond "oh hey let's follow this character for a bit", something the show already does anyway -- they just tend to split up the scenes for each character apart instead of bunching them together. There's no real difference beyond the huge neon sign saying "hey look we're doing something different but not really".
Anyway, Rick and Michonne try to recruit Jadis, only to find that the garbage people's been killed by Simon earlier on. And Simon's got a fair bit of scenes and arguably the best written character in this episode. He's pissed off that all his people are captured by Hilltop and really, really wants to take the fight to them, but Negan is still headstrong in his 'kill only one' and 'we have to save these people' mentality, something that Simon is chafing on. Steven Ogg is a very entertaining actor, and it's always fun to see him, and that there's some actual point to his character from "fun bad guy lieutenant' and the transition from just being pissed off at Negan's orders to going "fuck it, kill them all" is neat. And, y'know, he killed the garbage people. That's some plus points for me.
Rick and Michonne end up refusing to save Jadis, although Rick also notes that he doesn't kill her, leading Jadis (who we get the 'revelation' that she's been faking the caveman speech all along) to lead her people's zombified forms to a trash grinder. I don't... care? It's grisly and all, but Jadis is such a one-dimensional plot piece and not an especially likable one. She survives the episode, but I can't say I really care. Maybe she'll prove relevant, maybe she won't. Eh.
Meanwhile, Rick calls up Negan to inform him that Carl's dead, and both actors do the conversation quite okay, I guess, with Negan's sorrow feeling really genuine, and Rick's rage being pretty well-delivered. Rick refuses to stop fighting or to kowtow to Negan, who's still convinced that his insane way's the only way mankind will survive. The show's setting up for a big 'kumbaya' resolution, but I'm pretty sure neither Rick nor Negan will ever agree to that.
Oh, there's a B-plot with Enid and Aaron essentially being forgiven by Cindy or whoever the lady from... Oceanside or whatever the lady camp is called, and let free, but Aaron remains to try to convince them. Whatever. And honestly, while there are some smidgens of good acting here and there, this episode of Walking Dead fell back into the same rut that season 8 has fallen into. It's perhaps better than some of the episodes in this season, but that says more about the quality of the rest of the season, really.
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