The Walking Dead, Season 8, Episode 12: The Key
This is a bit of a more solid episode than most in terms of execution, but at the same time it has so many symptoms of what made season 7 and 8 of the Walking Dead so painful to watch. On one hand, the Rick/Negan stuff felt pretty similar to most of the other times they've faced each other in seasons 7 and 8, and I wonder how much more impact this scene would've have if they had met and confronted each other maybe once or twice throughout the course of their little war. As it is, despite the more personal confrontation between the two -- it's just the two of them, mano a mano; there's a car chase, Rick setting Lucille the bat on fire, both Rick and Negan call each other out for the bullshit hypocrisy in how they operate. But on the other hand, it does feel somewhat repetitive of a similar episode where Rick essentially does the same thing with the Governor a while back, and just like that episode, because the Walking Dead needs to dispatch of its Big Bads in season finales, we know that Negan's not going to die here. It does lead him to be captured by Jadis at the end of the episode, which... I really want to say it's a great development for Jadis, but I've since lost interest in the character.
Jeffrey Dean-Morgan and Andrew Lincoln try their best with what the script gives them, and while Negan's probably a lot easier to make interesting, what with his hammy F-bombs and huge bombastic dialogue, poor Andrew Lincoln has to contend with Rick just alternating between 'conflicted while sweating and mulling to himeslf' and 'explosive righteous anger'. The dialogue for Rick in this episode has been better compared to anything that's come out of his mouth for the past season, but that's not really saying much. Is that why the Walking Dead franchise is branching out into prequel-spinoffs and video games? Have they really milked out everything they have from Rick and his buddies, and are too afraid of changing things in case they upset the fanbase (RE: Eugene)?
That aside, though, the side-plots that don't involve Rick and Negan are actually so much mroe interesting. Both Rick and Negan's argument is that the other is destroying the organizations under them due to their viewpoints, and I think the episode tries to show that -- subtly with Hilltop, and less so with Simon/Dwight's buddy cop adventure -- by showing a situation handled by other characters in the absence of Rick and Negan. The Hilltop stuff is more boring, and there's the very obvious "after Negan, we're going here" sequel hook. A group of survivors led by a confident woman who wants to barter food for music. The arguments between Enid, who is in grief and wants to just 'take everything, why be nice when the world's not nice; and Michonne, who tries to go with Carl's "there must be something after" mentality, which is extremely basic but serviceable. Maggie's role as a leader causes her to try yet another path to compassion, something she probably hasn't had the chance to do a lot thanks to all the war with Negan. Hilltop, in exchange, gets a bunch of blueprints for medieval technology.
There is the weird question of how these ladies managed to survive and remain unseen by Negan's Saviours, but eh. It's a show that asks you to buy that a society of art-sculpting garbage people sprung up in the short three or four years after a zombie apocalypse.
The Simon/Dwight storyline is clearly the star of this episode, however, tying in with my argument that Walking Dead's problem might have to do with a very sedentary cast. Simon's very slow-burn revolt and his attempts to gauge for Dwight's receptiveness towards a potential revolt against Negan -- and trying to keep it subtle enough to not immediately be branded as a traitor should Dwight be far more loyal -- is definitely really well done. Dwight's own shiftiness, wondering if this is a test of loyalty or an actual break he could use to get rid of Negan, is pretty well done as well. Simon's chafing under Negan's petty leadership is a far cooler critique of how Negan's Saviour shtick is total bullshit because he cares more about control and revenge more than anything, and he's prolonging the conflict needlessly, more so than Rick screaming it over the course of five minutes.
It's perhaps come a bit too late in the story to really make me go "shit, it's good now!" but the scenes involving Simon and Dwight are genuinely engaging to watch, feeling as if they've came from a better, superior show. And that moment when Dwight and Simon walk up to Negan's upturned car, and Dwight chucks his cigarette into the oil, while they return to the rest of the Negan collective to say that "Negan's gone, now we're not saying he's dead, but we have to continue his vision", is pretty dang good. I mean, other than the fact that, to Dwight's horror, Simon is riling the crowd up to kill everyone instead of merely subjugating the Hilltop-Alexandria communities. Overall, an okay episode, although I still don't have much hope for the rest of the season.
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