The Walking Dead S08E16 Review: A Dream of Peace

The Walking Dead, Season 8, Episode 16: Wrath

Finally, we have the conclusion of the huge Saviours arc that ran throughout seasons 7 and 8 of the Walking Dead, probably the unambiguously worst chunk of Walking Dead since, oh, the farm. Which didn't seem that bad, now that I look back at it. This, too, is where my reviews of Walking Dead will end. Maybe some day in the future I'll decide to watch season nine, but I'm pretty sure I won't be making episodic reviews of it. The show's never been super-good in the first place, but it's lost too much, its characters have all stagnated, and the show stumbles upon regurgitating itself too much for me to honestly care that much about it anymore.

Still, though, this isn't necessarily a bad ending. As I noted in my last few episodes of season 8, the back end of the season is neat enough to sort of make up for the terrible and dreary quality of the first half.

I really wished we had more inkling as to Eugene's plan. The man's an enigma, and yes, too much foreshadowing would ruin the big surprise that Eugene's actually working for the good guys all along, but we could really have had a huge "Eugene tries to curry favour with anyone who captures him, but in this episode he proves himself as one of the good guys" storyline in the past couple of episodes, but he's been working as a Negan-faithful person for the past couple of episodes, only to reveal that he sabotaged the bullets. All of them? Somehow? And no one from Negan's party pulled the trigger before that one crucial moment when Negan orders them to fire? As cool as it is to see that Eugene's working for the good guys, it's also ridiculously deus ex machina-y to have the betrayal happen that way.

And everything just happens to go for Team Rick, really. The whole spiel of "I pre-empt your trap, and then you pre-empt my trap" is predictable and, while not bad, not impressive, but between Eugene's super-duper lucky plan, the Oceanside ladies showing up with firebombs right in a crucial time, and neither Gabriel, Dwight or Eugene dying despite Negan having ample time to kill at least the former two before the big dramatic moment really ends up being somewhat laughable. Oh, and of course the Saviours all decide to surrender (although to be fair, they don't have bullets).  Everything goes right for #TeamRick, Rick gets to fight Negan in a one-on-one and slits his throat... but apparently that's not enough because they manage to save Negan and keep him alive as a symbol for a better tomorrow.

And then it's just a matter of wrapping up every other plot thread. The Saviours are suddenly nice, with the other minor loyal Negan minions who's not accounted for (Arat's the only one I remember, to be honest) disappearing into the background. Morgan's whole poorly-handled "am I crazy" character drama gets a pep talk from Jesus and suddenly returns back to a pacifistic mentality, and then leaves to go on a walkabout with Jadis Anne. Daryl lets Dwight go, but warns him to never return. Gabriel prays. Maggie gathers a cabal of anti-Negan people -- Daryl and Jesus, the latter of which doesn't really make sense -- to bide their time and enact their vengeance upon Negan someday.

Let's talk about Rick, the main character of this all, and how poorly he was handled this season. Andrew Lincoln tries his best, but Rick goes in the back end of this season from designated action hero to a grief-stricken Punisher who betrays his words and slaughters enemies who have surrendered, and then out of the blue, because of Carl's letter and Siddiq's brief pep talk earlier in this episode, he decides to spare Negan and build the world Carl wants him to build. The show goes back and forth between both versions of Rick so much to psych out the audience that it's not even interesting any more. Just like Eugene's bullet plot twist, it's just a plot twist for the sake of having a plot twist without regard of execution or how sensible it looks to the audience.

And ultimately? I suppose despite the sheer level of ass-pulling and random 'shock surprise' moments, the ending is, I suppose a neat, uplifting one with the promise of a community being rebuilt between Alexandria, Hilltop, the Kingdom, Oceanside and the Saviours. Sure, there are a couple of potential plot lines going on -- Maggie's quest for revenge (and can anyone blame her? Negan did kill Glenn, after all), the very ambiguous "largest horde we've ever seen" that Rick mentions and honestly very poorly rendered on screen, and the mysterious group of medieval-technology ladies that came to the Hilltop a while back. Ultimately, though, once the dust has settled and I sit down to write up a review, I found out just how hollow this all feels, and while I'm sure the Walking Dead has enough fans to justify running on and on and on until the heat death of the universe, and if not in the main series, then via spinoffs, I think I'm out. I found out how the Negan storyline ended, and I don't think I care enough to see what happens next in season 9. Word of mouth tells me that it ends up basically being more of the same meandering nonsense.