'The Walking Dead' Review

The Walking Dead is back. The mid-season finale left us with several questions. Alexandria has been destroyed. Maggie is making a stand with the Hilltop. What will happen to Ezekiel? Oh, and Carl was bitten in the last episode.

Honestly, while I feel bad for Carl (I don’t really), you have to be a moron to get bitten at this point, and he was doing something stupid. It’s been a long time since someone competent was killed by a walker. Tyrese maybe? Carl should have been paying attention.

I do feel bad for Chandler Riggs. Losing a steady paycheck has got to suck, but he’s going off to college rich and famous, so it’s probably a wash.

Anyways, SPOILERS for the more the most recent Walking Dead Episode.

So, this was an okay episode. Parts of it worked. Parts of it were a little boring. So, basically an episode of the The Walking Dead.

This episode was split between the Kingdom and the Alexandria crew.

The episode starts off with a montage of the walker biting Carl, and how he deals with it. He does a pretty good job of accepting his almost certain death.

Then, we get a look at the Saviors breaking out of the Sanctuary. Morgan gets away and sees them heading to the Kingdom.

Finally, we pick up with the Alexandria group hiding in the sewer after the Savior attack. We see Rick and Michonne as they realize Carl’s been bitten. We finally get to see why Rick was crying in the season premiere. I would have bet money it was because of Judith.

While Rick and Michonne deal with Carl, the rest of the group decides what their next move is. Dwight wants them to wait until the Saviors go away. A nice, safe, pretty decent plan. The rest of the group wants to try to leave immediately. I would like to point out that it was Daryl, Rosita, and Tara. The people responsible for them having to hide in the sewer in the first place. These are not the best people to make a plan. Dwight convinces them to wait.

Eventually, the group makes their way to the Hilltop. Daryl volunteers to take Judith so Rick and Michonne can help Carl. There are touching goodbye between Carl and Judith, and Carl and Siddiq? I like how Daryl was right there, and so was Tara, who knew Carl for years and just kind of left. But Siddiq gives a long tearful goodbye, even though they just met.

I really didn’t think they would drag Carl’s death through the whole episode, but they did. He made a speech. He talked about the kid he dropped back at the prison. Carl decides to take himself out instead of letting Rick or Michonne doing it. That took guts.

I was genuinely surprised when they showed Rick and Michonne outside. The Walking Dead loves the final shot, and then we hear the gunshot. Michonne jumped and so did I.

We also get to see the genesis of the Old Man Rick visions. They weren’t Rick’s at all, but Carl’s and it was even dumber than I thought. Carl turned into a pacifist at some point and now he wants everyone to work together and live happily ever after. The big reveal is that Negan is there with them. Because that would work.

Oh hey, who’s that over there gardening?

Oh, that’s just Negan.

How’d you meet him?

Oh, he just savagely bashed my friends’ head in with a baseball bat, but we’re good now.

Jeez, Carl.

The other half of the episode was much more interesting. Carol gets everyone to safety and goes back to save Ezekiel and she meets up with Morgan.

Gavin has Ezekiel under guard while the rest of the Saviors ransack the Kingdom. Gavin pleads with Ezekiel to go along easily. I always liked Gavin. He didn’t seem like a sadist like rest of the Saviors, and more like a guy that just got stuck in a position and had to make the best of it. He seemed to want to avoid unnecessary violence. But Ezekiel remains calm and keeps trying to get Gavin to change. I like to think that Ezekiel was so calm because he knew Carol was out there somewhere.

And he was right. Carol and Morgan make their way through the Kingdom. The best part is that Carol seems unconcerned with the armed killers patrolling the Kingdom and more worried about Morgan losing and killing everyone. Predictably, they kill everyone.

I’ve seen some things on The Walking Dead, but the way Morgan killed the Saviors was pretty memorable. The warrior monk-thing sometimes makes you forget the Morgan used to be a crazed, brutal, and efficient killer. He literally pulled a man’s guts out with his hand. He would have made Rick proud.

Then, we get a brief Friday the 13th segment, where Morgan tracks Gavin down. It was legitimately scary when Morgan’s shadow shows up.

And, just when you think Morgan’s going to kill Gavin, the little kid takes him out.

Now, we wait for next week.

Random Thoughts

I still miss the tiger.

I wonder if Carl really thought they could ever live with Negan. I hope it was the fever talking.

It seems like a zombie bite shouldn’t be instant death. Like, I think some heavy duty antibiotics should at least help.

It seems like the entire cast was pretty upset about Chandler Riggs being let go. That was nice to see.

Also, Maggie got cast in some new pilot if her time is limited.

I like that even though he was facing certain death, Ezekiel kept up the Shakespearean dialogue.

Carol’s body count is so high. She’s dropped half the Saviors on her own.

Despite Carl’s speech, I think we can see crazy Rick come back. The man’s a force of nature when he’s worked up. But, if we get farmer Rick again, then I’m glad Carl’s dead because that was boring.

Siddiq being a doctor was pretty lucky for Carl. He might die but at least they have another doctor. It would suck if he was a cashier or something. The ability to make change would not be nearly as useful as internal medicine.

I already said that you have to be pretty dumb to get bit, but would it kill them to wear at least semi-bite resistant clothing? Carl died because he didn’t want to wear a leather jacket.

And that’s all for this week.