Monday, October 30, 2017

The Walking Dead, Season 8, Episode 1: Mercy









Negan is not amused and throws Gregory to the ground. Welp, Negan sets up a puppet and is shocked that this broken puppet cannot inspire loyalty? Still no sympathy for Gregory.

Rick gives them a count of 10 to surrender - and shoots on 7. Sadly all they do is waste a ton of bullets shooting out windows without actually hitting anyone. But it’s very dramatic and distracting while Rick rolls up the RV full of explosives and uses it to blow up the fence around Negan’s base.

Which is when the horde arrives. Rick is obsessed with shooting at Negan who seems stranded on the ground - but Gabe reminds him that it’s not about him and they have to leave: which he does after taking a photo on a polaroid. Really?

Unfortunately Gabe decides to stay around and help Gregory - who then steals his car and runs away. Gabe ends up stranded in a trailer, surrounded by zombies, with Negan

And I’m not even going to be sorry for Gabe. He hasn’t earned nearly enough goodwill in the last few seasons to care about his suicidal choices.

Of course, Rick feels guilty because he assumes Gabe was caught convincing him to leave. (Oh we’re going to get a terrible hostage negotiations aren’t we?).

Carol, Ezekiel and others attack another area and get a grenade thrown at them. It seems more smokey than damaging.

Carl decides to leave food and an apology for the man who Rick drove off - the man is watching.

We also get some weird flashforwards of tearful Rick. And beyond that old Rick living a life of domestic bliss with his daughter and Michonne looking all peaceful. My only take from this is “they can’t kill Michonne”.

Walking Dead, you’ll make me a happy person by ending the Negan storyline with this - or in the next 2 or 3 episodes, because we need to move in. The gang gathers in a place, finds a perception of safety then evil guy arrives, everything is destroyed and they move on. It’s repetitive. Also, from an emotional point of view, it’s deeply unsatisfactory.

Look, when going for gritty realism I get that emotional triumphalism isn’t the way to go, but Season 7 of The Walking Dead was pummeling. Michonne beaten down, Rick cowering in the dirt, Carol taking up meditation and pacifism, Daryl becoming a traumatised prisoner, Eugene showing his intelligence and then becoming team bad!guy and the death of Glenn and Abraham… it was punishing. And after 6 seasons of everything kind of falling apart it’d be nice to let up a little; on some level I want them to be reward, I think they deserve better than this. Yes yes grim gritty blah blah - I don’t care if death and despair is your aesthetic there’s a point when it just becomes too exhausting to watch and enjoy. If I need to catch up on unrelenting awful I can check the news.

Kill Negan, let them build their communities - bring in new challenges. Aspirational ones rather than reactive ones: how do we clear a large swath of land of Walkers rather than just the towns? What other settlements are there out there? Can we develop a reliable communication system? Introduce an enemy that Rick & co just splat with sheer awesome experience. Introduce a difficult group with lots of complex diplomacy to make them an ally. What about them getting an influx of refugees as people hear there’s a safe place not made up of rapey marauders? What about assimilating the surviving Saviours? Let’s have something vaguely positive; let’s not just be counting down the days until Alexandria is destroyed and we move on. Again.