*Spoilers!*
“Are you wearing your shitting pants?… Because you are about to shit your pants” – Words uttered by Negan towards the end of the episode, which hopefully reflects the rest of the season for us, as the opening episode of season 8 started off the great war between the rival colonies of the zombocalypse. This episode marked the 100th episode of the series and saw Rick, Ezekiel, Maggie, and their respected communities, launch the first strike against Negan and the Saviors.
The premiere of season 7 still echoes in our minds. We still remember when Lucille became acquainted with Abraham and Glenn, as well as Negan’s grand unveiling. It was a brutally savage episode that caused an outcry from people who were stupid enough to let their children watch a show about people being eaten alive by disembowelled versions of their peers and loved ones. Allowing them to endure moments like when Noah was ripped apart in the revolving door, or when Rick ripped a man’s throat out with his teeth because he implied he was going to rape Carl, but the Negan thing was when they were going to complain. Apparently that was when they went too far. Well it worked and it caused a ripple effect that is still present in the first episode of season 8.
You see they cried that the show was too violent. Which is silly given the context of the show itself. AMC did away with the swearing from the get-go, which is constantly in the comics and one of the basis of Negan’s character (as the man swears like a trooper), but when the people spoke, AMC listened and cut and edited their graphic zombie dystopia into a family fun adventure, and removed a lot of the gore or brutal moments in the second half of season 7.
In this episode, there is a moment when Rick takes out a Savior guard, and while the guy is on the floor, a nearby tied up Walker is unleashed to feed upon him (pretty savage if you ask me… but the guy did say that Negan was going to kill Carl, so it ‘sort of’ justifies Rick’s actions), but we do not see the Walker tear into him, which we would have been shown seasons ago in all of its gory glory, but I couldn’t help but think maybe they didn’t show us this due to the outcry from last season.
Anyway, back on track. The season opened with Rick doing his Rick thing and giving a powerful speech to his army, surrounded by the other leaders and followers who have joined the cause to take up arms against the Saviors.
We keep getting flashes of an older Rick, with a big grey beard and a bastard haircut. These flashes continue throughout the course of the episode, showing his daughter a little bit older, and Alexandria blooming community full of crops and bursting with life in what appears to be a perfect post apocalyptic utopia.
I am unsure if this is hinting at what comes after the war, as the comics has a similar storyline that takes place afterwards, but if we have learned anything it is that the show does not always stick to the source material, or tends to alter it to fit whatever plot is currently under way, so I am not sure if this is a red herring and is more of a fantasy of what Rick wishes for Alexandria, as the show implies this to be the case, showing long drawn out shots of his eyes in the current time line throughout. It is all very misleading and, at this point, could go either way depending on the outcome of this season. Especially if the show is to be renewed for another season or not (which remains to be seen).
For me, it would be nice to see, as there are some great stories in the comics that take place after this story arc, but I do love surprises and, by now, I have already accepted that the show is not going word for word with the source material.
So as Rick and the main bulk of the force prepare for battle, setting cars up with large metal sheets to create movable cover, Daryl, Carol, Tara and Morgan are gathering an enormous herd of Walkers to lure them towards Negan and the Savior’s community; Sanctuary.
We get some ‘cool’ scenes of Daryl on his motorbike shooting explosive cannisters (which looked incredibly difficult to do whilst driving a motorbike, so hats off to him) and somehow the horde manages to stay close to him going 50mph.
While we are shown a few other points, such as Carl and Michonne staying behind to defend Alexandria, the Hilltop being expanded and rebuilt following the Savior’s attack last season, Carl walking around and looking for petrol (which I’ll breifly come back to later), it is all very uninteresting and does nothing but serve as filler as we wait for the battle to kick off.
Last season, other than the dramatic intro and final episode (a classic Walking Dead thing that they do) the rest of the season built up the inevitable war to come. A lot of people found this season boring and slow because of it, but sometimes the show does need to do that to build up these characters in order to knock them down later on down the line and causing a greater impact to its audience, but sometimes The Walking Dead does have a tendency of maybe doing it a little bit wrong; focusing on a small group of main characters and making everyone else have boring episodes (See: Tara’s episode when she found that community of woman living in the woods), but at the end of the day, they have done all they need to with building the characters up last season, that shit is done! so this one should allow us to jump right into the action, which is what they did, or at least started to do.
So it isn’t before long that the good guys launch their attack against the Saviors… and by ‘launch their attack’, I mean park their shielded cars outside and call Negan out to discuss a surrender.
We all knew he would not take it… so why bother having this at all? Maybe it was just to have Negan actually do a little talking. This scene is in the comics, but I always felt that everyone knew this was going to end in bloodshed, so why not just surprise the Saviors and catch them off guard?
One thing that I have been thinking about is that they gave them the chance to surrender, despite the fact that Daryl and his crew were already luring an enormous herd of the dead towards Sanctuary, with no way of finding out if Negan or his captains had accepted the terms of surrender. What if Simon decided enough was enough and shot Negan in the head and said that the Saviors would surrender? They’d have to deal with that massive horde of zombies coming for them.
Meanwhile, Ezekiel and Carol lead a force to attack the Savior outpost that we saw last season (the one with the big dish), while Morgan deals with a booby trap set up to take out the Savior’s first responders following all those explosions Daryl caused earlier. All of this really just serves to show us where the others are who are not present during the big showdown, so let’s get back to that shall we.
There is a great scene during the “negotiations” when Negan brings out the Hilltop’s former leader; Gregory, who says that the Hilltop follow Negan. Jesus shuts him down by saying that they follow Maggie, and Simon comically throws him down a flight of stairs. Gregory just can’t seem to catch a break. Maybe it is because I like the actor, but I do really like Gregory, if not for the character himself, but more for being believable. He is only interested in saving his own skin, as we see later on in the episode.
So naturally Negan refuses and Rick gives them to the count of ten to surrender, but thinks “fuck it” at seven and starts firing. No one managed to hit anything, despite the fact that Negan and all of the higher commanders of the Saviors are standing out on a balcony before them with a clear line of sight, yet every one of them managed to escape unscathed.
I seem to remember there being a perfect vantage point from a nearby rooftop to that exact location that was shown last season when Rosita was planning her revenge. Surely they should have had a sniper there to just pick Negan off?
Also what was the fucking point of making those liquid metal zombie helmets last season, if they are just going to get blown up instantly. Why even bother making them? It seems like a bit of a waste as we could have had a great moment when one of the soldiers in the good guy army attempts to kill one, but fails and is caught and eaten in the midst of the battle. Instead they are just done away with. I am hoping that the Saviors have more of them for us this season, but I am not counting on it.
It might seem like I am nitpicking, or just moaning for the sake of it, but these things did play on my mind throughout the episode, which ultimately distracts me from what I should be paying attention to. Do not get me wrong, I enjoyed this episode, it is only as I write this that more I realise that there was so much here that just didn’t work. This is a main thing about this show; it is entertaining, but then when you actually analysis it, it is a bit of a mess.
We saw the good guys absolutely lay into Sanctuary, attempting to get the achievement for breaking every single window, but we never saw anyone returning fire. We did see a few moments where Father Gabriel was pinned down by enemy fire, yet we didn’t actually see any of the Saviors actually shooting.
Speaking of Father Gabriel, the man of the cloth got his moment to shine in this episode. He has not always been a favourable character of both the survivors and audience alike, so we are all hoping he has a little shot at redemption, which I’ll address shortly.
Well rather than staying to finish off the job and actually taking out Negan, the good guys did a Governor special and retreated, allowing the horde Daryl and co had lured in to do the hard part (do they not care for the other survivors inside? Such as any children that might be present in Sanctuary? Or is it just that they are all now enemies since they live under Negan’s rule?). As they were leaving, Rick just couldn’t get that shot on a pinned down Negan, but did have time to snap a cheeky little polaroid of him, which will come back later on in the season I would imagine, but as they were leaving, Father Gabriel saw Gregory being Gregory in the middle of the chaos and decided to leave to the protection of his car to go and rescue him, only for Gregory to run off and steal the car, leaving Gabriel stranded behind. I couldn’t help but laugh at this.
As the horde swarmed inside, Gabriel narrowly avoided being eaten by getting inside a trailer, which revealed to be where Negan was also hiding. So this should be quite interesting in the next episode.
The episode ends as swarms of Walkers surround the trailer as the camera zooms out from above, echoing the end of the every first ever episode of the show. This was present earlier in scenes with Carl, where he was looking for petrol, that intentionally mimicked the opening of the pilot eight years ago.
In the end, Sanctuary is completely overrun and the fence is destroyed, so surely this entire place is lost. This already creates a clear difference between the show and the comic and leaves even the most expert Walking Dead comic fan boys (like me) wondering what will happen next.
A lot of reviewers and viewers have said that the episode was rather boring, I can’t help but feel they might have been expecting a lot from the first episode, given how previous seasons have began with a more momentous opening, personally I enjoyed it… to an extend. Over the years, I have managed to see through the façade of this show as it masquerades around with the big boys like Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad, regarding itself as one of the greatest shows ever made, when really, it could be so much better. Much like the titular terrors featured, the show itself is full of holes with bits splattered all over the place. It is slowly becoming rotten as the end of its existence draws near, desperately trying to feed off the living as it stumbles along. Occasionally it manages to sink its teeth in deep and we are hooked, but those moments are sadly hidden amongst dull and drawn out episodes.
While this episode kicked off the season with bang, and it was a rather entertaining action packed episode of the show, it is not something we haven’t already seen before and it is difficult for me to get excited as I have been in this position many times in the past after other season premieres. I hope that I am wrong and that this season of The Walking Dead will be the most epic season yet, but at this time, I will wait and see.
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