This review contains spoilers.
8.10 The Lost And The Plunderers
Last week was something of an outlier episode for The Walking Dead. The show blatantly went for heart strings, trying to pluck out emotion from the death of Carl Grimes, a character often described as the heart and soul of the show by creator Robert Kirkman. Indeed, Carl is the star of the comic book, and yet, the television series has decided to diverge from the source material (not the first time and after a concerted effort by Robert Kirkman et al to move closer to the comic book) and eliminated the future of the post-apocalyptic world because of reasons. It wasn’t shocking, since there were roughly two months between Carl being bitten and Carl’s death, but it was still a major disturbance in the status quo for the most popular show on cable.
Back to business as usual this week.
One of the things that The Walking Dead did well with the Governor was they took great pains to get the Governor and Rick together in the same scene. I’m thinking of the secret barn meeting between the two. One of the things that The Walking Dead isn’t doing as well at this season is getting Rick and Negan face to face. Negan shows up where Rick is supposed to be, sure, but there’s absolutely no drama regarding two sweaty, bearded guys talking to one another over a radio in alternating shots. And yet, that’s what the most important moment of this episode is.
I mean no disrespect to either Andrew Lincoln or Jeffrey Dean Morgan. The performances are solid, with Morgan especially showing out when he gets a chance to drop the Negan act and be a person, but it doesn’t carry a lot of weight, despite all the growling and threatening. Contrast that scene with Negan’s brief interactions with Simon. If anything, Rick and Negan’s discussion should be much more perilous, but there’s much more palpable tension when Steven Ogg and Morgan are sharing the same space. The energy is different, and it feels like there’s more at stake simply because Lucille is within bashing distance, and director David Boyd is careful to make sure the viewer is always aware of that. Rick standing in a field and Negan reclining behind a desk doesn’t have that threat of violence to it, so the anger between them feels like posturing.
One of the things that did work during the episode, at least to me, was the use of title cards to divide the sections. Enid, Negan, Rick, Simon, Jadis… all of them received a different title card focusing on them and their respective adventures. Enid was the odd-person out, given that her storyline with Aaron is separate from the others, while Rick, Simon, Negan, and Jadis were all interconnected. Rick, after burying Carl, is determined to go see the Junkyard Gang because they’re now at risk from the Saviors. Simon is sent after the Junkyard Gang because Negan feels that they’re still a valuable resource, if only as bodies. Both of the respective leaders feel the same about Jadis’s people: they can’t be trusted, but they’re too valuable to give to the other side. It seems all Jadis wants is to be left alone, except at the very end.
I can appreciate the attempts to make Jadis and her fellow Oscar the Grouch cosplayers pitiable, but it’s not effective. They’ve triple-crossed Rick and Negan, and for all the talk about them being important, they’ve never felt important. At least the Hotel had a lot of guns for Rick to steal; otherwise, Jadis and her people have been nothing more than a weird diversion for Rick and Negan, and a convenient way for Simon to lash out at others to satisfy his psychopathic urges. Strangely, the only one who seems to have any feelings towards Jadis’s crew is Simon, even if those feelings are bad. Rick and Negan simply see her and her people as a resource to use up and discard. Yes, Simon is the one who ends up ending that resource, but Rick is no less complicit because he and Michonne leave Jadis behind to die.
It’s clear that Rick isn’t getting the message that Carl tried to send him. Not only is he not helping people, he flat out refuses to end the war with the Saviors. The script (from future show-runner Angela Kang, Channing Powell, and Corey Reed) makes sure to put the most fearsome words into Negan’s mouth, letting him rip into the traumatised Rick with both hands. It’s a brutal reflection of just how many times Rick has failed his family and his people along the way.
Rick’s gotten his friends killed and his son killed, mostly due to inconsistency. Does he fight, or does he not fight? Does he help others, or does he leave others to die at the hands of zombies? Is he the leader, or is he not the leader? At the moment, he’s a ruthless fighter; who will Rick be next month, or next episode?
Even with Carl, Rick was rudderless. Without Carl? Rick is truly dangerous. Whether that’s to himself or to others remains to be seen. Maybe he’ll take Carl’s words to heart. Maybe he’ll put Simon to shame in his kill-craziness. How Rick responds now will be totally different next week, and likely will continue until either Rick the character decides how he wants to be or The Walking Dead‘s behind-the-scenes drama subsides.
Read Ron’s review of the previous episode, Honor, here.
US Correspondent Ron Hogan thinks that Steven Ogg would have been a much better, much more dangerous Negan. Super villains are more satisfying than nuanced middle-manager villains. Find more by Ron daily at PopFi.