*Spoiler warning: When God gives you spoilers, you should take to social media and demand that you should have received lemons instead!*
Hello again friends, it is I, Zoidberg! Err, I mean Kevin! So I realize now that this review is a few days late, but oh well, nobody’s paying me (yet) to write and post these reviews on a strict deadline. So before I get into how much of an amazing episode this was, I just want to take the time to thank my readers for putting up with my odd sense of humor and my partial political rants on these reviews. I’m going to shy away from posting political stuff from now on as that passion is best spent in the voting booth, not starting flame wars on social media. Not to mention that my band Hit The Deck is starting to get more exposure online. On a related note, how about zombie Donald Trump folks? I wonder how Negan and the Governor would do if they were running in the GOP race for 2016 (obvious satire is obvious). On a side note, I haven’t read that far into the comics where Negan shows up, so please don’t spoil who he kills for me!
This’s probably the best episode of The Walking Dead to have graced television so far, and holy shit does stuff get real from the first five minutes as epic things happened in this episode! From the tense interaction between Sasha, Daryl, Abraham and Negan’s henchmen being resolved by Daryl shooting them all with a bazooka; to how Rick and the members of Alexandria made their final stand against the walker heard. I’m overjoyed to have witnessed this episode this past Sunday night. TWD has finally made up for all of the slow pacing of season 6A, and season 6B promises to be quite the roller coaster of emotions and excitement. Now onto the technical aspects of what I enjoyed and didn’t enjoy.
What I enjoyed:
“Chew on that!” Said Abraham to the remains of Negan’s biker gang after Daryl blew them away with the rocket launcher that Abraham found last season. The dialogue in this episode was really on point, and so was all of the action. I loved how during Morgan and Carol’s conversation Carol confronted Morgan about saving the Wolf leader for himself rather than doing it to help Alexandria (even though The Wolf did eventually redeem himself to save Denise from all of the Walkers). The tension between Morgan and Carol should be interesting to see given how much of an atomic bomb Negan is going to be to this whole show, should they ever fight again and Negan finds out about Morgan’s vow to never kill again. I’m happy Ron was killed by Michonne as it’s what he deserved, especially since he shot Carl’s eye out and nearly shot Rick (too bad it’s a little late to make a reference to A Christmas Story!) I enjoyed Glenn’s speech to Enid about how the people he lost are still with him in his heart, and how it helped strengthen Enid’s resolve.
Lastly, I enjoyed how the final stand against the walkers started off as Rick losing his shit against the Walkers, but that it eventually turned into every member of Alexandria coming out to stand against the walker heard. When Eugene said “they’re going to sing about this someday” it took me straight back to what Théoden of Rohan said about his final stand at Helm’s Deep in Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers. The whole scene was probably written as a tribute to that part of Lord of The Rings as when Abraham and Sasha saved Glenn, Gandalf saved everyone from the Uruk-Hai at Helm’s Deep by arriving at the right moment (they even had the sunrise symbolize the end of the battle). I knew that Bazooka would be how they got rid of the walker heard, but I didn’t expect to have Daryl lure the walkers to their deaths in the gasoline ridden flames of that pond. Goddamn, A+ on all of these aspects of the episode!
What I Didn’t Enjoy:
I’m sad that Jessie and Sam had to die as I knew it happened in the comics, but I was hoping the Jessie would get a little more character development first. I’m also sad to know that Sam was so heavily traumatized by Carol’s speech from season five that he stopped and lost his life over it (not a terrible tie in from a writing perspective though). Also, I didn’t like how at the start of the episode the writers teased us over how Abraham and Sasha might get killed off right then and there by Negan’s henchmen. Otherwise, this was probably the best episode of The Walking Dead to date.
I’m looking forward to see how the rest of this season unfolds, and seeing who isn’t safe from Negan’s barbed wire baseball bat (or whatever weapon they give him in the show). Prepare for some Game of Thrones level kill offs of your favorite characters coming up. On that note, today’s song is called “Let Darkness Fall” by Metal Allegiance (sung by Troy Sanders of Mastodon). There’s going to be no way out for some characters, and the darkness has just arrived.
-KCard
Kevin Card 