About halfway through season eight of The Walking Dead, I thought about walking from the show. It became predictable, lightweight, infuriating… and most alarming to me, boring. But I stuck with it, warts and all, and I’m glad I did. Season nine saw a big change as Angela Kang took over as the showrunner, and everything improved.
The stories were more interesting, the show looked better and sounded better, and the chaotic moments became even more chaotic, bringing back a real sense of dread and terror for the first time in a few seasons. Thankfully, for the most part, this carried over into season ten.
After Negan burst into the scene and the long struggle with The Saviors, the show struggled to find another ‘bad guy’ to become a threat. Negan, played to perfection by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, became more of a problem than an asset as the show began to lurch along, like so many of the undead that inhabit this show.
Thankfully, in season nine, The Whisperers came along, and with them, Alpha (Samantha Morton) and Beta (Ryan Hurst), creating not only real fear again but a threat that felt real.
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Kang does a good job balancing the story of Alpha, Beta, and The Whisperers while building some homegrown chaos inside the different groups we have come to know, love, cheer for, and loathe. The main target seems to be Carol (Melissa McBride), who, while still a badass and will do what most won’t, has become self-destructive more times than I can count.
In her quest for vengeance and to prove she’s right, she does things that threaten individuals and sometimes whole groups of people. It is interesting what they’ve done with her character, and even though sometimes I found myself rolling my eyes at her antics, she is still important to the show.
The Walking Dead has always had issues with the pacing of its episodes and how it tends to organize them. In episode 12, “Walk With Us,” Negan kills Alpha, revealing he was working with Carol all along towards this goal. It’s a great build-up and reveal… but it makes the death of Beta and the Wild West-like showdown in the hospital in episode 16, “A Certain Doom,” a little less interesting and dramatic. I’m glad the show isn’t cookie-cutter in that way, but it was a curious decision.
At least Daryl (Norman Reedus) now has a voice, and I mean that literally, as he was almost rendered mute by showrunner Scott M. Gimple and company before Kang took over. He now has the swagger to lead when necessary and makes some great points, including wonderful verbal sparring matches with Carol.
In “Bonds” and “Squeeze,” we see Daryl’s doubts about Carol’s real intentions grow, and the bond/sparring match between these two begins to define the character’s struggles this season. Who is the leader? Who is right? What path do we follow? All legitimate questions have been addressed over the years, but the confusion is palatable here, as is the tension, something Kang is very good at, which makes many episodes better than they should be.
As mentioned earlier, Negan’s explosive entrance and subsequent title of King Bad Guy leading The Saviours were good for a while. But then the writers became confused about whether he was evil, confused, or a cartoon character. Thankfully, this season, Jeffrey Dean Morgan takes Negan in a different direction, showing his character in a different light.
In “What It Always Is” and “Bonds,” we watch him try and join The Whisperers, and because of what we know of Negan, we are not really sure about his end game here. We find out it’s all a ploy to kill Alpha, but Morgan (Lennie James) gives Negan a few more layers, something we dive deeper into in the FINAL season finale, part of the bonus six episodes.
About those six extra episodes….
The Whisperer War is over, and mysterious soldiers capture Eugene (Josh McDermitt), and his group, Maggie (Lauren Cohan), returns. It was a good ending. The six extra episodes are meant to be standalone and are truly a mixed bag. “Home Sweet Home” has a lot of Maggie, and I’m not sure that’s a good thing at this point.
We learn where Dog comes from and another spat between Carl and Daryl in “Find Me.” Both of these were okay, but nothing outstanding. The Aaron (Ross Marquand) and Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) episode, “One More,” was well done, as they are forced to play out a very tense and well-shot game of Russian Roulette. “Splinter” was an acid trip of PTSD and bad writing, a truly weird episode highlighting Princess (Juanita Sanchez), the captured group, and boxcars.
This leads us to the last two episodes, which truly reflect where The Walking Dead is at now. One is exceptional, and one is truly awful.
Let’s cover the terrible first. In “Diverged,” Daryl and Carol have gone their separate ways. Carol returns to the community and decides to make soup, wanting to feel useful. She goes to war with a rat. Meanwhile, Daryl’s bike breaks down, and he fights with walkers while looking for spare parts to fix it. That’s it. It’s truly dreadful, with no real purpose or emotion save for the annoyance most viewers must have felt watching it.
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Conversely, in “Here’s Negan,” we finally get Negan’s backstory, which is fantastic. Morgan is wonderful as we watch him stand by his wife during cancer, her death, how it changed him, and the deeper meaning behind his bat, Lucille, and the leather jacket. However, what makes the episode so good is that they don’t sugarcoat the fact that Negan wasn’t all the great a guy before he found out his wife had cancer.
He fought, cheated, and played video games online against kids (a great scene), so there is some extra depth to what is happening. It makes for how the season (finally) ended even sweeter, and a showdown with Maggie is almost certain.
In the end, even with its missteps, clunky episodes, and an incredibly bad habit of inserting physical and verbal filler in too many episodes, the whole season was pretty good. It featured great tension, real fear, solid villains, and wonderful stories. Everything is set for the final season; yes, it is time for the show to say goodbye. We know most of these characters too well and are too comfortable with them, so off with some of their heads, and maybe they will find a way to wrap the show up well.
The Walking Dead is now available on Blu-ray (plus Digital) and DVD from Lionsgate.
