The Walking Dead: Rest in Peace (11x24)

So... this finale suffered majorly for one big reason: the spinoffs next year. Let's just dive right in, shall we?

Cons:

Think about it. If this had been a true finale, if this had been the end of the universe of this TV show, we would have gotten so much content that the fans have been waiting to see. Instead, it's all teased out for us, trying to force us to tune in next year to see more Negan and Maggie, Rick and Michonne, Daryl... it's too damn much, y'all. I won't list all the missed moments, but if these spin-offs didn't exist, we definitely would have gotten Rick and Michonne reuniting with their daughter and son, right? A thing I think we've all damn well earned seeing? And if Daryl wasn't going off on his own without Carol, maybe they could have resolved that relationship in a way that would have made the fans happy to see. This is a finale. I want to feel big emotions, I want full cheesiness turned all the way up to eleven. I cannot believe that they had Rick and Michonne show up at the end in the form of letter writing, still not reunited, and we got no catharsis on any possible Rick reunion. With Michonne, with Judith, with Daryl? That man lived in the woods for half a decade being sad about Rick's death. I wanted to see them reunite, for fuck's sake.

But even setting aside the things I really wish we could have seen that just weren't there, there were moments that should have packed a much bigger punch, but were instead glossed over. The biggest one? Judith, in a moment of delirium when she believes she might die, tells Daryl that Michonne left to go find Rick, who they believe to be alive. I had sort of forgotten that Daryl didn't know this information, but it makes sense: Judith says she never told Daryl because she didn't want him to leave too. This should have been a huge moment. Daryl's love for Rick and his family is a cornerstone of his character; the revelation that Rick is still alive should have been earth-shattering for him. And, honestly, if they're going with all these spin-offs anyway, that should have been the impetus for Daryl to leave, not some vague idea Maggie has about wanting to find out what's out there.

The Walking Dead: Family (11x23)

Yeah, so here we are! Just one more episode left to wrap everything up. Let's talk about The Walking Dead's penultimate outing!

Cons:

There's still a bit of treading water, which is frustrating to see so late in the game. The main question I have for after this show ends is, what will the state of the world be in the aftermath of the finale? Where will our characters be living, how will they be building a future for themselves? And I don't think this show is going to give me that in the end. I think there are too many spinoffs in the works, I think there's too much that's going to be left hanging.

Like all the stuff happening in the Commonwealth, trying to get Eugene out of there, it all feels real pointless when you put it up against the Commonwealth's inevitable demise at the end of the episode. In the later seasons of this show, so many of the big status-quo changing moments are frustrating because they seem to make so much of the buildup pointless in retrospect. Why have we spent so long on the Commonwealth if it wasn't bridging us to something bigger? What, in the end, makes Pamela and all her cohorts any different than any of the other mini-bosses we've had over the years? Ah, well.

The Walking Dead: Faith (11x22)

Y'all, we are so close to this show being over. The end is in sight. I can hardly believe it.

Cons:

I knew we were in trouble when I saw how Negan-heavy this episode was. I just don't feel invested in him and his new wife and the baby on the way. I keep saying it over and over, this is never going to be super compelling to me, unfortunately. There are little sparks of interest with Ezekiel, which surprised me, but ultimately no. This whole plot thread with the work crew standing up to some random evil minion of the Commonwealth whose name I don't even know, just feels like time wasted. There were so many turns here where at first we're supposed to think Negan is going to betray Ezekiel to save his own skin, but of course he doesn't. Then we're supposed to think Negan is going to be killed by firing squad, but of course he isn't. Our other heroes show up just in time to save the day, and I found myself yawning. Shouldn't there be more tension here?

Meanwhile in Alexandria, Maggie is reunited with Hershel but all the other children are still missing so we have to drag out this rescue operation for next week. Again, I'm sorry, I know I sound awful but - I don't care about Hershel and Maggie that much. Maggie has been gone from the show for so long, and honestly it doesn't feel like she ever quite came back, does it? I don't know her anymore. I don't feel connected to her and her emotional journey. I want Judith back, honestly.

The Walking Dead: Outpost 22 (11x21)

We are so close to the end! This was a pretty good outing.

Cons:

It's difficult for me to feel invested in Negan, even now. He's separated from his pregnant wife, and I think I'm meant to care and be concerned, but she's such a non-character, we've had no time to get to know her, and I can't bring myself to care just on Negan's behalf, you know?

The twist about Outpost 22 being... Alexandria?? Really confused and annoyed me. It emphasized the extent to which this show has lost all control of its timeline and geographical awareness. I knew that Alexandria had been taken over by the Commonwealth, but that was through Hornsby, who was on Pamela's bad side, to say the least, and is now dead... so who is running the former Alexandria (and Hilltop? Question mark? Now?) How long has it been? I thought there were still some of our heroes/good guys in those old communities, or did they really clear them entirely out? Man, I don't know, and I don't really care.

It just feels like another retread, instead of a propulsion into something new, the way I was hoping for. I wanted the Outpost or the work camps or whatever, to be giving us new insights into the larger world. I thought we'd be connecting the Commonwealth to how other parts of the world have been surviving. I thought this would be more of a direct line back to Rick, is what I'm saying. There's so little time left!

The Walking Dead: What's Been Lost (11x20)

I've been missing Carol since we came back from hiatus! She's the best.

Cons:

I was celebrating after the last couple episodes that it seemed the Commonwealth stuff was done with, and we could move on to endgame stuff, but instead it's all dragging on a bit much. Clearly now we know that the Commonwealth is going to connect us to some bigger story of surviving human communities. It might even be our bridge back to the long-missing Rick Grimes. But at the same time, I'm thinking about Hilltop and Alexandria and Oceanside and all the other shit we want to be wrapping up in the last four episodes of the show, and thus having Pamela to deal with as a villain, and Hornsby still in the picture, starts to feel a little frustrating. I definitely thought Zombie Sebastian killed Hornsby last week, but I guess Pamela wanted to torment him a bit first. When will villains ever learn?

Yumiko's journey this episode was good in some ways, but it just feels like we never spent enough time on her and her brother, on showing how she's been doing in the Commonwealth during all this time. Now we're going to have some Commonwealth courtroom drama, it looks like? I'm not necessarily that mad about it, I just feel like it's odd in terms of its placement in the season as a whole.

The Walking Dead: Variant (11x19)

Okay, so... new zombie varieties, then? With just a few episodes left of this show?

Cons:

I suppose I should be grateful they're mixing things up, but as someone who 100% refuses to be drawn into anything of the extended universe after this show, it's a little strange to have this development coming in at the eleventh hour. Some of the most interesting stuff on offer in the earlier days of this show was the speculative world-building. How did the zombies work? Was there a cure? Is there any part of the world not affected, or affected to a far lesser extent? What is happening, physiologically, to these reanimated corpses? It's frustrating that the show has treaded water and repeated plot points so many different times, without really delving deeper into any of these questions. So while I'm happy we now have walkers that can climb walls and open gates, I'm feeling like it might be too little too late.

One thing I wish this show would grapple with is the degree to which our "heroes" are a destructive force. Here we have various characters deciding whether to leave or stay in the Commonwealth, with Eugene determined to stay for Max, Ezekiel determined to stay to build something new, while Daryl, Carol, the kids, Rosita, etc. are all aiming to get out. And I'm just thinking to myself: you motherfuckers rolled up to this place when it was fully functioning (albeit evil to its core), and now you're leaving it burning in your wake! How many times are you going to do that, and not have the show comment on how fucked up it is?

The Walking Dead: A New Deal (11x18)

Okay, honestly, this episode woke me up a little bit. It wasn't necessarily "good" by most metrics, but it avoided the cardinal sin of being entirely boring. Let's discuss!

Cons:

In a strange way, the fact that the Commonwealth is going up in flames and Sebastian is dead and all is chaos, kind of pisses me off. Not because I wanted to spend more time on this whole mess. No, quite the opposite: I've been ready to close the door on this for quite some time, and now that it seems I'm finally getting my wish, I am paradoxically even more annoyed about the time wasted on it. I'm glad Sebastian's dead, and I'm glad we got an over the top chaotic death for him, because that was fun to see. But I'm also just... annoyed at how long this story took to get to its resolution, if indeed we've even reached it.

Some of the quieter character moments of this episode really worked for me, and I'll talk about those in a second, but a lot of them really didn't register. Ezekiel talking about staying behind to take care of a new kingdom felt like a really lackluster way to sunset his character. Again, if that's what's even happening. We've got Negan at the bedside of his pregnant wife, contemplating fatherhood. Yawn. We've got Lydia apparently with a new boyfriend, telling Carol that she'll never forget Henry. So much of these last few episodes of The Walking Dead are now slated to feel like setup for the bajillion spinoffs happening next year, and I for one am already sick of it. I can tell you that I will not be tuning in!

The Walking Dead: Lockdown (11x17)

I gotta say, this episode really didn't pack the punch that you'd want for a first outing after a long hiatus. It kind of felt like more of the same, making me wonder why they chose to break the season up the way they did.

Cons:

I've said this before, but watching The Walking Dead tends to cause me to just... zone out majorly. Important plot details will just slip right off my brain without making any sort of impact. There are too many characters and their motivations are too murky, too unnecessarily convoluted. You've got Hornsby doing his takeover of the other communities, and our good guy heroes trying to stop him. But then you've also got the Milton family inside the Commonwealth, and all the trouble being stirred up there. It's like a slice of a different TV show, watching the political protests and scandals happening inside this world. And earlier in the season I was praising the Commonwealth stuff for just that, for standing out and being somewhat different. But now it just feels super unmotivated, and I'm not sure what characters I'm supposed to be connecting with at any given moment.

Like, we've got Connie, stirring up a mob. Yumiko, trying to play nice. I simply don't know what anybody's endgame is here. Is this community going to get ripped apart and spat back out into the lawless wasteland of the zombie apocalypse? And is that what we want to happen, because there are evil fascists in charge?

The Walking Dead: Acts of God (11x16)

I feel like I paid even less attention than I normally do to this episode. Ha. Maybe I don't like this show very much.

Cons:

There are shows that can get me to stop and really, really pay attention during long stretches of suspense or action with no dialogue. This show is often not one of them. So this episode features a lot of Daryl running around, a lot of Maggie running around, you've got characters getting injured, but nobody that we care about is injured bad enough for it to matter, and long stretches of just running around, dealing with violence, dealing with Walkers, and I can't tell you how bad my brain zoned out during most of it. This is partially the fault of me, the reviewer, but I think it also speaks to how repetitive and predictable this show has become over the years.

This episode also just speaks to how utterly pointless Leah was as a character. This should have felt like a serious blow, something heartbreaking and real and tragic, the fact that Daryl killed her to save Maggie's life. Daryl loved her, didn't he? That's supposed to be something with emotional resonance, and I felt nothing. That whole tense standoff between Maggie and Leah, where Maggie acknowledged that Leah would want revenge on her... these two women have taken so much from each other, but there's not a proper buildup or understanding of character or anything, that would make this moment land.

The Walking Dead: Trust (11x15)

This is definitely an episode building to a midseason finale, rather than paying anything off, so there's quite a bit of treading water. Is that a bad thing?

Cons:

Well... in a lot of ways it's hard to judge this episode on its own, when there's more to come that will hopefully wrap up or escalate many of these plot points. I guess my least favorite stuff here was with Ezekiel. Kind of felt like a waste of time to show him getting into and out of trouble so quickly, what with Carol there to bail him out. I don't like the implication that Ezekiel might still be holding a torch, because I really like the vibe of the two of them as amicable exes who managed to stay good friends in the aftermath of their marriage and the loss of their son. I don't need to go back to romantic intrigue with these two.

This episode ends with a dramatic reveal of Leah, but like... last episode also ended with a dramatic reveal of Leah? So that felt like a weird pacing thing. Shouldn't they have held off on showing who stole the weapons for this moment, instead of telling us last week and then having this one be just a retread, with Hornsby offering her a job?

The Walking Dead: The Rotten Core (11x14)

A decent installment in many ways, but I still can't help but feel that so much of this season has been treading water. We know shit is going to come to a head with the Commonwealth, we know these are bad people at this point, so... I don't know. Sometimes I wonder what we're even doing here.

Cons:

I think Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a good actor. I find his performance moving, as long as I don't think for longer than a couple of seconds about the truth of what he did. Apparently he feels very guilty. Apparently he's a new man now. He's got a wife, which is just wild to think about. But he didn't just kill Glenn and Abraham and countless others. He did it with glee. I know he's got a tragic backstory, but I can't ignore the truth of that.

Hornsby and Sebastian both have a similar problem as villains in that they seem kind of cartoonish? Like, wouldn't they be even a little self-aware about how their words and behaviors might be received? Willing to sacrifice countless lives to get to a stash of money... that's some Disney villain shit. I wish their justifications felt a little more thought out, or they wrestled with some discomfort, or maybe they are completely immortal and don't even try to justify it... I'm not sure what exactly I wish was different, just that things weren't so ridiculously clear-cut in terms of who we're supposed to hate. The vast majority of citizens of the Commonwealth seem happy and secure. Is the real evil here that at any point that security might be stolen from you? If so, let's get into it from that angle!

The Walking Dead: Warlords (11x13)

Eh.... I mean... okay, I guess.

Cons:

Does anyone else just get very tired whenever we meet a new group of people, get a new weirdo or warlord or whatever, who has to do the whole macho routine and be intimidating in some new way we haven't seen before? Because we have seen it before. Come on. There's this showdown between Aaron, Gabriel, and some people of the Commonwealth, with this new community they want to assist, and the whole time the tense scene was going on, I was sitting there trying not to yawn. There's nothing new under the sun.

I found the way this episode was structured, with flashbacks and an out of order series of scenes, to be largely unnecessary. It was clearly done that way because Toby Carlson needed to be a twist surprise assassin. But honestly, the tension of us, the audience, knowing what he was up to while Aaron and Gabriel did not, would have worked far better from my perspective. It just felt convoluted for the sake of being convoluted, almost as if they thought making it confusing would trick us into thinking it was good as a matter of course.

The Walking Dead: The Lucky Ones (11x12)

Eh, this episode didn't compel me the way the last couple episodes have. I guess the novelty of the Commonwealth is starting to wear off a bit.

Cons:

The guy who wants to bring in the additional communities for his own personal clout is kind of boring to me? I guess I don't quite get his whole deal, and Pamela is also feeling a bit one-note to me. I get that it's going to be an issue of control, they're going to have to figure out a balance where the benefits of the Commonwealth are not worth the totalitarianism. Like, we all agree totalitarian regimes are bad, but zombie apocalypses are also bad, right? I don't know, it just seems like all this stuff is going to be dragged way out past the point of interest, where I want to get to the aftermath, so we can see what the world will truly look like moving forward for these characters. This is the final season, let's get a move on, here!

Pros:

I did like Eugene and Max's scenes. I want to believe there will be no more double-crossing, that this time it's really real, and Eugene will get to have that happiness. I loved his apology, where he talked about his difficulty with social cues and how believing in the imposter was part of so badly wanting to have that love in his life. These two are both very awkward and yet sweet, and I find myself genuinely rooting for their love! And I also thought Eugene's struggle before getting to that point where he could talk to Max was interesting to watch. He and Rosita having a moment together was sweet; at this point they are some of the longest lasting characters on the show and their friendship was a bizarre yet powerful one to watch develop over the years.

The Walking Dead: Rogue Element (11x11)

Oh damn, poor Eugene!

Cons:

I guess I want a bit more information from the leaders of this community... so far we just get "they seem nice but they're all kind of creepy" and it's about time to learn a bit more. Do any of them have qualms about what they're doing? I guess this isn't so much a con as something I hope they explore a bit more later on.

I see that most clearly in Carol's little detour this week, with Hornsby, where we learn that the Commonwealth does deals with other less idealized communities. Specifically, they get their opium supply for the hospital from one such group. This could be interesting color and certainly raises some questions, but mostly it just had me scratching my head as to why Carol would be given this tour. If this is an Authoritarian community, why do the newcomers get to spend so much time poking around in their business? Does Carol have a job, or what?

The Walking Dead: New Haunts (11x10)

I will say I found this episode refreshing on the level of different settings, different kinds of problems to explore than the usual. But at the same time, there was a bit of clunkiness to the script that I can't deny.

Cons:

So one of the conflicts here is your basic class divide. We see the rich and privileged part of the Commonwealth enjoying a fancy party, while the riffraff is left outside. We've got a disgruntled waiter holding a knife to someone's throat so he can have the opportunity to speak to the Governor. The dialogue here was just... so cliché. It sounds like the Commonwealth has a lot of pre-zombie-apocalypse problems, with the underclass having less access to comfort and virtually no access to luxury. That's interesting I guess, but is there anything unique that's going to be said with this?

The Walking Dead: No Other Way (11x09)

I'm going to sound like a broken record here but I don't really caaarrrre. I mean, we're here in the final season, and there are so many pieces on the board, so much chaos, and so few characters I feel a real connection to. Let's talk about it.

Cons:

I've said this from the minute she came back, but I just don't find Maggie to be a very compelling character anymore. I think it's mostly that she went off and formed all of these bonds with people we don't know at all, and her motivation is now about protecting and/or avenging those people, and I don't feel an investment. Also, I find Negan to be more charismatic and interesting to watch that Maggie any day of the week, but I find it laughable that the show wants me to consider the relationship between these two characters as complicated or ambiguous. Negan murdered Maggie's husband in cold blood, while he was defenseless and on his knees, in front of all his loved ones, and he fucking enjoyed himself. There's no getting over that, and I wish the show would stop jerking us around on that.

At the end of the episode, we see that Negan is leaving because he knows Maggie will never forgive him and might one day decide to kill him after all. Smart move, Negan. We obviously haven't seen the last of him, though, which kind of makes me exhausted just thinking about it. He's like a cockroach.

The Walking Dead: For Blood (11x08)

Well, for a midseason finale I'm a little bummed we didn't spend any time with the most interesting characters or plot threads... let's dive in.

Cons:

So like. I'm not invested in Daryl and Leah. So when Leah does her whole double-cross thing and I think we're all supposed to be like oh no, poor Daryl, I'm just like... yeah, dude, you have a family and it's not her and it never has been. We saw them sharing a life together in one episode forever ago, and it wasn't exactly a convincing portrayal of love ever after. I also thought Daryl was kind of a dumb dumb about this whole situation, like, did he really think after seeing all the fanaticism that Leah was going to just come with him? He should have run without waiting for her to cross him.

I'll also just say as a more general note that nothing is new under the sun, so even elements of the story that feel perfectly adequate, where I can't point to it and say "this is stupid and here's why", still aren't grabbing my attention in a meaningful way. Like in Alexandria, I wanted Virgil and Judith to talk more about Michonne: that's interesting, that's character-driven drama and intrigue. But instead the bulk of the story there is dealing with inclement weather and a Walker breach, so we've got all the cute kids in peril and Carol, Rosita, etc. running around trying to save the community from crumbling entirely. I get that the stakes need to be high, but sometimes the stakes are boring because we've seen them over and over again.

The Walking Dead: Promises Broken (11x07)

This felt like a "arranging things on the chessboard" episode in that a lot happened but a lot of it felt like a ramp-up to something more down the line. That's not necessarily a bad thing, although I do have my complaints...

Cons:

At this point the whole Pope thing, with Daryl and Leah and whatnot, is just... not working for me. I like Daryl, I like seeing how he's going to be able to make it out his various scrapes, but I'm... bored and annoyed and I feel like there's nothing new to explore with this concept.

The scene where Eugene punches a guy for being rude felt so overprescribed, like, it was obvious from minute one that this performatively douchey dude was going to wind up being the son of someone important and it would mess with their chances. I had (and still have) such high hopes for this weirdly sheltered community and where the story might go from here, but that moment was such a cliché that I couldn't really get behind it.

The Walking Dead: On the Inside (11x06)

That was legitimately quite spooky, I've got to admit!

Cons:

The problem with this show and all of its same-y storylines is that... well, I don't care enough to pay attention, and thus I have to look up characters. I didn't realize who Virgil was until halfway through the episode, because this show's ensemble cast is just too dang big! I like Virgil, I liked him and Connie and their scenes, but I wish they'd do a damn "previously on" or whatever so I could remember this stuff.

I continue to be unimpressed with the whole "Reapers" story-line. I like seeing Daryl handle it and come up with creative ideas to help his friends, but beyond that, I find "Pope" to be an obnoxious addition to our long list of villains, and all the macho posturing and hostility from the one random guy that hates Daryl... I just don't feel any interest in this whatsoever.

The Walking Dead: Out of the Ashes (11x05)

I wouldn't say this episode was some fantastic gem that made me invested again, but it did feel a little more attention-keeping than some of the others.

Cons:

While there were good things about seeing Alexandria and the kids, and seeing the impact this way of life has on people, I did think some of the Judith stuff was a little cheesy. Rosita telling Judith that everyone she loves is still with her in her heart or whatever... give me a break.

I'm a broken record on this, but Negan and Maggie just aren't keeping my attention this season. I'm not invested in this conflict, because it's not nuanced or interesting. Either Maggie kills him or she doesn't, and I don't care enough about Maggie as a character, or Negan and his redemption arc, to feel invested in this. When some of Maggie's people showed up at the rendezvous, it was clearly supposed to be a big moment of relief, but I don't know or care about any of those characters, so...