The Walking Dead: Stradivarius (9x07)

This episode had two scenes in it that I loved so much that if the rest of the episode had sucked, I wouldn't have noticed. Let's take a look.

Cons:

The new gang... they're fine. I'm not convinced by the long talk about how art is what separates us from the animals. Each of these characters has one or two defining traits. There's the Deaf argumentative one, the Deaf one's sarcastic sister, the one who loves music, the one who got injured who seems to be a peacekeeper, and the hard-edged leader chick. I don't hate them, but I'm having a hard time finding it in me to care much about what happens to them. We already have this big ensemble cast with lots of characters who get hardly any screen-time. Adding more to the batch isn't going to help things.

I am now reluctantly intrigued about the whole Hilltop situation, especially now that we've seen that things there are going smoothly, minus Maggie. She is with Georgie, apparently, and she took her son with her. While this is all very interesting, I find it a little bit stupid that Michonne has cut off all ties to Hilltop and the Kingdom. Clearly the people involved don't want that. You've got people from Alexandria and Hilltop sneaking off for secret picnics and sparring together, messages passing through the grapevine, and Michonne is being kept in the dark about all of this because of something we still don't know about. I want answers! Michonne's refusal to compromise seems stupid. Maybe it'll make sense once we know more.

Pros:

Okay. To nobody's surprise, I love Carol and Daryl's scenes together. Carol cutting Daryl's hair, the two of them talking about Rick and how they never found a body... even the presence of generic and boring Henry didn't ruin these scenes for me. I love that Daryl is willing to do whatever Carol wants, even if it takes him away from his solitude. And Henry telling Daryl that Carol misses him, and that he's Carol's best friend... I am emotional. How perfect is it that Daryl has a dog that he just calls "Dog"? Does that surprise anyone? Nope. I also got surprisingly emotional about seeing Daryl and Aaron share a hug when Daryl, Carol, and Henry showed up at Hilltop.

And that brings me to the scene that totally made this episode for me. Aaron is one of those characters that I've always cared about really intensely, even though the show hasn't really given him enough material to earn that sort of care. Whatever. I love him. When I saw Jesus and Aaron together, I was so freakin' happy. If they're not a couple right now, they had better become one real freakin' soon. It's like Romeo and Juliet up in here! The two of them sneaking off for secret sparring and picnic dates? Perfection! I love it so very much!

It was really great to see Hilltop again, actually. Jesus is apparently in charge, since Maggie left. Tara is his deputy, if you will, and other familiar faces, like Enid, are also still in Hilltop. Clearly whatever happened in the intervening six years caused a lot of inner-community strife, but within each community itself, things seem to be going pretty darn well. I like seeing how the wheels of civilization keep turning round and round. It's also fun to see Jesus as a reluctant leader, when Tara is the one actually picking up the slack. Communication between the communities seems to be... cordial. Messengers are sent to inform Alexandria that Rosita was found injured, for example. But we still don't know what exactly went down.

Daryl has the same weird "X" scar on his back that we saw on Michonne last week. What the heck does this mean?! I am properly intrigued. I just hope that the reveal is as good as the buildup has been.

This episode did a lot to restore my faith in this "soft reboot" idea. I don't think it's a coincidence that the episode does not feature Judith Grimes. Sorry, kid. I'm just not buying the precocious apocalypse child thing. I want more Jesus, more Aaron, more of the two of them together. I want more Daryl, more Carol, more of the two of them together. And now, with Michonne heading to Hilltop, we're going to see a lot of our remaining core characters in the same place. Or at least I hope we are. I want to know what the heck is going on!

Oh, and the Walkers are still talking. That's creepy. I need more info.

8.5/10