The Walking Dead: A Certain Doom (10x16)

 Guess who doesn't care? Me! I don't care!

Cons:

Trying not to be super jaded and negative here, but this episode just completely bored me. It seems like we're entering the final stage of this show, as it's been announced that after an extended season ten and season eleven, The Walking Dead will come to an end. But not really, because there are all these damn spin-offs now and I just don't care! I ain't a quitter, so I'll see this shit through to the end, but I will not be following these characters on to their future homes. I just don't have the patience for it.

While watching this episode I found myself zoning out and missing things, and just kind of generally lost in the miasma of the goal and how it was being accomplished. So Daryl, Carol, Lydia, et. al are trying to do away with the Whisperers once and for all, and it seems like they accomplished that? With several dramatic moments where we're supposed to fear for Lydia or for Gabriel or for Carol or whatever, and then in the end Beta dies kind of unceremoniously and we're just done with that whole threat? This show has a serious tension-management issue. They stretch out their villains until they've squeezed every ounce of threat from them, and then the actual ending of it all is quite anticlimactic.

Apparently Eugene, Ezekiel, and that whole gang are going to keep wandering about looking for people? Gabriel has this little speech at the beginning where he talks about the "others" out there, the ones they don't know about, who are their allies and part of the human community or whatever. Is that where we're headed at the end of this flagship show? To a final splintering of the few characters remaining that anyone even gives a shit about, as they all spread out to seek out new communities? Why? It's annoying and I don't vibe with it whatsoever.

Pros:

Lydia and Carol's relationship has always warmed my heart, so I did like that we saw a moment of catharsis for them, as Lydia stands up and makes her own choices about who she wants to be and where she wants to belong. The image of her in Alpha's skin-mask was pretty chilling, I gotta say!

Negan has been de-fanged to a point that I find frankly pretty annoying, but I did love the moment where Beta dies, being torn apart by the Walkers, and his mask comes off. Negan says "do you know who that guy was?" and Daryl says "nobody" and they leave. That was hilarious. I kind of love the thought of never getting an answer on who Beta was as a man. A singer of some sort, clearly, but maybe we never get to know more than that. Sometimes a more "unceremonious" death does work really well and can be quite affecting.

I don't give two shits about Gabriel and Rosita as a couple, but I guess I'm glad Rosita didn't have to lose yet another man in her life. This episode felt pretty low-stakes since none of the characters whose names I know actually died in it, but I guess I'd rather have that, than deaths that are just there for shock value and don't meaningfully contribute to the forward momentum of the show.

Ezekiel can get away with doing the inspirational speeches in a way pretty much no other character can. I really liked how he encouraged Eugene to try for a long-shot. It makes no practical sense, and the smart thing would have been to turn around and go home, but whatever. I kind of liked it. Also, I hope Eugene does end up finding his radio girlfriend at some point. There was a lot of build-up there and I quite enjoyed it, so for it to go nowhere feels pretty lame.

Oh hey, also? Maggie's here, I guess. I'm going to refrain from judgment on her return because she didn't really do shit in this episode. She showed up. She hugged Judith which was cute. The end!

And also... the end of this review. I feel like I expected to have so much more to say, after waiting months and months during the pandemic for this finale to come out. But when the episode started, I was seriously having a hard time remembering anything that had been happening in the season leading up to it. I just, frankly? Don't care anymore. I'm ready to say goodbye to this world. It's another show that has long overstayed its welcome.

7/10