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?

Pros:

I kind of enjoyed the group on the way to Oceanside. Aaron has been a long-time favorite of mine, and I liked the way he encouraged Lydia to pursue romance by bringing up Eric, a character we haven't heard about in so long! Lydia's romance with Elijah hasn't had any particular development, I don't really know this guy, but I guess I'm happy for Lydia. I'm even more happy for Jerry, dreaming of a new Kingdom in which he might get to be king. That would feel like an appropriate ending for that character, I must say!

I also liked a lot of stuff about the Commonwealth story this week, to my considerable surprise. Princess and Mercer have a really powerful scene in which Princess leaves him, unwilling to stay in a place that means to kill a good man like Eugene. She tells him about her past, the men who have abused her. She says that when she sees a man, she sees a monster. But she knows Mercer isn't one. I really, really liked that!

Pamela feeds Hornsby to her zombie son Sebastian. Gotta say, did not see that one coming, liked that plot development quite a bit... feels a little odd to give the Hornsby kill to the other bad guys instead of any of our heroes but honestly at this point I'm just glad to be well out of it with these people. We still have Pamela herself to deal with, though. I think she works as an okay villain in some ways, although I go back again to the Commonwealth being a story that ultimately let me down quite a bit.

And then there's Eugene. I loved the interplay between Eugene, Rosita, and Daryl here. So much complicated history between all these characters. Eugene seems determined to stay and find Max instead of escaping Pamela's wrath, but Daryl thinks he's too much of a coward to leave and help. Or maybe not so much a coward. As Rosita tells him in their later conversation, Eugene isn't a coward, he's smart. He knows when something is helpless and he's not willing to throw his life away for no good reason. Max, it turns out, is a good enough reason for Eugene. As the episode ends, it looks like many of our heroes are in a tough spot. Not only is Eugene apprehended by Mercer, but we also see Rosita getting kidnapped. Looks like Pamela will get her justice one way or another.

Eugene is one of those characters where my opinion of him has fluctuated so wildly over the various seasons, but here towards the very end of the show, I find myself liking him quite a bit. I hope Eugene and Max can beat the odds and find a way to be happy in the end.

And that's where I'll stop on this review. We're tantalizingly near to the end of this show's run, and I'm honestly wondering how they're going to go out with a bang after several seasons of limping towards the finish line.

8/10