It is unclear if the writers of The Walking Dead yet know the lesson of “Do Not Send Us Astray,” but in episodes like this one, at least they seem to be good at acting like they do.
1. Clearing the Air
After so long of Morgan Jones just running around killing people any time he felt like it, it is refreshing that with the failed murder of Gavin (who Henry, a minor, had killed from behind) he is finally backsliding into his mental illness from the pre-Eastman times.
Not to say that mental illness is at all good, but it is more in character for him than his “kill anything that moves and don’t feel bad about it ever” attitude of late. His repeated hallucinations of Gavin, who has repeated dialogue in line with how the crazed Morgan tended to talk, is a chilling reminder of how unwell the man really is inside, and seems highly likely to lead to his death. Making this event even more likely is the fact that he is due to be transferred to the prequel, Fear the Walking Dead, for its next season to start immediately after this one is set to end (as in on the same day).
2. Blackened Widow
Once again, Maggie is delving into her darker side, due to her vendetta against Negan and the Saviors. In reference to how they killed her husband, she even identifies herself by the codename they tend to use for her: “the Widow.” She doesn’t seem to care about casualty counts at all, so long as she gets her vengeance. While for other characters this would seem weird, for her, with her already having been sliding (annoyingly) into evil, the fact that power corrupted so quickly is pretty reasonable. It’s all a means to an end for her, a way to kill Negan and make him see Glenn’s grave in the process. To her, the cost in lives doesn’t matter at all so long as she can kill the man who widowed her.
Even when Dianne says she is a good leader (something people should really just stop already), she admits how horrible she is. Well, it’s… like progress?
3. Interesting Plotting
As it turns out, Simon isn’t a particularly good motivator. He falls for an extremely easy ploy by Maggie by flat out admitting that his former men are expendable. While it would have negated a hostage situation in some scenarios, here all it really does is turn at least some of the 38 hostages into members of the alliance, not in least of them being Alden, the seeming only sane man of the group. While the ploy itself was easy to see from a viewer perspective, it still is a sign of better planning for this episode that it wasn’t so blatantly spelled out or ignored to save for later.
On another note, we have the emergence of the infected weapons at last. After the initial attack by Simon’s forces failed, the aftermath led to the turning of many people, including several Saviors and a few side characters, like Tobin. The way that the surprise is handled is a bit heavy handed at times, like the use of a full moon (what is this, a werewolf story?) and attention to the clocks, but overall, the use of darkness and the chaos that results is well organized by the show itself, capped off with Rick coming to the far-too-late realization about Lucille’s infected nature when he was using it (despite it apparently not injuring Negan at all… but whatever).
4. Surprise Rational Thinking
In an interesting turn, characters in this episode are actually acting rationally. With exception of Daryl (who we’re used to being stupid by now), the heroes actually seem to have their act together, and be working in line with how they can differentiate themselves from one another.
Tara seems to have finally learned from how Dwight didn’t give her up that he is actually trying to be a good person. She spends the entire episode kicking herself over how stupid she was to try to kill him. For once, someone is actually admitting that they did something wrong.
Aside from the aforementioned return from sanity for Morgan, who is finally being re-railed back into his post-“Clear” characterization, we also have more time with the increasing mental instability of Rick. Instead of ignoring the fact that he ruined everything as soon as he saw Negan, he actually brings up the fact that he ruined it all for the chance to kill, and failed at that much. That he is constantly repeating how he had to try to kill Negan (note: he actually didn’t) makes clear that he is gradually losing his mind without Carl there to snap him out of things. Even Michonne isn’t holding him back.
Continued belowSpeaking of Michonne, she finally picked up her sword again and went back to acting on her own, rather than being some passive voice of reason that doesn’t really fit her at all. For some it may have seemed to backslide in characterization, but for her, it was a return to form.
5. Exceptionally Poor Taste
This issue is one that would sometimes get a pun, but this time, it’s gone far beyond any of that.
In this episode, the writers have Henry, a young child, grab a machine gun and go over to the Savior pen at Hilltop, ready to murder the man who killed his brother in the name of vengeance. Of course, he only succeeds in leading to Jared and the others of the non-defected Saviors to escape and he himself either die or run off into the night, but the image sticks.
The writers thought it was a good idea to give the image of a young boy with a machine gun in the belief that murder would solve his problems. This statement would already be abominable, but in keeping with the nature of the show, if not for one simple fact: this episode released on the day after the “March for Our Lives” marches across the United States, which were protests aiming to increase gun regulation to avoid gun violence, especially in schools.
Many television shows would pull airing for one week or so in respect, in order to keep from giving the wrong message. For instance, Supergirl had the episode “How Does She Do It?” from season one (which dealt with a series of bombings around her city) pulled from airing for a time by CBS, out of respect for the victims of the bombing in Paris that happened shortly beforehand. The “March for Our Lives” events were known for months, not random. By not pulling this episode, perhaps removing that scene or altering it, or even putting a notation at the end in apology, AMC essentially gives a disgusting, disturbing message.
On the whole, this episode was well organized for this season, but that doesn’t mean it should have been aired this week, when it could, in fact, lead us astray. Better luck next time?
