It’s “Still Gotta Mean Something,” but there’s no heroes left on this week’s episode of The Walking Dead.
1. Heaps of It
It says a lot about this episode that, aside from Carol, Negan is the only person in the plot who seems to actually be able to think rationally and have a decent set of morals (again). He rightfully points out how ridiculous everything is in his situation, in his characteristically vulgar way.
That said, his time in the Heaps does not come without major ridiculous things. Jadis had the idea to use a precaution and tie him up, along with steal Lucille, but didn’t think that keeping weaponry away from him, or maybe not bringing out her pictures would be a good idea? Also, how bad could her knotting be that he can so easily escape from them and light a flare he found, along with grab a handgun to hold her up? We know he’s invincible, but come on already.
That’s almost as ridiculous as the random helicopter that showed up (despite any logical thought would mean they shouldn’t have any fuel). But that logical leap is in one all its own.
2. Children are Immortal
Or at least the ones that are male are, since they are easier to cover for aging. Henry’s survival in this episode is pretty ridiculous, especially given the fact that he somehow managed to stay alive, disappear off the face of the earth during the Walker attack last time, and be found in the nick of time by Carol Peletier. Despite having almost no indication of where he had gone.
Still, it was a nice touch that the scene in which Carol finds Henry is almost identical to the type of scene in which Rick had left her daughter Sophia back in Season 2. Perhaps it is symbolic of her saving one child when she couldn’t save her own?
3. Morgan Mishaps
As has been shown a bit more lately, Morgan Jones . . . isn’t doing so well. He’s hallucinating more and more, and his first and only solution to any problem is to kill everyone involved in it and be proud of it. Aside from our “heroes” taking advantage of his obvious mental illness (see below), he also seems to be doing just fine making a mess of things on his own.
He even admits to Rick Grimes that the only reason that he saved him back in the series premiere was because his son was watching him, meaning that without his son, he has no moral compass whatsoever and seems to act primarily to silence the voices in his head. He even seems to have adapted his “I don’t die” line to include “everybody turns,” indicating his lessening stability and his increased nihilism as a result.
Of course, this behavior can be used for a quasi-benevolent end, such as his brutal murder of Jared by way of holding him through a chain-link fence as Walkers ate him alive, but the detriments outweigh the benefits by a large margin.
The most chilling, however, is his comment to Henry when the latter apologizes to him for “having” to kill the man who murdered his brother. His only answer? “Don’t ever be sorry.” That’s a line he got directly from Owen, the leader of the Wolves back in Seasons 5 and 6, who was once his polar opposite.
4. Retcons of the Living Dead
There is a pretty egregious continuity slip in this episode, specifically about Carl Grimes’s letters. Rick implies that he had never actually read the one meant for him (which is a pretty terrible thing for him as a father to do, given it was one of his son’s last wishes for him to read it), in spite of what happened back in “The Lost and the Plunderers.” There, he actually mentioned the fact that Carl had asked for him to stop the violence and for Negan to do the same, indicating that he actually had read the letter, but here it is a major plot element that he didn’t.
Why even bother to care about these things if the writers themselves can’t keep it straight?
Continued below5. No More Heroes III: The Walking Dead
There are no heroes left in this series, or at least none that will actually do anything.
The benevolent people in the series all just sit back and let other people do the work (Ezekiel and Tara), or go out on yet another rescue mission for lost survivor number fifty seven, or even don’t do anything more than keep the crazier people from being even more crazy (Carol when not ignoring that part of things). While Negan is off being the one rational person in the world, he’s still the “villain” of the story.
While Tara tries to be a voice of reason, Daryl is dead set on killing Dwight, to the point that Tara actually mentions that he should “do what [he has to] do, but know it’s just for [himself].” This fact leads into Rosita, the “reasonable” one for all of a couple of episodes just to get some famous lines from the comics out in a completely different context, deciding to assassinate Eugene as the maker of the bullets for the Saviors, instead of, say, trying to get him to turn back and apologizing for all that was done. Or acknowledging any fault for more than an episode.
Meanwhile, Rick Grimes outright manipulates Morgan Jones into helping with a massacre of the Savior escapees, and blatantly admits to his lies about offering a deal and killing every single person but himself and Morgan, proving himself even worse than Jared, who actually was honest about what he wanted to do, but was also awful. As shown by Morgan’s words about how he only was good for his son, coupled with Rick’s mention of how everything he did was for Carl when the latter was on his deathbed, it’s not much of a stretch to assume that he has become the villain of his own story, and in all it makes this story increasingly difficult to care about. When the “villain” is the only one who is reasonable and all of the moral heroes refuse to do anything more than talk to their crazy counterparts, why have any hope for this world?
If it’s “Still Gotta Mean Something,” that “something” is definitely not any kind of continued morals to any meaningful end.
