As the shambling corpse of this show makes its way toward a season finale, is it worthy of our “Wrath?” Let’s see.
1. Death of Logic
The only real casualty in this entire episode is logic in and of itself.
First, we’ve got Rick, who suddenly had a complete change of heart at complete random, wanting to kill Negan for most of the season, then going back to “I want to save people” suddenly. Even Morgan, the token nutcase of the heroes, notes that their lies to Jared and his people were horrible, and he didn’t even seem to make much of an attempt to agree until he suddenly had flashbacks to Carl (who is dead, if nobody heard). He even used his dead son as an excuse to get Negan to back down so he could slice open his throat, like any loving father would do. Even basic temporal logic falls apart, since he went from dealing a fatal wound to Negan to waiting for a flashback, walking away, saying nothing, then nonchalantly saying to save him to nobody in particular. By any reasonable measure, Negan should be very dead. But since this is TV, and he already is pretty much a superhuman, he absolutely can’t die no matter what. Even the “it happened in the comic” excuse can’t pass, since even there Rick called for him to be fixed up immediately.
Then, we’ve got Oceanside. They have absolutely no reason to help, as mentioned before, but suddenly appear, having apparently fallen for Aaron’s completely nonsensical reasoning about him and Enid not being responsible for Natania’s death (which they know they were because they were literally the ones to cause said death). They didn’t even do anything particularly important. The entire final battle was unnecessary at the Hilltop, and seemed to be little more than an extended setpiece instead of a logical continuation of the story.
Third, there’s Eugene’s “plan.” Back when he was berating Gabriel for sabotaging the bullet organizing, he said that there would be a chance of misfire, meaning it was possible, even probable, but not definite. Here, his entire plan relied on every single gun misfiring and destroying the gun itself, leaving the Saviors defenseless. This is all coming from a guy who readily admits that he is not actually a scientist at all. The only way to justify this change is basic plot armor, which is the laziest fallback possible.
2. Characterization of the Dead
Characters’ personalities fall to pieces as soon as anything happens at all.
Aside from Rick’s sudden face turn since his villainous slide and the reverse for Negan (mentioned last week), we have Eugene. His slide toward villainy seemed to be kind of logical in its own way, albeit at the expense of making him into a boring, unlikeable character. Now, suddenly, he was heroic all along, or brought back to heroism, or something. Why should viewers even take any stock in this turn at all? None of it makes any sense.
Then, we have Morgan. After some time of him going crazier and crazier, suddenly he becomes the voice of reason, and even keeps himself apart from society as a whole. Yes, there is some attention given to him being the crazy one, including him nearly beating up or killing Henry, but his turn to be the sane man just doesn’t mesh at all, in any degree.
Then, we have the Saviors. Yes, it seems logical that they would back down from the fight when they are unarmed, but to have every single one of them do so without fail makes no sense at all. These are not even a real, established army. They follow Negan, and he is busy at the time, so why wouldn’t at least one of them try to fight back?
3. Pointlessness of the Living Dead
One of the weirdest, most pointless elements of this episode is the use of a random, gigantic herd out in the distance. It’s absolutely massive, a sea of the dead, but somehow can be kept as a backdrop to deal with later or even mention as a commentary point for Rick’s Heroic Speech™.
Why did we even bother? They allegedly follow gunshots, so why should we care about the battle happening, about the wall of misfires? Nothing happens with the dead, and they’re just a piece of the scenery now. So who cares?
Continued below4. Keeping Out with the Joneses
Morgan Jones’s decision to stay at the Heaps is a pretty deliberate cop-out. His diminishing sanity seemed like a perfect reason to just kill him off and allow him to carry over to the other show, since he was due to move to Fear The Walking Dead anyway, but instead, they came up with a way to just isolate him. Because obviously, that worked out before, and didn’t lead him to insanity in the first place.
It all feels like a really cheap way to keep him back so he can be brought back later in case they want to use him again, despite having completely run out of character arcs for him.
5. Grass Is Never Greene-er
One of the few actually logical things in the episode is its conclusion. With Maggie’s hatred of Michonne and Rick’s decision to keep Negan alive, coupled with Daryl’s own intolerance of anything with Dwight (in spite of deliberate knowledge that he was on their side as revealed by Negan himself), it all seems to be leading toward Hilltop itself becoming a villainous faction. Jesus being involved is suspect, perhaps a sole rational voice, but his ability to actually have an effect is limited. After all of it has fallen through, it seems that Maggie is truly turning toward becoming a greater evil, though perhaps not to the same degree as the Saviors.
In summary, does this episode deserve our “Wrath?” Eh, probably, but it’s hard to even care enough to be angry anymore. Apathy is the call of the day, givn this show is dead in the water.
