Today, we’ll be dealing with “Worth,” the most recent of the episodes for The Walking Dead. Does it have any? Let’s see.
1. SuperCarl IV: The Quest for Peace
As has been a repeated, almost obnoxiously overstated part of Season 8B, Carl Grimes is brought up yet again, this time to talk more about the letters he had for his father, Rick, and his enemy, Negan. Of course, we already knew about these letters and their contents, given what Rick told Negan about them toward the beginning of the half-season, but who cares about consistency, anyway?
Instead, we are treated to a telling of both of the aforementioned letters, which amount to much the same thing: “stop fighting, and live out your lives.” For someone who claims he has grown up, the guy doesn’t seem to understand the sheer degree of fundamentally stupidity for everyone in this conflict enough to realize that’s just not going to happen.
Also, he mentions how he remembered the walks when he was three-years-old, down to what happened and how he felt and everything about them. That could maybe be a bit plausible on the level of a vague memory, but the way he describes them, it’s like he developed yet another superpower of total event recall.
2. Speakin’ in the Rain
Aaron’s plotline doesn’t make a lot of sense, all things considered. Yes, he had a pretty cool conflict with the various Walkers around him when he had to fight empty-handed (though the fact he managed out of that without a bite or any infected flesh in any wounds is ridiculous). But the fact that Aaron honestly believes that Oceanside would follow him after his “rousing speech” is, quite literally, unreasonable. His way of thinking does not align at all with reason. He talks about how the Saviors are the ones to blame for Natania’s death, but that was quite clearly Enid who shot her, and everyone knows it. He talks about how they won’t be safe unless they fight, but they’ve been doing pretty fine so far aside from he and his group since they left the Saviors. Most importantly, the idea that he thinks they would willingly join him comes entirely at odds with the fact that they were giving their guns over, their own method of helping that also left them without some of their own essential gear for hunting and defense.
Of course, this being The Walking Dead, and him being on the “heroic” side (more on that phrasing later), they’ll probably join anyway. Who cares about common sense, anyway?
3. High Times with Eugene Porter
I have to hand it to the writers. They really know how to make a character as unlikeable as possible, while also placing him in a situation with two other rather unlikeable people, and make none of them worth rooting for at all.
Take the conflict between Eugene Porter, Daryl Dixon, and Rosita Espinosa, for example. On the one hand, we have Eugene, a man who ostensibly could be working for his survival, but has become so abrasive, so rude, so utterly detestable that it’s not even enough to induce anger to watch him anymore. It’s just annoying. His verbal abuse toward Gabriel Stokes would be heart-wrenching, but the way that the writing had the latter give his backstory again (in case viewers forgot) makes it a bit harder to believe any of this matters. It’s just rote “remind everyone of the events” now… well, aside from how Eugene told him to cry more quietly. That’s what pushed it from “who cares about Gabriel and his backstory we already heard and came to terms with seasons ago” to “who cares about Eugene or Gabriel.”
And then comes the attempted kidnapping. It wouldn’t be so bad, and may have actually helped turn Rosita and Daryl around, even with Daryl about to stab their traitorous ex-friend in the throat with a knife, but then Rosita had to talk. She blames the escape of the Saviors from Sanctuary in Season 8A on Eugene’s plan with the plane and music player, instead of Team Daryl’s crashing of the gates.
Now, let’s account for basic battlefield logic as we have seen from the show thus far. The Walkers move toward the most consistent, loudest issue, and due to their lack of intellect, they pile into a herd at random and mostly by accident. Barring that, they also tend to pile into the nearest entrances to get to living flesh, hence the need to bar all sides, rather than leave an opening when the dead come. The plan Eugene had involved sending a music player on a remote-controlled toy plane out into the distance, and was shot down by Dwight almost instantly. In this time, Daryl crashed an entire truck into their garage, running over several people and opening up a gigantic hole in the wall. The exit that the Saviors ultimately took, as per the earlier episodes, was one of the side, no-longer-blocked exits as soon as the car hit and the Walkers were driven over in that direction.
Continued belowSo, who’s fault is it? The plan that clearly was stopped halfway through (and only Dwight knew about enough to tell, if he ever did) or the one that they themselves did and left a giant gaping hole in their wall?
On its own, this would already paint them (again) in a “this was never our fault” light despite all logic dictating otherwise. However, Rosita opts to dig even deeper and talk about how they’re going to hold Eugene captive and stick him in a dark cell, only to take him out to force him to teach them things. You know, like he thought the Saviors were going to do to him, and said as much.
It’s not like any of it matters, though, given Rick is probably going to have his spontaneous turn to heroism on account of the aforementioned letter for the finale regardless.
4. Two Negans Enter, One Negan Leaves
This probably isn’t the first place to mention that the whole “Simon and Dwight are kind of, sort of okay with Negan” plot line went on way too long. Simon being initially forgiven by Negan for what he did already stretched credibility beyond the breaking point, but the fact that he gave a belated backstory for Simon that shows the guy has always been such an outright lunatic who would kill everyone and anyone who gets in his way just makes his forgiveness all the less believable. Furthermore, his lack of foresight regarding his group’s analogue to the Transformers franchise “Starscream” archetype made his tricky planning around Dwight all the stranger. He could mastermind a plan to trick Rick into a trap, but he couldn’t figure out the guy who ruined everything would just do it again? Or was that just a means to get every traitor? After all, that’s likely not even all of them, just the ones who are ready to stand up to him right now.
The ultimate hand-to-hand fight for the one true Negan in charge was satisfyingly brutal in a way, but perhaps could have used some more gore in the vein of Negan’s introduction to show how bad he is, with the same kind of silhouetted shots. That’s just personal preference, though.
5. Story on Rails
This episode seems to be very much one to settle scores and set up the comic-typical animosity with appropriate sides in the conflict, but it doesn’t work.
Rick needing to read the letter just went to show how much of a horrible father he truly is to his son that he wouldn’t even read his last words until this long afterwards. Furthermore, if all it took was reading words he already said to Negan, words that almost caused Negan to come to a kind of peace momentarily, for him to become a better man, as seems to be implied, then he’s far more impressionable than he should be as a leader, and probably doesn’t deserve the role at all.
On the other hand, Negan himself had a turnaround so abrupt that it seems Jeffrey Dean Morgan was told to play a completely different character. While strangling the life out of Simon, he took on his attitude for pretty much no reason beyond “I need to clean up your mess” instead of actually trying to fix it, as he was before with Jadis. Far from the rational, albeit very quirky leader he was not long ago, he’s become a deranged lunatic (well, more of one) who is the designated villain once again and far more in line with Simon’s characterization than his own.
So, let’s go for the verdict. Did this episode have worth in any reasonable amount?
No. No, it did not.
