Looks like I’ve finally watched the first half of Season Eight! After eight weeks, and 12 articles, we made it! And this article should be going up within a few days after the next half starts! Looks like I planned that out pretty nicely considering I didn’t plan for it too!

Before I get into the review, I just wanted to say, since I brought up the question in the previous article, I do not think this season is as bad as the previous two. While it’s not back to what it once was, nor does it shine in the potential of where it could have headed, it indicates that the show might be able to redeem itself. Or perhaps I’m delusional and all that Walking Dead writing has caused me to finally crack!

As last season’s highlight was the horrendous deer special effect, this season’s highlight happened in Episode Three, where Mouth from One Tree Hill (seriously, this show and One Tree Hill) shoots at Rick and Daryl, and while Rick goes to cover, he waves for someone to get down behind him. Only, Daryl is in front of him, and Tobin went in a different car and left.

So either A), Rick is delusional and is seeing people now, or more likely, B) he was telling the camera, man/woman, to move over. And when they were editing the episode, they thought “this looks great, air it!” That is pathetic and hilarious all rolled up in one, along with the lame attempt at a Fast & Furious style chase this season.

But in all seriousness, I mentioned having an old character from Rick’s past comes back in the form of Jessie a la Alpha. Well, this season actually sees the return of the long forgotten Morales, who many speculated would be Negan. That would have been really cool, especially when Morales only has about 5 minutes of screen before Rick tells him who he is in his “confused” voice and Daryl shoots him in the head. I’m glad we got to catch up with Morales after all this time.

But after that, we see Rick experience a really good moment, something that hasn’t happened in a while. He fights and kills one of Negan’s men at this particular outpost, thinking he’s hiding guns. And in fact, he’s trying to protect his baby daughter. We get no back story; we barely even see his face. So up to that point, he is a faceless enemy. Which you could argue makes a lesser impact, given that he’s a faceless enemy.

But in this case, I think it makes for a stronger moment, because the realization that this was just a man trying to protect his childlike Rick, hits that much harder. Rick didn’t even give this guy the chance to earn a face in his eyes. He forced him to be faceless and killed him for no reason. We see this hit Rick like a sledgehammer. It’s a pretty strong moment in a show that has been lacking them.

But aside from that positive moment, this half of the season is doing what the first half of Season Six did; following one day over the course of eight weeks. We see Gabriel get stuck in a trailer of sorts with Negan, and we don’t return to see them again until Episode Five, to the point where you kind of forget they were even there. This formula is absurd. Surprisingly, however, this season handles a singular event’s timeline a bit better than in Season Six; it doesn’t feel to drag as much. Or maybe I’m numb to the disappointment at this point.

That being said, I still wish the story would progress more than only a few hours from week to week. This makes keeping track of things hard too. There’s this little blonde kid who comes to help Carol and he says he wants to kill the people who killed his brother. We haven’t seen his brother in at least two seasons, and his brother was one of those characters I’ve mentioned that pops in an episode, has development and dies in that very episode. Are we supposed to remember these characters and their relationships? This little kid hasn’t even had dialogue since his brother was killed.

And then, I mentioned the Eugene episode of last season. It gets a part two of sorts this season. Eugene asks Tanya for more wine, to help him get through the night. She reminds him of how he didn’t help her poison Negan last season. For the characters, this was a few days, a few weeks ago. For us, it was almost a year ago. I don’t think the show can expect us to remember these things.

You can argue that it’s me not having the interest. And that’s a fair point; I’m biased negatively towards the show. But I argue that this event for Eugene wasn’t a major moment in the show’s story that is necessarily worth remembering, and therefore it isn’t justified to be brought back up.

Ned died in Season One of Game of Thrones and the characters still talk about it and we know exactly what they mean. That’s a really major moment. But Eugene chickening out again, as he essentially does at every turn, doesn’t stand out.

We also see Daryl and Rick go at it this season, and Daryl’s defiance leads to the battle against Negan going in his favor somehow, once again showing Rick is always right (except when he killed that guy who was only trying to protect his baby a few hours ago). This welcomes the most action-packed episode of the season, being the mid-season finale (another formula!). In the midst of it, we realize Carl was bitten when he was helping that guy.

According to ex-showrunner (that felt so good to type) Gimple, this will be of an impact for next season. They said the same kind of bullshit after the cliffhanger of who Negan killed. I’m thinking Carl is going to be the first character that’s immune. I have no clue if this is true, but they’ve hinted at the possibility of such a person on Fear The Walking Dead and I think killing Carl is too bold of a move that this show won’t make.

Plus according to IMDb, he’s listed for the whole next half of this season. Maybe those are credit only, but The Walking Dead in the past has taken actor’s names off the credits after they’ve been killed off. Gimple also said they’d get an answer to how Carl was in the “old man Rick” flash-forward by the middle of next half. So by Episode 12 of next half (four episodes in) the All Out War Story will be over and we’ll jump ahead a few years. I mean, the show loves to work in patterns of four. But I’m just speculating.

By the way, how did Carl get bit? All he seems to do is act tough, talk shit and fall over and have walkers land on him. Hasn’t he gotten passed this spaz phase? If not, why do they let him out, he should be forced to stay home with Judith. Speaking of, where’s Judith? Is someone actually watching her and I forgot? Or did the show forget to say where she is? The little girl Rick and Maggie held I think is the girl whose father Rick killed.

Take away from this season, Tara is a waste of space, and I hate the garbage Yoda- speaking people. Smell like shit they do.

I hope after all these articles, I’ve entertained you, and given some new viewpoints on the show where most points have probably been exhausted by the time I got into the game of reviewing them. I hope I pointed out weaknesses and strengths with each show runner and how the show has changed with each new chief. Most importantly, I hope I convinced you that an adaption should change the source material. Worse case, I didn’t prove any of my points, but at least you laughed. If I entertained you, then these articles at least served half of their function. Thanks for reading!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1520211/?ref_=nv_sr_1