[7.3/10] This is the definition of a mixed bag episode for me. It does a lot of the things I ask for from The Walking Dead, and it mostly does them competently, but with a few snags or hiccups that throw me off.
Let’s start with the easiest. I’m one of like twelve people who enjoyed the flashback episode which explored Daryl’s relationship with Leah. I’ll confess to not really recognizing her when she took off her helmet (it had been a while, and she looked a bit different), but it’s a nice thing to have resurface in Daryl’s life and throw him off balance a bit.
That said, while that episode could be on the nose at times, there was subtlety and joy in the pair’s steady path to growing closer. Here, there’s just a bunch of blunt comments and laden exchanges about the two having love and finger-pointing over who left whom. I’m still invested in the two of them, since I find their dynamic intriguing, but their connection here didn’t feel as convincing or lived-in as it did in the prior episode.
Still, I like the idea that Daryl is claiming that he always told Leah the truth, while lying to save his friends. It’s an interesting set of competing priorities that we don’t often see on The Walking Dead. Daryl wants to be emotionally honest with someone he clearly still cares for, but not at the expense of his people. His effort to walk that line makes for a strong, tense idea, and the script and the character find unique ways to toe it. Coming up with new angles for survivors to relate to one another and deal with other crews is always welcome, especially for a show in its eleventh season.
Some of that repetitiveness is what gives me pause, though. The Reapers/Chosen Ones (I think they’re the same thing?) are interesting enough as a concept. There’s a lot of places to take a group of veterans-turned-mercenaries who have become religious fanatics. From their waterboarding Daryl, to one of their leaders speaking in tongues (I think?), to insisting that God himself spared them in the “Valley of Death”, they could be a powerful avenue to make social and religious commentary, particularly given current events.
And yet, they seem very familiar as antagonists despite some differences in their gimmick. Ritchie Coster does good enough work as Pope, the militarized Gandhi-looking leader of the crew. (Hello Civ V fans!) I don’t really buy his southern accent, but he acquits himself solidly playing the true believer who treats his charges with believable love and rough justice. His stunts are a touch absurd, and his monologues are overwritten, but this episode smartly focuses on introducing him, reestablishing Leah, and setting the term for their group.
The catch is that we’ve seen this sort of thing before. Pope isn’t all that different from The Governor, or Savior-era Negan, or Alpha in terms of his presence and style. The grimdark nonsense like torturing Daryl or throwing a subordinate into the fire feels of a piece with Negan doin the same to Daryl and others he suspected of not following his orders. There’s plenty of room to differentiate, and the presence of Leah adds something, but this episode drips with the struggles of trying to do something new and compelling after ten seasons of a particular setting and form of storytelling.
At the end of the day, I still like this one well enough. It’s good to explore a new set of players. It’s good to spend a whole episode on it, rather than having to split time with something else. It’s good to see a little bit on how they work and what it takes for Daryl and his allies to fail or succeed in their eyes. But this one never quite finds that extra level of emotion or intrigue, possibly because of good old fashioned overfamiliarity, but also possibly because the execution of these ideas isn’t as great as it could be.
Another boring episode. No wonder it’s coming to an end. A real shame.
Another crazy old, white man as the season villain. It's all been done before.
Also, I have no idea who the woman is. Hard to be invested in this new couple.
Does everybody on this site have no attention span? It seems that a lot of these commenters are incapable of enjoying anything but action or something. This show has always been more than that. There's a lot of fantastic tension and character development in this episode, and I found the new Pope character and his team fascinating to watch. While yes this show has had plenty of filler episodes where nothing interesting happened, this was not one of them. I was drawn in for the whole episode, and it's been a while since this show did that for me.
Mediocre at best. Especially disappointed in Pope. He looks cool but the acting isn't really all that. I didn't like it. I hope this storyline is a short one, but I'm afraid it's gonna overstay it's welcome
Why can't the group find some normal kind poeple?
Back to boring 1 actor in a room.
OMG everything in this fucking show is slow. Talk slow, walk slow, torture slow, camera moves slow…
Iteration #236 villain. This is rotten.
I dosed off when the commander started talking to Darrel. Boring as hell
As for the commander, here we have another religious nut job as will always be the case since religion is 90% of the worlds problems especially when it comes to justifying controlling or killing people post and pre apocalypse if you dig deep enough. And the guy playing him isn’t scary at all, comes off more mentally ill than anything else and holy shit can he talk any slower?
Yep, that was one big ol’ parcel of shite.
Complete filler, can be missed and ignored :-(
Congrats to Lynn Collins coming to the show and being an emo beyotch and untalented actress. Her whiney little voice gets me at my core. Good god I hope she dies soon in the show.
I can't handle much more cheeziness from this show after Alpha. Last season was so hard to watch cause she was the worst protagonist ever!
Why the fuck are they adding so many new chars in the last season...
I find myself telling Lynn Collin's character to shut the fuck up every time she opens her mouth.
LOL POPE! Short, bald, seriously not scary.... Great pick for the villian of the last season dumb asses.
You ever notice the long gaps they leave after every sentence when some character is telling their story? This is to suck up air time.....
Why do so many of the female actresses suck ass on this show?
i like the pope character, the acting is pretty cool
that's it. I'm done. this ep finally did it for me. I should have ended this thing about 4 or 5 years ago but now I'm finished.
Lol How did she pull off a dry bag after they water boarded him over and over 10 seconds before
Filler episode, poorly introducing Pope as villain while he does not look threathening at all, more of a Ghandi-style Uncle Bobby Singer lol.
Everyone commenting seems to forget that the covid pandemic is still going on which makes it that much harder to film a lot of the usual stuff we normally would see. With that being said this was actually a really good episode. I had to look back to remember who the girl was.
Yawn. Filler. Leah is back, I like that because even though we saw her for one episode only she already managed to capture me. She and Daryl just make sense. So these guys are The Reapers... they seem scary and tough and are all military which is even more terrifying but Pope reminds me of Negan too much. Throwing a guy in the fire as punishment... been there done that. I didn't bat an eye. We got hardened like the characters on the show. This episode was sooo boring. I love Daryl but jeez... we've also seen him imprisoned before.
After a consistently good start to the final season, we hit the first wheel-spinning duffer episode. Norman Reedus/Daryl is always watchable but literally every other character here is a whole heap of 2-dimensional meh. I really couldn't give a shit about Leah and their history - I'm actually surprised to find out she had appeared in a previous episode, as I don't recall her at all.
I've never been a fan of Walking Dead bottle episodes as I don't think the writing is strong enough to support them and if you don't like the character they've chosen to focus on, or the story and episode-specific characters are weak (like here), then watching the episode can be a slog.
On the plus side, at least next week's episode looks like it'll be a better one again.
Shout by Paul VincentVIP 5BlockedParent2021-09-07T03:57:25Z
Complete, stinking garbage. Recycled same ol story of Daryl being captured but the bad guys thinking he's cool. A complete wasted opportunity to make this group 3 dimensional and give Daryl a compelling reason to stay vs another dumb boring how are they gonna break free story, again.