8x01 Mercy

[6.5/10] Some day, The Walking Dead will end. Sure, theoretically, given the premise, the powers that be could cycle through cast members like Saturday Night Live and go on into eternity, but the practical reality is that the series is likely closer to its end than its beginning at this point.

But it’s hard to imagine what that looks like exactly. One of the creators’ of the comic the show is based on has famously declared that the story could go on forever, with no clear ending in mind. The Robot Chicken special poking fun at the show envisions a “Walker Museum” devoted to the struggle of Rick & Co. (with a nice historical “game of telephone” sense to it). Still, there’s no clear place for the story to close off, no clear way to bring things to series-long catharsis.

“Mercy” dares to dream of what the future, the belabored “tomorrow”, looks like. It gives us a gray-bearded Rick, cane in hand, walking through a loving home with Michonne, Carl, and Judith. There’s a gauzy hue over these images, one that, contrasted with a red-eyed Rick standing much more starkly in interspersed scenes, suggests this may be as much a fantasy as a vision of things to come.

It’s a nice vision though, one where there’s a big festival to plan and everyone seems safe and content enough to have a humdrum, everyday life filled with silenced alarm clocks and Weird Al songs. There’s still gold to be mined from The Walking Dead franchise, which suggests that, despite slipping ratings, the show isn’t likely to depart the airwaves anytime soon. And yet, the season premiere for Season 8 sets up this clash with Negan as “the last fight” before things settle down and Rick has the chance to live out the old man life we see glimpses of.

The meat of “Mercy,” however, is our heroes preparing for that strike, and then bringing the fight to The Saviors’ doorstep. As is most often the case with The Walking Dead, those preparation scenes work best when they’re not laden with the show’s clunky, grandiose dialogue. The forces of Alexandria under Rick, The Hilltop under Maggie, and The Kingdom under Ezekiel, have finally united and are ready to strike back and Negan and his brutes. But before that can happen, Rick has to give his best approximation of a halftime speech, lolling out the usual platitudes about what they’re fighting for and why in the familiar, halting tones of his average motivational speaking appearances.

But the episode fares better when it devotes itself to showing the preparation rather than holding the audience’s hand through the theme of this mission and episode. Watching the current coalition of the willing exert their will on unsuspecting Savior lookouts as locales get crossed off Rick’s handwritten list is a thrilling little sequence. As a viewer, it’s hard not to value competence in our heroes, and seeing how they’re good at what they do, even if what they’re doing isn’t exactly good, can’t help but rouse some cheer.

It all builds to a standoff between Rick’s coalition and The Saviors at the sanctuary, made all the more tense by teasingly-placed act breaks. The season-by-season pacing of The Walking Dead has always been a little odd, with season premieres needing something big but rarely feeling like the beginning of the story, and season finales feeling similarly interstitial. “Mercy” is no exception. This face-to-face confrontation between Rick and Negan both feels like the culmination of the theatrics that took place over last season, but also just a middle portion of a larger story, partly meant to kick off the events of this season, and partly meant to just give us something with scenery-chewing and explosions to grab the jaded audience’s attentions after another year.

But it’s a good stand-off. Rick is all business and grunts and ultimatums. He rolls up in cars decked out in aluminum siding, brandishing and weapon and setting out a mobile layer of defense for him and his cohort. He calls out the Savior lieutenants we’re familiar with (plus Eugene!) and gives them one chance to surrender, before it’s showtime.

Naturally, Negan responds with his usual joie de vivre, taunting Rick about the size of his reproductive organs, issuing his own leering threats, and generally continuing to be the embodiment of toxic masculinity wrapped in a jaunty scarf. It’s a clash of personalities with enough tension to hold the moment, even if you just know things are going to erupt in gunfire sooner or later.

And they do. But it’s not another pointless firefight even if Rick and company do more immediate damage to Negan’s window repair fund than they do any of their actual adversaries. It’s part of a deliberate plan from the good guys, which involves the team assembled in front of the Saviors’ hideout sending through an exploding RV to breach The Sanctuary’s forward defenses, and then having the all-star crew of Carol, Daryl, Morgan, and Tara lure a massive horde of walkers right onto their doorstep. It’s a clever plan for once (even if it feels like Rick could have clipped Negan plenty of times while they were jawing at one another) which sews chaos directly in The Saviors’ home base. And it brings in the necessary quotient of action and excitement.

Eventually, those explosions give way to more heavy-handed underlining of the theme of the episode -- “it’s not about you.” The Walking Dead has never been anything but full-throated about what it’s trying to say, but it’s at least a laudable tack to take as the show seems to be contemplating its endgame here. As much as the fight in “Mercy” is framed as a one-on-one confrontation with Rick and Negan as figureheads, there’s at least lip service to the idea that this is a broader struggle, one between those who believe the world needs to get bigger and more inclusive, and those who believe they have the right to carve it up for themselves.

It leads to our heroes considering the next generation, and how the better world they’re hoping to make, will become theirs. It comes in the form of Michonne trying to nudge Carl to take responsibility. It comes with Rick at least nominally passing the torch to Maggie. It comes in broader notions that Rick and Morgan and Carol are stewards in the midst of an interregnum, ready to settle the last scores so that the world can return to something approaching normalcy and the next batch of leaders and doers can emerge, hopefully less stained and scarred from the harsh transition.

There’s hope for that here, not just in Rick’s bleary-eyed fantasy. It comes from Carl scoping out a decaying gas station in search of fuel, and finding another young man, asking for some of the titular mercy, or at least a bit of food. Before Carl can react, can fully decide what he wants to do about the situation, Rick shoots his gun in the air and scares the kid off, full of the (legitimate) paranoia about who could be working for Negan. Carl, however, still has enough altruism to return to that same spot with a couple of cans of nourishment and a note of apology.

Maybe that’s where The Walking Dead ends when it’s time to close up shop. Too many folks have been too battered by the state of the world as it stands. Rick, Carol, and Morgan have each tried to give up this life, to end their part in its cycle. There is work to be done, and each of them is stone-faced and resolute through most of it. But there might be a light at the tunnel, one where the zombie disease isn’t cured, and there’s still threats that lurk on the horizon, but where the vision Rick so clunkily outlines to his troops takes hold, where people come together and work together to forge something deeper than working for points and deciding who owns and who owes.

It’s a vision that’s going to have to be lived out by Maggie and Carl and the rest of the young folks who have a chance to see it through. Maybe the best end for The Walking Dead, is just one where the world doesn’t need Rick Grimes anymore.

That was one heck of an episode. Seeing Daryl blowing things up brings me joy. And taking that cigarette from the guy he just killed was so badass. The only thing that annoys me is that there are so many easy moments to kill Negan and they don't take advantage.
There were so many time lines at the same time that for a sec I thought I was watching Lost. Why was Rick the only old person? Those flashforwards could be to tell us that the four of them survive. However, that shot of Rick crying, I wonder if it's just a dream about the future. The fact that Michonne and Carl didn't age a bit is suspicious. Everything seemed so perfect.
The RV! Dale could still fix her! That was some sad character dead.
It's beyond amazing that in a show with Negan, freaking cannibals, the Governor and Shane, Gregory manages to be the biggest piece of sh*t. I hate him more than the abovementioned combined. Btw, Simon pushing him down the stairs brought me more joy that you can't even imagine. I laughed my ass off.
How should Gabriel be shitting his pants? He has a freaking semi-automatic gun. Negan doesn't have any armor. Well, yes, plot armor. And why didn't Gabriel shoot him right there? Point blank, clean shot, dead. I don't get why he's at Negan's mercy. He's got the upper hand.
I wasn't expecting them to be murdering windows but they're so damn good at that. However, they transform into freaking stormtroopers when it comes to shoot Negan. I get it though, they just wanted to show them how fucked up they are.
Who the hell brings a camera to a gun fight? That picture Rick took? Why was that for? A souvenir of Negan hiding like a bitch? To convince the others that they can successfully attack the Saviors? Or was it simply a homage to the pictures they took when he Lucille's somebody?
Carl recreating the series opener was a good tribute. And that first walker.
That Rick's count, lol. And Jesus. "The Hilltop stands with Maggie". Freaking awesome.