9x08 Evolution

Unbelievable. Saying that I was o the edge of my seat doesn't pay enough justice to the episode. This was, by far, the best episode of TWD in years. I can't believe this show is coming back to life.

That cemetery scene was a thing of beauty. One of the best scenes this show has ever done. The fog, Jesus going full on ninja, Magna's group for the rescue, creepy walkers...Everything together was the perfect storm. And on top of that, when you think it's over, a freaking walker dodges Jesus and stabs him in the back. I audibly gasped and got that "of, fuck" moment out of me. A thing that this show hasn't managed in years. I was expecting Jesus to die since that whole slo-mo camera and that "I got this". No one in the history of ever says "I got this" and actually "got this". It's a fact. It's a real shame that Jesus got to die when he was actually being used (for once) and becoming an interesting character. It's also sad to see that his death scene was probably one of his best scenes. Also, poor Jesus, who was killed by something and he didn't even know what it was.

The first half of this season has been one of the best so far. In fact, season 9 is shaping to be one of the best seasons this show has ever made. I'm actually pretty excited for what comes next. That cliffhanger with the Whisperers was outstanding and it's been quite a while since I've wanted to rewatch the first half of a season before the second half comes out. Walkers I get, but people disguised as walkers are fucking terrifying.

All the Negan scenes were great. And it finally looks as if we got him back. Please, someone check on Gabriel, cause he sucks at being a guard. In the trailer it looks as if Negan is going full on Negan on Michone's family. But I'm pretty sure he's just looking for Lucille and that he'll appear in Michone's house and say "Here's so that you know that I've changed. Now, put me back in the cell", or something similar.

All I have to say is: Thank you, Angela Kang. Thank you!

[7.5/10] Thank god. That’s pretty much all I can say. Call me a sucker, because I was 90% convinced that The Walking Dead was going to jump the shark and earnestly tell the audience that the walkers could think and speak and scheme now. I had my suspicions, but Eugene’s little speech at the crossroads had me all wound up. In a series unafraid to make boneheaded creative decisions, I thought it had come to this. The zombies were going to become walkie-talkies, it would be a bridge too far in terms of the supernatural on this show, and we’d be bombarded with tired ethical dilemmas over whether or not it’s still right to kill them now.

Instead, the whispering zombies are just regular (if admittedly kind of weird) people in zombie suits. I’m sure the show will come up with some cockamamie explanation for why after the mid-season break. But for the moment, it’s a legitimately cool twist, wrapped up in one of the show’s better setpieces.

The Walking Dead isn’t afraid to go scary, but rarely goes spooky. Something about our heroes, taking their injured comrade through a fog-filled graveyard-looking area with cobblestones and wrought iron fences, really works for the creep factor. Sure, it tracks in the show’s usual “there’s zombies afoot and we have to escape to safety” routine, with conveniently overcome hurdles, but the atmosphere makes it cooler and easier to enjoy. It doesn't hurt that the visuals are superb here, with Jesus’s ridiculous kung fu managing to actually look cool when shrouded in fog and depicted in slow motion. And the duck, dodge, and stab routine from the zombie-suited walker wannabe is a legitimate surprise in a tense moment. Visuals have always been this show’s strength, and it’s nice to see them heightening the climax of the half-season like this.

Oh yeah, and Jesus is dead, and I can’t be bothered to care. As I mentioned last week, Jesus has been with us for a little while, but never really wormed our way into our (or at least my) hearts. What do we really know about him? He’s a karate-using (mostly) pacifist. He didn’t really want to lead. That’s...pretty much it? I realize that’s a little reductive, but he never felt like a character with a rich inner life or a compelling charisma -- just another secondary character who’s underdeveloped walker food. The fact that he met that inevitable end with the faintest bit of development after the time jump does little to move me. It’s just one more character who’s been with the show a little while who’s gone to meet the great casting director in the sky. At least he had a badass action sequence to go out on.

But where does that leave us? The answer is, with a sprinkling of the show’s best characters, a handful of other recognizable faces, and a whole lot of people who either aren’t worth caring about, are brand new, or may as well be brand new. It’s become increasingly clear that after the six-year time jump, and all the deaths and furloughs the show’s had over the past couple of years, we’ve been deposited into a Walking Dead spin-off that happens to use the same net and some upgraded sets.

Thankfully,, some of the new characters are starting to prove interesting. Henry doesn't technically count as a new character, but with the six year difference turning him into a young adult rather than an angry tween, he’s barely recognizable as the kid we knew just a few episodes ago but for his connection to Carol and Ezekiel. Still, that works unexpectedly well here, with there being just enough of a tie to past events to add shading to who Henry was and what he cares about, while leaving enough canvas for the series to draw out who he is now.

That means putting a spotlight on his transition to Hilltop, between futile crushes on older girls, finding new peers who give you solace and companions but also don’t fit into the world you know, and those teenage mistakes that earn you a stern talking to but make you a better person. The show’s been shaky about exploring young adulthood in the past, with Carl’s Dawson’s Creek-style drama proving particularly irksome. But here, the show combines the zombie apocalypse with a “kid starts at a new school” story, and results are surprisingly effective and even relatable.

It’s neat to see someone who’s the product of both Ezekiel’s idealism and Carol’s pragmatism, and how that combination leaves him ill-equipped to fit in outside of the Kingdom. Ezekiel’s idealism means he feels a little cornpone to the other teens who welcome him into the group, a little too provincial when he takes his first(?) sip of alcohol or hesitates to visit his new friends’ secret hideout because it means sneaking out after dart. And Carol’s pragmatism, and his own sad history, means he can’t see these fellow kids who’ve mostly known the safety and security of the walled city of Hilltop and let them treat the walkers like some game. It alienates him from the group (except for his admiring distaff counterpart), but it’s just who he is. The fact that he gets both rebuke and understanding from the smithee who had his own problems with transition and alcohol earlier in the season makes this a winning story that’s helped by the passing of the years within the season.

Were it that this could be said about the other major events going on in “Evolution.” The Gabirel-Negan storyline is founded on themes that are underwhelming because six years have passed in-universe while only a few weeks have passed in the real world. We’re supposed to feel Gabriel’s pain when he finds out that Rosita is seriously injured but he can’t go to her. The problem is that we just learned about this relationship a couple of episodes ago, and it’s not like they were oozing with chemistry or good shorthand, so while you can understand his feelings in principle, the show hasn’t developed that relationship enough to make their separation or connection truly meaningful.

At the same time, it wants to treat Negan escaping as a big meaningful event, but from our perspective, he’s only been in that cage for a few episodes. We’ve barely seen him for most of the season, and it’s hard to intuitively feel his transition over half a decade when never get to witness it. The show seems to want us to question whether Negan will revert to his old ways or if he’s truly changed in the intervening years (giving him a glove and a baseball, but not a bad, in a bit of symbolism), but we’ve barely seen that change enough for the question to have any meaning.

Sometimes, acting can overcome that. The show plays annoyingly coy about whatever unpleasantness has driven our heroes apart from one another, and again, it’s another instance where what the audience hasn’t seen saps the issue of significance rather than infusing it with mystery. But Danai Gurira and Melissa McBride are talented enough that their conversation has the right balance of affection and awkwardness that sells the notion of “estranged but dear friends” better than the script is capable of.

That’s what The Walking Dead has to lean on now. The first half of season 9 was largely one of transition, giving us a half-formed arc about the different communities trying to work together post-Negan, a farewell bidden to Rick Grimes, and a handful of episodes meant to establish the new status quo. All of that means that there’s not really solid ground to build on from here. It’s effectively a new show, without a strong or specific storyline to serve as a spine to build things around. The Whisperers are here now to provide that, but until the end of this episode, the series has been in some state of epilogue, spin-off prelude, or introduction through these eight episodes.

It’s an uphill climb for The Walking Dead to remake itself once more, especially when it’s lost yet another recognizable (if not all that essential) face to its ever-growing list of deaths and furloughs. But hey, at least we don’t have to deal with talking zombies.

Daryl, Aaron and Jesus check on a herd and notice the odd behavior of walkers milling around and not wandering. It seems as if the herd is getting bigger and Jesus feels suspicious about this. Gabriel tries to help Negan find spiritual enlightenment. Michonne and the others arrive at Hilltop and she's filled in on the details of what's going on. Carol gets ready to head home and Henry, disappointed by heartbreak by Eden, makes some new friends, gets in trouble and ends up in a cell at Hilltop. The guys find Eugene who tells them that this herd of walkers whispers and it scares the crap out of him. Negan hears a rattling on the cell gate and let's himself out. He's free! Daryl creates a distraction to sidetrack the herd but it doesn't work. Moving through what appears to be a small cemetery, the group eventually gets cornered. Michonne, and two of the new ladies, along with Daryl manage to pry open the gate. Jesus, defending the group by slashing walkers is stabbed in the back by one them and he dies. Daryl shoots an arrow at the murderer and all seems fine for a moment. Daryl notices something odd on the back of the walker's dead and discovers it's a mask of a walker on some regular guy. The whispers start again and the group is trapped. End of season 9A. The Whisperers are here and I'm ready for this.