My take was that Daryl was in that shed because Lydia told him what Negan did, and he went back there to wait for Negan.

I think her relarionship with Negan might be somewhat complex from here onwards. Tying her up to kill her mum... it might take a little processing, but again, he has saved her before at some personal cost, and he has now saved her again, as her mum was all hellbent to kill her.

Caring about Lydia and Judith is certainly a link between Daryl and Negan.

Perhaps they will let Negan become a guardian to Lydia, as Daryl needs to take on primary care for Judith and JR.

 

This episode was okay. The highlight for me was the Negan stuff where the Whisperers recognized them as their new Alpha. It's amazing how much I like his character now after strongly disliking him during the Saviors arc. Kang has done a great job with him.

I liked how they used Alpha to highlight Carol's struggles. It made Carol somewhat palatable to me during the episode.

My problem was having Eugene, Yumiko and Ezekiel go on this adventure with the Whisperers still a threat. Couldn't they have done the same thing they did with Michonne and have them learn that Alpha was dead? It would make more sense in them feeling they could go. Ezekiel is never going to leave Jerry and the other survivors from the kingdom alone. It all doesn't feel right. They could've also used the excuse of possible medical treatment for Ezekiel and then Jerry encouraging him to go. That would've fit well.

 

Don't get me started on Princess. I hated her in the comics and was hoping they wouldn't introduce her on the TV show and, if they did, they'd make her different. No such luck. Get ready. It's only going to get worse from here.

 

Yeah I really don't even know why the show is introducing this crazy character. The show seemed to be trying to get away from the comic goofiness that was prevalent during seasons 7 and 8. And here they go introducing probably the worst goofy character in the comic. This does make me wonder if the show is contractually obligated to show certain characters from the comic as I have a hard time believing that any showrunner would see this as a good choice to put in their show unless they are a showrunner of Z Nation.

 

What I liked:
Negan and Daryl stuff
One more episode with Samantha Morton

Not sure that I actually dislike anything about the episode but I did find myself feeling rather ambivalent about: the Eugene, Yumiko Zeke road trip. Beta's walker concert.

The only thing stopping me from disliking the Carol stuff is that it included Samantha Morton. Honestly at this point I was cheering for the walker to have a Carol snack. Something needs to change, quickly, or I will find myself as a permanent passenger on the "so over Carol" train.

Princess - jury is out on this one but I can see this character becoming really old/tiresome/annoying in a short amount of time

Going with a 7 on this one

 

I give it an 8.5. I really enjoyed it. I liked finding a new person in the city, no matter who or how they got there. I liked the Beta reveal, and especially his now using part of Alpha's skin for his mask. The Carol/Alpha was a little draggy, but so be it. I thought the Negan/Daryl interaction was good, although I did think Daryl kneeled pretty quickly. Maybe he had an inkling of what Negan was going to do?? All in all, I'm really enjoying this back half of the season.

 

Agreed, no the best episode. 7 for me!

If like me you're not an English native speaker and needs subtitles I was able to download this episode here with subtitles for lots of languages included.

 

Ya that makes sense with Daryl looking after Judith now since Michonne is gone. I wonder if we are getting a scene where Daryl is finding out from Judith that Michonne found clues about Rick. I would hate if they just skipped over that off screen.

 

Surely, they must let us see how Daryl will take this news. They guy spent 6 years looking for his brother‘s “body”. To the sea and back. Daryl somehow knew deep down all along that Rick might be alive. This
brotherhood was at the heart of the show for many long years, it’s too big a moment to happen off screen. Hell, I’d want to see everyone else’s reaction after, when Judith and Daryl tell the whole group. And especially Negan’s!

I’m hoping we will go back to the moment when Michonne tells Judith about the Brave Man on the walkie (because that moment still hasn’t happened in real-time) and the camera will zoom out, and Daryl is in the room. That would be just about perfect. Slowly reaching for the walkie when Judith is done talking to Michonne.

 

Knowing this showrunner it will probably just be dropped. She doesn't seem real big on details like that and likes to focus more on the emotional impact of the characters.

 

Lol, can you think of a scene with more of an emotional impact on a character than Daryl finding out Rick is alive?

 

Don't think it will happen because it wouldn't be a situation where they could have the two characters actually see each other. Besides if Daryl finds out come the end of season 12 when Reedus's contract runs out and he wants to leave the show they will just have him leave to go find Rick.

And if they decide to end the show at season 12 they won't give any of the characters a proper ending. They will just have them all leave to go find Rick, lol.

 

You know the Carol character has hit rock bottom when you find yourself smiling at the barbs that Alpha was tossing at her.

I really liked that they used Samantha Morton one more time for that too. It was perfect.

 

Carol season 3-5 pretty much lost her conscious and was becoming a bonafide serial killer living in a zombie apocalypse. However somewhere around season 6 they decided to all of a sudden bring her conscious back and since then her character has played out like they don't really know what to do with her.

 

It's unfortunate. I really liked her character at one time. There's that weird balance in shows where characters die and you wish you'd had more of them. Then there are ones that lose their resonance. I'm skeptical about them being able to revive her character like they did with Daryl. His problem was that he became more hollow and uninteresting. That's easier to fill in the blanks, and Kang has done a great job. With Carol there are odd paths that she's taken. I don't know how you fix that now.

 

Yes, it could be tricky. If I were to write her next arc, I would write it as a followup to leaving behind her vengeful persona, that was so wrapped in her own grief and agenda. Moving on from being so focused on her own pain and needs to extend it to the community. Not attach herself to one person in particular, but generally and purposefully look out for anyone needing help and support. Shifting the focus from self to others. This would be healing to her, but also making up to others for her lack of concern of late. I would really like to see this Carol.

 

Lol, could work but at the same time that kind of sounds like what Fear is doing with its characters. Lol, send her to Fear and put her in a few scenes with Alicia and maybe some folks will start liking Carol again somewhat, lol. 'Course they are about seven years ahead of Fear in the timeline right now so at this point Alicia might be even crazier than Carol.

In all seriousness in regards to Daryl it wasn't that difficult to improve his character as all you had to do was give him some decent dialogue as even though he had pretty much just turned into a grunter he still hadn't done anything that pretty much altered his character

 

I don’t watch Fear, sorry! I’ve seen the first season, and then kind of let it go, as I didn’t really take to any of the characters. I considered picking it up again but been discouraged by a lot of discontent.

Daryl is my favourite character. The lack of dialogue and character development in the “depression years” following Beth’s death was utterly frustrating. Gimple was obviously not keen on developing the character, so Daryl was just put on the shelf of “oh, he’s just depressed.” Thank god Angela loves the character and made it a priority to make him three dimensional again. He’s back to early Season 4 vibrancy with a wealth of wisdom acquired along the way. It’s wonderful, really.

 

I'm thinking that Carole has already left her pity party behind and is now about to start an apology tour. No matter though because we still have Lydia's pity party going strong down in the mulligrubs. lol

 

OK episode, I think maybe my expectations were too high and that's why I wasn't too thrilled with it. Not to mention that I got fed up once again with Carol's behavior right from the start (separate post on that matter). So here we go:

• Carol putting Alpha's head on the pike was cool but didn't like how things played out after that. She was reckless again leaving Negan on his own and not warning the others that Alpha was dead. It's like “ok, now Alpha's dead, don't give a crap abput anything that happens from here on”. I mean it's not like the threat is over, we know Beta will retaliate. And I didn't like the hallucinations either, or the “last minute superhero escape” as Blackbird put it.
  
  
• Beta scenes were ok. He is one super creepy dude. And he is pissed!
  
  
• Not a big Eugene fan so I'm not really all that invested in the whole “let's go off and find Stephanie” story. Not sure how I feel about Princess either yet. Actually I don't like her right now but I'm trying not to judge a character based on the 2 seconds I've seen her. I DID however love the abandoned city scene, those are my favorites and it reminded me of when the show started and Rick rode into the city on his horse. The walker puppets were also creepily cool.
  
  
• Jerry had the sweetest look on his face when he saw Magna, but no mention of Connie? Really?
  
  
• Last but not least, Daryl and Negan scenes. THAT is what i was waiting for. It played out perfectly at first, what happened was probably one of the very few scenarios possible and the only way that Daryl could actually believe Negan was telling the truth. And I loved seeing them working together while taking down those Whisperers. I still find it a little odd to see them sitting on a log though. I'm going to be straight here, I know very well that one of the only reasons I am rooting for Negan now is because of JDM. If there was any other actor in his place I'm not sure how I'd feel about all this. And he really treated Daryl like shit. So I'm still not sure how I feel about all that or if the discussion they had was realistic. But I'll go with it. I'm curious to see where things go with Negan from here on.
  

I gave the episode a 5.