The Walking Dead Season 8 Finale Plot Summary:
Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) leads The Saviors in a sneak attack against Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and his army. Will this be the battle to end the war?
SPOILERS AHEAD
The Walking Dead Season 8 Finale was going along perfectly fine. We had intrigue, action, a few interesting twists, an emotional monologue, and for the first time in a long time — we were tying up a long storyline nicely.
Then came that twist.
See, The Walking Dead, this is why we can’t have nice things.
Up to this moment, I actually thought the Season 8 finale was a fairly solid episode. Yes, this series has had much better season finales, and even much better conclusions to longer storylines (e.g. the demise of The Governor). However, for a season that has been mired with mediocrity, and frustration, the straightforward approach this finale took was refreshing.
The “battle” was exactly what I thought it would be — everyone is lined up for a big showdown, then shenanigans, and Team Rick would gain the upper hand. While the shenanigans were expected, it was nice to see they came as a result of Eugene (Josh McDermitt). We finally got the payoff for this two year “Is Eugene a bad guy?” storyline.
The one unexpected moment was Aaron (Ross Marquand) returning out of nowhere with the Oceanside crew to fire bomb The Saviors. That was a little random, but at least that train wreck of a storyline is finally resolved.
The epilogue of the battle was perfect — a great, emotional speech from Rick (Andrew Lincoln), scenes of peace and harmony between all sides, and we even see Jadis (Pollyana McIntosh) get a new chance at life on the series.
The series even set-up a new enemy — the absolutely massive herd that was slowly trekking the countryside. According to Rick it’s the biggest one he’s ever seen (and he’s seen a few herds in his day), and that makes for an intriguing plot for Season 9. How do a group of communities, all of whom are on the mend after a brutal war, survive the largest herd anyone has ever seen?
But no.
They had to go and mess everything up. Instead of leaving well enough alone, we had to see the “secret meeting” between Maggie (Lauren Cohan), Jesus (Tom Payne), and Daryl (Norman Reedus) who agree that when the time is right “they’ll show Rick and Michonne they’re wrong” for keeping Negan alive.
Why? Why? Why? Why?
Why do you need to take two of the most beloved fan favorites, and an interesting (albeit underused) side character, and make them the potential bad guys? But, wait are they bad guys? Or we back to the same old “who’s really the bad guy/we’re all bad guys” theme the show has been unsuccessfully peddling for years.
Or are we reading too much into it? Does this mean they’re going to try and wrestle power from Rick, or kill the new power couple, or just somehow kill Negan? It feels like the show doesn’t care about the resolution to this question — they got us all talking. They got in their twist, and they got their shock value in. They have people talking. They got their water cooler fodder.
This is why this show is losing viewers in droves. Long gone is the genuine terror this show filled you with. Instead it slowly and aimlessly wanders like the undead in questions of morality, and existentialism. To keep things lively they pepper in big, hollow shocks, mass zombie execution, and gory deaths. Over terror has turned into sheer apathy at this point.
Could they have ended it better? Of course! Instead of this secret meeting, they could’ve left us with the herd devouring a random group of survivors or maybe just a sweeping shot of how big the herd is. Or maybe as some have speculated, show The Whisperers finally. This ending would accomplish two things — give the show a big, twist, cliffhanger ending, and show us the terrifying new big bad. When the credits roll we’d have danger, fear, and intrigue for the next season.
But that’s not this series style. We’re going into yet another year of people distrusting each other. I’m sure just as things start to come to a head, this herd/big bad will show up, and everyone will need to work together. I’ll put money on that.
Once again, The Walking Dead had the opportunity to do the right thing, but instead went for hollow shock value.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10
