The Walking Dead, ‘Monsters’ Plot Summary:
Rick (Andrew Lincoln) is held at gunpoint by Morales (Juan Pareja) – who rips Rick a new a one because he’s just like Negan. Aaron (Ross Marquand) must deal with Eric’s (Jordan Woods-Robinson) wounds. Morgan (Lennie James) and Jesus (Tom Payne) are at odds over their prisoners. Carol (Melissa McBride), and The Kingdom go on the hunt.
When The Walking Dead has a point to make — they really make a point. They not only beat it into the ground, they also set fire to it with gasoline, kerosene, and napalm. Once the fire is out, they pummel the scorched earth with a fleet of steamrollers.
The point this week was this — the alliance of the Hilltop, Alexandria, and Kingdom are no different from The Saviors.
This has been discussed before, and it’s a fairly obvious point too. We’ve spent seasons dealing with how Rick can be a coldblooded, ruthless killer. Remember how he lost his mind in Alexandria? Remember the raid on the satellite station, and the emotional fallout from that? Exactly. The point has been made, multiple times, that Rick and company are not the altruistic good guys they think they are.
However, in “Monsters,” everyone brought up this point — Morales, Morgan, Rick, Gregory, various Saviors, Maggie, Jesus. I’m surprised one of the walkers didn’t bring it up. (Maybe if they weren’t too busy tumbling down a hill like a bad cartoon, they could’ve.)
This is the problem with the series — if they don’t have big action sequences to construct, the writers seem to just retread the same ideas, or they create conflict way too soon.
We’re only three episodes in, and the alliance is already falling to shambles. Couldn’t they have waited just a little bit before everything goes to hell? Couldn’t this alliance not be just one giant mess for a couple of weeks?
Then we have the sharp left turns made by two central characters — Rick and Morgan. All of a sudden Rick, who was ready to kill ’em all, now has a conscience? Now he feels bad? Morales has him tripping over his words like a bumbling fool? Give me a break.
And we’re back to crazy Morgan again? Didn’t we just have a season of that? Stop it.
Oh, and we got the requisite ugly cry because my loved one is a walker scene between Aaron and Eric. Honestly, I just didn’t care. This is just another side character in a long string of side characters that gets killed off, and we’re supposed to get all misty-eyed. Nope, not happening.
“Monsters” isn’t a terrible episode of The Walking Dead, it’s just becoming a typical one — repetitive, preachy, and frustrating.
Rating: 5 out of 10
