SPOILER WARNING AHEAD

Throughout the last eight years, The Walking Dead has been one of the most popular shows on television, but has recently seen some decline with seasons seven and eight. A complaint is that ever since the newest antagonist, Negan, has been introduced, the show has been relatively boring, with episodes being dragged out and not as interesting. Another complaint is that the real fear of the walking dead themselves has been vanquished from the show, as now there seems to be an unlimited amount of weapons and the zombies are not really a threat anymore.

These complaints are all very valid, but this does not take away from the second half of the season, which is much more exciting than the entirety of season seven and the first half of season eight. It is not near as exciting or fun as seasons one through six, but it was a refreshing change from the usual monotony of the past 16+ episodes. As the first half of season eight concluded, the only thing that really was established is that the ongoing fight between The Saviors and the other colonies, had no foreseeable end and that Carl had been bitten and was on his way to die. The entire first half really did not show us anything that was really outstanding, and the near-death scene with Carl was extremely dragged out, even going into the second half.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At9F1NNMsLE

Despite the dragged out death scene, Carl’s death was not in vain, and was extremely relevant to the events that followed. While he died, the war was still being fought and different things started to happen. The Saviors began to take Rick and Company’s onslaughts seriously and began to retaliate themselves. But on their first real counter-strike, they are ambushed by Rick, who ends up nearly killing Negan while they fight in a building alone. This part was very exciting and also a bit unexpected as there were still a few episodes before the season finale. From here, Negan is missing (while he is indeed captured by Jadis), so Simon briefly takes control of The Saviors. Negan is eventually released by Jadis, but when he returns he learns that Simon has not only disobeyed his orders and killed everyone at the garbage dump except Jadis, but was also planning to overthrow Negan for his ideas to not kill the enemies but just capture them. Negan then challenges Simon to a fight to determine who the leader will be, and Negan comes out victorious and strangles Simon. While the leadership is being determined, new weaponry is being developed by Eugene, and this time it is the bullets used by The Saviors that contain fluids from zombies already, so the victims would turn over despite not dying.

This was all leading up to the season finale, which was not amazing, but I did enjoy it. The final battle between the colonies break out, and Rick’s group find themselves cornered by The Saviors, but when the heroes find themselves at their end, the guns The Saviors use are sabotaged and backfire on them. From here Rick attempts to take on Negan one-on-one. They have a pretty intense battle, but towards the end Negan listens to Rick attempting to bargain, when Rick pulls up a piece of glass and wounds Negan across his neck, from here he tells his people to actually save Negan, so he can live in infamy as an evil tyrant in a cell, thus honoring Carl’s final request, to find a way without mass murder.

In the end, this season was slightly better than season seven but still a bit disappointing to the fans. Most of the build up was not worth the payout, as I thought there would be some sort of meaningful death, despite Ezekiel’s tiger. A lot of episodes were extremely drawn out, however there were a few select episodes that were very fun to watch. In all, season eight is a step back in the right direction for the show, but will only be enjoyed by the most hardcore fans, otherwise, it is probably not worth your time.