Much like it’s namesake, AMC’s The Walking Dead has clawed its way back and is once again one of the most compelling shows on television. The last time I wrote about Rick Grimes and his supporting cast of colorful but melancholy characters, the show was still a bonafide hit that in the minds of many viewers stood shoulder to shoulder with heavy hitters such as Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones. A cliffhanger cheapening the deaths of two of the show’s leads, followed by their deaths featuring extreme gore, and two seasons of meandering storytelling all but tarnished the legacy of the once heralded show. However season 9 is a true return to form, but unfortunately very few are still around to see it.
From this point forward there will be spoilers up to the penultimate episode of season 9.
(The Walking Dead Ratings Source TheRinger)
It’s difficult to believe a show about zombies featuring the likes of Andrew Lincoln, Danni Gurira, Jeffery Dean Morgan, Norman Reedus, and Melissa McBride could be labeled as boring but that was the vernal consensus online. During seasons 7 and 8, the show shuffled forward dragging out storylines for longer than they needed to go. This style of storytelling resulted in episodes that can only be labeled as filler. The Walking Dead is no stranger to filler. I would contend that a large contributing factor to the ratings success of seasons 4-6 was the availability of the show on Netflix. This allowed many people to get caught up in short order, never having to feel the disappointment that came with an episode where hardly anything happened after waiting all week. When binging, you forgive these episodes as when they’re done you can skip to the next one immediately. If you were to take the best moments and story beats from 7 and 8 and combine them into one season, I think you could have something extremely compelling. Perhaps if the “March to War” and “All Out War” comic story arcs, which featured the confrontation with Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Savoirs, were adapted into two halves of a whole season viewers would have stuck around.
However, that’s not the reality new showrunner Angela Kang inherited from Scott Gimple. Instead Kang had to make do without series regular Chandler Riggs, as his character Carl was killed off just before his most important comic book story arc was set to begin. To make matters worse, series lead Andrew Lincoln, a man who gave his all to every scene he was in throughout his run, wanted out. As did Lauren Cohan, who portrayed Maggie Rhee. They negotiated a deal that saw Lincoln and Cohan return for the first 5 episodes of season 9. Not an ideal situation, but one AMC inexplicably capitalized on by promoting the season as “Rick Grimes’ final episodes,” a move that robbed Kang of the option to surprise the viewers with Lincoln’s departure. In one of the most heart wrenching episodes to date, Rick Grimes sacrificed his well-being once more for the people he loved. His character didn’t die, but was saved by the character Jadis, the poster child for unfulfilled potential from the Gimple era. So in what can only be referred to as an anti-climax, Rick will go on to star in movies for AMC and the storyline of the show will treat it as if he’s actually dead and with Maggie having left to join another group offscreen.
Life in a post Andrew Lincoln world would be tricky; how do you replace the face of the franchise? How do you build a narrative that makes sense without Rick Grimes when to this point the show mostly followed his point of view? Remember, it’s him we see shot in episode 1, and him we wake up with to discover the world has changed. Who could replace Rick Grimes? The answer, of course, was no one character could, and instead the focus was split between three main characters: Gurira’s Michonne, McBride’s Carol and Reedus’ Daryl. All three have been key players. Carol and Daryl were in the show since season one, while Michonne appeared at the end of season two with Gurira portraying her since season three.
In his 8 and a half season run, Lincoln’s Grimes was positioned as a leader, someone who people turned to when times were tough - in essence, a solidifying force, uniting groups to beat back their foes. In his absence it makes sense that those groups he worked so hard to bring together would splinter. When we return from the mid season finale, the four communities of Alexandria, The Kingdom, Hilltop and Oceanside are hardly working together while the Sanctuary doesn’t exist at all.
Over the course of the season, new friends and foes are introduced, the inciting incident which led to the fracturing of the communities is explained, and the next big bad of the series is revealed, in this case a group that wears the skin of the dead to blend in with the walkers. It takes a lot to shock a seasoned viewer of the Walking Dead; we’ve seen blood, brains and guts strewn across the screen in excess. What we haven’t seen is a villain infiltrate and blend in with the main group. In this way, Kang actually outdid Kirkman. In both the comic and show, the communities participate in a fair and the big bad who goes by the name Alpha blends in with the crowd; she kidnaps several characters. Eventually she kills them using their heads impaled on spikes to mark the boundary between our survivors and her group, known as the Whispers.
The move is shocking, scary, and brutal, establishing this new threat as people not to be messed with. In the comic, this infiltration makes little sense as the communities know one another and are shown consistently working together. However, in the show, they have just come back together, only for this tragedy to befall them.
At worst, the later Gimple era felt like they were going down a checklist of major comic moments. Kang and her writers have shown a devotion to cause and effect, making the storytelling more believable. Keeping a show like The Walking Dead grounded is no small feat, as audiences are willing to suspend their disbelief, but only to a point. The writers show their true talents by making the ridiculous, like people walking around in the skin of the dead, somewhat believable. I hold no illusions that the show will ever see the massive ratings from seasons 4-6, but I know Angela Kang will see that the show ends with dignity.
In the interest of time, I’ve left a lot out of the storyline of season 9. If you’re one of the viewers who checked out when times were rough (but for some reason read to the end of this blog), I don’t blame you, but implore that you give it one more go.
Our YouTube Channel
Our Twitter
No comments:
Post a Comment