There Are Spoilers In Our The Walking Dead: The Key Review – Post Episode Discussion
So the 12th episode of the 8th season ofThe Walking Dead just aired and this week we see things possibly go a little wrong on Negan’s side of the war and also The Hilltop comes into contact with a potential new group.
When watching this week’s episode, we see it open in a similar way we’ve seen characters on Rick’s side shown in the past. There’s an eerie theme played and some slow motion shots of the various characters we see make some big decisions in this episode. It’s a little similar to what we saw with Rick’s group a few episodes ago as they were about to start implementing his war plan, but instead this time we see it used on Negan’s group, specifically Negan, Dwight and Simon. I feel that this small opening scene is a big indicator that what these characters choose to do in this episode will bring great consequences down the road. In some ways that’s true.
Simon as I said last week has become an increasingly important character to watch in the show. In this episode he makes a variety of moves against Negan and it’s not the first time he has done so either. Simon has already slaughtered every one of Jadis’ people at the garbage dump against Negan’s wishes and in this episode, he goes a lot further. Simon as we know doesn’t believe in saving any of the groups and Negan’s current plan of scaring them won’t work in his eyes as he believes that the people at the Hilltop “don’t scare”. When Negan gets into some trouble with Rick in this episode, Simon stops the reinforcements going in and sways Dwight into betraying Negan and asks Dwight to follow him instead. As we know Dwight hates Negan so it doesn’t take much. But I think Dwight might end up regretting that move because in the end, once he becomes the leader, he just doesn’t want to scare the people at The Hilltop, he wants to kill them all! Which is insane really. What will Dwight do about it and will Negan pop back up somewhere and stop Simon?
On Negan’s side of things, he makes the odd decision of driving his own car on the way to The Hilltop. Rick is out scouting and sees Negan driving at the back and somehow, probably due to Simon not caring for Negan, Rick manages to knock Negan’s car away from the convoy and isolate Negan from the group. The two end up in a massive confrontation in a building filled with Walkers but Rick somehow isn’t able to manage killing Negan or even capturing him, he does do some damage to Lucille though.
I thought that the confrontation scene with Negan was an interesting one though because it did two things. First, it Rick helped Negan discover what Simon did at the garbage dump to Jadis’ people. Seconds, it also isolated Negan away from his group during a critical time of the war and with Negan’s group of saviours not coming for him Negan must know now that he’s in trouble and also that Simon is the cause. Where this will take Negan going forward though is even more unclear because somehow Negan ends up Jadis, in her car at gunpoint. How she got there unnoticed and without Rick seeing her at all is a little unbelievable but as an end of episode twist, it will certainly keep me interested in seeing the show next week.
On The Hilltop side of things it seems a new character is being introduced. With Negan’s forces getting delayed by the incident with Rick, a message was received from a strange woman named Georgie (not sure if that’s correct spelling yet). But basically this new character meets with Maggie, Enid, Michonne and Rosita outside of The Hilltop with the intention of trading some medieval designs for their town. Maggie and the rest don’t trust her at all and bring Georgie to The Hilltop before they decide what to do with her. After some words from Enid who stepped up quite a bit in this episode, the group decides to make a trade with Georgie and they get the medieval designs book so they can grow food and things. It seems Georgie will be back when the food is grown for more trading. At the moment there’s nothing to worry about with this, but I feel that they are introducing this character now and she’ll later become important in the next arc after The Saviours are defeated. I think she is probably dangerous or will lead to danger, but it’s hard to say for now.
Overall this was a great episode of the show, with so many negative developments on Negan’s side which was somewhat stable for much of this season, it will be interesting to see how things go from here on out with his group and his character. The introduction of this new character Georgie is also interesting, but it’s hard to say what will happen with her at this point. I’m very curious to see what Simon’s fate will be this season and how his attack on The Hilltop goes next week and if Dwight might do anything about it or if any consequences might come Simon’s way as he seems increasingly like the villain of this season.
The Walking Dead airs express from the US on Mondays from at 1.30pm and 7:30pm on Showcase on Foxtel