There Are Spoilers In Our The Walking Dead – The Lost And The Plunderers Review
So the 10th episode of the 8th season of The Walking Dead just went to air and this one picks up shortly after last week’s episode, Honor. This episode is a little different to what we’re used to for the show in that instead of just focusing in on a single character for much of the episode, it actually jumps in between characters in little mini segments throughout its run time. This week we’ll see developments from Rick, Michonne, Negan, Jadis and Enid.
I’ll start with what’s going on with Rick as he had the hardest time last episode. We see him early on as part of Michonne’s storyline. The two had just finished up with Carl and seem to be trying to get back to the task at hand, which is taking down Negan. But Rick doesn’t look good in this episode. As far as I see, he’s still shaken from what happened, he looks stressed and isn’t doing too well. There’s also the revelation that Carl has left some letters to people before he died and there’s one for Rick and we all know what Carl wanted and what he envisioned after last week, but oddly there’s also a letter there for Negan. I think what I see from this episode is that it’s going to be some time before Rick comes to grips with what Carl wants him to do and his hatred for Negan and his people is going to be hard to overcome.
On the other side of the episode we have some strong moments from Negan. At the moment, although Negan is the primary villain in the show, his intentions at the moment almost seem the most noble. Negan’s character at least for now seems to be operating in the opposite way that Rick is, unlike Rick who is out there waging war on Negan and his people and killing everyone in his way. Negan is trying to save people, he’s trying to keep them alive. We see a confrontation between Negan and Simon during this episode where Simon wants to go around and starting killing all the garbage people for disobeying The Saviours, but Negan wants none of that. We then again hear about people being a resource and as Negan sees it, he saves people from dying and keeps them alive working in the system he has built. I think what Carl is wanting for the future, is a little of what Negan has, but without the violence and Rick somehow is the key for moving forward and fixing the society and making it right. Whether or not this is the path for the show, I don’t know. We see Rick at the end still vowing to kill Negan, but will he actually do it though? It was also interesting to see Negan’s reaction to Carl’s death, he’s a character that couldn’t be saved. Is Negan actually disappointed about Carl dying? Does Negan truly want everyone saved?
Negan’s request of Simon to go down to the dump and deal with Jadis and her people has its consequences though. Rather than listen to Negan and save the people there, killing just one only, Simon instead kills them all. I think that this will have some effect down the line in the show as Jadis is left alive and had to put her people who are now all part of the walking dead down a grinder. She’ll likely return at some point for some revenge, but how and when I don’t know. It was interesting to see her interact with Simon and not Rick for a change. Jadis was usually shown to be a character void of emotion with Rick and did put him through hell during each of their meetings. But in this episode, Simon really did break her down, Jadis is completely lost now and has lost everything, her people are all gone, she was left completely shaken by the incident. What will she do next?
I do know though and did see, that Simon did step in the blue paint and it’s on his shoe, this is a clue that he was at the dump and as he did something against Negan’s wishes, I wonder if this will come back to bite him down the line. I mention this because we also saw Rick walk on the same blue paint in this episode later on so I wonder if this will be brought up or not in the future.
We also see in this episode a little bit from Enid. She’s at the place in the woods where the women are all hiding from Negan’s group and are unknown at the moment. These people are going to need some convincing and maybe will be the tipping point in Rick’s efforts against Negan down the line. But there’s not much in this episode on that and it seems there’s little help for now other than sparing Enid’s life.
Overall this was actually a pretty good episode for the show. There were multiple developments in this episode for a variety of characters. I enjoyed the character switching in this one and it felt a lot more fast paced, considerably more so than last week’s much slower paced, Honor. There is a massive contrast at the moment between Negan’s and Rick’s leadership of their groups and what they are both doing. Also Carl’s final wishes before he died will likely make an impact going forward. It will also be interesting to watch Simon from here on out as what he did this week was pretty big, both in terms of defying Negan, but also killing the garbage people, it’s gonna have an impact. Simon will definitely be a character to pay attention to in the show as the episodes get released each week.
The Walking Dead airs express from the US on Mondays from at 1.30pm and 7:30pm on Showcase on Foxtel