There Are Spoilers In Our The Walking Dead Monsters Review – Discssion
So the third episode for the 8th season of The Walking Dead just aired and in this one Rick and his group continue with their assault against Negan and his forces.
Last week we had a big episode with big underlying themes of ethics and what actions, such as killing these groups of people might play on one’s conscience. This week, we see our characters continue with their assault against Negan’s group and although there is resistance, it is basically a slaughter of much of the saviours.
The episode being entitled Monsters does emphasise I think the point where our characters currently are with themselves. Rick and his group have gone in and killed so many people now and while some of them such as Jesus and possible Maggie have grown a conscience and are trying to save the remaining saviours, others such as Morgan, Tara and Daryl aren’t. What are the people in the group becoming?
Nowhere I think is the killing theme shown more clearly than with Rick’s confrontation and conversation with Morales, who has returned to the show, having not been seen since season 1. By the end of the conversation I think it does make you wonder how different Rick might be perceived to Negan. If Rick’s group is going around killing everyone, how is he different? Much of this is interrupted when Daryl comes in and kills Morales straight away and says it doesn’t matter. There is something there that does matter, Morales did matter. But there’s another bigger thing at play with all this and a much greater theme and that’s war.
As much as I’d like to agree with Jesus and his arguments, these groups are at war and war is horrible and it involves killing. Both sides are likely to lose people, even the most well planned groups will lose something in war and this is shown with the scenes with the King and his people. Ezekiel does a great job of rallying his men and keeping their motivations high for what they have to do and up until the end it looks like they’ll all survive, but then a gun is revealed far away and takes many of them out. It’s war between these groups, people will die.
As an episode this was good. Similarly to the first 2 episodes, this one was mostly action based. But it did have some great moments and things to think about and discuss. But at this point I do have a lot of questions. Such as if they’re so eager to kill everyone, like Daryl did to the poor guy at the end of this episode, why didn’t they just get Negan right at the start? Why leave him there? If it’s not about Rick then what is it about? Also I do wonder about where Eugene is and also Dwight in his wife? Where are they hiding?
The Walking Dead airs at 1:30pm and 7:30pm on the FX channel on Foxtel every Monday