Image by Devon Breen from Pixabay Coming off of the hellish year that was 2020, there seemed to be some hope among many of us for putting it behind us and moving into 2021 with a renewed optimism for what was to come. And while some less-than-ideal things happened this year (including an attempted insurrection of the U.S. government), some great movies came out. As to whether the film industry has fully recovered from the lackluster box-office year that was 2020 remains to be seen (despite Spider-Man: No Way Home becoming the first film to make one billion dollars since 2019’s Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker).
Admittedly, I have yet to see many of what are considered to be the year’s best films including (but not limited to): Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza, and Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley. Still, I want to use this opportunity to shine a light on some of my favorite movies that I haven’t blogged about before. While some are familiar among most filmgoers (casual or otherwise), there may just be one of two on this list that you’ve never heard of that is worth checking out. That being said, here are my thoughts on some of my favorite films from 2021. The Dig Arguably the most serene film that I’ll write about today, Simon Stone’s The Dig dramatizes the people and events surrounding the archaeological excavation of an Anglo-Saxon ship and burial site known as Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, England. The site of the excavation, initially overseen by archaeologist Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes), was on the land of widow Edith Pretty (Carey Mulligan) whose health declines throughout the course of the film. There are many reasons to appreciate The Dig. As a lover of history, it is a particular kind of thrill seeing actors display the kind of exhilaration surrounding such an astonishing discovery. But on top of that, the film injects some meaningfully dramatic moments during the course of such an undertaking. Specifically, you go on an ebb-and-flow kind of journey when watching the film seeing the struggles that Edith and Basil endure to retain some control over both the ownership of the dig site and the dig itself. But I think what works best about The Dig is that it’s not a movie primarily concerned with history. Rather, it is concerned with showing the audience how an event such as this affects the lives of the characters involved and, conversely, how these characters impact the dig itself. Without ever shoving this down our throats, the director and the cast (particularly Fiennes and Mulligan) work to invest the audience in these characters’ tribulations and triumphs as well as their relationships to each other. And while many of the cast serve their roles in the story well (I always enjoy Lily James), Mulligan demonstrates just how versatile she is as an actor. From her subtler and heartbreaking roles in films like Drive and Shame to her more eccentric roles in films like Promising Young Woman, she continues to captive my attention as a performer to pay attention to going forward. And in The Dig, she does not disappoint as she offers a take on both motherhood and polite persistence as a widow that completes the film’s emotional core making the whole unexpectedly melancholy. Even if quieter, calmer dramas aren’t typically your thing, The Dig is worth a watch on a Sunday afternoon. Especially if you’re into history or archaeology, you won’t regret checking this movie out. Minari I was hopeful that I would like Korean-American director Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari for one reason and one reason only: Steven Yeun. In case you didn’t read the first part of my blog about The Walking Dead, it’s one of my favorite shows and Yeun played who was easily one of my top-ten characters on the show, Glenn Rhee, for seven years. But since he’s been off the show, I was interested to see where his career went. He’s had some pretty compelling roles in Bong Joon-ho’s Okja and Lee Chang-dong’s Burning and thus I wanted to see what he did in this film. Fortunately, Yeun is only one thing to like in Minari. In the film, Chung reflected on his own childhood growing up the son of Korean immigrant parents on a farm in Arkansas as inspiration for the film. Yeun plays Jacob, the patriarch of the Yi family, alongside his wife Monica (Han Ye-ri) and their children David (Alan Kim) and Anne (Noel Kate Cho). Together, they form an immigrant family who move from California to rural Arkansas to start their own farm as they experience struggles, learn lessons, and come to understand what is most important in life. If that description comes off to you as overly sentimental and cheesy, that is because a movie like Minari very well could be that and still be enjoyable. But what is perhaps most enjoyable about the film is that it injects enough genuine drama, levity, and emotion to avoid becoming soaked in corniness. Much of that has to do with the likeability of the cast (particularly the standout performance from veteran South Korean actress Youn Yuh-jung as Monica’s mother Soon-ja), but also the evident heart that Chung put into the script. While the film does take some unexpected turns, Minari packs a solid emotional punch that alone makes it worth watching. Simply put, it is one of the better movies about family dynamics and cultural assimilation of the past decade and is worth your time if you’re willing to become fully immersed in this family’s travails trying to make it as farmers in the American South. Raya and the Last Dragon Several good animated films came out this year, from Netflix’s The Mitchells vs. the Machines to Pixar’s Luca. Yet I tend to be apprehensive before watching modern children’s animated flicks because I no longer watch these kinds of movies through the eyes of a child and thus am worried that the sensibilities of a movie such as this simply won’t work on my anymore. Luckily with Disney Animation’s Raya and the Last Dragon, my worries dissipated by the end of the runtime. There’s a lot of solid ingredients needed to pull off a movie as potentially convoluted and hallow as Raya and the Last Dragon. For one thing, you need a well-constructed story with exceptional characters that avoid the pitfalls of clichéd sentimentality or excessive likeability. In the case of this film’s writers, Qui Nguyen and Adele Lim, the story of young-but-fierce warrior princess Raya (Kelly Marie Tran) working alongside the goofy dragon Sisu (Awkwafina) to restore peace among the five tribes of her land of Kumandra is told gracefully so as to never confuse the audience to the point of them no longer being engaged with it. Regarding the characters, there is some great animation and voice casting on display here. Whereas Tran fits the role of Raya well as a headstrong but compassionate young woman, Awkwafina as Sisu is used to great effect as both comedic relief and in establishing a dichotomous chemistry with Tran’s character which makes the evolution of their relationship over the course of the film all the more rewarding. Aside from the two leads, however, some standout supporting voice actors are Gemma Chan as Raya’s rival Namaari (with a rather nuanced relationship with her antagonist) and Alan Tudyk as the charming giant armadillo-like creature Tuk Tuk. Simply put, if you’re looking for a well-made film with a stellar Asian-majority cast but want something lighter and more uplifting than Minari, you will not go wrong with Raya and the Last Dragon. But just as an animated film, it stands out as one of Disney’s better movies of the last fifteen or so years. In the Heights Being familiar and rather impressed with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical work in Hamilton (I saw the stage show at the Kennedy Center back in 2018), I was excitedly curious about a film based on his breakout Broadway musical dealing with the Latino community of Washington Heights. Furthermore, this film’s director being Jon Chu was a good sign given how much I enjoyed his 2018 film Crazy Rich Asians. And despite the film’s unnecessarily long runtime, I thoroughly enjoyed In the Heights. As I’ve written about twice before, any good musical needs songs that do more than just catch your fancy or make you tap your foot. They need to effectively tell a story filled with heart and genuine humanity while also being entertaining. And those who are familiar with Miranda’s other work will by no means be surprised to know that he brings all of his mind-boggling talents to this project (and the musical on which it is based). Simply put, In the Heights excels at examining the various struggles and relationships of the characters that inhabit Miranda’s version of Washington Heights in New York City. Unlike some other movie musicals, In the Heights does not have one clear star to point to. However, the standouts for me were Anthony Ramos as the protagonist Usnavi and Melissa Barrera as his love interest Vanessa. Their chemistry, both when they’re in love and when they’re fighting, remains palpable throughout the movie. That being said, there isn’t really a weakest-link performance here. Out of all the songs, the introductory “In the Heights,” the ensemble “96,000,” and the cathartic “Alabanza” are the standouts for me. While some viewers of In the Heights may find this a less refined piece of work than Miranda’s later stylings like Hamilton or the next film I’ll be talking about, I found it to be refreshing in its stripped-down take on a pocket of the human experience unfamiliar to me yet relatable all the same. But if you’re just looking for a fun-filled movie musical, it works on that level for sure. tick, tick…BOOM! While I wanted to avoid shining a light on multiple Lin-Manuel Miranda projects, I simply couldn’t avoid discussing his feature directorial debut tick, tick…BOOM! Based on the autobiographical “rock monologue” of the same name by Jonathan Larson, the creator of the musical Rent, Miranda has adapted Larson’s artistic crisis surrounding his career prospects, feelings of rejection, and the tragic loss of some of his close friends into a thoroughly entertaining yet informative story for the big screen. Whereas In the Heights is Miranda’s celebration of community, heritage, culture, and place, his adaptation of tick, tick…BOOM! is an examination of one man experiencing an existential crisis as he nears his thirtieth birthday. Larson, played by the exceptionally charming and talented Andrew Garfield, is in a state of perpetual anxiety due to putting all of his blood, sweat, and tears into his sci-fi rock-musical passion project Superbia without any guarantee that it will pay off on Broadway. Miranda frames his take on Larson’s story by interrupting the past with the present intermittently: he uses Larson performing his “rock monologue” to propel his story forward. This film excels in a number of ways. Of course, the musical numbers are everything from funny to emotional to exhilarating. In my humble opinion, “Therapy,” “Real Life,” and “Louder Than Words” are the standouts which makes sense given who sings them. Aside from Garfield’s central performance as Larson (which may very well end up being Oscar-worthy in just a couple of months), Robin de Jesús stands out as Larson’s best friend with a less-than-idealistic take on the world and Vanessa Hudgens hold her own singing alongside Garfield (albeit she’s quite underutilized throughout much of the runtime). And even though she has few moments for her voice to shine, I thought Alexandra Shipp had great chemistry with Garfield as Larson’s girlfriend Susan. In another sense, tick, tick…BOOM! was very rewarding to watch as someone who was unfamiliar with Larson’s story or the minutiae of how artists like him (and countless others) strive for recognition in the world of theater. As someone who considers themselves familiar with the incredible, self-imposed stress of the creative process, I found Garfield’s portrayal of Larson to be powerfully empathetic and relatable which tends to be one of the keys to any film’s success. Watching him go through the seemingly never-ending obstacles just for a shot at a career on Broadway was both cathartic and great fodder for compelling music-infused drama. If you want a great ensemble musical with a broad cultural scope, than In the Heights is for you. However, if you’re more in the mood for a personal story with a breathtaking main performance from a great young actor, than tick, tick…BOOM! is the movie musical to watch. King Richard I am perhaps the farthest from a sports fan that you’ll find, but even I have heard the names Venus and Serena Williams before. All I knew about them before watching Reinaldo Marcus Green’s King Richard was that they are tennis stars. And, for some inexplicable reason, I was under the impression going into this film that it would be more from the Williams sisters’ perspectives. Perhaps I’m just that gullible. 😊 Luckily, King Richard is still a great sports movie despite focusing almost entirely on a single perspective: that of Venus and Serena’s incredibly driven and notoriously unlikeable father, Richard Williams. For the film is largely made great by Will Smith, the actor portraying Richard, who manages to humanize a figure that could easily come off to the audience as an anti-hero for treating many people around him as insignificant ants compared to his two tennis-playing daughters. Yet even in the scenes where Richard could feel utterly irredeemable, Smith never fails to remind us why Richard did what he did and that a parent’s love for their children can motivate them to do virtually anything and it would be understandable. While Will Smith is unquestionably the star of King Richard, he is surrounded by a great supporting cast. Within the Williams family, the actresses who portray Venus and Serena (Saniyya Sidney and Demi Singleton, respectively) have great chemistry together as well as with Smith himself. Despite not being the focus of the story, I also enjoyed the more understated nature of Aunjanue Ellis as Richard’s wife Brandy. Outside of the Williamses, undoubtedly the best supporting performance for my money is Jon Bernthal as Venus and Serena’s Florida tennis coach Rick Macci. Without knowing anything about the real man, Bernthal embodies such a unique character juxtaposed to Smith’s character; whereas Richard is headstrong to a fault, Macci appears to want the same for Venus and Serena but can barely contain his constant frustrations with Williams and thus has to take a more diplomatic approach to carve a path for the Williams sisters’ athletic success. What might just be the best quality of King Richard is the fact that it (mostly) avoids the traditional pitfalls of other sports movies. Notably, other movies in this particular genre tend to feel to me like they prioritize the action inherent in the athletics over creating sympathetic characters with relatable flaws whose commitment to their sport reflects an undeniable part of the human spirit. In that sense, King Richard embodies what makes some of the best sports movies like Miracle, The Wrestler, Warrior, and 42. If anything hurts King Richard, it’s the nearly two-and-a-half-hour runtime and the climactic tennis match that initially feels like the film’s relying on storytelling tropes that hurt other sports movies. But then the match goes against what one might expect, and the film proves my suspicions wrong and shows that it’s not only one of the best films from this year but also possibly one of the greatest sports films of this century. So, those are my thoughts on some of my favorite films of 2021. Of course, there are plenty of other good films from this year that are worth checking out: Shaka King’s Judas and the Black Messiah, Kevin Macdonald’s The Mauritanian, Navut Papushado’s Gunpowder Milkshake, Michael Sarnoski’s Pig, and James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. Just to name a few. 😉 For my thoughts on some other 2021 films, click on any of the titles below:
What are some of your favorite films from this year? What movies are you most excited to come out next year? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst
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With the release this weekend of Jon Watts’ third film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: No Way Home, we may very well be seeing the end of Tom Holland’s tenure as the wisecracking web crawler. Hopefully that is not the case, but if it is I want to take a moment (or a blog, if you’ll so indulge me) to look back at Holland’s portrayal of the character in six Marvel Studios films over the course of five years. In doing so, I want to show appreciation for what he has brought to this incredible franchise by putting a smile on tens of millions of viewers in movie theaters across the world.
So, without further ado…LET’S GET STARTED! Captain America: Civil War (2016) While I was not devoutly in tune with the behind-the-scenes machinations of Kevin Feige and Amy Pascal back in 2015, I know enough about the story now to know that Marvel Studios had a very difficult task before them when Sony Pictures agreed to lend them the character of Spider-Man to their cinematic universe. For starters, it would be the third live-action iteration of Peter Parker in eight years (Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, of course, being the other two) and thus audiences unfamiliar with the intricacies of this franchise might be confused about the relation of his new Spider-Man to his predecessors. Arguably the bigger obstacle ahead of them, however, was finding the perfect young actor to embody the youthful charm of Peter Parker and the physicality and sense of humor of Spider-Man (especially since the prior actors struggled to pull off the duality of this superhero). Needless to say, Marvel Studios was burdened with what may seem easy choices now but were, in fact, seemingly impossible odds back then. And yet, they managed to bring us perfection in the form of the then-19-year-old British actor Tom Holland. His look fits the part so well (even now, despite his voice sounding harsher and more mature, he looks so boyishly young). Furthermore, his diverse background which includes dance, gymnastics, and theater allow him to bring forth a physical vibrancy and agility to the big screen that never feels disingenuous. But, of course, one can only nail Peter Parker/Spider-Man if the performance captures the character’s well-intentioned naïveté and perseverant stick-to-itiveness. And in the very first scene of Peter Parker in the MCU, anyone who was remotely apprehensive about this take on the character came away feeling reassured by Holland’s performance of the writing from Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War. How did they pull off this feat? Simple. They did something different. I know it’s crazy, isn’t it? What is fresh about Holland’s take on Spider-Man in the MCU is the fact that all of the required origin story beats established in prior comic book movies, from Richard Donner’s groundbreaking Superman to Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man movie, are either hinted at or simply ignored. In Holland’s first scene in the MCU, he is prompted by Tony Stark to reveal how he received his superhuman abilities but is then interrupted by Stark before he can share it with the audience. Furthermore, he never once says or even alludes to the death of his Uncle Ben or the notion of “with great power comes great responsibility.” Instead, Peter’s superhero philosophy is encapsulated by this one sentence: “When you can do the things that I can but you don’t, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you.” This scene is so incredible because it allows the audience to fall in love with Holland’s take on Peter Parker before ever seeing him in action alongside the other Avengers. And it makes tease of the human part of Spider-Man’s story being fleshed out in future films all the more enticing. But then Holland gets in the red-and-blue, Stark-made suit, and the Russo Brothers give us some of the best Spider-Man action ever put to screen. As I mentioned earlier, any superhero whose identity is defined by the inherent tension of living a double life (as is the case with Peter Parker/Spider-Man) must be portrayed by an actor who can delineate between each part of the character without either part ever feeling truly separate from the other. Not only does Holland pull off Peter Parker, but he has given us a truly exceptional version of Spider-Man. In a matter of minutes that make up his screen time in Captain America: Civil War, he shows off his strength, fight strategy, and desire to live in the moment as he has so much fun fighting alongside and against the many superheroes we’ve come to know and love from Marvel Studios. In essence, Holland embodies the kid behind the mask as much he does the kid in school wanting to live up to his expectations of himself. From his one-on-two fight with Falcon (Anthony Mackie) and the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) to his heartfelt, friendly exchange with Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) about their shared home, Spider-Man cemented himself into the hearts of fans in this film and made us want so much more from him. Lucky for us, that is just what we got. 😊 Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) With such a fantastic first outing as Spider-Man, how could Marvel Studios outdo themselves with their first solo film for Holland’s take on the teenage web crawler? Simple: they, along with the creative team led by director Jon Watts, gave us Spider-Man: Homecoming which to this day remains (in my humble opinion) one of the best comic book movies ever made. Influenced by the coming-of-age films of John Hughes (The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), Watts and producer Kevin Feige sought to emphasize the importance of Parker’s growth as a young man as equal to that of his up-and-coming as a superhero. This approach shows just how much faith people should have in the creative team at Marvel Studios. By making Homecoming a film about adolescent problems as much as it is about superhero antics, Holland is able to truly ground the character in a universal relatability that lives up to the promise that other Spider-Man films have stumbled in their attempts to do. Much of the teenage charm of Homecoming comes from Holland’s chemistry with Peter Parker’s best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) and his crush Liz (Laura Harrier). Regarding the former, Batalon and Holland have such fantastic comedic timing that their interplay makes for an incredibly fun bromance competitive with the other amazing relationships of the MCU (from Tony Stark and James Rhodes to Thor and Loki). Regarding the latter, I appreciated seeing a different love interest for Parker aside from the classic choices of Mary-Jane Watson and Gwen Stacy. It felt like a believable and natural differentiation without ever drawing attention to it. And of course, Liz’s burgeoning romance with Parker is central to the plot, but I’ll get to that later. As far as Parker’s character arc in Homecoming goes, Holland explores any young person’s naïve desire to make a difference in the world and how such determination often conflicts with the grueling realities of the world around them. Whenever Parker reaches out for affirmation from Tony Stark or Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau), he more often than not is rejected yet doesn’t understand why during the first two acts. It is only when he gets in over his head during the riverboat scene (forcing Iron Man to come and help him) that Parker begins to truly understand the often-severe stakes and life-threatening risks of the superhero life. Needless to say, Holland effectively pulls off Parker’s journey realizing the need to focus more on being a “friendly neighborhood” superhero at this point in his life. Not, of course, without the help of Robert Downey, Jr. playing a side of Stark that fans of the MCU had not yet soon. He allows the audience to see Tony Stark as a mature mentor and father figure to Parker which not only serves Holland’s performance but is a powerful reminder of just how much Stark has been through since RDJ’s first outing as the character in 2008’s Iron Man. Simply put, I know that some people criticize how much Holland’s version of Spider-Man is tied to Iron Man’s character but I think the pros definitely outweigh the cons and I challenge anybody to put forth a convincing argument to the contrary. 😊 At the end of the day, however, the best element of Homecoming might just be the incredibly personal and genuinely unexpected twist regarding its main villain Adrian Toomes/Vulture (Michael Keaton). While the MCU has done major twist reveals like this before in films like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, I don’t think such a reveal has ever been handled better than in this movie. There are no obvious allusions or foreshadowing to the fact that the father of Peter’s crush has tried to kill him multiple times, which is an example of just how strong the writing is. I vividly remember being in the theaters on opening night soaking in the audience’s simultaneous shock and awe when Holland opens the door with a grin on his face only to be faced with Keaton standing there to greet him and immediately sink into himself. At the heart of Spidey’s conflict with Vulture, however, is their mutual love for Liz but their polar opposite outlooks on what doing good means putting them at odds with each other. In that respect, Keaton remains one of the best villains of the MCU precisely because his relationship with the hero is not defined by malice, jealousy, or pure hatred but respect and admiration regardless of any ideological or ethical differences of opinion. I could go on and on about Homecoming because it simply is one of my favorite comic book movies of all time. But it also may very well be the best iteration of Spider-Man in film that we’ll ever get (at least for the foreseeable future). And if that’s the case, I feel that Homecoming is an exceptional achievement of cinematic storytelling worth being the standard bearer for how Spider-Man can be done in the movies. Avengers: Infinity War (2018) With a brief yet memorable introduction in Captain America: Civil War and a fantastic first solo outing in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Tom Holland’s third performance as Spider-Man (in only two years, remember) was in the Russo Brothers’ superhero epic Avengers: Infinity War. While Peter Parker is by no means the central focus of this film’s narrative, he is certainly an enjoyable part of the incredible ensemble “assembled” (😊) here. With virtually every character that he interacts with in Infinity War, from Tony Stark and Doctor Strange to the Guardians of the Galaxy, Holland injects his youthful presence into some dramatic and intense scenes to offer much-needed levity (I particularly enjoy his back-and-forth with Peter Quill/Star-Lord about Kevin Bacon and his awkward first official meeting with Strange). Furthermore, his upgraded “Iron Spider” suit and his web-slinging abilities culminate in some of the coolest action choreography of the film (most notable his Aliens-inspired plan to take out Ebony Maw in space and his portal-jumping, ass-kicking assault against Thanos on Titan). As a character, however, Parker is more than just a swinging-and-punching quip machine in Infinity War. For the Russo knew what they had in terms of his father-son relationship with Tony Stark established in Civil War and developed in Homecoming. They pull at our heartstrings earlier on in the film when Peter achieves his lifelong dream of finally (officially) being made an Avenger by Stark. This is such a great moment for Spidey in the MCU as it not only serves as an emotionally satisfying affirmation of Parker’s admiration for Iron Man, but the way that Robert Downey, Jr. performs that initiation as a moment of nervous reluctance only makes Peter’s tragic demise during the climax of Infinity War all the more devastating. Now sure, there were many fan-favorite characters that Thanos managed to snap away into dust (from Sam Wilson and Wanda Maximoff to Groot and Nick Fury). But (in my humble opinion) it is Parker’s slow-yet-assured dusting in the arms of Stark that packs the biggest wallop to my tear ducts since my initial viewing of this movie in theaters. To highlight why I think this is the case, let me briefly criticize 2018’s Black Panther. To be clear, I have no substantive qualms with the late Chadwick Boseman’s performance as T’Challa/Black Panther in the MCU. That being said, we had just as much (if not more) screentime with his character than with Holland up to that point but I did not feel that gut-wrenching heartache upon seeing him dust away in Infinity War. But why is that? I think that it all goes back to the climactic scene in Spider-Man: Homecoming when Parker has seemingly been defeated and crushed under rubble by Michael Keaton’s Vulture. When he feels powerless to do anything himself, his dust-covered lungs cough out a high-pitched scream for help. Think about that for a second; a superhero capable of holding up vehicles with his own two hands and fighting off the likes of the Avengers cries out for help. Watching this induces the audience with such a strong empathy for Spidey for one reason and one reason only: he’s just a kid. And that is what we feel during Infinity War when not only we realize that he’s about to fade out of existence but that he feels it coming on it before it actually happens. And the knife-to-the-heart cherry on top is watching Stark—defeated and deflated by Thanos’s victory—look into this boy’s eyes as he apologizes for not living up to his mentor’s expectations of him. If you watch that and feel nothing, than I guess you simply have no soul. 😊 Avengers: Endgame (2019) While Spider-Man has less screentime in Avengers: Endgame than in the prior film, he arguably has a more significant role in the plot. Specifically, his presence in Tony Stark’s final character journey of this film hovers over the approximately two hours and twenty minutes before he finally returns to life (along with all the other snapped-away heroes and their allies). When we examine Stark’s character arc in Endgame, it is the culmination of his journey in the MCU since Iron Man back in 2008. He started out in that film as a selfish, narcissistic asshole that lacked any empathy for those who suffered at the hands of that which gave him his abhorrently excessive billions. But throughout his time in the cinematic universe, he has proven to have—as Pepper Potts might put it—grown a heart. And by the time of the five-year time jump in Endgame, he initially shows a resorting back to that selfishness by refusing to help Steve, Natasha and the others undo Thanos’s actions out of fear that doing so could also undo the time he’s had being a father and living a peaceful life. But all it takes to remind him of what it means to be a true superhero is seeing a photo of Peter Parker in his lakeside cabin. It is Spidey’s innocence and promise for a future as a great hero and person that causes the spark in Tony’s mind to decide and seriously commit himself to finding a way to fix everything. Thus, with Parker’s seeming death in Infinity War, Stark is ultimately propelled by his love for his young superhero-in-training to his fate sacrificing himself for the sake of the universe. But, of course, the Russo Brothers cannot kill off Iron Man before giving him the reunion between him and Parker that we were waiting for since the end of Infinity War. Simply put, I am on the verge of shedding tears (albeit of joy this time) every time I see Tony reunite with Peter amidst the battle against Thanos. Finally, he reciprocates the hug that Parker tried to give him back in Homecoming which just goes to show how much Stark cared for him in the end despite never saying it out loud. Separate from his relationship with Stark, Spider-Man has some brief but thoroughly enjoyable interplay with the many other Avengers fighting alongside the main team during the climactic battle in Endgame. I always grin when Captain America—after referring to Parker as “Queens” —throws Thor’s hammer Mjolnir to Spidey so that he can web onto it and escape Thanos’s soldiers. Furthermore, I always laugh when he’s nearly suffocated holding Stark’s gauntlet with the six Infinity Stones before being saved by Captain Marvel and can only muster: “Hi, I’m…Peter Parker.” To cap off his ensemble appearances (at least for now) in the MCU, Holland appears at Stark’s funeral alongside Aunt May (Marisa Tomei). And what is clear based on his placement in the crowd of attendees is that Marvel Studios is positioning their version of Spider-Man to be one of the most important Avengers in the post-Endgame world. Only time will tell if that comes to fruition. Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) To expand on my initial thoughts from my super-sized blog about the MCU’s “Infinity Saga” as a whole, I was somewhat disappointed by 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home in terms of where Holland’s version of Spider-Man was taken. Much of this has to do with how this film compares to the incredible work done by Holland, director Jon Watts and the entire cast and crew on Homecoming, but for now I’ll mention the positives about this film. Having seen the film twice, I think that my favorite aspect of Far From Home is the way that Watts directs Parker’s burgeoning—but appropriately awkward—romantic relationship with Michelle/MJ (Zendaya). It seems that this element of the film harkens the most back to his John Hughes-inspired tone of Homecoming, which I think works incredibly well. Of course, the charmingly off-kilter dynamic between Parker and MJ could not work without the committed performances of both Holland and Zendaya, respectively (in retrospect, not surprising given the fact that they are now dating in real life). By the film’s end, I am happy that their relationship has evolved in the way that it has and I am very much looking forward to seeing more of their rapport in Spider-Man: No Way Home. In terms of the main story, I think that Watts’ approach to Far From Home is actually a pretty creative and intelligent inverse of Spidey’s thematic journey in Homecoming. Whereas Parker’s ambitions to be an Avengers-level superhero are stifled by Stark’s mentorship in the latter, his longing for some semblance of normality in the former is constantly diverted by the escapades of the illusions of Quentin Beck/Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal). In the wake of Thanos’s war on the universe in Infinity War and Endgame, Watts seemed to know that the best direction to take the story of a teenage superhero who suffered through all of that intense action and trauma was to ground his motivations in wanting nothing more than to live something of a regular adolescent existence. Unfortunately, I don’t think this vision is pulled off completely effectively which gets to my main criticisms of Far From Home. Namely, I felt that taking Parker away from New York City for the majority of the movie confirmed many of the harsher fans’ critique of Marvel Studios’ take on Spider-Man by plucking him out of his “friendly neighborhood” environment and sending him on a European summer vacation that just felt like a somewhat uninspired excuse to blossom his romance with MJ. Furthermore, Watts’ handling of Parker feeling the burden of being “the next Iron Man” in the wake of Stark’s death came off to me as relatively cheap compared to Holland’s dynamic and relationship with RDJ in prior movies. It feels like in this film there was just too much telling us how much Parker’s relationship to Stark means to him rather than showing us. Don’t get me wrong; Far From Home is by no means a bad superhero movie. In fact, I think that it’s quite a good one. I love Jacob Batalon’s use as comedic levity throughout the runtime, Gyllenhaal commits to the two-faced nature of Mysterio, and Samuel L. Jackson and Holland both bring their A-game (as always) to Nick Fury and Spidey, respectively. I just think that this movie (in some ways) pales in comparison to Homecoming. But when the film’s incredibly exciting post-credits scene unmasked Spider-Man, I was never more excited in that moment for a sequel to an MCU film than sitting in that theater thinking to myself: “What the f**k happens now?” Let’s hope that No Way Home lives up to the hype. Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) [NOTE: This blog contains spoilers for “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” You have been warned.] Coming off of Far from Home, I was very worried that Marvel Studios would make a follow-up film that would not realistically address the drastic consequences of Peter Parker’s identity being revealed. Furthermore, once the trailers for No Way Home came out, I became incredibly nervous about Jon Watts, Kevin Feige, and Amy Pascal repeating the Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 mistake of “villain overload.” So, did No Way Home live up to the hype? Simply put… YES!!! 😊 Why? Let’s dive into it, shall we? Unquestionably, the weakest part of No Way Home was the first thirty-ish minutes. And that’s saying something, because I found the beginning to be great story wise. I greatly appreciated the fact that Jon Watts did not simply brush over Parker’s identity being revealed to the world. Rather, he showed us how this uproots the lives of Parker, Aunt May, Happy, MJ, and Ned from all of them being questioned by the authorities to having to move out of their apartment to simply get off the grid from the press and the public who have quickly taken sides over whether or not Spider-Man is actually a murderous criminal. That being said, the first act is somewhat poorly paced and offers little clear hints as to how much time passes unless the plot of Far from Home is fresh in your mind (for context, it’s roughly four months from the end of summer to near Christmastime). But, fortunately, the funny back-and-forth between our principal cast is enough to keep you engaged long enough for the meat of the plot to get going. And once it gets going, man does it go! It is Peter’s decision to receive help from Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to erase the world’s memory that causes everything in the multiverse to go incredibly haywire. Specifically, his unintentional tampering cause villains who have fought Spider-Man in alternate universes (i.e. the Raimi trilogy, the Webb duology) to enter the MCU and track down Holland’s Spidey. From the get-go, Holland’s interaction with these Raimi-Webb villains is just fantastic. Despite the trailers focusing on it too much, his fight on the bridge with Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina) more than delivered in terms of both the action and the banter. (Side Note: I LOVED how effectively the Raimi villains were adapted from the 2000s in terms of their dialogue and mannerisms). Furthermore, I appreciated how Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) fit his character arc in Spider-Man 3 by helping Spidey against Electro (Jamie Foxx) before being duped himself into being captured like the other villains, such as Dr. Curt Connors/Lizard (Rhys Ifans). But, without a doubt, the standout villain performance in No Way Home is Willem Dafoe returning as Norman Osborn/Green Goblin. Bringing with him the dual-personality insanity from the Raimi trilogy, Dafoe not only has some of the best lines of the film but also some of the most intimate and visceral action sequences with Holland’s Spidey. His turn at the end of the second act, which incites (most of) the other villains to turn against Spider-Man, works so well as the critically tragic downturn that allows the audience to feel the weight of Peter Parker’s decision to follow his heart and try to cure them of the source of their evil. Which brings me to what, in my humble opinion, puts No Way Home over the top as the best Spider-Man movie. Instead of simply bringing these villains back as an entertaining gimmick, the creative teams at Sony and Marvel Studios used Spidey and Strange’s competing moral compasses to remind us of the pure heart that is Peter Parker before ripping his heart out by killing Aunt May as an example of the consequences of his poor decisions. To be clear, I was more entertained by Dafoe’s villainy but I think Marisa Tomei wins out as the best supporting performance. It is her character’s powerful hold over her nephew’s desire to do good that acts as the catalyst for the tragic story of Peter Parker in this film. And I’ll admit that her death in Holland’s arms pushed me to the verge of tears. From there, No Way Home just gets better and better. Now having lost his sole-surviving parent figure, he nearly gives up all hope for these displaced villains before Ned and MJ (and a couple of other Spider-Men 😊) bring it back by reminding him of what it means to make a loved one’s sacrifice mean something. Which gives us an incredibly action-packed, emotional, and satisfying third act where Holland, Tobey Maguire, and Andrew Garfield team up to cure the villains before preparing to send them back to their respective universes. And the fight is fantastic (particularly Doc Ock’s turncoat role as the fourth-wheel of the Spidey trio who helps them out), but for me it truly is the way the story resolves that puts No Way Home over the top. And I LOVED that Holland’s Peter Parker concocts the horrifically tragic, but ultimately necessary, decision to erase everyone’s memories of him in order to save their lives. Without a doubt, Holland’s Spidey becomes one of purest heroes of the MCU by giving up his relationships with MJ, Ned, and Happy in order to save their lives (not to mention the multiverse). All in all, Spidey’s journey in No Way Home was pulled off so well in spite of all the inherent storytelling obstacles in Marvel’s path that the movie has no better place than as the best Spider-Man film. Period. And while I absolutely anticipate Sony and Marvel Studios continuing to work together to create a follow up of one of the best comic book movies ever, I think that Watts, Holland, and the entire cast and crew did a damn near-perfect job wrapping up Spidey’s character arc in the MCU if indeed it is his last film. What is your favorite Tom Holland appearance as Spider-Man? Do you want to see Holland portray the wisecracking web crawler in the future or a new actor take up the mantle in live action? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay I never grew up admiring the character of James Bond nor did I mark the occasion of the release of a new Bond film as a special cinematic occasion. I was more focused on Star Wars and the burgeoning Marvel Cinematic Universe, and I just never was particularly intrigued by spy movies to begin with. When I decided to watch through the four James Bond films starring Daniel Craig in the lead role, I truly did not know what to expect. I also genuinely was unsure if I would like any of them to any extent. But with the release of Cary Joji Fukunaga’s No Time to Die this weekend―Craig’s final outing in the role―I thought it’d be fitting to look back at all of the James Bond films starring Craig and see how he has evolved in the role and how various creators have translated Bond for the 21st century. So, without further ado…LET’S GET STARTED! Casino Royale (2006) I had certainly heard good things about Martin Campbell’s 2006 film Casino Royale in which Craig makes his first appearance as Bond. But to reiterate I was doubtful if any spy films could suck me into liking this character born out of the 1960s. From what I understood of Bond’s character as a narcissistic, misogynistic secret agent personified by the likes of Sean Connery (among others), I came into this film automatically standoffish to any attempt to modernize the character. But then Daniel Craig in Casino Royale just pulls it off in such a way that makes it somehow work. Much of what works about this film for me is encapsulated in the opening scene where Bond―shrouded in darkness and sitting in a corner―has a chat with his target before killing him without hesitation. At its core, this scene is about Bond being in complete control of the situation and pulling off the hit without breaking a sweat. Such a cool, badass way to introduce Bond but especially introducing an uninitiated viewer such as myself to who this character is. And then, throughout the course of the film’s runtime, we get to see Bond face increasingly difficult challenges that highlight the fact that he is not superhuman and is not even an experienced agent yet. But he retains a sense of calm confidence that reassures the audience that he will always get out of a sticky situation even if the people around him do not believe him. Halfway through the runtime, I was shocked at how much I was enjoying Casino Royale despite its slow-burn nature. For me, a film that can build suspense gradually and make the payoffs so rewarding is one of the greatest successes of the three-act structure (lookin’ at you, Parasite!). And this movie dispelled my initial trepidations about this kind of spy movie because it warmed me up to the story and the characters while escalating the tension slowly but effectively leading up to the second-act poker game. Without question, this set piece excels at virtually everything it is trying to achieve from establishing the character dynamics between Bond and his love interest Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), his American counterpart Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright), and his nemesis Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen). Not only does the story advance with the various stages of the poker game, but the interstitial action offers multiple opportunities to display Bond’s skill sets and inject more meaning into his burgeoning romance with Vesper to help the third-act climax all the more impactful and powerful. Ultimately, any movie (in my humble opinion) only works as well as its characters and the extent to which I feel invested in both their individual journeys and their relationships with the other characters. Without question, Crag and Green’s chemistry may not be in-your-face lovable but by the end (and before Vesper’s demise) I want them to have a life together. I also feel genuinely betrayed by Vesper screwing Bond over, but then my heart breaks seeing Bond unable to save her from drowning. If someone told me that Casino Royale would take on a satisfying emotional rollercoaster before I first watched it, I would not have believed them. My favorite Craig’s take on Bond remains up in the air, but at the end of the day I stand by Casino Royale being the best of his five James Bond films (and arguably one of the best movies of the 21st century). By the time the credits were rolling, I was ready to see Bond’s revenge story in the sequel. If only the sequel lived up to the hype… Quantum of Solace (2008) I have little to say about Quantum of Solace, Marc Forster’s direct follow-up to Casino Royale. Mainly because I did not like it and do not understand why anyone does. The first twenty-ish minutes immediately caused me to put my guard up as I found the editing of the car chase in Italy to not only lack cohesion but be incredibly straining to the eyes. The hyper-rapid cutting made me damn-near nauseous to the point that I had to close my eyes for extended periods of time just to readjust my gaze on the screen. When it comes to the story of Quantum of Solace, the choice to make it more convoluted and complex than its predecessor was sorely misguided. Instead of intensely focusing on Bond’s revenge for the first two acts, we get an unengaging narrative about a coup d’etat in Brazil enacted by some faceless terrorist organization that I don’t care about at all. There are no memorable supporting characters or villains in the movie, and Bond lacks any sort of captivating character arc like he had in Casino Royale where he faced the gravity of the consequences of being a spy. Simply put, Quantum of Solace sucks and it does not deserve to be in the same franchise as Casino Royale or Skyfall (or even Spectre for that matter). But it is, so whatever. Skyfall (2012) If Casino Royale is the epitome of “slow-burn” filmmaking in a stylized action spy movie, then Skyfall multiplies the action and takes a hint from some of the more recent entries in the Mission: Impossible franchise to craft one of the best action flicks of this century. Of course, one cannot begin to discuss the greatness of Skyfall without addressing the cold-open action scene and the breathtaking title sequence. Immediately the audience is thrown into a tense action set piece where we see Craig’s version of Bond at the peak of his abilities as a super spy. And it all builds to Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) inadvertently shooting (and presumably killing) Bond. As he falls into the water below the running train, we are treated to one of the best opening credits sequences that I have ever seen for a movie. Undeniably, the animation expertly captivates the eye while also telling the story of Bond’s survival and escape into early retirement. But what completes the ambiance of this sequence (and establishes the melancholic tone of the whole movie) is Adele’s rendition of the titular song. Her voice is both illuminating and haunting in a way that communicates so clearly the incredibly high stakes that Skyfall has going forward. From there, director Sam Mendes offers up a well-executed action movie with genuine stakes that harkens back to Casino Royale in terms of its grounded character dynamics but amps up the action to keep the pace fresh. Furthermore, this film puts Bond into an incredibly dangerous “cat-and-mouse” chase with ex-spy-turned-cyberterrorist Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem). But setting aside the action and story, what really allows Skyfall to transcend other films like it (in my humble opinion) is the believable and humanizing mother-son relationship between Craig’s Bond and M (Judi Dench). While I really fell in love with Craig and Green’s chemistry in Casino Royale, I actually Bond’s dynamic with M a little better in terms of his characterization. Whereas Vesper Lynd was a well-done, modernized Bond girl, M offers a look at Bond through a different lens in that it highlights his non-romantic attachments that form his core weaknesses of personality which make him so vulnerable during the film’s climax. Coming down to the last twenty minutes or so, Skyfall culminates all of the emotional stakes and high-octane action choreography into a very touching parting between Bond and M that made me feel for Bond as much (if not more) than when he watched his love drown to death in front of him in Casino Royale. Needless to say, it remains one of my favorite movies of the last two decades and holds up as one of the best action spy movies of all time. Spectre (2015) Going into the 2015 follow-up to Skyfall, I was quite certain that Mendes would simply be unable to capture lightning in a bottle twice (which ended up being true). In many respects, Spectre would probably stand out as one of the better Bond movies of the last few decades if not for the existence of its predecessors like Casino Royale and Skyfall. Largely speaking, that expectation was met for me as I found Spectre to be a decent movie but not a great one. Ultimately, much of my lackluster response to this movie comes down to just how much it pales in comparison to other Bond flicks and other movies like it. For starters, the central journey of Bond longing to retire from spy work lacks the impact that it needed for me to care because it’s been done better in films like Logan and Mission: Impossible III. While I understand why Bond wants to retire given all that he’s been through, he never felt like he was adamantly pushing for it for much of the runtime. When it comes to the villainous mastermind of Spectre personified in Ernst Blofeld (Christoph Waltz), he simply pales in comparison to Raoul Silva from the previous movie. Whereas Bardem’s character in Skyfall served as a great foil to Bond as both coming from MI6 but coming away with very different perspectives on the work that they do, Waltz’s character in this film feels like Mendes’s one example of trying to one-up something from Skyfall by creating a personal grudge between Blofeld and Bond. At the end of the day, though, this just felt forced and beneath Waltz’s talents as an actor. I also found the plot of Spectre to be (almost) as forgettable as the one in Quantum of Solace, with the roles of various characters (notably Ralph Fiennes as the new M) lacking significance or relevance to make me care enough. While I did not hate watching Spectre, by the end I was thinking to myself: “Man, I hope Craig’s run as Bond ends on a higher note than this.” No Time to Die (2021)
[NOTE: This blog contains spoilers for “No Time to Die.” You have been warned.] While Craig’s final outing as Bond was not the powerful sendoff that some people are saying it is, I was pretty satisfied with No Time to Die as someone who has no childhood nostalgia or sentimental attachment to the character and his rich, complex history. There is a good deal to like about this film, but also some undeniable drawbacks. So, let’s dive in, shall we? 😊 For me, what is perhaps best about No Time to Die is the character arc that Craig is given here. While not as intellectually engaging or emotionally satisfying as his journey in Casino Royale, Bond’s grappling with his age ended up being more thoughtful and profound than I figured it would be. Unlike some other movies that tackle the protagonists confronting their mortality, Craig wrestles with more than just his physical deteriorating (not only because he still comes off as fit and physically capable as ever). In short, Bond must admit to himself that he wants a life beyond espionage with people to care about and love. While virtually any other Bond film would shroud this story in an unbelievable guise of machismo for the sake of saving his archetype from being―God forbid―humanized, director Cary Fukunaga makes Bond emotionally vulnerable. Perhaps some diehard Bond fans will find this arc unbefitting of the exemplar action star, but I thought it was refreshing and a suitable conclusion to this Bond’s journey as well as Craig’s tenure as the womanizing super spy. Aside from Craig as Bond, No Time to Die allows two specific supporting characters―one returning and one new―to shine in the film’s first act. Despite his minimal screen time, I greatly appreciated Jeffrey Wright’s return as CIA agent Felix Leiter. Not only do we see an unspoken history having developed between Leiter and Bond via their friendly interactions at a dance club in Jamaica, but his final interaction with Bond in a sinking tugboat is quite touching. Essentially, Felix is a mirror for Bond to look and see what will happen if he stays in the game too long: he will never get to live the life he wanted, just as Felix has missed his shot before his demise. The somewhat (but ultimately not) surprising standout from the supporting case was newcomer Ana de Armas as fresh-faced CIA agent Paloma. Not only is she charming as hell, but she holds her own alongside Bond and the new 007 (Lashana Lynch) in one of the film’s best fight sequences that takes place in Cuba. While de Armas initially comes off as a dolt or fangirl, she more than proves herself in a fight by shooting and kicking her way out of a jam while in high heels and an evening gown. While I know that Craig is done with the role of Bond, I am hopeful that de Armas returns in a future installment in a more prominent role because her badass female presence is much-needed in this franchise (and in the modern action genre as a whole). Regarding the action sequences in No Time to Die, they are few and far between but generally “punch” (pun intended 😊) when they happen. I was particularly entertained by the intense car chase through the narrow streets of Matera, Italy during the film’s extended cold open scene. I found it a great way to get back into Craig’s Bond universe after Spectre. And the action steps it up a notch in the third act with an incredibly composed one-shot shootout between Bond and the goons of Safin (Rami Malek) through several flights of stairs. If you’re looking for constant action, you won’t get it here. But if you’re fine with some punctuated action set pieces that you can count on one hand, then I think you’ll appreciate this movie. I did ultimately enjoy No Time to Die, so I don’t want to focus on the negatives as much. But there are some specific elements of the movie that I want to highlight so you’re aware of them going into it. To begin, I believed the emotional stakes of Bond’s journey via Craig’s acting but the chemistry he has with Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux) leaves something to be desired. I don’t blame Seydoux’s or Craig’s acting skills, but rather the writing of their scenes together lacks the strong gut punch needed to carry what is intended to be a tear-jerker ending for their story. Which is disappointing considering this film has an unnecessarily stretched-out runtime spanning over two-and-a-half hours. Certainly, their screentime could have been used more ergonomically to make Bond’s farewell more impactful. But it just was not. Furthermore, while I appreciated both Wright’s and de Armas’ presence in this movie I found the other supporting characters lackluster in comparison. I did like Ralph Fiennes’ “M” more interesting here than in Spectre, but his dynamic with Bond still pales in comparison to Craig’s chemistry with Dame Judi Dench from Skyfall. But he has more to do than either Ben Whishaw as “Q” or Naomie Harris as Moneypenny who ultimately fulfill their roles in the plot and make very little impression beyond that. Regarding newcomers Lashana Lynch as the new 007 and Rami Malek as the villain Safin, I came away from the movie feeling that their performances were adequate and sufficient but not super memorable or resonant. So, is No Time to Die a fitting end for Craig’s run as James Bond? In some ways it is, and I think its strengths outweigh its flaws. That being said, this is not a film that I plan on rewatching anytime soon. And without a doubt in my mind, it pales in comparison to both Casino Royale and Skyfall. At the end of the day, how will I remember Daniel Craig’s turn as James Bond? Well, my lack of attachment to this character or this franchise makes it easy to say that I’ll reminisce fondly about Casino Royale and Skyfall and not think much past those two films. Honestly, I’d be fine if the Bond franchise ended with No Time to Die because (in my humble opinion) this character has been (and will continue to be) very difficult to modernize while retaining that which defines him. But, I’m not in charge of the franchise so I guess I’ll keep my eye out for what comes next for Bond even though I’m in no way, shape, or form eager for it. With all that said, here is my official ranking of Daniel Craig’s five “James Bond” films:
What is your favorite Daniel Craig appearance as Bond? Who do you want to see play the next Bond? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst The Walking Dead has been a part of my life for a very long time. I vividly recall cutting out of a family gathering when I was 14 to head downstairs and watch something on Netflix (who knows what anymore). But when I looked at Netflix’s suggestions, this show called The Walking Dead showed up. It seemed scary, and I was even more averse to the horror genre back then than I am now. Yet something about it grabbed my attention and I decided to press play. Was it the zombie concept? Was it the post-apocalyptic lens? Was it the family story at the heart of it all? Honestly, I don’t remember anymore. But after the first scene of the pilot episode, “Days Gone Bye,” I was immediately hooked. I binged the entire first season that night, and then caught up with the second season that was airing at the time. Ever since, I have been a diehard fan through the show’s best and worst days. I also read the complete graphic novel series by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard out of my sheer desire to see another version of this story. Needless to say, The Walking Dead holds a special place in my heart for so many reasons. So, when it was announced in the fall of 2020 that the series would be ending with a super-sized eleventh season, I knew that I had to complete a series rewatch and write a blog reflecting on the show in its entirety. While I set out to write exclusively about movies for this blog, I felt that The Walking Dead deserved to be the first (and perhaps only?) exception to that rule. So, without further ado…LET’S GET STARTED! Darabont & Mazzara: The Early Years (2010-2013) Going back to the first few seasons of The Walking Dead was quite surreal. While I’ve gone back and rewatched specific episodes from years past, starting from the beginning and watching the show chronologically was an incredible and fulfilling experience (especially looking back at its early years). I stand by the fact that the first season of The Walking Dead is undeniably one of the best seasons of television of this century. And it all starts with the pilot, “Days Gone Bye,” which impressed me to the point that, after over 150 episodes of the show, it is still one of my top-three favorite episodes. Why? A lot of my love for the pilot comes down to the sensitive approach to visual and character-driven storytelling from writer-director-showrunner-creator Frank Darabont. Darabont’s claims to fame prior to overseeing the first season-and-a-half of The Walking Dead were writing the directing two of the best film adaptations of Stephen King novels ever made: 1994’s The Shawshank Redemption and 1999’s The Green Mile. Needless to say, I am a HUGE fan of Darabont’s writing and directing in both of these films (both being two of my favorite films ever made), and that gravitas carries over into “Days Gone Bye” as we meet small-town sheriff Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) as he wakes up from a gunshot-induced coma and faces the zombie apocalypse for the first time. I could write a whole blog on “Days Gone Bye,” so to condense my thoughts I want to focus on two scenes that contrasted with each other highlight the emotional and thematic core of what The Walking Dead is. First, the opening scene of Rick looking for gas amongst a rubble of abandoned vehicles only to find a little girl (Addy Miller) holding a stuffed animal. Once he offers to help her, the girl turns around to reveal that she is already zombified and thus forces Rick’s hand (literally) and he puts her down. Most shows that introduce their protagonist by having him shoot a child square in the head would either be cancelled before being ordered to series or suffer from such low ratings that they wouldn’t survive for a second season. But this scene perfectly encapsulates the stakes of the world that is The Walking Dead in which morally-centered people like Rick Grimes will be forced to make morally-ambiguous (or straight-up, morally-deprived) decisions that will follow them forever. This scene alone would leave a lasting impression on the audience. But as “Days Gone Bye” revs up towards its climax, we experience an emotional catharsis in an expertly-edited scene where Rick (largely recovered from his gunshot wound and armed for the end of the world) goes back to put down Hannah, better known as “Bicycle Girl” (Melissa Cowan), who was the first zombie he saw after waking up from the coma. Intercut with this introspective scene is Morgan Jones (Lennie James), a single father who saved Rick earlier in the episode and is going through an intense emotional turmoil wherein he is trying to work up the gumption to shoot his zombified wife Jenny (Keisha Tillis). The thematic contrast in this scene of how these two men treat zombies this early in the apocalypse is so stark and impactful for the larger themes about the human condition that The Walking Dead explores for seasons to come. While Rick has decided to have empathy for the “walkers” (one of the many terms used by the characters in the show for zombies) by ending their horrific existence, Morgan’s emotional attachment to his wife (despite her already being dead) shows a relatable weakness that will haunt him and characters like him for years to come. If that is not The Walking Dead in a nutshell, I don’t know what is. Regarding the rest of Season 1, I want to highlight a couple more elements that I really enjoyed in terms of going back to where The Walking Dead began. Something that I expected to like that I really loved was reliving the introductions of so many fan-favorite characters (most of which have died at this point), from Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun) over the tank radio at the end of “Days Gone Bye” before seeing him in the flesh helping Rick out in “Guts” to Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) showing up at camp to only rag on the other survivors about not killing a “walker” properly after complaining about his game being tainted: “Son-of-a-bitch! That’s MY deer!” 😊 In terms of the show capitalizing on its horror vibe, nothing from Season 1 is scarier than when Shane (Jon Bernthal), Dale (Jeffrey DeMunn), Morales (Juan Pareja) and the others fend off a herd of walkers invading the Atlanta Camp. The pacing of the episode “Vatos” is done so well wherein much of the tension is relieved after Rick, Daryl, Glenn and T-Dog (IronE Singleton) make amends and compromise with Guillermo (Neil Brown, Jr.) and his gang over the guns. This makes the audience complacent so that when Amy (Emma Bell), the younger sister of main character Andrea (Laurie Holden), is suddenly (almost innocuously) bitten on the arm we are brutally reminded of the life-or-death stakes of this world. I also appreciate some of the subtler, smaller character moments that lay the foundation for future character relationships and dynamics so well. There is perhaps no better example of this than in episode five, “Wildfire,” when now-widowed abusee Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride) takes the pickaxe from Daryl to keep her feasted-upon abusive husband Ed (Adam Minarovich) from reanimating. It is a beautifully understated scene where Daryl says nothing and just watches Carol take out all of her pent-up anger over years of marriage on Ed’s skull. Without question, this begins laying the groundwork for their relationship for the rest of the show (and clearly showed only a sliver of McBride’s acting chops so early in the show where most viewers were not taking her character very seriously). Something I will be doing for each season of The Walking Dead is addressing the more controversial story and character choices in an effort to re-evaluate them to determine if (in my humble opinion) these choices are actually as bad as some fans (former or current) of the show believe. Easily the most controversial Season 1 story choice was “TS-19,” the finale episode in which Darabont and his creative team give their viewers the most significant peak-behind-the-curtain regarding how and why the zombie virus happened in the first place. Not only was this a huge diversion from Kirkman’s graphic novel (which never truly addresses the origins of the zombie plague that ended the world), but how it handled this subject was somewhat controversial (evidenced by “TS-19” being the second-lowest-rated of the season on Rotten Tomatoes). While one can argue that the decision to confirm that the virus is global and how it takes over the human brain takes away from what the core of the show is about, I’ve always really enjoyed “TS-19.” Less so for its world-building and more for its character work. Notably, I thoroughly appreciate the dinner scene with all the survivors the night they arrive at the Atlanta CDC and Rick’s drunken confession to Dr. Edwin Jenner (Noah Emmerich) about his diminishing optimism for the chances that his loved ones will survive the apocalypse. If nothing else, “TS-19” leaves the survivors in a very interesting place by the end of Season 1: together, will little hope for the future. Moving onto Season 2, which is undeniably the most maligned by fans of The Walking Dead’s early years. So, I will be going against the grain with the following statement: Season 2 is the most underrated season of The Walking Dead. To be clear, I understand many peoples’ major critiques of Season 2. Primarily, the fact that The Walking Dead is a cable television show that releases weekly (with a two-month midseason break) can grate viewers’ patience with the sometimes-slow pacing. However, I think that the merits of storytelling of Season 2 overshadow any (arguably) clunky pacing of the season as a whole or from episode to episode. Of course, the heart of this season’s story is fleshing out the love triangle between protagonist Rick, his best friend Shane, and Rick’s wife Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies). This element of the story drives one of the most captivating character arcs of The Walking Dead: Shane’s devolution into the first significant human antagonist. This begins with him using lovable oaf Otis (Pruitt Taylor Vince) as zombie-bait to save the life of Carl Grimes (Chandler Riggs) in “Save the Last One” and ends with him taking advantage of captive teen Randall (Michael Zegen) in an effort to lure Rick into the woods and kill him in “Better Angels.” Obviously, Shane’s darker side was teased back in Season 1 with him beating Carol’s husband Ed within an inch of his life in “Tell It to the Frogs” and him aiming his shotgun at Rick’s head in the woods in “Wildfire. However, his transformation is fully fleshed out in Season 2 as Rick being cemented more and more as the survivors’ leader (along with Lori’s husband and Carl’s father) causes Shane to become less forgiving of Rick’s decisions and more jealous and vengeful towards his former best friend. Paralleled with Shane’s arc of becoming the antagonist is Rick’s arc involving him doing his damnedest to hold onto some shred of humanity despite the devil on his shoulder (á la Shane) trying to push him to do otherwise. Despite losing his faith due to Carl getting shot by Otis in the premiere, “What Lies Ahead,” Rick still believes in humanity enough to actually agree to help elder farmer Hershel Greene (Scott Wilson) trap “walkers” in his barn as a compromise for being allowed to stay on Hershel’s farm. Despite Rick knowing that the “walkers” being dead, he placates Hershel for the greater good. This conflict culminates in the midseason finale episode, “Pretty Much Dead Already,” wherein Rick’s and Shane’s divulging outlooks on the post-apocalyptic world really shine through while also resolving the central mystery of the first half of Season 2: is Carol’s daughter Sophia (Madison Lintz) alive or dead? Without question, many viewers’ critique of Season 2 comes from the tedium of the first seven episodes being focused on the survivors searching for Sophia day after day after day to no avail while openly debating the merits of constantly risking their lives to save a child who’s most likely dead. Of course, “Pretty Much Dead Already” culminates in one of the most shocking plot-twists of The Walking Dead: Sophia is not only dead, but is a “walker” who was in Hershel’s barn the whole time. ☹ This reveal is a great example of the creative team behind the show fostering meaningful shock value. By that I mean that the nature of the reveal of Sophia’s death was not designed simply to shock audiences (something that future showrunners dip into more and more in later seasons), but rather to offer an explanation for what happened to her character that is both plausible within the world of the show and heartbreakingly tragic. Thus, this is one of the show’s best examples of using character death to push the narrative forward and evoke genuine emotion out of their audience without toying with them. Well done, Darabont! 😊 As the season progresses, Sophia’s demise is only the beginning of the survivors’ humanity being stripped away from them. Despite some lighter moments with Hershel, the complex but empathetic blossoming friendship between compatriots of surviving abuse Daryl and Carol, and Glenn’s burgeoning romance with Hershel’s eldest daughter Maggie (Lauren Cohan), the group’s moral conundrum over what to do with Randall elevates the types of moral questions that characters in this kind of situation would begin to ask about how dangerous strangers can be. Furthermore, it highlights the most important fact about The Walking Dead: it’s about the survivors, not the zombies (I’ll get back to this later). The last few episodes of Season 2 are defined by the relationship between actions and consequences and how morality in the apocalypse clouds all of this. Notably, Carl being unable to kill the “swamp walker” that ends up tearing apart Dale and forcing Daryl to put him down shows how one minor misstep can have drastic consequences for the people you love. Of course, the season’s climax is the penultimate episode “Better Angels” where Rick realizes that Shane is too far gone and will stop at nothing to take the life that he feels that Rick robbed from him back. Thus, Rick does must be done and stabs his best friend to death which truly starts him down the path that Shane took which (ultimately) led to Shane’s death. This begs the question: what is it about Shane’s character that made him ripe for death, and what about Rick’s character makes him a survivor? In many ways, The Walking Dead has made these two characters foils to one another but their fates are incredibly different. In my humble opinion, Rick is able to follow through with the “dirty work,” so to speak, of the post-apocalyptic world that Shane could not. This was foreshadowed in “Pretty Much Dead Already,” the midseason finale, when Shane started the barn fiasco by letting all of the “walkers” free but Rick finished the job by putting down Sophia (something that nobody else, not even Shane, could do). This is what makes Rick Grimes a survivor, more so than Shane ever could be. Season 2 ends with one of the best finales of the entire series, “Beside the Dying Fire,” which shows the survivors fighting off a large herd of zombies before having no choice but to flee Hershel’s farm as it burns to the ground, reunite, and face their new reality of being on the road. Rick’s arc comes to a new phase in the final scene when he declares to the others: “This isn’t a democracy anymore.” No longer is Rick letting others have a say in their own survival; he makes the calls. Period. What a great place to leave your protagonist after such a shattering season of his faith in humanity being torn down to the point of having to kill your best friend, watch your son put down your zombified best friend, and confess to your wife and son that you killed your best friend with little (if any) remorse. For a season that is often lambasted for being boring, I found all of the drama between Rick, Lori, and Shane to be compelling throughout. In addition, the way that Season 2 dives deeper into the human condition in a variety of ways foreshadows where the show goes from there in the best ways. Finally, I cannot reiterate enough how good the season finale is for all the reasons I’ve already said. And it all culminates in two great teases: the introduction of fan-favorite comic-book character Michonne and the prison. Which brings us to Season 3! 😊 Looking back on my personal journey with The Walking Dead, I really became a fan going into Season 3. I distinctly remember watching the Comic-Con trailer on the day it released in the summer of 2012 and just being so excited for what was in store for the show (not even having read the graphic novel yet, and thus lacking context for characters like Michonne and the Governor). When I began my rewatch of The Walking Dead back in May of this year, I knew I would love Season 1 and probably like Season 2 but was unsure of how I would feel about Season 3. With the season premiere, “Seed,” I was shocked by how impressive the episode was. In many ways, it serves as a re-introduction to our main crew of survivors led by “Ricktator” Rick Grimes (😊) who have been pushed eight months forward in time and are much more hardened survivors than the people we saw leave Hershel’s farm in “Beside the Dying Fire.” This re-introduction happens throughout the episode, but is notably right out of the gate in the opening scene that lacks any spoken dialogue between the characters. Instead, the power dynamics, roles within the group, and desperate situation that they’re in is all shown through how they act towards each other. The highlight for me is how Rick treats his family (barely looking very-pregnant Lori in the eye when she walks into the house & grabbing a can of dog food out of Carl’s hands to show that they’re not that desperate yet). In terms of familiarizing the audience with a new environment and setting for the story, “Seed” frames the survivors discovering the prison as both a gift from God and approaches it as a militaristic, hyper-strategic conquest with characters being used to distract zombies and snipe them from above all while Rick locks the zombies from within the prison out of the main yard. Again, a great scene that both introduces some of the layout of the survivors’ new home while also using minimal dialogue to highlight dynamics between characters (i.e. Carol apologizing to Rick for almost shooting his feet) and show us just how effective these characters have become at living in this world. Speaking of introducing new places for the show, the season’s third episode “Walk with Me” is a pretty underrated example of introducing the audience to a brand-new community and (mostly) new characters without it seeming overly romantic or overtly foreboding. Through the eyes of veteran main character Andrea, relative newcomer Michonne (Danai Gurira), and returning secondary character and Daryl’s brother Merle Dixon (Michael Rooker), the audience learns that much of the idyllic town of Woodbury is a façade propped up by the machinations of the Governor (David Morrissey), a charming, politician-like figure with a dark underbelly that is explored throughout Season 3. After finishing my rewatch of The Walking Dead, I am confident in saying that the first eight episodes of Season 3 might just be the best half-season of the entire series. The first few episodes introduce the obvious and hidden dangers of both the prison and Woodbury, and these are followed up by incredibly effective examples of tearing down our survivors via the deaths of Lori and T-Dog in “Killer Within” (SIDE NOTE: T-Dog was a good character in Season 1, incredibly underutilized in most of Season 2, and I liked his heroic sacrifice to save Carol in Season 3 but I wished that his character could have lived on for a little while longer). This is the episode that puts both Rick and Carl on their arcs for the next two seasons defined by processing the trauma of losing their wife and mother, respectively. For Rick, his struggle to retain his sanity throughout the rest of Season 3 is initially entertaining but ends up dragging on a little too long for my taste (although I appreciated the homage to Kirkman’s graphic novel where Rick “talks” to Lori and other dead survivors on the phone in “Hounded”). For Carl, watching his mother die in childbirth before making the choice to put her down himself sends him down a very dehumanizing rabbit hole echoing Shane’s devolution that is one of the more interesting aspects of Season 3. For the rest of the first half of Season 3, new showrunner Glen Mazzara and his creative team expertly uses Merle coming across Glenn and Maggie on a run and Michonne finding Rick and the others at the prison to build up to the inevitable first battle between Rick’s crew and the Governor in a way that felt natural, suspenseful, and satisfying by the conclusion of episode eight “Made to Suffer” (easily one of the best midseason finales, specifically the infiltration element, Michonne’s brutal one-on-one fight with the Governor, and the fateful reunion between Daryl and Merle at the very end). Unfortunately, the second half of Season 3 lacks the punch that the first half had. With Rick’s insanity becoming more central to the narrative, I became impatient. With the Governor evolving into an almost full-on cartoonist psychopath, I became disappointed. To be sure, there are some great elements of the war between Rick and the Governor (for me, “Arrow on the Doorpost” in which the two characters meet face-to-face for the first time is highly underrated). However, some of the best aspects of these last eight episodes are only tangentially related to this central conflict. Which brings me to episode twelve, “Clear,” which stands out as my favorite episode of Season 3 and one of my favorite episodes of the entire series. Its timing within the season is great because how it re-introduces Lennie James’s Morgan Jones into the story as a dark mirror of the place Rick’s character is going if he doesn’t find a way to cope with Lori’s death. Just seeing Rick and Morgan interact again after becoming such different people would be enough to make “Clear” a great episode, but then writer (and future showrunner) Scott M. Gimple injects a fantastic, character-driven subplot which lays the foundation of Michonne’s mother/mentor relationship with Carl. In both of these respects, “Clear” marks an amazing episode of The Walking Dead precisely because it has nothing to do with the season’s driving narrative. Speaking on Michonne for a moment, I found myself really appreciating Mazzara’s approach to introducing her into the fold with the other survivors. First, she is introduced through the eyes of Andrea which allows the audience to relate to her through the lens of a character familiar to us. Second, her characterization of being a loner who lacks trust for Rick and his family before humanizing her a little more in “Clear” was a prime example of character building with the mantra: “less is more.” And by the end of Season 3, Michonne was accepted by the group and forgiving of Rick’s plan to give her away to the Governor without being spiteful (even though she had every reason to be). In my humble opinion, this is one of the best examples of introducing a character to make us interested in them without telling us everything about them. Another character that I enjoyed both initially and on my rewatch was Merle. While a large part of this is the infectious charm of actor Michael Rooker, I came to appreciate the arc that Merle’s character goes on because the writers very easily could have kept him as the stereotypical racist, coked-out redneck that he was in Season 1. However, Rooker instead gets to portray something akin to a redemption tale where his subdued love for his little brother shows him the error of being with the Governor. From there, he decides to join Rick’s group at the prison (despite Glenn and Maggie’s protests otherwise), and his turn in the season’s penultimate episode “This Sorrowful Life” marks the culmination of his character arc. Merle not only comes to the morally commendable decision to not deliver Michonne to the Governor, but gives his life to make a dent in the Governor’s ranks. Talk about making a completely unlikeable prick into a devilishly charming anti-hero! Of course, “This Sorrowful Life” ends with one of the most emotional moments of the entire series when Daryl discovers a zombified Merle and literally collapses out of grief after putting him down. Is this the scene when Reedus won the hearts of everyone in America? … Probably. 😊 Returning to the main conflict of war with the Governor, I want to remark on one of the most controversial aspects of the entire The Walking Dead show: Andrea’s character. Fans of Kirkman’s graphic novel often cite his version of Andrea as one of their favorite characters, while simultaneously calling out the use of her in the show (specifically Season 3) as one of the worst bastardizations of a beloved comic-book character for television. So, where do I stand? Well, I cannot honestly say that I am the biggest fan of comic-book Andrea. Because of that, I appreciated her role in the main story of Season 3 as trying her best to mediate peace between Rick and the Governor for the greater good (in many ways, representing the ideals that Rick held himself to in Season 2). That being said, the way Andrea’s death was handled in the season finale “Welcome to the Tombs” is undeniably one of the worst story-based decisions that The Walking Dead has ever made (and possibly one of the primary drives behind replacing Mazzara with Gimple as showrunner going forward). And this is the signature bad element of a pretty anti-climatic finale for an otherwise action-packed season. So, that’s the first part of my super-sized retrospective blog on The Walking Dead. While these first three seasons are mostly defined by some amazing highs, it had not yet achieved the massive popularity in mainstream pop culture that it would over the course of its next few years. So, what happens when The Walking Dead becomes one of the most-viewed and highest-rated shows on cable television? I will revisit this post in a couple of months after the first third of Season 11 concludes to answer that question when I delve into the first three seasons of The Walking Dead helmed by Scott M. Gimple. TO BE CONTINUED… Gimple: Peak Walking Dead (2013-2016) Coming off of its third season, The Walking Dead had risen to international prestige as one of the most popular cable television shows of the 21st century. Averaging over ten million viewers per episode, the show was a staple of nerd culture with potential for its trajectory to only keep going up. So, with a change in showrunners and overall story direction, the show very well could have gone downhill. Fortunately, its newest executive producer Scott M. Gimple wasn’t going to let that happen (at least not yet 😊). Despite the bad taste that fans, both current and former, of The Walking Dead now get in their mouth upon saying Gimple’s name, the fact that he oversaw the show’s most successful run in its history (both critically and in terms of viewership) cannot be understated. However, the show was facing some potential pitfalls due to the fact that they had burned through just about eight volumes of Kirkman’s graphic novel (only seventeen were published when the third season ended). Thus, Gimple and the creative team at AMC apparently realized that they needed to slow down the pace of the show just a bit in order to prevent it from catching up with its source material (for fans of HBO’s Game of Thrones, we know just how problematic this can be). Thus, my discussion of season four of The Walking Dead. In retrospect compared to the two seasons that preceded and succeeded, the continuation of the prison arc can feel a bit redundant and stagnant. And while I understand these criticisms to an extent, I think that Gimple made the right decision in not starting the fourth season with another big battle between Rick’s survivors and the Governor. Instead, we explore the impact that an airborne virus within the prison community has on these characters and the character-driven drama that results. Is it the best story arc of the show? No, but I do think it resulted in some damn good moments for these beloved characters that helped propel their story arcs for seasons to come. One of these arcs is of our protagonist, Rick Grimes, who for the first time in the show’s history up to that point relinquished his role as leader (or “Ricktator”) and allowed other supporting characters, such as Glenn, Daryl, and Carol, to take more of an active role in running things. Horrified by his son Carl’s murder of an unarmed teenager at the end of last season, Grimes has set aside his own violent, overprotective tendencies in order to prioritize being there for his kid and teaching him other survival skills: farming, for one thing. With that, we get one of Rick’s many new faces in the form of “Farmer Rick” who does his damnedest during the first half of this season to let others take action while he sits back and helps. Of course, anyone watching The Walking Dead for this long knows that Grimes is not the kind of man to permanently change into some sort of passive, pastoral pig farmer. Thus, Gimple and the writers plant seeds throughout the first half of the season (like concocting a plan to use the maybe-sick pigs as bait to draw walkers away from the fences) to never let us forget the lengths he will go to to protect his family and community. Of course, the Governor’s return derails Grimes’s plan to retire from zombie-and-people killing, but I’ll get to that a little later. Without question, the character that gets the “most improved” award this season is Carol. While she had had her moments to be surprisingly compelling in prior seasons (like when she encouraged Andrea to sleep with the Governor and then kill him in bed), she had typically fit into either a sympathetic victim of abuse and loss or as a nurturing mother archetype who never really had the chance to do that much. But once again, Gimple seemed to recognize the immense potential for her to be one of the show’s best characters and turned her into just that (at least for a little while). Simply put, the intrigue at the heart of season four’s first several episodes is the mystery behind who killed and incinerated Karen (Melissa Ponzio), former Woodbury resident and girlfriend of Tyreese (Chad L. Coleman), and David (Brandon Carroll). Here is where Rick and Carol’s arcs become entangled, as his detective skills pretty quickly unravel the truth that Carol eliminated Karen and David (who were apparently sick with the flu) in an effort to prevent the virus from spreading any further. This conflict comes to a head in the episode “Indifference” when Rick, despite his desire to not pass judgment, ends up making the decision to exile Carol from the prison. Not only does this set up Grimes’s eventual return to leadership, but it allows the absence of Carol for the next several episodes to be felt by the audience enough to where her return in the back half of the season makes for some of the best storytelling The Walking Dead has ever put on the silver screen. Regarding the prison flu story, it admittedly does not always make for gripping and entertaining television. But, it offers some great scenes of this show (like Rick reluctantly arming himself and Carol with assault rifles to obliterate a herd of walkers breaking into the prison). Easily for me, the standout character spotlight of this arc is Hershel whose relentless optimism and perseverance in the face of overwhelming odds shows just how powerful the “moral center” character on the show can be. His devotion to taking care of the sick (despite the emotional toll it takes on him), especially apparent in the fifth episode “Internment,” solidified in my mind his status as one of my personal favorite characters from the entire The Walking Dead universe. And this made his death at the hands of the Governor all the more tragic and upsetting. But I’ll get to that in a bit. 😊 Two of the least-liked episodes of season four were the two “catch-up” episodes showing the audience what the Governor (or Philip Blake, or Brian Heriot, or whatever his real name is) has been up to since the end of season three. It turns out he grew a beard, found a surrogate daughter Meghan (Meyrick Murphy) and girlfriend Lilly (Audrey Marie Anderson), and reunited with his old lieutenant Martinez (Jose Pablo Cantillo) before killing him and taking over his group of paramilitary campers. And that’s pretty much it. While I agree with many fans that these episodes aren’t the best of The Walking Dead, I do believe they were necessary to make the possibility of the Governor’s redemption genuine and his attempt to seize the prison without bloodshed somewhat believable. So, after seven episodes of good (albeit slow) content, we get what remains one of the show’s best episodes: the midseason finale “Too Far Gone.” This episode serves as the polar opposite of the rest of season four up to that point. Whereas the episodes before it were deliberately paced and spread out, “Too Far Gone” is a concentrated, action-packed spectacle that very much marked a turning point in the show’s scale of action. Sure, we had seen dozens of gun-toting survivors shoot at each other from two sides of a set. But never with a tank 😊 On a rewatch, however, what impressed me most about “Too Far Gone” was how the actors and crew managed to not let the over-the-top action overshadow the character beats and cathartic moments. In that sense, the episode serves as a solid template for how to make action meaningful by injecting it with heart and balancing it with strong, character-drive writing. This is particularly on display when Rick tries to talk down the Governor and Hershel, in his final moments, smiles in lieu of uttering a sound to show how proud he is of his surrogate son that he is trying to overcome his demons and truly move forward peaceably. Unfortunately, the Governor had other plans and that’s the last thing Hershel did before losing his head to Michonne’s katana in the Governor’s hands. Second only to Dale in the second season, Hershel’s death may just be the most heartbreaking for me to watched live. He was a wholesome, elderly man who (despite his own flaws and past mistakes) has become a symbol of how much the post-apocalypse can physically scar you without taking away your humanity. The loss of that in The Walking Dead remains clear as (in my humble opinion) no character has ever been able to completely fill that void despite many trying to. And while I enjoyed the prison arc in the show, I was happy for it to end with the death of the Governor (mostly due to Michonne stabbing him through the chest) and the separation of the survivors from one another. This allowed for the second half of the season to develop some characters (albeit to mixed effect) and see how these people who have been largely isolated from the road for over six months deal with what’s out there. On a rewatch, one of the highlights of the back half of season four was the development of Carl and Michonne’s friendship that was left lingering in season three with the episode “Clear.” Not only does Michonne’s backstory get fleshed out in the midseason premiere “After,” but it perfectly justifies her imperfect effort to kindle a connection with Carl who has now lost both his mother and (supposedly) his sister, and has lost most of his respect for his father. Leading into the season finale, Carl and Michonne’s back and forth not only offers some great levity in this rather dramatic, intense show, but also made for some genuinely emotional moments with them laying out their deepest fears to each other in an effort to clear the air and lay the groundwork for one of my favorite relationships of these middle seasons of the show. Most of the other survivors lack much interesting story, unfortunately. There are two notable exceptions: one of which is Glenn and Tara Chambler (Alanna Masterson), the sole survivors of the Governor’s second army, joining up with a new trio of survivors en route to Washington, D.C. to “cure” the zombie virus. Led by Sgt. Abraham Ford (Michael Cudlitz) who is aided by Rosita Espinosa (Christian Serratos), the group tries to escort self-professed geneticist Dr. Eugene Porter (Josh McDermitt) to D.C. to join up with some government scientists to cure the world. As someone who had caught up with Kirkman’s graphic novel at this point, I was never very compelled by this subplot in terms of waiting to see if it was true or not. That being said, I’m sure some fans unfamiliar with the source material were engaged enough with wondering if there was ever really hope for ending the apocalypse. If nothing else, it injected Eugene into the story who over time became one of my favorite characters on the show. Besides Rick and his crew, however, the other most compelling subplot of the back half of season four was Carol’s reunion with Tyreese, baby Judith, and sisters Lizzie (Brighton Sharbino) and Mika Samuels (Kyla Kenedy). When she wasn’t defending her decision to kill Karen and David to Rick, Carol spent her minimal time at the prison in season four looking out for Lizzie and Mika after their father died from a walker bite. Without constantly reminding us of her past as a mother, Gimple and the writers show how Carol’s inherent nurturing side has morphed in the post-apocalypse to become fiercely protective and ruthlessly loving in an effort to teach both girls how they need to change in order to survive. The problem? Lizzie can’t kill walkers, and Mika can’t kill people. Carol’s journey trying to mentor these children in the ways of the new world not only fails, but blows up in her face when Lizzie’s psychopathic tendencies culminate in her slitting her own sister’s throat to show Carol and Tyreese how becoming a zombie is actually not that bad and, in fact, just as human as being…well, human. This is Carol’s crossroads of the season: in order to protect herself, Tyreese and the only other purely innocent character in the show Judith, she must do the unthinkable and kill the child she took under her wing. To this day, the episode “The Grove” where all of this comes to a head remains one of the most emotional rollercoaster type of stories on The Walking Dead to date. Not only is the mercy-killing of a mentally-disturbed child arguably more tragic than the murder of an elderly man, but this act is a watershed moment for Carol’s character. Simply put, she has fully transformed into one of the most badass characters on the show. Not because she can wield a machine gun like Rick or blow up a tank with a grenade like Daryl, but because she knows what needs to be done at any given moment to protect those she loves no matter the toll that it takes on her. And no disrespect to Chad Coleman’s performance in the episode, but Melissa McBride just KILLED it and instantly became one of my favorite characters hands down in the entire show. If only this amazing streak for her storyline continued several years down the road, but I’ll get to that later. 😊 Season four culminates in most of the characters (Carol, Tyreese, and Beth being the exceptions) heading to a supposed safe haven called “Terminus” (pretty cryptic, don’t you think?). They go on different journeys while heading there, like Glenn reuniting with Maggie with help from Abraham’s crew and Daryl reluctantly teaming up with some cruel backwoods marauders called the “Claimers” led by Joe (Jeff Kober). And while most of the characters arrive at Terminus in the penultimate episode, it is the season’s finale episode “A” when we see Rick, Carl, Michonne, and Daryl unite and arrive there. I cannot overstate how much I love “A” as both a season finale and as an episode of television. Despite season four not being my favorite season, “A” is undoubtedly, it is my favorite episode of The Walking Dead to date. The reason for this? It is two fantastic episodes in one. Let me explain. The first twenty-five or so minutes is devoted to Rick, Carl, and Michonne continuing the walk to Terminus while wrestling with the potential of being turned away for who they’ve become in the post-apocalypse. Carl is particularly concerned, who feels that their reluctance to help others or remain empathetic in this world will end up hurting them down the road. But Rick and Michonne remain steadfast in their belief that they’re no crueler than anyone still alive. But then they are proven dead wrong when Joe and the Claimers ambush them in the middle of the night to avenge their friend Lou (Scott Dale) who Rick strangled in a bathroom only days before. Unbeknownst to Rick and company, Daryl has joined the Claimers but quickly tries to save them once he realizes who Joe wants to kill in cold blood. From Daryl offering himself as tribute in Rick’s stead to Rick resorting to one of the most intimately violent acts in the show’s history (biting Joe’s throat out in order to free himself), the first half of “A” gives us one of the most tense and exhilarating scenes ever put on the silver screen. And the incident culminates in Rick viciously stabbing Dan (Keith Brooks) to death after preventing him from sexually assaulting Carl. The morning after this cathartic confrontation, Rick (with a blood-stained beard and face) sits idly just processing what he did and is comforted by Daryl who assures him that what he did is what any father would’ve done to protect their son. I was worried on a rewatch that this conversation wouldn’t hit as hard as it initially did, but my fears were quickly laid to rest. Not only is their interaction one of my favorite scenes of the show’s early years, but it’s such a crucial moment for one of the best relationships in The Walking Dead as it finally did what the entire audience longed for since Shane’s death at the end of season two: for Rick to acknowledge Daryl as a good person, and as his brother. If you didn’t shed a tear seeing that, then you’re just heartless. 😊 That sounds like it should be an episode, right? But no! The rest of “A” is Rick, Daryl, Carl, and Michonne sneaking into Terminus and learning a sliver of the truth that it is (shockingly! 😊) not a safe haven but instead a trap to draw survivors in for shocking reasons. For a season of The Walking Dead that involved the characters being separated from each other for much of the time, this reunion between (most of) our principal cast is quite satisfying. Furthermore, Rick’s transformation from the domesticated, hands-off father from the start of the season into who he will become for the rest of the show is incredibly fulfilling. And it sets up a fantastic storyline of the survivors working together to escape Terminus and show their new enemies that “they’re screwing with the wrong people.” At the end of the day, season four of The Walking Dead is not the best of the show. However, it deserves more respect than it gets these days for being a consistently entertaining show despite its slower pace and different storytelling sensibilities. As such, Gimple’s first season as showrunner helped craft a fresh identity for the show that laid a solid foundation for the future. Which brings us to the best season of The Walking Dead. After rewatching season five last summer, I became convinced that Gimple deliberately slowed down the pace of the show in season four to compensate for the comparatively break-neck pace of this season. From a great trilogy of episodes resolving the Terminus arc to the lead-up to Beth’s death in Atlanta to the group finally traveling to D.C. and essentially becoming the show’s villains, this season just excels on virtually every level and justifies the fact over fourteen million people tuned in on average for each episode. To begin with those first three episodes which show Rick and the group fighting their way out of Terminus (thanks mostly to Carol’s badass intervention), who are revealed to be rather sophisticated and organized cannibals, reuniting with the others and agreeing to head to D.C., and facing off against the surviving “Termites,” led by Gareth (Andrew J. West), in a memorably intense and violent scene that sets the stage for where the show was going thematically. Simply, it is in season five that Rick Grimes and his group of survivors become the bad guys. To be clear, they are not villains in the way that the Governor, Gareth, Negan, or Alpha are. However, their stripped-down humanity in the wake of losing the prison and several survivors during the fourth and fifth seasons (from Hershel and Bob Stookey to Beth and Tyreese) establishes a new ethos for the group: hunt or be hunted, and kill or be killed. By assuming the worst in everyone around them no matter their personality or actions, the group under Grimes’s re-established “Ricktatorship” became hopeless, vicious, and morally questionable to the extreme. This strong thematic current for season five is beautifully established in the third episode, “Four Walls and a Roof,” which has Rick and company successfully trick and trap Gareth and the other Termites in the church of new addition Father Gabriel Stokes (Seth Gilliam) before brutally hacking and slashing them into bits and pieces of blood and guts. And despite the misgivings of some of the group members, Rick justifies their actions with a single sentence: “It could’ve been us.” Despite the show’s best efforts to make us feel for Rick’s group over the course of four seasons plus, after this scene it became clear that they were no longer the virtuous heroes that many of the characters (primarily Rick himself) were striving to me. Furthermore, the show somehow injected a genuinely sympathetic backstory for the Termites to rationalize (not justify or excuse) the depths of their depravity. Not only were the Termites a solid antagonist for Rick’s group in terms of their survival skills, but they help lay the thematic groundwork for a season of television that’s all about flipping conventional morality on its head to show the extent to which human beings will go to hold onto the basic fabric of what it means to be alive. From there, we get what is easily the weakest story arc of season five of The Walking Dead. Beth at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. In virtually any other season of the show, this would feel like an entertaining enough divergence from the main story. However, in this season it can feel like a significant slog despite only lasting four episodes. And while I mostly agree that it was a slog, I did appreciate that Beth got some sort of meaningful character arc that felt earned after being on the show for three plus seasons. Sure, she’d had some memorable scenes before (I surprisingly liked her interactions with Daryl in the much-maligned standalone episode “Still” from season four). But the attention paid to her as a young but idealistic person operating within a corrupt system of police politics and power dynamics was good enough to make her tragic end in the midseason finale, “Coda,” emotional enough. And this arc gave us one of the most genuinely heart wrenching scenes in the show’s history where Daryl, holding back tears, carries Beth’s body out of the hospital to Maggie, shattering her hope that her sister is alive causing her to collapse to her knees and break down. One of the aspects of the first half of season five that I did not expect to like as much as I did on a rewatch was the development of Abraham’s character. While I enjoyed his “alpha standoffs” with Rick and Glenn in the church, I found the flashbacks used to explain why he is so fiercely determined to get Eugene to D.C. without him every saying a word about his motivation to be one of the best examples of “show, don’t tell” in the show’s history. And the revelation of Eugene lying about knowing the cure catapults Abraham’s story arc for the next several episodes wherein he struggles to find purpose to not only keep breathing but embrace life. The second half of season five kicks off with what is arguably the most “arthouse” that The Walking Dead has ever gotten. This episode, “What Happened and What’s Going On,” spotlights Tyreese’s mind trip of a death after being bitten by the zombified younger brother of Grady Memorial survival Noah (Tyler James Williams). I know there are many fans who love this episode as both a sendoff to Tyreese and on a technical and storytelling level. And while it was fun to see David Morrissey back as the Governor via hallucinations, it just felt very out of place in this kind of show. That being said, Chad L. Coleman excelled in his final appearance as Tyreese which propelled the characters into one of the best plot lines thematically of the entire show. Over the next seven episodes, Rick and company reach their physical, mental, and emotional low point as they hang onto survival by a thread in the wake of losing two main cast members back-to-back. Before being found by fresh-faced Aaron (Ross Marquand) who brings them to their new home, Gimple gives us what might just be the most underrated episodes of The Walking Dead: “Them.” This episode makes up for what it lacks in action with genuine heart, compelling interpersonal drama, and one of Rick Grimes’s best speeches in which he utters the line: “We tell ourselves that we are the walking dead.” Yes, it’s on the nose. But what this scene (and the one immediately after it where the survivors band together to keep a storm from destroying the barn they’re staying in) represents to the show as a whole. For it marks the closest that the survivors get to giving up all of what makes them human and submitting to an existence akin to what the zombies experience day to day. Yet by standing together to protect one another, they show the audience that what keeps them human is their devotion to each other as a family. And this tees up the characters for one of the best story arcs of the show: the Alexandria Safe-Zone. Now I’ll have my criticisms of Alexandria and its characters for season six. But as an introduction to a new place that is so foreign to these characters at this point in the post-apocalypse, episode twelve “Remember” is perhaps unrivaled in its ability to contrast the physical and mental state of Rick’s group to the environment and ambiance of a new location. Despite the survivors spending months on the road facing down some of the worst kinds of people, from the “Claimers” to the Termites, the Alexandrians remained relatively isolated from the horrors of the post-apocalyptic world. This contrast could not be clearer than in the scene where the leader of Alexandria, Deanna Monroe (Tovah Feldshuh), interviews a filthy, bearded, and suspicious Rick Grimes. Seeing how much in disbelief Rick is being in a nice, clean living room in a house that he once dreamed of buying for his wife and son is such a delight. But beyond that, the scene exemplifies how many of these characters are too far gone to the point of being simply unable to trust strangers who seem too forthcoming and kind for their own good. And the plot of the back half of season five doesn’t shy away from this contrast between the savagery of Rick’s group and the mock-up civilization of Alexandria. From Carol adopting a motherly disguise to remain inconspicuous to Michonne knocking Rick unconscious as constable to protect everyone from his uncontrollable wrath, the show was keen on making our survivors out to be the bad guys in their new environment and I was all in for that. But then we were reminded several times that, in this post-apocalyptic world, the only thing worse than submitting to your own brutality is allowing another’s incompetence to put the lives of those you care about in danger. And this is no more apparent than in episode fourteen, “Spend,” when Glenn is unable to keep the actions of Alexandria supply runner Nicholas (Michael Traynor) from getting Noah eaten alive in front of him. Simply put, watching Glenn be helpless as this young man is being torn apart before his eyes explains why Steven Yeun is an Oscar-nominated actor. The sheer amount of guilt, anger, heartbreak, and anguish displayed in his eyes and on his face always brings me on the verge of tears. This incident, among others, ultimately redeemed Rick by the season finale in that it showed just how much the Alexandrians (except maybe Jessie Anderson, played by Alexandra Breckenridge, who seems to get what Rick’s putting down) need him to teach them the ways of survival in this new world. And it all comes to a head when Jessie’s alcoholic and abusive husband Pete (Corey Brill) unintentionally kills Deanna’s sweet husband Reg (Steve Coulter) with Michonne’s katana. In that moment, Deanna’s worldview formulated by the world before shatters and she turns to the only person who can deliver her the vengeful justice that she desires: the one and only Rick Grimes, who is finally granted what he wants and shoots Pete in the head at point-blank range. What an end to the season! And on top of all of it…MORGAN’S BACK!! Despite being teased a couple of times earlier, he comes back full force in the finale with some sweet-ass martial arts wielding a bō staff to save Daryl and Aaron from a horde of walkers. And when does he finally reunite with Rick? When Rick kills Pete in cold blood, and at a time when Morgan seems like he’s put his “crazy killer” days behind him. Where does that go? I guess you’ll have to watch season six to find out. 😊 All in all, season five of The Walking Dead remains my favorite to date. Is it as tightly scripted as season one? Maybe not, but the quality of the acting, characters, and storylines make up for it. It also brings the zombie-and-human-killing action and emotions that some of the prior seasons were lacking, but ratchets it up more than ever before. While it does have some weak spots, I think the fact that the show could be this good five seasons in is a testament to its enduring quality and the core strength of its story. If only this level of quality was sustained for the rest of the show. Alas, the sixth season is when (in my humble opinion) the cracks in the solid foundation of The Walking Dead really start to show. To be clear, I do think this is a good season of the show; but it leaves much to be desired (especially in the first half) and foreshadows the show’s low point to come during the latter years of Gimple’s reign as showrunner. Essentially, the first nine episodes of season six deal with Rick and his group’s efforts to prevent a massive herd of walkers trapped in a large quarry from ever reaching Alexandria. From the get-go, there are some logistical issues with Rick’s strategy. For one thing, the walkers have yet to escape in large numbers before so why intervene and just monitor the flow of walkers to Alexandria? Eventually, the herd would be thinned out so as to be manageable. But, if you are going to let the herd out and use vehicles and flares to send it away from Alexandria, why not train the Alexandrians in handling weapons or managing walkers? It just seems like Rick, knowing how incapable and unprepared the Alexandrians are for a task like this, didn’t think through this plan. Nor did any of his family recommend caution and hesitance rather than brash action. To add to these diminishing returns, the first three episodes of the season don’t really hold up anymore. Not only because of this cockamamie plot that (to the shock of nobody) goes haywire, but how it leads to Glenn’s “death” following Nicholas’s suicide atop a dumpster. This tendency on Gimple’s part to draw out a cliffhanger like this only to fake out the audience and tease them for it is simply a foreshadowing of some of the aspects of his approach to storytelling to come in later seasons. Another of them is the fifth episode, “Now,” which I think is the first truly bad episode of The Walking Dead. Have there been some lackluster ones, or misguided ones, or emotionally draining ones? For sure, but “Now” is just SO DAMN BORING!! The characters it focuses on, and the stories it tells with them, are so uncompelling as to put you to sleep. Simply put, this first half was quickly convincing me that, contrary to popular opinion, the decline of The Walking Dead actually begun with season six. But I stand by it as a decent season of the show, even though it became a shadow of its former self by this point. The standout episode from this first half is “Here’s Not Here,” which fills in the gaps of Morgan’s journey between “Clear” from season three and his reappearance in the post-credits scene of season five’s premiere “No Sanctuary.” In many ways, it’s not an episode of The Walking Dead as much as it is a character study of Morgan and his relationship with violence, his past mistakes, and a new philosophy of pacifism shared by the lovable Eastman (John Carroll Lynch). It goes to show how good this episode is in light of what comes before and after it, because you care more about Eastman’s story over the course of an hour than most of the Alexandrians before and after this point (including some of those who survive multiple seasons). So, what helps to redeem season six of The Walking Dead from being utter trash? It begins with the midseason premiere “No Way Out,” which remains one of the most rewatchable episodes of the entire show. It has so many hype moments that pay off strands of story from the first half of the season (I particularly love Daryl, Sasha & Abraham’s explosive encounter with the motorcycle gang of Saviors on the road which opens the episode). But what ultimately makes this episode so satisfying is how it finally gives the Alexandrians a reason to stop being scared and be badass: because Rick, Michonne and the others inspire them to do so. Despite not knowing the fate of his son after Carl was shot in the eye by nitwit Ron Anderson (Austin Abrams), Rick channels all of his rage, guilt, and frustration into going on a badass rampage with only a hatchet against the herd of walkers. Michonne quickly follows suit, and within minutes the entire community has banded together to waste every single last one of them. But if that wasn’t enough, we also get Glenn nearly dying (AGAIN!) to save Maggie before Abraham and Sasha come to his rescue. Once they get let back inside Alexandria, Daryl fills the lake with fuel and shoots an RPG to draw the walkers into it and incinerate what was left of the herd. Ultimately, “No Way Out” is a fantastic conclusion to a rather dull half-season storyline that probably could have been dealt with in five episodes or less and thus made watching season six much less painful. Yet, Gimple seemed to not learn his lesson about dragging out repetitive and unengaging storylines for a satisfying end several episodes (or even seasons) later. But I’ll get to that next time. 😊 To follow up the (somewhat) redeeming midseason premiere, we get what is perhaps the funniest episode of The Walking Dead to date: “The Next World.” Centered on a series of misadventures that Rick and Daryl endure whilst scavenging for food two months after the events of “No Way Out,” this episode features a fantastic introduction for Paul Rovia, better known as “Jesus,” (Tom Payne) which signals the beginning of a major metamorphosis for the show. Over the course of the rest of the season, Gimple finally begins planting the seeds for restarting civilization on a relatively large scale via establishing trade between Alexandria and various other settlements in the D.C. Metropolitan Area. These include Jesus’ community Hilltop, led by a narcissistic and obtuse coward Gregory (Xander Berkeley), with whom Rick’s group strikes a bargain in the next episode “Knots Untie.” Despite some not-so-subtle efforts to subvert Rick’s authority and Maggie’s tenacity, Gregory ultimately agrees to allow the Alexandrians to lead a rescue operation against the Saviors (the group that the motorcycle gang from “No Way Out” belonged to) in exchange for Hilltop gifting half of their foodstuffs to them. I don’t want to entirely give this storyline a pass, because there is an upsetting lack of logic to Rick and company’s plan. Primarily, they once again spend no time whatsoever staking out the location of what is supposed to be the Saviors’ sole outpost to deduce whether or not there are more of them nor to figure out exactly how many of them are. That being said, I give this a pass because “Not Tomorrow Yet” is a fantastic, action-packed episode in which Rick, Daryl, Michonne, Glenn and several other Alexandrians (along with Jesus) infiltrate the outpost like a bunch of trained stealth killers. The episode has some standout moments, particularly the emotional toll that killing someone for the first time (and in cold blood at that) has on Glenn who has remained one of the only survivors up to this point that has avoided killing people. Steven Yeun pulls off such an incredible performance in just one look into the camera, echoing some of his best from prior seasons of The Walking Dead and completely explaining why he is now an Oscar-nominated actor. Overall, though, what I love about “No Tomorrow Yet” is that Gimple and the writers do not at all shy away from the fact that Rick’s group have essentially become the “bad guys” of the world of The Walking Dead. Of course, the audience doesn’t necessarily feel that way because we’ve seen their journey over the course of six seasons and thus empathize with the struggles they’ve overcome and what they have faced to get to this point. But, as this season’s finale and the next season’s premiere highlight, Rick Grimes (in my humble opinion) got off pretty easy considering how many Saviors him and his people kill in cold blood since first encountering them. Another strong episode follows up Rick and company assaulting the Saviors, as “The Same Boat” holds up today as a very effective, character-focused bottle episode centered on Carol and Maggie’s differing strategies for handling captivity at the hands of a small group of Saviors led by a woman named Paula (Alicia Witt). Not only does this episode subvert the “damsel-in-distress” trope that has endured in storytelling for decades by showing these two women getting out of their predicament without help from anyone, but it remains an important part of Carol’s story arc that really stared in season four back at the prison arc. Since admitting to having killed and burnt Karen and David to protect the rest of the survivors, Carol as shown time and again that she is one of the most hardened and capable characters on the show for her ruthless protective instinct in action. From putting Lizzie down to protect Judith to saving everyone at Terminus to fighting off the Wolves earlier this season, Carol has never shied away from getting her hands dirty (not to mention bloody) for the sake of those she loves. In “The Same Boat,” she shows a slow-burning desire to not want to kill but does so to protect both Maggie and the life growing inside her (Maggie was revealed to be pregnant back in episode five “Now,” I just didn’t mention it because that episode was so bad 😊). Unfortunately, this episode is one of the last times in the show’s lifespan that she exhibits such a strong character. But, once again, I’ll get to that later. At this point, season six was nearly redeemed for me. How Gimple handled the beginning of the Hilltop/Saviors arc from Kirkman’s graphic novel was so different yet in line with the spirit of the source material, and I was excited for how we would get to the impending introduction of the Saviors’ foul-mouthed leader himself. But it seems like Gimple and his team of writers rushed through the first major encounter between Alexandria and the Saviors and ran out of solid ideas for how to progress the story. So, they gave us two much weaker episodes reminiscent of the lackluster first half of the season which involve some utterly preposterous character decisions that only serve the plot mechanics to get us to the finale rather than the characters’ stories or the show’s themes. The first of these two, “Twice as Far,” involves Alexandria’s sole doctor Denise (Merritt Wever) persuading Daryl and Rosita to take her outside the walls to help them find medicine. This is just so absurd. First off, Daryl and Rosita are both smart enough to know that Alexandria cannot needlessly risk the life of its only qualified and experienced doctor when Denise could just write the names of the medicine that she needs (or they could just take everything they find!). To Gimple’s credit, they both do protest Denise’s desire to go out with them but ultimately submit to her wishes. Why isn’t Rick involved in this decision? Or Michonne? Or Carol? Or ANYONE ELSE who could’ve talked some sense into these characters? It’s episodes like these that further highlight the inherent weakness of Gimple’s love of bottle episodes that forsake the involvement of characters essential to the plot for the sole purpose of fulfilling cable television and AMC’s arbitrary demand for a 16-episode season. From there, we get the penultimate episode “East” which again has the group (including hardened, intelligent survivors like Rick, Michonne and Morgan) leaving Alexandria to chase down Carol and Daryl. While the former has left because she just can’t kill to protect those she loves anymore (WHAT?!?), the latter needs to let off some steam and track down Dwight (Austin Amelio), the Savior who killed Denise the episode prior (SHOCKING!! The doctor with minimal experience in the post-apocalypse got killed because plot! ☹). This leaves only a handful of well-equipped, experienced survivors like Abraham and Sasha to guard Alexandria. At this point, the survivors are well aware that they in fact didn’t eliminate the Saviors since Daryl, Rosita and Abraham returned to Alexandria in the previous episode with a wounded Eugene and news of a dead Denise at the hands of none other than the Saviors themselves. So, why are they all risking their lives because of Carol’s ridiculous need to isolate herself? I get that she’s family, which explains why Morgan and Rick volunteer to go. But if Daryl’s so hot-headed and stupid as to follow Dwight’s trail, then I’m sorry Daryl fans but it’s not worth the horrifically tragic consequences that this decision ultimately leads to. The group would be better off letting Daryl get captured and then working out a plan to trick the Saviors somehow and ambush them or something. Or, maybe just let Daryl do what he’s going to do…BECAUSE HE’S DARYL!! He isn’t dying at the hands of a skinny, face-burnt asshole like Dwight. 😊 As I mentioned earlier, the utterly irrational and illogical decisions made in these two episodes allow for the plot to get where it needs to in the season finale “Last Day on Earth.” For one thing, when Maggie has some complications with her pregnancy Rick and company have no choice but to try to take her to Hilltop because (surprise, surprise) they no longer have a doctor in Alexandria. To top it all off, some of the group’s best fighters (notably Daryl, Michonne, Carol, and Morgan) are either off discovering the Kingdom for next season or being captives of the Saviors. In all honesty, much of the specific scenes and interactions of the season finale are pretty cool. Seeing how the Saviors intimidate Rick’s posse with Maggie into slowly deteriorating any sense of security for them is an awesome lead-up to the introduction of Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) in the final fifteen minutes of the episode. We also see some great character moments, like the brutality of Negan’s lieutenant Simon (Steven Ogg) and the newfound respect between Abraham and Eugene after their temporary falling out earlier in the season. But, by the end of the episode the audience comes away with two things on their mind: the outstanding first performance of Dean Morgan as one of the best villains of The Walking Dead ever put to screen, and the utterly frustrating fact that Gimple forced fans to wait six months to see the infamous “Who got their had bashed in by Lucille?” cliffhanger to be resolved. While, in retrospect, I was generally disappointed with season six (despite some great episodes and incredible scenes and moments). However, I’m happy to report that this lackluster season does not ultimately spoil this era of Gimple’s time as showrunner. The strength of the last two seasons makes up for this one, and going into season seven we were all excited to see how the man who wrote some of the show’s best episodes and oversaw its best season (in my humble opinion) would handle one of the coolest story arc from Kirkman’s original graphic novel. So, how does the television version of “All Out War” hold up? You’ll have to come back in April when I will continue to look back at The Walking Dead by dissecting Gimple’s last two seasons as showrunner which most people agree is when the show hit rock bottom. At least those who kept watching. 😊 TO BE CONTINUED… Gimple: The Show Declines (2016-2018) Despite a somewhat rocky sixth season, The Walking Dead was still considered by many to be one of the greatest cable television shows of the decade. Over the course of its past sixteen episodes, an average of more than thirteen million viewers tuned in live to see the week-to-week adventures of Rick Grimes and the other survivors. But, as the seventh season progressed, it became increasingly that the show had hit its peak in terms of ratings and (arguably) critical reception. Despite this, season seven kicked off with the ironically horrific episode “The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be” in which six months of cliffhanger regarding the identity of Negan’s victim was finally resolved. The twist? Not one, but TWO fan-favorite survivors had their brains bashed in before all of their loved ones who were helpless to intervene or prevent their fates from being sealed. Simply put, losing Steven Yeun as the endearingly brave pizza boy Glenn and Michael Cudlitz as the tough yet charming, red-headed soldier Abraham was the absolute gut punch that it needed to be to justify how the story progressed for several seasons to come. And still their losses are perhaps the most heartbreaking from the entire run of The Walking Dead (a show filled to the brim with main character deaths occurring relatively often) to date. Much of this, in my humble opinion, has to do with the various circumstances surrounding their murders. For one, Jeffrey Dean Morgan does not hold back in showing the audience just how much fun Negan has killing Glenn and Abraham in cold blood. His performance is exceptional at establishing how evil Negan is and making it clear that he is an incredibly formidable foe that will not be easily overcome and defeated. Furthermore, the gruesome nature of their deaths via Negan’s baseball bat nicknamed Lucille (pulled straight from the graphic novel scene that inspired it) are some of the hardest to watch despite other deaths in the show involving people being torn apart and eaten alive by walkers. But I think the most terrifying and effective aspect of their death scene is having to watch Rick, Maggie, Daryl, Michonne, and everyone else on their knees physically forced to watch Glenn and Abraham be brutally killed without being able to do anything to stop it. On top of that, it is the asinine decisions made by these characters in the back half of season six that led them to this point. If only they had been just a bit more cautious in attacking the Saviors and not let Denise (the ONLY doctor in Alexandria) get killed on a pointless scavenging mission, but I’ve already said my peace about that. 😊 All in all, the season seven premiere remains an emotionally powerful catharsis due to it showcasing Andrew Lincoln in prime form despite having virtually no dialogue. Furthermore, it marks a turning point in the epic story of The Walking Dead as it puts our survivors in the most vulnerable position that they’ve been in basically since season one. Despite their multiple years of experience living in this dying world and fending off all manner of humans and zombies, it feels like after this first meeting with Negan that they will never be able to fully recover from what they witnessed. Despite these seemingly positive qualities of the premiere, it unfortunately ushered in a new low for The Walking Dead. While over seventeen million people watched the episode, there was a sharp decline where nearly five million people dropped off (seemingly in reaction to the so-called excessive violence and gore). Needless to say, the show’s ratings never fully recovered and, by episode two of season eight, would never hit ten million or more viewers for any episode ever again. But, let’s be real? Is season seven truly that bad? … YES! IT’S BAD! Before I go any further, I want to give credit where it’s due. The actors continue to put their all into their performances (particularly Jeffrey Dean Morgan who consistently knocks it out of the park in making Negan terrifying, hilarious, charming, and a daunting threat for the survivors). Furthermore, the attention paid to the zombie make-up effects has never failed to impress and entertain me. Eleven seasons in, The Walking Dead continues to come up with cool and creative ways to present walkers as they decay over time but remain menacing. Unfortunately, the story direction and execution are overall lacking during the lead up to “All Out war” (not to mention “All Out War” itself). And I’ll address my issues here, but in an effort to be as positive as possible I want to highlight what I liked about the season, too. And what is (in my humble opinion) the most underrated element of season seven: the introduction of King Ezekiel (Khary Payton) and the community that is the Kingdom. To follow up the season premiere, episode two entitled “The Well” makes for what feels like a different show (with the exception of seeing the Kingdommers interact with members of the Saviors). I think Gimple and his team perfectly brought this character and group to the silver screen in a way that was grounded in spite of its absurd optimistic nature (or the presence of a tamed Bengal tiger named Shiva) while also fitting in the broader post-apocalyptic landscape. Essentially, I feel that the Kingdom has an identity distinct alongside Alexandria and Hilltop and rational logic behind its unique relationship with the Saviors that makes for pretty good storytelling in the back half of the season. But with the Kingdom comes the official start of Carol’s worst character arc of the entire series: her nonsensical self-isolation from everyone she cares about in an effort to process her trauma. This is SO ridiculous for a number of reasons! For one, Carol pushing away everyone to cope with what she has done by avoiding killing anyone else strips away nearly everything that was interesting about her character as it was crafted since season four. We know that she was physically and emotionally abused by her late husband before the world ended, and then she saw her zombified daughter come out of a barn in season two. Did she isolate herself then? NO! This makes Carol come off as not hurting or needing time alone but instead just weak and selfish. In other words, it’s simply not good character work for a really good character. But you know what would’ve been a great storyline for her this season and next? What if she was a spy in the Sanctuary? Think about it. Gimple and the writers established her ability to mask herself as needed to fit in (from becoming prim and proper when first arriving at Alexandria to disguising herself as a Wolf in season six to kill all the other Wolves). So, why not have her infiltrate the Sanctuary and gather intelligence for the survivors? This could’ve not only made for some AWESOME scenes between her and Negan, but she also could’ve been more intimately involved in the main “All Out War” storyline while also being credibly in danger (unlike virtually any of the other veteran survivors who remain largely unharmed by the conflict to come). But raising stakes and building on a character in a logical way? The Walking Dead isn’t about that this season. Anyways, aside from the Kingdom’s introduction the rest of the season is largely focused on fleshing out the other communities and their intertwining relationships with one another. Regarding our main survivors, this makes for a first half that is just a slog to get through. Simply put, it isn’t any fun seeing hardened and cold-blooded survivors like Rick and Daryl submit to Negan’s authoritarian rule for several episodes in a row without really even questioning why they’re doing it. Yes, watching Glenn and Abraham die sucked. But shouldn’t that motivate you to want to fight back even more? Credit to Maggie, who before going to Hilltop and becoming the de facto leader there is ready to fight only hours after seeing Glenn beaten to death in front of her. Otherwise, though, these survivors for most of the season come off as either too scared to even try to subvert Negan’s authority or too discombobulated to think through their plans (like making an alliance with people that live in a dump without ever considering the possibility they were double agents for Negan ☹). That being said, one can argue that seeing the survivors living under Negan’s reign is necessary to make the season’s end and “All Out War” next season a satisfying payoff. Sure, but that doesn’t make it any more fun to watch. From this first half of the season, there are some shining character moments. Once again, Maggie quickly became one of my favorite veteran survivors in finding her new niche role at Hilltop while also punching Gregory in the face and taking Glenn’s watch back from him. Aside from this, my favorite moments are with Negan. Whether it was hearing him metaphorically “shoving his dick” down Rick’s throat during his first official trip to Alexandria or seeing him develop a quirky yet endearing friendship with Carl at the Sanctuary, it was clear that Gimple wanted these eight episodes to essentially become “The Negan Show.” While overall this was a detriment to the season’s forward motion and the series as a whole, it’s a good thing that Jeffrey Dean Morgan KILLS IT in this role. But, on the whole, the first half of season seven is simply a drag to watch. Whether it’s seeing our survivors feeling helpless to stand up to Negan or uninteresting subplots that end up going NOWHERE (lookin’ at you, Tara finding Oceanside!), it isn’t really until the midseason premiere “Rock in the Road” when Gimple’s plan to subdue the audience into submission during the prior eight episodes starts to sort of pay off. The midseason finale left us with the emotionally-charged reunion between Rick and Daryl at Hilltop, which retrospectively serves as an incredibly cathartic moment after a half-season of our favorite survivors being down in the dumps. To follow that up, “Rock in the Road” shows Rick and the others enlisting members of Hilltop and making first contact with Ezekiel and the Kingdom which acts as a welcome breath of optimistic fresh air. And, from one episode to another, the back half of season is (mostly) not awful. I particularly appreciated the parallel character-focused stories of “Hostiles and Calamities” involving Eugene assimilating into the Sanctuary community (including endearing himself to Negan and entertaining Negan’s “wives” with science experiments) while Dwight (spurred by the disappearance of his wife) starts to indicate his desire to turn on Negan and begin helping Alexandria fight back. While (in my humble opinion) Eugene’s “double agent” storyline went on a bit too long and wasn’t handled perfectly, it’s definitely one of the more interesting character arcs of “All Out War” and goes to show just how understated Josh McDermitt is as an actor. Another pretty solid, character-focused episode revolves around the ideological conflict between Morgan and Kingdom lieutenant Richard (Karl Makinen) figuring out how and when—if at all—the Kingdom should aid Alexandria in Hilltop in fighting the Saviors. This episode, entitled “Bury Me Here,” makes Richard one of the most compelling and sympathetic one-season characters that the show has ever had. Essentially, he lost his wife and daughter early on in the apocalypse due to his passive approach to survival and therefore doesn’t want Ezekiel to repeat his mistakes in dealing with the Saviors. But Richard’s noble, but flawed, plan to draw the Kingdom into war with the Saviors—by getting himself shot—backfires and it is Morgan’s young aikido student Benjamin (Logan Miller) who ends up taking the bullet. How does Morgan deal with this loss? Unsurprisingly, not well. And seeing him choking Richard to death in front of the Saviors and Ezekiel’s people is such an incredible moment for his character reverting to his more murder-crazy, insane side that we saw all the way back in season three. Even though Morgan’s storyline doesn’t go to any real interesting place in season eight because of this, I still really enjoyed this episode on its own because it showed how someone like Morgan can be pushed by this world into relinquishing their better angels once they lose something dear to them. Much of the rest of the back half of season seven is largely forgettable. There are some shining moments like Rich and Michonne’s “Sexcation” scavenging guns in “Say Yes” or Daryl and Maggie finally talking out Daryl’s role in Glenn’s death in “The Other Side.” Overall, though, there’s more of the stupid writing reminiscent of season six. For one thing, the fact that Rick, Michonne, and the others would pretty easily trust the Scavengers—the garbage people led by Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh)—is utterly ridiculous. Maybe it’s controversial to say, but they probably should’ve lost more people than just Sasha as punishment for such oversight. Furthermore, Rosita and Sasha’s cockamamie plan to assassinate Negan should never have gotten as far as it did. They admitted that they didn’t care if they died, but what about how their actions would have affected their loved ones? They didn’t consider the possibility that, even if they managed to kill Negan, that Simon and the others would retaliate against Alexandria. Such poor writing disguising herself as female empowerment in spite of both of these characters having potential for much better storytelling. This lackluster season culminates in “The First Day of the Rest of Your Life,” a needlessly long episode with a pretty awesome last twenty minutes or so. Despite being built up with poor writing, the Scavengers betraying Alexandria catalyzed one of the best battle scenes in the history of The Walking Dead. And while Sasha’s death was heavily foreshadowed to a laughable degree throughout the episode, the reveal of her zombified corpse coming out of the casket and nearly taking a bite out of Negan was still pretty effective. Overall, it’s just so damn refreshing to see the Kingdom and Hilltop come to Alexandria’s aid and unite to fight off Negan and the Saviors (shoutout to Shiva the tiger scene-stealing from Negan, which remains one of my personal favorite cheer-inducing moments in the entire series). Just knowing that these people are finally going to fight back (somewhat) redeemed the slog of the whole season and kept me optimistic about the next season. In another sense, however, this could’ve been the series finale thanks to Maggie’s “full circle” speech about how far the survivors have come to get here having its origin in Glenn saving Rick’s life back in Atlanta in season one. Such a touching moment that served as a tribute to a great character who will forever be missed. So, is season seven of The Walking Dead the worst? I think so, if for no other reason because very little of it is fun to watch. Aside from Jeffrey Dean Morgan stealing (nearly) every scene that he’s in and some stuff in the back half, I rarely ended an episode from this season satisfied with what had happened in that episode or excited to watch the next one. Does season seven more effectively tell a cohesive story than season six? Yes, but that doesn’t mean it’s a better story. Does the season have a better tonal balance? Sure, but that tone doesn’t add much to making me care. But the real question to ask at this point: will season eight redeem this one? … Not really. 😊 If anything makes the eighth season of The Walking Dead more bearable than season seven, it’s the fact that there’s some pretty good action set pieces throughout. Essentially, Gimple and his team of writers try their damnedest to keep the audience distracted from some terrible writing choices by allowing the battles between our survivors and the Saviors to keep the plot moving. Sometimes it works, but other times it makes things even worse. Despite the issues later on in season eight, the premiere episode “Mercy” is a rather solid introduction to the beginning of Kirkman’s “All Out War” storyline. Not only do we get all of the inspiration speeches from the three community leaders—Rick Grimes of Alexandria, Maggie Rhee of Hilltop, and King Ezekiel of the Kingdom—and a pretty cool “knock at the door” of the Sanctuary with the survivors’ three-gun salute, but we finally get to see the characters execute a well-thought-out strategy to weaken the Saviors. By cutting off the Sanctuary from its various outposts sending a herd to surround Negan and the Saviors, they are able to keep one location from helping any of the others. And this plan lays the foundation for the communities to launch simultaneous attacks on the outposts, take them out, and leave only the Sanctuary left to fend for itself. This is a good plan. Does some senselessly dumb writing undermine its ingenuity later in season eight? Sure, but I’ll get to that later. 😊 From the premiere, much of the first half of season eight deals with various subplots around fighting a war. Notably, the question of how to treat prisoners who have willingly surrendered despite some bad apples in the bunch. Again, this was a good enough idea to explore given the context. But you would think that Rick, Maggie, and Ezekiel would’ve had conversations like this before attacking the Sanctuary so they were all on the same page about it. So, when Jesus wants to keep defenseless Saviors like good-natured Alden (Callan McAuliffe) and child-murdering Jared (Joshua Mikel) alive but Tara and Morgan do not, who does Maggie listen to? We find out later, but subplots like this feel needlessly melodramatic and lazy on the part of the writers who just wanted to take up runtime between commercials rather than tell a compelling story about the moral ambiguities of war without laws. To be fair, one aspect of these early episodes of the season that I did appreciate was the tragic conclusion to Aaron’s relationship with long-time boyfriend Eric (Jordan Woods-Robinson). Despite never receiving significant amounts of screentime together since being introduced back in season five, on a rewatch I ended up enjoying every scene between the two of them. No need to spend too much time on this, but I think it’s worth shouting out whenever actors playing b-tier or (in Eric’s case) c-tier characters making every second they’re in front of the camera interesting. But hands down the strongest character arc of this first half of season eight is Ezekiel and his fall from grace. The fourth episode, “Some Guy,” picks up in the wake of Ezekiel and Carol’s group of Kingdom soldiers having back-to-back successes against the Saviors before being ambushed in an open field by .50 caliber machine guns. After a long tracking shot with Ezekiel inspiring his people back home, the camera abruptly cuts to that field laden with the limbs and corpses of virtually all of Ezekiel’s troops. While Ezekiel himself was shielded by several of his people, much of the Kingdom’s fighting force is wiped out in a matter of minutes. This lays the groundwork for what is (in my humble opinion) one of the best character-focused episodes not only in season eight but also during this era of Gimple’s time as showrunner on The Walking Dead. Essentially, “Some Guy” deconstructs the self-propelled mythos of Ezekiel’s royal personality by forcing him to face down the consequences of blissful ignorance whilst in a position of power. Simply put, seeing how so many of his people died to essentially protect just him causes him to question his entire view of himself as a “king.” This is cemented in the episode’s tragic climax when Shiva, Ezekiel’s pet tiger, sacrifices herself to save her owner. Setting the unbelievable behavior of a tiger kind of just giving up fighting against walkers aside, this symbolism plays so damn well into a part of Ezekiel’s soul and visage dying in that moment. When he returns to the Kingdom with only Carol and his loyal, axe-wielding best friend Jerry (Cooper Andrews), no words of dialogue are needed between Ezekiel and the families in the Kingdom to convey the tragedy that has befallen them. And all because of Ezekiel’s arrogance as a “king.” Unfortunately, this is one of the best episodes of season eight when it would’ve just been a pretty good episode of an earlier season. This is due to the fact that much of season eight is plagued by some pretty piss-poor writing. Surely there are still some good moments, like Negan confessing his adultery to Father Gabriel in “The Big Scary U” and Rick proving himself to Jadis and the Scavengers for a second time in “Time for After.” However, moments like these are ultimately overshadowed by Gimple’s asinine storytelling decisions to unrealistically dumb down our characters in favor of raising the stakes rather than coming up with smart ways for the Saviors to overcome the obstacles put in their path by Rick and the other survivors. For example, why are Rick and Daryl not on the same page when it comes to handling the Saviors? While I could somewhat excuse the lack of uniformity between the various communities, Daryl’s “kill ‘em all” mentality versus Rick’s emphasis on Negan being the only Savior that has to die causing them to butt heads just feels pointless in the grand scheme of things. Also, Daryl and Tara (with Morgan’s help) pre-empting Rick’s plan to let the herd starve the Sanctuary out by sending a dump truck through the walls is simply ridiculous. WHY AREN’T PEOPLE TALKING TO EACH OTHER?!? There have been characters in The Walking Dead who would defy the consensus to satisfy their own personal vendettas (lookin’ at you, Rosita!). But I never viewed Daryl as one of them. Simply put, Daryl’s character feels effectively assassinated in season eight. And in more ways than just these. For one, his dialogue is less both in terms of quantity and quality. Despite Norman Reedus’ best efforts at body language and facial expressions, the supposed good reasons for Daryl’s behavior in this season are never truly conveyed from the writing. Fortunately, he improves dramatically in later seasons. But all of that could be forgiven, if not ignored in favor of this season’s bright spots. But nothing that Scott Gimple does and did could ever forgive the decision to kill off Carl Grimes this season. Even if you haven’t read Kirkman’s graphic novel, viewers understood that Carl represented the immediate future of the show as Rick’s son and de facto successor as leader. The early episodes where he countered his father’s philosophy about Negan even foreshadowed this. Unfortunately, Gimple’s recent tendencies to lean more into melodrama utterly void of logic rather than compelling, character-driven drama to drive his narrative makes it all the more apparent why viewers created an online petition for AMC to fire him once Carl was confirmed to be killed off in “Honor,” the midseason premiere. Ultimately, Carl’s death episode—“Honor,” that is—packs some emotional punch with him gifting Rick’s sheriff’s hat to toddler Judith and his goodbyes to Michonne and Rick. Yet that emotional punch is purely based off of Carl’s history in the show rather than anything written this season that justifies his death in any meaningful way. This season ended up being the end of Carl’s story arc in The Walking Dead when it should’ve been the beginning of a great storyline for him coming into his own as a mature leader of the communities. And the two sour cherries on top? Daryl’s goodbye to him is so hallow (he somehow was given less to say to the boy he survived years with on the road than a new character), and Carl’s “moment” with Negan in the midseason finale, “How It’s Gotta Be,” was shattered by the fact that the show would never develop their relationship for the future. For many viewers (including myself), Carl’s death (not even the result of the war with the Saviors but just a f***ing zombie bite!) soured the remainder of season eight and the entire show to the point where viewership continued to decline to this day. Are there some other good elements of season eight? Sure, but they’re all overshadowed by this absolutely brainless decision that potentially contributed to Gimple being replaced as showrunner starting in season nine. So, what are some of those good elements of this season’s second half? Much of them have to do with the major characters of the Saviors. Without question, Steven Ogg as Simon helped both seasons seven and eight bearable with both his charisma and his foil to Negan as an opportunistic and power-hungry Savior lieutenant who tries (but fails) to seize Negan’s position right out from under him after convincing many of the Saviors that he was dead. From his efforts to keep the Saviors from revolting in “The Big Scary U” to mercilessly killing most of the Scavengers in “The Lost and the Plunderers” to taking control of the Saviors from Negan in “The Key” and leading them to attack Hilltop in “Do Not Send Us Astray,” Simon never disappointed me in making the Saviors’ storyline often more compelling than anything going on with any of our protagonists. Another surprising standout Savior character was Dwight, whose efforts to aid Alexandria as an inside man while also protecting knowledge of his deception from Negan only improved upon the character work done with him in season seven. And even though he briefly tags along with Daryl and company in the swamps after fleeing Alexandria in the midseason finale, I enjoyed his role in screwing over Simon back at the Sanctuary only to be outed to Negan by Laura (Lindsley Register) and made a prisoner. And of all the characters’ ends in the “All Out War” storyline, Dwight’s felt the most bittersweet with Daryl forcing him away but letting him live. I wish he’d stayed around and not gone to Fear the Walking Dead. But, I enjoyed the time we had with Dwight in this show. Finally, I ended up appreciating Eugene’s storyline in season eight more than I thought I would on a rewatch. While initially feeling that his turn against Rick and the others in favor of helping Negan and the Saviors—only to double-cross them in the season finale—was cheap and not earned, I found Josh McDermitt’s performance throughout the season compelling, funny, and empathetic in a way that so many characters on The Walking Dead struggle to be. I know some viewers find Eugene’s vocabulary and mannerisms annoying and off-putting, but I think when McDermitt is given some decent material to work with he excels at making Eugene likeable in a quirky yet endearing way. Ultimately, his double-agent status in this season ended up being some of the more believable writing thanks to how McDermitt tackled it from start to finish. Aside from the Saviors, it is largely Andrew Lincoln’s acting chops that carries the thematic backbone of the second half of season eight. All in all, he puts his best foot forward to make Carl being killed off worth it for Rick’s character who remains dead-set on killing Negan himself until the finale (shoutout to his and Negan’s car chase/brawl in “The Key,” easily one of the best character-focused action set pieces of the season). The decision to end Carl’s story still felt premature to the detriment of the entire show’s future, but Lincoln never puts anything less than one-hundred percent onscreen showing Rick’s light and darkness tugging him in different directions: Carl’s mercy, and his own wrath. The standout action scene of the back half of season eight is in the episode “Do Not Send Us Astray” where most of the characters converge on Hilltop to either defend it or attack it. We get some great moments for various characters, like Rick and Maggie flanking Simon’s forces and forcing them to retreat. All of this, of course, before the Saviors’ gutted weapons take effect and cause a walker outbreak among the wounded survivors in the middle of the night. Overall, this episode does what season four’s finale “A” does in giving two solid episodes in one: a fun battle in the first half, and a scary, walker-infested slaughter in the second half. But it’s by no means a great episode, which just goes to show the overall lack in quality this season. Given the mixed-bag quality of much of season eight, its last few episodes are actually not bad. In “Still Gotta Mean Something,” Rick dons his murder jacket once more and (with Morgan’s help) tracks down the Savior prisoners who escaped in the prior episode. This results in the season’s most cathartic moment: Morgan allowing Jared, the Savior that brutally shot and killed Benjamin last season, get eaten alive by walkers. Damn, it felt that good to see that son-of-a-bitch die slow and painfully! The penultimate episode, “Wrath,” brings Simon’s story to a bittersweet but compelling end as him and Negan have a no-holds-barred fistfight to the death which goes in the way you’d expect it to since Negan won’t let ANYONE steal his villainous spotlight. As I said before, Steven Ogg is one of my favorite short-lived characters in the entire show that made these lackluster seasons watchable thanks to his magnetic charisma. Meanwhile, Lincoln once again reminds us of his fantastic acting chops during his reaction to Chandler Riggs’ narration of Carl’s letter to him. Seeing only through his eyes and face how Rick processes hearing Carl reminisce about his pre-apocalyptic childhood as the means to inspire Rick to make peace with Negan and build a better future for Judith is so impressive. And it makes Lincoln’s exit from the series in season nine all the more depressing. It’s moments like these that remind me just how much Lincoln carried this The Walking Dead for so long, and how it took time for me and viewers like me to adjust to the show without his presence. The “All Out War” storyline finally concludes with the episode “Wrath.” The flashback-flashforward loop is finally closed when Rick slashes Negan’s throat only to have Siddiq (Avi Nash)—the character that Carl died to save—stop the bleeding and save him. This, in turn, helps conclude Rick’s character arc of finally accepting Carl’s vision for a future of peace despite Maggie’s heartbreaking protests against such a decision. And to end the season, we get Lincoln narrating his letter to Carl promising to make Judith’s future one that Carl would’ve wanted during a montage of a clean-shaven, younger Rick walking hand in hand with baby Carl. Given the season as a whole, a pretty strong finale. When I look back on these two seasons of The Walking Dead, I try to think of the highlights like the badass action sequences and solid character moments. Unfortunately, on a rewatch I can no longer brush over their deteriorating weaknesses that force me to warn people I’m convincing to give a show a chance: “The Walking Dead is great, but you probably will wanna stop watching by around season seven. But keep going, it gets better after season eight.” Thus, I can no longer say The Walking Dead is one of the best television series ever made. They aren’t just mediocre, but very much not good. So much so that Gimple’s dominating reign as showrunner came to end. Going into fall of 2018, a new era of The Walking Dead began which revitalized the series’ favorability with many critics and the fans who stuck around to see it under the commanding leadership of its new showrunner: Angela Kang. TO BE CONTINUED… The Kang Renaissance (2018-2021) After five years as showrunner, Gimple stepped down to take on his new role as Chief Content Officer for The Walking Dead universe which includes the flagship show and the numerous spin-offs that have kept AMC barely relevant as a television channel and entertainment studio. Taking on the role going into the show’s ninth season was Angela Kang, a veteran writer and producer of The Walking Dead since 2011. Much of the marketing going into the season premiere was pitching a sort of “revival” of the show that would make it feel brand new and completely distinct from its past couple of seasons. For the viewers that stuck around through what were arguably its weakest two seasons, such a prospect was exciting but many people remained cautiously optimistic On top of its recent past of subpar quality storytelling, a shadow loomed over this upcoming season: the heartbreaking news that Andrew Lincoln, the leading man on The Walking Dead since its premiere in 2010, was departing the show. Lincoln would only be appearing in the first five episodes of the new season. Additionally, Lauren Cohan’s role as Maggie was limited to those same episodes which kept the question of her return as a series regular unanswered until the season ten finale. With two main characters—including everyone’s favorite small-town sheriff—leaving the series, could The Walking Dead survive? With all of this working against Kang, could The Walking Dead—which had been on the air for nearly a decade at that point—truly reinvent itself and turn the corner towards a better future? Furthermore, would Lincoln’s departure permanently cement the show’s inevitable and irreversible demise? For some, these questions were not answered until the end of season nine. For me, it was pretty clear after watching the season premiere, “A New Beginning,” back on October 7, 2018. In my humble opinion, someone who has never seen a single episode from the first eight seasons of The Walking Dead could start the series at “A New Beginning” and (mostly) follow along with where the characters’ journeys are and the state of the world many years into the apocalypse. Simply put, Angela Kang’s writing chops are on full display in this episode because every single scene does an incredibly efficient job of providing the audience reminders of the conflict with the Savors and the dynamics between the characters, all while introducing the major themes of the season and teasing the major conflict of the first five episodes. A vital element of this episode acting as such a great introduction to Kang’s take on The Walking Dead is the expert world building. Some of the earliest shots of the survivors riding into Washington, D.C. encapsulate some fantastic visual storytelling on display. From the get-go, it clear that these people are at a point where resources are scarce which has forced them to resort to a more medieval/agrarian lifestyle. From riding horses and makeshift carriages to using almost exclusively melee weapons and bows and arrows rather than firearms, the post-apocalypse has become a place where those still alive must rely on each other to survive because the world from before is completely gone. Which tees up a fantastic, character-driven conflict for the whole season but these first several episodes in particular: the importance of community. As I’ll talk about for the end of the season too, Kang takes a step back from the rushed storytelling of season eight by asking the question, “After eighteen months of relative peace, where is everyone at mentally and emotionally? How are people feeling about Rick letting the Saviors live among them?” And while Gimple may have struggled to make the answers to these questions for various cast members feel satisfying, Kang manages to show how all of our principal characters are feeling to propel both their personal journeys and the overall story. Some are doing pretty well (notably Carol and Ezekiel who end up getting engaged in a great showcase for Melissa McBride’s understated charisma and Khary Payton’s effervescent charm). Others, however, are much angrier with each other. Specifically, the heart of this divide is Rick and Michonne believing in giving the Saviors (except for Negan, of course) a second chance despite Maggie and Daryl feeling that any possibility of the former Saviors turning over a new leaf (if even possible) can never make up for the deaths of Glenn, Abraham, and the other survivors who horrifically perished under Negan’s rule. While it’s a question of how these people who’ve been family for years will come to blows, the riveting conclusion to “A New Beginning” teases where this core tension will take us going forward. Once Maggie decides to take life (and therefore any second chance) by hanging Gregory from the gallows for orchestrating an attempt on her life, she makes a statement that Rick and Michonne have to respond to sooner or later. While the actors pull off their respective characters’ beliefs on this matter, it is once again the writing that surprised me the most this season. Namely, that Rick’s motivation for fighting to preserve a future of mercy that Carl died for is equally as sympathetic and reasonable as Maggie’s desire for justice for Glenn by ridding them of all Saviors (Negan most of all). It’s not an easy moral conundrum for the audience to say who’s right or wrong, which only adds to the argument that Kang’s rejuvenation of The Walking Dead as a show about the complexities of human morality was truly successful. We start getting answers in the following episodes, starting with “The Bridge” where the communities coming together to rebuild a path between them serves as a solid metaphor that embodies both the potential of Alexandria, Hilltop, Kingdom and the Sanctuary working together and the damage that would be done if they were to break off from each other. As to how the communities will handle troublesome types like Gregory and Negan in the future, Michonne suggests the need for a localized constitution with laws that all the communities agree to. Of course, Maggie and Daryl don’t agree with bringing the Saviors in on this vision of the future despite Rick insisting it’d be best for everyone. Unfortunately, one too many instances occur of the few bad Saviors popping off and causing trouble for their liking. Not only does it nearly cost lives (and does end up costing Aaron his arm), but the notion of a clear set of ethical standards goes out the window once Maggie and Daryl enable (and therefore implicitly endorse) the women of Oceanside capping off their revenge against the Saviors that killed their husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers. The framing device for “The Bridge”—Rick’s talk with Negan in his jail cell—expertly underlines this boiling tension when Negan shatters his former archenemy’s optimism by reminding him that it’s only a matter of time when everything will go to hell. The set up for this impending face-off between the remaining Saviors and the other communities if awesome. However, I think the pay-off feels a bit anticlimactic. Granted, that seemed to be Kang’s intentions in order to make room for the next big bad of the rest of season nine. That being said, I do wish we would have seen more of the actual shootout at the work camp in order to feel the catharsis of “All-Out War” finally coming to an end. But I guess I can live with it because the rest of the attention span of episode five, “What Comes After,” was for the send-offs of Rick Grimes and Maggie Rhee. To begin with the latter, I LOVED getting the iconic scene of Maggie confronting Negan in jail from Kirkman’s graphic novel. It makes sense as AMC was unsure of when (let alone how) Maggie would return to the show, but on top of that makes for some of the best acting out of Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan that we’ve seen in the entire run of The Walking Dead. Morgan specifically, I think, kills this scene because the audience never saw this incredibly vulnerable, weak, and self-pitying side of Negan before. While “What Comes After” does not primarily shine a spotlight on Cohan, I was glad that she had some great screen time to leave her relationship with Negan in a way that gave some closure while not completely shutting the door on the future. But “What Comes After” is notable as Andrew Lincoln’s (as of now) final episode of The Walking Dead. And what I perhaps like least about it is how his final interactions with Daryl couldn’t somehow be squeezed into this one. Without question, their heart-to-heart in the sinkhole in the prior episode was a superbly done homage to some of their best scenes from earlier seasons; I just wish the stuff with Daryl was fresher on first viewing to make the emotional impact of Rick’s exit from the show all the more impactful (that being said, the look on Norman Reedus’s face after seeing the bridge blow up breaks me every time). All in all, though, how did Kang handle Lincoln’s final episode of Rick Grimes? The word that comes to mind is graceful. Her use of the life-saving hallucinations (specifically with Jon Bernthal’s Shane and Scott Wilson’s Hershel) more than effectively delivers the emotional climax of Rick making the fateful decision to blow up the bridge in order to save everyone. In his mind (as it’s gradually detached itself from reality), Rick found peace with death because he knew that the people he loved most would be there for each other and that he did everything he possibly could to make that happen. Certainly, there remained an undeniable hole in the hearts of the fans since Lincoln’s departure. Furthermore, the thriving mystery of what exactly happened to Rick after Jadis/Anne and the “helicopter people” saved him keeps me from being fully on board with how this episode turned out. All that said, however, I cannot help but commending Kang for managing to bring the well-deserved gravitas and importance of Lincoln’s last episode but simultaneously making me excited for the future of The Walking Dead. If you’d asked me minutes before the episode originally aired if I was hopeful for where the show would go after Rick was no longer on it, I’m confident I would have expressed concern (if not outright apprehension). Only time will tell with the recently-announced Rick and Michonne spin-off series (supposedly airing in 2023) if Rick leaving the show was worth it. As of now, though, The Walking Dead was never the same despite doing its damnedest to retain a promising level of quality going forward. Fortunately, the show was kicking off the “Kang Renaissance” in order to prove to its audience that their continued investment would pay off. How does said investment pay off? With the rest of season nine, which upon rewatch became one of my favorite seasons of The Walking Dead. Period. Why? Let me explain. 😊 The sixth episode, entitled “Who Are You Now?”, fleshes out the six-year time jump that we were introduced to in the final moments of “What Comes After” upon seeing a grown-up (as in nine-year-old) Judith Grimes (Cailey Fleming) which instantly became one of the best character introductions of The Walking Dead ever. After she saves a group of strangers—lovers Magna (Nadia Hilker) and Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura), music-lover Luke, (Dan Fogler), and sisters Connie (Lauren Ridloff) and Kelly (Angel Theory)—from walkers, she (with some help from Aaron, Eugene, and others) bring them to a very different Alexandria. Despite being run by a council of leaders, it quickly becomes clear that Michonne has a hold over things (specifically when it comes to letting new people into the community) due to some demons from her past to be revealed in later episodes. Essentially, “Who Are You Now?” serves as a wholly unexpected rebirth for the show in the wake of Rick’s supposed demise not just with a time skip but by making such a drastic, off-screen forward progression impactful. Furthermore, Kang frames much of the episode through the eyes of Magna and her friends which effectively re-introduces us to all the new things in our survivors’ lives (i.e. Rosita dating Gabriel, Michonne having given birth to Rick’s second son). Even Negan’s altered outlook on life behind bars gets a fantastic spotlight during a conversational scene between him and Judith that is somehow both heartwarming and unnerving. But what is perhaps most significant about the time jump of this episode is how well Kang grounds the audience’s initial apprehension about the significant change in the emotional states our three core cast members: Daryl, Carol, and Michonne. While Daryl became a guilt-ridden, self-isolating hermit and Michonne a closed-off, traumatized widow, Carol has pulled through the loss of Rick and come out better on the other side. Not only is she in a loving marriage with Ezekiel and found herself as an adoptive mother once more with Henry (Matt Lintz), the young brother of Morgan’s former student Benjamin, but she seems more confident in herself. Whereas earlier in the season she reluctantly went along with Rick’s idea of mercy for the Saviors, she ultimately shows her true colors when she burns the remaining Saviors alive upon one of them trying to steal her wedding ring. Despite the mistakes that Gimple made with the character in the past few seasons, Kang clearly recognized what makes Carol a fascinating character in the post-apocalypse: her ruthless pragmatism that stems from her powerful, motherly instincts. Unlike her sudden heel turn in the latter third of season six that made her storyline in season seven so disappointing, Carol’s violent tendencies feel much more relatable and realistic here. Rather than coming off as bouncing between the extremes of detached pacifism and murderous brutality, she makes smart and rational decisions based on her environment but is able to quickly adapt once she knows that she has the upper hand. Simply put, thank God that Angela Kang knew that the fans were gravely pining for the Carol of seasons four and five. Despite much of “Who Are You Now?” being devoted to understanding where everyone is at six years after Rick’s death and Maggie’s departure, the final moments with Eugene and Rosita wounded and hiding from walkers sets the stage for the next major villain of The Walking Dead: the Whisperers. While hearing zombies speak is discomforting, the way that “Evolution” (the midseason finale) builds tension by seeing Daryl, Jesus, Aaron, and Eugene’s diversion tactics of the walkers fail sets up an incredibly magnetic showdown in the graveyard. It’s also a great homage to classic zombie horror flicks like George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead that served as a mostly effective reminder of the fact that The Walking Dead is a horror television show. Mostly. What I’m hinting at is Jesus (and thus Tom Payne, the actor who played him) getting killed off. Was him fighting off zombies with a broadsword badass? Hell yes. Was the sudden dodge of the Whisperer a jaw-dropping moment? Of course. That being said, however, I really wish that Kang had kept Jesus around a bit longer. While it’s not her fault that he was given virtually nothing to do the past two seasons, I think she could have made a very smart decision to build him up as a reluctant yet effective leader of the communities who becomes comfortable in that role just in time for the Whisperers to strike and make him one of the “spike victims.” I understand that we needed an impactful death to establish the stakes of the impending conflict with the Whisperers, but man did Jesus get the short end of the stick. From here, the back half of season nine puts the Whisperers front and center of the story in order to both propel the conflict and further explore this year’s theme of the consequences of isolation and the need for community. The major example of this is how Hilltop serves as the primary staging ground for a face-off with the Whisperers, from the introduction of their leader Alpha (Samantha Morton) during the prisoner exchange to Henry developing an intimate friendship with Alpha’s traumatized but capable daughter Lydia (Cassady McClincy). While Morton’s performance feels a bit over-the-top at times, she excels at differentiating from both Negan and most of the other antagonists of the series up to this point. In my humble opinion, her obscured femininity with the emotional core of motherhood is what helps her stand out from the pack of The Walking Dead villains because it’s her relationship with Lydia that humanizes her more than the Governor with Penny and Andrea or Negan with his baseball bat. However, McClincy is the standout Whisperer for me both in terms of her character and her performance. Almost every time she’s on screen she is magnetizing due to the raw emotion that she displays whether it be for dramatic stand-offs or endearing friendliness. Overall, though, do the Whisperers cement a legacy as one of the show’s better group of villains? I would say yes, although I understand why some people find them unrealistic (if not outright silly). Sure, there animalistic lifestyle and merciless hierarchy seem more counterproductive than anything else in the post-apocalypse. However, the lead actors who play Whisperers like Morton and McClincy do a pretty good job rationalizing how this world has made them and people like them succumb to adopting their baser instincts as a daily way of life. Plus, their use of skinned zombie faces as a camouflage is such a clever idea from Kirkman that Kang adapts for the screen incredibly well (probably its best moment is when Daryl and Connie save Henry and Lydia by wearing them as a disguise; SO BADASS!!). In the background of this whole Whisperer ordeal, however, is Negan. Having spent the entire first half of season nine behind a jail cell (nearly eight years’ time in the show), his chance at freedom in the midseason premiere “Adaptation” gives Jeffrey Dean Morgan a great one-man showcase of his acting talents. Being on his own beyond the walls of Alexandria (including visiting his old digs and getting another black leather jacket) gives him a much-needed reality check that the world has moved on from him and that he’s probably better off back in jail. I’ll get to the end of his season arc a little later, but I just have to take a moment to commend Morgan on his amazing versatility as an actor. When you contrast his death wish in front of Maggie in “What Comes After” to his starting to turn over a new leaf with Judith in this episode, Kang managed to FINALLY give multiple dimensions to Negan’s character which were severely lacking since his arrival to the show way back in the season six finale. As the season approaches one of the series’ best episodes ever, we get “Scars” which I also found to be a surprisingly well-done character study of Michonne and Daryl’s psychology in the wake of Rick’s disappearance. Not only does it finally explain what happened during those six years that made Michonne so skeptical of letting strangers into Alexandria, but its exceptional editing style embodies a “less is more” approach in showing her make the unspeakable decision to kill several armed, brainwashed children in order to save toddler Judith. Which, in turn, crosscuts to Michonne slicing through a herd of walkers to save grown-up Judith before having one of my favorite heart-to-heart conservations in the entire show. While not surprising, the fact that Rick Grimes’s daughter is the only one who can talk Michonne out of her closed-off mindset by reminding her that people matter more than anything is such a rewarding catharsis for the audience. Needless to say, Fleming continues to melt our hearts and become a fan-favorite in a matter of episodes. With some answers about the past, the show returns to the present with its penultimate episode “The Calm Before.” Simply put, it is one of The Walking Dead‘s best episodes to this day. It is a master class in balancing tone and suspense to build up to a shocking, heartbreaking, and horrifying resolution with regards to the truly staggering nature of the threat posed by Alpha and the Whisperers. Having seen our survivors fight the Whisperers one-on-one and win, á la Daryl defeating Alpha’s right-hand man Beta (Ryan Hurst) in “Chokepoint,” we know that our survivors have the weapons and logistics (if not the numbers) to handle them. That is until Alpha takes matters into her own hands. First, she disguises herself in order to infiltrate the Community Fair, kidnap several of the survivors, and confront Lydia one last time. From there, she retrieves Daryl after Beta captured him and reveals her secret weapon. Standing atop a cliffside, Alpha shows him a massive herd of walkers before informing her of a border as her once-and-for-all solution to what she perceives as a territorial dispute between the Whisperers and the communities. The editing in “The Calm Before” is fantastic. While much of the first half of the episode highlights a sense of optimism now that the communities are coming together to trade, bond, and agree to the bylaws that Michonne introduced years ago, the tone perfectly shifts said hopefulness into dread once Alpha is revealed to be at the Fair. This, of course, only worsens once Daryl learns of the herd. And it all culminates in the reveal of the “spike victims” at Alpha’s border. Without question, this remains one of the show’s most shocking and heartbreaking moments ever. While viewers may not have cared about every single person who Alpha had decapitated and spiked (who didn’t LOVE the Highwaymen?!?), the sheer number of casualties acts as enough of a full-on tragedy for our characters in the same way that the “red wedding” scene from season three of Game of Thrones did for the Starks and their allies. In a way, it’s not seeing whose heads were on the spikes (although I still think Jesus’ death should’ve been reserved for the final one). Rather, it was seeing Daryl instinctively rush over to Carol and shield her from having to stare into Henry’s vacant, zombified eyes. It was a great callback to the scene of zombified Sophia exiting Hershel’s barn in season two, and broke our hearts seeing Daryl’s instinctive need to protect his best friend from having to see yet another child in her life dead before her. Given how impactful “The Calm Before” was as an episode, the actual final episode (entitled “The Storm”) can seem anticlimactic by comparison. But I disagree. I appreciated the melancholic tone of season nine’s finale as it’s in line with how Kang handled the emotional fallout of other significant events earlier in the season with a similar tact. With the Kingdom no longer being a viable home, members of the other communities pull off what Alpha and the Whisperers believed they could not in helping Ezekiel, Carol, and the other Kingdommers traverse some tough winter weather to find a new home at Hilltop. Speaking of which, I will be forever grateful to Kang for being the showrunner that FINALLY pulled off a winter episode of The Walking Dead. Fans clamored so long to see what it would be like to fend off walkers in snow and ice, and she not only gave us that in with the scene of the survivors crossing a frozen stream but added onto that the stress and strain of staving off hypothermia and starvation by needing to get people from the Kingdom to Hilltop within a strict time limit. Honestly, I can’t think of another way to pull off such a cool use of snow and ice within the context of an intimate season finale. Despite the otherwise anticlimactic nature of “The Storm,” it also resolves the start of Negan’s redemption arc with him risking his life to save Judith (along with Dog, Daryl’s pet canine) from the winter storm as it hits Alexandria. Following a bittersweet conversation with Michonne, it perfectly tees up Negan’s journey going forward in the show as more than just a villain that you love to hate. Rather, he’s well on track by the end of this season to transform into a fan-favorite anti-hero with a blackened heart that has potential to turn to gold. All in all, season nine of The Walking Dead managed to capture the glory of the show’s earlier seasons against all odds. From the departure of two main cast members to a major time jump and introducing the stakes of a brand-new antagonist, Angela Kang kicked off her first year as showrunner by delivering what will go down as (in my humble opinion) one of the best seasons of The Walking Dead. But as the fall of 2019 approached and season ten was on the horizon, I was more excited for the show than I had been for years. With a newfound confidence in the show’s direction, I was curious about what Kang would do next to keep The Walking Dead feeling fresh and interesting. To start positively, season ten of the show transcends the sum of its parts in terms of quality. I look back on it fondly more often than not, which is largely due to the standout moments. That being said, season ten is such a mixed bag. To put it simply, the first half reminds of the weaker half-seasons from the series (i.e. the back half of season three, the first half of season six) while the second half felt like a shot of adrenaline that delivered some great character moments, action sequences, and a relatively solid conclusion to the Whisperer War arc. But then there’s the “COVID” episodes that came off as (mostly) tacked on, unnecessary despite delivering one of the best episodes of the show to date. But I’ll get to that later. 😊 When it comes to the first eight episodes of season ten, I was overall disappointed but there was still some good stuff in it. First and foremost, Kang maintains the theme of community kicked off in season nine while also making a third war storyline feel surprisingly fresh. Regarding the former, I really appreciated Kang fleshing out how the communities send messages back and forth via Eugene’s sophisticated radio set-up. While it also tees up the last major arc for the show (lookin’ at you, Commonwealth!), it’s just another great example of Kang’s approach to world building that has kept the show grounded all these years into the post-apocalypse. I also really enjoyed how the war with the Whisperers kicks off in the season premiere, “Lines We Cross.” The editing style effectively coalesces the various characters’ storylines into all the communities working together to save Oceanside from a forest fire (despite the risk of crossing over Alpha’s border), which helps set the stakes for the season. From there, however, Kang makes the smart choice to have the Whisperers favor psychological warfare against the communities (primarily involving their sabotage of Hilltop and Alexandria’s borders). In my humble opinion, her handling of this storyline superbly differentiates it from the fights with both Woodbury and the Saviors which is quite impressive considering how many other battle-ridden arcs that The Walking Dead has done. There are also some standout episodes from the first half of season ten. Notably, “We Are the End of the World” which fleshes out the backstory of how Alpha and Lydia met Beta and the origins of the Whisperers themselves works very well invoking empathy for Alpha. On rewatch, I was surprised by how much her breaking down in front of Beta resonated with me. Whereas her performance felt a wee bit zany during much of season nine, I thought Samantha Morton effectively seized upon the opportunities to complicate and humanize Alpha in this season. I also thoroughly enjoyed episode five, “What It Always Is,” as another great Negan character spotlight. While season nine ended his storyline in a hopeful place that set up some potential for a sliver of redemption, this season makes the audience severely question who Negan really is now. After saving Lydia’s life at the risk of losing his own in “Silence the Whisperers,” his new journey starts on the back of him being broken out of jail. Simply put, watching him put up with the fanboy Brandon (Blaine Kern III) while fostering a genuinely heartwarming friendship with a young boy makes for some great fun. And then it all crumbles when Negan realizes that Brandon killed the boy and his mother out of being inspired by his favorite Savior, thus setting up Negan’s outward rejection of his old life (and brutally killing Brandon in the process) before making his way to the Whisperers to act as a double agent with complex motives. From there, we get an utterly fantastic montage of Negan earning his keep with the Whisperers by working under Beta’s untrusting supervision. This is the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae that is all of Negan’s scenes with the Whisperers that consistently deliver thanks to Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s amazing chemistry with Morton and Hurst. But it works on a level beyond just humor; it also propels Negan, Alpha and Beta’s storylines for a much stronger back half of the season. There are some other standout moments from those first eight episodes of season ten. Given how little we see of Michonne and Judith, I found their dynamic lots of fun this season. From the more emotional scene of Michonne witnessing Judith tell her little brother RJ the “Brave Man” story in the premiere to them fighting side by side to protect Hilltop, the moments they share in this season (while not making up for Michonne’s exit later on) held up largely on the back of Fleming and Gurira’s chemistry with one another as actors. Unfortunately, there’s not much more positive that I have to say about the first half of season ten. This is due to the fact that one of the core elements of the Whisperer War storyline for these episodes focuses on Siddiq and newcomer (revealed to be a Whisperer spy) Dante (Juan Javier Cardenas). Not only does their friendship feel forced, but Cardenas never once convinced me that he’s innocent. Given how long the show’s gone on at this point, every new character is under immediate suspicion by the audience. In other words, I just wish that Kang had introduced this character last season (perhaps in the wake of the time skip?) to make the revelation of his Whisperer identity more organic. Still, Dante’s brutal end at the hands of Rosita and Gabriel was satisfying enough. But the problems for this storyline go beyond just Dante. At the end of the day, Siddiq’s struggle with PTSD in the wake of being the sole survivor of Alpha’s mass killing last season was not done very well. Worse than that, though, his death at the hands of Dante has a tragic ripple effect: the death of Carl Grimes, whose life was sacrificed on Siddiq’s behalf, ends up feeling even more hallow and soulless than it already did when it happened. I wish I felt different, but so much of the Siddiq/Dante storyline reminded me too much of the weaker aspects of past half-seasons which is, in a way, even more disappointing given how strong The Walking Dead was doing under Kang’s leadership. That being said, the second half of season ten is both more entertaining and satisfying than the first half. And it kicks with the episode “Squeeze” in which several principal characters—from Daryl, Carol, Aaron and Jerry to several members of Magna’s crew—have to escape a cave after Alpha baited them into it. Similar to how the midseason finale of last season, “Evolution,” was well-crafted homage to classic horror flicks, “Squeeze” evokes all the elements of a great suspenseful thriller by making the threat to our characters not just the walkers but the environment itself (as a man on the larger side, I strongly empathize with Jerry’s struggle in this episode). And the episode culminates in a (literally) explosively tragic conclusion when Carol—blinded by her thirst for vengeance against Alpha for killing Henry—blows up the cave, seemingly trapping Magna and Connie underground. Which brings us to Carol’s arc this season revolving around her losing her grip on sanity once again in the wake of tragedy. Despite this storyline repeating past versions of Carol’s arc (notably the utterly nonsensical way she tried to isolate herself in season seven), Kang’s oversight combined with McBride’s performance does bring some new dimensions to it. Primarily, I found Carol’s recognition of how mentally unstable she is to be a breath of fresh air compared to prior seasons. Furthermore, the way the cinematographer and editor portrayed her increasing loss of her grip on reality (specifically her seeing dead Sophia, Lizzie, Mika, Sam, and Henry in “Ghosts”) was (in my humble opinion) better handled here than under Gimple’s tenure. Overall, I just found Carol’s progression from her self-assured desire for vengeance in the first half of season ten to her slowly breaking down in the latter half to come off better under Kang’s leadership. Maybe she just gets the Carol character more than Gimple did, or at least figured out how to utilize her in a way that he couldn’t. In the wake of the cave explosion, the story builds to a full-on battle between the Hilltop and the Whisperers in “Morning Star” and “Walk with Us.” The former episode mostly focuses on the build-up to the battle with some great character moments (like Carol and Ezekiel making up and Judith gifting Daryl his vest with her bright-blue wing patch) before climaxing into a medieval fight in the last ten minutes that was shot better than any of the battles in season eight. Meanwhile, the latter episode kicks off with the Whisperers burning Hilltop to the ground which propels the story forward with different characters’ stories trying to survive and find each other in the wake of the battle. Notably, Earl Sutton (John Finn) protecting the children of Hilltop before having to be put down by Judith which is a scene that just warmed my heart. Put together, these two episodes felt like a satisfying climax-within-a-climax for the Whisperer War by escalating it to the action-heavy sensibilities of “All-Out War” before letting the consequences of peoples’ actions breathe and cause more havoc. This brings us to the conclusion of two major Whisperers’ arcs: Gamma (Thora Birch) and Alpha. Since I haven’t mentioned Gamma yet, I wanted to make sure I touched on her story here. Despite being a one-season secondary character, I thought that Birch excelled at making the audience empathize with her as someone who ultimately realizes she chose the wrong people to have her back before turning as a spy for Alexandria (which is handled for Gamma WAY better than Dante, by the way). Furthermore, her “rehumanization” in which her sole goal becomes to protect her nephew and give him a good life (which ultimately becomes her downfall at the hands of Beta) ended up being a surprisingly emotional conclusion to a character that could’ve felt as much forced as Dante but instead made for an addition to the other likeable one-season characters of The Walking Dead. Regarding the end of Alpha’s story, I really like Kang went against past showrunners’ increasingly destructive creative instincts by preserving the iconic moment of Negan decapitating her from Kirkman’s graphic novel. It’s also a great reminder of how Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Samantha Morton brought out the best in each other as actors, while propelling Negan’s redemption arc forward by confirming that Carol broke him out of jail back in Alexandria in exchange for him bringing her Alpha’s head. All in all, “Walk with Us” is a pretty solid mini-conclusion to the Whisperer War. Unfortunately, before we can wrap up that arc, we have to address what is (in my humble opinion) the worst episode of season ten: “What We Become,” otherwise known as Danai Gurira’s last episode on The Walking Dead as Michonne. Simply put, I found Kang’s answer as to why Michonne would straight-up leave her two children and everyone else she loves to track down Rick utterly confounding and stupid. After parting ways with Judith at Oceanside in the midseason finale, we find Michonne in this episode on an island with the obviously-suspicious stranger Virgil (Kevin Carroll) who—to nobody’s surprise—imprisons her because he’s crazy and lied about having lots of guns. He also drugs her, which spurns a very cheap gimmick involving Michonne hallucinating an alternate version of herself that never found Rick’s group, became a Savior and Negan’s lieutenant, and was killed by Rick himself. Honestly, this stuff felt like bad fan fiction and was used here to just fill time when those precious cable-television minutes could’ve been used to offer a rational explanation as to how and why Michonne leaves northern Virginia. The episode’s secondary focus is on Virgil’s character, despite the fact that nobody asked for that. Especially how he was handled; an empty, hallow arc that also came off as filling time with useless story. Simply put, I cannot watch “What We Become” without comparing it to Rick’s season-nine send-off in “What Comes After” which is a far more graceful, respectful, and solidly crafted farewell to a fan-favorite protagonist. Instead, here in season ten Michonne’s last episode left me feeling irritated and frustrated with Kang’s storytelling in a way season nine convinced me would never happen. Fortunately, it’s only one episode and by no means ruins the season as a whole. Man, I just hope that the recently-announced Rick and Michonne spin-off series will make up for this sad excuse for an episode. Now, back to the good stuff. In the wake of Hilltop’s fall, most of the survivors redouble their efforts and coalesce around Alexandria. But a select few—led by Eugene—make their way to rendezvous with Stephanie (Margot Bingham), the woman that Eugene has been talking with over the radio since the sixth episode of the season. According to Stephanie, she’s part of a massive community and Eugene hopes to convince this new group to help them in their fight against the Whisperers. As a largely unrelated diversion from the Whisperer arc, I enjoyed following a small group of characters on a new journey that set the stage for the show’s last major storyline. I particularly appreciated the spotlight on Eugene, as his story this season feels fresh for once in that (thanks to Rosita’s reverse psychology with him) he’s finally ready to move on from his crush and pursue a new, uncertain future with someone that he has genuine chemistry with. The cherry on top, of course, is the introduction of Juanita Sanchez (Paola Lázaro)—better known as “Princess”—who oozes charisma and ends up being surprisingly empathetic despite the character’s incredible potential to be annoying to a fault. But more on the Commonwealth storyline later, as the Whisperers have yet to be wrapped up. Our various main characters process the death of Alpha and the loss of Hilltop in different ways. While Negan finally proves his true colors by saving Daryl from a bunch of Whisperers, Beta grieves the loss of Alpha by taking half of her face and making it part of his own mask. From here on out, Beta takes center stage as the primary antagonist of The Walking Dead. And Ryan Hurst kills it; whereas Alpha was conniving, manipulative, and strategic, Beta is brute force and peak machismo wrapped in a horrifying cult of personality that is the hierarchy of the Whisperers. With the end of the season’s penultimate episode, “The Tower,” Kang had the audience wondering how the communities would manage to defeat Beta’s horde of walkers and claim victory in this war once and for all. But then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and the season ten finale’s release was delayed indefinitely. The primary effect of this, in my humble opinion, was that upon the episode’s airing in October of 2020 the many months that had passed between episodes took away some of the impact of this season’s conclusion. Nothing about it was bad, but the pandemic affected dozens (if not hundreds) of film and television productions like The Walking Dead which sucked out some of the immediacy typically associated with the show’s finale episodes. That being said, during my rewatch of season ten I ended up enjoying the finale much more as what had happened in the prior couple of episodes was much fresher. Namely, I LOVED watching members of the various communities using a horse carriage covered in giant speakers luring Beta’s herd away to the tune of Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House.” On that note, I don’t talk enough about some of the great choices for the show’s soundtrack. To briefly summarize, I fell in love with songs like Clutch’s “The Regulator,” Wye Oak’s “Civilian,” Jamie N. Commons’s “Lead Me Home,” and Ben Howard’s “Oats in the Water” (among many others) thanks to The Walking Dead. If nothing else that I’ve said in this mega-blog has convinced you to check out this show, then just look at those songs listed above; I don’t think that you’ll regret it. But I digress. Kang clearly understood the assignment of this finale: make the end of the Whisperers feel both triumphant and bittersweet. It’s certainly the former as we see Daryl, Carol, Jerry, Lydia, and many others shoot down Whisperers with arrows and fight them off with swords and axes. But it’s also the latter because I thoroughly enjoyed the Whisperers as a multi-season antagonist (despite some of the sillier aspects of their way of life) as a vast improvement over the Saviors as a whole with some solid performances from many of the actors who were successful at injecting some much-needed horror vibes back into The Walking Dead. As the finale comes to a close, Kang tees up the Commonwealth storyline with Eugene, Ezekiel, Yumiko, and Princess being captured by well-armed soldiers fully clad in clean, white armor. But, I’ll get more to that next time when I dissect the show’s super-sized final season. For now, let’s address the six “COVID episodes” that (in my humble opinion) feel largely tacked on just to keep what little viewers AMC has left interested in The Walking Dead. To be clear, I liked about half of these episodes. For one thing, they started out strong with “Home Sweet Home” which focused on the return of Maggie Rhee after Lauren Cohan’s extended hiatus from the show and a badass save-the-day moment in the originally intended finale “A Certain Doom” (thus fulfilling Gabriel’s heartwarming promise to little Gracie). While Maggie hasn’t always been my favorite character on the show, the fact that she’s one of the only remaining original survivors from the first few seasons made her return all the more special. Specifically, her conversation with Daryl in the cargo unit about raising her and Glenn’s son Hershel (Kien Michael Spiller) alone choked me up unexpectedly. That moment alone made the six “COVID episodes” of season ten worth my time. However, I was largely uninterested in many of the other episodes. While it’s more relevant to my criticisms of season eleven, the Daryl-centric episode “Find Me” that established a romantic and sexual relationship with Dog’s former owner Leah Shaw (Lynn Collins) felt forced and unnecessary (although it did give us another great heart-to-heart moment between Daryl and Carol). Even one of the better episodes, “One More,” about Aaron and Gabriel facing off against the renegade and sadistic survivor Mays (Robert Patrick) didn’t add much to the overall story (despite reminding me just how great Gabriel has become as a badass character). But it was all worth it because the “COVID episodes” culminated in what is not only the best episode of season ten but also one of my all-time favorite episodes of The Walking Dead to date. Fans of the show will know the episode in question is “Here’s Negan,” an adaptation of the standalone volume of Kirkman’s graphic novel that fleshes out the origin story of the villainous Negan that we all loved to hate. However, unlike like that story which invoked empathy for Negan without ever truly humanizing him, this episode of The Walking Dead did just that. As such, it’s another fantastic example of the show improving on its source material. Honestly, I could probably write an entire blog about “Here’s Negan,” but this section’s already going well. So, I’ll summarize my thoughts as succinctly as possible. First and foremost, the success of this episode sits on the shoulders of two things: the editing and lead actors. To start with the latter, Jeffrey Dean Morgan has great chemistry with Hilarie Burton-Morgan, his real-life wife who plays Negan’s wife Lucille. While this shouldn’t be a surprise, it’s not a foregone conclusion that real-world couples always emanate charismatic energy together on screen. Fortunately, Morgan and Burton instantly convince you that they’re in love while also making the fights they have and the making up they do consistently believable. But I don’t think it can be understated how incredibly effective the editing of “Here’s Negan” is. The way it uses what I’ll not-so-humbly define as “inception flashbacks”—flashbacks layered on top of one another that go deeper into the past before gradually working their way towards the present—perfectly tell this story about Negan officially leaving his past life (symbolized by the burning of his broken baseball bat) while simultaneously accepting his own mistakes with regards to his relationship with Lucille. Simply put, if you’re someone who stopped watching The Walking Dead around season seven but don’t want to catch up on seasons nine and ten, please just watch “Here’s Negan.” TRUST ME WHEN I SAY THAT IT’S WORTH IT! With that, season ten comes to an end. The end of The Walking Dead is on the horizon, and the final season (its longest one yet, at twenty-four episodes) promises a satisfying conclusion to one of cable television’s most well-known series of the last decade. The question I had going into the fall of 2021 was: can Angela Kang, the cast and crew land this plane? TO BE CONTINUED… The End of The Walking Dead (2021-2022)
[NOTE: This blog contains spoilers for the final season of “The Walking Dead.” You have been warned.] Upon learning that the final season of The Walking Dead would be a super-sized twenty-four episodes, I was simultaneously excited and nervous. On the one hand, I hoped that the extra eight episodes would allow Kang and her team of writers to flesh out the Commonwealth storyline (as a reader of Kirkman’s original graphic novel, that’s what I wanted the show to do). On the other hand, I’m familiar enough with the nature of cable television shows to know that seasons that long typically don’t need to be. But maybe I just needed to have more faith in Angela Kang’s creative direction and storytelling skills. ☹ In my humble opinion, the issues with the pacing of season eleven start at the very beginning with “Acheron,” the two-part season premiere that probably should’ve just been an extended, 90-minute episode. To be clear, I liked these premiere episodes. They do a great job re-introducing Maggie into the broader group of survivors (specifically highlighting the sustained tension between her and Negan). In addition, they utilize tension well during the subway sequences involving Maggie and Daryl’s group of runners getting trapped underground in the search for food for Alexandria. On top of it all, Lauren Cohan gets a fantastic monologue about survival which serves as an effective reminder of her acting chops and why she deserves to be a mainstay for this final season. All that being, said, however, I would have much preferred for these two episodes to just be condensed into a single, fast-paced and action-packed premiere. Not only would it have eliminated one of the twenty-four episodes from the season’s run, but it could have been a great throwback to many past season premieres of The Walking Dead (notably the series premiere) as a signal to AMC’s increasingly shrinking audience that they still care. But this only served as a warning for things to come with the pacing of season eleven that I’ll delve into going forward. Overall, though, a solid last season premiere for this show (albeit not the best). To start with the strengths of the first eight episodes of season eleven, I really appreciated how Kang introduced the ins and outs of the Commonwealth through the eyes of Eugene and his group of “ambassadors” (for lack of a better term). Cutting back from the subway staff in “Acheron,” Kang dives into the rigorous and intense processing that the Commonwealth does by emotionally tearing down Eugene and his friends. Josh McDermitt and Eleanor Matsuura, in particular, had great performances in their respective interrogation scenes. But they pass, and are finally allowed inside the Commonwealth. In sharp contrast to the type of living that our survivors have been used to (even considering the relatively idyllic surroundings of Alexandria), they simply have not seen anything like what the Commonwealth offers since before the zombie apocalypse kicked off. In the way that Kang essentially reintroduces civilization to our main characters with a cheesy orientation video, job specialization, and a sophisticated legal system with police to enforce the rules, the Commonwealth became a promising diversion from the overall lackluster story that dominated these first eight episodes. Despite my problems with how the Commonwealth is handled later on in the season, its forma introduction was a blast. The other big strength of the first third of season eleven of The Walking Dead is the evolution of Maggie and Negan’s relationship. From where they left off not speaking to each other in “Here’s Negan,” they go on perhaps the most compelling dual-character journey of the entire season (admittedly, I’m writing this before the season has ended so we’ll see). While Maggie being at Negan’s throat and Negan leaving Maggie to die in “Acheron” sets the stage, it only gets better from there. Simply put, their fireside chat in “Promises Broken” is one of the best scenes of the entire show (let alone this season). For those who forgot, Negan essentially convinces Maggie of his honest intentions to help her and her “Wardens” by saying that, if given a second chance, he would’ve had Rick’s entire group killed the day he murdered Glenn and Abraham. Some of the best acting from both Cohan and Dean Morgan is on full display, reminiscent of their exchange in the prison cell scene from “What Comes After” back in season nine. Despite this incredibly emotional opening-up, however, these two characters with a past of being pure antagonists to one another set their differences aside in “For Blood,” the first midseason finale, by adopting the tactics of the Whisperers to attack the Reapers. Not to jump ahead too much, but I also like that their journey from an uneasy alliance to a reluctant acquaintanceship never feels abrupt. In other words, Kang and her writers respected Maggie and Glenn’s history on The Walking Dead enough to ensure that her coming around on the new-and-improved Negan is natural to her character arc of forgiveness and giving him a second chance. After Negan gives Maggie what she wants by parting ways in “No Other Way,” the first midseason premiere, his reintroduction into the Commonwealth narrative ultimately fosters enough trust between them that Maggie trust Negan with the safety of her son in “Acts of God,” the second midseason finale. And this never comes off as forced or illogical; Maggie recognizes the need for Negan to be on her side without fearing her, while Negan has proven himself to her enough times to earn that trust. If only all the character arcs this season were this good, which brings me to the bad stuff in these first eight episodes. To be fair, there were some other good or great moments. Connie and Virgil fighting off feral humans in “On the Inside” was a decently engaging standalone episode with roots in the slasher genre. In “Promises Broken,” it was fun seeing Eugene retaliate against Sebastian Milton (Teo Rapp-Olsson) after the latter and his girlfriend were saved from walkers by the former by punching the ungrateful brat in the face. Overall, Maggie and Negan’s plan to attack the Reapers with a walker horde in “For Blood” with Father Gabriel as a sniper was fun. However, this gets to my greater problem with season eleven of The Walking Dead: it’s outstretched and unfocused. Simply put, these first eight episodes that mostly revolve around the Reapers—our secondary group of villains this season who have a vendetta against Maggie and her “Wardens”—could have been largely exorcised from the overall story direction. As a set of antagonists, the Reapers—led by religious fundamentalist Pope (Ritchie Coster)—feel very unoriginal as the show has had villains like this in the Claimers from season four, Terminus from season five, the Wolves from season six, and the Whisperers (who remain the best example of this kind of group of enemy survivors). On top of repeating beats from prior seasons, the writing that fleshed out the Reapers’ motives as a cult of military veterans with a vendetta against Maggie is just awful. Why did they attack Maggie’s community of Meridian? To take their stuff. So, Maggie’s group retaliated by defending themselves which resulted in some Reapers dying. In other words, the Reapers just want revenge…Really?!? Angela Kang, please: couldn’t we just have skipped over this whole storyline in favor of focusing on tensions in Alexandria and fleshing out the Commonwealth? They want us to be invested in this story by attaching Daryl’s storyline to the Reapers via his (forced) romance with Leah. Unfortunately for them, this just was never enough to get me to care about the Reapers as a compelling villain nor as an interesting or entertaining group of survivors. It was cool they used a hwacha against Maggie’s walker herd in “For Blood,” but that was basically the only cool thing that they ever did. All of this is to say that if the Reapers arc was outright removed from this season, I think this first half could have accomplished just as much with the Commonwealth stuff in eight episodes (with a couple of extended ones thrown in there) rather than the sixteen episodes that they supposedly needed. So, does the second group of eight episodes of the eleventh and final season of The Walking Dead make up for the generally lackluster first eight that preceded them? It’s a complex question, because once again (in my humble opinion) it’s a big old mixed bag. Let’s start with how the Reapers were wrapped up in “No Other Way.” It fell flat, and was less exciting than exacerbating. Furthermore, the thread of Leah left out there in the wild to screw everything up episodes later was so obviously foreshadowed that I lost much faith in the rest of this season’s writing despite strong moments throughout. At least it was satisfying to watch Maggie just gun them all down. 😊 On the bright side, the Reapers were wrapped up in one episode (except for Leah, of course). Thus, Kang FINALLY focuses the season’s narrative completely on the Commonwealth. First, she leaves a tease at the end of “No Other Way” to frame this middle batch of episodes involving a six-month time jump showing Daryl donning the clean, white armor of the Commonwealth soldiers accosting Maggie at the gates of Hilltop with a detachment of troops. This largely effective storytelling device kept me invested in this second batch of eight by consistently asking the question: “How do we get from Point A to Point B?” For starters, we get to see how differently our survivors are trying to adapt to life in the Commonwealth. Namely, Connie and Kelly returning to work as journalists, Ezekiel getting to live out his post-apocalyptic dream of running a petting zoo after seemingly being cured of his cancer, and Daryl and Rosita earning their keep as new recruits to the Commonwealth Army overseen by its general Mercer (Michael James Shaw). In some ways, Daryl’s arc is most compelling in these episodes because he remains suspect of the Commonwealth as a genuine utopia but tries to stick with it for the sake of Judith and RJ now that he’s effectively their adoptive guardian. On a quick side note, I feel like Cailey Fleming has been unjustly sidelined this season. Granted, she gets some good moments like bonding with Hershel while eating horse meat in “Hunted,” standing her ground against bullies in Alexandria in “Out of the Ashes,” and helping Gracie survive the flooding basement in “For Blood” and “No Other Way.” Overall, though, I’m very upset that Judith Grimes (the heir apparent to Rick, Carl and Michonne as the sole surviving Grimes character with an actual personality…sorry, RJ) should have been more of an integral part of this story. Hopefully, she’ll kick some ass in the last few episodes of season eleven like she did the last couple of seasons. But I digress. Overall, the narrative’s focus shifting to the Commonwealth was a refreshing change of pace for the show. With Daryl trying to make things work and fit in by letting Sebastian get credit for catching a rebellious Commonwealth citizen, he shows just how enticing it is for our survivors to give the Commonwealth a chance. However, the potential for trouble takes little time to brew once Kang plants the seeds for conflict between Maggie—who is busy trying to rebuild Hilltop—and the leaders of the Commonwealth: Governor Pamela Milton (Laila Robbins) and her right-hand man Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton). What really starts to break open this burgeoning tension is episode twelve, “The Lucky Ones,” wherein Lance and Pamela visit the Coalition of communities from Alexandria to the Hilltop to Oceanside. Unimpressed, Pamela debates Maggie about the efficacies of various political structures in a post-apocalyptic world. Needless to say, their irreconcilable differences are quickly brought to light. All the while, Lance is setting the stage for a behind-the-scenes takeover of all these communities as Commonwealth outposts that he can control and become “Governor” of his own domain separate from Pamela’s micromanagement. Unsurprisingly, Maggie remains skeptical of any kind of alliance with the Commonwealth out of a desire to avoid becoming permanently entangled in the problems inherent to a mini-nation with 50,000 residents. Which gets to my big problem with these middle eight episodes: the pacing. In one sense, it feels drawn out given the additional episodes overall. However, this critical second act of a three-act story was ultimately rushed. Essentially, in one episode the Commonwealth appears to be an overall stable structure with challenges inherent to any large bureaucracy. However, the next episode the extent of Lance’s enabling nature is fully revealed in “Warlords.” Of course, Lance’s toxic methods of pseudo-leadership were teased in “Rogue Element” which refocused on Eugene’s “relationship” with “Stephanie” (Chelle Ramos), who is revealed to be one of Lance’s spies named Shira that was assigned to get information out of Eugene by manipulating him. In fairness, I do think that Josh McDermitt doesn’t get enough credit for his acting chops on this show (his emotional breakdown in front of Lance this episode was awesome). I just wish the storyline they gave him worked better in the grander scheme of things. At least this paves the way for his close friendship with Rosita getting some overdue attention and him finally getting a girlfriend in Max (Margot Bingham), Mercer’s sister who was the real “Stephanie.” Back to “Warlords,” which is when the true rotten core of the Commonwealth comes to light. Sent on a mission with Toby Carlson (Jason Butler Harner) to “negotiate” with a neighboring community called Riverbend, Aaron and Father Gabriel are caught up in what is actually a “search and destroy” wherein the Commonwealth intend to wipe out the community as a potential threat. Furthermore, once Carlson and his men realize that our group of survivors don’t agree with their methods, it quickly becomes the early skirmishes of war (I guess Maggie was right to be suspicious of Lance and Pamela’s motives 😊). Other than Negan’s triumphant return in this episode (now a married man with a baby on the way), “Warlords” signaled a return to the season’s overarching problem of not using its extended episode count effectively to flesh out the characters involved in this conflict. Why wasn’t Carlson introduced earlier in the season to make his death (one episode after being introduced, by the way) more impactful? Also, why have Leah be the ultimate catalyst for conflict between our survivors and the Commonwealth due to her stealing the latter’s weapons? Honestly, I just wish Maggie would’ve killed her off episodes prior. Not only would this have forced the writers to come up with a better way to cause conflict in the Commonwealth, but it could’ve injected some dramatic tension between Maggie and Daryl by keeping the audience guessing if he would ever forgive her for killing this woman that he supposedly loved so much. The cherry on top of the Commonwealth’s corruption, however, is Sebastian being enabled by Pamela, Lance, and (sadly) Mercer to be more than just a selfish, entitled brat. In “The Rotten Core,” Daryl and Rosita learn that Pamela Milton’s pathetic excuse for a son sent dozens of innocent people into a walker horde to die just so he could replenish his dwindling cash supply. Honestly, I’d prefer that Lance and the Miltons were just the primary source of the Commonwealth’s corruption rather than various lieutenants. It would better enforce the theme of this storyline by showing how societies often crumble due to problems trickling from the top down (only to incite revolution from the bottom up). It all starts coming to a head in the last two of these eight episodes, “Trust” and “Acts of God.” In the former, the tease with Daryl at Hilltop in “No Other Way” finally comes full circle. We learn that Lance dispatched a team of soldiers to investigate Maggie and Hilltop in search of their stolen weapons (resulting in a very tense scene when Maggie threatens Lance for interrogating young Hershel). A quick digression on that note: I really loved Negan confessing killing Glenn to Hershel in the prior episode (another spotlight in an increasingly disappointing season). And by the second midseason finale of season eleven, Lance’s plan to take over the communities is in full effect when Alexandria and Hilltop are deemed Commonwealth territory and Hornsby flips a coin to determine the fate of Oceanside’s residents (when Kang will answer this hanging plot thread remains to be seen ☹). Back at the Commonwealth, however, Eugene and Max (with Connie, Kelly and Ezekiel’s help) gather enough hard-hitting evidence to publish an exposé in the community’s newspaper revealing the layers of corruption in Pamela Milton’s inner circle (notably Sebastian’s lethal exploits). Lots for the show to resolve in a mere eight final episodes. But, I remained somewhat hopeful in April of 2022 that Kang could still pull off a solid season finale and a pretty good, if not great, conclusion to The Walking Dead series. So, did my hopes come to fruition? … In sharp contrast to the first two blocks of eight episodes of season eleven which felt slow and convoluted, respectively, these final eight definitely feel rushed by comparison. Now that the foundation has been laid for conflict between our survivors and the Commonwealth, Kang and her creative team waste no time showing the consequences of everyone’s actions up to this point. While it doesn’t always feel earned or satisfying, this last block of episodes of The Walking Dead at least keep the pace moving. Upon returning to the Commonwealth, Daryl, Maggie, Negan and their group of survivors negotiate a peaceful exchange of Lance as their prisoner in exchange for their freedom. While Mercer helps keep things from boiling over into outright violence, it’s only a matter of time before shit hits the fan. In this effort to make peace, Negan plays a great role as mediator from meeting with Mercer to helping Carol find Sebastian—stoned and self-isolating—at Pamela’s request. Everything on the up and up, right? Well, not quite. Meanwhile, thanks to Connie’s exposé, the entire Commonwealth has turned on the Miltons thanks to the truth about Sebastian’s vices getting several people killed. And it only gets worse for Pamela in episode 18, “A New Deal,” as Eugene and Max successfully pull off a scheme to further cement the downfall of the Miltons’ reputation using a recording of Sebastian’s own words during the Founders’ Day celebration. You would think this successfully incites a full-blown rebellion against Pamela. Instead, though, Lance (from a prison cell, mind you) is able to use his network of spies and delinquents to sabotage Eugene and Max’s plan by creating a horde of walkers within the Commonwealth that ambush everyone there. In the ensuing chaos, we get one of the most satisfying deaths of the entire series: SEBASTIAN MILTON!! I am SO glad that Kang altered his storyline from Kirkman’s graphic novel by having him get torn apart by zombies as civilians stand around and watch mercilessly. While perhaps not on the same level as certain very satisfying deaths in HBO’s Game of Thrones, it definitely echoed that similar sentiment for me. Of course, Sebastian is still Pamela’s son even if he was a shitbag. Thus, her instinct for revenge kicks in and she does everything in her power to get justice for her son’s death. Targeting Eugene, who technically did push him into the horde of walkers (if only to save Max from Sebastian’s rage), Pamela locks down the Commonwealth to search for him in what is one of the slower episodes of the season, “Variant.” Despite standing up for himself to Daryl, Eugene’s courage ultimately fails him as he is taken away by troopers in order to stand trial for Sebastian’s murder. And, of course, Pamela doesn’t forget about Lance’s role in her son’s demise. In order to torture him as punishment, she keeps Sebastian in a zombified state and throws him into a room with Lance to traumatize her former lieutenant by having him forcibly watch Sebastian eat his spies one by one. All of this is to say that much of these last eight episodes are a back and forth between the survivors trying to undermine Pamela’s authority in the Commonwealth and, conversely, Pamela going to extreme lengths to silence the survivors to retain her control of the Commonwealth. Outside of her walls, she ships off most of the survivors to various labor camps forcing Daryl and Carol to lead a rescue mission to save them. Inside her walls, she compels Mercer to stay in line and Yumiko to prosecute Eugene to keep her brother Tomi (Ian Anthony Dale) safe. While she’s not the best villain that’s ever been on The Walking Dead, her use of shady bureaucracy helps differentiate her from the likes of Gareth, Negan, or Alpha. However, she clearly underestimates not only our survivors but also some of her own people (notably Max and Mercer). For one thing, Yumiko goes against Pamela’s wishes by publicly announcing her intentions to defend Eugene at his trial before doing so in episode twenty-two, “Faith.” While her speech praising Eugene and Tomi and Eugene’s speech in his own defense are shining examples of the actors’ performances in this show, the “trial” was generally poorly written. It lacked any sophisticated legal logic (especially when compared to great trial scenes in shows like Daredevil). This undermines the emotional impact that Eugene’s death sentence should have because the audience is never truly convinced that this sham of a legal proceeding will actually lead to any substantive consequences for him. Furthermore, it’s an example of how rushed these last eight episodes felt; if Kang and her writers had taken the time to flesh out the Commonwealth a little more in prior episodes, this trial could have been the focus of its own storyline that spanned either one whole episode or major portions of two episodes. Outside of the Commonwealth, Daryl and Carol go on their rescue mission. After breaking Lance out of prison in exchange for his help tracking down their friends, they work their way towards Outpost 22 (a renamed, repurposed Alexandria) where much of the group is being held as slave labor for Pamela. Of course, Lance was never going to survive once in Carol’s clutches; given his self-serving nature, his inclination to have others killed for his own benefit stopped at the tip of her arrow. But, with his information about a working train connecting to Commonwealth to Alexandria, they manage to regroup with Maggie and some of the other survivors to hatch a plan to rescue everyone else (including Judith, RJ and the other children). But a plan for rebellion is hatched in Alexandria as well. Namely, Negan and Ezekiel (who share some great scenes to set aside their differences) work together to orchestrate a revolt of the prisoners. Once they get found out, however, Negan shows his truly reformed colors by committing to sacrifice himself for everyone else. Sounds like a good storyline, right? It could’ve been if it wasn’t rushed. Certainly, it had some great moments like Daryl chasing a Commonwealth solider from the train through the woods on a motorcycle and Rosita feeding the Warden (Michael Weaver) to a walker. However, the fast pace of these last several episodes revoked some of the potential impact that this labor-camp storyline could’ve had. Why couldn’t the Warden have been developed as a secondary antagonist like Lance was? Or, why wasn’t Carlson from the last block of eight episodes kept around and promoted to the Warden’s job so that we would care more seeing him get fed alive by Rosita? All questions that could’ve been dealt with in a satisfactory manner if Kang and her writers did a better job pacing out this season. Beyond the immediate happenings at and around the Commonwealth, we also have a group of survivors led by Aaron heading back to Alexandria in “Variant.” In terms of plot, this tertiary storyline is namely there to introduce the “variant” walkers (who can climb walls and pick up rocks as weapons) who are ultimately just a gimmick in the last couple of episodes of the series. Should they have been teased earlier this season? Absolutely, which is another reminder of the poor pacing of the season. While it does offer up an interesting dynamic between Lydia and Aaron (including a touching callback to Eric, Aaron’s boyfriend before his death in season 8) and establish Lydia’s romance with Elijah (Okea Eme-Akwari)—the last of Maggie’s group the Wardens—this isn’t enough to justify devoting precious time in this final block of eight episodes to what essentially mounts to a tacky use of walkers for future action scenes. These disparate storylines come together in “Family,” the penultimate episode of the series, wherein the survivors outside the Commonwealth take the train back and make their move against Pamela (where we get some nice heart-to-hearts between Negan and Ezekiel as well as Princess and Mercer). Shortly after Mercer broke Eugene from his restraints and announced his intentions to “fuck shit up” (😊), he is forced to handle an incoming herd (with several “variant” walkers scattered throughout it) and thus does little to help the survivors’ attack against Pamela. Stuck within the herd after reuniting with Luke and his Oceanside girlfriend Jules (Alex Sgambati), Aaron, Jerry, Lydia, and Elijah are separated from one another. Lydia gets bit in the process and Aaron touchingly comforts her just before Jerry is forced to amputate the infected arm. The others infiltrate the Commonwealth but are quickly caught in a shootout against Pamela’s soldiers. Befuddlingly, Pamela picks up a gun herself to join the fight and unintentionally shoots Judith (who was there thanks to Daryl’s asinine decision making) while trying to kill Maggie. This, of course, is the catalyst for Daryl and the others to rush Judith to the hospital to save her life in the midst of the zombie herd that breaks through the walls thanks to the “variant” walkers and the Commonwealth soldiers’ ineptitude. All in all, “Family” is an entertaining first part of a climax that, once again, is quite rushed given the twenty-four episodes that AMC had to build up to it. But, the question remains: did the series finale of The Walking Dead make it all okay in the end? While I won’t say that, I will say that “Rest in Peace”—the final episode of the show—was relentless in the best possible way. It moved so fast to never let you question much of what was happening, while also giving this show’s very loyal audience a pretty fulfilling end to the story of these characters that we have followed for years now. We begin with some bitter deaths and goodbyes with Jules being devoured and Luke dying from blood loss as his friends—Magna, Yumiko, Connie, and Kelly—keep him company in his final moments. Also, Judith’s fate hangs in the balance as she manages to save herself and Daryl from the herd encroaching into the hospital. While they and the others of that group are fighting to escape the herd, Rosita, Eugene, and Gabriel FINALLY discover the survivors’ kids alive and rescue them. In their escape, however, Rosita nearly dies but then delivers one of the most BADASS moments of the entire series by sprawling out of a horde of walkers like a volcanic explosion to save herself and her daughter Socorro “Coco” Espinosa. Unfortunately, she is bitten and thus is fated to die to save Coco’s life. Before the final showdown, Christian Serratos and Josh McDermitt are given one final scene to showcase their acting chops and the potency of their brother-sister dynamic. Given the fact that they’re two of the last survivors from the early seasons of the show, their quiet goodbye is a nice reminder that The Walking Dead was once a show where any main character could get killed off and that it would manner (I just wish Rosita’s death meant as much to me as Sophia, Dale, Shane, Lori, Hershel, Beth, Glenn, or Abraham—just to name a few ☹). But the real climax is all the survivors converging on the Estates—the neighborhood where Pamela and the other wealthy Commonwealth residents live—to help Mercer seize power from Pamela and organize a last-ditch effort to destroy the herd swarming their community. Again, this is rushed but still offers some great moments. Namely, I LOVED how Father Gabriel’s storyline comes full circle here (from being too afraid to let dying people into his church at the start of the apocalypse to forgoing fear of Pamela by defiantly opening the gates of the Estates and letting people in). Under Mercer’s direction, the survivors help the people of the Commonwealth lure the herd into the rich neighborhood before blowing it all to hell. Without a doubt, it’s one of the coolest mass destruction of zombies that The Walking Dead has ever done. With the climax done, the reminder of the runtime of “Rest in Peace” is our resolution. With Pamela in jail, Carol announces her intention to help the people of the Commonwealth secure a hopeful future. In addition, Maggie and Negan’s storyline that dominated much of their presence on the show this season comes to a close (for now, at least) with Maggie telling Negan that he’s earned his place despite her acknowledging that she may never be able to forgive him. They part ways, which made me less interested in the Dead City spin-off centered on their characters (hopefully the showrunner, Eli Jorné, can compel me to watch next April). However, I would be satisfied if their storyline ended here and we never saw Negan again. I like imagining him going away and living out his life with his wife Annie (Medina Senghore) and their newborn child as a better man than who we first met in the season six finale of the series. “Rest in Peace” concludes with a one-year time jump. Rosita, having died from her bite, went in peace knowing that Gabriel, Eugene, and the others would look out for her daughter. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth has reformed under the newly-minted leadership of Governor Ezekiel (HELL YEAH!) and Mercer, his lieutenant-governor, while Alexandria and Hilltop have been rebuilt and are thriving. With things going well, the survivors part ways. After a heartwarming goodbye scene with Carol, Judith and RJ, Daryl gets on his bike and rides off to find Rick and Michonne (who Judith, in her post-bullet wound delirium, revealed to him that they were both alive). As he leaves the Commonwealth and his family behind, though, the necessary impact of this being the end of The Walking Dead wasn’t there for me. I can’t fully blame Kang and the show for this, as it has more to do with AMC marketing the shit out of their several spin-off series. That being said, I never once worried about the fates of Daryl, Maggie, or Negan in these last couple of episodes because we knew that their stories would continue next year. Setting that aside, though, I appreciated the ending montage edited to voiceovers from a returning Rick Grimes and Michonne (albeit at different points in time and space) to remind us loyal viewers: “We’re the ones who live.” And that is the end of The Walking Dead. 😊 So, at the end of the day, how will I remember The Walking Dead? Any show that lasts this long will inevitably have its ups and downs. However, I will always look back fondly on The Walking Dead for being such an important part of my life and giving me some of my favorite characters and stories on television ever. Despite its more lackluster seasons and episodes, it will forever hold a special place in my heart. Who knows? Maybe one day, when I’m old and gray, I’ll the rewatch the entire series from start to finish just to relive some of these moments. And, I’ll probably check out the spin-offs next year just to see if there’s anything to them. With all that said, I have decided to highlight my favorite episode from each of the eleven seasons of The Walking Dead in order of release:
What are your thoughts and feelings about The Walking Dead? Is it one of the best television shows of this century, one of the worst, or somewhere in between? Are you excited for any of the spin-off shows coming out next year? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst For much of the 2010s, I had never thought about the “Marvel Cinematic Universe.” Certainly, I was aware of the many superhero films of Marvel Studios and have many fond memories of them in and of themselves. My high school band director would play 2012’s The Avengers on rainy days. I went to the theaters with two of my cousins to go see Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I was studying abroad at Oxford in 2015 when I took a night off from writing a research paper to see Ant-Man. I saw Spider-Man: Homecoming on opening night while on vacation in Austin, Texas. But it was not until January of 2018 that I decided to embark on my first of many “movie odysseys” by watching every film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in release order at that point. In many ways, it was this experience that inspired me to watch many other franchises (Mission: Impossible, X-Men, and Fast & Furious, among others) and the works of famous directors (Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan, to name a couple) that I had never seen before. To that extent, the Marvel Cinematic Universe indirectly inspired me to start this blog and share my love of movies with you all. So, what better way to pay homage to my “cinema odyssey” three years in the making by returning to where it all began? In line with the release of the first MCU film of Phase Four, Black Widow, I have decided to spend the past several weeks watching all twenty-three films that make up Marvel Studios’ first epic cinematic storytelling event: the “Infinity Saga.” Before I begin discussing each of the films, I have listed below my ranking of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, from Iron Man (2008) to Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019):
Will my opinions on some of these films change? You’ll have to read to find out. So, without further ado…LET’S GET STARTED! Image by press 👍 and ⭐ from Pixabay Phase One (2008-2012) While I did not see Iron Man when it premiered in theaters in May of 2008, I have learned how people reacted in the cultural moment to Marvel Studios making their solo debut with a Tony Stark movie. Generally speaking, people were asking: “Who is Iron Man?” A reasonable question, as (to my understanding) fans of comic books and superhero movies knew little of the character let alone regular people (like me at the time). Simply put, Iron Man is a movie that I don’t remember my first viewing experience but it doesn’t matter because every viewing of this movie feels like the first time. And that has to do with the fact that, for at least the first hour, the movie is just pure magic. Director Jon Favreau and star Robert Downey, Jr. offer up a masterful collaborative effort of a character study that not only introduces the important character traits of Tony Stark but also humanizes him to the point of making a cocky, sarcastic asshole both likeable and charming. And easily the best moment of the movie (in my humble opinion) is when Tony Stark introduces Iron Man to the world by saving some civilians, blowing up a tank, and fleeing two U.S. Air Force jets while on the phone with best friend James Rhodes (For the history behind the making of Iron Man and some more of my thoughts on it, click here). Looking back on it, Iron Man seems like a genius move to kick off the Marvel Cinematic Universe with. But clearly it was not viewed that way by virtually any Hollywood studios at the time. However, Kevin Feige and the team at Marvel stuck to their guns and used Iron Man as the creative foundation for the rest of Phase One. While these other origin stories do not live up to the original, this overall model of introducing the four main Avengers in their own films in preparation for the team-up movie was clearly the right move. Speaking of the other Avengers, let’s talk about the unquestionable “black sheep” of the MCU: The Incredible Hulk, which came out one month after Iron Man and has only tangential connections to that film. Not only is Edward Norton replaced by Mark Ruffalo in every other iteration of Bruce Banner/Hulk, but the tone of this movie feels completely disparate and detached from Iron Man as well as every other MCU film that comes after it. That being said, there is still a good deal to enjoy about The Incredible Hulk. Notably, I find Norton’s performance as a paranoid, guilt-ridden Banner to be pretty compelling. In that respect, the film works for me precisely because it is not a pure origin movie but rather a look at how a Hulk on the run from the military, primarily “Thunderbolt Ross” (William Hurt), not only survives but tries to find a cure for his “affliction.” Understandably, some of the action and special effects do not hold up when compared to more recent versions of Hulk in films like The Avengers and Thor: Ragnarok. But, I think this movie does a serviceable job at bringing Hulk into the world of the MCU without making it all about the MCU. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Iron Man 2. I know that many people really like this movie (somehow more than Iron Man 3, but I’ll get to that later). I simply cannot agree because the movie is so preoccupied with building the future of the MCU that it largely forgets to offer a compelling follow-up to the character work that Favreau did in Iron Man. While all of the charm of Tony Stark from the first film is here and the action looks good, even these strengths have their drawbacks. Whereas Tony was a likeable asshole in the first movie, in Iron Man 2 he is a significantly-less-likeable asshole whose reasons for being secretive are inexplicable and uninteresting. Furthermore, while the action in the movie is good there is simply not enough of it to justify the rest of the story’s existence. I don’t mean to completely shit on the movie, because there are some dope moments. I personally enjoy Tony suiting up at Monaco as a great introduction to alternative versions of the Iron Man armor, and the Iron Man-War Machine team-up against the Hammer drones and Whiplash in the third act remains some of the best seconds of team-up action in the MCU. Unfortunately, these awesome beats do not a good movie and Iron Man 2 to this day remains one of my least favorite films to rewatch. Now comes to our next origin movie of Phase One, and while many people shit on the first two Thor movies, I surprisingly enjoyed 2011’s Thor on a rewatch. Despite the fact that some of the action doesn’t hold up and how most of the characters are uninteresting, the emotional core of the film being Thor (Chris Hemsworth) learning humility and selflessness is a solid enough approach to an origin story as to be “not that bad.” I particularly enjoy Hemsworth’s chemistry with Natalie Portman in a number of scenes that show his becoming open to being more human and less douchebag. All in all, Thor is not a great film but it’s not a terrible one, either. Similarly, Captain America: The First Avenger was a film that I was dreading to go back to and it ultimately surprised me how much I enjoyed going back to it. Again, the action set pieces are not as exciting as those in either of the first two Iron Man films. That being said, Steve Rogers’s origin story of becoming Captain America (in my humble opinion) easily benefits the most from what comes after. Without The Winter Soldier and Civil War, this movie is an endearing yet flailing attempt at acknowledging the inherently cheesy nature of Captain America without supplanting it with a compelling enough story. However, by emphasizing the importance of Steve Rogers’s heroic personality long before he gets muscles and dons the Vibranium shield the movie earns its place among the Phase One origin films. Furthermore, it serves as a solid foundation for Captain America’s character arc going forward and makes all of the impending references, callbacks, and building blocks to his story all the better for it. So what do you get after creating four decent to great origin films and a not-so-great, world-building sequel? You get 2012’s The Avengers, a prime example of what the MCU could be back then and a great precursor to what it would become a mere seven years later. There is so much about this movie that still works and holds up, from the ways in which writer-director Joss Whedon re-introduces us to our main heroes (notably Black Widow finding Bruce Banner and Iron Man crashing Captain America’s fight with Loki in Germany) to the various fight scenes throughout the film. While the story of Stark, Banner, Rogers, Thor, Romanoff, Barton, and Fury arguing about the philosophy behind S.H.I.E.L.D. developing extra-terrestrial weapons can seem a bit forced at times, what it ultimately leads to with the team being torn down before building itself back up again makes for such great storytelling. The payoff of this bickering is one of the best third acts in modern cinematic history, all centered around the Avengers teaming up to fend off a Chitauri invasion of New York in an effort to apprehend Loki’s scheme. There are SO MANY hype moments of The Avengers that I could spend another page-and-a-half talking about all of them. But, I want to point out THE moment of the film that still gives me chills whenever I watch it: the famous “Avengers circle” moment. Maybe this is an exaggeration, but I truly believe that this shot will go down in history as one of the best moments of 21st-century cinema. Enough said. All in all, the films of Phase One of the MCU may not completely succeed on every level on their own. But, when put together as a six-film team-up event, it works so well on its own as well as sets up some even better superhero action to come. Image by Mami Miyashima from Pixabay Phase Two (2013-2015) In some respects, Phase Two is more disjointed and less fulfilling than Phase One. Whereas the latter built up a six-person team-up with four origin films, the former attempts to further character arcs of our main Avengers while introducing some new ones whose relevance to the overall storytelling of the broader cinematic universe is not yet apparent. That being said, I think there is a lot to like about Phase Two, starting with its first entry. I truly do not understand why so many people despise Iron Man 3, specifically fans of the character. There is so much to like about the journey that Tony Stark goes on in the film that not only acknowledges the gravity of the situation he put himself in during the climax of The Avengers, but also evolves his outlook on himself as a superhero that remains relevant for (most) future appearances of the character. Simply put, writer-director Shane Black and Downey, Jr. put Stark through the wringer in Iron Man 3. First off, they examine how he has developed posttraumatic stress after The Avengers that manifests in the form of panic attacks that increase in frequency throughout the film. By struggling to truly confront what he went through with Cap, Thor and the other Avengers in the Battle of New York, Stark must face facts about the toll that being Iron Man has taken on him since the first film. Which gets to my other favorite aspect of Iron Man 3: Tony’s identity crisis. More so than him facing death by blood poisoning in Iron Man 2, Stark deals with how much he depends on the suit (and the superhero identity that comes with it) as opposed to the other way around. Thus, much of the thematic core of the film is about Stark overcoming his ego as Iron Man in order to accept that he is not the center of the universe anymore, and also that he cannot be anywhere and everywhere all the time saving everyone. On top of these important elements of Tony’s character arc in the movie, Iron Man 3 has some solidly hype moments including his first time suiting up with the Mark 42, a prehensile suit that builds itself in pieces. And the onset of the “House Party” initiative in the third act, while certainly cheesy, is a really fun way to highlight how Tony has spent his time spare time since The Avengers on the verge of insanity and sleep depravity. In a way, there’s a metaphor wrapped up in it all: by having his suits fight for him Tony is releasing himself from the Iron Man identity, and then allows himself to destroy them as a sign of acceptance that he and the armor are not one and the same. There’s more I could say about the enjoyable particularities of the film (i.e. Tony’s dynamic with Harley or the effectively subversive Mandarin twist), but I think I’ll leave it there. All in all, Iron Man 3 is a pretty damn good introduction to Phase Two of the MCU. If only it stayed that good with the second film… I have much less to say about Thor: The Dark World. While I admire the valiant efforts of Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Rene Russo, Anthony Hopkins, and Tom Hiddleston, they failed to make this movie “worthy” (Get it? 😊) of being in the same cinematic universe as the likes of many that came before and after it. Simply put, their charisma fails to prevent The Dark World from committing arguably the greatest sin that any movie can commit, and that is being flat-out boring. Virtually nothing that happens in the movie is worth paying attention to, and thus utterly fails to justify its existence as anything but an uninspired attempt to make people still care about Thor as the center of his own story. To end on a more positive note, I genuinely enjoyed Loki’s presence in The Dark World. Not only does Hiddleston have some solid back-and-forth with Hemsworth’s Thor that is built upon later in Thor: Ragnarok, but his discovery by Thor in the prison cell after their mother Frigga (Rene Russo) has died is both heartbreaking and so well presented and acted by Hiddleston. (Side note: The fact that the MCU show Loki has made the titular character’s relationship with Frigga even more impactful is just a sign of how truly special the MCU remains). But otherwise, Thor: The Dark World is a sad excuse for an MCU film that remains at the bottom of my personal ranking of these movies (no surprise there 😊). Now onto another great highlight of both Phase Two and the MCU overall: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, released in 2014 and the first film directed by the amazing Russo Brothers. I remember really liking this movie when first seeing it in theaters seven years ago, and then I forgot how much I loved it when I rewatched it three years ago in the lead-up to Avengers: Infinity War. And, to be clear, I still really like the movie but I now believe that it’s one of the MCU films that I can’t rewatch every couple of years so as to avoid it losing much of its magic. In an effort to be succinct, I want to focus on my favorite strengths of The Winter Soldier. First, the action sequences are a big step up from virtually all of the other films in the MCU that preceded it. Sure, Iron Man effectively established the cartoonish superhero action that would be taken up a notch in The Avengers. But this movie grounds it in a way that is both believable for Cap’s character and still really fun to watch. Of course, I can’t talk about the action set pieces in The Winter Soldier without mentioning the now-famous elevator fight wherein Cap struggles in successfully fending off an ambush by Brock Rumlow (Frank Grillo) and many H.Y.D.R.A. goons in a dangerously claustrophobic environment. Aside from the action, The Winter Soldier (in my humble opinion) also does such a good job addressing how Cap struggles to adapt to the 21st century. While there is some solid lightheartedness in the film between him and new best friend Sam Wilson/Falcon (Anthony Mackie) around this fact, the film’s thematic exploration of government control and pre-emption clashing with Cap’s World War II-era-sensibilities around liberty and freedom makes for some really good character-building for this film as well as establishing his arc for later films (notably Captain America: Civil War). In many ways, this story is best encapsulated by Cap learning of the fate of his old best friend James “Bucky” Barnes (Sebastian Stan), a.k.a. the Winter Soldier. Not only is that reveal a great twist (arguably better than the S.H.I.E.L.D.-is-H.Y.D.R.A. twist earlier in the film), but it also serves as the emotional core of the climax when Steve Rogers, in an effort to make peace with his old friend, drops the Captain America shield from high above Washington, D.C. and affirms his love for Bucky: “I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.” While I did not enjoy The Winter Soldier as much on a second rewatch, it still holds up as both a fantastic sequel to The First Avenger and a great set-up for Cap’s character arc going forward. Thus, it remains a top-tier MCU film for me. Now for what remains one of my favorite comic book movies of all time (let alone one of my favorite MCU movies): James Gunn’s very own Guardians of the Galaxy. To begin with the first several minutes that remain for me some of the best in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. Gunn opens the movie by delivering a powerfully emotional window into the tragedy of a young man facing his mother’s death before being taken away from Earth. And from there, we are transported decades into the future with a fully-grown yet still childish Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) on an alien planet in outer space. The aesthetic and dramatic score works together to convince us that the film is about to be a serious sci-fi drama. And then Quill removes his helmet, puts on his headphones, and clicks play on Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love.” He starts grooving, and then full-out dancing, just as the title card fills up the gray-and-black planetary set with bright color. Immediately, Gunn flips the whole movie on its head and, from this point on, a new take on the modern comic book movie comes to life. We follow Quill, the bumbling yet clever Indiana Jones-type adventurer, as he finds a new family in the badass assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldaña), the brutish warrior Drax (Dave Bautista), the hyper-intelligent, genetically-engineered rodent Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper), and the dumb-as-a-tree protector Groot (Vin Diesel). And this is the crux of why I love Guardians of the Galaxy and why it remains so high up in my personal MCU ranking. For as much as I love The Avengers, I never feel by the end of that movie that Iron Man, Cap, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye are truly a family but instead a tight group of ass-kicking friends with a lot of love-hate tension between them. This film, on the other hand, works organically as both the beginning of a superhero team with a unique identity and a charming family of misfits that you know will be there for each other no matter what (as we saw in Avengers: Infinity War, that family dynamic is not as strong with the core Avengers team just yet). This transformation of Quill, Gamora, and the others into a die-hard family unit only becomes clear in the climax on Xandar when Quill, after distracting Ronan (Lee Pace) with a dance-off, takes the Power Stone from him and nearly dies holding it. But then Gamora reaches out her hand for him to take despite knowing that she may very well die doing so. We watch from Quill’s point of view as when he looks over to Gamora, he sees his mother and therefore sees Gamora as family. Then, Drax and Rocket add their hands and―with the power of love―harness the Stone’s power and defeat Ronan in the process. I don’t care how cheesy or obvious this climax is; it remains one of my favorite moments in the entire franchise. I need not say any more about Guardians of the Galaxy; just watch it, even if you’re not a fan of the other MCU films. Trust me, you won’t regret it. The penultimate film of Phase Two, Avengers: Age of Ultron, might hold up better if The Avengers had not come before it and both Infinity War and Endgame did not come after it. Perhaps the best way to describe this film is as the awkward middle child of the four-film Avengers franchise that lacks the cinematic magic of its predecessor and the masterful storytelling of its successors. Ultimately, I want to try and give it some deference as a movie that was never truly set up to succeed on the level of those other team-up films. So instead, I want to focus more so on the positives. First, I appreciate how Tony’s arc builds off of his paranoia exemplified in Iron Man 3 by driving him to make the wrong decision of building Ultron (James Spader) but for the right reasons. Rather than trying to be Earth’s protector by himself, he decides to enlist Bruce Banner’s help in building a “suit of armor around the world” in the form of an all-powerful A.I. that will keep aliens from invading the planet in the future. Short-sighted and arrogant? Yes. Well-intentioned? Also, yes. Tony easily gets some of the best treatment out of all the other Avengers in Age of Ultron that pays off even more in future installments. Unquestionably, however, it is Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) that serves as this film’s emotional core. Not only does he provide insight into what “normal” life for an Avenger can be, but using him as the moral center and motivator for the team was a brilliant move by writer-director Joss Whedon. It is the heart of Barton doing his best to keep the Avengers together in spite of rising tensions over Ultron’s creation that makes Age of Ultron a pretty okay film in the MCU. I also think this movie has a number of genuinely compelling scenes, such as Ultron’s “birth” involving the seeming disabling of J.A.R.V.I.S. and the shambling robot of Tony Stark’s Iron Legion shuffling out to greet the Avengers. For much of the film, James Spader kills it as the psychopathic yet emotional automaton (maybe one of the most underrated villains of the MCU?). Furthermore, Iron Man donning the “Hulkbuster” armor to subdue a brainwashed, rampaging Hulk in Johannesburg, South Africa is one of the best action scenes of the entire franchise. Period. While Age of Ultron is not a great film in light of what came before and after, it is a decent reintroduction of the Avengers that does better at setting up future films (from Civil War to Black Panther) than some other hodge-podge messes in the franchise (lookin’ at you, Iron Man 2!). The final Phase Two film, 2015’s Ant-Man, is such a delight. Honestly, in a similar vein to Iron Man or Guardians of the Galaxy, I truly believe that this film can be viewed and enjoyed by casual moviegoers and non-fanatics of the MCU. I just enjoy so much of it, from the everyman personality of protagonist Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and his tough-love relationship with Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) to the creatively-choreographed action sequences. The way that Ant-Man incorporates changing size, scale and scope throughout the runtime never gets old for me. While Pym’s shrinking technology is further developed and made more central to the franchise’s overall narrative in the sequel, I enjoy the relative humility of Ant-Man as a superhero in his first outing. Not only is Rudd so fun to watch both before and after he becomes Ant-Man, but how he comes into his own as a superhero culminating in his fight with Darren Cross/Yellowjacket (Corey Stoll) is a more-than-serviceable origin story. All in all, the films of Phase Two may lack the cohesion of those in Phase One. But I stand by the fact that the good outweighs the bad, and the fact that the characters and narrative elements introduced in films like Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man pay off so well in later films makes Phase Two better than most people (in my humble opinion) give it credit. Image by Iván Jesus Rojas from Pixabay fPhase Three (2016-2019)
Referring back to my initial ranking at the start of this blog, you may notice that Captain America: Civil War is decidedly low on the list (below the likes of Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, and Captain Marvel). A lot of this had to do with the fact that when I rewatched Civil War three years ago leading up to Infinity War, I found it overstretched, tedious, and not as satisfying as my initial viewing in theaters. Furthermore, my second viewing came off the back of Winter Soldier which I was so impressed by that Civil War kind of paled in comparison. On this third viewing most recently, I did my best to go in with an open mind in an effort to not allow myself to be wholly anticipating everything from the airport battle onwards without appreciating what comes before it. And I am happy to say that I did appreciate Civil War more this around…but it still isn’t perfect. Simply put, I feel that the movie gets better as it goes along which is more ideal than the opposite being the case. For its first hour, Civil War is blatantly trying to outdo Winter Soldier in terms of its action choreography and Age of Ultron with its use of the cast of “New Avengers” under the tutelage of Cap and Black Widow but (somewhat) lacks a solid grasp on who these characters have been in prior films. To this day, I find Tony Stark’s reasons for supporting the Sokovia Accords to be rather convoluted and (in my humble opinion) this choice is some of the worst character work by the Russo Brothers in any of their MCU films. Furthermore, many of Tony’s scenes with Cap in the first and (part of the) second acts come off as pretty contrived as a result. What keeps me engaged during the first act of Civil War, without question, is Zemo’s (Daniel Brühl) role in the overall plot. What is he doing? Why is he doing it? And how will this play into the break-up story for the Avengers? It was clear from Winter Soldier that the Russo Brothers were making spy movies with Captain America at the forefront, and they continue that approach here which really pays off in the third act. But like I said, the film gets better by the minute. The second act has some great action set pieces from Cap and Bucky escaping Bucky’s apartment building to Black Panther chasing Bucky. And it all culminates in what remains one of my absolute favorite scenes in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe: the airport battle. Leading up to this, we have the team-building for Cap’s and Tony’s sides by bringing Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man and Tom Holland’s Spider-Man into the fold. I stand by that without those two characters involved the airport battle would lack so much of the lighthearted, fun-loving nature that makes it such a joy to watch (Side note: Tony’s first scene with Peter Parker talking about why he’s Spider-Man is an absolutely fantastic introduction of the character into the MCU). But the emotional core of Civil War that makes it (by a hair) my favorite Captain America film is the third-act payoff where Zemo reveals the true nature of Tony’s parents’ deaths. The way in which the film turns so quickly from a big-budget, blockbuster spectacle flick to a personal drama between Tony, Cap, and Bucky is such a great way for the Russo Brothers to subvert formula and expectations. What this three-way fight and its aftermath does for both Tony and Cap’s characters going forward is not only essential to the overall franchise but compelling arcs for both of them. Tony’s flip from making peace with Cap to fighting him in an effort to avenge his parents by killing Bucky leaves him in such a broken place mentally and emotionally. Steve, on the other hand, choose his best friend over his life’s work at the end. By dropping the shield and going into hiding, he is not only rejecting his identity as Captain America but is also moving on from how his journey started as “the first Avenger” to the team’s leader in later films. This leaves him in such a compelling place for the next two team-up films. All in all, Civil War ended up being better than I thought it would be and I appreciate it for how well it kicks off Phase Three and propels the story for the future. It’s still not perfect, but it’s pretty damn good. I have less to say about the next Phase Three film, Doctor Strange, not because I don’t enjoy it but because it remains in this weird middling place of being better than most of Phase One but not as good as (most) of the other MCU movies. As an origin story, I think it does a far better job at introducing magic into the franchise as both a power set and a world of its own than it does making us care about Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) as a character in his own right. That being said, it still has some pretty good elements to it. Notably, the aesthetic of the magic is pretty cool to watch (even knowing it gets much better in Avengers: Infinity War) and the third-act twist of Strange using his mind to outwit and overcome Dormammu’s siege on Earth rather than his muscles to battle him outdoes many other third acts in the franchise. Overall, however, Doctor Strange lacks the compelling humor that now defines the MCU but does not have a distinctive enough identity to justify that kind of writing. 2017 is arguably the best year for MCU releases. To begin, we’ve got Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 which lives up to its predecessor without being qualitatively equal to it (with the exception of the soundtrack, which undeniably supersedes that of the first film). For a sophomore outing of the Guardians and James Gunn in the MCU, Vol. 2 achieves what films like Iron Man 2 and Avengers: Age of Ultron could not: it expands the world of the characters while focusing the crux of the story on the emotional journeys of the characters themselves. The standout for me in Vol. 2 is Yondu (Michael Rooker), who not only becomes likeable but is central to Peter Quill’s epiphany in the third act about what true family is. And while his sacrifice is heartwarming, it was his funeral attended by the Ravagers (including Sylvester Stallone 😊) that made me surprisingly emotional. All the humor of the first film is here as well, especially Gunn’s usage of Baby Groot in just the right ways (I f***ing lost it when Baby Groot brought all manner of oddities to Rocket and Yondu in jail, especially the severed human toe). And Dave Bautista really steps up his game as Drax in this sequel, providing some of the most consistent laughs in any MCU film. So, while Vol. 2 is not as good as its predecessor, it still remains a thoroughly enjoyable ride worth revisiting every now and again. Now it’s time for one of the absolute best films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and that is none other than Spider-Man: Homecoming. Honestly, I don’t know how anyone can watch this film and not enjoy it. Tom Holland’s charm bursts at the seams in virtually every scene he’s in, not to mention the great interplay he has with so many of the other characters from his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) to Aunt May (Marisa Tomei). Regarding the villain, Michael Keaton’s portrayal of Adrian Toomes/Vulture as a down-to-earth, relatable everyman who’s just trying to do right by his family is so damn good. He may not be the most entertaining villain, but he is easily one of the best in the franchise (and the reveal about Vulture is undoubtedly the best twist of any MCU film). Regarding the overall story direction, Jon Watts tailors Peter Parker’s journey around accepting the mantle of being a “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man” in a world filled with the Avengers. And it culminates in the moment of the movie that gives me chills every time I see it: Peter, stuck under the rubble from Vulture’s attack, telling himself, “C’mon, Spider-Man!” to overcome all odds and free himself. Overall, Homecoming effectively blends genres so well as to make it a fabulous cross between a superhero story and a coming-of-age tale which never gets old whenever I revisit it. What more could I ask for? Perhaps my most unpopular opinion up next: I do not love Thor: Ragnarok. Don’t get me wrong; I thoroughly enjoy it every time I watch it. And I really like director Taika Waititi’s unique approach to telling a Thor-centric story in comparison to the previous two attempts. Specifically, I appreciate the supporting cast, from Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) as a badass warrior of Asgard to Hulk as a powerful man-child who develops his friendship with Thor. I also love Thor’s arc in this film as an example of “demythologizing” the hero starting with the destruction of his hammer, Mjolnir, at the hands of older sister/outcast Hela (Cate Blanchett) to his rebirth as a true “God of Thunder” set to the chill-inducing Led Zeppelin track, “Immigrant Song.” All that being said, however, I think that Ragnarok is slightly overindulgent with regards to humor without justifying such a move from scene to scene. By the end, the ratio of jokes landing pales in comparison to the likes of the two Guardians films (or even Ant-Man, for that matter) which undermines much of what for other people seems to make this film one of the best of the MCU. Still, there’s a lot to like about Ragnarok. I particularly enjoy Thor fighting Hulk gladiator-style on Sakaar (let alone virtually every scene with Jeff Goldblum as the Grandmaster) and Thor embracing his power to kick off a truly badass fight montage of all of the “Revengers” (😊) against Hela’s army. It is a thoroughly enjoyable action flick, if not a true masterpiece. In an effort to keep this blog as concise and digestible as possible, I will defer you now to click here for my in-depth opinions about Black Panther. Despite rewatching the film for a second time recently, my opinions about the performances, world-building, and story have really not changed. Finally, we are at the beginning of the end―Avengers: Infinity War. In essence, the culmination of not only the characters and events of the eighteen films that preceded, but a celebration of what Marvel Studios created in a shared cinematic universe filled with an expansive cast of diverse, colorful characters. It could have been amazing if it was just that; but this movie is much more than a mere celebration of what came before. It is a masterful example of epic storytelling in the modern era of comic book blockbusters. Much of what holds up about this movie in terms of the emotional and thematic core is the journey of its antagonist―the “mad Titan” Thanos (Josh Brolin). He begins the movie with one of the best opening scenes of the entire franchise (and arguably in modern cinematic history) by defeating Hulk in single combat just to show off and brutally murdering Heimdall and Loki in front of a battered and weakened Thor. While Thanos had relatively brief, insignificant appearance in the first two Avengers movies and Guardians of the Galaxy, the directing Russo Brothers knew that this was the first time that we would come to really know Thanos as a character. And they f***ing nailed it! 😊 Thanos’ journey from genocidal soldier to misguided prophet to the manifestation of death by the end is so powerful because of what it says about the film’s central theme: sacrifice. His entire motivation to collect the six Infinity stones is hindered at so many points (notably the various fights he gets in with an assortment of Avengers and Guardians of Earth and Titan), but every time he does what is necessary to accomplish his mission that he wholeheartedly believes in. Arguably the emotional peak of his journey in Infinity War is when he sacrifices Gamora (Zoe Saldaña) on Vormir. His evident heartbreak over killing who he loves most (despite Gamora’s belief otherwise) to gain the Soul Stone is the heart of the primary tragedy of the movie: Thanos, who feels burdened with what he believes is the key to saving the universe for all time, must take the life of his greatest love to do so. Simply put, Thanos’ arc is so powerful that it alone would make Infinity War the best of all the MCU films thus far. But there is a secondary tragedy: the Avengers fail because they are unable to come together and be a team. For a number of reasons (whether it be the physical distance between them or the ideological fallout from Civil War), the main Avengers lack the cohesion to take on the overwhelming force that is Thanos, his four loyal children, and his seemingly endless alien armies. This, of course, is in spite of them receiving some help whether it be Spider-Man, Doctor Strange and the Guardians assisting Tony on his journey, Captain America receiving the aid of Black Panther and the warriors of Wakanda to protect the Vision, or Thor working with the Guardians to build Stormbreaker on his (ultimately failed) hero’s journey to avenge Loki and Heimdall by killing Thanos. And yet, all of their efforts were for naught. Notably, the efforts of the only two heroes―Star-Lord and Scarlet Witch―willing to sacrifice their loved ones―Gamora and the Vision, respectively―are in vein. Furthermore, all of the direct attempts on Thanos’s life (specifically Tony going solo on Titan and Thor thrusting Stormbreaker into Thanos’ chest) did not stop the “mad Titan” from snapping his fingers and killing half of all life in the universe. Perhaps this tragedy is best encapsulated in watching our beloved heroes across the cosmos watching their best friends and loved ones fading into dust (that scene between Tony and Spidey on Titan gets me every time). I could spend probably a dozen more paragraphs dissecting Infinity War in all of its greatness. But, I shall leave it at this. This movie has absolutely no right to be as awesome as it is, and yet it fulfills on what it promises to do for the MCU at large―and more. For that, it earns the top spot (for now). Before Marvel Studios gave us the conclusion to the second-act tee-up that was Infinity War, they gave us two more movies to establish where characters (both new and veteran) not in Infinity War were at in their lives. The first one was Ant-Man and the Wasp, released approximately two months later. As a comedic film that highlights the best of Ant-Man and the wacky cast of characters in his world, I love it. But as a sequel to Ant-Man that delivers on the set up of rescuing Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) from the “Quantum Realm”? Well…it’s alright. To be frank, Ant-Man and the Wasp is a funnier movie than its predecessor but not a better one. Whereas the origin story in Ant-Man was more than serviceable in establishing Scott Lang’s character and his dynamics with mentor Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and his daughter Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), the sequel seems to forgo crafting an adequate plot in favor of laugh-out-loud character moments and creative action sequences. And I get why some people would prefer that to what the first Scott Lang-centric film offers. For me, I just need a little more from my MCU movies. In an effort to not undersell Ant-Man and the Wasp, I thoroughly enjoyed watching it again. I particularly appreciated Evangeline Lilly’s introduction as the Wasp fighting against the goons of arms dealer Sonny Burch (Walton Goggins). And the secondary-character standouts were Scott’s best friend Luis (Michael Peña), particularly during his scene with Goggins while under the influence of “truth serum,” and Scott’s pep talk from his spirited yet sweet daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson) ―who might very well be the best child actor in the MCU. Period. Ultimately, though, the emotional center of the film―Hank and Hope’s quest to recover Janet from the “Quantum Realm” ―just lacked the cathartic payoff of other family-driven stories of Phase Three (lookin’ at you, Vol. 2!). It’s still a super fun movie, but not really a great one. The second film released between Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame was Captain Marvel, the first (solo) female-led movie of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Having seen this movie three times now, it gets a little worse for me with every viewing. And while a variety of elements contribute to this film’s lackluster result, I think a lot of it comes down to my disinterest in its protagonist. To be clear, I LOVED Brie Larson’s performances in other movies (notably Short Term 12 and Room). And, honestly, she plays the character of Carol Danvers as a person without an identity of her own pretty well. It has more to do with the character’s origin story as having to figure out who she really is in the midst of this intergalactic war just doesn’t have the same punch as other origin movies for me (lookin’ at you, Iron Man and Ant-Man!). She still has some pretty great moments in the movie (her screaming in the face of a Skrull in the first act is an understated aspect of Larson’s potential for comedic timing), but she lacks the distinctive personality of other Marvel heroes that I was looking for in the first solo female-led MCU movie. The standout supporting performances in Captain Marvel are Samuel L. Jackson as a de-aged, and less experienced, Nick Fury, who brings out Larson’s charisma in scenes with her, and Ben Mendelsohn as the likeable Skrull Talos whose true gravitas as a charming, sympathetic alien comes out more in the third act. Also, I have to shower praise on young Monica Rambeau (Akira Akbar) who deserved far more screen time than what she got. All in all, however, Captain Marvel is an ultimately underwhelming origin movie for Danvers as one of the most powerful heroes in the MCU. That being said, I am way more excited for its sequel as a team-up of Danvers, an adult Rambeau (as introduced in the series WandaVision), and the yet-to-be-introduced Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), in the film The Marvels. I think having some other female heroes to play off of will make me like Danvers’s character more (at least I hope so). There is so much that I could say about Avengers: Endgame, but I want to focus on its core strength: the finality to the character arcs of the six original Avengers who first teamed up in 2012’s The Avengers. In my humble opinion, each of them has a satisfying (if not equitably emotional) journey in this film that makes me appreciate the cinematic odyssey that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe that much more. To begin with the hero who kicked off this entire franchise: Iron Man. On this most recent rewatch, I found Tony’s arc in Endgame to be the most powerful of the original six Avengers because, at the heart of it, he forgoes his ego to submit to his heroic side one last time and pays the ultimate price for doing so. Of course, the film foreshadows Tony’s demise from the get-go with his message to Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) aboard the Guardians’ ship “Milano” in which he reluctantly accepts his fate (even though it is delayed five years thanks to Captain Marvel rescuing him). And once he does return to Earth, all of his frustration and ego comes out in his emotional breakdown in front of Steve Rogers and the other surviving heroes by exclaiming that his faith in the Avengers is completely depleted. After the time jump, however, Tony has moved on from (almost) all of their failures. He and Pepper have moved to a quiet life on the lakeside with their young daughter Morgan (Lexi Rabe) and Tony has fully donned the mantle of father while also largely setting aside his mechanical alter ego. But when Cap, Natasha, and Scott Lang show up at his doorstep asking for his help in bringing those snapped by Thanos back, it is quickly revealed that he has actually been stewing on the possibility of time travel for awhile now. Once he figures it out later that night, he blatantly seeks out guidance from Pepper because he knows what’s right but he somewhat prefers to do what is easy. Her caution to Tony when he suggests ignoring the whole thing? “But would you be able to rest?” Thus, Tony rejoins the Avengers on the condition that he keeps the family he has now. During the “Time Heist,” he shares a lovely moment with his younger father Howard Stark (John Slattery) who serves as a great foil for where Tony started as a selfish, cocky playboy and how much he has grown to be a father who truly fits the definition of a superhero. All of his efforts over the course of the franchise lead up to his defining moment in the battle against past Thanos and his armies: he takes the six Infinity Stones from Thanos, puts them on himself, reminds everyone that “I am Iron Man,” and sacrifices himself to defeat Thanos once and for all. In his dying moments, Pepper assures him that he can rest now. This end to a character is not only the best sendoff to any MCU hero thus far, but is easily one of the best conclusions to a character in any superhero movie of this century. Not only because of his personal evolution, but of how the franchise as a whole pays its respects to what Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man started back in 2008 during his funeral scene. This scene is both a reminder of where the MCU began and a celebration of what came after. How much more poetic and beautiful can you get? If Tony’s arc is my favorite of Endgame, then how the journey of Steve Rogers ends is a close second. While I have not always been the biggest fan of Captain America as a character, I deeply appreciate how the Russo Brothers handled the conclusion to his story in this film. In many ways, Steve’s arc serves as a foil to Tony’s. From the get-go, Tony gives up on trying to redeem himself whereas Steve wants nothing more than to right the wrongs of the Avengers’ loss. And after the time jump, he does what he can to help others move on like he claims he did (both after waking up in the 21st century and after Thanos’s snap in Wakanda), but it’s clear after his conversation with Natasha that he cannot―and will not―move on. So, he brings the Avengers together (with a few new notable additions) and organizes the “Time Heist” to bring back those lost after Thanos’s snap. But what about after? It is only while with Tony in 1970 when he sees young Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) that he decides that this will be his last fight as Captain America. After a grueling fight with past Thanos on Earth (involving losing half his shield in the process), he refuses to stay down. Facing down all of Thanos’s armies, he stands up, tightens his shield, and begins walking towards them to keep up the fight. But once the fight is over, Steve knows he has earned “some of that life that Tony talked about” and thus remains in the past after returning Mjolnir and the six Infinity Stones to have a life with Peggy. And once he’s decided his life is over, he returns to that moment and commits one final act as Captain America: he passes the mantle to one of his best friends and the man that he believes deserves it most, Sam Wilson/Falcon (Anthony Mackie). Perhaps not as emotional of an arc as Tony’s, but still a fulfilling and excellent one. The arcs of the other four original Avengers may seem small in comparison to Tony and Steve, but I think they are all fitting for their characters. Perhaps the swiftest one is that of Bruce Banner, who did the most with the post-snap world and decided to try and redeem his own failures in Infinity War by spending eighteen months working to conjoin his own brains with the brawns of Hulk. By doing so, Banner not only reconciles with the side of himself he hated the most but also was able to have his heroic moment in Endgame by donning the burden of snapping to bring back those who Thanos killed five years before. Of the original six Avengers, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) was the only one other than Tony to pay the ultimate price in the fight to undo their failures in Infinity War. She has needed a family in the form of the Avengers since the original film in 2012, and the time jump in Endgame shows that she has become the sole leader of the team because it is the only thing that has kept her going. But once they have an opportunity to right their wrongs, Natasha will stop at nothing―including giving her own life―to pull it off. Clint Barton, on the other hand, loses his family at the start of Endgame which is the catalyst for his downward spiral as a senseless murderer culminating in his self-destructive transformation as “Ronin.” Natasha and Clint’s stories parallel each other, and result in both of them trying to sacrifice themselves for each other on Vormir, with Natasha decidedly pulling it off, which shows that some of the best stories in the MCU can be characters who have no real superpowers to speak of. With two dead and three retired from superhero work (more or less), Thor remains the only one of the six original Avengers to have a concrete path after Endgame. And while the Russo Brothers easily could have killed him off in the movie’s third act, I really enjoy how they instead cemented his tragic arc that kicked off in Ragnarok and developed in Infinity War by making his failure to kill Thanos in the latter film the final straw for him. Over the course of the five-year time jump in Endgame, Thor becomes an overweight and drunken mess who wallows in his sorrow and thus reflecting a severe loss of willpower that has defined his character for so long. Compared to Tony’s initial hesitation and Ronin’s hopeless reluctance, Thor outright denies any desire to right his wrongs and remains reluctant throughout much of the planning of the “Time Heist.” It is only when he reunites with his mother in the past that he accepts the possibility of a new path for himself. Still a hero, but maybe no longer a king. Thus, when the fight against Thanos is all over, he gives up his throne to Valkyrie and chooses a new future himself by joining the Guardians of the Galaxy. Where will that take him? We’ll have to wait and see in Thor: Love and Thunder. All in all, there is so much that makes Avengers: Endgame a special movie (both within the MCU and the comic book genre at large). There are many more elements about it that I hope to reflect on in another blog in the very near future, but the movie’s thematic core (and thus its legacy) will be its ability to conclude the story of the original six Avengers with reverence while also paving the way for so many more stories of heroes currently in the franchise as well as many more to come. I don’t think I have to justify why this film remains my favorite of the MCU thus far. And the “Infinity Saga” should have ended there. But, for some reason, the final movie in this cinematic odyssey is Spider-Man: Far From Home. While I appreciate the need to give fans of the MCU a follow-up to Avengers: Endgame, I think that this movie could have waited another year or so. But, setting that aside, let’s dissect what I enjoy and what I don’t enjoy about Far From Home. One of the primary strengths of its predecessor, Homecoming, was its ability to be a great coming-of-age story intertwined with a great superhero movie. And Far From Home continues this trend by centering the emotional center of the film on the burgeoning romance between Peter and Michelle Jones/“MJ” (Zendaya). The awkward but lovable moments between them throughout the movie make for a thoroughly enjoyable relationship in the MCU (even though it’s not the strongest romantic bond of the entire franchise). Also, Peter’s chemistry with best friend Ned is just as good while his relationship with Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) is even stronger than in Homecoming due to their shared grief over the death of Tony Stark. That being said, however, virtually every other element of Far From Home is lackluster when compared to Homecoming (let alone Avengers: Endgame). First off, the villain that was Michael Keaton’s Vulture was such a compelling antagonist for both Spider-Man and Peter Parker that I was worried it could not be topped. And my suspicions were confirmed; despite Jake Gyllenhaal giving it his all and capturing this version of Quentin Beck sufficiently, Mysterio is just not on par with Vulture nor with some of the other great solo-movie villains of the MCU. On that note, the script feels comparatively uninspired. From the obvious villain-turn of Mysterio to Nick Fury and Maria Hill being Skrulls in disguise, Far From Home comes off in many ways as simply trying to emulate the best of Homecoming without putting the work in in terms of its narrative structure and payoff. However, I do really appreciate its homage to Spider-Man 2 with Peter’s temperamental “Peter tingle” without making it the focal point of his arc in the film. I am also VERY excited for how the threequel, Spider-Man: No Way Home, pays off the mid-credits scene when Peter’s identity as Spider-Man is revealed to the world. Unfortunately, these elements do not make up for the other less-than-great story aspects of this movie. At the end of the day, how will I remember the “Infinity Saga”? It’s hard to sum up my thoughts on a 23-movie-journey into a few sentences. Certainly, the quality of these films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe ranges from unremarkable and boring to formulaic entertainment to groundbreaking cinematic awesomeness. But as a package deal, the “Infinity Saga” stands as the prime example of what a film studio can do with iconic characters in order to build long-term trust with their audience. Suffice to say, I have been pretty impressed with what Phase Four has given us thus far and am very excited for where the MCU goes afterwards. With all that said, here is my (updated) official ranking of the Marvel Studios’ “Infinity Saga”:
What are some of your favorite films from the MCU? What films of Phase Four and beyond are you most excited for? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst |
Austin McManusI have no academic or professional background in film production or criticism; I simply love watching and talking about movies. Archives
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