Sunday, March 18, 2018

The Walking Dead: Season 8 Episode 12 - The Key


Hello my Walking Dead friends!  We're plowing along in season 8.  It was another episode where it felt like a lot was happening, but in the end nothing really did!  Still an entertaining romp of Rick vs. Negan.  Let's dive through the highlights.


Discussion Points

Hilltop has leveled up thanks to Carl's mission statement.  Rick is still going through anger management.  Negan is aware of a problem in his ranks.  And Jadis is now a wildcard in the mix because of it.  This is basically the gist of what happened.  

  • Maggie was convinced to take a chance on Ellen Degeneres (Georgie?) and her cohorts Hilda and Midge.  Georgie was offering knowledge in exchange for records.  Maggie wanted to take their food supplies.  Michonne, driven by Carl's sacrifice, convinced Maggie to take the deal.  The exchange paid off as Georgie held plans for medieval agricultural technology which could be build up within the walls of Hilltop.  She said she'd return one day and would request to barter again.  We'll see where it all goes.  
  • Simon was airing all of his dirty laundry to Dwight on their way to terrorize hilltop with their walker soaked weapons.  He is ready to move on from Negan and Rick and crew.  Make new relationships.  Not sure if Dwight realized he still intended on killing Rick and crew when he went along with the plan.  But it seemed quite certain that was the plan by the end.  Simon's days are numbered though as Rick revealed that the saviors indeed did kill all of the scavengers. 
  • Rick had a nice chat with Daryl at Hilltop and thanked him for getting everyone there.  Daryl had questions to if Rick was ready to keep fighting the fight.  Rick ended up being a loose canon.  He was going to alert the presses when he was scouting and saw the saviors coming.  But when he saw Negan pulling up the rear he went dead on for him.  Now how often can these 2 come face to face and have both of them survive with superficial wounds?  It was nice that Rick got Lucille for a few beats and get to set her on fire.  But Negan still ended up back with her in the end.  I'm confused to how he ended up unconscious and in Jadis's truck in the end with a gun to his head.  But, I'm intrigued!   Will he be able to convince Jadis that he had nothing to do with the slaughter?  
  • Negan had offered up a pretty decent deal to Rick if he could get the 3 tribes in line.  Rick would work for Negan, but the crews would only owe Negan 25% of their earnings.  Unfortunately, Simon's little stint in scavenger country ruined that prospect.  Something tells me Rick wouldn't have taken the deal anyway.  
Sure, there was a lot of other stuff that wend down.  Enid venting her frustrations, Rosita/Maggie talking about coming back from tough times, Daryl explaining why he went guns blazing into Sanctuary, etc...  But, I think I summed up the key things above.  This 2nd half of season 8 has been a lot better than the first half.  It still feels like they're treading water, but at least they're making it entertaining.  At this point I'll just hope for a conclusion to this Negan arc by the finale.  If next week is truly a 2 hour feature I don't know if I'll have a recap in me.  But we'll see what goes down!  Until then I look forward to our discussion in the comments.  Hope you enjoyed my ramblings and I'll see you next week!

7 comments:

MJ said...

Shouldn't have been surprised that jadis rolled up in the end - but I was ! Boy is Simon gonna die hard ! LOL And Rick had Lucille for a brief time - but what was Negen's reacton about ? Don't you touch her ! That man got some issues. And why would Negen think that Rick and company would want a deal with him any way? Negen takes peoples stuff and offers 'protection' but our group doesn't want or need his protection.


Ellen DeGeneres ? LOL - chick was on Madam Secretary and House of Cards. Hope the turn out to not be bad people - seems like all we do is meet baddies. Odd that all 3 were women though.

As for Daryl and his explanation of why he totally screwed everything up - nice that he decided to have that talk but still - dude you so messed up.

Funny - I don't feel like we are treading water. I mean - it's like every episode is a day so it's only been a few weeks really.

Next week is 2 hours ? I didn't hear that.

MJ said...

Georgie - is kinda the flip side of Eugene. From what little we know she is surviving on trading what she has most - knowledge. But not using people to keep herself safe like Eugene. But odd that what she wanted was records ? LOL

Mike V. said...

Ellen D - It was my first thought when I saw her. lol Just the hair and outfit really. I didn't realize the actress it was until Talking Dead. That is Karen Hayes from 24 too! I only got 2 seasons into House of Cards and don't remember seeing her, but that doesn't mean she wasn't there.

Simon - yeah he's a goner. lol

Negan definitely has an attachment to Lucille...we've seen it before and Rick knows it. He's certainly demented...but yeah I'm sure there's some history and symbolism in the bat to Negan. Not sure if we learned it or not.

Agreed on daryl.

I think it's just the fact that Rick and Negan have had so many close encounters and then it's the ol' "i'll get you next time!!!!!" antics where nothing happens. There were certainly enough plot points that advanced the story along but in terms of Rick vs. Negan....it's more of the same.

I think it was Jay in the comments last weeks said that he thought next week was 2 hours. I don't really know for sure. Could probably look it up now.

Good point on Georgie/Eugene connection.

MJ said...

Yeah - I think AMC has a new show premiering at 10 and listed it with TWD so we all tape it ! They did it once before. I really hate that - forcing me to tape something I might not want.

Jason B. said...

MJ - Yes, that's exactly what they are doing. I found out when Chris mentioned that the new show would be airing between TWD and Talking Dead next week. So no 2 hour episode, AMC just masked it to look that way. The "official" premiere of the new show is actually the following night, and it's 2 hours long. So they are considering the first half a "preview" for the show, which I guess is their excuse for not listing it as a separate airing from TWD.

I am pretty interested in how the rest of the season will play out. There are a lot of non-comic elements in play: Simon, Jadis, Negan being captured, this new Georgie group, and the helicopter that we saw earlier in the season (my theories are that it will either have to do with Morgan's crossover to FTWD, or that it's part of Georgie's group). So we will have to see how it all plays out!

Mike V. said...

Well personally I'm glad we're not getting a 2 hour episode! lol So you think maybe Morgan interacted with Georgie group in the past? I'm sure they'll figure out some creative way to tie things together. Still won't convince me to start watching FTWD again though. :) lol

Jason B. said...

Yeah I don't mind that it's not a two hour episode either haha, I just dislike AMC's antics. And they've actually confirmed that Morgan will be crossing over to FTWD in TWD's present time. So FTWD will be having a huge time jump, and Morgan will be leaving this show/group at the end of the season. Who knows if it'll be through a group or if he'll just go off on his own though.