The Walking Dead Special Part 10

Alright so here we are not long after the last season we see the group on the beach training, looking like spartan warriors with makeshift shields, bows and arrows, spears, and swords.  They are training to fight the Whispers or dead heads as I call them… 

Again I can't help but ask the question again, where's all the guns? What happened to the armory that Alexandria and the others had built up to defeat Negan? 

Why isn't Ugene making bullets? Oh there's a simple answer to this. 

One, The writers think you’re stupid and wont remember the infinite ammo cheat code they unlocked with all their fully automatic weapons when they fought Negan and his army. Because they knew the war with Negan would be far too “Boring” if they group actually had to think about how to tactfully take out or commedere resources from Negans outposts to aid in their fight against Sanctuary. 

So instead we will just have big explosions and lots and lots and lots and lots of gunfire…. But don't worry none of your favorite characters will get it.. 

Sorry I digress.. 

Two, the writers know that the whisperers would be a pretty easy foe with the colonies having all their firepower so instead they wrote them back to the 8th century.. 

Now don’t get me wrong I thought it was pretty cool that they were able to build these shields and adopt this tactic of fighting, especially against the Dead.  But its still laughable because again, They have a bullet maker. 

Suddenly out of nowhere a satellite comes crashing down to earth creating a massive forest fire that Oceanside and the others will have to cross into Alphas territory to deal with. 

They manage to work through the night into the next day and put the fire out  and Ugene sees an opportunity to grab some hard to find parts off the wreckage. 

So we get a little back story on how Alpha and Beta met, further showing us just how insane Alpha is and Beta seems to maybe been a resident at the funny farm she stumbled into? That's what I got from it. If not him, certainly some one he cared about because she takes him out as a walker. 

We get introduced to a new dead head, her sister was the one with the baby in the last season at hilltop. Needless to say, losing her kid drove her nuts, (more nuts than you already have to be a part of Alphas group). 

I mean honestly what rational person would stumble upon that group and think to themselves, yup this is the life for me! Walking around smelling the dead all day eating worms. SURE! 

I hate this enemy, because they’re just too ridiculous… but yet they seem to be far more interesting than the war with Negan, and that's sad. 

So she ends up killing her sister to gain favor with Alpha… something she will later regret.  

Back at Alexandria they are getting pounded by hordes of walkers, one after another. They fight all day and night, exhausted to fend them off.  They are all very sure this is Alphas doing.  And Gamma shows up telling them Alpha wants to meet. 

We get a little more Negan time as he fights off walkers with a very resentful Aaron. Meanwhile Carol starts having hallucinations from the lack of sleep and the pills she's taking. 

This episode was strange… but whatever, felt like filler. 

Back at the hilltop a wall collapses and a tree falls on a building trapping people inside.  Folks from Alexandria head off to go and help them. 

Lidia encounters a bit of bullying from some alexandria folks, that escalates into them jumping her at night and almost killing her.  Negan magically comes out of nowhere to save her and accidentally kills one of the bullies. 

Oh well.. And the others have the audacity to get upset and blame Lidia and Negan…. Idk, maybe next time don't try to kill the girl and one of yours won't accidentally die in the process… Regardless, the two boys are punks and very unlikeable.. They are after all the ones that got Henry in trouble. 

Needless to say, Negans in trouble, where half the community wants his head, and the other half understands he saved Lidia, yet they really don't care if Negan dies because no one likes him. 

So somehow Negan escapes prison and leaves alexandria. We know someone let him out but not who.  

We get as an audience what we want, well at least what I want.  Which is more focus on Negan. 

See Negan is the only really interesting character left on this show, he's funny too because he is a smart ass. But he lives by his own moral code, much like an Anti-hero.  

He’s now wandering the woods in search of food and shelter. Where he stumbles across an obsessed fan boy named brandon. 

Brandon reveals that he has Negans original leather jacket, so for a moment we think hmm, maybe the old Negan is coming back. 

They stumble across a woman in a bus screaming as shes being attacked by walkers.  Negan saves her and finds a boy with her as well. 

For whatever reason Brandon seems to think Negan would want to kill them, because that's something he used to do. Negan calmly tells him that he doesn't kill Women and kids and that people are a resource. 

Brandon doesn't get it, so Negan tells him basically to leave and never come back around. 

We get a nice moment where Negan and a little boy are bonding together, Negan tells him he's gonna take them to Hilltop where it's safe.  He sets off to gather firewood and when he comes back he sadly finds them both dead. 

Brandon killed them.  Thinking Negan was playing mind games and actually did want him to do that he took it upon himself to kill the woman and boy.  

Here we get to see a bit of Negan's own Moral code. Obviously this doesn't sit well, and he picks up a rock and kills Brandon… 

All in all a sad scene really, that poor woman and boy didn't deserve that and Negan knew it.  

That's when we see Negan press on into the dark and misty woods where we hear his little catch phrase “little pigs little pigs!” calling out to the dead. 

Ah, it's good to have Negan back.  Not soon after he's captured by the Whisperers and tells them he can help them with Alexandria. 

Oh my, is Negan turning against the colonies!? What's going on here? 

Now I knew he had not, I knew there was something at play here.  He was gonna try to do something to earn favor with Alexandria. So time would tell… 

So from here we get Carol heading off into the woods and Daryl following, she says shes going to find Negan but really is going after Alpha… 

Negan is tested by the dead heads and actually survives it… Pissing off Beta.  

Meanwhile back in Alexandria there's an awful stomach bug plaguing the community.  Now earlier in the season we saw Gamma dumping zombie guts into the stream so we know its that. But they should be boiling or filtering their water so that's what I didn't understand.. 

However we later find out that the water filter system was messed with and one of the handles was bent to make it look like it was in the right direction. 

Sadiq eventually figures out it was Dante who sabotaged the water supply system but unfortunately is taken out by Dante. 

Rosita catches him and fights him off and Dante is thrown in jail. 

We find out that Dante was a whisperer all along and was sent in to recon and sabotage the community. 

Gabriel by the way is losing his mind more and more as the show progresses.  This often can happen to weak men.  He may be gaining his ability to stand up but it leads to irrational behavior or thoughts if not kept in line.  

He’s found his inner monster, good on him but he's allowing that monster to dictate who he is, and in some ways I think its challenging his faith.  

And so Gabriel goes to visit Dante and basically kills him as revenge for Sadiq and what he did to Alexandria. 

Gabriel is going dark… and you only see that get worse. You also see that his patience becomes almost non-existent.  You must be a monster, but you must control that monster.  In other words, control your emotions.  Gabriel can't do that. 

Meanwhile Ugene is living his best life, he's managed to make a stronger radio with the satellite parts and begins to search for another group somewhere.  And suddenly a mysterious woman comes over the coms. 

A man shows up at oceanside causing a fight, they capture him but back at Alexandria the group sets off on a high stake mission. 

That's when Carol spots Alpha and goes after her,  The group chases after Carol and they all end up trapped in a cave full of walkers.  It ends up being Alphas' herd. 

They have to narrowly escape the caverns and yes pun intended. 

This episode actually gave me the willys with all the tight quarters and the few stranglers of zombies that would follow through the tight spaces. 

This was a well shot episode, because it was loaded with tension the entire time. 

Carol has just gone off the reservation and is not thinking clearly anymore. I actually am not a fan of this because it's way off character for her.  She became very strong and clever, and right now she's making silly decisions and being more emotional and irrational than she normally would. 

The group stuck in the cave finds an old mine shaft and possibly a way out.  There happens to be an old box of TNT nearby, and Carol gets a wild hair to go and blow up Alphas Horde.  

Darol stops her but unfortunately the TNT falls and explodes trapping Magna and Connie inside. 

Negan is working his way up the ranks and ends up giving up Gamma to Alpha as the snitch. This earns him favor with Alpha and we get the most cringe scene in all of cinema history…. Negan and Alpha Bumping uglies in the woods.  Alpha also leaves her mask on too, which by the way is supposed to be real skin.  

Gross… 

Beta apparently has a network of tunnels that allow him to travel and enter into Alexandria undetected… which is strange.  Because if they had this ability why toy with Alexandria, just sneak in and take them all out? 

Anyway, 

Gamma is locked up in Alexandria too because she now regrets killing her sister, and realizes Alpha is a liar… I don't know why it took seeing Lidia to convince her that Alpha was a liar, but whatever…  LIke you dont think there can be civilization anymore? Really? 

So Beta breaks in, starts killing Alexandrians and turning them into walkers… 

Daryl runs into Alpha in the woods and attacks her, killing her men and getting a decent jump on her.  They both end up in a repair shop bleeding out though.  Lidia comes around and turns her back on Alpha and saves Daryl. 

Needless to say this triggers war… Again I am not sure why Alpha was toying with hilltop and Alexandria.  But Whatever. 

Ugene makes a breakthrough with the woman on the radio, Steph.  She sets a meeting with him but unfortunately those communications would be cut off because hilltop would soon be under attack. 

Hilltop stays and fights and they try their little spartan phalanx but it doesn't work for very long when the dead heads cover them in tree sap and light them on fire. 

Hilltop is fully engulfed as the survivors fight their way to escape.  Eventually the entire colony is destroyed and those that are left are on the run. 

Its worth mentioning that Negan assisted in the destruction of Hilltop, you would think at this point that he is in full cahoots with Alpha, but he mentions an old tactic of his.  One that would spare the community and allow Alpha to use them as a resource.  If you pick up on this you may think its just old Negan, but really hes trying to stop Alpha from killing all of them and Destroying Hilltop. 

IT doesn't work… 

Now the group is on the run, held up in an old hospital as Beta searches for them with his horde.  

Now at this point in all reality, the group should of been able to escape and get the hell out of there because Beta and the walkers move at a snail's ass pace… another reason why this is an ineffective tactic, you are far too slow moving and it would take you forever to move your army anywhere.  

The reality is they should have been long gone off to oceanside before Beta ever found them.. But oh well the writing is stupid at times… 

Negan finds Lidia wandering in the woods after the attack and quickly snatches her up.  This part is weird because I really don't think he had to do this to trick Alpha. Then it makes you kind of wonder why he didn't trick Alpha like this sooner? He had already earned strong favor with her prior to the attack on Hilltop.  He could have lured her away before… 

Either way he didn't and it ends up being a trap and Negan cuts Alphas throat and kills her. Taking her head into a sack and presenting it to Carol. Oh it was Carol that let Negan out all this time? 

Really? 

Then why did she go after Alpha and get her and her friends trapped? Why didn't she just let Negan do his work? 

Why did she even recruit Negan in the first place? Why not do it yourself? Or better tell the community the plan to send Negan into the group as an assassin? Instead you don't tell them and it gets the community and others in serious danger. 

Again not a typical Carol move. 

By the way there's a lot of hallucinating in this season… you can tell the writers aren't really that creative anymore. 

We find the children with the blacksmith man, unfortunately he's bit and tries to take his own life with a rail spike, that doesn't work.  And Judith has to put him down.  Daryl and the others end up finding the kids and moving on to the hospital to hide out. 

And then in good ol Walking dead fashion the following episode has nothing to do at all with what is happening at Hilltop.. Instead we get an entire episode dedicated to Michonne tripping balls and seeing an alternate life for her if she had not saved Andria.  

This episode is weird.. First off the dude has locked up some people for what appears to be a very long time and now she's locked up but manages to get out and free the others. And naturally they want to kill this guy but Michonne talks them out of it… 

They find a boat that they manage to jerry rig and fix up to work and get back to the oceanside. 

But somehow Michonne finds Rick's Boots and an old phone with Judith etched on it.  She freaks out and begins to wonder if Rick is still alive. And reaches out to Judith to tell her that she needs to go off and find him.  Leaving Judith behind now with no parents! So that's smart… 

I hate this episode, it makes little sense, adds nothing to the story at all or helps it move along.  It felt pointless and out of place. Sure they needed to find a way to write off Michonne but they could have written this in with the Hilltop story and not dedicated an entire show to it.  It was just poorly written and dumb and unnecessary.

Goodbye for now Michonne,  don't come back until you find Rick. 

Ugene ends up taking a few folks with him to set off to meet steph in hopes of finding a new community after the fall of hilltop.  

They end up running into a strange woman in the middle of an empty city.  She happens to be another weird, spaz of a character who goes by the name of princess. 

I dont hate this character, she's crazy because she's basically been alone for a very long time and it shows. I do like that she totes around an M249 Saw machine gun like a badass…. 

So needless to say she scares off their horses and tells them that she has wheels for them, she kind of dicks around with all of them, leading the group into a minefield… but they escape of course and all is well. 

They end up getting those wheels, and they're bicycles…. Ugene is not pleased because they are losing time. 

Either way they make do and set off to find Step… where eventually they get to the train yard and are quickly surrounded by imperial stormtroopers… I mean dudes dressed in armor or something.  And The episode ends, and we won't get to see anything about this for a very long time because the writers think they are clever but really it's just annoying… I really hate this theme with The Walking dead… never ending cliffhangers aren't cute.  Especially when you show us things that are not at all interesting or help the narrative in any way. 

Meanwhile back near the colonies Beta breaches Alexandria with ease, it seems that they abandoned it so that Beta would not destroy it.  

Beta sets off to find them with his army of dead.  We get a little back story on Beta when he finds Alphas head.  He takes her to some old hang out where apparently we find out Beta was a famous singer before all this.  It isn't all that clear but anyway he mumbles a lot and groans about what he sees and blah blah blah and turns alphas face into a new mask…. 

So now he has his army and they're off to find the people of Alexandria and any survivors of hilltop. 

He manages to track them down at the hospital where Daryl and the others make a final stand.  They have a plan to pump music and distract the horde away but first they have to walk through the horde of walkers and whisperers to get to the truck.  

Its a pretty tense scene as they walk through and with out too many movements kill whisperers as they go through.  Sadly not all of them make it but they eventually get though and begin to lead the dead away. 

However others are still inside the building and about to breach and Gabriel makes a last stand to keep them off while the others escape. 

Gabriel fights hard but wouldn't you know it! In the knick of time and out of nowhere Maggie appears to save the day. 

How did Maggie know where to find them? Don't know…. 

How did she manage to sneak past all the dead and enter the building to save the day just in time? Don't know…. 

But that's how it was written…. 

Maggie hasn't encountered the whisperers yet and knows how to get through the horde and handle them with ease… like she's been there all along.  

Whatever show… 

Needless to say the group is saved! Hooray Maggie. 

The others off leading the horde away but the Whisperers break through the ranks and eventually make it to the sound truck and destroy it.  

Darol and the others scatter to the woods and see that the horde is returning back toward the hospital. 

So they have no choice but to engage the Whisperers. Of course this should be damn near suicidal to walk into that horde and engage with them but they seem to do it with ease.  Taking each Whisperer out without a problem. 

Damn man if it was this easy why bother leading the horde away in the first place? Why not just beat them at their own game like you just did.. Even Beta wasn't much to take out as Negan and Daryl easily kill him off.  

No major battle, no real struggle, just bam dead… and we see Beta get pulled into the horde and finished off.  Negan recognizes him too which is interesting.  But its short lived…. 

This was a massive fail. You had all this build up, you even had a decent fight between DAryl and Beta in the last season and this is how you kill him off? Pretty uneventful if you ask me.  Especially with what's to come in the rest of the season.  You could have made this more suspenseful and interesting. Instead it felt rushed, like the writers just wanted to end the conflict with whisperers and move on. 

Maybe they realized that this enemy is actually pretty stupid and worthless and wanted to point that out… or maybe that's just what happened inadvertently. 

So the whisperers are no more… The battle is won and Carol elects to lead the dead off a nearby cliff… sacrificing herself because she won't be able to turn back once she gets there. But wouldn't you know it, just before she goes over Lidia saves the day… and the two hide in a hole while the dead mindlessly walk off the cliff…. 

No one significant is allowed to die on this show…. 

I am actually glad Carol didn't die though, There's more to be done with her character and Daryl in my opinion. 

So thats it right! Episode sixteen, whisperers are conquered.. End of the season right? Nope! Theres actually a lot more… and well its not very good. 

There's a random hunter in the woods killing survivors from Maggie's old community and Herschel is among them lost in the woods… needless to say they get the guy and find herschel.  That about sums up this episode.  It was random and pointless. I guess maybe to show Maggie is a bit of a bad ass now but we always knew that.  It was obvious that neither her or Daryl would be killed here, one because she just came back to the show, Two they have a bunch of new characters that we never met and those are the ones you take out…. Its just so obvious.  

That was the first random and out of place episode followed up with another random one with Daryl and Carol setting off and finding an old cabin where Daryl apparently met a woman, had a romantic relationship with her and then walked away never to see her again. Dont worry this one random episode is actually to help set up things for the next season which is still four episodes of season ten away…. And also the long break of shooting season 11 in between.  So good job show! Maybe next time find a way to write that sub plot closer to season 11. 

This episode wasnt the worst one though, actually not that bad to be honest.  Just felt a little random when it happened. Like ok, This is interesting but I really wanna know what happened to Eugine and the others.. So lets get back to that no?

Nope… instead we get another random episode with Aaron and Gabriel searching for food with a map from Maggie… This episode literally adds nothing to the show, does not help build the characters or the narrative, and just feels entirely like filler.  Ya they meet a crazy guy and blah blah blah but honestly we get it, the new world is filled with psychopaths. We don't need an entire episode to tell us this.  Again much like the Michonne episode, this should have been a sub plot of the episode not an entire episode on its own.  Especially when you have much more interesting stories going on, LIKE EUGINES!!!

I just dont understand this… you extended the season and instead of giving us quality content it feels like many of these episodes were last minute ideas and just filler.. Like hey we got green lit for 22 episode season guys! 

Writers sip coffee, bags under eyes, lack of sleep and no motivation… really? But we only wrote this season for 16 episodes… 

I mean even episode 17 felt like it was unnecessary, like crap what do we do here? How do we drag this out? 

Much of the episodes after 16 felt out of place and made little sense, some will contribute a little to season 11 but not much and not enough to justify an entire episode. 

Well shit finally after that stupid episode with Aaron and Gabriel we get to see what happens to Eugine… Unfortunately it focuses more on the princess and her really messed up past and we dont get much else other than that. 

It ends up being an entire episode of Princess hallucinating.. So.. there ya go. Thanks walking dead. Thanks a lot. 

I found out that these last six episodes are actually covid episodes and that explains why they seem to only highlight one character on each episode and it also explains why the episodes mostly suck.  

Covid no doubt ruined hollywood more than it helped.  And the production staff wanted to keep the show going and not put it on hold.  Personally I think it was a mistake. Id rather you waited for the restrictions to be lifted and produce a quality program than this drivel. 

But Alas they gotta make their money! Cant stay shut down.  If only they would of just told Dr. Fauci to F-off and not follow the ridiculous mandates…. No, rather comply and make crap.  

Sorry…. Got off topic there for a moment. 

So that episode was dumb, pointless, and didnt do much in answering who Eugene and the others just encountered. But It did get the development of Princess out of the way if you want to call it that… 

Now on to an even worse episode… 

I really don't want to spend much time on this one. Its by far the worst episode of the season, close to the last one with the princess. This was bad.  Carol was acting way out of character, and strangely.  The riff between her and Daryl just felt unnatural and forced.  Like why are they doing this? Makes little sense at all… There's not much to say here really because there wasn't much going on in this episode. It was forty minutes of Carol trying to make soup… literally. 

It was awful, and I wasn't alone on this. When I set off to do my notes I saw that the episode got the lowest rank in TWD I have seen at 4 out of 10 stars.  No one liked this one. 

But just when The Walking dead gives us that complete and utter garbage… they give us the final episode of season 10.  Negan’s Backstory. 

First of all this episode is great because Negan is the only character left on the Walking dead that is interesting. Hes not annoying like many of them and has not hit his character arch yet like Daryl and the other older cast members. 

Frankly he could get his own spinoff show and it would do better than what we are getting now. 

We see that Negan was a flawed man before the fall, lost his job and was actively looking for others but in the meantime playing video games and buying leather jackets. 

He was not attentive to his wife like he should have been but that was because he was having an affair with his wifes friend.  

One that he ended right after he found out she had cancer. That's when Negan grows up, becomes a man and starts to take care of his shit.  Then the pandemic happens and Negan is forced to try and cure his wife's cancer with Chemo Treatments himself. 

Unfortunately the power goes out while he's asleep and the Chemo bags get too warm… His wife says to stay and be with her but he does not want to give up so he sets off to find some doctors nearby with supplies. 

He finds them but unfortunately gets snagged up by a motorcycle club on the way back, stalling him from getting to his wife.  Eventually he is set free and he sets off to home where sadly he finds his wife turned.  Dead from cancer. 

This is an emotional moment as Negan looks on like a failure.  He knows he has not been the best husband and wanted to do everything he could to make it up to her but failed in the end. 

Was it his fault? No… but it changes him and you see him tap into that inner monster.  One he always had, he used it in the bar to defend his wife.. And now he's gonna use it to kill the bikers and save the doctor. 

We get a great glance into who Negan is and it really humanizes him.  The reality is Negan could have been Rick and Rick could have been Negan at any moment… Both men are admirable people who lost everything to the new world and it changed them. For better or worse. 

Negan went down a darker path, extorting people, and controlling them like a mob boss where Rick earned the respect of his people.  But it could of easily went the other way at any time for any of them, 

I left that episode liking Negan and his character even more.  A flawed man, upset with himself and his choices now coping and trying to exist in a very dark world.  It pulls him into a bad place, but part of him remains from the new world and I think you will see that part come back in season 11.  As he burns Lucile in the fire, that represents him moving on from not so distant self, letting go of his wife and moving forward toward redemption.  

This Character is by far the best right now and deserves more of the spotlight moving forward. 

Wrap up.