The Walking Dead Season 7 Episode 8 Review

The Walking Dead

Hearts Still Beating

Season 7 Episode 8 Review

**SPOILERS FOR THE SHOW, EPISODE AND COMICS FOLLOW, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK**

The mid-season finale of "The Walking Dead" has always been one of their stronger episodes.  In fact, "The Walking Dead" has a particular ebb and flow to it that's the same pretty much every season.  They open with a superior, undeniably strong episode, have some highs and lows in between, and ends each half of the season with a big bang. 

The first season was only six episodes, so we go to the second mid-season finale, which featured the discovery of young Sophia, who had turned into a Walker.  The third mid-season saw Daryl being taken captive by the Governor and forced to fight his brother Merle in the Walker arena.  Season four saw the Governor's destruction of the prison, the scattering of our heroes and the beheading of the beloved Hershel.  Season five's mid-season finale saw the tragic, unfortunate, unnecessary end of Beth, and last season's mid-season finale saw Alexandria overrun with Walkers, and the demise of Deanna.

With the seventh mid-season finale, we were once again treated to fireworks, which was a much needed shot in the arm the series needed after praddling on with elongated, slow, boring separate episodes.  This episode saw everyone coming back together, the unification of several separate storylines, the promise of a war to come, and the demise of two characters.

In order to gain supplies for Negan, Rick and Aaron have to cross a Walker-infested lake to get to the abandoned boathouse that belonged to a doomsday prepper who had apparently died.  Of course, the only way to reach the boat is by a smaller boat riddled with bullet holes, so it becomes a very dangerous trek.  Aaron falls into the water and goes under with a bunch of Walkers, but emerges unscathed.  The two finally make it to the boat where they load up on supplies, and Aaron finds a nasty note written by the former owner.  Aaron tells Rick that he's helping him because he, too, wants to keep the hearts of his loved ones beating (hence the name of the episode), and as they leave a mysterious person is seen only from his boots watching Rick and Aaron leave.  The two make it back to Alexandria where Rick is surprised to see Negan's men waiting.  They take the supplies and find the note, resulting in Aaron getting beaten to a pulp in front of Rick.

Meanwhile, Michonne is on the road with her captive red-headed Savior as they arrive at their destination.  To Michonne's dismay, she finds there's a whole lot more Saviors than even she thought there would be, and the woman with her shows pity by telling her to take the car, kill her, and leave.  Michonne kills her, takes the car, and heads back to Alexandria.

At the Sanctuary, Daryl receives the mysterious note telling him to run, and he does.  He makes it out of the compound and runs into Fat Joey as he's trying to steal a motorcycle.  Despite Fat Joey telling Daryl he can easily leave, Daryl beats him to death with a pipe, in a way reminiscent of how Negan brought Lucille down on Glenn and Abraham, to Jesus's (who arrived just as it happened, revealing that he was the one who gave Daryl the note) dismay.  Daryl then grabs Rick's Colt Python which Fat Joey had, and the two leave.

Back at Alexandria, Rosita is debating using the bullet on Negan, and has a heart-to-heart with Father Gabriel, who continues to redeem himself by speaking some hard truth to the spicy Latina, telling her it's not worth her life.  She doesn't listen and tells him as long as Negan goes first, she's fine with that.  I am continued to be impressed with Rosita, as she's moved from the background to the foreground and established herself as a capable, independent, fierce female warrior along the likes of Michonne, Maggie and Sasha (and formerly Carol, but more on her later).

And now it's later.  Carol is reading a book, enjoying some pomegranates and acting like the world hasn't ended around her.  Morgan drops off some fruit, and she invites him in, asks how he's doing, and then tells him to leave her alone.  As he's leaving, Ezekiel's head soldier Richard arrives and begs the two of them to tell Ezekiel they have to fight back against the Saviors.  Carol tells him that they're not interested in fighting, and Richard angrily leaves, telling them that they'll have blood on their hands.  Once again, Carol disappoints me in her newfound passive stance, going from a one-woman killing machine who single handedly took down Terminus to this, it's quite a sad state of affairs.  However, I feel that after they find out what happened to Glenn and Abraham - and especially the torture Daryl endured - Carol will once again regain her fighting spirit.

At Hilltop, Maggie (who is sporting a baseball cap reminiscent of the caps Glenn used to wear, such a great non-verbal nod to her lost love) continues to gain the love and support of the townspeople after she, Jesus and Sasha saved them from the Walker attack the night before.  Gregory seems ignorant of that fact, and when one of his men tell him to give the apple he has to the pregnant Maggie, he does so begrudgingly, and in a way shows Maggie slowly taking over control from Gregory.  Back at their home, Enid tells Maggie she should run for President of Hilltop, and Maggie asks Sasha where Jesus is.  Sasha lies, and when Maggie leaves Enid calls her out on it.  Sasha tells her it's for Maggie's own good, if she knew Sasha sent Jesus to find where Negan lived she would go with her and she could die.  Enid tells Sasha she isn't the only one who wants to see Negan dead.

Speaking of Negan, we go back to Alexandria where he's preparing spaghetti (a special unintentional nod to Hershel, who once proclaimed Spaghetti Tuesdays...on Wednesdays) and has the most uncomfortable dinner with Carl, Olivia and Judith.  Spencer returns and is delighted that Negan's men were pleased with the supplies he brought back, which leads to another fun nod to past events.  One of Negan's goons - Laura, who will become a bigger character as the series goes along, if they follow the comics - hits on Spencer, and Eugene walks by.  She asks him if he enjoys watching, and Eugene says yes, then no.  This is a humorous nod to a few seasons earlier where he was watching Abraham and Rosita make love in the library, and I found it hilarious.

Anyway, Spencer gets all dolled up and walks down the street where he sees Rosita, and asks her what happened to their relationship.  Rosita tells him she was just using him, but he doesn't mind as he asks her to dinner later, and she agrees.  You just know something bad is about to happen.

Spencer makes it to Negan, and the two have a good-natured game of pool outside.  As the Alexandrians gather, Spencer makes his pitch - he'd be a much better leader than Rick, and he would do whatever Negan says.  Negan asks Spencer if he wants to kill Rick for him, and Spencer stutters.  Negan then tells Spencer that Rick has guts, and if he wants Rick dead he should do it himself.  He then tells Spencer that he has no guts, and proceeds to cut Spencer's stomach wide open.  As his guts literally fall out, Negan laughs and says he did have guts, they were inside him the whole time, and he's never been more wrong in his entire life.  Spencer dies, and this occurs practically frame-for-frame from the comics, which was something I was eagerly anticipating since the start of the season.  Spencer had been pretty much a secondhand character until this season started, when he began his one-man campaign to have Rick removed, just like in the comics.  It was a relief to see his end come as it did in the comics, because he deserved that gruesome of death.  And with that marks the end of the Monroe era of Alexandria: his brother Aiden died on a supply run by his own idiocy, his father Reg was killed by a drunken Pete and Michonne's katana, and his mother Deanna died last season after being bit by a Walker.

After Spencer dies, Rosita foolishly brandishes her gun and fires in front of everyone.  She misses Negan but manages to hit Lucille, and Negan goes on a rampage.  He has his soldier Arat hold Rosita down and cut her face and demands of her to tell him who made the bullet, because he knew it was man-made.  Rosita refuses to tell him, so Negan tells Arat to kill someone.  She turns around and shoots Olivia, who is standing on Rick's porch with Carl, and is immediately killed as the bullet goes through her head.  Negan once again demands Rosita tell him who made the bullet, and she says that she did.  He doesn't buy it, so Tara steps forward to say she did (No, Tara, you don't do that!).  Thankfully, Eugene gathers his courage and reveals the truth.

Rick makes it to the group and is visibly shaken by what has transpired.  He tells Negan to take his crap and go, and Negan obliges - but he also takes Eugene with him.  After they leave, Spencer reanimates, and Rick puts him down.

That night Rick is in the prison Morgan made when Michonne arrives and tells him what happened to her, and she wanted to take care of Negan herself, but knows that it can't just be her, but all of them together.  She makes a speech as powerful as "Braveheart" and it - along with Aaron's beating and Spencer and Olivia's deaths - that spur Rick to concur that Negan has to be dealt with.  The whiny, sniveling Rick is gone, long live Leader Rick!

Back at the Hilltop, Maggie is on guard when she sees something in the distance.  She eagerly calls for Sasha and Enid as she opens the gates.  Rick, Michonne, Tara, Carl and Rosita come through the gates and they embrace, and Rick tells Maggie that he wasn't ready to her her idea to kill Negan, but now he is.  To add the whip cream and cherry to this amazing slice of pie, Jesus and Daryl emerge healthy and unscathed, and Daryl and Rick share the most amazing bromance hug ever seen on screen that brought a quiver to my chin and a tear to my eye.  Daryl then gives Rick back his Python, and it served as a symbolic way to say that Rick was now back in leader mode, and ready to kick some Savior butt.

The episode ends with the person in the boots spying on Alexandria, with still no clue to their identity.

This was the second best episode of the season, and kept the trend of featuring an amazing mid-season finale.  All the storylines have come together, and the next half of the season will have our favorites together again as they plan an all out war against Negan.  The previews even show Rick and the group meeting with Ezekiel, which also means a reunion with Morgan and Carol and SHIVA...SHIVA...SHIVA!!!!!!!!!

The episode saw the end of two more Alexandrians, and it seems their community is growing rather thin.  Look out Aaron, Eric, Tobin, Francine and Heath, you're pretty much the only named Alexandrian citizens left.  Spencer's death was welcomed as he turned out to be a rather big tool who was just plain irritating.  With Olivia, it was more sad because she had received some good airtime recently, and I was growing to like her.  To go out like that was really sad, but also how Negan does things, which Rosita should've known.  When she was demanding Eugene make her a bullet, he told her that the repercussions of what she's doing would fall on someone else, and they knew that firsthand.  When Daryl attacked Negan, Negan retaliated by killing Glenn instead of Daryl.  Here, instead of killing Rosita, Olivia paid the price instead.  This could be a way for Negan to mentally break those who are stronger, as they bear some of the responsibility for the death that occurred.  If Rosita had never fired the bullet, Olivia would still be alive.  If Daryl hadn't struck Negan, Glenn would still be alive.  No doubt that holds a burden on Daryl and Rosita.

In taking Eugene, if they follow the comics, he will be in for a world of hurt, but will also show his power.  Eugene is the only one who can manufacture bullets by himself, and the Saviors need ammo as well.  No matter how much he was punished, Eugene never told them the formula, and it's Dwight who helps Eugene escape in the comics, leading him to join Rick's side.  That'd be interesting if it happens in the show, as Dwight has some obvious animosities among several of our heroes, most notably Daryl and Tara (Dwight killed Tara's girlfriend, after all). 

As to who the mysterious person is, I have no clue.  That never happened in the comics, so it's a whole new adventure for me.  Some theories I thought of:
-The person was Cyndie, the girl who helped Tara escape Oceanside.  Tara told them about Alexandria, so she could've gone out ahead to scout the place.  The only issue with this is that the person was also at the area Rick and Aaron were at, so how would Cyndie know where that was?
-The person was Beta, who is one of the leaders of the Whisperers, which is a group that Rick comes into contact with after the war with Negan.  They take Walker skin and walk among them, taking over areas in stealth, speaking in whispers, and serve as some of Rick's biggest enemies.  While this seems plausible, it's way too early for the Whisperers to be introduced, as they came on the scene two years after the war with Negan.
-The person is the man who owned the boat.  This seems like the most plausible, as he was at the boathouse and simply followed Rick and Aaron back to Alexandria to see what type of people they are.  Maybe he was impressed with how they managed to get to his boat and wanted to see who he was dealing with.
In any event, it'll be an interesting mystery to think about as we wait until February 12th, when the second half of the season begins.

All out war is coming.

The Score: A+