This artificial ambiguity didn’t ruin it by any means, but Gimple stated that this season would place greater emphasis on multi-character episodes, and if this offers an indication of what he meant by that then we could be in for a frustrating ride.
It was a cheap trick, Mr Scott M Gimple, and I see you. This added little to the narrative besides making it slightly harder to follow. Scenes hopped between Rick and Maggie’s galvanising speech to the troops, closeups of a bereaved-looking Andrew Lincoln, the setup for the siege of the Savior compound and the siege itself. While the reasons for the Old Rick flash-forward (or fever dream, or life-flashing-before-the-eyes deathbed trip or whatever it turns out to be) will doubtlessly be filled in across future episodes, the numerous time-jumps in Mercy felt like an attempt to make the narrative feel more complex and artsier than it actually was. And the good news is that optimism was mostly, if not entirely, rewarded. So, while anticipation for the next helping is at an all-time low, I tuned into Mercy, the show’s 100th episode, with a cautious flicker of optimism. Showrunner Scott M Gimple said he got the message, and the next season would learn for the seventh’s mistakes. It’s just a shame the following episodes failed to capitalise on the biggest water-cooler moment the show had managed to stir up in years.Īfter that opening sortie, episodes came and went with a sigh and a squelch. Sure, last year’s was divisive, but Glenn and Abraham getting their eyeballs forcibly Lucilled from their faces was a bold statement of intent. And yet, here we are again, back at the start of another season, ready to go through it all again, like people who have been waiting in a line for so long we’re now scared to get out of it.Īnother reason fans will find themselves coming back, for one week at least, is that – despite boring and pointless episodes, ridiculous After Effects tigers, preposterous trash-tribes and dutch-tilting Negans – one thing The Walking Dead tends to do well is rip-roaring season openers. That a show could manage to be so bat-swingingly gruesome and bafflingly dull at the same time was practically an achievement – it was as though they were trying to drive us away because they had got bored of making it and wanted to go and do something else.
Only the Dead’s staunchest apologists would argue that its quality hasn’t oscillated wildly over the years, with the limp, flabby middle of last season a particular low-water mark in shambly zombiedom. There is some irony in the fact that the only people more resilient than The Walking Dead’s remaining survivors are the fans who have managed to stick with the show for seven long, often thankless seasons.
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