season finale – Simon’s Incoherent Blog

The Walking Dead: Season 8, Episode 16 – Wrath

“All this is just what was. There’s gotta be something after.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

So finally, FINALLY, that’s a wrap on the All Out War, in a mostly satisfying and thoughtful season finale for The Walking Dead. It’s been two and a half seasons since we first encountered antagonists the Saviors; that’s over two years ago now. Their presence has been, since then, almost a default format for the show, and it’s a format that’s got real tired. Thank heavens the series can finally do something else. Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 8, Episode 16 – Wrath”

The Walking Dead: Season 5, Episode 16 – Conquer

“Rick just wants his family to live. He wants all of you to live. Who he is, is who you’re going to be. If you’re lucky.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

So, I wasn’t quite accurate last week when I referred to this season finale of The Walking Dead as “double length”. AMC’s bold assertion of a “90 minute season finale” actually referred to the timeslot in which it was broadcast, with its attendant commercials. In actual fact, this ep ran for nearly 65 minutes, about half again as long as the usual 42ish. The show’s done this before, but not since the season two opener; here, though, it wasn’t to provide big budget Walker spectacle but to give some quite complex character drama room to breathe, which it did very well. Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 5, Episode 16 – Conquer”

The Walking Dead: Season 3, Episode 16–Welcome to the Tombs

“In this life now, you kill or you die – or you die and you kill.”

And so, the generally enthralling third season of The Walking Dead has come to an end with a surprisingly low-key – even anticlimactic – finale. Matters finally came to a head between the armed forces of Rick and the armed forces of the Governor. And yet, despite a very heavy buildup in the preceding episodes to an apocalyptic final battle, this ep centred more on the characters than the action – and left unresolved the expected showdown between main hero and main villain.

Not necessarily a bad thing, but I have to admit, I was expecting a little more action than this. True, there was a battle, but it took place mid-episode and was, if anything, less tense than the Governor’s previous assault on the prison folk. Most of the story concerned itself with the ongoing intrigue in the Woodbury community, and for that at least there was some kind of resolution; though I’m not sure it really made sense.

Strategically, a lot of this made little sense, though the Governor at least had the excuse of being utterly unhinged. The ep began with some nice pov shots leading the viewer to believe he was beating and torturing Andrea, though it quickly became obvious that it was the treacherous Milton who was the object of his ire.

As Milton had become, effectively, Woodbury’s conscience, it was a foreshadowing of the Governor’s fast-crumbling sanity that he was prepared to torture his old friend, then force him to prove his loyalty by killing Andrea, still cuffed to the Dentist Chair of Doom. Predictably, Milton took the opportunity to turn the knife onto the Governor himself, who equally predictably used it to stab Milton. He then left him to die, so he would rise as a Walker and kill Andrea anyway – after last week, he’s plainly got a taste for that particular cruelty.

It was a setup for a tense series of scenes spread throughout the episode, as Andrea struggled to reach the unnoticed pair of pliers on the floor, while we wondered exactly how long it was going to take Milton to die and reanimate – as long as was convenient to wring the maximum tension from the scenario, as it turned out.

Rick and co, meanwhile, appeared to be preparing to abandon the prison – surely the only sensible decision when faced with the overwhelming numbers from Woodbury, however many guns they may have got from Morgan. It was at this point that I had an inkling the heavily implied pitched battle might not be in the offing after all, though abandoning the prison was the realistic, sensible thing to do.

So when the Governor did turn up, in armoured column with rocket launchers and grenades, it seemed like the explosive carnage he wreaked on the prison watchtowers and the Walkers between the fences might all be for naught. The pyrotechnics were cool, and it was fun seeing so many Walkers withering in a hail of high-calibre gunfire, but it seemed lacking in drama if Rick and the gang had already fled.

Except, as it turned out, they hadn’t. It was a good bit of misdirection to have so thoroughly convinced us they’d gone. And yet, it seemed a bit of an anticlimax that the Governor’s forces could be so easily routed once in the prison’s dingy corridors. A couple of the usual smoke bombs, a few Walkers and some loud sirens had them running like rabbits, at which point the armoured Glenn and Maggie let rip with some machine gun fire. Already confused, the fleeing Woodbury-ites went into full retreat.

OK, it’s a fair and realistic point that most of the Governor’s forces were not from the military, and would have been ill-prepared for actual combat. In that sense, their reaction was perfectly believable. But it didn’t jibe with their previous attempts, nor with the Governor’s established ability to whip them into a propaganda-inspired fervour, that they would give up quite so easily.

The Governor at least was more consistent. Faced with mutinous troops who wouldn’t carry out his personal vendetta for him, he took the predictable choice of every discerning psychopathic dictator and slaughtered the lot of them. The scene was less shocking than it could have been, as it had been telegraphed long before that the Governor was fast becoming utterly unhinged; under the circumstances, his “WTF?” strategy of destroying his own army didn’t come as too much of a surprise. It didn’t carry much dramatic weight either, as the only character in the group who we even knew by name was Allen, and he didn’t feel like much of a loss.

With that, we pretty much lost the only possibility of a major conflict; though I’ll admit that, had the expected apocalypse happened, I wouldn’t have expected many from Rick’s gang to survive. Nonetheless, it felt like a bit of a dramatic cheat that the Governor, accompanied by the ever-loyal Martinez and one other unquestioning henchman, then sped off into the distance, not to be seen again. I can understand the desire to keep him around; the comic has never managed to come up with an antagonist to match him. But surely, the finale of a season that’s been all about the conflict between him and Rick deserved at least some kind of dramatic payoff in the form of a showdown. This just felt disappointing.

The show has never clearly established exactly how many people were in Woodbury, and certainly the conflict must have taken its toll. But it seemed a little implausible (and convenient) that the only people left on watch in the town were Tyreese and Donna, especially since we’d already established that they were deeply suspicious of the Governor. So it was that Rick and co, trying to take the fight to the enemy, found first the massacred remains of their former foes and were then able to walk into their HQ with barely a shot fired.

Again, I had to quibble with the overall strategy. With most of the Governor’s forces committed to the prison attack, why didn’t Rick make his move on Woodbury then? He could have been in charge of the town before the Governor’s forces even got to the prison.

Still, cop he may be, but Rick’s not a soldier either. So I could forgive him having missed that option. But it seemed baffling that, with the Governor gone and Woodbury having pretty much welcomed Rick, Daryl and Michonne with virtually open arms, they all chose to move back to the dingy, less than secure prison, the town’s remaining population in tow. Why not move everyone into the still-fortified Woodbury? Do they actually want to make their lives as difficult as possible?

There were, at least, some good dramatic payoffs. Carl shockingly gunned down a scared young guy from Woodbury who was trying to surrender, much to Hershel’s disquiet. When Rick learned the circumstances, he was less than pleased either, but Carl was unrepentant. His argument – that Rick’s mercy in not killing Andrew had led to the death of Lori, and not killing the Governor had led to the death of Merle – made worrying sense. And was further evidence that the ruthless pragmatism formerly embodied by Shane hasn’t died with him. I suspect we’re going to see a very ‘dark’ Carl next year.

The biggest dramatic payoff, though, was of course Andrea. Having eked out the tension of her situation throughout the ep, director Ernest Dickerson cleverly let the action happen offscreen when Milton finally did revive as a Walker. Thus it was that when her erstwhile friends found her, with Milton’s corpse in the background, we still didn’t know whether she was alive or undead.

It turned out to be a bit of both; yes, she’d offed the Milton-Walker, but she’d been bitten and was in the feverish stage of dying from the bite. The ensuing last scene between her, Rick, Daryl and Michonne was not as moving as it could have been if Andrea hadn’t been so wilfully dumb all year long. She asserted that she’d just wanted to save everyone, even the Governor – that worked out well, then.

Michonne at least got one of her rare displays of actual emotion (beyond surly anger), and Danai Gurira was quite affecting as she cradled the head of her former friend. Points also for her managing to resist saying, “I told you so”, which certainly would have been most people’s temptation at this stage. Rick and Daryl left them alone for Andrea to perform the final act,though the inevitable gunshot was merely heard offscreen. I think we have seen the last of Andrea though, which despite her being so annoying this year seems a bit of a shamed; Laurie Holden is a talented actor given the right material.

The ep faded to black with everyone back at the prison, presumably about to rebuild. No cliffhanger, no sense of what might be due to happen next. It almost felt like the show was hedging its bets against not being renewed by providing an actual ending of sorts; though given its success this year, I’d be amazed if it wasn’t back for another season.

This year has been, generally, a superb season – I think that’s why such a low key season finale felt like a bit of a disappointment. With episode after episode having ramped up the dramatic stakes continuously, it was perhaps impossible for anything to top the season overall as a final payoff. Nevertheless, I have to say I found it curiously unsatisfying after the show has barely put a foot wrong all year. There was nothing really wrong with it, but somehow it felt like an anticlimax, and the lack of a Rick/Governor showdown is hard to forgive.

Overall, though, this year has let the show truly show what it can do given a decent budget and a reasonable season length. It’s become the weekly post-apocalypse zombie show I always hoped it would be. Reason enough for me to forgive a somewhat disappointing finale and still eagerly look forward to next year. It is hard to see where they can go from here, though…

Misfits: Series 4, Episode 8

“They’re coming. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

Sex! Nuns! Misused powers! And the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse! On the face of it, this season finale of Misfits had a lot going for it. And yet, in keeping with this fourth series as a whole, it had a rather underwhelming, been-here-before feel to it that meant it was far from the triumphant climax we might have hoped for.

As this series has progressed, we’ve had three overlapping ongoing plotlines, none of which have felt that gripping. There’s been the mysterious ‘trainee probation worker’ Lola, who turned out to be Curtis’ downfall; then the mystery of Alex ‘from the bar’ and his missing todger; and now, over the last few episodes, lovelorn Rudy and his pining for the enigmatic Nadine.

Lola’s plotline died with her and Curtis, and with Alex having been joyfully reunited with his cock last week, this week the focus was on that last unresolved story – Rudy in love. Last week, we’d discovered Nadine’s shocking secret: despite all that flirtation with the eager Rudy, she was actually already married – to Christ!

Joe Gilgun was, as ever, superb in contrasting Rudy’s usual boorish personality with his genuine romantic feelings for Nadine. Visiting (well, blagging his way in) her at the convent on the pretext of returning her handbag, (neatly hung on the right hand of Christ), he was informed that she couldn’t see him again. The scenario gave the opportunity to deliver a lengthy stream of nun gags, as Rudy tried his usual misguided best to ingratiate himself; first by referring to The Sound of Music, then, ill-advisedly, Happy Feet – “Penguins!”

Rudy being Rudy, he wasn’t going to take “we can never see each other again” for an answer, so plans were laid for the gang to get themselves to a nunnery – with some superpowered breaking and entering.

One of the things that’s been rather frustrating this year is the relative sparsity of powers being used, so it was good to see our heroes (finally) working together as a group and using their powers for a common good. So, Finn used his telekinesis to unlock the door, while Jess used her X-ray vision to keep an eye out for approaching nuns. True, Rudy’s power didn’t get used (though he did have a heartfelt conversation with himself in the community centre’s toilets. And we’re not quite sure what Abbey’s power is yet, aside from amnesia; one friend of mine has suggested that her apparent connection with booze might be that she has to actually drink in order to stay sober.

But at least the powers got some use. Mind you, I’m not sure it helped to try and hang a lampshade on it with the show’s recent adoption of meta humour. “Why don’t you use those powers you got from that random freak storm?” asked Abbey, pointing out the bleeding obvious, to which Finn responded, “we should do that more often.” Nudging the audience by pointing out your show’s apparent failings does not excuse them, IMHO.

Still, the nun-heist was successful, with Rudy’s jawdroppingly hilarious nun-headbutting a comedy highlight, and Nadine was brought back to the community centre to finally consummate her relationship with the eager Rudy. Of course, it was at this point that the gang found out what her problem really was – the nuns had been keeping her locked away for her own safety and that of everyone else, because when she’s surrounded by arguing people, she has the power to summon… wait for it… the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. And there’s no group of people more argumentative than our gang of misfits.

Summoning the Horsemen is perfectly in keeping with Nadine’s religious background, but I have to say I’d imagine them to pose rather more of a threat. Like, you know, ending the world or something. What we actually got was four clones of Superhoodie (intentional?), riding BMXes with katanas strapped to their backs. Yes, they did appear to pose a very real threat to our heroes, what with the swords and all, but that didn’t smack of the potential Biblical destruction of all humanity.

And rather than an epic final battle at the community centre, we got yet another (admittedly well-done) sequence of the gang running away down its various corridors until forced into situations where they had to use their powers to get away. Well, Finn did anyway, finally getting to be Jess’ white knight by using his telekinesis effectively to shove a threatening Horseman into the wall.

Again, though, we’ve been here before; many times, in fact, since the gang were first threatened by their rage-powered probation worker back in the first episode. It was no surprise that Nadine, realising the only way out was to allow the Horsemen to kill her, duly sacrificed herself; not only did it smack of various Twilight Zone episodes, it’s basically what Curtis did just about a month ago.

Nor was it a surprise that Alex, having been near-fatally impaled on a sword, might soon be the unwitting recipient of a transplant organ (a lung in this case) that likely came from someone with a power, just as Nikki did way back in the second series. Here again, the show perhaps did itself no favours by lampshading the repetition with meta humour, as Rudy (who wasn’t even there at the time) reminded the audience of that.

There was at least room for some character development, which was welcome as it still feels rather lacking for those who’ve just joined this year. So, we got Abbey engaging in just about the most casual, businesslike sex you can have with Finn; at least he’s now trebled his number of sexual conquests in the last few weeks. Which also led to more tension with Jess, who’s less keen on Alex now he’s got his cock back and is shagging every girl in sight while admiring himself in the mirror. I’m still not sure I’m convinced by this concept of Finn and Jess as a constantly thwarted romance, but it was far from resolved so will presumably continue next year.

Greg, at least, was reliably surreal and funny. Confronting Rudy as he tried to bunk off community service and ‘rescue’ his true love, Greg revealed more of the presumably heartbreaking backstory that lurks beneath the façade of barely-contained rage: “that’s what love is like. Crawling naked through dogshit and broken glass. I was in love once. But I never told him.”

Greg’s a fun character, unforgettably embodied by Shaun Dooley, and probably my favourite of this year’s new additions. Nonetheless, even he comes across as a bit of a caricature, though at least the suggestion of hidden depths makes him believable. Abbey, similarly, has the excuse that her amnesia means she actually doesn’t know much about her personality.

Finn and Jess have been rather less well-served though, and this finale didn’t really change that. I have warmed to them as the series has progressed, but again it seems like the show’s repeating itself. Their ‘will-they-won’t-they’ relationship is more than a bit reminiscent of Simon and Alisha; equally, Finn’s relationship with the (apparently) more worldly Rudy mirrors exactly Simon’s with Nathan. Rudy has developed this year to be more distinct from Nathan; many times last year, I had the impression he was delivering lines written for Robert Sheehan, with only Joe Gilgun’s marvellously different portrayal drawing the distinction.

But the fact remains that this year has felt like a rather messy, uneven attempt to recreate that original group dynamic (something Being Human managed rather better, despite equal levels of contrivance). Presumably if Alex gains a power from his lung transplant, he’ll (by some unlikely means) find himself on community service, and the gang will be five-strong again.

I’ll at least admit that it’s still a very watchable show, and that, even if it’s self-consciously repeating itself, the concept has more mileage in it yet. So, disappointing though I’ve found this year’s series, I’m hoping it will be back, with a slightly firmer grasp on what made it so much fun before, just addressed in a different way. I still love Misfits, with its irreverent, scatological take on classic comic tropes; let’s hope it doesn’t end with an unconcluded whimper, like Heroes did.

The Walking Dead: Season 2, Episode 13

SPOILER WARNING – I’M GOING TO TRY AND REVIEW THESE EPISODES AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE TO THE ORIGINAL U.S. TV BROADCAST. IF YOU’RE IN THE U.K., AND PLANNING TO WATCH THE BROADCAST ON FX THE FOLLOWING FRIDAY, BE AWARE THAT MAJOR PLOT POINTS WILL BE DISCUSSED!

Beside the Dying Fire

So this is it – after thirteen weeks, it’s the culmination of The Walking Dead’s ‘difficult second album’. This has been a patchy season after the compressed, high-octane drama of the first. With more than twice the number of episodes for apparently about half the budget, the first half of the season was frustratingly meandering and slow-paced, with a restrictive claustrophobic setting that worked to the detriment of the drama, and a little too much post-apocalypse soap opera.

The show’s return after its mid-season break found a massive increase in quality. Its settings opened up to take in the town near Hershel’s farm, and most importantly we got a return of the show’s proper USP – zombies. After their near absence for most of the season’s first half, recent episodes have sated the audience with horde after horde of stumbling revenants, reminding us that this is a post-apocalypse scenario far more hazardous than that of, say, Survivors. Not that the character drama has been neglected for zombie action, mind – the two episodes prior to this finale have had some heart in mouth moments of tension with no zombie involvement at all. They’ve also had, it’s fair to say, a number of whopping great plot contrivances that don’t hold up to close scrutiny.

This mostly excellent finale had its share of those too, though I’ll come to those later. But with original comics’ creator Robert Kirkman co-scripting with new showrunner Glen Mazzara, this was for the most part a thrilling, gripping piece of TV that might almost redeem the uneven pacing of the season as a whole.

After last week’s cliffhanger ending of a horde of walkers stumbling towards the farm, this week’s cold open cleverly didn’t pick up right from there. Instead, cleverly, it eked out the tension with an epic sequence of how this previously unanticipated horde came to be there. Starting out in a city (presumably nearby Atlanta), they’d taken to following that helicopter we’d all forgotten about from way back in the first season. As in the behaviour described in the comics, more joined them and they continued to stagger in the same direction, gaining numbers as they went, until long after the object of their initial interest had been forgotten. Until, now numbering in the impressively visualised hundreds, the gunshots from the farm caused them to turn in a new direction. Seeing the end of last week’s episode, this time from their point of view, was an excellent lead in to the credits and the action proper.

And action it certainly was. Taking the climax of most classic zombie movies as an inspiration, the episode showed our heroes’ refuge being overrun by a horde of ghouls so large it was quite simply unstoppable. Most of the episode’s first half was a frenetic melee of chaos as the farm was overrun, with the characters scattered hither and yon across the fields as they took to the cars in an attempt to shoot and then distract the herd.

Rick and Carl, for their part, were left hiding in the barn as they found themselves unable to make it through the hordes to the farmhouse. Everyone else being unaware of this, they had to fend for themselves by setting the barn – and the walkers Rick rather fearlessly let in – ablaze, in a set piece that surely consumed a fair chunk of the season budget.

With all the shooting, burning, and mad driving, the script took the opportunity to kill off those characters who’ve been a complete waste of space since the season began. Jimmy, the mostly mute teenage boy who was on the farm for some reason or other, perished after foolishly forgetting to lock the door of the RV, letting in some hungry corpses; catching light from the barn, the RV – so closely identified with the now-deceased Dale – is now toast. Back at the house, Otis’ wife Patricia, who’s uttered barely a word since her husband died, was dragged away from Beth for some chowing down.

These deaths provided some welcome gore – this is a horror story, after all – but served to underline how badly these characters have been served by all the scripts since the season began. Were they introduced solely with the intention of becoming zombie chow in the last episode? Even if they were, some kind of character description might have made us care, like we did about Dale and even Shane last week. As it was, I simply shrugged and considered the show well rid of them. It might have had more impact to have lost at least one of the main characters; but I suppose having killed off two in as many weeks, the writers didn’t want the action undercut by that kind of trauma.

This elongated sequence provided some memorable moments. Hershel, futilely blasting away at the unstoppable horde approaching the house; Lori, screaming for Carl and being dragged away to the pickup truck; Glenn blasting away out of the Hyundai’s window as Maggie drove like a lunatic. Some excellent direction from Ernest Dickerson gave the whole thing a real sense of urgency and tension; more than once, I found myself pointing at the screen and yelling, “behind you!”

Eventually though, everyone had the good sense to realise that this wasn’t a battle they were going to win, and to get the hell out of there. Along the way, Daryl rekindled the spark he has with Carol by sweeping heroically in on his bike to rescue her from pursuing walkers. Elsewhere, Rick, for a wonder, managed to convince the stubborn Hershel that the farm was lost, and there was no point dying for it. Even T-Dog finally got some actual lines, as he drove Lori and Beth away in that tatty old pickup that shows not all the vehicles in the show are product placements. Having all, independently, made the decision to flee the farm, these separate groups all, independently, decided to head back to the highway, and the place they’d left supplies for the missing Sophia way back in episode 2.

And this is the whopping great plot contrivance I had trouble with. Yes, it might have been annoying to spend the first few episodes of the next season with the group trying to find each other. But for all of them, independently, to have decided to meet up there having made no prior rendezvous arrangement? That, I’m afraid, is just not believable. I could have accepted it if some of them did that; hell, even if most of them did. But all of them? Er, no, I’m not buying that.

A similar thing happened way back in episode 8, when Rick guessed that the missing Hershel was in the town bar (and he was), then Lori, having no knowledge of this, correctly came to the same conclusion when she set out to find him. I appreciate that sometimes you just want to move the plot along to a certain point, but for heaven’s sake do it in a believable way that actually makes sense!

Having ranted about that, I’m bound also to say that the second half of the episode, with the action over, was much more slowly paced. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as our heroes have to pause to take stock, count their losses, apportion blame, and so on. Dramatically it makes sense. But perhaps less so in a season finale, when you’re wanting to stoke the thrills to fever pitch and leave your audience hanging in eager anticipation of the show’s return.

That said, there was some good character drama in this latter part of the episode, as the group’s morale plummeted and Rick began to seem increasingly unhinged in a way that might have made Shane seem preferable. Carol’s all for splitting up; T-Dog just wants to head ‘east’; and Lori, having been told that Rick killed Shane “just to get it over with” finds it hard to even touch her husband.

To add to that, we finally found out what Dr Jenner whispered into Rick’s ear at the CDC last season. As we suspected after the last few episodes, it was, “you’re all infected”. That Rick had known this all along and not told anyone did not go down well; but it looks like, for pragmatic reasons, they’re willing to sullenly accept him as leader. For now. It can’t have helped when he declared that, “this is no longer a democracy”. Having killed Shane, it seems like he’s rejected Dale’s way of thinking and adopted Shane’s anyway.

This is an unusual way of developing your ‘hero’, but it shows that The Walking Dead is not going to make compromises about how nasty even the best of people can be. The Rick in the comics developed along similar lines, his worldview hardening in light of the circumstances. He’s hardly recognisable now from the clean-cut cop at the story’s beginning. The development is unsurprising with comic creator Kirkman on scripting duties, and Andrew Lincoln rose to the challenge well, managing to make us angry with Rick while still sympathising with his viewpoint.

And speaking of the comics (which I’ll try not to spoiler too much), we finally got the much-anticipated arrival of one of their most popular characters. As the abandoned Andrea, finally having run out of bullets after fleeing the walkers all night, was pounced on by a huge ghoul, it looked like the end for her. Until, that is, its head was unexpectedly sliced off by a sword, wielded by a mysterious hooded figure accompanied by two chained, armless, jawless zombies. Without wanting to give too much away, comics readers will know exactly who this is, and may, like me, have punched the air at that point.

Back at the camp, the arguing over, the episode climaxed with an impressive crane shot. As the camera panned up, and across the river, we saw something else familiar from the comics – a massive, fenced prison complex in the near distance. Again, without wanting to give too much away, it’s not hard to guess where this is going, particularly after the group’s discussion about finding a ‘safe place’. And given the major comic villain we now know will feature next year, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was accompanied by the popular TV character of Merle Dixon too.

The show is back “in the fall”, though I’ve seen no firm date for its return yet. Apparently season 3 will have 16 episodes, giving more scope for storylines. We can only hope that AMC will be generous enough to give it a commensurately higher budget, to reflect its undoubted popularity; and that the showrunner manages to keep up a better balanced pace across the season, with rather less of the endless chit chat that characterised the first half of season 2. Still, uneven though the second season may have been, its second half more than made up for its first, and I’ll certainly be back to watch when it returns.