The Walking Dead – A Return to Greatness

[Warning: Mild Spoilers Ahead]

It cannot be denied that the past few seasons of the hit television show, The Walking Dead, have been less than thrilling. Ratings for the previous two seasons were low and the writing was abysmal. Worse still were the sudden changes of character personality and development in season 8, along with the death of a longtime important character (who is still alive in the comics), Carl Grimes. Watching season 8 felt like such an unpleasant chore to me and many fans to the point that I couldn’t even write a review on the finale, which was absolutely awful. With all these poorly executed episodes and a poor fourth season of Fear the Walking Dead (which had a fantastic previous season), many fans of the series abandoned a ship that seemed ready to sink. It was going to take a miracle to get fans interested in the show again.

But then I watched the first episode of season 9 and I had to watch it again to confirm what I was seeing was true: I was… entertained. A lot! And more than that I was interested and excited to see what was going to happen next. And many others, including those who were ready to give up on the series, agreed. Even with this season being the last season with Andrew Lincoln the main protagonist, Rick Grimes, this first half of season 9 has not rekindled, but roared a flame of passion for The Walking Dead. But how is it that the show has turned around this much?

The Savior of the Show

NO, I’m not making a Negan reference. From a general standpoint, the recent success of The Walking Dead is credited a lot to the new showrunner, Angela Kang. She has been a part of the The Walking Dead show since the second season and has written some great episodes that while not the best have received great praise. Since season 3 the showrunner was Scott Gimple, who at first did a pretty good job. After season 5 though the quality of the episodes began to slowly slip into average to poor to garbage. He was there for too long and with that we never got any new patterns or style to the show. The death of Carl was the last straw and hearing the backlash, AMC told Gimple he can’t run the show anymore. Yet somehow despite and his poor output that he gets a promotion to creatively direct both The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead, which is confusing as hell and a story for later.

So Angela Kang. Almost everything this new season has felt fresh and interesting with her style of running. The addition of two time skips also assists her by giving her and the characters time to change and grow. Characters that became frowned up like Daryl, Eugene, and Jesus have become much more likeable and interesting. Even the actors themselves love how new the show feels to them and they’re extremely happy over the new changes, especially Daryl’s actor, Norman Reedus, and Jesus’s actor, Tom Payne. I haven’t seen Daryl have so many lines before, and not just grunts and growls. There’s also a ton of conflict between character that doesn’t have a clear answer, and what answers there are differ a lot between characters and viewers. It’s smart writing that makes us think and worry about what happens next. The answers that might be right could also be the darkest answers. It’s such smart writing, there’s a ton of grey morality, no black and white here.

There are also very few working firearms and vehicles in this season, setting up kind of a western vibe, as well putting characters directly into the danger. Characters get hurt, not just killed, in this season and you can really feel the pain when it happens. The practical effects are amazing this season, from walkers to physical damage. I just… I can just gush for hours over how fun this season so. But I won’t and instead give you a small summary of what happens.

After the War

Two years have passed since Rick and the communities defeated Negan and the Saviors (though without Eugene they probably would have lost). All the communities, including Sanctuary, have become allies and are building a better world together. Negan is imprisoned in Alexandria and things are nice and peaceful. Well, until some of Sanctuary begins to grumble at how little food they have. A big factory isn’t really the best place to grow crops and Maggie, as the wealthiest leader in the communities, isn’t sharing her resources for free anymore.

Maggie last season was just unpleasant, with her being cold and ruthless, yet active and in combat despite the fact she was supposedly heavily pregnant. I’ll never forgive Gimple for making her so lively despite her pregnancy, it’s unforgivably bad writing. Anyways, this season has cemented her new toughness and it’s much better written. She’s honestly making Rick look soft and easy going. Her people don’t want to give away their food, she must lead them well, and so Maggie must strike a few deals so other communities give back to her.

On the other side of the leaf, Rick is trying to keep peace between all the communities, but it’s almost in a desperate way. He kind of knows that the Sanctuary has been getting free resources for a while because it can’t sustain a healthy garden or food supply. That and Daryl, the new leader of Sanctuary, is not happy with his position. That’s understandable, he was locked up there for a long while, and it’s no wonder he wants out. These personal desires are fleshing out the characters greatly and bringing the show new life. All of this eventually leads to Rick’s “Send Off” episode, which was amazing to watch.

Now saying that, I find that this episode was way too advertised. It was all that the commercials were saying, that season 9 was Rick’s final season. Nothing else. I guess they wanted to prevent another Carl incident, but if you’re watch a TV show with a lot of characters and you’re only focused on one, even if they’re they main character, then you’re watching the show wrong. I mean imagine watching Game of Thrones and only viewing the scenes with Jon Snow. There’s a lot more to it than just him, there’s Deanarys, Arya, Sansa, Tyrion, and more. There should have been more talked about than Rick not being on the show anymore. Especially with what comes after Rick’s last episode.

After Rick

In the part two of this first half of the season we get bigger time skip after Rick’s departure. Six years in fact! Nature is taking back the world and the walkers are still walking. A ton has changed, good and bad, but overall there’s a huge divide in the communities. And then comes some new characters who are unique and remind me and other viewers of Rick’s group in the early seasons before Alexandria.

With these character we also learn a bit of the tension between the communities. Somehow (and hopefully it’ll have a good explanation) all the communities don’t like to interact with one other, with Alexandria becoming completely distant from everyone else. Out of the communities it feels like Hilltop is still doing the best, with the Kingdom and Alexandria going close second. There’s no conflict, but nobody wants to get together and do stuff anymore. It’s really sad and makes me want them to get together soon and have a party or something to rekindle old friendships Hopefully next season will explain this split, especially with what’s coming.

Then comes something huge that I’ll only hint at because you got to see it for yourself: The walkers begin to whisper. “But they’re zombies”, you say. “zombies don’t talk!” Well something sinister is coming to the show and the episodes leading up (and including) mid-season finale turn this previously dumb action-packed zombie show into something out of a smart horror movie. Fans, especially ones who haven’t read the comics, got really scared in the mid-season finale, as it sets up conflict that I know it going leave us shaking in trepidation and locking our doors for the rest of the season. You think I’m exaggerating? Maybe I am a little, but The Walking Dead is definitely becoming genuinely scary (not just jump scares).

Conclusion

There’s a lot I haven’t mentioned this season, but I got to give you all reasons to go and watch. If you’ve been disappointed with how the show has been the past few seasons, WATCH SEASON 9! It’ll make you smile and cheer and hug something close to you in fear because The Walking Dead hasn’t been this good in a long time. If you need to catch up and haven’t seen season 8, go read the comic version of All Out War and you’ll save yourselves over 16 hours of misery and dumb writing. Angela Kang has reinvented the show and almost everything in it feels fresh and exciting. It might not as violent as before, but there’s a ton more character and a lot more impact of decisions made. And there’s going to be a lot more epic stuff coming when the show returns with new episodes in February next year.