The Walking Dead - Whisperer Arc - TV Review

This site originally was filled with reviews of The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead. As I've said before I love zombies and The Walking Dead is a special show to me. It was the first show that wasn't a comedy or animated that I wanted to invest my time in and it also the first show that really made me care if a character was killed or left a show. I remember my first episode was a rerun of the first episode of season 3 and I was immediately hooked onto the characters.

But over the years the series hit some dark times, especially with the god awful season 8 (why is that number a curse for television). And just after that season of The Walking Dead we started to see the slow descent of quality for Fear the Walking Dead which later went and nosedived more steeply than how Game of Thrones ended. Yeah it's not as watched as GoT, but Fear bombed so hard it became the first show I actually quit watching out of anger.

But then a shining star of hope appeared for the TWD fandom in the form of Angela Kang. Having worked on the show since season 2 she was promoted to showrunner after the massive backlash against former showrunner, Scott Gimple, for killing off Carl Grimes in a very poor way. There is some deeper stuff to that incident, but that's another story. Back to Angela Kang. With her taking over since season 9 the show has changed into something a lot better that what was expect. Not only was the writing better, but there was a lot more interesting conflicts and character interactions that was missing from the previous seasons. In short, Angela Kang saved The Walking Dead.

So before we start talking about what's been going on this past season and a half let's catch anybody up on the show. After Rick and the communities of Alexandria, Hilltop, the Kingdom, and Oceanside band together and defeat Negan and the Saviors there is peace for a few years. After some time though there is conflict once more and Rick, in a desperate attempt to keep a massive horde from getting to the communities, sacrifices himself to blow up the only path to them. He is saved though by a mysterious helicopter and is flown away, making people believe he's dead. Years go by and the communities begin to slowly break ties with one another until a new group of survivors appears followed by a horde of zombies that are, to the shock of everyone, talking. Whispering with one another. And so begins the Whisperer Arc.

Now COVID-19 has delayed the season 10 finale, but that's out of anyone's control. I was originally fuming to the brim at this news, but since then I've calmed down and recognized that it's better to have the cast and crew safe than risk their health for a TV show, even if it's really popular. True the numbers of people watching has declined because it's been a long show and the damages Gimple made in the previous seasons has effected the popularity a lot. Even so though The Walking Dead is still discussing and recommending because it had some really great seasons in the past and is now running strong and providing a lot of exciting content to its viewers.

Probably the biggest addition to the show is the technology. I said this previously in my review of Netflix's Kingdom, but zombies are getting stale. With all our automatic guns and present day technology zombies can be easily killed with just a single twitch of a finger. Kingdom fixed that by setting their show in feudal times (around the 1500s), meaning the few guns they had were old fashioned muskets that had you had to jam the ball down the barrel with gunpowder in order to fire each shot. Everything else was bows and katanas.

The Walking Dead has done something similar by having the communities preserve their dwindling supplies of bullets for really dangerous moments like a massive zombie horde and instead reverting to more medieval tactics. Bows and arrows, maces, swords, even shields forged from metal barrels with spikes attached. Not just that though but the communities train with all these implements in very militaristic ways, like making a wall of said shields and stabbing the walkers through the gaps. That's not to say there aren't any rifles or shotguns, but they are used sparingly as their noises can bring in more walkers, which have become more dangerous than ever.

Another massive addition to the show is current villains. Again, zombies aren't really scary anymore because guns and stuff, but our new villains, the Whisperers, have learned to weaponize the walkers in a very unique way: They've learned to skin the undead and treat the skin so it becomes wearable and they can walk among the hordes with no problems. Imagine several zombies coming at you and you kill a few, but then as you swing at another one it dodges your blow, gets behind you, and stabs you through the back. That's exactly what happened to one of my favorite characters on the show, Paul "Jesus" Rovia, and it blew me away. The idea of not knowing which zombies is a real zombie or a person in a mask is a really frightening idea because it's a whole new level of zombie camouflage. People could put zombie guts and blood to blend in, but there was a chance it could get you sick if it got into your system. With these new zombie masks that problem is solved, no rain can wash the scent away, and you look just like the undead so enemies have a harder time recognizing you.

The leaders of the Whisperers are also big standouts. We got Samantha Morton as the main leader, Alpha, and Ryan Hurst as her second in command, Beta. Alpha has this cunning to her that can't be ignored, like she's both gone feral and kept her intelligence. She has this aura about her that makes people follow her and her authoritarian leadership keeps her in total control over her followers. She even beats down her daughter so she doesn't show any weakness or special favor to anyone. She's always one step ahead of everyone, continually making plans to counter anything those against her might have. And she'll do whatever it takes to stay on top.

I personally find Beta to be a more threatening and dangerous character though. His actor is huge, over 6'4", making him the tallest character in the show. But more importantly unlike Alpha, who is quiet and continually toying with her prey, Beta is savage animal ready to lash out and slaughter. Unlike other villains Beta doesn't need a gun to feel powerful because he is powerful. He's like a tank, able to smash through walls with his massive strength while durable enough to survive many moments that would kill any ordinary person. Yet like a stalking predator he knows when to wait for the right moment to kill. That is unless you try anything to his alpha or attempt to take off his mask, then he'll immediately bleed you like a pig with his huge (and I mean huge) knives. Both he and Alpha have lost most of their humanity, but Beta is more of a wild savage than Alpha can be.

Something that was becoming a problem for the show in previous seasons was amount of characters growing and growing with each season and nobody daring to kill any. Season 8 was especially bad with that as it seemed every main character had plot armor and couldn't be killed to the point they were almost super-human. Not in these seasons though. We do get the occasional new character every so often, but there have been a lot more deaths on the show and lot moments where you think a character you love is about to leave the show in a horrifying way. Not all your favorites will survive these seasons and there's a few deaths that really break your heart. There's even one death that made me just melt into a puddle of tears, something I hadn't done since Hershel Greene's death in season 4.

Speaking of characters, with the Rick Grimes leaving the show (he's not dead, he'll apparently be in a few upcoming TWD movies), the characters have gotten to interact with one another more than before, building new relationships and conflicts. For instance we see a lot more development towards King Ezekiel. He's lost a lot of his royal mannerisms and has become more down to earth with people, leading to some very interesting conversations. There's also been Carol, who I'm sad to say it's becoming nothing but revenge towards those who hurt her or her friends. It's becoming very hard to like her. There are plenty of others like Michonne, Judith (who is fantastically played by Cailey Fleming), and Daryl that all get their moments with other characters and they just grow and develop more.

But I think the biggest, and my favorite, character on the show is Negan. I mean he's always been a favorite of mine because yeah he was an asshole during the Savior conflicts, but he was also a strong and smart leader. He just needed to lose his god complex and like Ezekiel come down to earth. His imprisonment has done just that. He does have that cocky attitude every now and then, but what he wants more than anything is get out of his cell and just be a part of something again. I don't blame him, it's been over 7 years since he lost against Rick and was put into his prison, people need to move on because he is a very valuable survivor capable of doing a lot of good with his strength, intelligence, humanity, and ability to read other people very well. If he was to be forgive he could be the next Rick Grimes of the show, the next leader of the communities. That won't happen though sadly and now I just hope he makes it out alive.

One problem I do have with the show right now though is the writing. It could worse, it could definitely be worse, but there are moments that make me do a double take. Like there's a moment where our badass, prosthetic arm wielding gay man, Aaron, swears vengeance upon the Whisperers after they kill Jesus, but finds one particular whisperer and is oddly friendly to her and trying to get to know her. That's bad writing right there and there are several more scene like that throughout these newer seasons. I'm willing to forgive most of it though because the writing could be like season 8 where molotov cocktails explode like mines and Rick Grimes shrugs off a car crash like it's nothing while chasing down Negan.

I am also a bit worried as when the show will end. I know what happens in the comics and we're getting close to where the comics end, but I'm still a bit worried as to how they'll pull it off. Now we're getting to close to starting the new story arc and I'm so damn excited for it, but with Fear and the upcoming The Walking Dead: World Beyond I am a bit uncomfortable with how much TWD stuff there is going to be. Maybe it's just that we won't be seeing the season finale for some months because of the delay and I'm worrying too much because our first new character of the new arc is a breath of fresh air to the series and is getting a lot of positive feedback. I'll just have to see when the finale airs.

In the end The Walking Dead has changed a lot and mostly for the better. True the writing could improve a little bit more, but the show is just so much fun to watch now! There's only been one episode that I didn't like out of these past two seasons. Sadly it was the episode where Michonne leaves the show. It was like a completely different showrunner wrote and directed that episode because it barely connects with the main story at all. It is going to harm the main plot and is just an in-your-face middle finger to one of the best and biggest characters of The Walking Dead. Still, ignoring that atrocity, the show is so fun and I encourage people to return to watching it.

Tentative Score: 8.75/10

Definitive Score: 8.75/10

God bless you Angela Kang, you saved The Walking Dead. I do hope you can further improve what you have, but you, the cast, the crew, and all those other people on the sides are doing wonderfully!