My word, what a frustrating episode. The Walking Dead might be one of those shows that would benefit from a mandatory change of showrunner every few seasons. When Scott Gimple took the reins in season three, the change in quality was palpable, and in his tenure he’s delivered some of the show’s all-time greatest episodes, like “Clear” and “No Sanctuary.” But the wheels have fallen off the bus at this point. I imagine in the Walking Dead writers room, they have a list of roles that need to be filled, with no real regard or direction as to which character should do so. It’s like little kids playing pretend, taking turns as different characters: this time you be Egon and I’ll be Venkman. The Walking Dead is more about archetypes than characters now.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Jesus’s apparent one-eighty. True, he has never been as ruthless or borderline bloodthirsty as some of this show’s other characters, but his rigid morality can’t be striking anyone else as an unwelcome development. The writers are clearly trying to sew discord among the factions at war with Negan, which is to be expected; the problem is with how clearly they’re showing their hand.
Another problem with this is, we’ve seen it done better, back in season six, when Morgan tried his damnedest to convert the Wolf he captured during the raid on Alexandria. Don’t get me wrong, that wasn’t a scene I liked, but at least it was more rooted in extant character work. And the Saviors are many times worse than the Wolves: not only fanatical but highly organized. Jesus, in his insistence that the Saviors should be kept captive, thinking they can be deprogrammed, comes off not as hopeful but as stupid. It’s stupid to drag two dozen killers to the Hilltop; it’s stupid to stop Morgan from killing them. Morgan leaves after a fight with Jesus, and it’s the most likable he’s been since the pilot episode.
The plot with the Kingdommers goes nowhere. The cross-cutting between present and future just kills whatever tension might have been established by Ezekiel seemingly walking alone into a Savior ambush. The whole plot boils down to “they think they’ll get ambushed, but they don’t.” If you assume that that’s dragged out for over ten minutes, then you and I are watching the same show. (I will say, though, that a consistently funny part of the Kingdom is that Ezekiel is the only one who talks like Ezekiel – maybe everyone else knows how ridiculous he sounds. The Scavengers might be frustrating in the same way, but at least they’re consistent.)
Things with Rick and Morales are a little more satisfying, but please keep in mind the bar is very low at this point. Morales’s return is another dumb TWD stunt, not as bad as Dumpstergate, but equally misguided. It’s predicated on the idea that the show’s fans will be happy to see anyone return for any reason, but it vastly overestimates how much the fans cared about Morales in the first place. (It doesn’t help that Juan Gabriel Pareja overacts to an embarrassing degree, like he’s playing a drug dealer in a student film.) The idea of a former member of Rick’s group becoming a Savior is a good one, but it’s a well you can go to precisely once, and this shows us that the water has gone stagnant and fetid. For instance, if we hadn’t seen Morgan since the pilot and he showed up as a Savior, that would have had some impact. The “satisfying” part of this encounter is when Daryl shoots Morales dead – it’s unexpected, and surprising, if not quite shocking.
The Rick-Daryl conflict is another one that the show is setting up far too obviously. For whatever reason, Rick seems to share a mindset with Jesus, and it’s baffling. The Walking Dead has shown us, time and again, that Saviors can’t be reasoned with, and their minds can’t be changed. So for Rick – who started this war in the first place – to be aghast at Daryl killing two of them is not just bad writing, it is, once again, stupid.
The time has come to realize that The Walking Dead doesn’t give a shit about its viewers. Why should it? Its ratings are slipping, but it’s still a juggernaut, and when you go that long without falling you start to think that it’s impossible for you to do so.
Why does Maggie let Gregory back into the Hilltop? The same stupid reason that Aragorn stopped Theoden from killing Grima Wormtongue in The Two Towers, a selfish, misguided impulse to avoid killing someone. Maggie gets no blood on her hands, save for the men and women who will die as a result of Gregory’s inevitable turn. The chances that Gregory has, as he says, seen the light, are slim to none. The odds that he will team up with the captive Saviors and betray Maggie, however, are a little more predictable. Gregory is a poorly-written caricature, and an absolute waste of Xander Berkeley, but at least Berkeley is having fun with it. He’s such a veteran character actor that he must realize how stupid this all is, and kudos to him for showing up to get his check. I mean, no one could seriously deliver a line like “I did not eat those pancakes!” That the context for this was so unclear made it the biggest belly laugh of “Monsters.”
There’s not much more I can say at this point – not just in regards to “Monsters,” but in regards to The Walking Dead itself. AMC has said that this show could ostensibly go on for “decades,” a daunting prospect when it struggles to justify its existence on a weekly basis. Fear the Walking Dead is currently a better show than The Walking Dead, and that’s about the most damning statement I can make. At least it’s still trying.
Episode Score:
2/5
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