Margaux and I get the band back together to complain about last night’s The Walking Dead.
Trevor: It’s great to be back. Thanks for taking the helm last week, by the way; you did a great job. Now let’s get to talking about “Service,” which could have made for a decent half-hour episode. The problem was that it ran 59 minutes (85 with the omnipresent commercials). How did you feel about it?
Margaux: The feeling that keeps circling the drain for me about “Service” is, why the in the hell was this 90 minutes? You can make a case for last season’s Karate Kid episode with Morgan and John Carroll Lynch, but there was nothing happening in “Service” that needed that much room to breath. What the Saviors do to Alexandria could have been covered in 15 minutes. “Service” felt plodding, at best. Simply boring as fuck, at worse.
Trevor: And the real shame is that it got off to a pretty good start. Negan showing up early was a good power move, and making Rick hold Lucille for the duration of his visit was a perfectly in-character “fuck you” that had the intended humiliating effect on Rick. Andrew Lincoln does “broken” well. But over time, I started to get the sinking feeling that The Walking Dead likes the idea of Negan more than the reality. You were right in your assessment of “The Cell” that the more we see of Negan, the less scary he is, and “Service” really hammered that point home. Especially with his new incarnation as a catchphrase machine. He’s supposed to be charming but just came off as cocky and smarmy, which isn’t as engaging as he needs to be.
Margaux: Over time all the episodes strengthens became its weakness. The problem with Negan is that the more time we spend with him, the less intimidating he becomes, and “Service” further stripped him of his mysterious malice. Between Negan’s loud declaration of his love of fucking widows, mocking Olivia (who, no offense, you’d be hard pressed to find a single audience member saying, NO NOT THE RATION LADY), and parade of Rick humiliations – it really started to feel like bullshit. Andrew Lincoln bigger than JDM and that fact alone makes hard to buy into this intimation factor the longer they keep trying to convince us of it. It reeks too much of writer manipulation, and doesn’t service (for a lack of a better word) the story in any real way.
Trevor: That actually brings me to my main problem with this season, which is how damn repetitive it is. Between “Service,” “The Cell,” and the premiere, we’ve now had three episodes out of four dedicated to showing how awful Negan is. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is in the opening credits, so he’s clearly not going anywhere, which forces me to wonder, where the hell is this season going? “Service” dangled some interesting threads, but none of them were quite successful or interesting enough. I’m speaking mainly of Rosita, who made a big deal out of looking for Denise’s body – who, if you’ll remember, Rosita openly hated. I did like her bringing the shell casing to Eugene (“Make me a bullet”) because it’s a good way for TWD to run with a plotline from last season that I was certain they’d abandon. But, you know, blind squirrels and stopped clocks.
Margaux: Actually, I interpreted Rosita coming to Eugene to make her bullets as her basically saying, “oh yeah, I’m dying by the end of the season.” The best thing Negan and his crew has done is give Rosita something to fucking do, that poor actress is criminally underused. And I do like how they ultimately always make the women of the show into this Rambo-level badasses, while all the men do is sit around and cry about how life is unfair (white dudes, AMIRITE?).
But I couldn’t have been the only one who thought, at least in the stronger parts of “Service,” was a little hard to watch because of the numerous parallels between the episode and last week’s election. This episode would’ve been easier to watch last week, and if it wasn’t 90 G-D minutes.
Look, it’s no secret that this show isn’t good at a lot of things, and unnecessarily long runtimes is one of them. And seriously, WHEN ARE WE GONNA SEE TARA AND HEATH?! We’ve re-hashed the premiere so much, it’s completely wrung dry of any emotion or interest.
Trevor: Agreed, both about the election parallels (it was kind of tough to watch people in thrall to a ruthless bully) and the missing characters. I never thought I’d say this, but when the hell are we going back to Hilltop? I keep seeing Xander Berkeley and Tom Payne in the credits, and maybe I’m biased because I like Xander Berkeley so much, but it feels like a tease. Plus, Sasha and Maggie are pretty obviously there, and I’d like to check in with them to get some sort of emotional closure or catharsis that we haven’t gotten yet. But since this is already episode #4, it might be too little too late.
Margaux: The smartest thing they did all episode was fake Maggie’s death, and to be frank, I forgot about her until Negan asked for her by name. But I’ll give credit where it’s due, Father Gabriel is creepy as shit, even his little pick me up speech to Rick (“I believe in you”) was cringe-y, but his line about being happy to dig fake graves because he knows “he’ll never have to fill it” was subtly reassuring.
Speaking of creepy, can we talk about M.F. and his full-on Single White Female becoming of Daryl? Also: Can we not with sexual assault? Looking at M.F.’s face is punishment enough. And again, once more with feeling, MULTIPLE PEOPLE IN THIS GROUP HAVE RIPPED OFF A BODY PART WITH THEIR TEETH, STOP TELLING ME YOU’RE SCARED. THAT’S NOT A THING.
Trevor: Dwight trying to become Daryl (The Talented Mr. Melty-Face)…
Margaux: GOOD ONE!
Trevor: …Is a super weird plot point that isn’t getting commented on as much as it should. I was disappointed to see him backslide somewhat, after some not-bad character development in “The Cell.” That said, I think you’re right that there’s the potential for a shaky alliance between him and Daryl, which I’d actually be interested in seeing. I am super duper sick of Daryl’s silent act; he’s said one line in the last two episodes, which is actually about as much as he normally speaks.
Margaux: Rick watching Daryl drive away on the back of that Humvee (or whatever the fuck) was like watching a wartime romantic drama. Rick will never quit Daryl!
All that came to mind when M.F. ordered Rosita (OMG his white dude, Spanish accent makes me wanna vom until 2017) to fetch Daryl’s bike was a very, “why are you sooooooo obsessed with him?!” moment, but I think the bike was another tactic to break Daryl, little do they know that Daryl Dixon is unbreakable. This dude lives for a shit sandwich, shit sandwich is his fucking wheelhouse, why do you think he’s still alive? It’s not cause he’s scared of a bat or a gun getting pointed at him. This particular plot point feels even more pointless than Michonne’s rifle practice. And I love any excuse to spend time with her, but this show will step in shit any chance you let them (which happens to also be 92% of the time). You want me to believe that Michonne couldn’t land a headshot if she really wanted to? Fuck outta here, Kirkman.
Trevor: I agree; as much as I find it humanizing to see someone not succeed at everything they try, it rings hollow after a while because everyone on The Walking Dead lands headshots 100% of the time, so it feels like the show undermining itself.
Margaux: It felt like whole point to this plot of futility was to show the deer that Michonne accidentally kills was some sort of metaphor about collateral damage (or something), then they really need to reassess what their story priorities are. But a hearty FUCK YOU RICK for selling Michonne out. Of course those d-holes were gonna take her deer, they’re d-holes, remember? That’s what we spent last two weeks driving home.
Trevor: Oh, and Spencer is totally gonna sell these guys out and become a Savior, right?
Margaux: That dude should’ve died a hundred times by now, he’s a liability and Rick should have sold his ass out.
How about the baby Judith reveal? I mean, it was sort of like Lance Bass coming out of the closet. We already knew, but it’s always nice to have confirmation. Although it felt extremely out of left field and I find it incredibly odd that in all the time Rick and Michonne have spent together, Shane’s never come up at least once?
Trevor: It was a little bit of fan service, to be sure, but I…I don’t know if I “liked it,” strictly speaking, but I thought it was interesting to bring up. Obviously no one on the planet was surprised by the reveal, but it afforded Rick a little more dimensionality, and helped explain his kowtowing to Negan. As a surprise, I’d give it a 4/10, but I didn’t hate it.
Margaux: It would’ve packed more punch if it wasn’t positioned in the episode as the denouement because fan service (or stating the obvious) is not the crest of the wave that needs riding. I wouldn’t say I hated this episode, or any of the episodes so far, except for the unavoidable fact that they are straight up boring. Can’t say I’ve been engaged in any plot so far, with the exception of re-writing every episode in my mind to keep me from dozing off. Because they’ve repeated the same themes so often and in many of the same ways, we all know Rick hasn’t totally lost his fight (evidenced in him sort of, kind of lifting up Negan’s bat), and they will find a way out of this (Michonne explicitly saying they could’ve teamed up with Hilltop to properly take on Negan and Co) once they reunite with Carol, Morgan, and the Kingdom, so what the fuck are we waiting for? Let’s get to the good stuff already and stop threatening the lives of D characters (sorry Olivia, but literally no one even knew your name till this episode). My compliant is always the same, JUST TELL THE FUCKING STORY ALREADY. 4/10 stars.
Trevor: Yeah, if we’re on a 5-star metric, I’d give “Service” a 2.5; it wasn’t awful, but it was boring, and it lacked the novelty of new places that helped elevate episodes like “The Well” and “The Cell.” Walking Dead, Negan is the villain you’ve supposedly spent six seasons building up to – don’t fuck him up.
Margaux: 2.5 almost feels kind, but anything less would make it seem like we hated it, and we didn’t. Although I hate to break it to you, but TWD fucked up Negan with the season 6 finale, now they’re just picking up the pieces and shoving them together in hopes we don’t notice.
“The Walking Dead fucked up Negan with the season 6 finale, now they’re just picking up the pieces in hopes we don’t notice”
2.5/5
“Not Great”
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