“We’ll win. But we need to wait for the right moment.” – Father Gabriel.
The mid-season finale is here and it was 90 minutes long. And hot damn, there will be some spoilers ahead! So let’s go jump right into this review.
As we know, this episode needed to end the year with a bang, and it did have to wrap up a couple of things because we couldn’t enter the new year on a cliffhanger. So from last week’s episode, this is where we left off: Negan is still in Alexandria waiting for Rick’s return. Rick is still out scavenging so Negan to allow his group to live another weak. Rosita is still debating on killing Negan for revenge due to the death of everyone. Negan’s and the Saviors are responsible of killing people from their group. Darryl is still holed up in the Savior’s camp, and Maggie, Sasha and Enid are at the Hilltop.
Oh, I knew I forgot someone. Carol still wants nothing to do with the Kingdom and wants to be left alone. After leaving Alexandria and the Kingdom, Carol is tired of all the death she has seen – some caused by her own hand. One of the “soldiers” from the Kingdom is asking for both Carol and Morgan to convince King Ezekiel to prepare and fight the Saviors, thinking if they strike now that they might have a chance to survive. But Carol wants nothing to do with this fight and she made it clear.
Rick and Aaron find a boat that has things for them to scavenge, but it’s in the middle of a lake surrounded by floating walkers. After fighting their way through it, Rick tells Aaron that he knows a lot of people doesn’t agree with what is being done, but Aaron reminds Rick that he’s there and. As long they can do something to make sure people stay alive, it doesn’t matter what they do.
Back in Alexandria, Negan is enjoying his time while waiting for Rick’s return, even shaving to look more like his comic counterpart. He’s just cooking pasta and drinking Lemonade. Spencer, that damn coward, thinks that he can get closer to Negan. and convince him to kill Rick. That way, Negan can appoint Spencer as the new leader. Why do people think that Negan is stupid? The man is smarter than he looks.
Knowing that we get a beautiful comic book moment from the show; it took it’s time to get here! The fact that Spencer is trying to work Negan on doing something for him – in front of everyone in Alexandria – while Rick was out, does show you how much of a coward Spencer is. Austin Nichols played that part perfectly and I do applaud him for playing a character that I have despised since I first saw him.
At the end, everything wraps up neatly. Michonne finds the location she required of Negans’ group. Darryl is back with the group, and Rick finally comes to his senses and wants to go ahead and fight the Saviors. We do get a lot of comic book moments within this episode, which was fun to see, but with the episode wrapping up, some parts felt rushed. I did enjoy this mid-season but it wasn’t the big mid-season finale that we should have gotten. The pacing went well with the episode, as every par and every death had meaning.
