[4.8/10] It’s episodes like these that make me thank Heaven The Walking Dead didn’t debut on network television in the era of twenty-two episode seasons. With only sixteen episodes, scores of characters, and multiple locales, the show should be plenty capable of finding enough plot and incident to fill a half-season with minimal wheel-spinning. Sure, not every episode can advance the major arc of the show, but there’s still tons of space for character development, or little vignettes, or details to make things more meaningful when those major arcs come to a head.
Instead, it feels like every half-season has at least one episode like “The King, The Widow and Rick” which cannot even charitably be called a table-setting episode. Instead, it’s merely an episode to tie up loose ends, to throw out a few miscellaneous plots here and there that don’t really move the ball in terms of the overarching story of the series, that don’t really tell us anything new about the characters, and don’t add much, if anything, to the show as a whole.
Instead, “The King” is a grabbag of an episode, one that finds some miscellaneous thing for pretty much every major character to do, without managing to make much, if any of it, interesting. After two episodes of relative focus, TWD has returned to its mishmash ways, and the results are a cornucopia of dullness.
That starts with what can charitably be called the “main” story of the episode, which centers on what Maggie should do with the Savior prisoners who are currently tied up behind The Hilltop. The episode tries to play coy with regard to what Maggie should do, with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other.
The angel, naturally, is Jesus, who is handing out excess turnips to the prisoners and encouraging Maggie to let them live and treat them humanely. The devil is Gregory, who makes a series of “heavy is the head that wears the crown” appeals to Maggie to convince her to hang their enemies and be done with it. There might be something to this debate if The Walking Dead hadn’t been having this specific argument since the premiere, and a more general version of it for the whole show. Neither Jesus nor Gregory cover any new ground, and the episode’s efforts to leave it ambiguous what Maggie’s going to choose to do are less than compelling.
Naturally, she splits the baby. She has the remaining Hilltoppers build a cage for the Savior captives, reads them the riot act, and tosses them in, but tells Jesus that it’s a temporary measure, and a strategic one, and that depending on how things go in the big battle vs. Negan, she may still send them all to meet their makers. It is, at a minimum, a pragmatic choice from Maggie, without seeming craven, the sort of decision-making that seems in short supply on The Walking Dead these days.
The smartest thing she does, however, is toss Gregory into the Savior cage. The episode only makes the most perfunctory of handwaves as to why Maggie lets Gregory hang around her or the prisoners anyway, so locking him up with the folks he tried to betray them for is a nicely poetic and practical touch. And the way the transparently slimy Gregory turns obsequious and debased as soon as he realizes what’s happening is a tribute to how thin the veneer of his bravado is.
But while she’s telling Jesus about her reasons for all of this, she’s holding the baby that Rick found and Aaron recovered from the Savior outpost, evincing the image of Madonna and Child. And it’s more than a coincidence given the less-than-subtle theme of motherhood and the connection between mothers and their children that the episode explores in heavy-handed fashion.
That peak of this comes in Carl’s portion of the story, where he once again encounters Siddiq, the young man Rick scared off at the gas station earlier in the season, and tries to make amends. The shared reference point for the two teenagers is their mothers. Carl came back because of the values that Laurie instilled in him, of helping other people, even when you don’t have to, that survive in Carl even as Rick has grown more pragmatic (or at least, vacillated between mercy and murder over the course of the show). In the same way, Siddiq feels bound by his mother’s belief that killing The Walkers frees their souls, and so he goes out of his way to set trap and take out zombies to follow her wishes.
Of course, the episode dramatizes that with a corny walker encounter between the two boys and the latest undifferentiated horde, that hits the same old beats, employs the same last minute save, and the same sense that none of this matters since there’s no way they’re going to kill off Carl in a random interstitial episode. And “The King” doesn’t really make hay with the maternal allusions, foregrounding it as the bond between Carl and Siddiq without really doing anything with it.
But the one bright spot on that front, as usual, is Carol’s portion of the story, which, whether through the talents of Melissa McBride or more subtle writing or simply more investment in the situation, pays greater dividends. She seeks out Ezekiel to help bring the next stage of the plan to fruition, but is rebuffed by Jerry, and instead goes out on her own. Or so she thinks. The younger brother of one of the Kingdom Denizens slaughtered in the Saviors’ assault tries to come with her.
The imagery of her instructing this little boy, and her tone she takes with him, is clear. This is an echo of the loss of Sofia, and Carol’s instincts to protect kids like him, to ensure that no one has to suffer what she did, helps drive her to pull Ezekiel back into the world and fight. That effort proves the lone powerful scene in the episode, where Carol confronts her friend, and tries to convince him to rise out of his crestfallen state.
She asks him why he kept visiting her, when she stayed holed up in that house at the edge of his “Kingdom,” and he gives a simple but potent answer -- “You made me feel real.” She gave substance to his fiction, and in return, he gave her the time and space to heal and eventually recover, at least a bit. Now she’s trying to return the favor, and the pathos but kindness in that, and the performances of the actor, offers the one redeeming portion of this episode.
Otherwise, it’s just more tooling around with little purpose or reason beyond faint teases and pointless outings. Michonne and Rosita leave to scope out The Sanctuary, nominally because they just need to see for themselves what happened, but realistically because neither has had much to do so far this season, and so the show throws them into a random bit of business here. Their interlude with the two Saviors at the cache is pretty dull save for Rosita’s use of a rocket launcher, and the fact that they meet up with Daryl and Tara seems like an obvious method of getting various characters in the right place at the right time for whatever comes next rather than an organic confluence of events.
And last, and possibly least, Rick walks into the Junkyardigans’ compound and offers them another deal, which the Vulcan Allison Janney leader of their dump-dwelling crew rejects. It is, in all likelihood, a feint, part of some elaborate Stage 2 that Rick’s concocted. But in this episode, there’s nothing more to it than setup, another piece in place on the board for the next big event, but no rhyme, reason, or intrigue in the initial move.
That’s all “The King, The Widow and Rick” has to offer. It’s hard to call it a skippable episode, if only because it’s so clearly devoted to positioning the characters for the fireworks to come. But It’s one that you’d be just as well off reading Wikipedia summaries for, save for the Carol-Ezekiel scene. While plenty of mild consequence happens here, none of it is especially compelling, much of it feels stitched together, and few, if any of these incidents, have anything to do with one another. In its eighth season, The Walking Dead is not a good enough show to just throw out a bunch of unrelated scenes and let the characters play in the sandbox. Instead, it turns into a rudderless episode, that diminishes the promise of what’s to come by how dull the path to get there is.
After this episode I wonder, is there a real plan? Rick is all about "Stick to the plan. We all stick to the plan" but no one does. Can someone just do what they're told? Daryl and Tara are on a mission to kill Dwight which will end up jeopardizing the whole mission; Rosita and Michonne leave after being shot and beaten up because of some reason; Carl simply decides to wander off to find a guy and bring him to Alexandria; Benjamin's brother (don't remember his name) wants to kill people and joins Carol who gives him a gun? Wth? And truly, if there's a plan, someone please explain to me what kind of plan involves having Rick naked in a freaking container. Btw, why the hell did Rick even think it was a good idea to go to thegarbage people?
The garbage people, lol. Jadis was sitting literary naked making a freaking garbage cat, wtf?
That freaking trash people talking like that, lol. It reminds me of Kevin's small talk to save time in The Office. It cracks me up every time. Economy of language to the higher level.
It's so good to have Rosita and Michonne back. Rosita with the rocket launcher was so badass. It was one of those hilariously funny scenes. But why did they exactly want to see the Sanctuary for? Feelings and emotions? I don't quite get it.
The whole episode an be summarised as "I want to come with you". There were quote a lot of them.
I understand Jesus' motivations but have any of the Saviors showed any humanity? Some days I don't think Negan's idea of killing one of a group is a bad idea at all. They should've killed Jared long ago. Can't stand that guy. He'll end up dead, but still.
I'm really digging the Ezekiel plot. That scene with Carol was fantastic. I loved how Carol tried to help him through his grief and identity crisis. The parallelism between the two of them is great. Carol is not different from Ezekiel. She put on the same act he did.
Btw, the letter narration montage was so weird. It reminded me to those camp letters you write.
THE KING, THE WIDOW AND RICK
-105-
Jadis sitting there naked, making a Cat... XD
Ezekiel is pretty much down...
How can you blame him?
He lost everything.
Maggie makes the next step to become the new Leader.
Someone who doesn't fall for Gregory!
Exept Negan, it seems she's the only one.
And Rick get's trapped.
I still think he has a Plan B dir getting captured.
I can't believe he went there without a possible answer of "No".
I just can't.
It was nice seeing Michone and Rosita back!
That's it! I said it!
Rosita! She is a badass, Negan was right!^^
Killing the Guy, what the Fuck?! O.o
I'm still amazed how fast and good this Season is!
So far no bad Episode. Fingers crossed.
Looking forward to seeing how Rick is gonna get out of this! Rosita blowing up that guy was awesome.
:asterisk_symbol::asterisk_symbol::asterisk_symbol::asterisk_symbol::asterisk_symbol:Spoiler only read if you watched episode 9:asterisk_symbol::asterisk_symbol::asterisk_symbol::asterisk_symbol::asterisk_symbol: It’s more frustrating knowing that they started advertising _____ ____ _______ (happens in episode 8) right after this episode
IF YOU KNOW YOU KNOW THIS IS SOME :ox::ox::ox::ox::ox::ox::ox::ox::ox::ox::poop::poop::poop::poop::poop::poop::poop::poop:
maggie is a complete moron i'm sorry. those people are not gonna peacefully assimilate into the community bitch are you braindead ? morgan stopped with this whole all life is precious shit and now it seems to have infected half of the cast instead.
This episode further proves that The Walking Dead doesn't know what the hell it's doing anymore.
Okay, I’m 100% Team Negan... I’ve grown tired of all the good guys, even Daryl who has always been a long time favorite of myself.
Lucky us we have Jeffrey Dean Morgan otherwise this should would be completely unbearable...
Rick going to the Trash people again to be his allie lol. Prett stupid.
am i the only one that dont know whats this show about, whats going on and what they do and why they do?!
Jesus christ, Rick is really a prick going there after what they've done -_-
Bad episode. Every time Walking Dead has its lead character planning the next big thing, other major characters are always there to ruin it. Daryl has been guilty of this multiple times and I wonder why Rick never kicked him out of the community. Michonne does this too, but always with the "I have to see it myself for some reasons" reasoning. Even Rick himself seems to ruin his big plan by running towards The Scavenger hideout all by himself, only to get him tied up nude in a container.
Also let's not mention the part where Rosita uses that RPG... the scene is very horrible. Is that how rocket launcher actually work?
This is a big let down after two decent episodes prior. It's like Walking Dead is never able to maintain its pace. This seems to be especially true with Season 8, with a lot of ups and downs - but more downs.
Oh no, it’s lost all over again! Another unnecessary episode, and they are pushing this far too long.
Nothing happened here. Just to show us that jesus (Paul) is too good and that rick is doing nude too
Either it's part of the plan that everyone's doing the stupid shit they're doing in this episode, or these people are so dumbass I already wish they'd be dead by the end of the season.
I really hope the creators of the show just want us to think those people are doing random shit, to surprise us in the end that it was all part of the Rick's plan. I really hope so. 'Cause if they're just dumb and they still end up winning... Idk, then I'm team Negan, I guess.
I think this show is setting us up for Rick being dead at the end of the season. It's clear noone is following him and his "plan" and he clearly doesn't know what the hell he is doing since he thinks going to Junk Artists United expecting them not to capture Rick. Speaking of Rick, or commonly known as Rick Dick... We gotta stick to the plan that gets everyone killed.
How long has this war been going on. How many days have past since the beginning of the season?
Lots more to be said but it's getting tedious to repeat the same thing week after week. Looking forward to see what next week brings though.
And yet I watch.
It's hard for me to admit this since I've been a fan for such a long time, but what the f**k is going on this season? Why are those people getting dumber and dumber with each episode?
The whole season is unnecessarily stretched out, don't get me wrong, I would have understood and loved it if it was because of character development but there's been almost no character nor plot development. Are they trying to set up the second half of the season or what? If that's the case, it feels like they've been doing it wrong.
The trash patch gang look like they bathe more often than Rick.
So the trash people are part time nudists?
The King!! The Widow!!!!........ and Rick. lol
Shout by Wéjih M'zoughiBlockedParent2017-11-27T19:36:02Z
I don't even know what's happening anymore, to be honest.