The Walking Dead has been an agonizing show to watch ever since Negan took his first swing at bat way back in the Season 7 premiere.
In a lot of ways, the problems with the show predated Negan's arrival, and can really be traced back to the group's arrival at Alexandria. This is when the show's cast started to balloon in size, and when the group stopped moving and settled down.
Season 6 had some great episodes---the Wolves attacking Alexandria was fantastic---but it had a lot of problems also. Chief among these was Glenn's fake death (followed by his real one) but there were lots of others. Rick was super emo the entire season. Whole episodes were spent on filler characters. Things began to stagnate, essentially, and you could see the show going downhill.
It fell off a cliff in Season 7 and stayed in the gutter throughout Season 8. They killed Carl just to boost ratings temporarily. Gunfights were trash. Dialogue was nonsensical. Audiences fled in droves.
A New World
The Season 9 premiere is titled 'A New Beginning' and it has a double meaning. For the characters in the show, we've jumped 18 months into the future and the survivors in all the various communities have been rebuilding, growing crops, learning to ride horses, and building things like windmills and other low-tech tools. They've started over after the war with Negan, and their entire world is new and different now.
For viewers, this is also a new beginning. Angela Kang, the new showrunner who took over when Scott Gimple was kicked upstairs, has brought a fresh style and voice to the show that it desperately needed. While this episode was largely about introducing us to the characters and their new somewhat precarious peace, and not much happened really until the end, you can still see just how much the show has improved.
In many ways, these are small, subtle changes that add up to make a much better viewing experience. The dialogue is much better. Characters like Daryl have actual lines that make sense. I feel bad for Lennie James (Morgan) since he left the very bad Season 8 to go to what was a very good show in Fear The Walking Dead only to have that show jump off its own cliff. Fear, alas, has been ruined ever since Dave Erickson left as showrunner, but the opposite appears to be happening here.
Kang has done a fantastic job breathing new life into The Walking Dead, something I honestly wasn't sure was even possible. But this is undoubtedly better television than what we've been getting. There's more variety in filming locations. The cinematography doesn't feel quite as cheap as hit's felt over the past couple of seasons. And the central conflict at the core of the season is much more interesting than Negan ever was.
War and Peace
That conflict is, essentially, how do we all get along? How do the members of Oceanside whose men and boys were all killed by the Saviors, ever forgive and forget? How does Maggie,whose husband was brutally murdered by Negan, live with the fact that he's still alive and out of her reach? How do Ezekiel's people at the Kingdom make peace with the Saviors who slaughtered so many of them during the war?
On one side we have Rick, backed by Michonne and to a lesser degree Carol, trying to make the peace hold. On the other side we have Maggie and Daryl who are growing more and more fed up with the Saviors. Maggie's tired of giving them food that her people grow. Daryl's sick of the Saviors' crappy attitudes. There are even signs that some Saviors want Negan back, though others seem grateful to Rick and his people.
The peace is fragile, in other words, and not everyone agrees with how it's being handled. Trouble is brewing. Everyone is tense and you get a sense that the dam will break at any time.
Gregory the Snake
So naturally Gregory plays his cards with this in mind. The Hilltop blacksmith's son is killed during a mission to Washington D.C. to salvage old tools and other goods from a museum. They blame Maggie for having sent him on a dangerous mission. It's kind of ludicrous, to be honest, since he was a grown man and this is a dangerous world. It's hardly Maggie's fault, but there's no reasoning with grief. Gregory not-so-subtly adds to the discontent people are feeling over this and the Saviors, hinting that if he were in charge (he lost an election to Maggie, apparently) things would be different.
Then he gets the blacksmith (who's been sober for 20 years) and his wife drunk and after the wife passes out, he convinces the blacksmith to attack Maggie. Then he tricks Maggie into thinking that someone defiled Glenn's grave and she walks right into the trap. The drunken blacksmith attacks and she barely escapes. She knows it's Gregory who did it and confronts him. You almost think she's going to just kill him then and there, but she has other plans in mind.
And so we finally get a hanging. Gregory is hoisted up on the scaffolding, seated on a horse, and then hung from his neck. We can cross him off my list of characters who need to die this season, and good riddance.
But Maggie's unilateral decision to execute Gregory (but not the blacksmith) raises some eyebrows. What is the extent of her power? Of anyone's power? What are the rules and laws that people need to follow? Why isn't any of this being established more formally? That's a question that will grow as the season progresses. Rebuilding society isn't just about new tools and planting crops. It's about laws and customs and solving problems through procedures rather than the whims of those in charge.
Not everything is roses and sunshine.
Kang has breathed new life into The Walking Dead but you can see she's picked up some bad habits over the years (she's been on the team since Season 2.)
For instance, there's this long scene at the museum where they're bringing all these heavy items down a big staircase and then walking them over a glass floor. It's a sturdy glass floor but beneath it are a whole bunch of zombies. It starts to crack at one point and everyone is trying to move across the surface really carefully.
But here's the thing: For many of these items (other than the cart) they could pass them over the staircase's low banister and just avoid the glass altogether. Wouldn't you do this if you saw the floor begin to crack? Wouldn't it be safer even if it was a little harder to do?
Then, when the glass actually cracks it's because stupid Ezekiel walks across the whole thing way out into the middle where it's cracking instead of just turning immediately to the left or right and getting off the glass right away. Why? Why do that? Oh, it's because writers are making characters do insanely stupid things to create fake tension and suspense. This is the most consistently bad thing about The Walking Dead (and Fear). The writers do this all the time and I want to go to the writer's room and yell at all the writers until they get it through their thick skulls that making characters act like idiots does not equal good TV.
Suspense is great. That could have been a suspenseful scene without having characters behave like idiots. The glass could have broken when they were bringing the giant cart through, since there was no other way for them to get that out other than taking it across the glass. That would have made sense and it would have been a much better, more realistic scene.
When the zombies catch up with them on the road we have another series of weird, stupid moments. Why do they need to abandon the cart they worked so hard to get? They're all highly skilled zombie killers at this point. They could have just killed the zombies and been about their business. There were obviously not too many zombies to dispatch because that's what they end up doing in the end anyways. They were really just going to leave the cart and the horses instead of just killing the zombies? Why? WHY? WHY????
This results in the young guy's death since he tries to free the horses like a decent person but isn't quick enough or smart enough to avoid getting bitten. The whole thing was just incredibly frustrating. Classic Walking Dead. It just feels lazy to me. Like nobody is paying enough attention to the details to make these scenes work.
In this second scene, they could have decided to get away and come back for the cart and Rick or somebody could have said "Free the horses!" and then when the kid went to free the horses he could have gotten kicked in the head or something and died from that, not from being the only person to not run away immediately.
The episode was written by Kang and directed by Greg Nicotero, and I guess I was just expecting more from these two when it comes to basic logic. Oh well. If I had one piece of advice for Kang as she takes over this show it would be to increase quality control. Make sure that every script makes sense and doesn't include characters acting like idiots for no reason. Creating tension and conflict is important, and sometimes that includes characters being stupid (people are stupid sometimes!) but it can't be so obviously stupid to the point where it doesn't make sense for the character and how they normally act.
Verdict
Other than these silly moments, I really enjoyed the season premiere. It's not the best Walking Dead premiere ever but it's a step in the right direction. I have hope for the first time in years that this might actually be a decent season. I think we're probably past the show's heyday, but you never know.
I also feel like we're getting more of the characters we care about and less of the characters we don't care about. So more Daryl, more Carol, etc. and less Eugene, less Tara etc. That's great. The cast is way too big still and we need to focus on the people we actually care about more and build their stories out. This, coupled with the better dialogue and acting, is one of the things that you notice right away this season. Hopefully it continues in this positive direction.
I've watched the first three episodes of Season 9 and you can read my spoiler-free preview of those here. All three are good, with episode 3 quite possibly the best of the bunch.
I'm very curious to hear what you all thought of tonight's premiere. Do you think we're back in business? Will you keep watching the season after this or is the show dead to you now? Swing by my Facebook page for the post-episode discussion or drop me a tweet on Twitter.