For our review of last episode of The Walking Dead, click here.
Synopsis: The group unmasks a disturbing and dangerous new threat. An escaped captive revisits his past. (IMDB)
Writer: Corey Reed
Director: Greg Nicotero
Rating: TV-MA
Running Time: 51mins
Airs: Sundays at 9pm on AMC (Canada/United States)
New year, same meh.
The episode started with the gang at the cemetery escaping the whispers but they didn’t know that at first. Meanwhile, Negan escaped and had free reign of Alexandria while everyone else was asleep. He didn’t do anything but when he tried to climb the fence, Judith was there to point a gun at him. He ultimately convinced her to let him go. Little did he know, there was nothing there for him outside of Alexandria. He would return once he realized that for himself after another encounter with Judith.
As far as everyone else knew, the others were still out there so the Hilltop would send teams out to look for them. Wanting to make an impression, Luke would volunteer to join a team with Alden. Meanwhile, the others would still have whispers on their trail who they would take care of quite handily, sparing a girl named Lydia (Cassady McClincy) who they could question. Eventually, the others returned so things could get sad.
With Jesus gone, Tara was in charge of the Hilltop. They wanted justice. Lydia would be imprisoned next to Henry who was already there for other reasons (he was looking for his place). Lydia tried to defend her people but she claimed to not know anything. Meanwhile, Luke and Alden would chase a few of Yumiko’s arrows until they came across a large herd of walkers who were coming straight for them. Also, in the most BTW fashion, Rosita told Siddiq that she was pregnant with his baby near Eugene who he just tended to. Daryl’s ultimate plan was to set Henry up to be the good guy so that Lydia would feel comfortable enough to open up to him and it worked.
The episode ended with Luke and Alden finding themselves surrounded by a group of whispers, including their female leader who pointed a sawed-off shotgun at them.
Overall, Adaptation was another decent but non-exciting episode of The Walking Dead full of the wasted potential and melodrama we’ve come to expect as the series continues its downward trajectory since its “glory days”. The whispers were cool in the limited screen time they had here, however, it was simply hard to care about pretty much everything else going on in this episode and this season for that matter. Negan’s journey in the episode, including a trip to the Sanctuary, was fine though not nearly as impactful as it could have been considering the season’s inability to do anything with him. Let the mediocrity continue as this season has not shown anything to prove otherwise.
Score: 6.5/10
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The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.