The Walking Dead (10×08) The World Before Review

Keith NoakesNovember 24, 201964/100n/a8 min
Director
John Dahl
Writer
Julia Ruchman
Rating
TV-MA
Running Time
54 minutes
Airs
Sundays 9pm
Channel
AMC
Overall Score
Rating Summary
The World Before was a dull and mostly uneventful midseason finale that messily inched us further to the season's inevitable endgame.

For our review of last episode of The Walking Dead, click here.

Synopsis: A fight causes tensions in Oceanside; The Alexandrians set out on a high-stakes mission. (IMDb)

At least they found the horde. Other than this, there wasn’t all that much to this pretty much uneventful season 10 midseason finale as whatever the payoff is will have to wait until the back half of the season. At this point, it shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise to anyone. In a season (one of many) that has been a straight-up mess going in far too many directions, this episode was no different as its many subplots at least started to come together. Meanwhile, even more would rear their heads.

The World Before started with a quick montage of how Dante got away with what he did while Alpha gave him her orders (she was surprisingly right about how everything went down). Cut to where the previous episode ended and Rosita (and her baby Coco) stumbling on to Dante who tried to deflect what may or may not have been going on. Thankfully, Rosita noticed that something wasn’t quite right (as Dante noticed her noticing) and got into a physical altercation with Dante which would then get interrupted by a walker Siddiq. She would eventually knock out Siddiq while killing walker Siddiq (which wasn’t easy).

Aaron met up with Gamma (whose real name was Mary) where she would propose an exchange. The baby that was abandoned at Hilltop forever ago was her niece and she wanted to see her in exchange for information (now grown up, Aaron was very close with her). Aaron was understandably skeptical but this so called information would have to be verified before anything (of course they suspected this to be a trap which it kind of was but more on that later). She claimed to know where Alpha’s horde was. Meanwhile, Dante got beat up by the others (they were all upset with themselves for not seeing it). He actually liked Siddiq but his mission was to cause unrest from the inside (and it was sort of working).

Michonne, Judith, Luke, and others took a trip to the library (so Judith could get new books to read and for Luke to find more music books). Of course their trip wasn’t uneventful as Luke would find himself in trouble before being saved by a mysterious stranger who ran away. The man who saved Luke somehow followed them to Oceanside, his name was Virgil (Kevin Carroll) and he was caught by the Oceanside ladies while trying to secure a boat to get home. Of course Michonne was paranoid after Dante.

Virgil wouldn’t get too far away after trying to escape during a walker attack. He claimed that he lived with this family on an isolated and fortified island that may or may not have weapons on it. The reason he was out was to gather supplies for which we heading back from. In exchange for the damage he caused at Oceanside, he would give them these weapons (but Michonne had to be the one to go get them). Meanwhile, Siddiq’s funeral was an emotional one for Rosita. Gabriel also surprisingly took it hard, perhaps taking out those frustrations on Dane with a knife, repeatedly.

To investigate the possible location of Alpha’s herd, two teams from Alexandria and Hilltop set out. Daryl’s worry for Carol persisted. To him, Alpha was not worth getting worked up over at the expense of their future. After their intel was a bust, Daryl believed they should move on to find Lydia. However, Carol saw Alpha in the distance and began chasing after her (which was what Alpha wanted). Alpha eventually led them to a cave where she held her horde.

The episode would end with our gang trapped in said cave at the hands of Alpha’s horde.

So that was kind of dull as was this season so far as it slowly inches us towards the inevitable showdown between Carol and Alpha. Regardless of how fractured and divided the people are, they’ll always come together somehow by the end. Hopefully the back half of the season will offer us enough to make it all worth it but it is doubtful.


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