Review: DO NOT SEND US ASTRAY #TheWalkingDead S8:13 #TWDFamily

Last week: Review: The Key

This was an old-school episode!  It reminded us how terrifying and dangerous the Walkers still are, especially when newly-turned.  It's all too easy, these days, to think, 'Look, there's another one, yep, Michonne's decapitated it without breaking her stride', but in S8:13 we saw them back in all their gruesome glory, starting off with dear Tobin, who I really liked, and who I was just thinking looked 100% more attractive with a beard.  Carol having to put him down was too, too sad.  I should have known that the soul-searching conversation could only be followed by death....

😭 😭😭😭😭

Now, Morgan ~ is the fighting getting too much for him, and is he starting to lose it or just temporarily doing a Rick?  Ghost Gavin reminds him of all the nutty stuff he used to write on walls/stones in his pre-Eastman/aikido days.  'You know what it is', 'You were supposed to' (kill his zombie wife's brain before she sank her jaws into his son), etc, but is Morgan seeing Gavin, who was fairly decent as Saviours go, because he feels bad about him being killed, in particular?  Is it a Ghost Shane situation, like in S3:8 Made To Suffer?

Ghost Shane, who grew both hair and beard after his death

Maybe the apparition will help Morgan make the right decision somewhere along the line, like Ghost Lori silently did for Rick in the fabulous S3:15 This Sorrowful Life.  Or maybe Morgan's just losing it....

"Do not sacrifice Michonne to The Governor.  One day she will feed you raw turnips.  But even they will be better than my Sunday morning pancakes."

Thinking about it, I wonder if the main reason for the drop off in viewing figures of Seasons 7 & 8 is the lack of variation in the storyline.  Yes, it comes from from many angles (and I love how this is done, seeing all the different points of view; it makes the whole thing so much more interesting and rounded out), but two whole seasons have been centred around one thing: the Saviours war.  Compare it to S6, when there was the quarry, the Wolves, the first Saviours threats, the discovery of the Hilltop.  Or S4: the virus in the prison, the return of the governor, all the different stories on the road, and finally Terminus.  S5: escaping Terminus, finding Gabriel, defeating Gareth & co, the road to Washington (!), Beth and the hospital, Noah and Tyreese's death, and finally Alexandria.  But I still love it, whatever! 😉

Anyway, back to the terrific moments of this episode, of which there were many, starting with the arrival of Daryl:

...and that long, eerie silence when the Hilltop went dark.  Really good suspense stuff, loved it.  Well done, battle strategist Maggie!  When the Saviours left I was thinking, finally, a win for the good guys ~ surely this is starting to even up the numbers by now?  But then the wounded awoke, and feasted on those sorghum farmers.  Then again, maybe the formerly imprisoned Saviours (Evil Jared excepted) will come out on our side?  As Alden the Friendly Saviour (who it seems I misjudged in previous posts) said, they now know how little their lives mean to Negan and Simon.  

Simon, may your words come back to haunt you..... and your boss won't be pleased.  People are a resource, remember? 

As for Our Fearless Leader, I totally get why he can hardly even look at Siddiq.  It will be a long time before I give a stuff if he lives or dies, and I imagine Rick feels the same.  

Best dialogue award goes to the conversation between Tara and Daryl, with Daryl saying that if he'd stayed with Merle right from the start, he'd be in a gang like the Saviours now; then again, as he said, he and Tara are where they are because they saw through the bad guys like The Governor, as did Merle in the end, of course.  I like the 'Do Dwight's good deeds make up for his bad?' zig-zag tussle between them.  I agree with Tara ~ I am sure Dwight is totally reformed.  Whether she will stay alive for long enough to say 'I told you so' to Daryl is another matter.

The moment when Tara realised that 'Brian' was not one of the good guys

Next week is looking pretty damn awesome, what with Rick leading the assault and Negan tied up in Jadis's lair ~ I notice she's let him keep his clothes on!   Will Glenn's grave be the last thing the Big Guy sees, as per Maggie's wishes?  They're all starting to look so battle-worn now, as they weigh up the cost of all this, but maybe none more than Maggie.  I wonder if any of them are thinking, should we just have kept giving the Saviours half our stuff?  Think of all those who have died: Carl, Glenn, Abraham, Sasha, Spencer, Olivia, Tobin, Dr Carson, Francine, Daniel, Andy, Eric, Bruce, and so many more.....

I'll finish this with a word of advice for Henry: you know those big fences with lots of gaps in them between the bits of wire?  And those locked gates that keep all the prisoners inside?  You don't, like, have to unlock that gate in order to talk to them or threaten to shoot someone.  You can just, you know, do it all through the gaps....