Eugene’s making himself right at home.
What They Say:
An Alexandrian discovers they must navigate the mysterious, confusing and terrifying world within the Saviors’ compound.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The Walking Dead has been interesting in what it’s been doing this season, though it hasn’t worked for a lot of other viewers with the darker side of things, but I liked the weirdness that we get sometimes, such as the trash people the last time around and the kind of loose way that Rick is playing with things. I also liked that outside of some roaming groups of Saviors doing collection duty we’ve been largely free of Negan for a bit, giving others a chance to stand out, deal with the other communities, and focus on multiple stories at once instead of the single focus episodes that are a drain on the energy of the series. So I am admittedly a bit wary going into this episode that it focuses on the Saviors side but I also know that there are a lot of things to explore in this compound that haven’t been dealt with yet, especially coming from the comic book source background.
The cold open for this takes us back to just after Daryl’s escape as we see the fallout from it hitting for those that were there and essentially let it happen. The panic is definitely palpable as you know how Negan is and the way he deals with events. This ties into Negan and his group returning to the compound with Eugene, his bright shiny new prize that will be able to make him what he needs to further dominate. It’s brutal to watch for Eugene as he’s definitely fearful of what’s going to happen to him and totally in character, which makes the room he’s put into all the more amusing since it’s a good taste of civilization. Eugene’s one to do what he needs to survive in a lot of ways though you know he’s aligned with Rick and the Alexandrians, but you can’t be too sure that he won’t fully shift his alignment because of how he’s treated and what’s available to him. It’s not early Alexandria but it’s definitely tempting.
Because of what happened with Daryl’s departure, a good chunk of the episode is focused on Dwight as Negan knows he’s involved in some way, either broken by Daryl or it’s related to Sherry as she’s disappeared as well. Setting Dwight to finding Sherry and making it clear that he expects Daryl to come back, Negan’s ensuring that everyone else does his work for him as usual with just a few pointed moments of intensity to affirm his position over them. It’s a familiar tactic but it works well here and combined with the things we do know about Dwight since first coming across him what feels like ages ago makes him more compelling than a lot of other supporting players in the mix of the various arcs these days.
The bulk of what we get, however, is with Eugene as he’s basically a stranger in a strange land. He gets a feel for the place well enough in his own utterly awkward way and that’s made even harder when Negan questions him about some things to test his intelligence and usefulness. Both men are very distinctive in their style of speech in general and with Eugene an utter mess at this point it’s just a very rough sequence even if it does accomplish the right things. You practically want to throttle both of them over it, especially when you realize just how long the sequence goes overall and how little it actually accomplishes. It does make Eugene a useful tool for Negan to be sure and you get a sense that Negan gets under his skin and appeals to him in the right ways, but there’s just a general wariness in taking surface appearances too much with Eugene.
I do like how Eugene kind of settles into things in his own way, including some wonderful time playing Yars Revenge, a game I put far too many hours of my own life into. What he gets caught up in, however, feels like it could be a test with Negan sending a trio of his wives to spend time with him, just not in a sexual manner. There’s some weirdness to it but it has a pretty good sense of how some survive here as two of them did it willingly for their own reasons. One of them, Amber, did it to get meds for her mother and isn’t cut out for this lifestyle. So the other two are coming to Eugene on their own to give Amber a way out through a pill or a shot or something. It’s something that puts him in a bad position to be sure but the women are definitely coming across as honest about it and you can see how Amber would want to pursue this path. It’s interesting to watch unfold but at the same time it feels like there’s no way Eugene would be this unwatched by someone there that he gets away with far too much.
In Summary:
The Walking Dead has a slow episode that doesn’t feel like it achieves too much but provides for some moments that I quite enjoyed. Dwight’s storyline is one that works better than I expected as he’s pretty well humanized at this point and what went on with Sherry is something that you can understand well with how she’s left and moved on knowing she’s responsible for him having to do so many bad things. Eugene’s story has its moments but the pacing is what kills a lot of it because it’s just like so much of the other Negan material where the threat and intensity is drawn out too far, reducing its effectiveness while also adding some repetitiveness as well.
Grade: B-
