It’s taken eight years for AMC to reach the 100th episode of The Walking Dead, and I can’t help but feel a bit let down. Don’t get me wrong, it was an okay episode, much better than some that have aired in the past (cough Season 2, Episode 4 cough), though it didn’t stop me from being peeved by those dumb moments that just didn’t make any sense. I hope you can bear with me here while I rant about some of the parts that just annoyed me.
When Did They Suddenly Become Ninjas?
Okay, this was sort of a minor issue, but it still got on my nerves. In the beginning, we see Rick, Morgan, and the others stealthily take out the Savior scouts along the road. Now, I don’t have personal experience sneaking up on someone and stabbing a giant sharp stick into their back or anything, but I feel that it’s not as easy as they showed it. The scouts seemed like oblivious NPCs from like Fallout 3 or Skyrim the way they were so easily taken out; it was a little ridiculous. Throughout the series, I always had a major gripe with how silent and ninja-like the zombies are when they’re constantly sneaking up on people (I mean, really, they’re loud walking corpses 😕).
How Fast Are Those Zombies Anyway?
Their whole plan throughout the episode was to attract hordes of zombies to Negan’s base, overrun it, and basically render it defenseless. We can see Daryl, Carol and the Twizzler girl (Tara) setting off a bunch of explosions to get the horde trudging in the direction of Negan’s base. Now, it’s a pretty good plan in theory, however when you mix in a bit of The Walking Dead “reality” there is one flaw with it: zombies are freaking slow. Seriously this isn’t World War Z. It would have taken them weeks to get as far as they did. I understand there was a time jump, so maybe they’ve been attracting those zombies for a long time to prepare for the moment they carry out their attack. Yet I still feel like that wouldn’t make sense, I don’t think Rick and the rest of the gang would have spent weeks gathering all these zombies and consistently keep on attracting them until they were close enough to reach Negan. I guess I don’t completely comprehend how these walking flesh bags work in the show.
Aren’t Bullets Scarce as Hell?
There are too many scenes in this episode where they just unload a crap ton of bullets for no reason. There is the scene where Carol and her cronies sneak up (again sneaked) on some Savior by his car, then proceed to unload on the one guy when he hides behind his car. Then, when they have their little showdown with Negan (I’ll get to that later, trust me), when Rick decides to start shooting, everyone begins firing. They go crazy shooting at these windows in Negan’s base and it was completely baffling. I was thinking to myself, “What the hell are they shooting at?” and “Are the Saviors shooting back at them?” Please help me understand, because in such a dangerous setting where supplies are so low and rare to find, wouldn’t bullets be the first thing you would want to conserve? They must have gotten their hands-on Herschel’s infinite ammo cheat.
WHY DIDN’T RICK JUST SHOOT NEGAN!!!???
Seriously! The guy was right there the whole time throughout his freaking monologue and all Rick had to was a line up a shot then BAM, problem solved! Rick could have also hidden a marksman in trees or bushes to get a clear shot at Negan and then put a bullet in the dude’s skull. Now, I know that it would’ve been anti-climactic to just kill the archenemy in the very first episode of the season, fans would’ve been pissed off by that and I can understand why. Though this whole scene with them having their little stare down was just so ridiculous. I was just watching that scene carry out the whole time and yelling at the screen, “Do it! Do it, Rick! He’s right there! Just do it already!” I felt like I was channeling Shia LaBeouf. But alas it didn’t happen, and we now have to wait another 18 episodes of The Walking Dead for that to hopefully happen because Rick couldn’t stop to think how easily he could have taken him out.
I know it’s the first episode of the season and hopefully it picks up a little momentum. It’s just that this premiere was filled with a lot of annoying irritating parts that made it kinda hard to enjoy. However, I will say though that I enjoyed the future/dream moments of old man Rick. I thought they were well done and I’m excited on what they will plan to do with that plotline next. It’s just because of those other head-scratching moments that I don’t list this as a top episode in The Walking Dead series.
