New Best Friends

I think it is fair to say most of us have been getting more and more bored by The Walking Dead for a while now. The amount of story covered in one five episodes could easily have been done in one. The Walking Dead is becoming a soap, like Eastenders, but with a zombie here and there. One time especially in this episode where I thought "Oh come on, man" was the pathetic green screen when Rick reached the top of the dump mound. Sure, special effects are not what a show should be judged by, but the thing is, they didn't even try. It was literally effortless and it looked terrible. AMC is stretching the show as much as they can simply with profit in mind. It is no longer a drama in my opinion. The camera work is lazy and rushed, the acting and scenarios are becoming more and more tedious and repetitive, the characters are becoming irritating, and in general AMC needs to get their act together. It is no longer the drama I found myself very impressed by in the first couple of seasons. I sincerely hope they are going to improve things at some point soon in the future.

While seeking Father Gabriel out, Rick and his group stumble upon the dangerous gang of Jadis. They have a hard time but Rick succeeds to have their support fighting the Saviors, provide they give weapons and supplies to them. Meanwhile Richard discloses to Daryl his plan to force King Ezekiel to team up with the Alexandrians and the Hilltop to fight the Saviors, But Daryl does not agree. Then he meets Carol at her house.

After "Rock in the Road", "New Best Friends" is a deceptive episode of "The Walking Dead". This weird new gang led by Jadis seems to be dangerous without having weapons. But Rick seems to be interested in associate with them and they might be a serious problem in the future. Carol has become an inconsistent character and it is hard to understand why people from The Kingdom are so concerned to help her. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "New Best Friends"

phew!! finally a decent episode, am starting to regain my faith in this show, BTW this is my first review in here, i just finished watching "New Best Friends" and let me you this is by far the best episode I've seen in seasons, after the boring seventh season i could sleep in peace knowing that there is still hope for this show, this is just my type of an episode, an episode where a lot of things happened and at the same time nothing happened!mixed with new hope, Reunion, and some action.

i can't wait for the upcoming episodes, good stuff!!!

I've never written a review and English isn't my mother tongue but i have to bust some steam off. When I watched this episode I suddenly realized something. On German television we have a channel called Tele5 which often shows really cheap looking post-apocalyptic-action movies. And in this episode of TWD when Rick was standing on that little hill made of trash in front of an unbelievable shitty looking green-screen-wannabe wrecking yard with that stupid wrecking yard tribe cast around him I thought for a moment: this is just like Tele5 goddammit. The bad dialogues, the poorly directed action scenes, the story which is going nowhere over the last seasons...it's all fkn Tele5...and it made me sad.

After being very pleasantly surprised by the previous episode "Rock in the Road", which restored some hope that was very much needed and too overdue, part of me was really hoping that what was good in that episode would carry over here in "New Best Friends", that it would mean that Season 7 was continuing to finally go somewhere. The last thing wanted was that episode being a fluke and that the quality would slip back down again.

Sadly that is something that in my view "New Best Friends" does. It is definitely not one of the worst episodes of Season 7 or of 'The Walking Dead' overall (both before and especially since), neither is it one of the best on both counts. As far as the previous Season 7 episodes go, it doesn't feel like filler like "Swear" did, doesn't have Negan over-dominating in a caricaturish manner like "Service" had, doesn't do as bad a job at doing not enough with a lot of content over an extended running time and ending up over-stretching it like "Sing Me a Song" did, but the problems "New Best Friends" has is closest to some of the ones seen in "Sing Me a Song" and "Go Getters".

"New Best Friends" does have things that it does well. Most of it is made well, with a good deal of atmosphere and the grit and claustrophobia was effective without being too gimmicky. The music is haunting and not overbearing. Much of the acting is very good, especially from Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride.

While a lot more could have been done with the content, "New Best Friends" at least didn't feel too much like a filler episode. Carrying on from the events from before, it continues to move the pieces around (something that only started to happen in "Sing Me a Song") that took too long to be laid out and did leave me intrigued for what was to come. Actually found the Daryl and Carol subplot more interesting than the main one, admittedly it is soapy at times but it is also very moving and really liked the chemistry between Daryl and Carol and the former's sympathetic side. The ending was fun.

However, somehow tonally "New Best Friends" felt on the muddled side. Did appreciate that it was continuing to move away from the dark, uncompromising brutality seen in much of the season's first half, but everything with the group and other group of survivors could have done with a lot more tension and tautness. It also goes too overboard on the absurdity and on the wrong side of bizarre, with too many forced contrivances. The writing is not long winded, but can feel forced and could have been tighter.

Most of the time the production values were fine, but the junkyard setting is incredibly cheap looking with over-obvious and amateurish use of green screen, and some of the editing later on seemed a little rushed. The Jadis group have only been introduced but much of me cannot make up my mind of whether they are intriguing or if they are too annoying or weird here, to me they lean towards the latter from the look of them for example. While most of the acting was good, Jadis does not have much distinction here, too calm to the point of blandness and with not much of the cunning and sly side she'd have in later episodes, and Pollyanna McIntosh doesn't look comfortable yet.

In conclusion, not an easy episode to rate and review. 5/10