New Best Friends

So any episode now Negan (or Daryl)(or Rick) is going to be on a motorcycle and be forced to jump through flames to get to the other side of a pool filled with zombies. That was what I was expecting for the supplies on the houseboat lake scene but I was left sorely disappointed. While the show has definitely "jumped the shark" there are still some great story lines coming out of the franchise.

In addition, was I the ONLY PERSON in the world to recognize the trailer in the background of the Richard/Daryl scene where they fight about setting Carol up to take the heat as the original "Smokey and the Bandit" trailer? Great nod to the past while a sad testament to how Hollywood props are wasting away. I hope they knew that was what they were doing and it was not just a handy trailer in the back lots.

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"

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

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.

It has often amazed me, how people behind great shows, brilliant shows, at times make the most abhorrently stupid choices concerning their storytelling. The Walking Dead has been a stellar show, top of the shelf television from day one, and along come The Scavengers.

I can forgive the idea, in its infancy, but how a group of such talented directors, writers, producers and actors ALL decided that THIS was the way to go, is absolutely beyond me!

I learned today that The Scavengers are a group unique to the show, as in not from the comics, and it makes me wonder if the comics are really all that, and the people behind the show are just amateurs the lot. If you don't know by now specifically what grinds my gears about this new addition to the show, then you haven't noticed, and I'm happy for you. But picture this:

A meeting, of the show-runners, they need a new group to spice up the show, and they've used up the source material. An idea is pitched; Garbage people. Fine, I'm in. Another idea is pitched, then another, and then, somewhere in the room, some moron opens their mouth "hey, how about if they, like, talked weird, you know, because, like, post apocalyptic stuff?".

Like I said, I can forgive a bad pitch. But this insane idea; that adults, who lived their whole lives speaking normally, would digress into this ineffective, unproductive and downright moronic way of communicating, just by living in a dump surrounded by zombies for a couple of years, made it all the way to the screen. Nobody second guessed it, everyone signed off on it, that is what absolutely blows my mind. Back to the meeting: "It's totally plausible that people living isolated for years will start to speak differently, maybe they just skip a word here and there, it'll make them edgy, exciting". Yes, except it's not plausible, at all, it's not edgy, it's just downright idiotic. It's the sort of idea that works in a Hunger Games novel, in a Riverdale episode maybe. How does the same episode have such a brilliant, mature scene between Darryl and Carrol? Perhaps because the The Walking Dead, zombies aside, is a mature show, for mature people, a show that takes the world it exists in seriously, that takes human nature seriously and, most importantly, takes its viewers seriously.

An otherwise great episode gets a 1/10 from me, just for dragging the show down in the mud with the other mediocre, pandering, teenage melodrama fare that's circulating the streaming services these days, and for a script that should have gone down in flames long before reaching production. Go ahead, Jadis, show Rick the up up up, and then just kill me already..