Acheron, Part 1, Bad Blood

AMC touted tonight’s premiere The walking dead like “The beginning of the end”. Technically, it’s true… but that’s it. It’s not a bad episode of TWD, just a very middle of the road. After 10 seasons of turning wildly on this metaphoric, highway full of zombies, it’s okay with me.

Nothing really starts in “Acheron, Part 1”. It’s really across the bridge that the previous six episodes, shot during quarantine– linked to the pre-pandemic episodes of season 10. As such, the community of Alexandria is still reeling from the devastation caused by the Whisperers, while Eugene, Kumiko, Ezekiel and Princess arrive at the Commonwealth, escorted by his fake Stormtroopers. These are two totally separate scenarios, so let’s start with the Alexandrians.

Carol and Daryl, who seem to have reconciled completely after their disorder During the bonus episodes, lead what can only be called a heist to a military base. Loot: A large pile of MRE (Meals, Ready-to-Eat in army jargon), necessary because the Alexandrians have no food or crops after the Whisperer attack. The problem: the base is absolutely flooded with zombies soldiers. The nonsense: All zombies take a nap, so they all have to tiptoe across the base to prevent them from waking up. This is made infinitely – and surely unnecessary – weirder by the fact that they fall directly into the room where all the zombies are sleeping while recalling through a skylight, Impossible mission-style. (What was wrong with the front door …?) Watching everyone tiptoe around the zombies is ridiculous, but it’s kind of ridiculous and fun enough for that.

This is also true when the zombies are inevitably awake, not because of the noise they made, but rather because of a drop of blood falling on one of the zombie’s cheeks. I’m not sure exactly how it works, but the ground party thoroughly takes care of half the zombie horde without breaking a sweat before escaping, asking why they didn’t just take care of it. from the roof in the first place. Again, it’s silly, but it’s fun, and it’s something TWD rarely manages to be. Unfortunately, things take a turn when they return to Alexandria and find they only got enough rations for one week. When Maggie finds out that some of her former crew members have found their way to the colony, she comes up with a new quest: Head to her old encampment, Meridian, and grab all the food that is surely still there after being invaded. by the zombies and this seemingly nihilistic group of killers called the Reapers (whom we encountered inThe sweetness of the home“). Not many people think it’s a good idea, but most agree it’s the only way to feed everyone.

Maggie, Daryl, Gabriel, Negan and various members of the troop set out, only to be forced to take a Washington, DC subway line that Maggie insists they travel. Negan sees a high flood line in the tunnel, which means water could flow at any time given the weather upstairs, but since it’s Negan giving the warning, everyone world tells him to shut up. Negan also brings up the salient point that no one knows if the subway tunnel is even open; they could walk straight to a dead end. Negan gets the same answer.

Eventually, he’s tired of going through a potential death trap and pissing off and the palpable tension between him and Maggie, who has never forgiven him for killing her husband Glenn in the season seven premiere in 2016. It comes to a head when he confronts the woman who hates him, announcing to everyone that the only reason Maggie took him was in the hopes that he gets killed along the way, or that she would have a chance to kill him herself out of “Alexandria’s prying eyes”. Maggie, pointing a gun to her head, says she’s barely enough of the woman who existed before Glenn’s death to keep from pulling the trigger as much as she wants.

It’s a tense scene, and it’s pretty good, but it doesn’t tell us anything new about either character. Maggie still hates Negan’s hell, which we’ve known from the minute she joined the show. Really, the scene mainly exists to set up the very end of the episode, where the group has to get into a subway car to escape a horde of zombies. Negan’s penultimate, Maggie’s last, but she is caught by a walker and cannot get up. Negan looks at her over the edge as she struggles, then turns and walks away. Apparently. Guess it’s just a cheap cliffhanger, wanting to make us think Negan ditched Maggie, only for next week’s episode to start with him getting a rope or a weapon, something to save her. . It would certainly suit his character arc over the last few seasons to make the rescue despite his hatred for him. But it’s The walking dead, so we can never rule out the possibility that characters who seem to have a moral compass could again at any time become misanthropic and sociopathic murderers again. (Looking at you, Gabriel.) Either way, it’s going to be boring.

Fortunately, the YEEP team (that’s Yumiko, Eugene, Ezekiel and Princess — sorry, constantly writing the four names is a drag) has a more enjoyable absurd adventure once they arrive in the Commonwealth. Remember how elated I was when one of the Commonwealth soldiers said that YEEP’s capture meant he would have to do paperwork? Man, that was just the tip of the bureaucratic iceberg. Each of our heroes is “audited” by two people in business suits, completely monotonous and emotionless, who ask them a series of exponentially bizarre questions, apparently so that they can gain access to the Commonwealth itself. Those who fail are subjected to generically dystopian “retreatment”.

What’s great about this scene is that the quartet is, rightly so, dizzy when asked which college they went to. As Yumiko asks, how could this matter? It’s the zombie apocalypse, the college doesn’t even exist anymore. But the scene escalates wonderfully with increasingly weird, unnecessary, but vaguely threatening questions, like: What zip codes did you live in? How many intestines movements do you do per day? What do you use to wipe? It seems they are asking for this nonsense to confuse them, Voight-Kampff-style, so they will answer the question which Actually questions: where is your payment?

Nobody’s answering. When they are returned to their cell, Yumiko, Ezekiel, and Princess are ready to leave, but Eugene asks them to stay, to give the Commonwealth a chance, to trust his relationship with Stephanie (who spoke about the site to Eug at the radio). This is when they ask a couple imprisoned nearby how long they have been “evaluated” and the answer is between four and nine months. Then YEEP sees someone dragged out of their cell screaming because he’s about to be “retired”. Even Eugene knows that they tastes go to this point. Fortunately, it turns out the princess is Sherlock Holmes.

I’m not flippant here, ITurns out she has an incredibly attentive and deductive mind. She discovers that two of the guards are sleeping together due to their virtually nonexistent body language and how they time their breaks. Yumiko, Eugene and Ezekiel are stunned and take the opportunity to grab the two Lovers’ Commonwealth Trooper uniforms off-screen and use them as a disguise to escort the other two “prisoners” out of the detention area. This brings them right in front of a wall of photographs – people loved by someone in the Commonwealth, hoping that family or friends they lost during the zombie apocalypse might unexpectedly make their way to them. . That’s when Yumiko suddenly sees a photo of her, along with a note from her sister Tomi. And Yumiko realizes that she can’t leave.

This is by far the most interesting development in “Acheron, Part I” and at the end of the day, tonight’s episode was a bit of a disappointment for a first season, especially for the show’s final season. However, “Part II” is coming next week, so it seems fair to reserve my judgment until then. Assuming we can finally see the real Commonwealth and / or the remnants of Maggie’s former colony, Meridian, there could be some major developments ahead that will kick off Season 11 in earnest. However, if it were just those costumes that ask people about their bodily functions over and over again, I would be okay with that as well.

Matching dreams:

• Make zombies nap? Historically in the series, we’ve seen zombies on the ground stand still until something catches their eye. But most people, when they die and transform, get up to get something to eat, which continues until they are withdrawn or collapsed. So shouldn’t the soldiers have done the same? Looks really like they all tuckered outside and lay down.
• Some good graffiti in the metro tunnel, my favorite being: “If there is a god, he will have to beg my forgiveness.” A quick online search indicates that people are convinced that a Jewish prisoner carved this into his concentration camp wall during WWII, but I cannot find any reliable evidence. i hope this is not true because knowingly comparing a fake zombie apocalypse to a very real atrocity makes me uncomfortable.
• There is a scene where we slowly watch Ezekiel drink a full glass of water after a coughing fit. It’s a bit long.
• Yeah, Commonwealth Trooper is going to be “Commontrooper” from now on. And I will never excuse me for my awkward suitcases.

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