The Walking Dead has once again been scary in its excellent mid-season finale

The first half of the Walking DeadThe ninth season was pretty good, something no one could have predicted after the terrible haemorrhaging of the series in recent years. Thankfully, the mid-season finale has continued its momentum by including some shockers, an excellent cliffhanger and only a few cases where you want to hit someone through your screen. But most importantly, for the first time in the country, I do not know how long The dead who walk – in the right direction.

"Evolution" dedicates some of its time to telling some of the stories that began after the rampage of time, but it was mainly about setting up the new big series of the series, which it does very effectively. We will get there in a moment, but let's leave the other things aside. First and foremost, Michonne and Siddiq finally brought the new guys to Hilltop. In doing so, we really see how things went wrong between the settlements. When Michonne and the others approach, a rider perched on a hill crosses the fields shouting: "The riders are coming!" To the workers working in the fields, who run in fear. It is very revealing to fear people who approach even when before, people were constantly passing between communities.

It also says that when Michonne enters, almost all Hilltop hates her. Michonne's call said, "I did not make the choices I made because I thought they would be easy. At least they have [the Hilltoppers] are alive to hate me. Certainly, when Michonne arrives, Tara is not at all happy to see her. However, Tara says that new guys can stay … as long as they make a living and wait for Jesus' approval once he has found Eugene. And Carol and Michonne have a friendly conversation, hinting that Alexandria's relations with the Kingdom have not failed as much as they have with Hilltop, though Michonne still refuses to attend the Kingdom Fair. Shortly after, Carol leaves Henry to Earl's apprentice.

Back in Alexandria, it turns out that Gabriel and Negan have developed a relationship, since Gabe plays therapist once a week with the prisoner for years. It was a bit odd to see Gabriel apparently trying to teach Negan consciousness, but it was nice to see Negan being rather cold and awesome … for Negan. Of course, he must be a little crazy by suggesting to Gabe that he heard Rosita speak favorably of another man, but when Gabriel discovers that Rosita was injured and is stuck in an unknown state at Hilltop, Negan sincerely apologizes.

Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) questions about the science of smells.

I do not really understand why Gabriel was prevented from going to Hilltop because he had to stay with Negan; there is no reason or reason why he has been under surveillance 24 hours a day for 5 or 6 years. In fact, it would have been better for Gabriel to go, because in his distraction about Rosita, he does not close the cell door of the prison, and that night, Negan comes out with a smirk. We do not see him going anywhere or doing anything right now, but hey, Gabriel's prison reform program may have had an effect. Be that as it may, all the old Saviors seem to be scattered in the wind, so it is not presumed that he will raise an army and lead a revolt so soon.

However, if he does, I hope that the first to die are the teenagers with whom Henry hangs out, who are among the most stupid characters. The dead who walk has never been screened and that says something. Finally alone, troubled by seeing his mother / Carol, the tough guy, crying when she says goodbye and discovering immediately that Enid is not a potential love for him, Henry meets some friendly teenagers who persuade them to go out with them that night. at a place on the outside the wall. Obviously, in a world where traveling corpses roam the earth in the hope of eating flesh, it's an extremely stupid idea, but I do not blame Henry, facing the loneliness of leaving his home and his family, to take a chance on these guys. Also because he does not know what idiots they are still.

It is a miracle that these children are alive. I mean, going beyond the wall is dangerous, but then they play music (I guess they have a boombox) whose noise would of course attract zombies, and they get drunk in the moonlight just to make sure that they are mentally and physically impaired if a zombie arrives. Henry is pressuring his peers to drink, but at least he is really dismayed when the kids have revealed their coup de grâce: digging a big hole, trapping a zombie and using it as a ring. It's a living corpse that can kill you with one bite. One of the children even pisses on it.

Joe Ando-Hirsch as Rodney, Kelly Mack as Addy and Jackson Pace as Gage.

Obviously, Henry made some bad decisions here, but he threw down the kid who's pissing because he's a bastard, then he jumped to kill the zombie immediately because even drunk he knows that keeping a zombie is the most stupid and needlessly dangerous thing in the world. the world was quite satisfying. Henry finds himself in Hilltop Prison for two days because he went home drunk (he even threw up on Tara's shoes); Earl tells him his grief and tells him that the apprenticeship is over, but I guess it's a rather scary stratagem, because even, as Earl notes, he's already been in that cell. Yet this scenario is annoying.

Fortunately, the main story of the episode – Daryl, Jesus and Aaron in search of Eugene – is so good that it is easy to ignore this stupidity. The malaise grows up wonderfully, as Jesus sees for the first time a crowd of zombies doing something he's never seen before: they're just mulling over, instead of walking somewhere in the hope of finding that tasty and tasty human flesh. They are not worried when they notice that the flock has started to move in their direction, since they can simply stray from their path. They are more disturbed when they realize that the zombies have somehow changed direction to follow them again – and double their numbers – but Daryl simply launches an alarm clock as a timed sound grenade to make sure that the flock goes elsewhere.

Finally, they find Eugene hidden in a small cabin. But he is terrified – much more terrified by the zombies than we have seen for a very long time – because not only did the flock actively search for him, they were arguing. Obviously, there is a bit of skepticism … but then this same group of zombies is right in front, after following Daryl, Jesus and Aaron. Since Eugene's leg is still broken, the group can not stand out enough from the zombies to get out, so Daryl stays behind to eliminate them.

At this point, although we know that zombies are acting abnormally, the only weird thing we saw was to see them reverberate. So it's a great shock that Daryl uses firecrackers to get their attention and the zombie flock ignores him. In fact, they turn away from the firecrackers to continue pursuing Jesus, Aaron and Eugene. Watching the zombies stop moving in one direction and do it in another direction is not really an impressive visual, but Norman Reedus's "oh, shit" look makes it work.

The zombies get so close that the trio is desperately heading towards a graveyard through a crack in its wall, so that only a few zombies can enter at once. when they discover that the door is locked, and prepare to take a stand. The few zombies that approach them are easy to handle, but the graveyard, the fog and the thunder threatening maintain tension, even when Michonne, Magna and Yumiko arrive by chance to help open the door, while that Jesus keeps the zombies at bay.

The minute the slow-motion begins, you know that Jesus is finished. Honestly, I think this is the biggest problem in the screenplay, because he telegraphs his death so completely, although it's great to show Tom Payne's martial art talents. Fortunately, the speed increases for one of the most frightening moments the show gave us: the door is open, Eugene is out and Aaron shouts that Jesus is coming. With only two zombies between him and the others, Jesus slices one, then tries to eliminate the other. But the other zombie hides and places a knife in the back of Jesus.

Jesus (Tom Payne) in less condemned times.

Seeing one of the series' zombies, who have been stupid monsters for nine and a half years, shows that a lot of speed and cunning were for me a "shit" moment and I even knew what was coming. See the others with horrified shock: everything they thought they knew about their world had suddenly changed, the omnipresent threat of zombies had, in just a few seconds, grown exponentially, perfectly. The fact that the dead have been less of a danger than the living during most of the past five seasons has had such an impact, and the fact that The dead who walk The fact that the metamorphosis into a television action series almost at the same time makes the fear much more frightening. Even the revelation that the zombies have not really evolved, but that they are rather living people who wear the skin of zombies and who hang around with them like crazy, it does not diminish the present moment.

I would say it's so creepy that it makes the cliffhanger of the show, which should be pretty basic (the main characters are trapped in the graveyard, surrounded by zombies, which is unusual), more effective because they are now surrounded by zombies and completely mad. It was certainly effective in preventing me from noticing how artificial it was that Michonne came in exactly the right place, at the right time – and that Michonne had never realized that Magna and Yumiko were about 30 seconds behind her – after the episode ended. As I said before, the intrigue holes do not bother me as long as I'm entertained enough not to notice them at the moment.

It helps so much that the series has found convincing antagonists. Whisperers (as they are called in comics) are at the top Walking Dead nonsense – of course, what would happen after an apocalypse of zombies is that a community would form bound by their common love of sewing faces of corpses and wandering among the zombies – but, the man needed this ridiculous for a long time. The fact that the Whisperers felt like a truly new type of antagonist, at least for the moment, has been of invaluable help. Right now, they feel like the bad guys in a slasher movie – incomprehensible, irrational, motivated only by the desire to kill. I almost hate the fact that we will almost certainly get to know them and make them forget their mystery.

Of course, the episode was not perfect, but really, can The dead who walk never be? We have always had some very good episodes, even in the most difficult seasons, but the series has also experienced problems even under the best conditions. I may have been under Stockholm syndrome for a few years, but this first half of season 9 is just as successful as it needed The dead who walk be. All I need is to enjoy the show, that the intrigues continue to progress, that the mysteries are intriguing and that the main characters are not malicious idiots. (Or at least more main characters; let's not go too far.)

I do not know if that will be enough for everyone, let alone attracting all the old viewers. But now, for the first time ever, I can say that I would continue to watch The dead who walk even if I did not do these summaries. And that's enough for the moment.

Aaron (Ross Marquand) displays his face "oh shit".

Assortment of reflections:

• I will not bother to check this, but I'm pretty sure it was the first Walking Dead final in a time that super-sized his time, which 99% of the time he did not need. The star of the show, Angela Kang, kept most episodes at a regular time or so, and that helped a lot, because there is less time to lose for the series.
• Magna is ready to fight against Hilltop in its entirety, just as she was ready to fight against all Alexandria. Madam, you are five people against 50 minimum. Chances are not in your favor.
• I liked the lighter look of Alden. The show should definitely change it so that it meets the aesthetic tastes of a person.
• It's interesting to see how super-intelligent Eugene can only theorize about the zombies' heightened intelligence, while Negan sheds light on the basic science about how odors are particles so technically.
• I have no idea that Whisperers are not only directing zombies, but preventing them from getting distracted, and I will definitely need an explanation. "Because they're hanging out with them" will not be a sufficient answer.
• After an enemy is defeated, a much more powerful enemy appears? I've seen enough of it Dragonball Z to find out how it's going to be with Negan.
• I understand that the death of Jesus is very sad for them, but it would be pretty hilarious to trap him in a cave, block it with a big rock, and then reopen it three days later.