He counts down from 10, but, sneaky man that he is, starts firing on "seven." We band of brothers
Rick gives Negan's lieutenants (including Eugene) an opportunity to defect and save their lives. He tries to convince the Hilltoppers to desert, but Jesus affirms what we all already knew: They're following Maggie's leadership now. There's a lot of back and forth, because Negan loves nothing more than the sound of his own voice, and he reveals that Gregory did indeed flee to the Saviors last season. The team kicks off the day's battle plan, and a regiment rolls up at the Savior compound to confront Negan. More: ‘The Walking Dead’ needs to kill Negan to survive We see flashes of the characters not intimately involved in the battle: Carl is feeling sympathetic to a stranger while scavenging for gas (he'll later return and leave the man food), Michonne and Rosita appear to be recovering from last season's injuries and baby Judith is now a small child, further muddying the series' notoriously ill-defined timeline. Crispin's Day best with speeches as the troops ready for battle with the Saviors. Rick, Maggie "they say you can wage war through the second trimester" Green and King Ezekiel do their St. We'll get to what Old Man Rick might mean later.īut the episode's first few scenes have the benefit of rallying both the citizens of Alexandria, the Kingdom and the Hilltop and the audience members that need to be persuaded back onto the show.
The walking dead season 8 episode 1 summary series#
The episode opens with flashes of what we are going to refer to as Old Man Rick from here on, which some fans may have noticed were also in the trailer the series debuted at Comic-Con this year. The new season (according to the trailers, the cast and filmmakers), is an "all-out war" between Rick and Negan, and it seems we're nowhere close to the conclusion of that war yet, even if Rick won a battle. The premiere was a promising start to the season, but it will be hard for the series to follow through with equally gripping and smart episodes going forward. (I'd argue that until Negan is dead and gone for good, The Walking Dead won't be truly great again.) It righted a few of the wrongs of Season 7, focusing on our heroes, allowing them agency and keeping them together. That Team Rick actually had numbers and good strategy on its side (Andrew Lincoln told USA TODAY it was "the first time in 100 episodes that Rick has come up with a really good plan") was only an added bonus. "Mercy" is nowhere near the best episode The Walking Dead has ever aired, but it's an effect season premiere that manages to add some energy into the aging series and at least partially hits the reset button. go to war with Negan's Saviors in the new season of AMC's 'The Walking Dead' If there's one thing we can glean from the explosive but cagey Season 8 premiere (and 100th episode) of AMC's zombie apocalypse series, it's that the show is actively trying to shrug off it's creative problems from last year and perhaps win back some viewers after a ratings decline. This is not last year's sad and slow Walking Dead. Spoiler alert! The following contains spoilers for The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 1, "Mercy." To read our recap of the Season 7 finale, click here.
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