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Man, the coolest weapons are almost always the most cumbersome!
A morning star would be the absolute last thing I’d grab to kill zombies, and yet Daryl looked so damn awesome wielding one here.
But he’s the king of making awkward weaponry seem badass, right? Daryl and only Daryl can get away with bringing a spiked ball and chain to the front lines of a huge war. Especially when one is fighting a herd of zombies that also contains real people hiding out as zombies – who can grab the chain and yank the weapon away.
“Morning Star” was pretty damn good. This back half of Season 10 is ramping up quite nicely. Hell, if we’re lucky, we’ll get through this Whisperer war before the season finale. It’d be nice to break the usual format and it would ditch a ton of the usual padding that goes into adapting these comic arcs into the show. Look, because of Beta’s ambush last week, Hilltop, as of this episode, has just about every single character we still care about in one place. The gang’s pretty much all together, save for Gabriel, Connie, and Michonne.
And if you care about Magna, well…it’s nice to like things.
Daryl, Carol, and the All-Stars
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Daryl rolled into Hilltop. Ezekiel went out and found Carol and brought her back. Rosita showed up with Gamma/Mary. Judith’s already there. We’re no longer splitting up the favorites between two communities. Plus, Alpha’s launching her big attack with her precious, powerful herd – and Negan’s with her, working his smarm and charm. Just about everything that’s still important on the show is about to collide. If the “war” drags on past this, and next week’s, episode, we’re in trouble.
Granted, most of this episode involved characters bonding, conversing, speaking their truths, and saying maybe-goodbyes to one another after discovering that Alpha had blocked all the roads out of Hilltop. But it still gave us a few minutes of cool violence at the end when it featured the beginning parts of the huge battle (that’s not dissimilar to the odds Winterfell faced when the Night King and his army came calling). It left us hanging, as our heroes got trapped in a fire circle while they themselves were covered in a flammable – er – sap? – but it all felt very vital and brutal. Most importantly, it felt like big names could die.
Of course, in that regard, Ezekiel is the top candidate to get smoked right now. Not only is he already dying, but he made the grave TV/movie sin of having sex before the big push. Yup, I’d be very shocked if he made it out of this. And if not for the sex, then definitely because of the spare words of respect he had with Daryl and their pact to protect the kids. There’s a good chance Ezekiel’s going down saving the children.
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Eugene might get taken out too, even though he finally moved past his love for Rosita and is now focused on the relationship he’s building with Stephanie over the radio. Odds are good that he makes it out alive so he can meet her in spot she told him to be at in a week, though they could also have Rosita sadly show up in his place. That being said, whatever fate has in store, his scenes with Rosita this week were very good. As mentioned last week, the three relationships that still matter on the series are Carol/Daryl, Rosita/Eugene, and Negan/Judith. Naturally, Judith and Michonne’s bond matters, but they’ll probably never see one another again. And then, after these, Daryl’s budding romance with Connie and “surrogate something” relation to Lydia are pretty cool.
Wild Card Negan
Negan might be the true tipping point here. He and Alpha are about to unleash hell on a community that he doesn’t know has Judith inside.
Yet.
And even without knowing about Judith, he’s still trying to convince Alpha to spare everyone by getting them to surrender. He’s already not fully on board with the Whisperer agenda. So I imagine once he sees Judith, it’s all over for Alpha and her ghouls. That will be the moment when he rolls back the tide somehow and turns on his hosts. The silver-tongued man who’s always just doing what he can to stay alive will break his hard-wired habit and protect her.
The only way this doesn’t end next week is if…everyone surrenders. If Alpha takes Negan’s advice and gets Daryl to bend the knee. And the only way that happens is if the kids are in danger. Yes, everything feels like it’s about to come to a head, but never doubt The Walking Dead’s penchant for dragging a storyline out.