The Walking Dead S7E11: Hostiles and Calamities

And the Oscar for most pathetic looking scared-face on a television drama goes to… Josh McDermitt, as Eugene! While the Oscars struggled to hand Warren Beatty the correct envelope, The Walking Dead trotted through an episode built around the minutiae of Eugene being recruited to the Saviors, and Dwight facing the repercussions of Daryl’s escape. It was another episode focused primarily on a couple of characters, as was common in the first half of the season, so your opinion of this episode likely rests on your opinion of Eugene and Dwight.

I really don’t have much in the way of analysis of this episode. It basically wore everything on its sleeve and didn’t engage in much subtlety like, for example, last weeks episode was able to do. Despite my joke about Eugene’s scared face, my guess is he went a long way in winning people over to him on this episode. He got to revise his role as uber-genius and he did so quite convincingly. And to be honest I think I am a fan of bossy Eugene. He is testing the waters a good bit with this group and really feeling his way through the situation. But, the character himself is just doing what he’s done before; fooling people to believe he’s smarter than he is, or that he’s more important than he is. So in many ways this is nothing new. The refreshing part is that now his mind games appear to be serving an actual purpose. So that gets us to the next question; what does this mean for his loyalties?

The episode closes with Eugene passing the test and saying “I am Negan”. But he goes beyond that. He basically expresses his love and feelings of destiny fulfilled in finally meeting Negan. He’s given a position of authority and immediately begins overseeing projects. And in the one moment when we might get a hint of him feigning loyalty to the Saviors, he says the same thing to Dwight; we are Negan. Is Eugene fully a Savior, or is he going for the long con? Time will tell, but my money is on positioning himself to give Rick a mole on the inside.

Dwight’s work on this episode focused on a lot of reflection, thought, and planning. I think Dwight was in a total of 5 scenes, and if I recall correctly he didn’t speak a word in two of them. Long stares, silent outbursts of anger, and nuanced facial expressions took up most of his screen time. All the evidence was there to indicate he had a lot on his mind. This came to a head when, at a gathering of the community, Negan abruptly threw the doctor into the fire because of a note he found in his possession. A note that Dwight planted on him to lead Negan to believe that he was working with Sherry to free Daryl. In this specific scene, Dwight is amazingly quiet. Eerily quiet, in fact. He planted evidence on a medical doctor which resulted in his burning alive… and he never bat an eye. Negan went off, but Dwight stood silently by. It reminded me of a Proverb, “A fool always loses his temper, but a wise man holds it back.” (Prov. 29:11). We can always count on Negan to go a little berserk, bash someone’s skull in, toss someone in a fire, etc. but Dwight just used Negan’s temper to secure his own safety, and he held it all in. He’s a scheming force that is rising up right under Negan’s nose.

My Rating: C+

I really thought this episode got bogged down in the minutiae of exactly how Eugene and Dwight got to that final scene on the walkway. Chemistry details with Eugene, playing against two sides with Dwight. I like it, but it was all very spelled out and showy. I do however look forward to the (eventual?) conversation between Dwight and Eugene about betraying Negan. I anticipate a lot of hilarious awkwardness from Eugene. 🙂