The Walking Dead S8E14: Still Gotta Mean Something
As The Walking Dead gets into the home stretch of season 8, Rick turns a bit of a corner in the plotline for the season theme of wrath vs mercy. But not before he goes way off the deep end. Elsewhere, Negan is getting a taste of his own medicine as he learns a bit about mercy, and Morgan appears to be all but a lost cause. He continues to be haunted by his failure to protect Henry from the choice of killing, and now the thought that Henry may be dead is driving Morgan to a vengeful bloodlust of the likes we have never seen from him.
Prior to this episode Morgan was seeing Gavin, whom Henry killed, saying things for which Morgan’s conscience was convicting him. Now he’s seeing Henry, so naturally he assumes that Henry is also dead. Although Carol tries to console him, or at least protect him along the way in the wilderness. This was a nice symbolic choice to have Morgan traveling in the wild (the untamed), searching for Henry (unknown if he’s still alive), eventually stuck in his own solace and the torment of his visions. Say what you will about Morgan’s mental instability and whether having a character go through the psychological roller coaster he has been on is a good idea, the execution of his hills and valleys has usually been very good.
Carol was given some screen time this episode as she begins to confide in Ezekiel again, and we’re reminded of their chemistry. But the bulk of the scenes were taken by Rick and Negan dealing with their respective foes. Rick, with Morgan by his side, tracks down the group of Saviors that escaped from Hilltop, but he was caught off guard and knocked out. Before this Rick basically swore to kill them all. Now, chained up and at their mercy, he offers a path to restore them to Hilltop, and some of them consider it. This was an interesting moment in the scene. I did wonder if Rick was being genuine. We’ve seen this so often from him. When in a position of weakness he’s either fully defiant or fully peaceful. Either way is usually sincere. As we see in the rest of this scene, Rick was anything but sincere about the offer to reconcile. The moment he has the opportunity, he and Morgan begin to kill the saviors as they all deal with a herd of walkers. After Morgan chases down the final savior and ruthlessly allows him to be torn to pieces by the herd, he and Rick have words. Rick presses Morgan to explain why he saved him at the beginning of it all..
Rick: “Why’d you save me? You had your son there.”
Morgan: “Because… my son was there.”
Those four words capture so much of what Morgan has dealt with, but they also ring true for what Rick is experiencing. Had Carl been around, there’s no way Rick goes back on his word and kills the saviors as he did. There’s no way he ignores Carl’s plea for peace between Rick and Negan as he has. If his son was there, Rick would have been the man he knows he should try to be. This speaks volumes for how the presence of hope (embodied in children, in this case) can influence our behavior for the better. As Christians, we should have hope in abundance. In fact, the hope in us is the very thing we should be describing to others with meekness and gentleness. (1 Pet. 3:15). It is a hope that should influence, nay, drive our behavior to mirror that of Christ and be an example for him to the world. Rick’s inability to maintain peace, and spiraling into bloodthirsty wrath is due to a lack of hope in his life now. To close this episode, he sits down to finally read Carl’s letter to him. Let’s hope Carl’s final words can spark the hope Rick needs to lead his community into the future rather than plunge them further into war.
It was teased last week that Jadis had Negan tied up and at her mercy, and we got to see that play out this episode. She rolled him along like her own toy most of the time. Consider the scenario in reverse, knowing Negan’s rule about killing one as a warning to others. Jadis showed amazing restraint and mercy to Negan by allowing him to live. During their interaction there came a moment when Jadis appeared to be wanting to signal a helicopter nearby, but was unable. I really can’t decide if I like this move or not, from a showrunning perspective. We have Jadis now all alone, but also with the knowledge of another group, or another part of her group, that has access to a helicopter. Does this mean we’ll be introduced to another group? Does Jadis have more power than originally thought? With a cast that is already bloated and a plotline that seems to meander all over the place, I’m not sure I’m on board with a move to potentially introduce more people before we conclude with this war.
My Rating: B-
This episode wasn’t too bad. The line from Morgan about his son being there as the reason he helped is full of discussion points regarding behavior, influence, acting for others, etc. I wasn’t a big fan of the interaction between Jadis and Negan. Too much carelessness from Jadis to allow him to gain an upper hand despite being tied up, and too much uncertainty about where this helicopter is going to go. I am however hopeful that the show will be able to portray a massive change in Rick satisfactorily. We shall see.
