Gilbert Speaks on The Walking Dead S10 E22

In this week’s season finale episode, Negan is banished from Alexandria and we get to learn about his past, and the saintly Lucille.

Here’s Negan

That smile can melt the hardest heart, or send shivers of fear down your spine depending on what mood Negan is in. Jeffery Dean Morgan was, and is the best choice to play Negan. Over the course of a few seasons, we have gone from hating this character to including him into the very selective membership of Team Rick.

After Carol tricks Negan onto a hunting excursion, she breaks the news to him. Stay at the cabin and don’t return to Alexandria because Maggie will kill him. We really can’t blame Maggie. She hasn’t been around to see the new and approved version of Negan…but has Negan really changed? What was he like before the apocalypse?

Lucille

What did Negan’s baseball bat have to do with his past? After Negan digs up Lucille, we get a trip down memory lane. Negan truly loved his wife, Lucille (Hilarie Burton Morgan), but he was a bastard even back then. In the flashbacks, we learn that Negan was cheating on his wife. He also was a gym teacher who lost his job because he almost beat a man to death after the man’s loud talking prevented Lucille from listening to her favorite song on the jukebox. Negan was full of himself even before the apocalypse, and after losing his job, he was content to spend all day playing video games and purchasing an expensive leather jacket even though they had no money. Negan was the type of man that after he won your heart…he broke it like a spoiled child breaks their toys when they are bored. We see this in the flashbacks, and we say, “Yep, this is the Negan we know.” But we are soon shown the other side of Negan.

 Negan may have strutted around like a rooster, but his Lucille was the force that kept him grounded. Negan may have been the king of the roost, but Lucille was the queen of the chessboard. The flashbacks take place twelve years before the walkers began their search for brains, and they show how Negan lovingly takes care of Lucille who is fighting an aggressive cancer. Negan taught himself to give Lucille chemo treatments. Lucille on her part tried to hide her pain by wearing all these colorful wigs. Even attached to the IV bottle, Lucille comes to Negan’s rescue when a walker attacks Negan. It was funny to see Negan dressed covid pandemic style. After Lucille shoots the walker, they are left with one bullet. That bullet belongs to Lucille for when the cancer gets too hard to handle.

Consequences

When the three remaining chemo treatments go bad because of the generator being turned off, Negan goes on the search for a traveling medical team that resemble a land bound Doctors without Borders. Lucille begs Negan to stay with her, and I think Lucille knows that the chemo is not working and that she will be dying soon, but Negan loves her and thinks that he can cure her. A severely dehydrated and starving Negan tries to rob the doctor, but Laura knocks him cold with a baseball bat, Yes, that bat and that Laura (Lindsley Register), who later becomes Negan’s trusted Lieutenants in the Saviors. Laura and the doctor get Negan back on his feet and send him home with bags of chemo solutions along with the bat for protection, but no good deed ever goes unpunished.

Conclusion

When Negan is captured by nasty bikers who are looking for drugs, he gives the location of the Med camper. Knowing that he has betrayed the very people who helped him, Negan goes home to find out that Lucille is now a walker. He should have stayed with her. She died alone. Lucille was the only person who saw the better side of Negan, and without her to keep him grounded…he becomes the Negan we all know. After burning down his house with walker Lucille inside, Negan dressed in his leather jacket takes his barbed wired bat to save the doctor and Laura.

**EMBARGOED FOR DALTON** Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan, Lindsley Register as Laura-The Walking Dead_Season 10, Episode 22-Photo Credit: Josh Stringer/AMC

Present day finds Negan giving Lucille the bat the proper funeral that he was unable to give his wife. Wrapped in a shroud of sorts, Lucille the bat is burned as Negan finds the closure he needed. Negan returns to Alexandria, but which Negan is it? He comes walking back with that old swagger, and even though Carol tells him that she will not be able to protect him from Maggie…Negan just smiles…

Which Negan has returned? Should Maggie be worried? Will Negan live up to Lucille’s expectations?  The Walking Dead just got a hell more interesting…AND IT’S ABOUT TIME!

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Gilbert Speaks on The Walking Dead S10E21

When will the writers on TWD get it into their heads that Carol and Daryl are the Captain America and Wonder Woman of the apocalyptic world? Picking up from last week’s episode, we watch Carol and Daryl deal with rats, soup, and a broken motorcycle.

Diverged

The dictionary description for diverged is this: separate from another route. To go in a different direction…I don’t understand why the writers are causing friction between Daryl and Carol. These two warriors have lost many people and many homes before, but they have always had each other’s backs. There is no going back to who they were when the series first began. In the beginning of episode 21, our two road weary warriors come to a literal fork in the road, and Daryl takes one side, while Carol and dog take another. Daryl wants to look for food, and Carol wants to return to Alexandria to help rebuild from the damage caused by the Whisperers.

Dog, who has been loyal to Daryl, decides to go with Carol, which kind of pisses off Daryl. On a side note, Daryl lends Carol his trusty pocketknife, but she forgets to return it. Once back in Alexandria, Carol tries to find ways to be useful, but our favorite sidekick, Jerry (Cooper Andrews) tells Carol, there isn’t much to do. Carol decides to make soup, and after fighting off some walkers while gathering wildflowers and mushrooms, she realizes that she has no power for the crockpot. She now has to fix the solar panels.

Daryl

When his bike brakes down, Daryl has to find replacement parts, which he does after fighting off some walker soldiers. But…he doesn’t have his trusty pocketknife to cut the tubing which he has salvaged from different abandoned vehicles. Luckily for Daryl, our walker soldiers have food packets and weapons, and it isn’t long before Daryl is back on the road.

Conclusion

Carol had the bigger part of this week’s episode. She is angry with Daryl. She is angry with herself. She is angry with the rat that has made itself a home behind the walls of her kitchen. I had to laugh out loud when she tore the wall down looking for that rat. Jerry, God bless his soul, comes to check on Carol, and the huge hole in the wall says it all.  When Carol asks him for his advice, he at first quotes from Ezekiel. But when Carol asks for his opinion, Jerry gives her a big hug. It is just what Carol needed.

Daryl does come back to Alexandria, and after some small talk, Daryl goes into his house, and Carol goes back into her house……Like I said before, the writers need to stop messing with Carol and Daryl. They belong together. They are a team that was forged from blood and tears. I want to see them the way they are meant to be…a force to be feared.

Next week, we learn about Negan’s past.

Gilbert Speaks on The Walking Dead S10E20

 

In case you are wondering if you missed my recap of E19 of The Walking Dead, One More…you did not. I just didn’t like the episode enough to write about it. I did not like last night’s episode either, and I am wondering if TWD universe is just throwing episodes out there until they premier the eleventh and final season. Let’s hope that I am wrong.

Splinter

This week, we get to concentrate on one of my favorite characters, Princess (Paola Lazaro). Princess, Ezekiel, Eugene, and Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura) have been captured by the apocalyptic stormtroopers and are now separated and locked inside train boxcars.

What we do learn in this episode is that Princess hates small, dark places. She was abused as a child and has many a battle scar from her childhood. She has also grown close to her new friends even though she just met Team Ezekiel. She was hit pretty hard during the scuffle with the stormtroopers and may be suffering from a concussion because the rest of the episode has her talking to Yumiko through a crack in the boxcar. Princess is able to rip off a piece of rotted wood, but it earns her a splinter which we learn has something to do with the maltreatment and neglect she suffered as a child.

Stormtroopers

We are given no hint on who these Stormtroopers are, or what they want from Team Ezekiel. When they drag Princess out of her boxcar, the questions they ask make her suspicious. She only wants to know if Yumiko is okay, and if they are taking care of her injuries. She also pleads for them to take the splinter from her finger, but if we thought that they were decent people, that brutal slap to Princess shows us differently.

Princess

Paola Lazaro really made this episode worth watching. Her Princess was both brave and frightened. Princess had survived severe childhood abuse and neglect, but she had learned to deal with the abuse and fear by using tools such as repeating the names all the states to keep calm.

All through the episode, Princess displays her survivor abilities when she sneaks in and out of her boxcar via a broken plank to chat with Eugene (Josh McDermitt), who was locked up in the next boxcar. Princess may have been afraid of the Stormtroopers, and she may have wanted to run away…but she was loyal to her new friends. Princess refused to leave her friends, even when Ezekiel climbed down into her boxcar… not even when Ezekiel knocks out the Stormtrooper who delivered her lunch.

Conclusion and Spoiler

Nothing is as it seems. Princess is suffering from a mental breakdown, and the Stormtrooper that brought lunch was attacked by Princess. Ezekiel (Khary Payton) was a figment of her fear and imagination as was the broken plank. Our little Princess was hallucinating her conversation with Eugene, and Ezekiel.

***Embargoed for Dalton*** Paola Lázaro as Juanita ‘Princess’ Sanchez, Soldier Cameron Scott Roberts – The Walking Dead _ Season 10, Episode 20 – Photo Credit: Josh Stringer/AMC

Who are these people who hold Princess and the others captive? Why the ridiculous outfits? Are they connected to the woman that spoke to Eugene? I don’t know, but Princess does get to see her friends alive before a cloth bag is pulled over her head. I definitely liked this episode better than last week’s.

Gilbert Speaks on The Walking Dead S10 E18

On this week’s episode of The Walking Dead, Carol and Daryl go on a road trip to the past that gives us a peek into Dog’s origin and Daryl’s quest to find Rick.

Find Me

 For TWD fans as myself, who was hoping to see Carol and Daryl together as a couple in a version of a “Happy Everly After” apocalyptic fairy tale…this was not the episode. I was almost tricked into believing this was the moment when Carol hitched a ride on Daryl’s bike to go find food for Alexandria.

Alexandria, if you remember from last week, was attacked by the Whisperers, who not only knocked down a few barrier walls, but also destroyed the town’s veggie patch. While on this trip, we learn through flashbacks about a woman Daryl encountered while searching for his friend/brother, Rick.

Leah

Carol and Daryl talk about their survival prospects and, while Carol feels that the odds are against them, Daryl is more positive. I felt this was a time for Carol and Daryl to bond over past hurts and especially their widely different methods of handling danger, but it was not meant to be. Old memories come back to haunt Daryl.

While hunting, Dog leads Carol and Daryl to this old cabin. And this is where we get the first flashback. While living along the riverbank in a makeshift shanty that was definitely not waterproof…Daryl is startled to see a puppy run up to him. This puppy is Dog. Through Dog, Daryl meets the inhabitant of the cabin. Leah (Lynn Collins) is a survivor just like Daryl, and she is tough. She makes Daryl a prisoner even though he helped put down a house walker.

Daryl is such a loner, that his clumsiness to friend another human is pure comic relief. For example, Daryl’s dating technique is to throw a dead fish at Leah’s cabin door as a hello. Leah who is just as stubborn, walks over to Daryl’s came and throws the fish back. After several attempts at friendship, Leah invites Daryl to stay with her.

Leah has lost people in her squad, and she has also lost her son, Matthew. Although she did not give birth to this boy, she took him as her own when her friend died in childbirth. When the squad was attacked, the boy had been bitten. He looked to be around five years old. The very day that the boy had died, Dog was born. We don’t know what happened to Dog’s mom. Over the following months, Daryl and Leah became very close, but Daryl still needed to find Rick.

Conclusion

Daryl is afraid to make commitments when it comes to the heart. Leah told Daryl that he had to choose between Rick, Alexandria, and her. Why didn’t she go with Daryl back to Alexandria? We will never know, but Daryl returned to his search for Rick. Another thing that has bugged me since watching the show last night was this. If Carol had not decided to go live with Ezekiel and Henry, would Daryl have gone back to his friends? I keep feeling that Carol and Daryl are never on the same page at the same time.

When Daryl realized that he had walked out on a good thing, Leah was not at the cabin. Where did she go? Did someone take her? We only know that Dog was there to greet Daryl. Hoping that Leah would one day return, Daryl leaves a note for her, “Find Me.”

Now, Daryl has a chance to forgive Carol, but all he can do is to blame her for Connie’s death. When Daryl tells Carol that he should have never stopped her from running away, and that she doesn’t know when to stop…my heart broke. All these years it has always been these two solitary soldiers that TWD fans cheered on. They are the apocalyptic version of Captain America and Wonder Woman.

This was a very emotional episode. I don’t know when we will see Leah again, but I am really hoping that Carol wasn’t right when she told Daryl, “Our luck’s run out, you and me.” We can’t end this series without a Daryl/Carol team.

Gilbert Speaks on The Walking Dead S10E17

I am sorry that I’m late with the post, but I am fighting a bad case of pneumonia. I am so happy that my favorite show about death, zombies, heroes and the apocalypse if back. I truly believe The Walking Dead mirrors real life and especially 2020 and 2021. Maggie is back in town and there is a new threat.

Home Sweet Home

Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and her small tribe, including her and Glenn’s son Hershel, have returned to find that Hilltop is a smoldering disaster…all thanks to the Whisperers. Judith is in her glory to have Auntie Maggie back, and oh by the way, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is now one of us. The Stink Eye that Maggie gives Negan was worth watching this episode. The look of surprise or disbelief is palpable when Carol (Melissa McBride) reveals that she allowed Negan to escape. He was their best chance at destroying the Whisperers. Seven years have passed since Maggie left with Georgie and the twins, and now that she is back, Team Rick is barely a skeleton of its former self. Maggie has had her own battles to fight with a group called the Reapers. This nasty group has killed most of the new people Maggie has befriended on her travels.

Maggie has two new bodyguards: Cole (James Devoti) and Hoodie Ninja. If you are any kind of a horror show aficionado, then you will immediately equate masks with Michael Myers from Halloween. But with the help of Kelly, we find out that Hoodie Ninja aka Elijah (Okea Eme-Akwari) is really a nice guy who has been traumatized by the loss of his sister.

Reapers with a spoiler

We don’t know much about the Reapers, but it seems that they have followed Maggie and her team. The other half of Maggie’s team, which includes her son, have been attacked. All that’s left are two charred bodies. Where is Hershel? Did the Reapers take him? Daryl (Norman Reedus), who has a special bond with Kelly, tells Kelly to go with Cole and Elijah while he and Maggie track the survivors of this latest attack.

All I am going to say is if this lone Reaper dressed in a ghillie suit is an indication of what S11 will bring us…then we are in for a treat. The Reapers must be military because lone Reaper is an excellent sniper and kills off more of Maggie’s group. He eventually overcomes Daryl and Maggie…and when he is injured and captured…gives Maggie a message from Pope. Who the hell is Pope? We never find out because lone Reaper is not in any mood to chat….KABOOM!

Conclusion

Luckily, we get to meet little Hershel (Kien Michael Spiller). My granny spider senses are telling me this little tyke is a miniature Glenn. He even wears a baseball cap like his dad. He was smart enough to hide from the Reaper, and I am pretty sure that Maggie has taught Hershel everything from her bag of Mommy tricks for surviving the freaking apocalypse.

I like how Kelly is growing in her role and how she and Maggie get to bond over the loss of family. Maggie encourages Kelly (Angel Theory) to keep looking for her sister. Once they safely return to Alexandria, Maggie ignores Negan as her team walk past him. I don’t think Maggie will ever forgive Negan, but Negan has a way with kids, and maybe he will make things right for Hershel.

I don’t know what to expect in The Walking Dead world, because in our world we are fighting our own zombie apocalypse (Covid) and we have our own monsters…Nazi sympathizers within our own ranks who tried to overthrow our government. It would be interesting to see who survives this year. Any bets?

Gilbert Speaks on The Walking Dead S10 Finale

All good things come to those who wait in a pandemic isolation mode. Yes, like most of my fellow TWD fans that are trapped inside a time loop with no escape until the election…we were left to wonder what had happened to our favorite Team. The wait was well worth it, and we were awarded a few surprises.

A Certain Doom

There was a lot to worry about all season especially with the writers messing with our Ninja Queen, Carol. Don’t mess with Carol! She is a strong woman and we don’t break easily.

Team Hillside, Team Alexandria, and Team Oceanside have their plans, but so does Beta. The children must be protected. I love how Daryl has taken the role of father over Little Kick-ass Judith and her little brother. You fight harder when you have children to protect.  Team Daryl, having taken a gore and guts bath, slowly make their way through the horde…but the Whisperers are in that horde. Beatrice has the backpack with the Radio Shack electrical equipment that is needed to lure the horde away.

Lydia and Negan

We have been given glimpses of what Negan was like before the apocalypse, but the memory of his bat cutting down Glenn and Abraham still stings. Even if I don’t usually believe that people can change their ways, I think Negan has turn away from the Dark Force because of two young girls.

Negan has always had a soft spot for Judith because she is smart and sassy, and she stands up to him. Judith is viewed as a pintsized fellow warrior. Lydia is different. She is vulnerable, abused, and not welcomed by the others because of Alpha. Negan is protective of Lydia. Negan is the father figure who gives Lydia Alpha’s face mask. Lydia and Carol are a different matter. Carol is unwilling to open her heart to the girl because of what Alpha did to her family…but Lydia’s need for forgiveness, and maybe a mother figure, is putting chinks in Carol’s titanium armor. Carol tells Lydia that the girl must “Find her own way.”

Rock On

Lydia is a big help to the Team archers as she points out the hidden Whisperers among the horde. As each Whisperer is shot down, the horde does the good old fashion gore and guts buffet…which we haven’t seen in a long time. If you have walkers…you need the gore. Beta is also a good leader and pulls his people in a closer circle which causes poor Beatrice from Oceanside to get killed. Carol, at first, keeps moving but then returns for the backpack. Lydia, wearing Alpha’s mask comes to the rescue.

Backpack rescued, Team Daryl is able to lead the horde away from Team Gabe and towards a cliff with the song Bringing Down the House…but rascally Beta soon puts a stop to that. The decision is made for Carol and Lydia to tag lead the walkers to the cliff, while Daryl and Negan go after Beta and his people.

Conclusion

There were many surprises: Lydia saving Carol before she jumped. I think Carol is going to adopt Lydia. Carol needs to teach Lydia how to be a warrior, and Lydia needs to teach Carol how to open her heart and forgive.

Negan and Daryl worked as a tag team in bringing down Beta. Although Negan was surprised with Beta’s identity, Daryl couldn’t give a damn. Beta actually got what he always wanted. He happily lived among the walkers, and now, he is one.

Gabe is rescued from Whisperers by Maggie, and her very own masked hooded Ninja. Who is this stranger? He has the same moves as our beloved

I saved the best for last. Connie is alive and meets Virgil. Team Eugene accompanied by Princess are still on their search for Eugene’s true love, Stephanie…what they encounter are storm troopers right out of Star Wars. Are they part of the group that Jadis belongs to? Is Rick there? Who is that masked man with Maggie? I can’t wait for the next season.   

Gilbert Speaks on “The Walking Dead” S10 E15

On this week’s episode of “The Walking Dead” while Beta leads the horde, Negan shows the tender side of himself and King Ezekiel deals with an apocalyptic princess. Princess is no Snow White.

Gilbert Speaks on “The Walking Dead” S10 E14

What a strange world we live in. We are watching a series about the end of civilization while literally living with a corrupt leader who has no clue on how to keep a nation safe from the Covid 19 pandemic…let alone a zombie apocalypse. In this episode, Beta and Carol must deal with their own personal demons.

Gilbert Speaks on “The Walking Dead” S10 E13

On this episode, we say goodbye to one of the bedrock characters of The Walking Dead. The choices we make have a ripple effect on our entire existence.

Gilbert Speaks on “The Walking Dead” S10 E12

Holy Unlikely Frenemy! In this episode of “The Walking Dead” Judith must commit the ultimate act to save the other children…and we witness the most unexpected ending to an episode in a very long time.