S08.E07: Anton

[Mr. Sparkle]

Strand fights to protect his new life when it’s threatened by the arrival of an old friend.

Airs Sunday, October 22 on AMC and AMC+. 

[Crashcourse]

That dad sure is fine.  Too bad he had to settle for Victor.

[iMonrey]

Well, this was an improvement over the first half of the season. In fact I'd go so far as to say it was an improvement over the past five seasons. I never cared for the reboot or Morgan so it's kind of neat to see it circling back to the earlier characters.

That said, it was hard to remember who the hell Troy was. I had to do a deep dive on his history to refresh my memory on the earlier seasons. 

I also had a hard time remembering where we left off with Victor. That whole arc with the tower and his absurdly silly military costume went off the rails. I've also completely lost track of where the hell they are now.

There was also some REALLY clunky exposition, like when Madison and Victor were trapped behind a "barricade" of bookcases by a horde of walkers then shared a ten minute conversation filling in the blanks. And when Troy was holding a hammer to Victor's head while letting him natter on to his husband and son. The story itself is an improvement even if the writing isn't. 

Interesting to learn Danai Garcia (ex-Luciana) directed this.

I think it would be nice if it turned out Alicia was still alive. It would bring the show full circle back to the beginning. I always thought it was a bit of a cheat to bring Madison back after killing off Alicia. 

[heisenberg]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

That said, it was hard to remember who the hell Troy was. I had to do a deep dive on his history to refresh my memory on the earlier seasons.

The guy who was getting high on Walkers brain stem with Nick is all I can think of.  When Nick and him were hanging out together I used to call them 'Dumb and dumber'...

[maystone]

Well, that was clunky. I suppose I should be grateful that they've (hopefully) taken care of all of the exposition in the first ep of the back half. And I suppose we maybe can think of the writers as being clever in getting ALL of the new characters gathered together in one room at the end there. That was kind of thoughtful, I guess. But mostly, nah.

With one big exception, and that's the opening scene. Germans? Strand ended up in Germany? OK. I mean, Daryl made it to France. But then when the older man with the hurt arm showed up and started speaking English I was really confused . . . until Klaus chirped "Oh, we were on a tour from Germany." Ha!

I love seeing Madison and Strand back together. Both this show and the mother ship have done a great job of showcasing that a woman and a man can have a deep and enduring friendship.

I could really, really, really do without the return of Troy. I didn't like that character the first time around; I doubt that's going to change in the next few weeks.

Considering the writing wasn't that good, the actors still did a lot with what they were given. Cheers for Danay Garcia on her directing, too.

[Mr. Sparkle]

I thought it was pretty mediocre. I never thought the Ottos were remotely interesting, so seeing the psycho little brother back doesn't make me excited. I'll say it was an improvement over the entire season 7 and the last half of this season. Seeing Strand back is ok. A lot of hard-to-believe or at least unlikely things that I'm not even interested in going into here. 

I'll ride out the rest of the series, but I won't be sad to see it go. So much weaker than Daryl or even Dead City. 

[Boofish]

There is so much to unpack. I keep going back to this show season after season even though it has more inconsistent choppy character development than a Tyler Perry show. 

I honestly don't get why Madison went from "help me breathe" to "YOU HORRIBLE LIAR VICTOR STRAND" in 2 seconds flat. The last time they saw each other, he was helping her save her children. So why was she so big mad. Did Morgan or June tell her what happened at the Tower? When Victor told her she behaved like it was her first time hearing the story. Where is she getting this unlimited supply of oxygen?

I guess Daniel is no longer the confused old man he was when they met Virginia. Did Charlie ever die? What happened to those 3 dirty kids they met after surviving a fiery plane crash where Luciana had a pole stuck in her arm but survived. Where is the guy in the wheelchair and his sister? Why does little Mo look like a mixed race child when both of her parents were white? So many unanswered questions yet, here I sit watching it all.

[iMonrey]

4 hours ago, Superclam said:

I thought it was pretty mediocre. I never thought the Ottos were remotely interesting, so seeing the psycho little brother back doesn't make me excited.

I mean . . . I'll take Troy over another Shrike or Virginia, or Victor in a beret, or any other cartoon villain TWD has become famous for. At least there's some history here, we don't need another new Big Bad this close to the finish line. I just don't get where and how Troy would have assembled a band of baddies big enough to be a threat. The villains always manage to gather minions no matter how absurd they are.

10 hours ago, maystone said:

Considering the writing wasn't that good, the actors still did a lot with what they were given. Cheers for Danay Garcia on her directing, too.

Cheers for getting the job, I guess, but I wasn't overly impressed with the directing. A decent director would have rethought that scene with Victor and Madison "trapped" by a horde of walkers.

I also didn't understand where they were. Klaus took Madison out of the hotel compound to . . . where? It was just some other random house or building - maybe a library? And how did Victor know they'd be there? There were too many things that weren't explained well.

[Mr. Sparkle]

34 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

I'll take Troy over another Shrike or Virginia, or Victor in a beret, or any other cartoon villain TWD has become famous for.

That is some real bottom-of-the-barrel scraping there! 

[KeithJ]

I wasn’t impressed but I’ll go along for the ride until the end.  I think the biggest problem I have is that it takes so much time (for me at least) to remember where everyone has been. 

[Starchild]

I've been waiting for Madison to reunite with Victor since she returned, so I liked this. And the last big bad being an old enemy from early days is a nice change. Instead of absurd non-specific villainy we have good old-fashioned revenge as a motivator.

[Iguessnot]

Victor was overdoing it at the start. Luckily he didn't have to play his pirate persona from last year. It would have been unbearable.

The food scenes were over the top. Whoever is responsible, needs to stop copying influencer videos to depict stable communities. It's so pretentious watching them whip up those fluffy omelets on their portable propane stoves.

Why would a random stranger be put in Klaus' room? Is that tour bus the lone protective barrier for this loud soccer playing community?

Why was Madison so gung ho to expose Victor? She didn't know what the situation was. If his life depended on these people not knowing his real identity, she just served his life up on a platter.

If you are walking around the woods at night with lanterns, your position is clear. If your cabin in the woods has candles throughout, your location is clear. Please don't shoot scenes that would have us pretend otherwise.

When Madison and Victor ran back to the building, they were literally several steps ahead of the walkers. Yet as soon as Victor runs through the door, the walker mob is right on him. 

The door might not hold, but you can do a little fighting and at least close it. 

For some reason, the building supposedly didn't have a back way out, but it had four floor to ceiling windows. Go out the windows. And what were those two door type structures on either side of the fireplace?

That speckled eye was hardly a spectacular injury. I'm waiting for Dwight to show up and show baby face Troy what a real injury is. 

Really sloppy writing and scenery, but Troy brought some real spark. Looking forward to the next episode.