This episode was decent enough I guess, not great but not bad either, it's on par with the rest of the later seasons we've seen before in terms of quality and storytelling.
And my problems with it are the same I've had with the later seasons for a long time.
First of all, what annoyed me the most during this episode was how it was shot. The show definitely and obviously has a color grading but I don't think that's enough. I don't know when they started to go with digital cameras, but I think that was a bad idea. I liked it at first and how crisp and good quality it looked, but now it's just too clean for its own good. It's too clean and crisp and borders on home video quality. They should've just added fake film grain to make it look more "filmy" and not some tiktok video. There's a reason why b movies and indie or bad movies look weirder and are in total contrast to usual high-production movies we see. There's a reason why you immediately recognize when a movie is low production when you see 5 seconds of its trailer, it's mostly because of the color grading and no film grain. There's a reason why movies aren't in high frames and they've been doing 24fps for this long. Movies and shows just shouldn't look this clean and crisp, that makes them look like I'm watching a home video or a youtube clip instead of a high production tv show.
Another thing that still bothers me about the episodes, which is not that big of a deal, but something that I notice in pretty much every episode, is the editing and the pacing of the show. The way they cut to another scene and the order of these scenes just feel weird to me and I don't know why. Sometimes it feels like there's something missing in between and they've cut something out or the transition just needs an establishing scene maybe. But like I said, it's not that big of a deal at the end of the day, but is felt anyway.
Hornsby's last cliffhanger scene from the previous episode is weirdly mentioned on the recap here but isn't alluded to in any way for some reason, which I guess they'll probably address that in the next episode maybe, but why show it on the recap if none of the scenes of this episode is about that?
Another thing that I'm sure most people are gonna complain about is the incompetency of these stormtroopers. I realize that things like these are needed so the plot happens, suspension of disbelief and all that, but when it happens this much and all of these "trained" and professional soldiers act like this, I can't really look away. It is kinda common for the show's new writing to be this way, at least they're trying to create new situations with unique zombie kills and zombies eating human stuff, but the way they go about it feels so forced that it's really noticeable. Like we have a soldier that has crashed his car and is calling for backup, but then just stands there for the zombies to get to him when he has a mile of free space behind him. Again, I get that the plot and scenes like what happens after wouldn't happen if everyone was Einstein, but they've had all this time to think the script through, surely they could've come up with situations where are these things happening don't feel as forced and artificial as they are right?
The show's writing from season 9 till now has been a masterpiece compared to the trash writing of 7 and 8, but it's not perfect and my big complaint is this feeling of forced and artificiality. The writing is competent enough, I just want a more natural writing than what we're getting, that's all.
Not to mention how Daryl and the gang had like 5 chances by now and from previous episodes too to easily kill Hornsby but they've missed. Thankfully, at least he does get shot a couple of times to make him seem less plot armor-y, but they keep showing these situations where Daryl can easily take him out and doesn't and that makes him getting shot matter less, not to mention he goes on by his day like nothing happened to him either. I'm not saying they should kill him because that would mean the plot is gonna end or we miss a better plot from the future episodes, I'm just saying they shouldn't keep making these situations and find a better way.
I was also hoping before the last part of the season ended, that this Commonwealth plot was gonna end there and we were gonna be done with it and this third part was gonna be about whatever Michonne and Rick were doing, but I guess I was too hopeful and they're probably gonna end this season and the show as a whole with the Commonwealth plot and maybe have Rick and Michonne back for the last episode. And not that the Commonwealth plot is boring or not that good, I just think having Rick and Michonne back with their own plot and group would've been more interesting. Not to mention we had that cannibal group in season 5 and they were done with that plot line so quickly but they're focusing a whole season on this Commonwealth which I think everyone agrees aren't as half as interesting as the cannibals from season 5.
This review sounded really negative and I only talked about my complaints about the show and the episode, but that's because nothing big has happened yet and it's on par with the previous ones and the plot just slightly has gone forward. I otherwise enjoyed the episode and it's good to be back in this universe and finally see how they're gonna end it. I liked most of the cinematography and some shots of these episodes, though I don't really like when they do close-ups when characters are talking to each other. The music is great as always and Bear McCreary has been killing it for years and the music of this show has only become more noticeable these past few seasons when the showrunner changed.
All in all decent enough episode if you're binging the season, but I think it should've been better since it's practically a season opener when it's coming out after a long hiatus, good enough nonetheless.
And my problems with it are the same I've had with the later seasons for a long time.
First of all, what annoyed me the most during this episode was how it was shot. The show definitely and obviously has a color grading but I don't think that's enough. I don't know when they started to go with digital cameras, but I think that was a bad idea. I liked it at first and how crisp and good quality it looked, but now it's just too clean for its own good. It's too clean and crisp and borders on home video quality. They should've just added fake film grain to make it look more "filmy" and not some tiktok video. There's a reason why b movies and indie or bad movies look weirder and are in total contrast to usual high-production movies we see. There's a reason why you immediately recognize when a movie is low production when you see 5 seconds of its trailer, it's mostly because of the color grading and no film grain. There's a reason why movies aren't in high frames and they've been doing 24fps for this long. Movies and shows just shouldn't look this clean and crisp, that makes them look like I'm watching a home video or a youtube clip instead of a high production tv show.
Another thing that still bothers me about the episodes, which is not that big of a deal, but something that I notice in pretty much every episode, is the editing and the pacing of the show. The way they cut to another scene and the order of these scenes just feel weird to me and I don't know why. Sometimes it feels like there's something missing in between and they've cut something out or the transition just needs an establishing scene maybe. But like I said, it's not that big of a deal at the end of the day, but is felt anyway.
Hornsby's last cliffhanger scene from the previous episode is weirdly mentioned on the recap here but isn't alluded to in any way for some reason, which I guess they'll probably address that in the next episode maybe, but why show it on the recap if none of the scenes of this episode is about that?
Another thing that I'm sure most people are gonna complain about is the incompetency of these stormtroopers. I realize that things like these are needed so the plot happens, suspension of disbelief and all that, but when it happens this much and all of these "trained" and professional soldiers act like this, I can't really look away. It is kinda common for the show's new writing to be this way, at least they're trying to create new situations with unique zombie kills and zombies eating human stuff, but the way they go about it feels so forced that it's really noticeable. Like we have a soldier that has crashed his car and is calling for backup, but then just stands there for the zombies to get to him when he has a mile of free space behind him. Again, I get that the plot and scenes like what happens after wouldn't happen if everyone was Einstein, but they've had all this time to think the script through, surely they could've come up with situations where are these things happening don't feel as forced and artificial as they are right?
The show's writing from season 9 till now has been a masterpiece compared to the trash writing of 7 and 8, but it's not perfect and my big complaint is this feeling of forced and artificiality. The writing is competent enough, I just want a more natural writing than what we're getting, that's all.
Not to mention how Daryl and the gang had like 5 chances by now and from previous episodes too to easily kill Hornsby but they've missed. Thankfully, at least he does get shot a couple of times to make him seem less plot armor-y, but they keep showing these situations where Daryl can easily take him out and doesn't and that makes him getting shot matter less, not to mention he goes on by his day like nothing happened to him either. I'm not saying they should kill him because that would mean the plot is gonna end or we miss a better plot from the future episodes, I'm just saying they shouldn't keep making these situations and find a better way.
I was also hoping before the last part of the season ended, that this Commonwealth plot was gonna end there and we were gonna be done with it and this third part was gonna be about whatever Michonne and Rick were doing, but I guess I was too hopeful and they're probably gonna end this season and the show as a whole with the Commonwealth plot and maybe have Rick and Michonne back for the last episode. And not that the Commonwealth plot is boring or not that good, I just think having Rick and Michonne back with their own plot and group would've been more interesting. Not to mention we had that cannibal group in season 5 and they were done with that plot line so quickly but they're focusing a whole season on this Commonwealth which I think everyone agrees aren't as half as interesting as the cannibals from season 5.
This review sounded really negative and I only talked about my complaints about the show and the episode, but that's because nothing big has happened yet and it's on par with the previous ones and the plot just slightly has gone forward. I otherwise enjoyed the episode and it's good to be back in this universe and finally see how they're gonna end it. I liked most of the cinematography and some shots of these episodes, though I don't really like when they do close-ups when characters are talking to each other. The music is great as always and Bear McCreary has been killing it for years and the music of this show has only become more noticeable these past few seasons when the showrunner changed.
All in all decent enough episode if you're binging the season, but I think it should've been better since it's practically a season opener when it's coming out after a long hiatus, good enough nonetheless.