Arguably the strongest characters in The Walking Dead universe are women: among them, Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride), Michonne Grimes (Danai Gurira), Rosita Espinosa (Christian Serratos), and Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan). The franchise makes its women suffer, but it allows them to transform that suffering into courage and grit and cunning. By the end of the flagship series, countless battles under her belt, Maggie is heading up the community at Hilltop, which thrived under her governance years before. She is a seasoned fighter and leader - smart, accomplished, and brave.

And yet, in “Who’s There?,” the second episode of The Walking Dead: Dead City, she displays virtually none of these skills. Instead, the dynamic in her uneasy partnership with Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) becomes that of the veteran warrior (him) and the young hothead (her), with Negan lecturing her on how and why to negotiate and cautioning her against unnecessary violence. Maggie is on a knife-edge in this episode - as in all of them - while Negan is wearily tolerant of her aggression and rash decision-making.

There is weariness, too, in one of the episode’s pivotal moments, when Negan enacts a performance reminiscent of his days leading the Saviors. Ambushed by a team of the Croat (Željko Ivanek)’s people, Negan captures one, drives his head through multiple panes of glass, and then slits his throat and guts him over the edge of balcony, allowing the man’s blood and gore to splatter onto his companions below (mysteriously, they do not move out of the way). His sarcastic patter to the attackers is tired, a half-hearted summoning of his former persona that borders dangerously on self-satire, and when he turns to a clearly triggered Maggie afterwards, he looks worn, chagrined, and perhaps regretful.

“[The Dead City] universe is going to tell the story of what happens when you lose someone [to murder]. Not just for the person who lost him, but the person who did it.”

--Eli Jorné, interview with SFX, June 2023

Just before the title sequence for The Walking Dead: Dead City plays for the first time, Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan) pulverizes the head of a walker using a telescope. She brings the makeshift weapon down repeatedly as she screams in rage, blood and brain matter splattering her face. The visual reference is obvious to anyone who has watched The Walking Dead’s flagship show. But just in case it isn’t, “Old Acquaintances” later provides a flashback to Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) crushing Glenn Rhee (Steven Yuen)’s head with a barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bat, while Glenn’s pregnant wife Maggie watches. 

From the outset, Dead City suggests that its main protagonists, Maggie and Negan, are two sides of the same coin. The show’s premiere is not shy about this intention, and neither is its creator, Eli Jorné. The widow and her husband’s killer are inextricably linked, the opening scene reminds us, separated only by a flip, a flick of the fingers, a choice. Not a choice made by the characters, but one made by the viewers.

“Endure and Survive” - 1.05 - Recap & Review

Last night, the fifth episode of The Last of Us premiered on HBO. The episode, through flashbacks of the Kansas City QZ, shows how Fedra fell, taken over by Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey) and her group, and how they killed any collaborators. Ten days later, the timeline meets backup with the cliffhanger from last week with Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) being held at gunpoint by eight-year-old Sam (Keivonn Woodard), who it’s revealed is deaf, and his older brother Henry (Lamar Johnson). It’s eventually revealed that Kathleen is after the two because Henry turned the leader of the resistance, Kathleen’s brother, into Fedra in order to get life-saving medicine for Sam.

Henry knows a way out but needs Joel’s help in getting them out of the city. Eventually Ellie convinces Joel to help and they join forces. Henry has reason to believe that Fedra secretly cleared the tunnels beneath the city of the infected, unbeknownst to Kathleen, making it unlikely the militia would go down there after them.

The four emerge from the tunnel only to be shot at by a sniper. Joel leaves them to hide while he takes care of the sniper. Revealing that the sniper was a lookout, Kathleen and her people arrive and she tries to flush them out. However, before Kathleen can get her revenge, we find out where the infected had relocated, as a truck is pulled into a big hole, and all the infected come crawling out, attacking everyone. 

“[Despite the upcoming spin-offs] it ends with a really definitive conclusion for both the series and then each individual character.”
--(Scott Gimple on the series finale, interview with Entertainment Weekly, 25 October 2022)

The first stories most Western children hear end with happily ever after, and that phrase settles into their subconscious as the model for what an ending should look like—an ending in life as much as in fiction. With maturity comes the understanding that happily ever after is as fantastic an element of those stories as are the dragons and fairies. Nonetheless, fiction, for adults as well as children, exists not only to reflect reality, but also to redress it. Stories hold up a mirror, and are, too, a window into somewhere else: a place not subject to the whims of fate, but controlled by storytellers.

“There's a lot of shock in it. There's a lot of tension in it. I think [the audience] might feel angry on behalf of our characters. It's a frigging intense finale. It just goes, goes, goes.”
--Scott Gimple on the finale of The Walking Dead, interview with Entertainment Weekly, 9 November 2022The Walking Dead, interview with Entertainment Weekly, 9 November 2022

The Walking Dead has been about family since the pilot episode, in which Rick Grimes wakes up alone in hospital and begins to search for his wife and son. It is a show about the families we lose, we find, and we choose; it is a show about what it means to be a family. “We don’t leave them,” Lydia sobs at one point this week. “They need us.” That has always been the philosophy of this group of survivors, and it is starkly contrasted, in 11x23, with that of Pamela Milton, who is willing to sacrifice thousands of her people to a horde of walkers in order to save a privileged few.

While we see our heroes put this belief into practice during the episode, the same cannot be said of the writers for season 11. In “Family”, Connie tries to save a fellow citizen at her own risk while trapped in a shoot-out at Union Station. Lydia gets bitten and ultimately loses an arm trying to help Elijah to safety. And Judith, of course, saves Maggie and takes Pamela’s bullet herself. Being a family, this episode reminds us, means sticking together, making sacrifices, and never abandoning one another. But in its service to the plot, the universe, and the multitude of characters in the show at this point, The Walking Dead itself has left too much out, and too many people behind.

“[The Walking Dead] ends with a really definitive conclusion for both the series and then each individual character.”
--Scott Gimple, interview with Entertainment Weekly, 25 October 2022

With only two episodes to go before the end of the series, it feels like The Walking Dead is somersaulting so unevenly through the convoluted Commonwealth plot that the show has little chance of sticking the landing. The season as a whole has been, at times, bewildering in its narrative choices, with dead ends (Leah’s arc) and sudden drop-offs (Oceanside) that frustrate any viewer who has been tuned in for more than one season.

“Faith” has as its focus Negan’s redemption arc. Ostensibly, the episode deals with questions around our faith in each other, our faith in the world, and our faith in ourselves. Maggie doubts her decision to bring Hershel Jnr into the world; Pamela fights to retain the support of the disillusioned Commonwealth citizens; and Mercer reveals a realignment of his loyalties. But, undoubtedly, the primary purpose of 11x22 is to move Negan’s story forward, towards his upcoming spinoff with Maggie.

Note: I’m going to write this fairly spoiler free and leave out the big things, but if you want to stay completely spoiler free, read after it airs tonight.

Tonight, BBC America airs the new special “The Power of the Doctor,” which aired earlier today in the UK. The episode marks Jodie Whittaker’s final episode as the Doctor. In the feature-length episode, the Doctor battles not only her greatest enemies, but her arch nemesis, The Master (Sacha Dhawan).

If you’ve read my reviews, you know I love the series, and there is a lot to love about Chris Chibnall’s final episode. The episode has tons of shock and awe, but unfortunately, some people may think that’s all it is. “The Timeless Child” really split fans in a way an episode hadn’t in a long time, maybe ever, and while this episode doesn’t rewrite history or retcon anything (thankfully) it does feel a bit like Chibnall is throwing everything in to make an epic end. The problem is, it’s two-sided. It’s the centennial special, and not only his last episode, but Whittaker’s as well, so he should be pulling out the big guns and making a bang. The problem is, the Daleks, the Cybermen, and even more so, the Master, are huge villains in Doctor Who mythology, and they pack so much more of a punch when they are used sparingly, because they are something that as a fan you look forward to. The issue to me is they’ve been overused in the series so much lately that they don’t feel as special anymore. The episode doesn’t shine as much as it should, because that makes it feel a bit repetitive. That all being said, even though it does feel like a lot is packed in there, I personally really enjoyed this one. It does have a follow through and is vastly superior to the Flux storyline that a lot of people (at times myself included) picked apart. It has a beginning, middle, and end and doesn’t jump all over the place like the former.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this blog post. The opinions I share are my own.

Today the sixth and final season of Lucifer was released on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD.

At the start of season six, Lucifer (Tom Ellis) is in position to take over for his father as God, but does he want to be? The beginning of the season focuses on Lucifer struggling to decide what he wants as he prepares to go up to Heaven with Chloe (Lauren German) by his side. However, things take a surprising turn when a young angel named Rory (Brianna Hildebrand) shows up wanting to kill Lucifer. Throw in time travel, a ghost, a wedding, and animation, season six is full of surprises.

As always with Lucifer, the season brings action, drama, romance, and comedy and everything in between. Unique this season is the third episode, “Yabba Dabba Do Me,” in which Lucifer and Chloe enter an animated world of a character’s mind and are stuck in a broken loop, which is a lot of fun.

***The following contains slight general spoilers***

Tomorrow an all-new season of Westworld premieres on HBO. Season three of the series really changed the format, moving outside the park and focusing on the control of humans more so than the hosts and their freedom. Season four continues the narrative with Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson), a version of Dolores, who, as Maeve points out, turns out to be worse than Wyatt, and she is hellbent on revenge on humans. The host of William (Ed Harris) is also thrown into the mix, influencing the powerful and leaving bodies in his wake.

When we pick up with the story after a seven-year time jump, Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) is not Dolores, but rather Christina, lost living her life day after day, writing storylines for non-playing game characters (oh the irony), unsatisfied with what’s missing in her life.

Caleb (Aaron Paul)’s life has also changed, married with a child, but still living with paranoia, which serves him well when his family is threatened. He teams up with Maeve (Thandiwe Newton) who’s been living as a recluse in peace until it all comes crashing down.

In Netflix’s new series First Kill, high school student Juliette Fairmont (Sarah Catherine Hook) is feeling the physical changes in herself more and more each day, taking pills of blood to forestall her symptoms of bloodlust, which won’t stop until she finally makes her first kill, the one thing she does not want to do. Her life becomes more complicated when she develops a crush on new student Calliope “Cal” Burns (Imani Lewis), however, unbeknownst to her, Calliope is from a family of hunters who will stop at nothing to kill all monsters, including vampires. It’s a new take on the classic story of star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet (perhaps here Juliet and Juliet), but with a supernatural twist.

As much as the basic plot of the forbidden love story has been done before, I did find it enjoyable. Hook and Lewis are believable in their respective roles and they do have chemistry. The supporting cast I also thought was chosen well. The friendship between Juliette and Ben (Jonas Dylan Allen) I thought balanced the romance of the story in a positive way. I also liked the dynamics of the Fairmont family, and the vampire lore, at least to me, was fairly original and interesting. Also standing out were the scenes between Juliette’s mother, Margot (Elizabeth Mitchell) and Calliope’s mother, Talia (Aubin Wise).