Rent The Walking Dead: Series 8 (2018)

The Walking Dead: Series 8 review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

The Walking Dead has become a horror salad where the croutons are becoming more abundant and stale. The problem with a show such as this, after many moments of great suspense and terror, the effect grows weaker with each surprise. We expect surprises by now and few moments within this eighth season come with a thrill, even with so many showdowns and final moments for many arcs and characters.

The war between the many tribes continues to heat up. Rick is still trying to form that alliance with other colonies in his war against Negan’s violent collective and resource stranglehold on the region. Things went to hell at the end of last season where Rick was left with less but the tides seem to turn once Negan’s grip becomes slippery. Others that have formed truces and treaties with him are now starting to regret their decisions. Even those closest to Negan are seriously starting to have doubts about how far one maniac with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire can go.

It really says something about this season when it opens with a dream sequence of Rick awakening with a thicker beard in a hospital bed. The motions are starting to become old and tiresome. And, no, I’m not just talking about the zombie epidemic that launched the conflict, which at this point is about as easy to prepare for as the weather. It’s the mere back and forth between Rick and Negan that is treading on platitudes and cliches as it strays to fill time between the next kill, the next betrayal, and the next season.

Some of the characters still have their great moments which make for some decent drama but there’s a lingering sense of pointlessness to the appeal. At this point in the show, only about 4-5 of the original cast has remained in a show that is ballooned to a ludicrously high level of characters. And as we’ve seen from previous seasons, there’s a revolving door of cast members that it feels lacking to be fully invested in any of them, especially since most of the characters seem to last anywhere from 1-4 seasons, killed off either surprisingly abruptly or in a long moment of quietly coming to terms with their demise. If the show didn’t seem like a soap opera before, it can pretty much be classified as one now.

Watching the show at this point is less for the thrill of seeing how the characters will survive another zombie attack and more about who will last the longest. Perhaps it's a test to see how long the audience will last as well. Many fans of the show I know of finally dropped off this season and it’s easy enough to understand why. All of this just feels like the same old notes played with slightly different instruments.

I can also understand why many still stick with the show because, really, you just want to see what happens next. But with so much teasing of a grander plot and lesser moment of humanity wedged in between underwhelming and weary gore, there’s just not a lot left in the show to be enthused about. Like a lumbering zombie, Walking Dead keeps strolling on aimlessly.