The Walking Dead Season 8: 4 Ups And 3 Downs From 'The King, The Widow, And Rick'

2. The Cold Open

The Walking Dead Rick Grimes
Gene Page/AMC

The episode opens in peculiar fashion, as we slowly go from one community to the next, with different letters outlining just what the other has been up to. It celebrates the victories and laments the defeats, and while it's useful for the characters, for viewers it's just an extended 'previously on' sequence that takes up a good few minutes of the instalment's runtime.

Worse, though, is the way it falls into the show's repeated pattern of self-seriousness. The shots are slow, everyone looked decidedly mournful, and there's a big speech playing over the top from Rick, which feels a lot like the same one we heard him deliver - twice - in the Season 8 premiere. The dialogue is again of the ilk that no one would actually say, and in taking itself so seriously the show just seems silly.

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Contributor
Contributor

NCTJ-qualified journalist. Most definitely not a racing driver. Drink too much tea; eat too much peanut butter; watch too much TV. Sadly only the latter paying off so far. A mix of wise-old man in a young man's body with a child-like wonder about him and a great otherworldly sensibility.