The Walking Dead Season 9: 2 Ups & 3 Downs From ‘Omega’

2. The Flashbacks

On a similar note, a huge portion of the instalment is devoted to a flashback narrative centring on - wait for it - a young Lydia. The story details how Lydia's mom was transformed from caring mother into callous killer during the early days of the apocalypse. While you could argue that these throwbacks make the payoff of Alpha's arrival at Hilltop that much greater, the fact remains that all the information we learn via these flashbacks could've been presented to us in a number of shorter and tighter ways.

The flashbacks feel like nothing more than another device for the writers to use for the purposes of stalling the narrative. It's safe to assume that viewers would've rather learned this information via a quick conversation, as it would've left more time for other characters - such as Ezekiel or Carol - to be featured in the episode.

Moreover, one of the most alluring things about The Walking Dead is the lack of information given about the beginnings of the apocalypse. The show was only ever meant to be about people surviving in the post-apocalyptic world - not about how said world came about. Including scenes like these ones somehow dilute the show's premise.

The writers should focus on the here and now and leave the beginnings to spin-off Fear The Walking Dead (well... the first three seasons, anyway).