The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Recap: 6 Ups & 4 Downs From "Years"
9. Down: The Bloated Story Has Too Much Juggle
After dozens of seasons of TV, there's only so much The Walking Dead has left to do as a franchise, and some ardent critics have always liked to argue it ran out of things to say long before its end. Unfortunately, The Ones Who Live does little to prove them wrong.
That's not to say that "Years" is entirely devoid of some freshness, but the bare bones of the story currently in motion certainly suggests we're entering another drama with a predictable outcome, obvious obstacles, and villains with derivative motivations.
Trapped working as a slave (sorry, "consignee") for the CRM, Rick is introduced to a military that believes what it is doing is right - protecting the citizens of a large, mostly unseen metropolis - whilst depriving its people of freedom and using newfound survivors as imprisoned workers.
If this sounds familiar, it's because it is. After all, The Walking Dead's last season was all about the Commonwealth, basically a smaller version of the CRM. As noted, aspects of the episode are stylistically revitalising (which we'll get to), but story-wise this is business as usual.