Reviews
“The Walking Dead” Just Evolved into Something Different. Something Fresh. Something Better.
Needless to say, November 4th’s “What Comes After” promised a bold new direction for “The Walking Dead,“ not only because it was the show’s final hour for Rick Grimes but also because its final moments jumped six years into the future. But with the series’ main character gone and a whole lot of time in the rear view, how different is the show truly going to be?
If last night’s “Who Are You Now?” was any indication, the reinvention we’ve been waiting for has arrived. And for the first time in a while, “The Walking Dead” feels new again.
There was a great little moment in the opening sequence of “Who Are You Now?” wherein Daryl came upon a zombie that was fused into a tree. At first, Daryl planned on putting the zombie out of its misery, but then something oddly beautiful happened. Screen-capped above, a bird flew onto the hideous zombie and removed a worm from its rotten flesh, bringing it back to a nest and feeding it to its young. Out of death, quite literally, comes a new source of life, and I can’t help but think that the image is one that reflects episode 9.6 as a whole.
“The Walking Dead,” even this 8-years-loyal viewer can admit, has grown incredibly stale in recent years, so much so that it has felt, well, dead. But “What Comes After,” with its sendoff for Rick and subsequent time jump, offered up the promise of new life for the series, and “Who Are You Now?” embraced that the show is no longer beholden to its familiar old ways.
The episode’s biggest water cooler moment perfectly drove home the show’s new direction. After some remaining Saviors popped back up and stole Carol’s wedding ring, she got her revenge by sneaking into their camp site under the cover of night and literally setting fire to the whole damn place, burning the whole crew alive. It was almost as if the show, along with Carol, was burning down its own past, reviving a tired story for the sole purpose of erasing it altogether. The Saviors are finally gone. And the years damn sure haven’t softened Carol.
(Can we take a moment to appreciate the evolution of Carol these past 8 years? From an abused wife to the show’s biggest badass, and now a literal Queen. All hail Queen Carol.)
Speaking of badass, Danai Gurira’s Michonne has now officially begun her tenure as the leading character on “The Walking Dead,” taking over from Rick Grimes as the new horse-riding leader and protector of Alexandria and its citizens. Michonne, in the past six years, has also become a mother, not only to Judith Grimes but also to her own child. As revealed last night, Rick and Michonne’s attempt to get pregnant was successful, and Michonne gave birth to Rick’s child in the time between “What Comes After” and “Who Are You Now?”.
Yes, there are now two Grimes children running around, and Judith sure is living up to her “little ass kicker” moniker. Carrying a mini katana on her back and wearing Rick’s sheriff’s hat, Judith is a pint-sized mix of Rick, Michonne and Carl, calling her own shots and making both daddy and brother proud. Of course, while we know that Rick is very much still alive, both Judith and Michonne are convinced he’s dead, and the episode’s most emotional moments were beautifully played by the veteran Gurira and young newcomer Cailey Fleming.
Rick’s absence played heavily into the proceedings, gone but certainly not forgotten. Early on, Michonne gifted Judith with a small figurine of a sheriff that looked a whole lot like her dad, found while on a scavenging mission, and there probably weren’t too many dry eyes watching when Judith told Michonne that she’s beginning to forget what Carl and her dad’s voices sounded like. Meanwhile, Judith has struck up an unlikely friendship with Negan, with the still imprisoned Negan now serving as something of a father figure to Rick’s daughter.
How far we’ve come, eh?
The episode’s main storyline centered on that brand new group of characters Judith saved at the very end of the previous week’s episode, including comic book character Magna, played by Nadia Hilker. A former truck stop waitress with a troubling past, Magna put her group’s chances of sanctuary in danger when she smuggled a knife into Alexandria, leading Michonne to question whether or not the group was worth taking in. Magna, meanwhile, contemplated taking out Michonne in an attempt to take over Alexandria, but she ultimately decided against the plan when she realized that Michonne was a mother. In the end, Michonne banished the group from Alexandria but offered them a potential home inside the walls of Hilltop.
Nadia Hilker’s Magna is sure to become a new favorite character going forward, and her pals Yumiko, Luke, Connie and Kelly all proved to be interesting new blood for a show that has unquestionably needed strong new characters. Connie and Kelly, in particular, have a compelling dynamic, with Kelly serving as the deaf Connie’s translator and protector.
What else has happened in the past six years of unseen storylines? Well, it’s interesting to note, Gabriel and Rosita are now a couple, which is a nothing if not unlikely pairing. Eugene isn’t too happy about the relationship, as he’s long been in love with Rosita, but she and the one-eyed Father seem quite in love. Personally speaking, I’ve never much cared for Gabriel as a character, but there’s something about the evolution he’s undergone that now makes him perfect for the show’s world. Especially within the walls of the almost Western-like town that Alexandria has become, Father Gabriel’s Lee Van Cleef hat and milky white eyeball have made him one of the most visually cool characters on the show. Again, how far we’ve come, eh?
What does a post-Rick “Walking Dead” look like? It looks like a brand new show, set in a new world and filled with both new characters as well as new paths for old ones. Life after Rick, perhaps, was precisely the story “The Walking Dead” needed to tell in order to feel fresh again. For the first time in a while, I feel like I’m watching a show I haven’t seen before. And with the arrival of those creepy ass Whisperers on the horizon, I’m thinking it’s only gonna get better.
If you had given up on the show, maybe it’s time to give it one more chance.
Books
‘Scary Movie Night’ Review: A Hitchcock-Themed Thriller Full of Juicy Twists But Not Much Else
A secluded mansion. A group of friends each harboring secrets. A party built around one woman’s love of Alfred Hitchcock. These are the ingredients laid out to begin Scary Movie Night, the sophomore novel from Miranda Smith and follow-up to her breakout debut, Smile for the Cameras.
They’re all, standing alone and taken together, very promising ingredients, and when Smith starts to bounce all those secrets and all that seclusion around with a little murder in the mix, they make for some juicy plotting. But fun twists and macabre themed party nights do not a thriller make. There is fun to be had here, but for all its reliance on classic horror tropes and the films of a master of cinematic suspense, Scary Movie Night never quite finds a way to become something more.
Movie blogger and influencer Tippi (yes, she’s named for Tippi Hedren from The Birds) is going through a rough patch. Her upcoming marriage was just called off, and she’s planning to hit the Cannes Film Festival then travel the world as a newly single woman, even shifting her career focus from movies to travel in the process. Her friends Ava, Marlowe, and Constance are supportive, but they also know it might be the last time they see Tippi for a while, so master party planner Ava comes up with the perfect sendoff: A themed scary movie night party, complete with costumes, hosted at the elegant estate of Tippi’s grandmother, Marmee.
Marmee, you see, has her own history with the glamour of Hollywood, and even has a private cinema set up in her mansion. It’s the perfect venue for the perfect night, at least until Tippi starts receiving vaguely threatening notes from her ex, and the first body turns up.
See what I mean about all the ingredients being there? This book starts with so much promise, particularly when guests turn up for the party and reveal their various movie costumes. There’s so much to chew on, and Smith wastes no time diving directly into the drama of it all. The book moves primarily through Tippi’s first-person perspective, so we get the lowdown on her friends, their various relationships, the quarrels that have defined previous social interactions, and much more. It’s a series of rich veins all tapped at once, and it feels like the book is genuinely going somewhere quite fun.
Here’s the thing: The book does go somewhere quite fun; it just gets there in a way that I found both frustrating and often unfulfilling. The characters aren’t defined by their choices in the book so much as they’re defined by what Tippi tells us about each of them, and while the notion of Tippi as an unreliable narrator is key to the plot, her supporting cast never really gets a chance to sit up and exist as anything other than archetypes in her head. The dialogue doesn’t help matters in this regard, and I kept finding myself wishing one of Tippi’s friends would just seize the narrative, just for a moment, so I’d get some sense of these people beyond the broad brushstrokes of the protagonist.
Which brings us to the issue of Tippi as the narrator in the first place. Like the Hitchcock blondes on which she’s clearly modeled, we’re meant to learn about her through her choices, and constantly question whether or not she’s made the right ones. Why did she leave her ex with a wedding looming? Why is she changing career paths? Why does she have to be talked into her own going-away party? How she reacts to these things, and what she’s really after, will be what defines her, but here’s the thing: Tippi, for all her Hitchcockian layers of plotting, never steps forward as a fully formed character. Like the Hitch films playing in the background during the party, she’s more like a suggestion of a character than a person.
Writing first-person present-tense is tricky under the best of circumstances, but doing it when your protagonist is meant to be harboring secrets of her own is especially challenging, and it just…never quite entirely works here, and drawing very direct parallels between her and Hitchcock’s various leading ladies doesn’t really help matters.
But here’s the really interesting part: I wouldn’t be invested in any of these issues were it not for a story that genuinely kept me reading. For all of this book’s shortcomings, and I found a few, it ultimately holds together because Smith has a genuine gift for plot twists, and secrets, and the kind of juicy drama that makes a thriller keep barreling forward on the page. There’s good stuff in here, even if it’s sometimes overshadowed by missteps, and that means that while Scary Movie Night might not obsess you or give you nightmares or stick in your head for weeks on end, it will entertain you. I wanted more from this book, but I also want to see what Miranda Smith writes next, and that’s an achievement in itself.
Scary Movie Night is available July 14 wherever books are sold.
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