♫ Walkers in a Winter Wonderland ♫
“The Walking Dead” has been on the air for nine years, which has equated to nine seasons, and yet heading into tonight’s Season 9 finale, we had never seen the characters dealing with seasonal changes. Filmed in Georgia, the show has outright ignored the harsh realities of winter from the very beginning, with budgetary constraints to blame for the oddly consistent weather patterns. After all, turning Georgia into a winter wonderland is no easy task. But with ‘The Storm,’ the show has finally proven that with a little magic, anything is possible.
Directed by Greg Nicotero, who’s frequently at the helm of the show’s standout episodes, ‘The Storm’ picked up some time after the devastating events of ‘The Calm Before,’ with the Kingdom having fallen and the community’s residents forced out into a harsh winter storm. Their goal? To find warmth and safety in their new home at Hilltop. Meanwhile, the residents of Alexandria dealt with their own issues, forced to bond with Negan while the storm raged on.
Given the surely insane amount of work both physically and digitally that’s required to bring a faux winter to Georgia, it’s likely that Season 9’s final hour will be the *only* episode of “The Walking Dead” that ever takes place during a big winter storm, and ‘The Storm’ no doubt worked overtime to completely scratch the itch and play with the elements as much as possible. Much to my personal delight, the episode was indeed a full-on winter affair, giving us everything from an icicle kill(!) to a tense sequence set atop a frozen lake. And yes, we even (finally) found out what happens to zombies when they’re exposed to the winter elements.
Spoiler: they freeze solid.
In the episode’s eeriest, coolest scene, our heroes came across three “snowman zombies” en route to Hilltop, completely frozen in place. Michonne sliced their heads off with her trusty katana, essentially shattering them clean off their bodies and spewing icy blood all over the snow; later, Michonne had trouble slicing through the frozen neck of another zombie, making for a cool little moment. After encountering the frozen zombies, the group was attacked by another horde of walkers that were buried *underneath* the snow, ‘The Storm’ again giving us a very winter-specific scene that helped it stand out as easily the show’s most unique episode to date. Even outside the world of “The Walking Dead” you’ll find few zombie movies set during Winter, so the setting was all around a relatively fresh coat of paint for the sub-genre.
We even got to see an unfortunate zombie who found himself stuck up to his chest in a frozen lake, part of an emotional scene wherein Lydia contemplated a zombie-assisted suicide. Lydia blames herself for the brutal murders of Henry and the nine other heroes who ended up with their decapitated heads stuck up on pikes, and she’s self aware enough to know that the group would be a whole lot safer from her mother’s wrath if she wasn’t part of their family. If she was, well, gone. Ultimately, Carol showed up just in time to stop Lydia.
Over at Alexandria, the show sort of struggled to get the characters out into the storm, coming up with the plot device of a faulty fireplace as the reason why they’re forced to move from one building to another. So that he wouldn’t freeze to death down in his cell, Gabriel and the gang also had to set Negan free and let him walk among them. This portion of the episode had a very Hateful Eight feel to it, with Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s gleeful wise-cracking making it something of a fun departure from the more serious tone of Michonne and Daryl’s struggles out in the titular storm. And it gave us a nice little moment wherein Negan saved Judith’s life after she went out looking for Daryl’s dog, providing a wee little taste of the redemptive arc that’s no doubt going to reach its zenith when Negan helps our heroes in their battle against the Whisperers. Granted, it’s been clear for a while now that Negan has a certain fondness for Judith, but it was nice to see him actually risk his life to save hers.
One could argue that a character who was introduced by literally bashing in the brains of one of the show’s most beloved characters could never (and *should* never) be redeemed, but I for one am on board with any show that grows and evolves its characters in such extreme, unexpected ways. Three seasons ago, I damn sure never expected we’d find ourselves here.
As it turns out, a change of seasons was just what “The Walking Dead” needed for a standout finale that, while relatively uneventful in terms of storyline progression – Alpha and Beta didn’t even show up until the very end, and only for one brief little moment – brought a whole new look, mood and atmosphere to the show. The team did a great job creating a faux winter for ‘The Storm,’ and it’s one episode that you’ll no doubt remember as time goes on. While many episodes of “The Walking Dead” (even the best ones) blend together, “the winter one” was unlike any other, and that’s pretty cool to see from a show nine years deep.
The episode may have been titled ‘The Storm,’ for obvious reasons, but it’s clear that the real storm is on the horizon. On the road to what’s sure to be a bloody, intense battle, ‘The Storm’ was a nice little episode centered around the theme of coming together and working together, and it was great to see our heroes bouncing back a bit after what they endured in ‘The Calm Before.’ That episode felt more like a traditional “Walking Dead” season finale than this one, but I’d argue that this cooldown (quite literally) was needed after the Red Wedding-esque devastation. An all around great season closed out on a fresh, fun note. I’ll take it.
Plus we got to see the first ever “Walking Dead” snowball fight. What’s not to love?!
So… any guesses on whose voice that was at the end…?
