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The walking dead archeron review - Daryl, maggie and Elijah
Television

The Walking Dead – Acheron Part 1 review – S11 E1

Jeffrey Lyles , , , , , , , , ,

With a few notable exceptions, the back end of The Walking Dead’s 10th season was a mess. Too many aimless spotlights on irrelevant characters and the cloak of protection around Carol and Daryl eroded much of the suspense.

Can the final season kickoff get the show back on track? Acheron Part 1 offers enough reasons for optimism with an intense season premiere that suggests the series can still end on a high note.

Daryl, Maggie, Carol and the gang uncover a military base with a lot of dead walkers. It’s all for the cause of getting their supplies of meals ready to eat. Seems like the logical question would be did the food cause this widespread death?

A drop of Daryl’s blood triggers the walkers and it’s feeding frenzy time. Carol’s the last one to get pulled up negating all traces of suspense.

I’ve said it countless times already, but announcing Carol and Daryl were getting a spin-off might be the single worst decision in the history of the show.

The walking dead archeron review - rosita and carol

There’s no scenario the writers can create that can foster any doubt Carol and Daryl will survive anything through this season. For a series that’s thrived on the sense that no character is safe this was an unbelievably bad call.

Negan and Maggie are still sharing cold glances. A few more of Maggie’s crew survived and made it to Alexandria. Frost (Glenn Stanton), Duncan (Marcus Lewis) and Agatha (Laurie Fortier). These reinforcements look pretty formidable.

Maggie suggests returning to their old sanctuary, Meridian, which was overrun by The Reapers in the night. Most of the Alexandria crew wants to avoid Maggie’s suicide mission, but Daryl, Gabriel, Alden and Roy decide to roll.

Negan gets dragged along thanks to his knowledge of the Metro. As a DMV guy, it’s neat seeing the Metro showcased although it loses some accuracy points for the lack of rats.

Typically in this era of TWD, one plot takes an entire episode focus. Acheron also spends time at the Commonwealth, who’s administration chats with Eugene, Ezekiel, Yumiko and Princess.

They’re asking some intense questions including frequency of bowel movements and vaccination record. Oh now, the Commonwealth is infringing on personal freedoms.

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Eugene’s responses are hilarious. The editing on these questions shows the differences with the characters and their paths before coming together.

Ezekiel calls out the orange red clad enforcer, Mercer (Michael James Shaw), who refuses to be baited. After learning some of their fellow detainees have been in these cells for months, Ezekiel and company decide they don’t need to stick around for reprocessing. Smart call.

The walking dead archeron review - Eugene, Yumiko, Ezekiel and Princess

Shifting between the two subplots was a different approach for this era of TWD. Normally, the focus would be solely on the Metro expedition and Ezekiel and company would wait for next week.

Princess has an impressive recall of the Commonwealth troops. Would have been nice to see just how Eugene and Yumiko nabbed the Commonwealth guards’ armor. Yumiko sees a message from her brother just as they’re heading out and decides to stay.

Walkers in the tunnel had throats slashed and bags placed over them. The crew is taking out the bagged walkers like they’re back killing “Negan.”

Negan saves a nameless Alexandrian and continues challenging Maggie’s decisions. This seems like a bad choice.

“What no one knows how to read a map?” That’s a fair question actually. Negan accuses Maggie of bringing him down to get killed. Then he goes with the super low blow of mentioning Glenn.

The walking dead archeron review - Maggie and Daryl

This exchange with Negan and Maggie was so good. It’s going to be interesting to see how long this season can milk this tension between Maggie and Negan without reaching some payoff.

Maybe not that long actually. A train blocks the tunnel and it’s conveniently blocked on the sides. Daryl chases after Dog while Maggie is the last one up.

Negan sees her clinging and asking for his help, but he bails. Oh yeah, that’s not gonna sit well with anybody. How’s Negan gonna explain this one?

Acheron comes through with some fun outnumbered walker scenarios, but the real thrill was watching the Maggie/Negan feud escalate.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Photo Credit: AMC

Grab Season 10 of The Walking Dead now on Amazon.

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