The Walking Dead - "The Next World" Review (Spoilers!)
by Robbie Jones
The Walking Dead returned last week with an absolute corker of an episode, one of the show’s best. This week, things are slowing down just a tad, but it still maintains a decent quality.
The first thing to note is that this is probably the nicest, happiest opening to The Walking Dead ever. Music playing, Rick getting ready, Judith playing on the floor, banter with Michonne and Carl...It just feels like a normal show. It’s refreshing; yeah, The Walking Dead does a phenomenal job of its drama and scares, and that hasn’t gotten boring at all, but given how great the characters are, it’s just nice to see them being happy for once. This then carries on when Rick and Daryl find a truck full of drinks and sweets, but this is where things start to get suspicious. You kind of think “Yeah, there is no way things are going to go THIS well for them” and low and behold, they don’t. Last week, we got a glimpse of Rick showing more hope, and this episode was all about that. Being so open to that stranger and even bring him back to Alexandria, that was new for him, given that for the last season, he hasn’t even trusted the people he lived with, let alone people from the outside. Of course, this does seem like a bad idea following that cliffhanger...but more importantly, Rick and Michonne are getting it onnnnn! Fans have been shipping that for a while and it’s finally happening. It does seem a bit odd, like, Rick seemed to get over Jessie quite fast, but it’s made clear that there’s been a time gap between the two episodes. I’m not 100% convinced this relationship will work out, but hopefully it does.
Whilst Rick seems to have a lot more faith, Daryl is seemingly going the other way, telling Rick he was right before while Rick insists that he was wrong. Given the shit they go through in this episode, it’s understandable why he’s thinking that way, but given how open minded Daryl was before, it’s kind of sad to see him become so negative. Still, him and Rick had some nice banter in the beginning, and the episode was actually genuinely funny. Daryl begging Rick not to play his awful music in the car was a great laugh.
The problem with this episode was that of the three story threads (Rick and Daryl, Carl and Enid, Spencer and Michonne), only one of them actually that interesting. There wasn’t anything particularly wrong about the other two (apart from the total non-chemistry between Carl and Enid), it’s just that Rick and Daryl’s run was the most involving of them, and you just kind of spend the episode waiting for it to go back to them. Other than that, the episode is pretty solid. Good drama, good performances, Rick and Michonne get it on, and a nice cliffhanger.
So, not too much to say this week but an intriguing cliffhanger hopefully promises some good drama next week.