Before I begin this review, I want to mourn for The Walking Dead actor Scott Wilson .
Scott Wilson played farmer Hershel Greene from seasons two to four in 2011-2014, and the character's death in season four caused a stir and had a big impact on the plot. influences. Wilson died on October 6 at the age of 76, before the season nine began.
It's a pity that the "Walking Dead" crew has announced that Wilson will be returning for season 9, and he has already filmed some of his scenes in this season (should appear in memories) ... These scenes will be his absolute sound . I think the name of Maggie and Glenn's son Herschel happens to be another form of memorial.
The ninth season of "The Walking Dead" has fallen into some embarrassing situation. The ratings and word-of-mouth continue to decline. Several leading actors have left one after another, and AMC is unwilling to give up this golden signboard that is still strong - the first episode of the ninth season shows A lot of new temperaments have emerged, showing the show's determination to "break and stand up". I (we) hope that it will usher in a new life.
Zombies are still
The first episode of each season will have a considerable amount of action scenes. This has become an unwritten rule of the "Walking Dead" series. Although there are not many scenes of "playing the walking dead" in this episode, it is still sincere , mainly starting with everyone. Let's go to the "cottage" White House in Atlanta to search for supplies.
In this short experience, there are many bright little designs .
For example, it is a common routine for a walking corpse to grab Siddiq's feet, but this unique "new style" with full face + full body worms is the first appearance , and it also has spiders.
Also, the scene where Gabriel happened to hack to death and erect a walking corpse in front of the "History of Human Evolution" sign was really interesting to me.
Is this human evolution or degeneration? This is a scientific question as well as a philosophical question.
Of course, the most thrilling scene is the scene of hauling supplies on the glass floor— this kind of glass often exists for the purpose of being broken, so how to break, what to drop, and whether to die or not are the places where the audience struggles . Knot almost died.
In the whole drama of "The Walking Dead", the action scenes in this episode are not too good, but the "big and small" highlights are taken care of, and it should be praised.
recuperation
The battles that should be fought have already been fought, and even if there will be new enemies in the future , at least the current theme is peace and development.
The new title screen actually reflects the theme of "new life": pictures such as dead trees sprouting, waste soil growing flowers, etc., all imply the situation of recuperation.
It has been several months (nearly a year?) since the battle at the end of the eighth season. The direct evidence is the growth of Maggie's son Herschel... Alexander, Hilltop Village, Kingdom of God, Seaside Hotel, Salvation Hall The community ("Junkyard" has been de-listed) has formed new alliances, a welcome improvement from the time of the war.
For example, the reconstruction of Alexandria is quite large, with fields, waterwheels, and many solar panels.
Rick, Michele, and Judith, three families who are not directly related by blood, can watch the crows fly by safely, which also shows that everyone lived peacefully during this period.
The Salvation Army's crops are not good enough, but Eugene can finally use waste corn to make ethanol fuel , and the Salvation Church can also be considered productive. At the same time, Darryl is also responsible for supervising the repair and maintenance of various instruments and tools in the Church of Salvation to ensure that they are needed in time.
With so many mouths to eat, the existing food reserves must be difficult to support. Fortunately, the group found a lot of seeds in the gardening management storage room of the "copycat" White House. What was saved by Yang wrong can be regarded as a solution to the urgency of the future .
And the iron plow , which was originally only used as an exhibit, is going to be "actual combat" again, and the mountain village can use it as a model to make more plows.
In addition, it is a good idea to "adapt to the times" to use the production tools that have long been eliminated, not to mention the acquisition of items such as carriages - human social civilization has undergone a serious regression under the apocalypse crisis.
Crisis
The new alliance may appear to be thriving, but in reality there are far more troubles than imagined.
The biggest problem is the Salvation Hall, which is crowded but has low productivity : it used to be an abandoned factory. To grow food, only potting soil can be used. The Salvation Army, which has been under paramilitary management for a long time, except for "soldier" is "" workers”, and asking them to suddenly change jobs to become farmers is a bit too reluctant both subjectively and objectively.
And the Salvation Army is not so easy to "turn" - using walking corpses as scarecrows to drive away crows seems like a good idea, but this is exactly the same as the Salvation Army's previous reign of terror, so Darryl disagrees.
The Salvation Church has almost no food output. Now their rations are all aided by the mountain village. In the eyes of many people, this is no different from defeating the Salvation Army in the war, but it is just a different name ... Ken's mother Tamid Knowing that after his son's death, in addition to being sad, there is also anger. The root cause is that most of the fruit produced by the alliance and the receipt of "junior" goods are subsidizing the Salvation Church for free.
If the entire alliance is monolithic, then it doesn't matter if you favor one over the other... But now the alliance is just a Confederate organization that has not been reorganized for a long time. It relies on the protagonist and a group of leaders to barely maintain a relationship of mutual assistance. The mountain village, which shoulders the heavy responsibility of "blood transfusion", will naturally be unhappy. .
The Salvation Church, which still enjoys "privilege", is not everyone 's favorite - of course, most people love Derrick and appreciate his aid policy - but there are still a small number of people who roll their eyes at Eugene and secretly draw slogans Miss Negan's rule.
After all, this is not the period of unilateral colonial exploitation by the Salvation Army, and the supply of food in the mountaintop village is limited. All Rick can do is to ration as much as possible. For the Salvation Army, it is not surprising that dissatisfaction is growing, especially after a drought that left most of the corn withered.
Due to river erosion, disrepair, and corpses crossing the border, there are more and more "broken bridges" and broken roads nearby.
This means that there are fewer and fewer roads connecting different communities, and the efficiency of transporting materials is getting lower and lower. The team returning from the sweep in this episode encountered corpses due to broken bridges and muddy roads, which is living proof.
It's no wonder that Darryl thinks the Salvation Church will collapse: it's just a broken factory, it's not suitable for production at all, most roads are hard to go now, and the nearby gasoline is also exhausted, even if we have a car, it won't work. That little corn fuel is a drop in the bucket...
In fact, the conditions of the Salvation Hall are not bad, especially the "heavy industry" foundation is the best among all communities. Unfortunately, at this stage, what is more needed is agriculture and light industry to maintain people's basic survival, so it has to become a dragging community.
To make matters worse, Rosita and Eugene will soon go to the seaside hotel to support the construction. It would be good if the mountaintop village could produce food and Alexander could produce people. The kingdom of God needs to be rebuilt and they are too busy to take care of themselves... Everyone has no more "spare resources". ” to solve existing problems.
love for a long time
Carol and Ezekiel's scenes are probably the most heartwarming in the first episode - we didn't realize they were together until Ezekiel escaped and Carol kissed him. what……
People are always very excited after great sadness and great joy, so Ezekiel proposed to Carol on the way home, but the latter did not respond positively.
Judging from what Carol told Daryl later, she did have the urge to agree immediately, but she still had scruples in her heart... Of course, Carol liked Ezekiel's sincerity, optimism and "old school", her hesitation More out of self-doubt.
Soon after, Carol took over Daryl's temporary takeover of the Church of Salvation.
Carol had to persuade him not to think too much: the problem is with me, not with you, you are very good, and my heart will always be on the kingdom of God and on your side.
Carol's hidden worries are actually not difficult to understand. The joy of "gain" is good, but the pain of "loss" makes her hesitant to move forward.
new leader
Due to many factors outside the series, this season of The Walking Dead's "leader" transition is particularly concerning. From the first episode, the focus is on Daryl, Rick and Maggie.
When carrying the supplies, Cindy saw the canoe touching the scene and thought of her dead brother. She couldn't help but talk to Daryl who was beside her. Helpless, the memories of the two brothers Daryl and Moore couldn't be used to comfort them. People... Even so, he still encouraged Cindy with the words "currently charged".
"Brother Crossbow" has always been the kind of "clumsy and upright" man who is not good at words, but this does not prevent him from having his own way of showing tenderness.
In fact, Rick has always intended to cultivate "Lone Ranger" Daryl to become a more decent leader , otherwise he will not be allowed to lead the Salvation Church after the war. It's just that Darryl always thinks that he is not the material. He is not willing to be on stage to give a speech like Rick, and he is not even willing to do this "Master of the Party".
He doesn't like to stay in this closed environment with bad memories, and he prefers a free and free jungle life outside - although Rick fully affirmed Darryl's management skills and achievements.
In fact, Darryl is also dissatisfied with Rick's current "balance strategy", which is just to stop the boiling : Our small group at the time was omnipotent, but now such a big stall? Disaster.
"We're different now." Darryl didn't agree with what Rick advised himself, but he understood it. In our words, "reserving opinions but obeying orders".
Now Darryl is playing tricks, and Carol is taking over from him to manage the Salvation Church... It can be said that everyone around him is helping him, supporting him, and making the final transition for him to finally take over the leadership position.
The current leader, Rick, is actually very distressed and powerless, otherwise how could Judith paint a bitter face for Dad? After the trip to the Salvation Hall, Michele worried that they were wrong to take Nigan's life, and Rick told the truth: what they wanted was not Negan, but food.
"Population" is the most important resource these days, so it is necessary to end the war with the least cost of casualties. However, people play the roles of producers and consumers at the same time. Today, this initial stage of lack of clothing and food, before the alliance has not fully transformed the population into productive forces, is the most painful and difficult.
After the war, there are many things to be done, and it is not easy for anyone. The people who have the most opinions are the Salvation Church, which joined the alliance as a loser, and the mountaintop village that is still providing a lot of supplies... In view of this, Michelle would think of suggestions. Agreements are signed between communities to be followed by mutual agreement. We can no longer continue to engage in simple words, otherwise we will suffer a lot.
In addition, Rick is still worried that Daryl is worried too much... This excellent deputy, he really wants to entrust one or two more.
Of course, the one that has changed the most is Maggie. Gregory, who wanted to seize power, held a democratic election. The result only made Maggie's position more justifiable. She is brave and courageous, and she knows how to do farming. Whether it is war or construction , she is a leader Good player, it's strange not to be elected.
On the way back home, the little blacksmith Ken died unexpectedly (bitten by a walking corpse + kicked by a frightened horse). Although there is a lack of combat experience, Maggie, who let Ken go out as a "technical consultant", is still reluctant. its to blame.
Maggie arrives to pay her respects to Ken's parents, Tammy and Earl, and through Tammy's accusation of her "wrong" policies, Maggie realizes that she is losing popular support.
At the same time, Gregory took advantage of this opportunity to keep lobbying the people in the Peak Village to support him again . In addition to buying people's hearts, he focused on the old couple who had just lost their children.
Gregory kept persuading Earl, who had stopped drinking, to drink alcohol, and took the opportunity to amplify the sadness and anger in his heart, questioning the rationality of Maggie's vote to be the leader, and saying that she would only obey Rick... ...the rest we know, Gregory tricked Maggie into Glenn's cemetery, had a drunk Earl attack her, wounded both Maggie and Enid, and made little Herschel cry .
The angry Maggie immediately understood, and her settlement with Gregory was also an important opportunity for her to complete her transformation.
Maggie realized two things: First, it is useless to show kindness and kindness to the villain. Not only will they not appreciate it, but they will also think that you are pedantic and deceitful; Otherwise, an immoral and incompetent villain like Gregory would not be able to take advantage of it, let alone trick others into doing stupid things.
I have to say that Gregory has more "kindness" than he did in the seventh season. At that time, he had the guts to dig a knife behind Maggie's back but didn't have the guts to stab someone. This time, he dared to stab her face to face...
Gregory was right on one thing: Maggie really didn't dare to kill him in this environment, no one would believe that Gregory was so bold, he would only think that Maggie vented her anger and killed him, and recklessly counter-killed him further. Passive... However, after the epiphany, Maggie began to learn to think from a higher perspective.
When Rick came to Maggie for help again, he had to talk about the old ways before speaking- because he knew that it was unkind to keep asking for help from the mountaintop, and he was embarrassed, but he really couldn't do anything.
Among all the communities at this stage, Shanshan Village suffered the least losses during the war, and now it has the best development. In addition, Maggie has always been very generous. Rick can only hope that Shanshan Village can continue to provide food relief and help build bridges.
But this time, Maggie didn't plan to provide free support any more: the Salvation Church wanted food, they had to hire people to repair the bridge, and also supply all the corn fuel to the mountaintop village.
Rick's balancing strategy is really helpless: The Salvation Army is in a very bad state now. It was originally a "meat eater" for the boss, and now it is a "grass-eater" for the defeated . Provoked a backlash and mutiny from the Salvation Army.
But Maggie's uncompromising reasons are also very good: in terms of "captives", the Salvation Army has been treated very well now . .
Since the people of the Peak Village chose to be their leader, Maggie should give priority to their interests.
Meanwhile, Maggie's dissatisfaction with Rick at the end of last season has now erupted in another facelifted form: I'm not ignoring the survival and unity of the new alliance, but I don't approve of your current "headache and foot pain." "Foot Healing" method...you said you would follow me after the war, but you didn't - otherwise, I would have done better than you are now.
"It can't be like it used to be, now it's changed." Maggie finally dared to openly challenge Rick's leadership. She has the original motivation (Negan is not dead), new motivation (Rick's governance is not good), and confidence ( Peak Village has the strongest comprehensive strength and is indispensable).
After dark, Maggie publicly executed Gregory, who was not conspiring to hook up - "Yeah", she had given enough, and now she had to stand up .
However, Maggie did not lose her mind when she stood up. She let go of Earl, the blacksmith who was confused for a while, and punished the culprit. .
If it wasn't for actress Lauren Cohan's intention to leave the show, I'd be really looking forward to her future performance... But now, how she and Rick will end is another open question .
[Everyone is welcome to pay attention to my official account "You Love Comment Area"~]
View more about A New Beginning reviews
