The Walking Dead: “Bounty”

Nine seasons in, you’d think we could just introduce new antagonists on The Walking Dead without much preamble—that they’d just show up and say something like “Hey, we’re the season 9 villains and we’re here to tangle, thankyouverymuch.”

This, however, doesn’t seem to be the case. The Whisperers arrived with a spooky, atmospheric bang (and the death of Jesus) at the season’s mid-point, but it didn’t take long for things to stall out. “Bounty” essentially saw the two sides holding a pointless conversation designed to showcase the bad guys’ inhumanity as they haggled for the return of Alpha’s daughter Lydia—otherwise known as Carl’s (oops, I mean Henry’s) new crush. The idea that there was any question of whether they should even return Lydia seems rather ridiculous—just give the damn girl back and potentially stave off another war, especially when these scary (but oddly reasonable) new people have two of your own prisoners to trade. If this had been Michonne and not Daryl, she would have made the trade immediately … and then probably gone to the war room to plan a preemptive attack under cover of night.

Elsewhere, Carol, King Ezekiel and the Kingdom gang (who I’ve missed, I must admit) made a detour to obtain that most creature of comforts—audio-visual equipment. It was really an excuse to give us some funny visuals and gore—the zombie in a popcorn machine was rather excellent—and let Carol and Zeke vent their hopes and dreams into the ether. It’s distressing to hear them suggest that the Kingdom is somehow struggling to provide for itself, but like everything else on The Walking Dead, the details are frustratingly vague. Regardless, it tells us that Michonne’s original idea for a “charter” is still floating around, as is the hope for a festival involving all the communities.

This wasn’t a particularly eventful Walking Dead, so allow me to indulge in a bunch of individual bullet points.

— The Whisperers brought a freaking baby to the gates of The Hilltop, and then immediately began freaking out when it cried and attracted the dead. How exactly do they keep babies like this one quiet during the entire rest of their existence in the outdoors? If I was Daryl and I saw this shit going down, I wouldn’t be intimidated—I would assume the group outside was completely incompetent.

— Henry has obviously inherited Carl’s character arc from The Walking Dead comic via his star-crossed lovers routine with Lydia, but I’ve come to realize why it doesn’t work as well with Henry as it probably would with Chandler Riggs. In the comics, the reader gets so many instances of Carl being strong, resourceful and intelligent that even when he does something seemingly rash or foolhardy, we’re able to easily assume he knows what he’s doing. With Henry, we only know him as a dumb kid for the most part—his most important moments in the story so far all involve him making boneheaded decisions. Thus, we’re not naturally inclined to give him much credit when he runs out after Lydia. By all rights, he should just die immediately, which only highlights the artificiality of his plot armor when he doesn’t. This is only made worse by Enid not-so-subtly referring to Carl, right in front of Henry. Why the hell would the show want us to be reminded of Carl, right when we’re following the storyline of a pale imitation?

— When it’s been five years since anyone has seen a movie, and some of the kids have NEVER seen a movie before, what’s the first thing you show at movie night with what is probably limited power? My vote is for Star Wars: A New Hope. Can’t go wrong there, right?