The season 10 finale of The Walking Dead just finished airing across the United States. When I watched it a few weeks ago, I was impressed with the episode. “A Certain Doom” will rank as one of the best finales of The Walking Dead since the fifth season.
What made this episode strong, is the wonderful acting especially by Melissa McBride and Cassady McClincy. Their bond together really shined on this episode. The biggest scene on this episode involves the both of them as Lydia saved Carol from falling off the cliff as the walkers were walking off the cliff. What set the motion of the end of The Whisperers, is when Lydia tossed Alpha’s mask off the cliff. That scene is very poetic as Carol’s hatred and revenge towards Alpha has come full circle as this memorable scene gives us the viewer, and the characters relief that it is finally over.
Gabriel’s scenes were great too. Many times during his on screen prescence, we were lead to believe that he would either get his comic book death, or his on screen death by the end of the episode. I based this because there are several times on The Walking Dead where a character gets too much airtime and dialouge and then they wind up dead. That did not happen here as the masked person and Maggie saved his life. Gabriel had a great character development since he became the head of the council back in season 9. I cannot wait to see what he will do in season 11.
The battle scene at night was really good. I liked the idea of those Whisperers using walkers as body shields while the group battled them. The other Whisperers did what they could to bring down the wagon and their plan worked despite them getting killed. Battle scenes have been excellent during this season of The Walking Dead and Walk With Us had the best battle scene this season.
Those Commonwealth soldiers at the final moments of the episode got me excited for the New World Order arc. That will happen at the next season. The detail and the look of those soldiers were comic book acurate and I was amazed on how they pulled that off. Everything from the armor, the guns with the blade attached, and even their stance was really taken from the comic. Huge props to the team for this.
The scene when Carol and Daryl were talking about New Mexico really set the stage of their upcoming spinoff. That spinoff is currently untitled, but it would be quite interesting to see how they will exit the main show.
Now, there are crucial moments from the comic book stories “The Whisperer War” and “A Certain Doom” to note. Those moments such as Gabriel’s brutal death by Beta, the full Negan vs. Beta fight, and Andrea’s walker bite reveal were not adapted on screen. Those four moments were expected to be adapted due to episode 15 being named “The Tower” and the finale being named “A Certain Doom.” But those two names was really a bait and switch tactic and it disappointed me too.
Speaking of Beta vs. Negan, this was the main cover of the Vol-27 story. Everyone could not wait for these two to have their big showdown. But it ended in less than 30 seconds. Huge disappointment! I could not think which was worse. Beta’s death on the show, or on the comic. At least on Beta’s death in the comic, there was an actual fight. And Daryl should have known that Beta had armor because they fought previously. And on their last fight, Beta had armor on.
Walking through that massive horde gave me chills. But at the same time, I think that it is eye opening that only one person of the group was killed in that horde by a Whisperer. I know that the guts trick has been done for years. At this point, I just think of it as an invincibility star from Super Mario. There should have been more of a sense of danger and unpredictability during this long sequence. But it is very cool to see those walkers that upclose next to everyone.
I cannot say much about Maggie since her return is brief. I do believe that her return will be expanded on in tho upcoming six extra episodes. It will also be interesting to see how Maggie and Negan will interract too.
With the major hiccups out of the way, I still think that this is a very strong episode. It wrapped up the feud between the communities and The Whisperers in a great way. What the finale also did, is that we now have something huge to look forward to on the final season!
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