Review: The Walking Dead season 8 premiere episode 801 ‘Mercy’
By Adam Carlson
Overall Impression of TWD 801
This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I was actually a bit let down by the season 8 premiere of The Walking Dead. I wanted to see more of the build to the first big battle between the two groups, but instead got a rushed episode pushing action over dialogue and storytelling.
More from Undead Walking
- Walking Dead alum Jayson Warner Smith promotes new film, Chipper, watch it now
- Walking Dead actor Chandler Riggs filming new movie in Tampa Bay
- Why is there no season 12 of The Walking Dead?
- Will Morgan Jones find Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live spinoff?
- Watch Tales of TWD actress Jillian Bell in Prime Video’s Candy Cane Lane
So many characters could have had important roles or been developed leading up to the first battle of All-Out War, but instead, it focused on a select few characters again and didn’t focus enough on The Saviors and how they look to defend themselves.
Don’t get me wrong, there were will plenty of positives. Messages of hope, some evolution of Carl’s character, and some pretty cool explosions. It’s a great way of getting some excitement for the war, even if it happens at the expense of the characters.
Season 7 was heavily criticized for being slow-paced, and season 8 likely doesn’t want to move at that rate again for fear of alienating viewers. Hopefully, the show can take some time between battles to work on the characters and relationships between them.
Overall, I felt this was one of the weaker season premiere episodes even though it did a good job of setting the war in motion. But the hype was so high and expectations were astronomical, which didn’t help an episode that needed to be a bit more low-key to be appreciated.
I’ll give this episode a 7.5 out of 10. It was good, but not great. It missed the mark on some things while moving forward on others and should set a great tone for season 8.
Next: 10 predictions for The Walking Dead season 8
The Walking Dead will return for season 8 episode 2 titled ‘The Damned’ on October 29, 2017. Hopefully this installment of the series will focus a little more on the family aspect of the communities without resorting to fantasy flashbacks.