The Walking Dead Season 10, Episode 17: “Home Sweet Home” Review
WITH ITS FIRST NEW EPISODE, 'THE WALKING DEAD' DOESN'T OUTRIGHT BREAK THE TWO-YEAR STREAK OF QUALITY IT HAS ENJOYED UNDER ANGELA KANG, BUT IT DOES FEEL LIKE AN HOUR OF MISSED OPPORTUNITIES FOR A RETURNING CHARACTER.
Four months after AMC aired a season finale that proved not to be a season finale at all, the tenth and penultimate season of “The Walking Dead” returns tonight with the first of six new episodes. “Home Sweet Home”, the first of the post-apocalyptic horror juggernaut's new entries, is also the first episode of "The Walking Dead" to be shot digitally rather than on the 16 mm film that has been a staple of the show for the entire previous decade of its run. Falling in line with showrunner Angela Kang's tease that these six "bonus" episodes would take on a different format from the rest of the series, "Home Sweet Home" is almost entirely centered around Daryl (Norman Reedus) and a returning Maggie (Lauren Cohan). If this is any sort of bellwether for the other five episodes, we can probably expect each one to focus on two or three different characters, turning this final third of the season into a sort of separate, miniature anthology series.
Unfortunately, much like the switch from film to digital, the fracturing of the show's ensemble cast smacks of being made necessary by COVID-19, rather than an artistic choice by the creators of "The Walking Dead". Kang has overseen a two-year return to form for the series, arguably guiding its longest run of consistent, high-quality episodes to date, so to see her hand and that of the other creatives behind the show be forced this way is a little disappointing.
This disappointment is shared by the episode itself. "Home Sweet Home" picks up seemingly the same day that the previous episode ended, hours after the war against the Whisperers was won and the massive horde of walkers - the show's name for its zombie-like monsters - used as a weapon by said villains were led off a cliff and destroyed. Maggie showed up in the nick of time during that final episode, saving Gabriel (Seth Gilliam) and helping to secure the victory. The most exciting moment of the episode happens in the first two minutes: as Maggie talks with Judith Grimes (Cailey Fleming), the pair run into Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who, when Maggie originally left the show, was an incarcerated, defeated foe, but in the interim has been largely freed of his past charges, including the murder of Maggie's husband Glenn.
For the show to tease a showdown between these two characters in its cold open, to hint at the possible drama and tension that could arise from putting Maggie and Negan on screen together for the first time in two seasons - and in the universe of the show, several years - only for Negan to then be absent from virtually all of the rest of the episode, feels like a gigantic missed opportunity. The show will surely get to this character dynamic in a later episode, but kicking the can down the road and having us watch Maggie talk about said drama with Daryl instead, isn't very exciting.
Seemingly aware of the quasi-dullness of its own script, "Home Sweet Home" immediately races into action mode as Maggie and the new group she returned with find two of their people murdered, their encampment burned down, and Maggie's son Hershel missing. Maggie exposits that the "Reapers" are responsible, right before three of the remaining group are then picked off by a sniper as hilariously suddenly as they were introduced, including a new frontrunner for the "The Walking Dead" Darwin Award, who runs full tilt into a clear trap set by the sniper, and is rewarded with death. Fortunately for the rest of the characters, the sniper blows himself up with a grenade before he can kill anyone else… or give Maggie any information.
This entire half of the episode is a bit annoying. We just spent two years with the threat of the Whisperers, and two years before that with Negan and the Saviors. We're into only the next episode after the cathartic annihilation of the Whisperers and their horde - an episode which, again, seems to take place on the very same day - and we're immediately presented with a brand new group to fear, who even have a cutesy villain name.
"The Walking Dead" has always been at its greatest when dealing with the interpersonal drama of the characters, and sidelining what could've been a meaningful hour exploring how Maggie might deal with Negan in favor of sniper battles, grenade explosions, and a new cycle of the same villainous plot the show has gone through no less than three times previously, just feels like a waste of screentime. There's no reason an episode between Maggie and Negan couldn't have been made while still adhering to the restrictions made necessary on set by COVID. In fact, it would've arguably been easier than bringing in new cannon fodder and trying to shoot two different setpieces (the aforementioned sniper battle, and the customary-yet-dull-at-this-point clearing out of a bunch of walkers) around those same restrictions.
The switch to digital, while understandable, is a bit jarring as well. In and of itself, the digital photography looks good, and the fundamental aesthetic of the show is intact, but without the signature grain of 16 mm it looks clearer and cleaner. Watch even just the final scene of "A Certain Doom" (the previous episode) and then watch "Home Sweet Home" immediately after, and the difference is instantly apparent. There have been 147 episodes of "The Walking Dead" shot on 16 mm whereas, including the upcoming 24-episode 11th season, we are 30 episodes away from its conclusion. Accounting for an understanding of the circumstances created by COVID, and the reduction in crew size and equipment that shooting with digital provides, there’s still a certain element missing now, whose absence can’t help but feel a little disappointing.
With that being said, “Home Sweet Home” is far from being a bad episode. The general interactions between Daryl and Maggie are emotionally resonant, as is Maggie’s relationship with Hershel (Kien Michael Spiller), who is found safe and sound after all the commotion has ended. The moment we first see Hershel, despite it being somewhat insane if you stop for even a moment to think about it - gunfire and a grenade explosion have just gone off all around him, and five members of the group Hershel was traveling with are dead, yet here he is sitting up in a tree, smiling, completely unbothered - is utterly endearing, where all of the emotion of Glenn and Maggie’s past, and the lengths the group had to go to in order to protect Maggie while she was pregnant, culminate in two words: “Hey mom!”
Finally, as Daryl, Maggie, Hershel, and the surviving members of their group arrive at Alexandria, we get one last moment of Negan and Maggie. Maggie walks into the town, doing all she can to ignore him completely, while Negan looks on with guilt and dismay as he watches the widow and son of a man he murdered. This moment serves as a miniature showcase for why Morgan is the most capable performer in the cast: there’s absolutely no dialogue, and yet the expression on his face, and every slightest movement he makes as his eyes track the characters’ perpendicular movement, conveys a million words.
Perhaps this is the bigger issue with “Home Sweet Home”: it’s not even necessarily that we didn’t get enough of Negan vs. Maggie, but rather that we just didn’t get enough Negan. This is the biggest corner the show has painted itself into. Morgan’s abilities, and the complexity and depth they’ve given to a character who was formerly a caricature of a villain, makes the show often feel lacking when he isn’t on screen. Nonetheless, this was a decent if flawed return for the show, and hardly a reason to lose confidence in Angela Kang, the savior of “The Walking Dead”.