AMC

‘The Walking Dead’ 8×07 Review: Time for After

The Walking Dead “Time for After” bored us to death with time spent focusing on Eugene, the traitor, Jadis, the other traitor, and questioned the morality of slamming a truck into a compound full of innocent people and Saviors. Spoiler alert: humanizing Eugene doesn’t make him a good person or makes me want to see more about how he drinks himself to sleep because of guilt.

Let’s dive into The Walking Dead’s “Time for After.”

Spotlight on The Coward

It was only after the episode was over that I understood why they spent so much time on Eugene. He’s still a coward, no doubt about that, but giving him time in the spotlight helped distinguish him from the rest of Alexandria, Hilltop, and The Kingdom. Basically all of our heroes.

Eugene is a coward who is only up for saving his own skin. He doesn’t want to cause drama or get a bunch of people killed because their deaths mean less people around to protect him from the walkers beyond their walls. He doesn’t really care for the lives at the Savior compound.

He gets drunk to quiet the guilt that he feels inside for what he has done and what he continues to do with Negan. It does add much-needed depth to his character but not enough to forgive and forget what he did against the people that saved him and protected him for so long.

I know that if Abraham was around he would be ashamed of Eugene and call him out for the coward that he is and how he betrayed this community. I don’t think Eugene’s going to back down and suddenly have a moment of inspiration where he does the right thing. He’s too firmly encroached in what he believes in and the thought of surviving for number one, himself.

Killing of Savior Workers

I love the fact that Rosita and Michonne pulled out of ramming that truck into the Savior compound. They want to see things through and they want to get revenge on the people that hurt their loved ones but they don’t want to do it while losing themselves.

They also worried about the workers that live inside the Savior compound. It’s a brilliant way to surround yourself with easy victims that will keep you alive and stop others from attacking you because they don’t want to hurt the innocent. And Michonne and Rosita understand that the workers inside deserve better than being stuck in the middle.

It’s not enough for them to actually intervene and stop Daryl and Tara from doing what they did, but it’s important to note that they are thinking about the world that will be left behind once Negan is dead. They can’t continue to focus on killing the other when the real threat is the undead.

And honestly, with the way that things are going, I have absolutely no idea what comes next for our group of survivors and the battle against Negan. Nothing’s going as I expected, and while part of me hates it, another part of me loves it. That’s what good TV is supposed to do.

Besting Jadis at Her Own Game

I’d like to start off by saying that Jadis is disgusting. She took photos of Rick while he was in his underwear and propositioned Rick to be nude so she could sculpt him. If the roles were reversed and a man was asking a woman to do the same before condemning her to death, the internet would rise up and call him a pig. But since it’s being done to a man we really don’t freak out because men can’t be victims, right? Wrong. So this is me calling Jadis out on being a disgusting person at the end of the world.

It makes me even happier that Rick played her at her own game. She was so sure that she could take Rick down that she didn’t pay attention to what was really going on. Rick was there to scope out if Jadis and her people were going to be trouble in the long run and if one day Rick & Co. would have to swing around and destroy her people like they destroyed Negan. He wasn’t worried about his life or thought for a second that he would die.

Rick, our survivors, and the viewers understand and remember that Jadis’ betrayed them/us. But they also understand that Jadis is all about the survival of her people and the advantages that she can get from whoever she allies herself with. Rick is a better ally and they all know it now after he played her like a fiddle and showed his strength & resilience even when he was tied up and barely dressed, having spent days locked up in the Georgia heat.