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It’s easy to guess how this season is going to go. Since its third year, The Walking Dead has aired in half-seasons of eight episodes apiece, spaced out in two parts to maximize AMC’s ratings domination. This first assault is largely successful, but there’s enough chaos on both sides to suggest there will be many more strikes to follow. Then Rick and his team storm Negan’s main fortress, driving armored cars and trucks, and give their adversary one chance to surrender (he declines) before opening fire. Rick, having united the many clans living under Negan’s subjugation, begins quietly taking out the tyrant’s lieutenants to weaken any chance of a counter-attack. The first episode of Season 8, “Mercy,” is mostly build-up with a little bit of action. Hollywood Doesn’t Make Movies Like The Fugitive Anymore Soraya Roberts But overshadowing those impressive moments in the last couple years has been the onslaught of needlessly sadistic storytelling. When those details are good, The Walking Dead thrives, and the show has seen many creative bright spots during its run. For too long, this series has followed a formula of delayed gratification, fixating on little details as a way of dragging out larger, more meaningful plot changes. But that may not be enough to get audiences back on board. In the AMC show’s eighth-season premiere Sunday night, Rick finally launched into action, uniting three communities in his zombie-apocalypse world and beginning an open insurrection against Negan’s rule. Last season, as Negan smashed skulls and Rick mostly cowered in fear, The Walking Dead actually saw its ratings decline for the first time. But the series itself has to overcome viewer apathy, and the general ratings entropy that it dodged for so long while it was one of the most-watched programs on TV. For Rick, it’s been pretty obvious for the past year and a half who his nemesis is: Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), the baseball bat-wielding psychopath who has laid bloody waste to the show’s ensemble and halted its narrative drive in the process.
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