The Walking Dead 8×10 Review: The Lost and the Plunderers

I hope. I hope in vain. And then I hope some more. Actually, ‘The Lost and the Plunderers’ wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t great, sure, but I didn’t want to throw my TV out into the yard. The episode had its moments of ‘wtf’ and head scratching but it was just okay.

I didn’t mind Carl – in fact, and I think I’ve said this before, Carl had begun to grow on me, just in time for them to throw him into the dead character black hole. (I STILL LOVE YOU BETH GREENE). These new dumb title sequences of white writing on a black screen make me think of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The show has never done them before and they’re out of place in the second episode of the EIGHTH SEASON. They’re out of place on the show in general. At the very least, the surviving characters are grieving–unlike they have for many of the fallen. Perhaps because Chandler had been on the show since the very beginning? Perhaps because Carl is the catalyst to start things in motion?

Enid and Aaron’s little jaunt to the Ocean People never needed to happen. I would have been perfectly fine never seeing those characters again. Unless they plan on following a man (Aaron) into battle to fight more men (the Saviors) for another man (Rick) in the immediate future, the time that could have been spent on quality Maggie content is wasted.

I think I liked ‘The Lost and the Plunderers’ despite the Oceanfolk because many of the pieces fell into place. I like Negan as a villain and I like him as a character because so much of him is a grey area. Of course I don’t like and disapprove of his behavior. The man rules The Saviors, and Simon (or so he thinks) with an iron fist. Kill one of the Garbage People, he says, just one. To send a message. Negan appears to plan his killing very carefully: he is a methodical leader and up until this point, we’ve seen very little of his strategy. It has never been a free-for-all murder fest for Negan, but Simon on the other hand… Simon going against Negan and slaughtering everyone is a HUGE indicator of the way Negan runs things and a contradiction to how many people have considered him.

I can’t believe I’m typing this with my own fingers, but I liked the Jadis reveal. With all of the Scavengers gone, there is no one for Jadis to perform for anymore. She’s no longer a leader, playing some part, just like Ezekiel. We see a crack form, and suddenly she’s falling apart. Hearing her speak in full sentences, unlike the stony alien-like language of before, is refreshing. We experience her dealing with losing all of her people, by letting them fall into the garbage grinder to make walker burgers. Zombie Kill of the week, anybody?

Maybe I’m just easily swayed, but I thought I recognized genuine grief in Negan when Rick tells him that Carl is dead. Negan’s afraid that Carl might have been a fatality of their attack on Alexandria–but no, it was Carl’s dumbass fault because he didn’t stay in the house.

By the end of the episode, Negan is telling Rick what we’ve all been screaming since the second season: “Give up. Because you have already lost.”

The episode title, ‘The Lost and the Plunderers’ pays homage to the sign in Alexandria: ‘Mercy for the Lost, Vengeance for the Plunderers’. Now they are all lost. Now they are all plunderers.

Author: Bekah

Bekah has a B.F.A. in Theatre Performance from Anderson University and is the Executive Assistant at Saga Event Planning. She is a frequent convention attendee and cosplayer and co-hosts The Geekiary webcast “The Bitching Dead”.

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