
TV Review – The Walking Dead: Fun and Chaos Collide in ‘A Certain Doom’
October 5, 2020With the season ten finale ‘A Certain Doom’ not actually being the finale now (they’ve added six more episodes to come out in 2021), it’s safe to say it’s very odd to get this one-off episode and then hey, see you next year. Granted, it’s showing with the newest entry in the TWD universe World Beyond but still, it just feels weird. That being said, The Walking Dead went out in 2020 with a bang in an episode full of deaths, great visuals, and some great moments with characters we love and hate.
The setup is for the episode is great: The huge, and I mean huge, walker herd is descending on the enemy, led by Beta and the Whisperers. The aerial views of the horde slowly swarming the abandoned hospital are magnificent. This is less about an actual big fight and more about building some real dread, and in this, they succeed. The Walking Dead is always at its best when it builds real tension, whether it is between humans or humans and walkers, and this episode had tension in spades.
There is a cat and mouse game between The Whisperers and those trapped inside the hospital, each side trying to use the horde to their advantage. It is a lot of fun too, something the show sometimes lacks, drowning itself in too much drama far too many times. However, less drama and more angst-filled moments as the familiar faces trapped inside hatch a desperate plan to not only escape, but take care of the walkers as well. It’s bold and crazy and fits right into the theme of this episode.
A lot of credit has to go to showrunner Angela Kang, who has done a great job taking over for Scott Gimple, and writer Corey Reed, who together mix fun, action, gore, and some wonderful moments into a well thought out episode. Only forty-five minutes long, “A Certain Doom” doesn’t give the viewer many moments to catch their collective breath but when they do, Melissa McBride, Norman Reedus, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan have some great moments.
Not to be outdone Team Eugene, which includes Princess, Yumiko, and Ezekiel and of course the big E, get the final scene from their journey to meet up with the mysterious Stephanie. What happens at the very end to leave us waiting until 2021 might be familiar to those who read the comics/graphic novels, but others will be either scratching their heads or yelling “about damn time!” Either way, it was an interesting way to bow out until next year.
With a total of thirty episodes remaining in the series, “A Certain Doom” closed one chapter and began another, opening up a whole truckload of possibilities in terms of stories and some familiar faces popping in to say a final goodbye. While I am not a fan of waiting until next year for more episodes, at least The Walking Dead signed off of 2020 in style, leaving fans hopeful for a great ride until the actual end is finally here.
Four stars out of five