‘The Walking Dead’ Recap: ‘Evolution’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

On a personal level, I consider the living dead to be the most terrifying creature out there when it comes to the horror genre. Of course, the basics when it comes to these…things, helps a lot when it comes to that, because the thought of corpses getting up and walking around and hungering for and eating human flesh is pretty freakin’ chilling in its own right. But why they disturb me to my core goes beyond the mere basics, these beings haunt me simply due to the fact that they are an outright abomination and insult to what is our natural biological path in nature…death.
 
Of course, that ending, is what we base our entire lives around, and we work hard toward leaving on our mark on this world and packing in as many memories as possible so that when our time comes we are not filled with any regrets and remembered fondly and well, the thought of seeing our accomplishments wiped away in The Walking Dead universe (or any zombie story for that matter) by having the body of a loved one open its sour and milky eyes, in order to find a warm human meal to feed upon is disturbing, to say the least and seeing how characters in this genre deal with such a matter fascinates me to no end, since it alters what life means to them in a world where death is in essence a joke.
 
So of course, leave it to this series to find new ways to evolve these abominations and take their terror to a whole new level. Because last night’s midseason finale of the series, lived up to its namesake, ‘Evoution’, by giving us a different kind of walker, one that well, changes the scope and the landscape of this series for the remainder of season nine. But, before we get into that unsettling matter, we do need to talk about a couple of important plot points that came before such ugliness since they too set the stage for the future, and it’s best we start with Michonne’s arrival at Hilltop, since that frosty reception served as a fine reminder of the fact that she isn’t quite living the dream her love and late son expressed they wanted her to be a part of.
 
Because in this story, Michonne’s choice to cut off Alexandria from the rest of the world was thrown right in her face by just about everyone and whether she likes it or not, it was made inherently clear that she is in the wrong when it comes to this decision and while this whole matter wasn’t quite resolved in this particular tale, it was nice to see Michonne have to face her choices and her past for a change and hopefully the frosty reception she received and the events of this episode will help her thaw when all is said and done since she will have her hands full, especially when one considers that Negan is now on the loose as well since he was able to escape his prison in Alexandria.  

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​But, let’s be honest, the Negan problem, and everything else pale in comparison to the big moment of the night, the evolution of the dead and well…it’s time we dive into that because this led to some heart wrenching moments and some of the finest scares the series has delivered upon in years. For it was one thing to hint at the dead tracking their prey when we ran into Rosita, and it was quite another thing to hear the dead speak when she and Eugene hid from them. But to see all of that come together in this tale and watch them slowly and methodically hunt Daryl and his friends was simply the stuff of nightmares and I distinctly recall the chill that went down my spine when the dead ignored Daryl’s attempt to distract them in order to get their hands on the others. 
 
However, while it truly seemed as though that the dead’s rotten brains were beginning to evolve and work toward new goals to feed, there was in fact, quite the logical explanation for all of this, and unfortunately it took the death of another major character to bring about that reveal. For in the middle of a fight with these evolved dead, one of them was able to evade Jesus’ attack and in turn, inform him briefly that he was in a place where he didn’t belong before running him through with a giant blade. And shortly after that stunning moment, when the cavalry arrived to put down this twisted creature, that big reveal arrived, and we discovered that this creature wasn’t a walker at all, but a man, wearing the skin of the dead…
 
Which one-hundred-percent confirms now that The Whisperers from the comics have arrived in the television Walking Dead universe and well, this is infinitely more terrifying than a mere walking corpse. Because our characters, and every character to ever inhabit a zombie related story, do everything and anything they can to survive, to avoid that awful fate. But these people, they have outright chosen to embrace the end of the world and the dead that now rule it, and they’ve also chosen to abandon their humanity, and whatever future they have left to walk amongst the dead and that…is perhaps the greatest and most disgusting insult of all when it comes to what Michonne and everyone in this story is trying to accomplish.
 
In the end however, this is one of those rare episodes that had me pacing in front of my television the closer we came to the ending, simply due to the fact that the entire chase sequence through the hills and the graveyard was downright terrifying and well, how the show revealed The Whisperers existence was outright harrowing and brilliant and heartbreaking, because it stinks that Jesus is gone. But with a new threat on the horizon, one can only hope that it reminds the leaders of the communities that they are stronger together, and that a united front is the best defense against anything that comes their way and hopefully they all figure this out quickly. For if the Whisperers here are anything like their comic book counterparts, then trouble and terror awaits Hilltop, and The Kingdom and Alexandria… 

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