If I told you the best part of tonight’s episode of The Walking Dead was a doorknob, would you believe me? Because it’s true, but it feels like a bigger blow against “Variant” than I think. It was a pretty cool doorknob.

While remaining happy to take his sweet time wander to the series finaletonight’s episode picks up a bit from last week’s”new contract,“but only when it’s outside of the Commonwealth, focusing on Aaron, Lydia, Jerry and Elijah’s trip to bring supplies and check out Oceanside. But since it’s fun, let’s go ahead and get the stuff out of the Commonwealth.

Really, all you need to know is that Pam wants another scapegoat for last week’s debacle where Eugene played a secret recording of Kingsley St. Buffingsworth talking about the stupidity of unrich people, the men of Hornsby’s hand created a group of zombies inside the Commonwealth, and Kingsley ended up getting eaten out. Pam knows that Max and Eugene were responsible for the gang, but she is content to let Eugene take the blame for it all to Mercer’s relief, rather than have her sister executed for treason. As a search is conducted and all the Alexandrians and Hilltoppers are rounded up and interrogated, Eugene hides in Gabriel’s Church and Max ends up getting caught.

Eugene, of course, finally finds some courage to protect his beloved by turning himself in and confessing that he did it all and worked alone, but there is – and please try not to be surprised by this – some confusing scenes along the way. , mostly involving Pam, who seems to have gone as much of a weirdo as the last Governor to appear on the show. Whether she’s talking to Sebastian’s corpse or visiting Hornsby and patting his head (which sounds incredibly exciting to her, and therefore upsetting to me), Pam is many levels more sinister than she is. has never seemed before, which should feel like a reveal but instead feels like a retcon.

For example, Pam somehow knows that Hornsby is responsible for releasing the zombies into the Commonwealth and causing Sebastian’s indirect death. She wants Max to sign a confession that she stopped taking her depression medication and was therefore misled by Eugene and the other newcomers. She brings Sebastian’s zombie, a knife, and the hot corpse of Hornsby’s chief goon to Hornsby’s cell and tells him to feed his son. I guess, with her son dead, her reputation ruined by Connie’s unproven newspaper article and the recording, and Eugene ready to confess, she will try to capture and/or kill all the Alexandrians just for doing something wrong.

Although the Commonwealth remains Scenario A, it is far less interesting than Aaron and his gang’s attempted voyage to Oceanside. After running through a line (in single file?) of zombies blocking the road, Aaron makes the foolish decision to take the wagon loaded with off-road supplies where he immediately gets stuck. Then he runs over Jerry’s foot and causes his knee to bleed. They must hole up in a totally unknown Renaissance festival venue. It’s good!

Despite having triple checked all security, that night Aaron and Lydia are shocked to find that zombies have entered Renfest.. Indeed, there are a lot of zombies, forcing the foursome to hole up in the castle, where… there is a door handle. And when the zombies mass outside, that doorknob starts to turn, forcing the group to move to the roof. “Whisperers!” Aaron swears, reasonably enough.

Neither Aaron nor the hobbled Jerry are particularly surprised to find a “zombie” crawling across the roof to grab them, or grabbing a boulder to punch Jerry in the brain. But this drives Aaron so mad that he begins punching the Whisperer in the head with his fist before ripping off their mask, only to find a bloody skull underneath. It wasn’t a Whisperer at all. He was a zombie – a zombie who remembered how to open doorknobs, climb and use tools.

If you paid attention to The Walking Dead franchise over the past few years – although God only knows why you would have – you probably know that it has sown the seeds of “variant” zombies, zombies that are smarter and therefore more dangerous than the average corpse. It’s possible you knew what was coming, as did I, which is a bit of a shame because I bet it would have been a really fun reveal. But even knowing it was coming didn’t diminish my pleasure in seeing The Walking Dead introduce a real game changer.

Of course, it’s bizarre and more than a little tragic that TWD saved this hugely interesting development for episode 172 of 177, technically the last .028% of the TV series, when it could have made the show much, much more interesting much, much earlier. And of course he isn’t quite as exciting as the introduction of the Whisperers, when an apparent zombie nimbly dodged Jesus’ attacks out of nowhere, but we know that this development will have much deeper ramifications for the future Walking Dead series, or at least the series based in Europe Daryl Dixon. Will it have future ramifications on the few remaining episodes of TWD correct? I certainly hope so, but I’m pessimistic enough to expect that to be the only tease we get, and we’ll have to stay tuned to the spinoffs for more.

It’s not something that I’m superexcited about. Because even though I was really turned on by a zombie turning a doorknob tonight, believe me, I’m well aware that my relationship with this show has reached a point where a doorknob is the most exciting thing. The Walking Dead can think of giving me.

Assorted Daydreams:

• About 90% of the stills in the episode were of Eugene at church, so enjoy this shot of Kingsley transforming into Lunchable from last week.
• Turns out Jerry is a samurai? He ruled, but it’s massively aggravating that TWD rescued this delicious morsel when we could have watched it navigate its way through the apocalypse since its first appearance in season seven.
• Princess has a good scene where she talks to Mercer about the importance of not accepting the best part of a bad situation which probably would have been more impactful if Princess had more screen time this season.
• “We don’t have to let each other down anymore” is a pretty devastating line delivered by Pam to the corpse of her terrible son.
• Eugene trying to threaten Daryl and then setting up his dukes was somewhat fun.
• I’m also quite upset that TWD could have been part of this series at a Renfest at any time, but did not choose to do so so far. Samurai King Jerry at the Renaissance Festival! Where is this spin off?!

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