You could say that this is the most eventful episode since that awful season premiere, but that's not saying much. In defence of this season, each episode so far has explored a particular theme and tone, with no episode being the same. There was the premiere, which used 45 minutes to show a guy beating up a couple of people with a baseball bat. There was "The Cell", which had a slow, dark tone in which Daryl is tormented. There was "Service", a sombre episode simply about Negan taking Alexandria's supplies. But that's been exactly the problem with this season- each episode is nothing more than an idea, unnecessarily dragged out for 45 minutes.
By comparison, "Go Getters" is better than the majority of this season so far, but it's symptomatic of the same core problem. Something actually happens, offering hope for game-changing events further down the line, but it still drags out its scenes for no good reason.
There's a lot to like. Finally we see the return of Jesus, a character we saw too little of last season. He sticks up for Maggie and Sasha in front of Gregory, a character we're clearly intended to despite almost as much as the Savior leader. The walker infiltration is awesome, seeing Maggie run over a car with a tractor as a solution is certainly something I'd never have expected to see happen.
But you can't ignore that this episode is poor in other areas. There's almost no mention of Glenn, even though this is the first episode since the season premiere that features Maggie. I'm not asking for an entire episode to be taken up by Maggie crying, but there are some pointless, meaningless scenes whose screen-time could have instead provided closure for Glenn's death. One of these pointless scenes is when the Saviors come to Hilltop to collect supplies. It's totally unnecessary and pointless. We have already had the new hierarchy repeatedly drummed into our heads so much that we hardly need ANOTHER dragged out scene in which Saviors take supplies. To its credit, Gregory trying to act as if he's buddies with the Savior leader is amusing, but it's not enough of an excuse to drag on the scene for so long. And there's no way the Saviors would have found Sasha and Maggie in the closet at this point in the story, so there wasn't much tension, either.
It also felt like because this season has been so grim and heavy so far, that the creators felt they needed to shoehorn in some corny "uplifting" scenes. The worst bit is seeing Carl and Enid skate to a horrifyingly bad electronic soundtrack, but the prayer scene at the end is pretty bad as well.
Overall, I'm glad that at least this episode pushes the story on a little bit, mainly with Jesus and Carl in the back of the Savior truck at the end.
By comparison, "Go Getters" is better than the majority of this season so far, but it's symptomatic of the same core problem. Something actually happens, offering hope for game-changing events further down the line, but it still drags out its scenes for no good reason.
There's a lot to like. Finally we see the return of Jesus, a character we saw too little of last season. He sticks up for Maggie and Sasha in front of Gregory, a character we're clearly intended to despite almost as much as the Savior leader. The walker infiltration is awesome, seeing Maggie run over a car with a tractor as a solution is certainly something I'd never have expected to see happen.
But you can't ignore that this episode is poor in other areas. There's almost no mention of Glenn, even though this is the first episode since the season premiere that features Maggie. I'm not asking for an entire episode to be taken up by Maggie crying, but there are some pointless, meaningless scenes whose screen-time could have instead provided closure for Glenn's death. One of these pointless scenes is when the Saviors come to Hilltop to collect supplies. It's totally unnecessary and pointless. We have already had the new hierarchy repeatedly drummed into our heads so much that we hardly need ANOTHER dragged out scene in which Saviors take supplies. To its credit, Gregory trying to act as if he's buddies with the Savior leader is amusing, but it's not enough of an excuse to drag on the scene for so long. And there's no way the Saviors would have found Sasha and Maggie in the closet at this point in the story, so there wasn't much tension, either.
It also felt like because this season has been so grim and heavy so far, that the creators felt they needed to shoehorn in some corny "uplifting" scenes. The worst bit is seeing Carl and Enid skate to a horrifyingly bad electronic soundtrack, but the prayer scene at the end is pretty bad as well.
Overall, I'm glad that at least this episode pushes the story on a little bit, mainly with Jesus and Carl in the back of the Savior truck at the end.