8.9 Honor Cable’s longtime kingpin, The Walking Dead, comes from a somewhat similar place. It goes big, pretty much whenever there’s an option to do so, from its set pieces to its emotional beats (one has a burning crock pot, and the other has shoulder-launched explosives). The Walking Dead has never been subtle, and given that one of the show’s few remaining original characters is playing out his final moments, that gives Matthew Negrete, Channing Powell, and Greg Nicotero carte blanche to go directly for the feels, and they use every trick in the emotional play book to reach out for a reaction. Perhaps it’s my mental state, but Honor was mostly successful at wringing out emotions from me as I watched Carl Grimes slowly die across an hour of television. It wasn’t particularly good, but it was executed well by the actors involved. It’s mostly three people huddled in varying shades of darkness, but between Andrew Lincoln, Danai Gurira, and Chandler Riggs, Carl’s final episode hangs together and works in a clumsy, but effective way. Riggs gets several big emotional moments, and he sells them with more ability than he’s often given credit for. Guerira does a creditable job as Michonne tries to remain stoic and strong for Rick while still betraying her inner sadness, and looking upset and distracted is Andrew Lincoln’s stock in trade these days. Farmer Rick was a peaceful man, and that sense of peace and harmony is what informs the fantasy leitmotif throughout season eight. The hazy visions weren’t Rick’s at all, but the visions of a dying Carl. (I’m relieved to note that there are no snow globes in this episode.) Carl imparts this dream to Rick in his dying hours, and Rick promises to work towards a happier, healthier future for Alexandria, Hilltop, The Kingdom, and even, presumably, The Saviors. There has to be something after, for Rick, and for The Saviors, and as Carl notes, he can’t kill them all. That’s a message that Morgan has been saying in various ways since he returned to The Walking Dead, and it’s a message that Morgan doesn’t really seem to believe anymore. Throughout the B plot of the episode, Carol and Morgan rampage through the Kingdom to take down Saviors and rescue Ezekiel. Unsurprisingly, since Carl is on one side preaching for peace (after being a cold-blooded killer), Morgan is now a cold-blooded killer (after previously being a peace activist). Certainly, the violence and terror of Morgan’s rampage makes a great counterpoint to the misery of Carl’s death. Morgan stalks across several empty screens at certain points, popping up out of nowhere and chasing down the panicking Gavin. Even the Savior, when faced with Negan’s bat or Morgan, picks Negan’s bat. Morgan doesn’t seem to take pleasure in it, like the better 80s slasher villains, he just does what comes naturally to him even at the cost of his own fragile mental health (and, I can only assume, his place on The Walking Dead and a move to Fear The Walking Dead). As a return after a long break, Honor is fine. It won’t win the show any new fans and I doubt it will stop the ratings bleeding. On one hand, the emotional manipulation from Carl’s long death worked on me, but it’s grief porn. On the other hand, Morgan rips a guy’s guts out and multiple people get stabbed to death with long, sharp sticks, so it’s gore porn. I thought that part was pretty fun, but for a lot of people, their least-favorite part of The Walking Dead is the gratuitous violence. But if you like to have your guts ripped out while watching someone’s guts get ripped out, then this was probably your bag. Read Ron’s review of the previous episode, How It’s Gotta Be, here. US Correspondent Ron Hogan wishes Carl could have stuck around a little more, perhaps becoming Morgan’s murder buddy. Still, there’s hope for a Daryl/Judith Lone Wolf and Cub web series. Find more by Ron daily at PopFi.
title: “The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 9 Review Honor” ShowToc: true date: “2025-08-29” author: “Sean Tyler”
The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 9
Where else could I begin but with the big cliffhanger at the end of the midseason finale, as young Carl Grimes awaits death in the sewers underneath Alexandria? I’m going to stay away from spoilers since we’re still two weeks out from the midseason premiere, but what I can say is that “Honor” delivers on this cliffhanger as well as a few other threads that were left hanging in “How It’s Gotta Be.” In fact, The Walking Dead returns with its most efficient episode of the season, moving along at a record pace (at least for this show). It’s hard to say much about the story without giving the entire episode away. Again, it’s a very direct hour and change. There’s no tiptoeing around what the story wants to be about, which is honestly shocking to me. The Walking Dead has had a pretty obvious filler problem over the last two or three years, and it’s become a real fear that every episode will simply ramble on without ever moving anything forward. It can be said of much of the first half of season eight and almost the entirety of season seven. There’s just not much usually happening in these more intimate episodes showrunner Scott Gimple loves so much. “Honor” is the exception, but not necessarily the new rule. I’ve said it too many times before, on the occasion of almost every single premiere or finale since I’ve been reviewing this show, but I’m going to spare myself the disappointment for once. I will NOT say that “Honor” feels like a fresh new start for The Walking Dead. Because it isn’t. If anything, it feels like the beginning of the end of the Gimple era, a chance for the exiting showrunner to tie up his own take on the material before handing the bloodstained keys to Angela Kang. Judging from the synopses for the rest of the season, expect just a few more pauses in the storytelling until then. In one of its best moments, “Honor” revisits the controversial flash-foward from the season eight premiere. We’re given a bit more context as to what exactly is happening in Rick’s dream – and more intriguingly, whether it’s a dream at all. The episode introduces another piece of the puzzle to keep fans guessing. If I’m not exactly excited for seven more episodes of “All Out War,” I am at least looking forward to seeing how the Old Man Rick storyline plays out. We get a bit of action in the midseason premiere, although none of it is extraordinary. With so many big action setpieces in the first half of the season, Greg Nicotero, who directed the episode, keeps things relatively small scale in “Honor.” That said, there are one or two moments of sheer brutality that made me cringe. One is spectacularly gruesome. It all gets a bit hard to watch at times – and not in the bad way some of you have come to expect. “Honor” is hard to watch because it reminds you – just as the midseason finale did – that we still care about Carl and his dad, no matter how far gone things get. John Saavedra is an associate editor at Den of Geek US. Find more of his work on his website. Or just follow him on Twitter.
