The Walking Dead season 8

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So Negan finally kills Simon. We knew that was coming but 'fan wisdom' assumed he would do it with Lucille and bash Simon's brains out. But no, he 'merely' strangled him.

Meanwhile Eugene discovers the defective bullets made by Gabriel and immediately knows that they would cause a 'slam firing' as he calls it, accurately, if put in a gun. So those bullets will never be used and we won't see any scenes of what would happen if they were.

So next Sunday is the BIG DAY !! The season finale of TWD and the season 4 premire of FTWD. The Talking Dead will be on an hour later than usual because of that but will have most of the 'big guns', leading cast members and Exec. prods. on. Even Andrew Lincoln will be there. He has never appeared 'live' on the L.A. show, just by video from the set. We are getting ready....this will be epic !!!

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The Final Double Down

It's not as if Eugene did one singular thing in "Worth" that put him beyond the pale. True, Eugene forcing himself to throw up on Rosita might've been one the most disgusting things the show has ever done. It was worse than all the many bloody scenes of guts and gore. Yet it's not that one singular incident that made it feel like Eugene has gone too far. It's that "Worth" was yet another example of the show trying to convince the audience that Eugene could change and then having the character double down in acting like an awful human being.

It's not so much that the show is trying to convince the audience of anything concerning Eugene. Rather that the barf scene is simply just another example of Eugene's true nature. Killing him off would be 'easy', but within the TWD world the truly reprehensible characters stick around for a long time to torture and annoy the audience. That's one of the things that makes TWD unique. You either pull up your big boy pants and get with the program or slink off and watch Scandal.

So Eugene sabotaged the ammo after all. What he did to it is hard to tell. Just raising the primers wouldn't have caused what happened. It wouldn't have blown the bolts and slides off as portrayed. He could have drilled small holes in the sides of the cartridges, the results may have been something like what happened, but it's unlikely he could have had the time to do that to so many cartridges.

But anyway, Negan is now 'neutralized' and his 'Saviors' go back to their camp and presumably won't be causing any more trouble. The exec prods. are hinting that Season 9 will be a major 'reset'.  What this means no one knows at the moment but the analysts contend that the 'Whisperers' from the comics should make an appearance which would of course introduce another big threat.  There are hints in some scenes of the season 8 finale that this will happen. The hints are too technical and esoteric to go into here.....we'll just have to wait and see.

It is still unknown if Lauren Cohan (Maggie) will stick around for season 9. It is rumored that she is still in contract negotiations. If she leaves that would leave a big 'hole' to fill so a major reset may be one way to handle it.

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Everyone thinks it's very likely that the Whisperers will appear in season 9.

Meanwhile, I talked to a gun and ammo expert and he said that if Eugene had sabotaged the bullets by just raising the primers then the effect would not be as portrayed in the S8 finale. The rounds would have fired normally but there could have been premature firings when they were first loaded, as I had suspected.

As to my theory that Eugene sabotaged the bullets by drilling small holes in the casings, he said that this wouldn't have had any affect because when the powder burned the pressure would have sealed the holes. Only if much larger holes were drilled would it cause problems and that wouldn't be practical to do as sabotage because the powder would spill out and be noticed when the cartridges were loaded.