Friends S8e11

[Onfroi Baird]

TheOne With Ross' Step ForwardSeason 8, episode 11181st overall episode of FriendsRoss and Mona talking about the holiday card.Episode InformationAir dateDecember 13, 2001Written byRobert CarlockDirected byGary HalvorsonAlternate titlesThe One With The Creepy Holiday CardEpisode GuidePreviousThe One With Monica's BootsNextThe One Where Joey Dates Rachel

Ross and Mona took pictures of themselves at Rockefeller Center and now Mona wants to send the picture as a holiday card to friends. Ross panics at the thought of them sending out holiday cards together because they've only been dating a couple of months. He tries to avoid having "the conversation" about where the relationship is going, so he wants to make a gesture instead, resulting in him giving Mona a key to his apartment even though he doesn't want to and it is the only key. Ross then has the locks changed and Mona is confused. He then tells Mona he loves her (he doesn't mean it though) and she replies that she loves spending time with him too, letting Ross know that she isn't in love with him either.

Chandler's boss, Doug, has divorced his wife and invites Chandler and Monica to dinner, but Monica strongly dislikes him for drunkenly urinating on their ice sculpture at their engagement party, so Chandler decides to tell Doug that Monica and him split up so that she won't have to come. Doug, who is clearly depressed after divorcing his wife, takes Chandler to a series of bars and strip clubs to help him forget Monica, and Chandler has a miserable time with his drunk, crude boss, but later tells Monica that the worst thing of all about that night was seeing a glimpse of how he would end up if he ever lost her, and asks her to promise him she will never leave and grow old with him, and she does.

Rachel's pregnancy hormones cause her to lust after any and every guy she sees, and she finds herself wanting to sleep with Joey and Ross. To satisfy her craving, Phoebe brings a random guy called Roger to the apartment who says he'll have sex with her, but Rachel refuses the offer.

Sunday night's episode of The Walking Dead was once again not nearly as bad as the first half of Season 8. The bad motivational speeches, weird editing and other follies of that half of the season are all gone. Instead, we had some decent character drama, some tense moments, and a zombie-guts-covered Lucille.

I'm not saying that this is prime Walking Dead television. I'm afraid that ship has sailed. The show's heyday is long since past, and even this trio of relatively good episodes won't change that. These are decent in relation to the past two seasons, sure, but compared to The Walking Dead's best episodes we're still a long ways off.

Ratings for the midseason premiere were terrible, reflecting audience's antipathy toward Scott Gimple's bizarre decision to kill off Carl. In fact, ratings are all the way down to Season 1 levels. Season 1 was fantastic, but it was a new show and had a much smaller audience. It's quite frankly pathetic to see this show fall so low, and a clear reflection of just how poorly written, directed and produced AMC's zombie drama has been lately. They desperately need new blood and I'm more worried than ever that simply shuffling the deck of current producers and writers won't cut it.

Still, I've enjoyed this back half of Season 8 way more than the front half. It feels better paced, more contained and less confusing than earlier episodes this season. It's less melodramatic, too. And unlike Season 7, we haven't gotten stuck with any solo episodes. Thank goodness, too, because I'm not sure I could stand another Tara episode.

As the Hilltop runs out of food and Maggie begins planning the torturous starvation death of her prisoners, another huge group of survivors makes their way to Gregory's mansion. The survivors of Alexandria, replete with a whole bunch of extras we've never seen before. I have a nagging suspicion that they're actually survivors from the island on Lost. I have no idea where else they could have come from. In any case, lots of mouths to feed and very little food.

(Never fear, though, Jesus is out scavenging for food. He'll steal a whole truck of it from Rick and Daryl and we'll discover this is actually a time loop.The survivors keep meeting Jesus, who leads them to Gregory, who sicks them on Negan, who kills Glenn and Abraham, and then the entire cycle repeats over and over again.)

This is the first or second time, but definitely not the last time, that Tara wants to kill Dwight. And gosh does she ever. She wants to kill him so bad she can't think about anything else. Her and Denise were girlfriends for like seventeen minutes, but her vengeance burns hot, runs deep, wriggles and jiggles and tickles inside her. She simply has to kill Dwight, right now, and she isn't afraid to tell anyone even when he's standing right over there. Tara, he's literally standing right over there. Keep it down.

So when the others go to clear a path through the zombie-filled swamp, Tara stays behind. She takes Dwight with her to go kill some nearby walkers, but it's obviously a thinly veiled excuse to get him alone where she can kill him. When he tells her he's sorry and that killing him won't make her feel better, she tries to anyways, missing at point blank range. He runs and she follows but her execution is cut short by a pack of roving Saviors. They hide and Tara looks like she might still kill him right then and there, nearby enemies be damned. But Dwight ducks out of their hiding place, greeting the Saviors as friends.

When, to no one's surprise but Tara's, Dwight doesn't betray them to the Saviors she has a 'come to Jesus' moment. She realizes that maybe, just maybe, she should let a guy who fought on the wrong side for a time, but then risked everything to help the good guys, have his redemption moment.

While I do understand her anger---Dwight put a crossbow bolt in Denise's eye, after all---I found Tara incredibly annoying in this episode. Frankly, I'm not even sure why she's still on this show. She's such a boring character and whenever she's not boring it's because she's doing something obnoxious. I'm not necessarily a fan of Dwight, but I like him more than ever after this episode. He fought for his life and still didn't give up his new allies even after they tried to kill him. Good for Dwight. I like that he's doing the right thing even if it means he'll die in the end. It's brave and selfless.

Speaking of annoying characters, Daryl is just...he's just ridiculous at this point. When even Tara starts defending Dwight for not double-crossing them, it's Daryl who fecklessly rages about killing him. He's so angry he could just...stomp his feet and pout! Why is he angry? It's not like Dwight got away. He was chased by Tara who was trying to kill him like an idiot, and all Daryl can do is whine and cry about it? Until he notices little Judith looking all cute and decides that maybe he should hold it together.

The best part of this entire segment was the swamp zombies. Let's call them 'bobbers.' They were, as usual, very grotesque and cool, though highly ineffective at their job. You had one job bobbers: Kill all humans. One job. Sheesh.

I really dislike Father Gabriel. I've disliked him from the very first moment he showed up on The Walking Dead, and no matter how hard I try I still dislike him. But I didn't hate his story in 'Dead Or Alive Or' (which, by the way, is a very silly name for an episode.)

Gabriel and Dr. Carson have escaped the Sanctuary with the help of The Mullet. They're hopelessly lost because they're both just terrible at surviving but still somehow managed to survive this long. Gabriel's infection has gotten into his eyes and he's going blind. (I'm still confused by the infection...how exactly did he get infected by putting zombie guts on him when they've done this countless times already? Nick in FTWD does this almost every single episode!)

In any case, with a dead car and no sense of where they are, Gabriel and Carson seem stuck, until Gabriel hears a bell off in the distance. God, he assures his scientifically inclined travelling companion, is leading them. So off they go until they find a house in the middle of nowhere. Once there, Gabriel's faith is bolstered once again. Surely this is god's hand at work, guiding them to safety.

When Carson finds the previous occupant dead in the back bedroom he doubts Gabriel's hypothesis. But when they find bottles of antibiotics his own faith wavers. It is a bit miraculous, after all. Gabriel gets his meds and starts talking and gesticulating and accidentally breaks a piggy bank on the counter. Inside it they find a key and a map, leading them to a vehicle. More of god's beneficence at play, it would seem.

But on the way to the car, Carson steps in a bear trap. Zombies descend, and things look grim for our good doctor. Gabriel, nearly blind, grabs Carson's gun and takes aim, putting his faith once again in his maker and...perfect shot. Carson's angle is likely broken, but at least Gabriel saved him. They can get to the car and drive to Hilltop "for Maggie."

Brief side-note here: This whole "Maggie needs the doctor" thing is so, so, so, so very stupid. Maggie isn't even showing. Maggie is no longer infected. Maggie is fine. There are many others, including both Gabriel and now Carson, who would be better served by a medical professional. Countless people have been wounded fighting the Saviors. Maggie doesn't need a doctor. Women literally gave birth for hundreds of thousands of years without a doctor.

Many people, even in this day and age, use midwives instead of doctors. Actually, at the dawn of modern medicine, doctors were probably the worst thing a woman in childbirth could have near her. They used all sorts of barbaric instruments to drag children into the world, refusing to use older, more tested means of midwifery. Maggie can bring this baby to term and give birth just fine without a doctor, assuming she survives both the war with Negan and contract negotiations with AMC.

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