Look, we need to talk about Mercy. That’s the actual title of The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 1, but most of us just remember it as the moment the show tried to reclaim its throne and... well, it was a lot. It was the 100th episode. AMC went all out with the marketing. They promised "All Out War."
It felt big. It felt heavy.
Rick Grimes stood on that makeshift podium at Alexandria, sweating through his shirt, giving a speech that was supposed to rally the troops and the audience alike. After the grueling, almost nihilistic misery of Season 7—where we watched Negan turn our favorite characters into puddles of trauma—this was supposed to be the payoff. We wanted catharsis. We wanted to see the bully get punched in the mouth.
But looking back, this premiere was weirdly polarizing. It was flashy and loud, yet it felt sort of hollow in places. It’s the episode that gave us the "Old Man Rick" flash-forwards, which, at the time, felt like a massive spoiler or a hallucination. It turns out, it was just the beginning of a very long, very messy road for the series.
What Really Happened in The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 1
The plot of The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 1 isn't complicated, but the editing makes it feel like a fever dream. The Militia—a combined force from Alexandria, the Hilltop, and the Kingdom—rolls up to the Sanctuary in armored cars. They’ve got sheet metal welded to the sides like some discount Mad Max fleet.
Rick, Maggie, and Ezekiel are leading the charge.
They get to the gates. They have a standoff. Negan walks out on that balcony with his lieutenants—Dwight, Simon, Gavin, Regina, and Eugene (the traitor)—and he’s got that signature lean. He’s leaning so far back he’s practically looking at the sun. He looks bored. Or maybe just arrogant.
Rick starts a countdown. He doesn't get to zero. He just starts blasting.
Honestly, the tactics in this episode are... questionable. They shoot out all the windows of the Sanctuary. Why? To let the walkers in? Sure. But they have Negan right there. He’s standing in the open. Rick has a semi-automatic rifle and a clear line of sight. Instead of taking the headshot that ends the war in thirty seconds, he sprays the glass.
It’s one of those "TV logic" moments that drove fans crazy. You’ve spent sixteen episodes being tortured by this man, and when you finally have him cornered, you decide to remodel his building with bullets instead of actually killing him.
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The Old Man Rick Mystery
While the shooting is happening, we keep cutting to these soft-focus scenes. Rick is older. He’s got a huge, bushy white beard. There’s a cane. A clock on the wall says it’s time for breakfast. Weird Al Yankovic’s "Another One Rides the Dust" is playing in the background.
Back in 2017, the internet was on fire with theories.
- Was the whole show a coma dream?
- Was this a time jump?
- Was Rick dying and imagining a peaceful future?
The truth was simpler: it was a glimpse into the future that Carl wanted. It was the "Mercy" part of the episode title. It set up the eventual moral pivot of the season, but in the moment, it felt like the show was trying to be Lost without the mystery-box pedigree.
The Problem With the 100th Episode Hype
You have to remember the context of when The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 1 aired. The show was starting to bleed viewers. Season 7 had been so dark—starting with the brutal deaths of Glenn and Abraham—that a lot of people just stopped watching. They didn't want to see their heroes humiliated week after week.
"Mercy" was meant to be the "Get Your Joy Back" episode.
Greg Nicotero directed it, and he stuffed it with Easter eggs. There’s a scene where Carl is looking for gas and encounters a traveler (Siddiq). The shots in that scene are an almost frame-for-frame remake of the very first scene in the pilot where Rick meets the little girl walker at the gas station. It was a love letter to the fans.
But the pacing felt off. The episode jumped between three different timelines: the "Present" (the attack), the "Near Future" (Rick crying with red eyes), and the "Distant Future" (Old Man Rick). It broke the tension.
The showrunners, led by Scott Gimple at the time, were leaning hard into "non-linear storytelling." For a show about zombies and survival, it felt unnecessarily academic. Fans didn't want a puzzle; they wanted a war.
Father Gabriel’s Massive Mistake
The climax of the episode—if you can call it that—involves the walker horde. The Militia uses explosions to lead a massive "mega-herd" right to Negan’s front door. It works. The Sanctuary is overrun.
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Rick is still there, wasting ammo, until Gabriel tells him they have to go.
Then Gabriel sees Gregory—the sniveling former leader of the Hilltop—trapped. Because Gabriel is a man of God, or maybe just a glutton for punishment, he stops to help. Gregory, being the human garbage fire that he is, steals Gabriel’s car and leaves him behind.
Gabriel ducks into a shipping container to escape the walkers.
Who’s in there? Negan.
"I hope you got your sh*tting pants on," Negan says from the shadows.
It’s a great cliffhanger. It’s arguably the best part of the episode. It forced two characters who had almost zero interaction to spend the next few episodes in a dark room together. That’s where the actual "human-quality" writing usually happened in TWD—not in the big explosions, but in the quiet, tense conversations between enemies.
Why Fans Still Argue About This Episode
If you look at the ratings, The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 1 had about 11.4 million viewers. That sounds huge today, but it was a massive drop from the Season 7 premiere, which had 17 million. The "All Out War" arc was the most anticipated story from the comics, yet the TV adaptation felt bogged down by its own ambition.
One major criticism was the "A-Team" syndrome. Thousands of rounds were fired in this episode. People were hanging out of windows, standing in the open, and diving behind thin car doors.
Total casualties for the main cast? Zero.
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It lowered the stakes. When nobody dies in a "war," the war feels like a rehearsal. The show had established a reputation where anyone could go at any time, but in "Mercy," the plot armor was so thick you could see it from space.
The Technical Execution
Visually, the episode is stunning. The practical effects—the walkers, the dust, the grime—remain the gold standard for television. The scene with the "trap" involving the tripwires and the walkers being blown up was vintage Walking Dead.
But the sound design was distracting. The constant gunfire became white noise. By the twenty-minute mark of the battle, you found yourself checking your phone. It lacked the tactical precision of earlier seasons, like the attack on the Governor’s prison. It was just noise for the sake of being "epic."
Key Takeaways from Season 8, Episode 1
If you're rewatching or diving in for the first time, keep an eye on these specific things. They explain everything that happens for the rest of the series.
- The Red-Eyed Rick: This isn't just a stylistic choice. It's a flash-forward to the end of the war. Pay attention to his dialogue: "My mercy prevails over my wrath." That’s the thesis statement for the entire season.
- The Shotgun Choreography: Notice how often Rick and Negan could have just killed each other. It’s a recurring theme in Season 8 that drives some viewers crazy.
- Carl’s Growth: This is the last time Carl feels like the moral compass of the show before his controversial exit. His interaction with Siddiq is the most important part of the episode, even though it feels like a side-quest at the time.
- The Timeline Jumps: If you’re confused, don’t worry. Everyone was. Just know that the "bright" scenes are the future, and the "dark" scenes with Rick’s bloodshot eyes are the immediate aftermath of the war.
What You Should Do Next
If you want to truly understand the impact of The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 1, don't just stop there. You have to look at the source material.
Go pick up Volume 19: March to War and Volume 20: All Out War Part 1 of the graphic novels. Comparing how Robert Kirkman handled the pacing in the comics versus how the show handled it is a masterclass in how medium changes story. In the comics, the war feels fast, brutal, and terrifying. On screen, it feels like a marathon.
Also, check out the "Making Of" featurettes for the 100th episode. The amount of work that went into the "Militia" cars is actually insane. They were real vehicles modified by the art department to be functional armored units.
Finally, if you’re a lore nerd, go back and watch the pilot episode, "Days Gone Bye," immediately after watching "Mercy." You’ll see all the visual parallels that Greg Nicotero snuck in. It makes the 100th episode feel much more significant than just another Sunday night shoot-em-up.
The "All Out War" arc is a long haul. Season 8 is often cited as the low point for the series by critics, but the premiere is a high-octane (if messy) start. It’s worth the watch just to see the show at its most ambitious, even if it occasionally trips over its own shoelaces.