The Walking Dead season 8 episode 15 'Worth' spoiler review

*Spoilers follow for The Walking Dead season 8 episode 15*

(AMC Studios)

“No more talk” - after two seasons and 15 episodes of merciless baseball bat-swinging, gunfire and unadulterated battle, The Walking Dead is on the cusp of drawing yet another era to a close. The latest episode of season 8 - its penultimate outing titled 'Worth,' - was largely designed to put the playing pieces in place ahead of next week's conclusion serving as a 50-minute emblem of these three words spoken by the villainous Negan as the episode ends.

Negan has a point: there really is nothing more to be said; his conversation with Rick has been exhausted. From the moment he ended the life of Abraham and Glenn two whole seasons ago, this was only ever going tend one way which in turn renders all the near-misses and detours featured throughout the past few seasons as filler.

Michonne (Danai Gurira) tries.... and fails spectacularly. Like the audience, she doesn't so much think than hope that Negan hearing the letter Carl wrote to him ahead of his untimely death might spark a change of heart. She reads his words that detail his hope that everyone can find peace instead of resorting to the bloodshed we'll undoubtedly see spilt next week. Negan's response? That he's going to kill every single living person at the Hilltop. Smash goes the walkie. It's time to let Eugene's bullets do the talking.

Negan's perhaps spurred on by the betrayal of what he believed were two of his most trusty allies, one of which ends the episode chained to the compound's fence as a certified member of the living dead. Steven Ogg's respectable two-season tenure has ended following what is essentially a fist-fight version of Game of Thrones' trial by combat. Instead of the Viper and the Mountain, however, we have Simon and Negan, the former managing a few punches before Jeffrey Dean Morgan's big bad gains the upper hand and chokes the life out of his former right-hand hand man.

'Worth' tears along at breakneck speed - something season 8B's episode have had in common - which isn't to say it doesn't suffer from 'penultimate episode syndrome.' How can you make an episode stand out when it's squarely designed to set-up the following episode? These issues are manifold in the series of scenes which see Rosita (Christian Serratos) and Daryl (Norman Reedus) get to the Sanctuary, abduct Eugene (Josh McDermitt), get halfway back to Hilltop - and then lose him in the most unconvincing way imaginable.

The initial shock of seeing these characters thrust together again after so long wears off almost instantly, hammered home by the fact that Eugene's closing revelation - that he will make the bullets which are likely to kill his friends - is not a revelation the episode leads us to believe. He is a "pathetic" creation, as the episode points out, and will do anything to survive in the environment he finds himself in. This was the case before Rosita and Daryl showed up. Notch Aaron's scenes with the Oceanside community into this bracket also - there's more life in the walkers he rolls around in the mud with than there ever has been in this side story.

Quite how All Out War will end is a mystery heightened by the fact that several episodes this season have strayed rather heavily from the source material, but 'Worth' ends with our heroes pretty much where they always are going into a finale - in an extremely precarious position. Only this time they don't realise it. As viewers learn that Negan's car passenger, Laura (Lindsley Register) blabbed about Dwight's betrayal, we also learn Negan knew from the moment the episode began. The plan he briefed Dwight on is a decoy - in trying to help Rick and company, he is inadvertently leading them directly into The Saviours' line of fire.

Death is likely - who will make it to the next era? And what will that next era be? After a season which saw the end of one of the show's longest-standing characters, anything is possible. It's time to worry about your favourite characters - looks like Friday night pizza won't be a thing in this show, after all, Carl.

The Walking Dead season 8 continues on AMC every Sunday with the UK premiere arriving the next evening on FOX as well as being available to stream on NOW TV.

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