Of course, I watched this.
Briggany - I would say if you want to "catch up". Don't bother watching S7B or S8A...it's just the All Out War spread out over a seasons worth of episodes. There are one of decent episodes but it really is drawn out. S8B is better and we first see "real" evidence of the Whisperers being integrated into the show. In very small doses. S9 first 5 episodes are centred around Rick. It was kind of his own mini-series and goes against the source material but it does come to a nicely open ended conclusion. The rest of S9A gives us a time hop (similar to the GNs) and introduces a bunch of new characters who are pretty intriguing and are rescued by a familiar face. We lose a regular in the S9A MSF at the hands of the Whisperers. S9B then moves further into the life of the Whisperers and a few random episodes. As Chubbs says, the penultimate episode of S9B gives us the "heads on stakes" which is so iconic in the GNs. The whole episode is skin creepingly ace! Alpha is brilliant in her parts. The finale eases off a touch but our Survivors have to negotiate a snowstorm. Negan seeks/attains some form of retribution.
As for S10 E1: The Lines We Cross; yeah it was good. I wholly agree with Chubbs that it was never going to be explosive but it did enough to leave a few questons. The satellite for me will be the constant in this season, and will continue where S9 left off...on the subject of communications. It looks as though Eugene will be learning some Russian.
There was a lot of piecing about, of course showing us what each season regular was up to.
I think they spent too long on the whole "Oceanside Barracks" and it felt a bit unnecessary at this stage in the shows lifespan. We know how to fight Walkers, however they appear (which Greg Nicotero and his team do a great job on coming up with even more awesome looking Walkers), we don't need some kind of strategic formation to advance upon them. Michonne's commanding line of "remember your training", like no one in this world has ever killed a walker before. That was my only real bug bear and I'm glad they got it out the way early.
Carol & Daryl, will they buggar off? The thing is, mentioning "heading west" puts them on course to collide with FTWD. So will they crossover or will we see Morgan and Dwight cross back for an episode? Not seen any confirmation of Lennie James on set but they are all contracted by AMC so...they can crossover at any time, if the timelines correlate. My feeling at this stage is...Carol will face off with Alpha (as per the end of this episode set us up for) and the outcome of that may see her go it alone or with Daryl, or if she gets killed, Daryl may head off with his new squeeze Connie. It's open for a number of directions.
That may bring us up to S10MSF and we'll see/hear from Maggie, via Eugene being able to expand his comms network. Thanks to you guessed it, that Russian satellite. Maybe we'll even get to hear Rick, Anne (Jadis) or someone from the much eluded Commonwealth (my belief this was touched on with the whole helicopter bits in S8 and of course S9).
All this is guesswork, I can't see them dragging out the Whisperer War, as they are a different kettle of skin. So either a major character will die or some form of Peace Treaty will be agreed (the borders thing again). There are, as mentioned above, so many angles this could be taken.
I want to see the writers be a little more brave, especially as the source material comes to a close. I think we'll see what they have in their locker, for true original content in S11. Which has been confirmed. Above anything, the show has got back on track to the side of much better, since Angela Kang replaced Scott Gimple as the showrunner. She seems to know how to tell a story a little more emotively and the characters are more believable again. You can even see it with Negan; yep he's still an asshole but a rather less hammy asshole.
Gimple was hell bent on pure action and lost the story. Kang brought the story back. It's in safer hands for the foreseeable.
Anyhow, I'm signing off. Catch you next time for
S10:E2: We Are The End of The World. As always, chime in with your own thoughts comments and ideas for the rest of S10.
Cheers,
Bamboo