The Walking Dead

Honestly it seems like the writers have given up on following through book with do many people leaving. *Cough Michonne *

Once again I'm impressed with how this show rebounds.

Setting up a rivalry between Carol, Henry's mom, and Alpha, Lydia's mom, along with Daryl and Beta, the "protectors" of Carol and Alpha was clever.

Those monsters.

Those damned monsters.

Of all the things they could have changed but Ezekiel still had to die.

Annnnd I take back what I just said: I was multi-tasking and watching this episode here and there, so I missed most of the build-up to the wall scene. Those were not the deaths I was expecting.

They even pulled a red herring with Ezekiel those bastards.

Guess they "learnt" from last time with Dumpstergate and Negan's line-up. They murdered those characters and dealt with the fallout right away. See, to me, that was a little forced and they should have just ended with that scene of the heads all up there. Instead, we got a touching speech from Siddiq.

Which, hot damn, Siddiq's actor is selling it. I miss Andrew Lincoln but there's talent here.

I just... Enid and Tara. Henry. That sh-t actually hurts. The first two were too hot to die. Tara was more confident this season. And Henry, phooo, Henry. He was supposed to be the new Carl. Jesus.

First they kill Rick, then Jesus, then they kill not-Carl, Tara, and female not-Carl. God damn it.

The rest of them I didn't really feel anything toward.

Wait, they killed Tara? Oh wow, I completely missed that. I was distracted by my dog and thought it was Rosita.

A lot of viewers were confused that it was Rosita instead of Tara.

It has been a while since this show has hurt, so mission accomplished, I guess? As bad as this was, if they had directly adapted the comics' deaths, it would have been even more painful.

The writers annihilated Hilltop as a setting.

Edited by BearyScary on Mar 24th 2019 at 7:53:06 AM

With the exceptions of Rosita or Eugene I think the line-up here had more impact than the comic book's version did.

Here: Henry, Tara, Enid, Highwayman Leader, Old Woman, Girl From Henry's Group each had some spotlight/depth to them. It was shocking because "dear god I didn't think they'd actually kill these people."

In the comic: with the exceptions of Ezekiel, Rosita and the old woman most of these were forgettable characters. I barely knew who these people were. It was more shocking because "holy sh-t the Whisperers aren't playing around."

Sidebar: I have no idea how or if Negan will actually get to meet Alpha.

Edited by Soble on Mar 24th 2019 at 9:25:15 AM

I certainly didn't think that Tara would get killed off anytime soon. I kinda hoped that her and the woman from Oceanside would get together, despite the conflict between Oceanside and Alexandria.

We now have 3 Rick Grimes movies, two new spin-offs one of which will be focused on two young women born after the collapse of society, and Fear the Walking Dead Season 5 and TWD Season 10 coming up.

• Negan's conversation with Judith is great.

• Season 9 is allegedly the highest rated season in TWD's history. For those who actually care. Rotten Tomatoes has it rated higher than the first season.
• Daryl actually smiled this season and got into a snowball fight with Judith.
• And the biggest shock of all: we got to see snow.

Overall this was a redemptive season. Kind of eerie how putting the show's male lead on a bus breathes new life into it, but I'll take it.

Things I dislike:

• Judith somehow wielding Rick's hand cannon Python, having a wakizashi, and keeping Carl's hat in a blatant fusion of her family member's traits
• Slicing up Carl's storyline into Henry, Judith, and Michonne's storylines
• Lydia's Laser-Guided Amnesia
• The change of the pike scene - as much as I like it I'm not a fan of changing plot elements for the sake of changing plot elements on principle
• Everything Rick sought to do basically fell apart with the exception of his "new" family being alive
• Angela Kang's rationale for Rick not thinking of Carl or Lori, but instead thinking of people he'd only met years prior (Sasha, Beth, Hershel) [[note]]her creative explanation was that if Rick had found Carl or Lori he'd have "given up" and they wanted the episode to be about him finding motivation to carry on - Shane, Hershel, Sasha, Michonne[[/quoteblock]]
• Judith seems to be able to teleport in and out of the supposedly heavily-guarded community and is able to find Negan miles away from home on any given highway
  • She's also a crackshot which I might be able to forgive if not for the aforementioned hand cannon Michonne her extremely and rightfully paranoid mother gave her
• Why no one has killed Negan yet has fallen down the hill of rational decision-making into the swamp of nonsense - Rick's initial goal of keeping him alive to better serve an ideal vision of society failed when Rick was abducted
  • I suppose Negan's mental breakdown answers this problem though - by that point it wasn't worth killing him

On the other hand:

• I've actually been watching from week to week again
• Beta and Alpha were excellent
• Daryl fighting Beta is singlehandedly the best fight sequence of this franchise
• Negan has been funny AF
• The transition to a "post-Rick" world has been surprisingly graceful - not too much focus but not completely ignoring the past either
• The Whisperers started off strong and took out one of the most capable fighters right off the bat
• Judith's scenes with Daryl have forced him to open up in a way we haven't seen since Beth died
• The Walking Daryl hasn't been really - Reedus has a bigger paycheck but Daryl hasn't totally ecli
• Angela Kang seems passionate about fixing what didn't work in previous seasons
• The twist with Henry, who was filling in for Carl's role, that part still eats at me
• Negan and Judith have better father-child moments than Rick and Carl did after Season 5

Edited by Soble on Apr 11th 2019 at 5:53:13 AM

so the walking dead comic kinda ended this week

I heard. Pretty nuts.

I feel like Kirkman finally got sick of AMC's shit.

Fuck this soon in this much of a rush?◊

Although the "Surprise! Those issues we promised were just a ruse so you wouldn't know it was ending!" seems clever, their distributers weren't in on the joke. So there were solicitations published, orders placed and accepted, money put down. All this has to be unwound.

"Surprise!"

The Walking Dead: Carl and Clementine, Issue #1

If Carl wasn't freaking dead and they weren't in different states, I'd read that.

I... really hope you meant TV Carl and not Comics Carl because if the latter died... jesus.

Edited by FOFD on Jul 6th 2019 at 7:47:30 AM

GOOD. /grumpycat

Maybe it'll finally kill off this lousy show and its obsession with making everybody suck.

I did mean TV Carl.

• Yumiko and Magna are getting together
• Carol and Daryl are funny
• Aaron is the new Rick/Jesus
• Rosita continues to be a MILF
• The Whisperer War

Edited by Soble on Jul 24th 2019 at 5:13:40 AM

Edited by Soble on Jul 30th 2019 at 1:13:31 AM

A little goofy but one of the stylized "this season is happening" trailers.

Well this season is off to a Hell of a start, the turnaround in quality has just been amazing to see, all 3 episodes have been fantastic.

Critics still point to the show being at "all-time lowest" ratings but, so far, at least the fan communities I frequent seem content with Seasons 9 and 10.

Coincidentally the "Walking Daryl" is turning out to be pretty good.

I think that the third episode of this season was the weakest so far, but I can't really put my finger on why. I guess that the first two episodes felt like they had more momentum.

Eugene and Rosita hashing out their friendship issues was so out of left field in what was basically a Carol episode that it felt like a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment.

Carol's dream at the end of the episode was very interesting.

Edited by BearyScary on Oct 22nd 2019 at 9:11:18 AM

That photoshop of all of her dead kids caught me off guard.

Episode 3 did feel like a hodgepodge of storylines. Though, at the same time, most of the lead characters got to show up and do something, which I liked.

Plus they seem to be playing around with visual themes again - but this time the whole Hour 1-45 stuff was consistent and not as weird as Season 8's transitions, or Season 5's "then/now" were.