AMC zombie series from Frank 'Majestic' Darabont - The Walking Dead

ooh, very good episode again. daryl and carol are welcome to carry an episode any time they feel like it. enjoyed the tent zombies, my spoilsport pernicketiness was elicited by daryl driving them off the bridge and walking away with just a sore shoulder between them.

i loved that the intro contained no drama or action, just carol being extremely capable and practical on her own!

Is it wrong that I am no longer hate-watching this and am instead actively looking forward to each ep? And that I'm sad there are only a couple left?

http://i.imgur.com/iRoUbkA.gif

that gif is RIPE for some kind of meme splice

xp ah come on, the show's been pretty consistently good for like two years now?

I think it was hit or miss last year - which, recall, began with the belated wrap up of the governor plot - but really hit its stride by the end of last season. Still, it was nowhere near consistent enough (at least not in the positive sense) to expect several episodes of good to excellent quality in a row, which is what this season has given us. The previous 4 seasons of this show were wildly inconsistent and erratic, as if, I dunno, they were constantly changing showrunners or something. But this season has been consistent in tone, direction, acting, writing - a Walking Dead first.

Going to start a Walking Dead sock called Vanlandingman who does nothing but complain about the van landing on its wheels.

http://img.pandawhale.com/post-11336-Cat-flipping-lands-on-feet-For-jRIN.gif

Is that Josh Homme?

When Josh Homme falls, he always lands on his feet. It's just his thing.

I felt like it was pretty obvious sleeping bag zombies were suicides who didn't realize they'd reanimate

how would they kill themselves while being still wrapped up in the sleeping bag? maybe they took pills, but that wouldn't explain the bloody holes on the sides of the bags

Maybe they took pills then were stabbed by their friends, who felt bad, took pills, zipped themselves into their respective tents, died and reanimated.

Damn, sad. Didn't see that coming!

disappointed idiot priest didn't die yet, wtf was he even doing digging his way out of there? what was the point of that whole thing? die!

also wish mullet eugene had never woken up.

Fuck. That was brutal even by this show's standards.

Felt like a lot of false notes were hit ... I mean, up until Michonne told Maggie that Beth was alive, Maggie didn't really seem to care that much about what happened to her sister. All the teaser talk about this episode intimated that a main character was going to die, and with all the focus on Carol in the last few episodes, I was afraid it was gonna be Carol that died, and I was prepared to be really sad.

I forgot that she was maggie's sister until she told her that actually

genuinely thought when michonne told maggie that beth was alive, maggie's response would be "...who?"

sad about beth but that was a damp squib really, mostly because of existing flaws like the entire hospital set-up being dumb and illogical, and maggie's grief being accidentally hilarious after literally not mentioning her sister for 1.5 seasons

also what even happened at the end, why didn't beth go for dawn's throat or eye???

the priest is a bumbling idiot who needs to die soon, wish michonne and carl had left him outside in a ~poetic reprise of his own actions

we're p much back to where we were in episode 2, right?

oh and the entire "carol's in the hospital!!!!" subplot was for nothing, then

oh and really bored of tyreese's speeches now

yeah, never really cared much about the hospital. They kept talking about it like it was this structure that had to be kept going and there was this intense hierarchy and whatnot, I kept being like, aren't there like 6 cops and 5 orderlies? Who cares?

They still have Talking Dead for this season? Been struggling to even watch the main course so far. Sad to see such a good series go so rapidly terribly below average, life is too short so fuck 'em.

you really think this season is below average?

yeah, it's pretty decent at the least - if only for that that nobody ended up staying in one place for more than a few episodes
there were only maybe two, three incidents of terminal stupidity which is pretty good for this show

it's probably gone up a level this season if anything, it's just that the elements of stupidity all came home to roost in this episode. as an episode it was crafted pretty well i thought, it was previous mistakes that did for it

Just catching up with the second to most recent ep. Not a lot happening, but I still don't get the deal with that hospital that seems like 80% cops and 20% docs. Also, like, I get that they're assholes, but I'm a little unclear what they've done wrong. Too fascist? Not letting people leave? It's like I missed an establishing episode.

I do like how muddled motives have gotten, but what a dummy for letting the cop up. Or not keeping an eye on the priest. Because duh.

Good zombie fx lately, though.

...you missed the whole physical abuse, slavery and rape of the people they're "caretaking"?

I totally forgot that. But I'm pretty sure they were established as bad people before that revelation, weren't they? But yeah, you're right, they're more than just assholes. Not sure of their motives either, though. And again, they seem like 80% police, plus Beth and ... one patient and a time? And a couple of doctors/nurses? It's unclear who they are protecting or enslaving.

hospital is basically a camp of indentured servitude/slavery

Yeah, but we haven't seen anything much more than police there in the show, have we? Still have the more recent ep to watch.

Some sort of amusing religious in jokes though. The Biblical stuff about eating the flesh, the priest pulling a nail from his foot ...

yeah they didn't show that many other people and I'm not sure there were that many in there, which is why they were so frantic to get more.

Was cool seeing Keisha Castle-Hughes show up as the recaptured escapee / amputee / walker. Curious how she got the role (her and show mutual fans of each other?). Wish she'd joined the cast for a longer stint. Glad she's continued to act. Thought she was great in "Whale Rider", and fun seeing her appear in "The Almighty Johnsons".

As far as the cops, not sure how many bad apples there were besides the two that died in the hospital, but was also surprised they only showed Noah leaving with Rick's group. The remaining cops were either cowards, allowing the few to abuse the civilians, or the civilians prefer the devil they know versus leaving with a wild-looking bunch.

At the pace they're going, seems like they're 1 to 1.5 seasons behind the comics. It's been long enough, I can't remember Beth the comic character, if there was one.

don't think there was a Beth in the comics, Maggie had other sisters but they all died pretty quickly

it was a little vague to me how it ended, it wouldn't surprise me if Noah was the only hospital person to go with them or if a few more tagged along as well
but then again, looking at it from their point of view, Rick and co. looked like a bunch of psycho hobos and probably even scarier than the cops

i do like how DGAF Rick now doesn't even try to look presentable. or maybe he learned a lesson about wearing other people's jackets. I don't know

This last episode was unfortunately like a condensed Day of the Dead: poorly defined or barely established sadistic authority figures histrionic, overacting, or just generally talking and talking, all while trapped in a confined space. Also, kind of tired of, five seasons in, these debates about what you need to do to survive. We've already established that these people have survived, and why, so no need to rehash. Plus, while this show clearly has a pretty big production budget, every once in a while we hit a stretch of episodes where it seems like they've run out of money, or need to scrape together every penny for some shooting and zombie effects, sticking everyone else in a hospital hall, or standing by a firetruck, or standing around the same square city block or parking lot, talking. And speaking of which, why is downtown Atlanta suddenly more or less devoid of zombies? They all watching "Snow White" at the theatre?

Did I miss when Carol woke up? I blinked, and next thing I know she's awake in a wheelchair. And then she was standing. Did she say anything? And a real cheat to leave Beth out of the show for so long, then bring her back just for this lame detour.

Seriously, this hospital side plot was so lame. So many police, and the only two civilians are ... the doctor and the bearded guy? Plus Beth, always mopping and Carol, in a bed? Make an effort, Walking Dead. Just when I thought you had turned a corner ...

they did a similar thing with Merle and Andrea tbf

Did they? Did we ever have more than an episode without Merle or Andrea? Because Beth was taken back in episode 13 of Season 4, so we had, what five episodes in a row with barely a mention of Beth? And then they bring her back just for this sloppy and circular and rushed 5 episode stretch of a go-nowhere subplot, just to kill her? Were there people between seasons on pins and needles wondering what happened to Beth, and these show folks were like, just wait until you see what's in store! It's a hospital, filled with 10 people, most of them cops, who sometimes hit this guy with a beard and have alluded to sex slaves we have never seen! It's SOOOO much worse than being stalked by smug ruthless smart cannibals, just you wait!

Still amazed, what with the relative ease of travel/finding cars/gas that they haven't tried driving anywhere else. It's like there's downtown Atlanta and the woods, and all those millions of suburbs, let alone other cities, have just vanished. They should take a trip to Athens and try to find some coffee. They could get the zombie members of REM to reunite on the show.

"Cuyahogaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppTwOEayfGA

Merle was gone for over an entire season!!!

And no one missed him.

He certainly wasn't the exclusive subject of a subsequent story arc though.there was no, next week, find out what happened to Merle!

carol's recovery from her internal bleeding was remarkable. and they went to those lengths to get her into the hospital for...nothing? not even a reunion scene with beth? no plotting? indeed, not a single line?

That's what I mean. It just seems sort of first draft, seat of pants. There is no goal, no end-point, no arc, just action. It's like a big boulder pushed off the top of a mountain, rolling and rolling, fast at first, then with diminishing speed, until it levels off and just ... stops.

to play the devil's advocate... carol did get a whole episode where she had a character arc leading up to the hospital, and more or less completed it before getting hit by the car
tbh she didn't really care that much about Beth as much as Darryl did... she was ready to bail on everybody yet again!

Oh, she had her arc. It's really no excuse to hit her with a car and lay her in a hospital, mute, for a couple of eps, just to have her up and running again by the end of the mid-season break. That's some weak soap opera shit. I'm waiting for someone who looks and sounds a lot like Rick, but with a mysterious mustache or goatee, to suddenly show up. "Something's not right about Rick ... "

Watching this show is like watching a child play chess. They know what all the pieces can do, but they focus so much on the mechanics that they never think more than a couple of moves away. And then they lose.

haha otm

I think I'm done with this show. It's a fucking never-ending bummer. I kinda figured the whole Eugene thing was bullshit (they weren't going to magically find a "cure" for all of the zombies), but at this point, it's just this disgusting series of shitty events.