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

maybe it's time for you to give up on this show, unless you just love hate-watching TV. i mean, you missed the actual season premiere and you're blaming the show for inconsistency, seems like you're just looking for things to harp on now...
the show's been consistently watchable and enjoyable to me for the last 2-3 seasons, even with its flaws. love the production and several of the characters, even if they're not all well-developed

Eh, come on, I only pointed out exactly one inconsistency - where's Rick? et al. The rest had nothing to do with whether or not I saw it last week. You are right, it's definitely time to move on, just as I eventually stopped reading the book. But seriously, at this point, do we have remotely any idea how many people live in Alexandria, or how big the place is? These seem to be fundamentals. And am I wrong that the kill vs. mercy dialectic has pretty much been done to (er) death on this show? Surely they can find some other place to go, literally and metaphorically. There's just so much good TV right now that I find this one's stubborn mediocrity morbidly fascinating.

there are many frustrating things about this show - themes that they keep driving into the ground over and over again, stupidity as repeated plot device, everything about the grimes family as the central protagonists - but idk why people hold it to any higher standard than mindless violence 4 hangovers. thought this week's was probably its best episode in years (and a tantalising vision of a rick-free show). real-time aspect was vg, carol badassery is always welcome and the enid cold open was brilliantly shot. also glad that finally there are traces of wit in the dialogue from tara and eugene.

one thing it does struggle with is repeatedly, its antagonists give good action and villainy but the minute you prod their set-ups they make v little sense. not sure what the wolves' deal is; ok ok they're savages who love killing but how does their group ever expand or how did it even come to be if they attack everything they come across? and their cunning traps of last season don't jive with the bloodlust mayhem we saw.

don't know for sure but it seems like they're kidnapping people and forcing/training/torturing them to become initiates (this is what I implied from that guy saying to Morgan that they didn't "choose" this life) and there had to be some reason they were bothering to chain up some of the victims, unless they're also cannibals

also, though they seem to have to not gone ahead with the idea that Enid let them in - they were clever enough to scout out the town in advance and attack them when half of the town was distracted with the zombie parade, so I think there is more detail there that we don't know yet. we have yet to see who their "pack leader" is, i'm guessing it'll be another Governor-type, closer to the original psychopathic comics version

that cold open was pretty well done

idk why people hold it to any higher standard than mindless violence 4 hangovers

agreed m/l - and the fact that the entire fifth season and the premiere of this one (still need to see episode 2) have been so well-made and interesting (and occasionally downright compelling and ambitious, especially imo the first half of season 5) for what they are is the best you can hope for. this isn't prestige television. it's genre trash that is about as well-done as it can be and generally isn't stupid anymore even when more than a few of its characters annoyingly still are.

I did appreciate that it began with perhaps the single dumbest behavior we've seen on the show yet, arguing over the map in a stopped car with the doors open, fully aware there were zombies coming. Were they looking for the city on the map called Literally Any Place that Is Not Where You Are Right Now?

I am going way out of my way to explain things to someone who clearly just can't be arsed enough to pay attention, but they weren't arguing over a map, they were trying to change a fuse in the car to get it started. The dialogue per subtitles:

Woman: It says the ignition switch fuse is at location 27.
Man: Alright, 27, I need to know where that is.
Woman: Right here.
Man: OK, this one's blown. What's this one, the red one?
Enid: Mom, Dad, we got to go.
Man: Come on, come on.
Woman: We see them. Just need to find a fuse so we can start the car. Almost got it, honey, location six. That's turn signal lamps and stop lamps.
Man: OK, we can live without turn signals.
Enid: Dad, they're com - - -

(Cut to Enid in car, windows covered with blood.)

Some of it is mixed low, but even with my shitty ears I heard "Just need to find a fuse so we can start the car" when watching.

the fact that the entire fifth season and the premiere of this one (still need to see episode 2) have been so well-made and interesting (and occasionally downright compelling and ambitious, especially imo the first half of season 5) for what they are is the best you can hope for. this isn't prestige television. it's genre trash that is about as well-done as it can be and generally isn't stupid anymore even when more than a few of its characters annoyingly still are.

If I bailed after season 3 because I couldn't take the general dullness/repetitiveness/theme-hammering (after really liking season 1), is it even worth picking this up again, or is this just a show I do not like?

saw that immediately too.

And I love that as soon as the mad zealots retreat, the first order of business is taking out the muffins or whatever

he was in the kitchen when it dinged and I bet it smelt good

...

there is still "stupid" things in this show. a guy at work can't believe how naïve the Alexandrians are. I told him, "what about how evil and dumb (no guns) this wolf pack is"?

slothroprhymes is dead on about this being genre trash that's done very well. lex pretend is spot on with stupidity being a plot device. I think to enjoy this show you have to suspend your disbelief to more than just zombies and like a good amount of the characters.

my problem with fear the walking dead was that that I had a harder time suspending my disbelief and caring about any main characters. also, several other problems

oops, I didn't notice eephus! posted before me

Fear was way more of a drag. part of it was that there wasn't an excuse to actually have a zombie kill every episode, and the other part is that most of the characters were plain annoying or motivation-less (especially all the teenagers). But the introduction of campy devil suit guy is a good direction I think

eephus - the show on an episode-to-episode basis is definitely less boring than it was in S2 and S3, but the theme hammering is still there, so probably not worth it. OTOH, it's way better than season 1 at this point IMO in terms of straight up zombie action

FTWD was actually terrrrrrible, my bf insisted on watching it to the end out of, idk, masochism or something. they actually skipped the most interesting time period between the initial outbreak and the military taking over! but the characters were all just...stupid and awful and boring. i think the dad might have actually been worse than the junkie son.

genuinely confused that it smashed all those ratings

i was happy when the mother slapped the crap out of her son. i'm not sure that's what the show was going for, but i'm already really tired of that kid

― Nhex, Tuesday, September 22, 2015 6:17 AM (4 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm this was the sole scene in FTWD where i perked up

(btw on TWD i assume they're repeatedly saving the priest from near-eatings multiple times just to troll us)

just finished the last half of Season 5. Carol is just such a joy to watch in Alexandria ... it's almost like she's a displaced John Waters heroine.

xp lol i love that bit where she and Morgan are getting through the town they see Gabriel getting mauled and Carol's just like "eh, whatevs just keep walking"

I actually really loved the little "oh, my lasagna is done!" punchline

I fully admit I had trouble paying attention (though trying to read car manual - maddening in the best of circumstances - is not much better than reading a map), but just because this will likely be the last one I watch, I demand answers! Like, what did drive away the wolfpack? Carol with a gun? It was so unclear because the geography is so unclear, and the numbers - assailants and suburbanites - are so unclear. One minute they were invading from all sides, hacking people to death with machetes (why?), the next they were retreating. Some houses got raided, some houses (how many houses?) were just left alone to do experimental surgery or whatever. Was this just sort of a spontaneous wolfpack panty raid? And Morgan bluffed the guy into thinking they were surrounded by snipers. But wouldn't they have heard gun shots, or relative lack of gun shots?

Speaking of which, if everyone in this town is afraid or unable to use guns, then why do they even have an armory? Their defensive strategy this far seems to be largely culinary based.

I did think of a cool zombie siege technique: fill a catapult with a bunch of biting zombie heads, then fling them at people! They should do that some time.

But yeah, for whoever asked, the show has gotten soooo much better than the first two seasons. My frustration and I guess ultimately fatal disappointment is that for whatever reason, it's content to be pretty unambitious, which I just can't figure out. They have money, they have viewers, you'd think they have a modicum of creative freedom and talent on hand. They've had good directors and, I assume, the writing stable is strong. But maybe not? Because again and again the show seems content to lock itself down in extremely limited sets and environs and (literally) run around in circles, like a show in its last legs trying to make the most of dwindling funds before the ax comes down. And I know they're characters in the comics, but this episode when Morgan went all Kung Fu on everyone - and this in a show that already has a samurai - I just got such horrible basic cable vibes from. It was just so stupid and silly, and undercut the general grim vibe the show has when it's at its best. Just as the general aimlessness has grown pretty tedious, too. "Just survive" could be enough of a narrative drive, if the show was better at juggling scares and suspense. But it's not. And at this point motivations are so sketchy they're barely moving things along.

Also I really miss Cuddy, he was my fave.

Yeah, the "just survive" thing doesn't seem sustaining enough to me either. I'm not looking for some kind of "cure" where all the zombies magically turn back into humans, but it would be nice to lead toward somewhere where humans work together and try to turn the tide back toward a livable world. Maybe zombie shit is just too cynical for me.

Yeah i think the alexandria attack wasnt supposed to be too much about scares and suspense but rather one initial scare and a bunch of sickening gore. Like, how could these humans be acting like this? I see how Morgan's donatello act seems b-movieish but you cant fight with a pole and expect it not to b. Just some more suspension of disbelief we can put up with because why not fight with a pole?

As far as getting back to a livable world, I like how each stopping point gets closer to that ideal. Whether its the isolated farmland at the prison, the totalitarian but functional town ruled by the governor or the stepford wives at Alexandria. There's actual progression.

But yeah, it's probably too cynical for you. I'm a cynical pestimistic bastard

I don't get how there's anyone alive who hasn't got a gun in a country where EVERYONE had a gun then 250 million of them died.

Im guessing it's lack of bullets

Maybe their leader tasked them with taking on the village without guns to see whether they are deserving of artillery and/or other pleasantries that a higher ranked wolf would get.

Ehhh 'pleasantries'. Wrong word. I hate when I know there is a right word but am damned if I know what it is.

Amenities?

Privileges? Perks?

Shit?

Why couldn't it have been Damon Lindelof?

definitely sad about that one.

not damon lindelof

eh, it was too bad but people gotta go at some point. they certainly seemed to be thrusting a bunch of new characters at us in the last episode, even if they don't have names it seemed like maybe we were supposed to care about them

also in the past two episodes maggie acquired a huge fucking souther accent. I don't remember this.

There's a small chance that they didn't die if the intestines were from someone on top

SPOILERS in this thread

if that's the case, it's complete audience-baiting horseshit. he'll come back as a zombie, I reckon. sigh.
i guess people gotta go at some point, but as Lindelof said in Talking Dead, certain people have basically made the unkillable list (Rick, Daryl, Carol) so... it still sucks
i'm still gonna give it a day or two before openly talking about it here since i know a lot of ppl are on DVR time...

as a way of avoiding discussing (redacted), let us give thanks that next week is going to be a 90 minute episode that is all morgan all the time, which equates to STOP DRILLING, YOU'VE HIT OIL

looks like a flashback to me - i'm guessing it's gonna be super depressing since whoever Morgan learned kung fu from has gotta die terribly, right?

its def a flashback from what the actor (lennie james) has said, and yea depressing seems a safe bet, but he's such a fascinating character and using him for this format could be really formally interesting

I had subtitles on. Morgan learned Kung Fu from a cheese-maker apparently.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I want ____ to live (after even more struggle) because I want to see how scarring an experience like this is on a main character. It's way different than having loved ones die

it's 90 minutes next week?

Well, that was even more of a laugh riot than usual.

I say again: Any "plan" which doesn't involve actually killing zombies is a shit plan.

This show staying true to its comic book roots

Am I the only one who has zero interest in Morgan?
I don't understand why he's such a compelling character.

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/tmnt/images/c/ca/08ooo.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140706141217

Am I the only one who has zero interest in Morgan?

Nope.

I'm at walker stalker con if anyone there right now wants to meet and say hi

The actor who plays Enid said JSS means just survive somehow. It was written on the note Carl found at the end of the episode.

She also said that she is going as a wolf for halloween

So this week is just going to be all old boring Morgan backstory shit? Wgaf.

was legit more upset at tabitha the goat's death than at any human character's to date

hah