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

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

(i was all prepared to be shocked and upset about glenn but 1) he hasn't been interesting for several seasons, 2) i've long dreaded either him or maggie dying because you know the entire next season will consist of the other moping endlessly - oh god maggie's going to spend 8484422 episodes looking for him isn't she, 3) then i read that it might have been a fake-out and he might still be alive which is unbelievably annoying on several levels)

why does no one ever remember to cover themselves in walker guts

i know the alexandrians are meant to be weak but their incompetence is parodic and implausible at this point, poor michonne having to babysit them

magical aikido teacher's death was extremely annoying, nothing about that situation needed him to get bit when he's perfectly capable of taking the zombie out

on which subject, his/morgan's dogmatic pacifism is less convincing as a way of life when they have v specialist skills that enable them to overpower opponents without killing them

(i didn't hate the morgan backstory episode but maaaaan was that ever carried by two fine actors doing as good a job as they could with a hackneyed, hokey arc. YES I GET IT MORGAN USED TO BE ~WOLF-LIKE it doesn't mean he shouldn't have put his big pacifist stick through the wolf's skull already)

on which subject, his/morgan's dogmatic pacifism is less convincing as a way of life when they have v specialist skills that enable them to overpower opponents without killing them

Yes!

That was the weakest death scene ever. Ninja dudes overpowered by one fucking walker.

Pretty sure if my wife wasn't into this, I wouldn't be watching. So relentlessly cynical. WE GET IT!

Was it really about pacifism so much as just not killing? I don't know if all that stuff is true to Aikido but it's definitely a martial art that involves hitting people (although it seems the preference is for grappling and flipping people)

Also a preference for awesome wide trousers that they sadly didn't have in the episode.

I found it really disappointing that they used a whole feature length episode on this. I assumed they'd use that time to get back to the main event.
Yes the way the teacher's death bite happened was silly (and that the improved Morgan still felt like fighting him after he was bitten). But I'm curious how Morgan will keep this little rehabilitation project going, it seems impossible, particularly because nobody will support him on this one.

I'm not getting why the pole fighting bothers anyone.

If the theory is correct that Glenn is protected by the body on top of him, it seems a stretch that it would cover him well enough when there are so many zombies scrambling for a piece.

yeah there basically isn't a remotely plausible way for glenn to survive that; if he does, it's a cheat, if he doesn't, even playing up the is-he-isn't-he angle is cheap

glenn and maggie have never been more annoying than when they were stubbornly looking for each other to the exclusion of everything and everyone else in S4

I was convinced "Eastman" would turn out to be the evil psycho he claimed to have imprisoned and starved - that Morgan would look through his wallet for gravestone deats and be like "Crighton Dalla... OH SH--!"

hah, Chris Hardwick had the same thought

Eastman was a big lad for a vegetarian superninja. All those terrible attempts at goat cheese I suppose.

I liked Glenn and was annoyed that they killed him but it would be terrible if they Bobby Ewinged him back in.

All those terrible attempts at goat cheese I suppose.

How long was he living there? Goats don't give milk indefinitely.

I thought the whole thing was pretty tedious. It was the Walking Dead's own Nikki and Paulo episode.

Horrible episode

skipping right over this one. will watch again when they address rick in the winnebago.

I've done OK avoiding this show, and I'm cool with my decision, but since I'd heard OK things about this episode, and knew that it was standalone, I decided to give it a shot. I made it maybe 15 minutes until I was all, man, fuck this overweight hippie sensei spouting droll TV witticisms. Show sucks. Per Nikki and Paulo, I heard it described (positively!) as a good "Lost" episode, which is nagl.

What's funny is the next thing I tried out was the James Brown movie, where this dude plays his dad!