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

What an absolutely great episode. Sort of knew what would happen, generally speaking, since even the comics arc is only a couple of issues. But boy, was this well directed, well acted and well paced. Great use of darkness (both kinds) and stillness. Stuff that happened actually enriched our heroes as characters, changed them. One of the many problems with the show over the seasons has been the way it sort of elides the sheer horror of this existence. Between the end of the last season and the start of this one, we're finally starting the see the deeper pain and damage surviving in this world is inflicting on good people. Not just in the death surrounds us sense, but in the we are living in hell and every single day we must navigate a different degree of damnation. If there's any problem with this development it's that things can quickly get depressing, but, well, a show like this not being depressing is a bigger issue.

Not sure how much I anticipate the Beth storyline, but these past few eps have given me hope. It's as if after so many years of this they finally have righted the earlier wrongs and actually know where they want the story to go. Fingers crossed.

How does Abraham keep his hair and 'stache like that? Everyone else looks like a head-to-toe wet mop.

maggie not only still failing to give a shit about her only living relative but now buggering off even though she now knows beth is still alive is ludicrous

that apart, this show is actually on a genuine streak of sustained quality! and a plot that actually moves!

The water bloated zombies in the previous episode were wonderful. One of the best monster makeup jobs I've seen in years. Take that cgi!

what was with that weird ending?

not gonna be beth or carol in the bushes

Or maybe Carol carrying Beth?

it's gonna be a rando hostage or Lennie

the imdb description of next week's episode says that Beth finds herself in some weird hospital

hoping beth isn't traumatised to the point of the next 5 episodes having to nurse her back to health

That would certainly give them an excuse to anchor them all in one place again just to talk a lot.

I liked how the "next week.." add said, with pauses inbetween WHO...TOOK...BETH and the first thing I thought was World Health Organization.

Wow what a crappy episode. Writing and directing was some amateur hour bullshit.

i like beth and i liked the idea of spending an hour with her but the logic of that whole set-up would have collapsed with one poke. do they actually think about the logic of why certain things would not actually happen? could've been so easy to get it right, too - tighten up the logical holes in the hospital, go for the creepy vibe, bang you've got a nice all-cops-are-bastards/danger of authority theme going on. oh well

The creepy rapist cop character also read like a really standard, lazy idea, which kind of clashed with the... well, I don't really know what the rest of the vibe was supposed to be there to be honest. Weird dystopian hospital society with approximately six people in it.

I only got to the end of S2 yesterday and this is so flimsy on almost every level and yet so watchable because I hate most of the characters and am eagerly looking forward to them being disemboweled. The taking down of Dale (who was less 'moral centre of the group' and more 'self-righteous bore') was a case in point. Also the group dynamic is basically exactly the same as that of Lost and I'm not sure which ripped off which.

medals should be awarded to everyone on completion of season 2

For reals. I still feel like there's a lost episode where they just make lemonade for an hour while Herschel speaks nuggets of folksy wisdom.

nah, i'm pretty sure that was an actual episode

medals should be awarded to everyone on completion of season 2

I was writing about it weekly at the time ugh

i didn't bother with last season, should I go back and watch that before watching this one?

i'd say it's worth it, season 4 was pretty solid overall and really picked up in the second half

there's only one or two bum episodes imo and nothing as terrible as the worst from season 2 and 3
remember they got a new showrunner for s4 and he's has yet to be fired amazingly

That was like some sub John Carpenter meets General Hospital shit. Glad it was a bottle episode. Keep the infection isolation so that it doesn't spread to the rest of a so far solid season. Unless it's too late, in which case, down the elevator shaft the season goes.

I guess I didn't mind so much because I was happy to see Beth finally
But yeah, not up to recent standards

Also, bad lady cop didn't blink. Do they teach that at acting school?

Wow, did not recognize or know that was Keisha Castle-Hughes. Or the kids from "Everybody Hates Chris."

ohhh I knew her face was familiar
I knew it was the kid from Everybody Hates Chris, but largely because he was in that amazing Family Matters Key & Peele sketch from a few weeks ago

Kind of a dud last night - Abraham got pretty annoying

- could not believe the car flipping over. great, a callback to TWD's most stupid character's most stupid moment
+ at least they somewhat explained it, i guess this counts as the show's improvement
- abraham's behaviour seemed like it was falling into its old ways of characters behaving in inexplicable and extremely dumb ways to move the plot forward - yeah yeah we get he wants to keep it moving, as do we all, unlike this group that's spent 5 seasons walking in circles around one city, but at the expense of gaining supplies and through a field of zombies? this is implausible and removes any trace sympathy we have for him as a character or a leader (why is the more level-headed rosita not the leader, eh)
+ wrapping up the eugene story so early was a good, and surprising, move - love how fast these plots are moving, let's hope there's something that can replace them
- flashbacks didn't flesh out abraham's back story even a tenth as much as they should have. why were his wife and kids afraid of him? no insight into his character back then at all. (i've read comments outlining what his backstory was, pity the show didn't reflect any of it) (when are we gonna get rosita's backstory)
+ non-flashback eugene and rosita became more like characters and less like the comic book cutouts they'd been at least - rosita did a lot with very little, her staredown of abraham with her hand on her gun was the episode's most powerful moment imo. who is dependent on whom there, how much power does she have over him
+ two consecutive episodes without rick and koral
+ probz more of a cliffhanger than last week - we all know what carol's gonna do in the hospital but i've no idea how this group will react to eugene's revelation

why were his wife and kids afraid of him?

Uhm he just beat some guys to death with canned goods...

it's the zombie apocalypse, that's barely remarkable at this point

and especially considering the backstory in the comics that he was saving them

or was it an abusive relationship in the first place? the show indicates none of this

irl lol at "Rick and Koral"

I'm glad they didn't overplay the "Eugene with the firehose" thing, no self-satisfied smirk or cheesy thumbs-up or "crowning moment of awesome," just a realization by him that he needs a new strategy because shit is about to fall apart with his original plan.

This episode was in many ways an encapsulation of the show itself - spinning wheels, going nowhere, backtracking, detouring - but I thought it was OK. If anything, it feels like they let the Eugene reveal wait too long, but at least it seems to have happened at the right spot. Some thoughts:

1) This season is the first that seems to acknowledge night is dark.

2) The zombie battles, including the hose, were pretty perfunctory.

3) I do enjoy the fact that starting last season and continuing through this one, that so many of the secondary characters can hold their own, episode-wise. Rosita was good in this.

4) The Eugene thing works as a pretty solid analogue to everyone else: in the zombie apocalypse, you do not survive by staying true to yourself. And everyone has something that's keeping them going.

5) Flashback, the impression I got what was that it was pretty early in the apocalypse. Abe's family probably just panicked.

Yeah. They probably didn't realize he was a violent psychopath inside!
I'm surprised they let the Eugene reveal linger on this long tbh, especially compared to how fast it came out in the comics

Decent ep, Carol and Darryl are good enough actors to carry a whole episode like this. Wish plot was a little more but what can you do, was a bottle-ish episode for this show
Yvette Nicole Brown with a lot of good insights on Talking Dead! (And uh, looking great)

Mostly a good episode. Thoughts:

1) Still like how night looks like night.
2) Who starts a voluntary bonfire when trying to sneak up on someone.
3) Why, after establishing that the van was not stable would Carol then climb in after Darryl?
4) Like the use of silences/not talking.
5) Don't like the on the nose book placement this show's gotten into the habit of.
6) How would a zombie get trapped in a zipped tent?

All these bottle eps, detours and side-tracks makes me think they finally have some sort of narrative outline they're following. Also a good way to make something happen when, you know, nothing really is happening.

Also, this show has always been but is increasingly more of a Western, with zombies. It's even got two Clint Eastwoods.

three if you count Carol!

6) How would a zombie get trapped in a zipped tent?

Be alive.
Enter tent, zip up tent.
Die.
Reanimate.
Play magical xylophone.

That's one of the details I liked - you don't really know what the story is with those people camping there. The blood marks on the bags would imply someone came by while they were sleeping and shot or stabbed them. No magical xylophone!

Yeah, I guess someone could have stealthed into the tents, killed them badly, then ... zipped them up again before stabbing everyone in their sleeping bags? It doesn't matter, of course.

I do like the helpless, stupid zombies. What I don't like is how poorly this show CGIs charring - buildings, bodies. It just looks like this weird digital smudge.

am i missing something? they could have been bitten by a zombie as opposed to stabbed by a non-zombie?

So both tent people were bitten by zombies, made it back to camp, went into their respective tents, then zipped themselves in? Then died and turned? All either before or after all those people died and turned in their sleeping bags? I guess they could have all killed themselves at once.

the zombies that attacked those people could have come and gone? Idk dude, I feel like you are overthinking this. People who were camping out in that building got attacked by zombies. They died and turned. Zombies have low brain function and cannot use zippers. It was funny.

However, I think this episode, we saw the first child zombie since ... the Governor's daughter? I feel like child zombies are exceedingly rare.

I'm definitely overthinking it! as if there was ever any doubt.

Tbh probably not a lot of kid left after a zombie attack.

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?