The Walking Dead: Discussion Thread

[Vee]

It's not likely to be for another few weeks.

[Juliajms]

Yikes. Wishful thinking on my part.

[DRW50]

Spoilers about that (this isn't just comics spoilers it's also episode spoilers so be warned, although I will not say "who")

 

 

[quartermainefan]

This was a good episode with all the action and whatnot, but I despise what they are doing with Carol.   Now she is reflective, and now she has doubts, and now she smokes (and remember her own words, "that stuff will kill you").    The cigarettes and introspection are signs of weakness for the one who normally has no weakness.    This is Oprah territory she wandered into, and it isn't needed.   Second, who was that loser, nobody, extra she was with?   Where is Daryl?   She was right that Maggie the pregnant lady had no business being on a field assignment (since the baby is more important than anything) but the fact she couldn't say it was annoying.   Then there was her inexplicable attitude with crazy Morgan.   She knows he is trouble, so why doesn't she do something about it?  Just so she can have a touchy feely stare into the camera?   Who needs that [!@#$%^&*]?

The assault on the compound was cool, but Rick might have done a stake out first. 

[DRW50]

I liked that they had Glenn be the one to see the head shots, because he's one of the characters who would be most affected by such a horrific display. He is, to a lot of viewers, one of the major emotional cores of the show. It's also a more effective way of showing just how awful these people are than last week's monologue that a lot of viewers probably didn't even listen to because it was from someone they didn't know.

 

I know some fans felt it was a whitewash of his murdering the Saviors, but if they were trying to whitewash his actions I don't think they would have had the scene where he and Heath opened the door and saw the pile of bodies. I think they were trying to say that it had to be done, but it was still horrific. I was actually impressed, because usually the show just has slaughter and then has someone looking on horrified and giving a lecture. As result they often look naive or sanctimonious. This did a lot of damage to Tyreese as a character, and more recently Morgan. I wish it hadn't taken 6 seasons to finally learn how to trust viewers enough to get the message.

 

It does reinforce the split personality of the show, in that they want viewers to get these bad-ass, adrenaline-pumping action scenes, but they also want to remind us it's terrible and awful and so on, when a lot of viewers are just going, "!@#$%^&*] yeah...shoot 'em again!" It's also the split personality in how they deal with Carol, as many fans only want to see her as Rambo. They handled both elements more adroitly than I'd expected. 

 

I also loved that we got more of the less "important" characters through these scenes - Rosita, Tara, Aaron, Gabriel. I'm invested in most of the main characters, but I watch in large part because of the more minor characters, especially when they actually get them right. I watch because of the larger ensemble and how everyone can interconnect and affect each other. I feel like because they aren't sacred or untouchable in fandom, they can be a bit more real. 

 

I did hate how Abraham treated Rosita, and that Sasha is still stuck in this hell. I "get" why he was so rude to her, because he thinks that makes it easier for them both, but I still wish she'd shot him in the ass. 

 

And I liked seeing Carol increasingly struggle with the emotional cost of her actions, in such an interesting way - the Suzy Homemaker persona, the smoking, the harmless kiss and flirtation with Tobin, who is a safe space for her mentally at the moment. Even the silly montage, with the sitcom moment of her looking at the gallumphing walker's blood on her shirt. This is the type of thing that Melissa McBride is perfect at playing, because she's such an internal, nuanced actress.

 

The other part of this episode I enjoyed was the original music. The raid scene but also the scene where Rick said they'd have to "kill" Gregory. It felt so '80s, so cocaine-haze The Hitchhiker/Tales from the Darkside-esque, and the show often doesn't manage this vibe, they're often a bit too stodgy and artificial. They really did tap into that weird madness and atmosphere this week and it was a very pleasant surprise.

 

I can't help finding the guy who plays the beefy Hilltop with the broken hand to be incredibly hot. I don't know who the actor is. He reminds me of the gay football player on BtVS.

[Juliajms]

The change in Carol is annoying because it feels like a 180. I've been in the minority on this board because I do feel like w need the Dale, Hershel, Ty characters. There isn't a whole lot of point in surviving, if you are going to be a heartless killing machine. It's just that the guilt of doing what clearly needed to be done didn't feel organic coming from Carol. Not after she spent part of season 4 (?) lecturing little kids on how they would have to kill people. If Carol is going to feel guilty it should be about how cold she was with Sam, but hey, she left a cookie on his grave. The smoking was just a clunky, tired, trope.

 

I do feel bad that Glenn had to kill after avoiding it for so long. Especially, since it wasn't in traditional self defense. Yes, it was preventative self defense, but killing those people in their sleep was pretty hard core for our group.

 

Maggie was an idiot for going on this trip. She had plenty of reason to stay behind. Sending most of your best fighters on one mission makes the town way too vulnerable.

[DRW50]

I thought she did feel guilty about Sam.

 

I think we've seen a fair amount of guilt and regret from her in the last few seasons. The tough Carol of season 4 was a wall. She was willing to let Tyreese kill her for what she'd done to Karen and David, and her regret over Lizzie and Mika led to her being so harsh with Sam. She's repeatedly hurt herself and to a degree others with her tougher stance, as much as she's also saved people, and it's made her begin to fall apart. It's also not as easy to do these things, right or wrong, as she thought - she was clearly traumatized by having to mercy kill her neighbor, for instance. I don't think the writing is brilliant (especially Morgan's role on her shoulder) but I think it's been consistently building up with her.

[Juliajms]

I thought she felt guilty about Sam too, but my point is it's too little too late now that he's dead. She should have relented on the coldness while he was alive.   I've never seen Carol as a killing machine or as a cold blooded killer, but last night she felt OOC to me. Let's just say I wasn't surprised when she was taken captive.

[DRW50]

I think Sam just wasn't cut out for that world. I don't think it was Carol that traumatized him, as much as his father beating his mother and his mother being an idiot, but the show seemed reluctant to address the abuse. They handled that story terrible.

[DRW50]

Turns out that floaty walker who ruined Carol's shirt was another Nicotero tribute. 

 

http://moviepilot.com/posts/3814247

[Vee]

I think if people had taken the time with Sam he could've been made ready. He was an abused, frightened child, Carol was an abused wife. Carl started as a helpless little boy. They evolved and Sam could have. I think there are few people in ASZ and that world who couldn't have - Deanna was getting there herself but she got bit. Carol wasn't interested in properly working with Sam because she and Rick were both deep in their gung-ho PTSD interlude at that time, and Jessie never reached the point where she fully accepted what would be required of her not just for herself but for her kids to make them stronger.

 

Sam didn't have to die on that road if he'd been handled both firmly and carefully by people who cared about him - one of whom was Carol, though it took his death for her to really admit it to herself. I think she knows he didn't have to die too, and that's part of what's been eating at her, along with so many other things.

[DRW50]

You can see various short interview clips with Andrew Lincoln, Ross Marquand, Josh McDermitt, Michael Cudlitz and Greg Nicotero here:

 

https://www.youtube.com/user/foxafrica125/videos

[Juliajms]

I wish the characters holding Maggie and Carol hadn't been dispatched that quickly. I wanted to see more of them, especially the red head.

 

I actually thought that Carol was faking the breakdown. Since not, I'm glad she could do what she needed to do when the time came.

[slick jones]

I was really hoping they would last another episode or two. Alicia Witt was off the chain, and I liked the other two as well. 

Both Carol and Maggie were primal, and I loved that they "fired up" those guys.

[quartermainefan]

I will be glad when this storyline with Carol is over.  Carol was the best character on TV because she was strong, didn't doubt herself, and was so rational to the point she became this killing machine if need be.    That wasn't a weakness, that was her strength.   Now they are making it where she regrets her actions, and what is with the smoking?   Carol wouldn't smoke because there is benefit to smoking.   This whole thing is arbitrary and phony, just to give Carol some story where she can cry.   Not interested is existentialism in a character who would up til now come to the conclusion there is no upside to wallowing in self indulgent exploration.    She is too busy for this crap.

 

As for the guest characters this week, well again, I think they were just put there to show Carol a mirror of herself so she can see what she thinks is herself in this other woman and not like it.   I would have much preferred if they pit a Carol on top of her game against her opposite number on top of her's and show why Carol is queen.   I was at least relieved that even wailing and hyperventilating and whatever other BS they had her doing, that Carol at least had the idea to grab the cross to help get free.

 

I think Maggie might be toast.   They are showing her way too much lately after two years of barely showing her at all.