AMC's The Walking Dead

My issue with the hallucinations is that the entire premise of this show for 4.5 seasons has been "We're going to look at this absurd concept in the most realistic way possible."
Flashbacks, dream sequences, hallucinations all seem like they shouldn't exist on a show built like that. I felt the same way when Rick was talking to Lori on the phone. Just seems to sci-fi for my liking here.
That being said, they were very well done. And I LOVED seeing the Governor back, even if only for a moment.

 

Sasha is having a pretty terrible week? Month?

 

On the after show they said 17 days had elapsed. So bad month.

 

I actually thought the direction was very well done, though it was a noticeable departure from the rest of the series.

It wasn't as good as I'd hoped for a mid-season premiere … it was basically just a 44-minute way to write a character out of the show without really advancing anything. Kind of an ignominious end for (DEAD CHARACTER), who I'd actually grown to like. The death was a little pointless.

As I saw her begin singing for the first time, I immediately thought of you, HC, and wondered how long it would take for you to post about her.

 

bigpern, I think they go out of their way to make the character's deaths pointless. So much of the show is about how the people deal with the horror of their world. Why not take an episode to really look into the way one character faces the end?

Of course, I also wonder if having Beth sing in the hallucinations was a way of messing with those of us who were sick of her.

 

I think it was more of a way for all those people who were up in arms about her death to take a moment to be OK with it.
As for your above point, it would be kind of cool to see one episode where the group just absolutely reaches their breaking point and can't deal with it all. Maybe this next one is it. They've had a bad run lately but they never take a moment to grieve. I understand that, I do, but it's a little unrealistic to think all this death and chaos wouldn't just grate on them mentally for a little bit and they wouldn't just take a day or two to kind of collect themselves.

 

Wondering if (DEAD CHARACTER) needed to be written out of the script for other work opportunities discussed on the aftershow.

I felt that episode was over-the-top and self-indulgent on the director's part (Greg Nicotero). The fact that, on the aftershow, the name "Terrence Malick" was mentioned TWICE -- by Nicotero and by one of the actors -- cinched it for me that Nicotero needs to get over himself. Seemed like a sophomore's film-school project, sticking in things that aren't part of the "world" we've bought into throughout the series. And everybody on Talking Dead kissing up about how "amazing" the episode was.

 

I don't know about that. The deaths usually seem to serve some purpose, or at least fit into the plot somehow. In this case, (DEAD CHARACTER) was just staring at the damn wall. It won't even cause the emotional toll on members of the group that the deaths of Herschel, Beth and Bob all caused. I missed the Talking Dead, so maybe Joe was right that the actor had other opportunities and needed to be written out of the script, but it just felt a little pointless.

And I totally think they were messing with the audience on the Beth part.

 

Agreed.

Didn't like it. Ham-fisted attempt that came across as self-consciously 'artsy.'
And as a Malick fan, I found the comparison to Malick laughable.

 

My biggest issue with the deviation from the usual set of rules is that this now opens the Walking Dead up to allow dream sequences and fake outs and I think that's a cheap way to get a reaction out of your audience. Doesn't belong here.
That being said, I think the main focus of the next few episodes needs to be on Darryl and Maggie. They're the two most affected by Beth's death and we haven't even seen them for more than six seconds since she got clipped.

 

I don't really get your objection, Schiez. This isn't the first time characters have hallucinated or had dream sequences before (remember Michonne dreaming that everything was right with the world in Season 4? Daryl hallucinating that he saw Merle?), so it's not a new can of worms. The hallucinations weren't a fake-out of any sort, and were pretty clearly presented as hallucinations. They made sense within the story and were a way to give insight into how (DEAD CHARACTER) was seeing his final moments.

 

I liked the Michonne dreams because it provided some great backstory about her without the show's usual tactic for character development - break two characters off on their own, stop all story momentum and force a bunch of bald-faced exposition on the audience in the guise of 'dialogue.'

The prison subplot in which Rick's going crazy and talking to nonexisistent people and his wife's ghost on the radio was stupid.

This most recent episode was much like the latter and nothing like the former.