AMC's The Walking Dead

I've never watched Talking Dead, despite being a fan of Chris Hardwick. I just don't feel like Walking Dead is a show deep enough to warrant a follow-up show talking about it, especially after this half-season.

Like TSP, I was not blown away by this finale. I said the same things at my TV that many people probably did:

"Isn't this girl a little old to be playing in the mud? And shouldn't her mom be keeping a closer eye on her?"

"Why is this moron so slavishly devoted to the Governor, a man he knows killed his brother?"

"Wait, isn't this how the last season ended? With the Governor attacking the prison?"

"Suddenly no one can shoot anyone?!?!"

"Stop blowing up the jail you are trying to inhabit, moron!!!"

"Oh, so even little kids are headshot experts now?"

"Yes Rick, you do have a daughter. Maybe you should have known where she was earlier."

"Dammit, I hate Carl."

I may be done with this show after having watched it from the first episode. It is just too hot and cold. I can't think of a lot of redeeming qualities of this past half season. Perhaps I am just spoiled from seeing how seamless Breaking Bad was and I am expecting more from a show that I shouldn't.

 

Agree with all of the yelling at TV observations. We said some of the same things. But, compared to some of TWD's other episodes, it was actually one of the more interesting. I know, that's sad.

 

Two points ...

1. As JRoyal pointed out, the emotional impact of offing the supposed moral center of the prison, a father to two of the prison residents, is why Gov. offed Hershel. He's a psychopath, and that's a psychopath villain thing to do.

2. Trying to compare this show to Breaking Bad is just patently unfair. Breaking Bad is on a level that not many shows will ever dream of reaching. If you go into every show hoping it's going to be as good as BB, you might as well stop watching TV altogether. The Wire is the only show that is near that level. I can deal with judging the Walking Dead on the merits of the Walking Dead. But putting it against BB is not a fair fight.

 

I still don't understand how quickly these people turn into walkers. How did Lilly get Megan to wherever the Governor was (how she found the Governor so quickly may be another question) before the girl turned? Megan was dead when the Governor shot her, right?

My only gripe from the episode. I've come to realize that bad guys can't shoot in movies or TV shows.

 

I re-watched the final scene last night and its even more ridiculous than I originally thought.

-- Rick and the Governor are both shot in the initial exchange of gunfire. This is completely forgotten by the middle of the sequence for both characters. Neither has evidence of a wound during their fight and Rick walks away at the end of the scene as if he doesn't have a gunshot wound to his leg.

-- Maggie tells Beth to "do her job", yet she ignores whatever her own job is to fetch her squeeze in the prison.

-- Darryl not only uses a zombie as a human shield, but all of the zombies that were with that zombie have magically disappeared.

-- How did whatsherface with the dead daughter even know where to go? She had never been to the prison.

Duuuuuuuumb.

 

I fully acknowledge that it isn't fair to compare the two. I'm just saying that, for me, watching how Breaking Bad pulled a perfect dismount changed the way I view how TV can be done, at least temporarily. I went from watching Breaking Bad end to watching this half season of Walking Dead with a more critical eye.

I'm not saying every show has to live up to Breaking Bad, but what Gilligan and Cranston did certainly made it easier for me to spot plot holes, bad writing and bad acting.

 

That's something I'd like to know as well: why does it take some folks longer to turn after dying? Maybe that was something the doctor told Rick in TS-19?

 

Governor was shot in his upper arm, IIRC, but Rick at least stumbled a few times when walking up the hill to find Carl, and then had to lean on Carl when they were leaving the prison.

Maybe her job was to get the people out of the sick warden?

Weren't they hidden behind the dumpster in that scene?

My guess is Governor told her where the prison was and all she did was follow the gunfire.

 

Rick was shot and beat up worse the Bruce Willis in two Die Hard movies. He'd be lucky to crawl.

 

What happens if a vegan becomes a walker?

 

Puh-lease. I got knock these out one-by-one, but why bother? There's a segment of people who watch this show and refuse to watch it critically. I think I'm at the point where I watch because I put the time in to this point and feel like that time would have been wasted if I don't slog on.

I don't, and never have, watched this show because I wanted it to reach Breaking Bad's level. I watch it because it can be interesting escapism and I like zombie fiction, and for a while, it created some nice tension between its characters, but it's testing my patience with every viewing. Just because I like zombie fiction doesn't mean its beyond criticism, or, even given the fantasy subject matter, that some of the things that don't make any sense, or holes in the plot, or shitty character development are OK.

I really think there's a lot of fans of this show who are so into the zombie porn that they look past a lot of this.

 

Yeah, that was really dumb. Moreso the fact that, for whatever reason, she was just sitting there watching a walker come after them when, by all accounts, she was still in her maybe third week of actually seeing this world for what it is and shouldn't be so unconcerned about seeing one.

Also a valid point but they did at least try to show that this guy's thought patterns were more alined with the governor than his brother. Plus, I'm imagining once you see the potential the prison offers, why wouldn't you salivate at the chance to take it over?

I think this was a bit of course-correcting on the part of the show creators who got too away from the source material. You can tell they came into this season willing to throw away the first half of the season in order to bring in this iconic scene, kill off the Governor and spend the back half of the year advancing more on the path the comics drew out. I know they changed show runners heading into this year and I'd be willing to bet this was a big reason for it. After all, if I remember correctly, most people felt they screwed up the final episode of last year and this week's episode should have been the path they chose all along.

I have less of an issue with this than others. Hell, they even made a point to show the Governor needing multiple shots at that one walker when he was on the tank. I'd imagine that a group of non-trained citizens aren't going to be to take each other out in the event of a fire-fight, especially when there were still a few fences and objects in between them.

I think at that point the Governor was just of the mindset of "If I can't have it, no one will." Why the people he was with ever agreed to that, I'll never know. In fact, I think the bigger question should be why didn't one of those people just shoot the governor in the head and take their chances with Rick and his group? I was bugged more than no one even thought about it and fell right in step with the Governor than anything else this episode presented.

This was stupid. I agree. Especially since that girl, IIRC, refused to even pick up a gun a few weeks back. But it's no different than Carl turning into a cold-blooded sniper in the course of one episode so, eh, that's a bit I think where you'll have to suspend your disbelief.

Come on. He was married to a woman who NEVER knew where her son was and, really, the only time Rick even asks where Carl is occurs when shit's about to go down. I'm optimistic about what the show can do to strengthen the bond between Rick and Carl in the next couple episodes if they stay on the course they appear to be going on but, right now, I'm not buying any of that "father-son" bond crap they try to pull when it's convenient.

You're insane. Carl is awesome.