The Walking Dead

[John]

There was enough moaning about spoilered posts on TWD in the main TV thread last year that we're aswell getting a thread going early on.

Spoiler pertains to season six episode one.

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As entertaining as that was, and it was entertaining, it still had all the usual problems.

The plan to lure all the walkers from the massive pit to wherever Rick planned to get rid of them relied on the walkers in that garage being killed, but rather than dispatch them while they had about fifteen people on hand the day before, they sent three people to do it once it was time sensitive. I've always said you can overlook the various zombie tropes with this, the stealth zombies and the overwhelmed good guy inexplicably killing fifty of them off screen for surprise value, but that's just having people we're otherwise supposed to believe are hyper competent behave like idiots. That's not a genre trope, it's unforgivably poor writing.

Along similar lines, Rick has just seen Carter shit himself when confronted by about five walkers, having earlier wanted to kill him for putting a gun on Eugene. Why, at a crucial moment in the plan, seemingly about a week later, and without Carter having gained any ostensible experience or training, does he trust him to go off himself? If it was during a dry run and he hoped the twat would get eaten to save him the bother of having to biff him I could have bought it, but again, that's just having the main characters behave like puddings to create artificial tension.

I could have done without them repeating themselves, with Morgan entering just as Rick kills someone for the second time in two episodes, but I understand that they're hoping the audience will increase with each passing season, so I get the desire to refresh that potential conflict.

I think more than anything this episode serves to confirm that the show is immeasurably better when Morgan is around. The premiere is still the best episode they've ever done, and the other one in the top three along with the 'look at the flowers' episode is the second time Morgan turned up. Without him around to immediately see through Carol and all the other moments of quiet brilliance he brings I think I'd probably have been harder on this.

[Benny]

Can we just go by the old GoT thread, in that there's no need to spoiler content about episodes that have aired, just don't visit the thread until you're up to date?

My thoughts on the episode:

Overall I enjoyed it. Very Tarantino-esque with the black and white flashbacks and the camera view from the boot of the car. I agree it seemed a bit ropey about why there was only three of them sent to smash the zombies, but I guess the others were all busy and if this show had any common sense from the start we wouldn't be on season 6.

Morgan is excellent, the scene on the stairs where he holds Judith and Rick explains why he didn't kill Carter, brilliant acting from the pair of them. I think Rick was planning on trying to save Carter, by cutting his cheek off, otherwise why didn't he stick the knife in straight away? Michonne is annoying me though, with her back and forth reactions to Morgan and Rick. I thought she'd come around to the idea that you've got to be a hardnut in this world now?

Special mention to Eugene, had a little lol during the gate scene, "respect to the hairstyle".

[wullie]

I think spoilers if you've watched the AMC one early Monday, but once it's been on Fox here it's fair game.

Carter was another of those where they telegraph the death too obviously. Someone's either a minor character being a twat out of nowhere or is momentarily happy, then they're ripped apart. Maggie being best pals with the other girl, one of those two is dead before S7.

[John]

Can we just go by the old GoT thread, in that there's no need to spoiler content about episodes that have aired, just don't visit the thread until you're up to date?

My thoughts on the episode:

Overall I enjoyed it. Very Tarantino-esque with the black and white flashbacks and the camera view from the boot of the car. I agree it seemed a bit ropey about why there was only three of them sent to smash the zombies, but I guess the others were all busy and if this show had any common sense from the start we wouldn't be on season 6.

Morgan is excellent, the scene on the stairs where he holds Judith and Rick explains why he didn't kill Carter, brilliant acting from the pair of them. I think Rick was planning on trying to save Carter, by cutting his cheek off, otherwise why didn't he stick the knife in straight away? Michonne is annoying me though, with her back and forth reactions to Morgan and Rick. I thought she'd come around to the idea that you've got to be a hardnut in this world now?

Special mention to Eugene, had a little lol during the gate scene, "respect to the hairstyle".

Michonne is on about version four at this point. She had to come around to the idea that you didn't have to be a closed off nutjob initially, she was walking around with two defanged walkers on leashes for a while, remember.

The others were otherwise engaged the next day when they were actually executing the plan, with explains why they only sent three then, but why not just wipe out the twats in the garage the day before, when they had a numbers advantage and wouldn't jeopardise their plan? If the walkers banging on the window would have dragged the million man march off course then why didn't the sound of a load of guns going off do the same?

[Benny]

Michonne is on about version four at this point. She had to come around to the idea that you didn't have to be a closed off nutjob initially, she was walking around with two defanged walkers on leashes for a while, remember.

The others were otherwise engaged the next day when they were actually executing the plan, with explains why they only sent three then, but why not just wipe out the twats in the garage the day before, when they had a numbers advantage and wouldn't jeopardise their plan? If the walkers banging on the window would have dragged the million man march off course then why didn't the sound of a load of guns going off do the same?

Michonne has been around the houses with her mental states. From memory, she went from closed off crazy (Morgan style), to becoming too soft and needing to 'escape' the prison everyday on big walks, to being a best friend/surrogate mum to Carl whilst looking for a new place to stay, to this confused faced girl now.

It was annoying when they used their guns, these walkers aren't particularly quick, is it really impossible to do it stealthy? I'm surprised that Reg and Co. (or any engineer) never built an automatic zombie smasher. Lead the walkers down a pathway into a pit, which has a big squishing device on continuous pounding mode.

In terms of opening episodes, it fell short of the past couple of seasons as we've had some blinders in that respect, it was still a good hour spent though. The main problem is seeing who the next 'big' character to die is, as the show needs one to keep any sort of momentum, but on the flip side they've dug themselves a grave as the vast majority of new characters are too new for us to really give a shit about.

[wullie]

They only seem to be quick for plot purposes. The few that chased the kid almost into the quarry had him sprinting, whereas Daryl and Sasha were basically Fred Flintstoning their vehicles away from the slow mob, they could have just had Abraham walking with the tinfoil and save them all some petrol.

[Alex]

"Do you really think you can take this community from us? From Glen? From Michonne? From Daryl? FROM ME? Do You have any idea WHO you're talking to?".

Fucking Rick.

Having his very own Heisenberg moment there.

I thought it was a good opener. I was hoping it would end with some sort of cool, walker-mass-slaughter though. If they all now mooch off and overrun the town and it goes to shit already it's going to be a bit rubbish. I don't think that will happen though.

Do we think the implication was that he was leading them all away to kill them all somewhere? Or was he just going to lead them all 20 miles outside town, leave them there and hope they stayed away? I wasn't quite sure. I feel like if you wanted to devise some sort of mass zombie cull then the original spot they found them in looked pretty solid for that.

Who knew they all walked so obediently in nice straight lines down the road too? And all you need to make it happen is a noisy motorbike and a couple of flare guns. If only the US military had known you could round them up like this a year or so ago (how long have they actually meant to have been out there now?), I feel like they could have been much more efficient at managing the problem.

[Chrissy]

I'm liking it. The writing is all very on the nose with the dialogue but you'd expect that with an opening episode. Overall it was not too bad.

[John]

"Do you really think you can take this community from us? From Glen? From Michonne? From Daryl? FROM ME? Do You have any idea WHO you're talking to?".

Fucking Rick.

Having his very own Heisenberg moment there.

I thought it was a good opener. I was hoping it would end with some sort of cool, walker-mass-slaughter though. If they all now mooch off and overrun the town and it goes to shit already it's going to be a bit rubbish. I don't think that will happen though.

Do we think the implication was that he was leading them all away to kill them all somewhere? Or was he just going to lead them all 20 miles outside town, leave them there and hope they stayed away? I wasn't quite sure. I feel like if you wanted to devise some sort of mass zombie cull then the original spot they found them in looked pretty solid for that.

Who knew they all walked so obediently in nice straight lines down the road too? And all you need to make it happen is a noisy motorbike and a couple of flare guns. If only the US military had known you could round them up like this a year or so ago (how long have they actually meant to have been out there now?), I feel like they could have been much more efficient at managing the problem.

They could have just tied a load of garrotes between the trees on that road and had Daryl duck on his way along. They'd have sorted themselves out in about an hour.

I think the fact that they went into plenty of detail about how to corral and lead the walkers, but no detail on where they were leading them to or what they were doing when they got there is quite a good indication that the writers didn't know. They had the idea that they'd try to lead them away and then someone else lures them elsewhere, and no further thought was applied.

The scale of the whole thing already made it feel a bit like a response to Game of Thrones beating them at their own game earlier in the year, so if it'd ended with half an hour of Rick and his newly trained A-Team tearing zombies up it'd have been an unavoidable comparison.

Another thing, how the fuck has that zombie hole gone unnoticed if it's close enough to Alexandria that Rick and Morgan spot it while out burying a body? Are they supposed to have walked about ten miles away to bury the bloke, or is that another thing we're supposed to overlook? Surely if they haven't walked an unreasonable distance to bury that twat one of the lookouts should have noticed the video to Gravel Pit going on up the road?

[Benny]

Didn't those people that returned from scouting (the ones Eugene spoke to at the gate) say that they found it and were on their way back? Or have I just imagined that?

[John]

They said they saw the trucks positioned a few weeks earlier, but at that point it was just a camp that had been fucked over rather than an anthill. That timeline makes very little sense, but it's the one they're going with.

[Mike]

I really enjoyed this weeks episode. I enjoy the show a great deal actually, despite seeing how rubbish it is at times I still really like it.

All that talk of peanut butter protein bars and stuff like it to show "what we're doing is so much the norm for us now we talk about dull stuff as we do it" is annoying though.

[John]

That was a call back to when they found Morgan in his 'look how fucking mad I am' lair, was it not?

[wullie]

I think Michonne actually did steal a bar.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

ofc she did, the bitch.

[wullie]

I notice that Fox are also showing the Talking Dead straight after now (I think they did for the finale of s5 too maybe?) which seems a bit of overkill, but I did like that Michael Cudlitz hates on TV when you see people pretending to drink from empty cups as you can always tell. That's always been a mild annoyance of mine.

[Alex]

That was a call back to when they found Morgan in his 'look how fucking mad I am' lair, was it not?

Good little lair that, to be fair. I'd have stayed there.

[Alex]

Great episode this week. I'm not sure what time it airs over here so I'll leave it a bit before I saying anything else, but I enjoyed it a lot.

[Mike]

Yeah, I enjoyed it again this week.

[wullie]

Cancel Fear The Walking Dead and have the spinoff just be Carol and Morgan roaming the country getting into scrapes and moral dilemmas.

(Do the same with Homeland, just have Quinn being all handsome on covert ops around the world)

[Benny]

Holy fuck was that a brutal episode, from the start (poor turtle) to the end. The Wolves are clearly a mental lot, the way they just kept smashing at corpses with their blades. Morgan was annoying though, surely watching these mentals hacking away at people would be enough for you to lose your moral highground and perhaps not try and take prisoners, although it was funny when Carol walked up and blasted that bloke in the face.

Ron is a little turd as well.

[Alex]

They were all a bit Michael Myers with the hacking and slashing, weren't they?

Carol basically running the lot of them off on her own.

I know they're meant to be the new big threat, but my main thought after that episode was "just wait until Rick gets back". They had no guns or anything. It took a little while but Carol and Morgan got rid of them (the rest of Alexandria really are fucking useless aren't they?), but can you imagine if Rick and the rest of the A-Team were around? He'd have had the lot of them rounded up, interrogated and shot and probably be straight on his way to wherever they call home to sort the rest of them out.

I suppose the point is that they planned this attack when they knew the community would be at it's weakest (somebody is on the inside I guess, probably Carl's missus who disappeared at the end of the episode) but they've fucked it now. The community is still standing, he's going to come back, re-group and then go fucking ape shit.

Why was Morgan there and Rick and company weren't? Is he just a LOT faster at running than the rest of them or something?

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Morgan can teleport.

[Mike]

This weeks episode...... Fuck!

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Toggle Spoiler

Glenn isn't dead.

The shot as they were falling really made a point to make sure that Nicholas fell on top of Glenn. It will be his body that they were feasting on and some how, like usual, Glenn will find his way out of it.

[wullie]

Woah, spoilers at least until it airs here.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Surely it's by US pace? Like every other thread we've had on a TV show on TTH.

I have absolutely no idea when it airs over here.

[Mike]

9pm tonight, I always thought it was UK air for spoilers.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

9pm tonight, I always thought it was UK air for spoilers.

For previous shows/threads it was always US pace, primarily because the UK used to get most things about a month later at the earliest.

[Kikó]

Mahow:

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If that's the case, it will be a massive cop out. Once they got through el dickhead, there would still be hundreds off them ready to munch on a Chinese take out.

[Jeet]

Really get bored of Walking Dead now.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Mahow:

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If that's the case, it will be a massive cop out. Once they got through el dickhead, there would still be hundreds off them ready to munch on a Chinese take out.

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Of course it will but that's The Walking Dead for you.

Glenn will realise that they're not chomping on him and somehow slither out of there.

[Jeet]

http://www.vulture.com/2015/10/glenn...-happened.html

[John]

I watched the last two episodes in one sitting earlier, so here goes.

Surely it's by US pace? Like every other thread we've had on a TV show on TTH.

I have absolutely no idea when it airs over here.

So you posted without reading the thread? It's established right away that it airs here one day later than in the US and that it's no real hassle to post in spoilers for that period.

They were all a bit Michael Myers with the hacking and slashing, weren't they?

Carol basically running the lot of them off on her own.

I know they're meant to be the new big threat, but my main thought after that episode was "just wait until Rick gets back". They had no guns or anything. It took a little while but Carol and Morgan got rid of them (the rest of Alexandria really are fucking useless aren't they?), but can you imagine if Rick and the rest of the A-Team were around? He'd have had the lot of them rounded up, interrogated and shot and probably be straight on his way to wherever they call home to sort the rest of them out.

I suppose the point is that they planned this attack when they knew the community would be at it's weakest (somebody is on the inside I guess, probably Carl's missus who disappeared at the end of the episode) but they've fucked it now. The community is still standing, he's going to come back, re-group and then go fucking ape shit.

Why was Morgan there and Rick and company weren't? Is he just a LOT faster at running than the rest of them or something?

The Wolves are a problem in terms of how they're written and portrayed, though not the biggest problem after tonight. How does a group organised enough to survive this long and set up that trap with the zombie dubstep party last year, large enough to reckon they can take on a walled community and absorb whatever losses come their way, and violent enough to waste time hacking off the arm of a dead man for the sake of it, not have a fair arsenal of their own? Surely over the course of whatever scavenging activities have provided them with the food to survive they should have picked up some firearms of some sort. If they have them, why not use them on a walled community they know has an admittedly terrible sniper protecting the walls? If they don't, why the fuck not? If they've been refusing to use them for reasons of principle or whatever then why does the chief twat take one with him when he leaves at the end of episode two and use it on Rick last night? Just a complete mess.

As for the organised nature of the raid, The Wolves had the intro package that the Alexandrian who found the Rickshaw in the barn last year was carrying around with him. He left his bag in the car Morgan saved him and Daryl from. Presumably they were keeping an eye on the place and decided to make their move when they saw ninety five percent of the characters with names heading out.

Morgan was there because Rick sent him back to let everyone else know what had happened immediately after he'd killed the dickhead who got his cheek bitten off.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that Enid is in league with The Wolves, since her JSS mantra would encourage her to hedge her bets with any group which looks like it might be the strongest, but I doubt she's a member. Her 'that's how we were able to...' line was cut off at exactly right moment to leave it ambiguous as to whether she was talking about The Wolves getting in or her and Carl sneaking out unnoticed. Even terrible writers, as this show has its share of, wouldn't do that for no reason at all.

Now tonight's episode.

They've fucked themselves. If the walkers were eating Glenn it'd mean his intestines were somewhere in his upper chest, so if he is dead then it's an absolute certainty that he's been killed offscreen. The framing of the shot makes it obvious that they didn't actually want to show Glenn dying, since they've never flinched from showing main characters being offed before, but the music choices and organisation of the episode makes it obvious that they wanted to leave it ambiguous enough to encourage speculation. Either they've broken with tradition at the least sensible moment possible and killed a popular character offscreen (and when was the last time they klled one of the original mob from the quarry where Carol's husband copped it?), or they've introduced the most ridiculous escape yet.

It's a shame, since even taking the thousands of plotholes into account this has been a very good start to the season.

Finally, on plotholes, how fucking bad was Rick's plan to deal with the quarry zombies? It's quite literally kicking the can down the road.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

I did read the thread, the only posts regarding spoilers/times/dates etc are by Benny stating it should be like the old GoT threads (which airs the same day in the UK, but still people posted without spoilers after the US) and Wullie saying he thinks spoilers should be kept until it's aired on Fox (but doesn't mention when it happens).

I think as much discussion as possible in TV threads should be without the spoiler tag, as such it should be done by US pace.

[John]

Until yours earlier there wasn't a single unspoilered post in this thread which revealed plot details and was posted before the UK air time. I know I'm a little overcautious with spoilers when talking about shows I know are being watched at different rates by different members, but I really don't know why anyone wouldn't be. It's only an extra nineteen keystrokes on your part and one extra click on the part of the reader,

I simply don't believe that you had 'no idea when it airs here'.

[Benny]

Meh, enjoyed that episode, even if it was full of idiotic decisions from start to finish. If Glenn is alive then it's a seriously stupid move by the writers/directors, if he's dead then it was quite an anti-climatic for one of the original badmans.

Was Rick bit on his hand, or was he cut from the knife?

[John]

It looked like a cut from the knife breaking, but even if it's a bite it won't be significant. They've quietly revised the rules on walker bites over the years, or at the very least made them unclear enough that they can treat any particular bite however they please. Hershel's leg needed to be amputated immediately to prevent him turning but everyone was remarkably nonchalant about that bloke the other night being bitten on the shoulder.

[Kikó]

I thought they were nonchalant because they knew he was a goner rather than because he could be saved?

The kicking the can down the road thing is great though because it literally is that. I'm still not sure what the plan is other than walk them down the road for a bit. Surely it would have been easier just to secure the quarry and pick them off that way rather than unleash them all for a silent protest.

I imagine Rick's RV will start up at the very last moment and some how Glenn has rolled under the bin and a cat running across the road distracts the herd. It was another episode where the zombies were suddenly a threat after (seemingly seasons) of them being inept. The other minor gripe is the scratching ability and how they try to grab most of the time rather than dig their nails in like they have done at others.

[John]

The scene were Michonne wrote 'you're getting home' on her arm was after he was bitten, wasn't it?

Regardless, D'Angelo Barksdale was giggling like an arsehole last season because he reckoned he was feeding those cannibal twats 'tainted meat', despite the fact that everyone knows by this point that 'the virus' is already present in anyone still living.

The plan literally was to just move them along. They were shifting them twenty miles up the road and trusting that they'd be distracted by other stimuli from there. Other than pissing away all of Alexandria's fuel turning that quarry into a belisha beacon for the undead I'm struggling to come up with a worse plan than the one Rick did. I came up with an infinitely better one upthread, and I'm definitely not alone in having done so.

[Kikó]

I think so but they were only getting him home so he could say good bye to his new wife. Before Rick or Carole taking him out.

[Jeet]

Just keep it US pace. Sure the UK TV viewers can restrain themselves for 2 days clicking on this thread.

[Alex]

If Glen is still alive then it's a huge cop-out, but I can absolutely see that being the case. I hope it isn't though. But, as others have said, if that was his death it was a bit of a weird one for such a central character. There wasn't much in the way of build up to it. One of the reasons why I can see him making it out. Although on paper there's absolutely no way he could have.

Every time any of them got cornered by a massive horde of zombies I'm taken back to the already established fact (I think all the way back in season one?) that if you cover yourself in zombie entrails they all leave you alone and let you walk around freely amongst them. Why they're all not wearing suits made from rotting zombie guts when they're out in these situations is beyond me.

[Alex]

I think so but they were only getting him home so he could say good bye to his new wife. Before Rick or Carole taking him out.

That was what I took away from it too. He said "I know what it means" or something after he was bitten, didn't it? I think it was understood that they all knew it was only a matter of time before they had to off him. He just wanted to get back and talk to his wife before that happened.

Why do they always leave people screaming in pain as they get devoured by the walkers? They did it twice in this episode. With that bloke when he couldn't get over the fence and with that girl earlier in the episode when she fell and they caught up with her. You would at least put a bullet in them as you retreated off wouldn't you, bit of a mercy kill.

[Kikó]

It annoyed me more that Michonne and that just stood there staring at home behind this crappy iron gate for a few minutes enjoying it. Bizarre behaviours as usual.

[Benny]

Every time any of them got cornered by a massive horde of zombies I'm taken back to the already established fact (I think all the way back in season one?) that if you cover yourself in zombie entrails they all leave you alone and let you walk around freely amongst them. Why they're all not wearing suits made from rotting zombie guts when they're out in these situations is beyond me.

They changed some of the backroom staff and you'll notice the zombies were different in season one to the rest of the show, they were more intelligent (think back to the first episode where the woman tries opening the door, and the little girl picks up the toy bear). Not sure how that would mean the zombies would now recognise someone wearing entrails, because IIRC Carol had some of that shit on her when she rescued them from Terminus.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

That was probably one of my favourite episodes thus far.

[SvN]

It was great, wasn't it? It was awfully predictable that Morgan would end up being responsible for his death, but I didn't really mind.

[Alex]

It was a well put together episode, and we did need something to fill in Morgans backstory. Great performance from Lennie James too, but that's pretty par for the course with him anyway.

I'm not massively taken with the idea that a middle aged, somewhat overweight, prison psychiatrist who took up Aikido as a hobby taught him to fight like a ninja though.

[wullie]

I don't see why not, a feeble janitor taught Daniel Larusso how to take on the world.