Options
The Walking Dead TV Show (Spoilers)
DoctorDoom
Posts: 2,586
I'm shocked I haven't seen too much discussion about it from this season.
(If it's on the podcasts and those threads, I'm waaaaay behind)
Last night's episode was both great and weird to me. I figured out a few thing that were going to happen, but my stomach was still queasy, and things still felt intense.
Certain deaths still shocked me even though I figured they were due, and people who weren't killed shocked me too.
(If it's on the podcasts and those threads, I'm waaaaay behind)
Last night's episode was both great and weird to me. I figured out a few thing that were going to happen, but my stomach was still queasy, and things still felt intense.
Certain deaths still shocked me even though I figured they were due, and people who weren't killed shocked me too.
Comments
It surprised me while giving a memorable scene from the comic book at the same time.
Hope that was vague enough and can't wait till February
During the walking dead after show, Kirkman said that sneak peak scene for the next half of season (Carl leading two walkers away from a house and down a street) is from the comics ... I can't remember that, what happens?
Thanks,
JP
Of the eight episodes in this season, I've only really enjoyed about 2 before this ep. So it made up for a decent but a bit aimless season overall.
There's a few issues, (probably 5?) where Rick and Carl are on their own, it's where the telephone stuff started in the comics, and Carl has to take care of Rick for a change.
Carl is older looking now in the show than he looks in the comic, so I hope they don't have Chandler Riggs acting too young trying to match the comic.
JP
JP
Then, we switch over and see WHY the Governor is a version of Rick through a dark mirror. He also is broken down, and rebuilds himself, taking over a working colony and eventually leaving behind the father and family man he toyed with being to be the bastard we all knew. It gave him a LOT more depth, made the confrontation between the two have so much more emotional resonance, and and made what would have been just a big action piece last year, a gut wrenching emotional holocaust.
Now, everyone is scattered, we don't know who all of the dead are, Rick has been broken again, and we still don't know who was feeding rats at the fence...
The last 15 minutes left me emotionally raw and really hit it out of the park. I know some people are complaining about this season (and they complained about last season, and the one before and....), but to my mind, the show is moving from strength to strength and I am excited to see where they go next year.
And Talking Dead was SO good as well. Kirkman had next to nothing to do, but I coudl have listened to the actors and Chris for another hour or two...
But after finding that one inside the prison, I guess that's not the case.
If so, how does that plot get resolved? There's no more prison to sabotage. I guess they could continue to make trouble, whoever they are? It still seems like an odd time to bring up that plot, but by re-establishing it last episode, they clearly want us to keep it in mind.
Carl handles a lot of stuff.
I loved the beginning of the season-- the flu plotline, all the stuff with Carol (who I have felt for a long time is the best actor on the show, especially once Jeffrey DeMunn was gone). I was bummed by the two all-Governor episodes. To me, that felt like a punt. Like an easy out. A way to give the rest of the cast a hiatus from shooting, and to basically take a break from having a bunch of balls up in the air to instead narrow to one established character who has essentially rebooted and have him meet a bunch of new people. It is like a switch to the "Tailies" on Lost. And- given that they farm scripts out to freelancers rather than run a staffed writers' room- I suppose it made for an easier freelance assignment. But to me it was wasted time. I don't have any more I need to know about the Governor. I have no pathos for him, despite Morrisey being a very talented and compelling actor. To me, the Governor has always been from Villain Land and I have never really believed him. I have no investment in how he feels or his journey. I find him much less interesting than characters who have a lot more internal good that they have to struggle against. The Governor is so long-lost and compromised when we meet him, that to even try to watch him attempt redemption feels false and perfunctory. Manufactured. To me, it is interesting to watch Macbeth lose himself to become king, and then not be able to live with it. To meet a Macbeth that did terrible things before you met him, and has come to succeed at living with it, albeit with a few vivid quirks and hang-ups, is not interesting to me. So to watch that latter Macbeth lose his crown and then need to get it back is less interesting than when his soul was initially sold to get the crown. You know what I mean?
In the comics, too. I have always found the character to be a mustache-twirling, over-the-top, indulgent baddie in a world that doesn't need such characters. A supervillain in a world that otherwise has human-sized humans in it, you know what I mean? (Perhaps with the exception of Michonne, who is similarly a bit indulgent and larger-than-life. In the Snake-Eyes vein.) For me, in the current comics (vague, no spoilers here) Kirkman has returned to some indulgent tendencies by introducing another larger-than-life villain and giving his posturing and preening waaaay too much screen time. But I digress. Back to the TV--
Anyway, long story short, the finale was pretty strong (even if it asked us to believe, like before, that a group of people would follow the Governor into bad decisions-- and KEEP following him, even though we are given little reason to believe they would. ESPECIALLY if they are people that have lived this long). But, I guess you have to suspend some disbelief.
I give them credit for the balls to kill the baby. F**king hell that was grim. As it was in the comics. Maybe actually worse for the fact that they DIDN'T show it. And, even though it is a very dark thing to ask a TV (even a cable drama) audience to stomach, I am also not surprised that they took the risk to not be shackled by the baby, either. Babies, and little kids, are an absolute pain in the ass from a production point of view, and to be avoided. They should all be CGI, if that was not so cost prohibitive. And especially at a time when characters are on the move and you can't always pretend the baby is just off in another room, I can see why they would want to be free of that problem from a production standpoint. Also, it is not like they were really writing for the baby, you know what I mean?
And I am very glad the Governor is finally.... FINALLY... dead. I agree with @ChrisW that he should have been wrapped up last season and it has made this season, at least the first half, feel less distinct.
Looking forward to the back 8. There is still a lot of reason to look forward to good work ahead. And I think there is a lot of potential in the characters being a spread out diaspora again. And I expect, and hope, we will get Carol back.
JP
I agree too that they should have wrapped it up last season; however, I think they should have wrapped it up the way they did this season. The chaos and turmoil of what happened in Woodbury and what happened to Andrea with the death of the Governor would have cheapened one or even all of the other events.
As far as the two episodes with the governor... I didn't know where they were going there and I guess based on the end result the answer was: nowhere. If that had turned into a Baron Zemo in Thunderbolts sort of deal and he and Rick had both moved into the prison...I might have liked that more because I would certainly have had No Idea what the plot would be going from there.
I wonder what Carol is up to...
I thought the rat feeder was the little girl that sympathized with the zombies. I expect her to get comic Carol's end.
BTW - I've been watching a lot of the supplemental Dr. Who stuff from the 50th anniversary and David Morrissey (the actor playing the Governor) was thought to be the 11th Doctor before Matt Smith was named. He appeared alongside David Tennant in the episode "The Next Doctor".
"sure was a lot of blood in that car seat"