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The Walking Dead- CONTAINS SPOILERS!

Totenkindly

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I think they're a weaker group who've been under Negan's foot until now. It's looking like they're going with the alliance thing they did in the graphic novels, hilltop/Alexandria/kingdom vs saviours in season 7. They veered away from the comics a lot in the early seasons, but it seems like the writers have really steered it back toward the comic storyline lately.

I haven't read them either (only up to where Shane dies, which happens earlier in the comic), but I've picked up tidbits from wikis and elsewhere.

The impression I get is that Negan's deal is so bad that no one really has opted for it except to avoid extinction.

If there was a way they could join forces to have simply enough manpower and firepower to take out the Saviors, then it would be in everyone's common interest to do so.
 

Tellenbach

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For about 5 seconds, I thought Negan was Robert Downey, Jr. I thought, holy shit, how'd they get RDJ to do this?
 

cosmic royal

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Honestly, I can't hate Negan because of Jeffrey Dean Morgan. He is too awesome.

The writers, on the other hand, are the real villains. :ng_mad:
 

Totenkindly

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Honestly, I can't hate Negan because of Jeffrey Dean Morgan. He is too awesome.

Well, it's Lucille (in Negan's words) who "is awesome." :smile:

But yeah, totes. Morgan was great, and the writers should be tossed into the zombie pit for this one.
 

cosmic royal

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Well, it's Lucille (in Negan's words) who "is awesome." :smile:

But yeah, totes. Morgan was great, and the writers should be tossed into the zombie pit for this one.

OK, fine, Lucille is a great weapon. It definitely struck fear in the hearts of the survivors. ;)

Initially, I was annoyed by Morgan's "All life is precious" philosophy. Especially when he refused to kill that Wolf member. Now he's one of the redeeming qualities of the show. I swear, almost all the characters are so OOC this season.
 

Totenkindly

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Well, as expected, now everyone is looking at whose filming schedule is committed to other projects in the next 6-12 months in order to figure out who got killed at the end of Season 6. Of course, one of the candidates seems to be booked solid on other projects. The whole thing was handled piss-poorly regardless. They should have just told the story rather than trying to drag things out between seasons, they could have nailed it and lost perspective.

 

Totenkindly

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Well, the opener is tonight, in about 1.5 hours here on the East Coast USA.

I'd rather watch HBO's "Westworld" which airs simultaneously (and I have them both on DCR record), but I'll end up watching this because there's no way I'll be able to avoid spoilers. I expected news of the dead character(s) from the first few minutes to be all over Twitter and Facebook as it happens. :dry:

I did find a copy of the uncensored season ender. That was rather amusing, and Most Creative Variations on the F Bomb that I've heard since Goodfellas or The Commitments.

My thoughts:
1. Glenn OR Daryl
2. Glenn AND Maggie
3. Glenn AND Abraham

Out of everyone there, the only ones not really cowed were Abraham, Michonne, and maybe Daryl (although he's pretty badly hurt). I love those guys; even in the face of this, they are not shaken or shocked. Bassassery.

I can easily see Abraham (if he's not the first victim) to decide to take out Negan even knowing he's going to die in the process. He's kind of made peace with himself, and it's just his style; he hates all the bullshit.

Sorry Glenn. I love ya, but if you walk out this tonight alive.... well, a lot of people are going to lose their stake money.

(as a side note, the show will take yet another shot to its credibility if they kill Sasha, Rosita, or Aaron instead; talk about a gutless choice by the writers. Eugene might be in that group as well.)
 

Totenkindly

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Well.

That sucked. I feel sick.




EDIT: All that being said, it's probably one of the best episodes of the entire series. I don't think the tone was ever off, and the episode just built, and built, and built. At least they nailed it.

With Carl:
 

Merced

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I haven't watched Walking Dead since after the jail arc with Mayor.

Was flipping through channels and I watched
get rekt.

RIP
The last relatable character to ever appear on the Walking Dead since the first wave of writers left
 

Ivy

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Good lord that was hard to watch. TBH it's starting to venture into torture porn territory- I hope the season has some plot beyond "wow look at how bad Negan is! isn't he awful!"
 

Totenkindly

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Good lord that was hard to watch. TBH it's starting to venture into torture porn territory- I hope the season has some plot beyond "wow look at how bad Negan is! isn't he awful!"

Yeah. APparently he sticks around for awhile in the comic? there is no doubt that he is one of the most terrifying people I've seen -- and even better, he views himself as the good guy, or at least the average joe doing what he needs to do. But I hope they do more with his character.

What I liked about the episode is that there was a pervasive feeling of dread even past the event we knew what would happen. Would there be more? What would it be? Too often in a show there are threats of something that might happen but you know it never will, they'll just find a way to tease but ultimately skirt the bad outcome and return to status quo by the end. Here, the bar was completely removed, so even if earlier on you knew what had happened, there was no limit on what ELSE might happen.



So one is always waiting for that other shoe to drop. This made the episode almost unbearable in the tension department, which was the point I suppose.



So the last ten minutes with the survivors was emotionally wrenching, watching them pick up the pieces BUT also affirm their unity as a group.

And that stupid walker at the end. Talk about the rancid cherry on the top of a shit-stained sundae.
 

Tellenbach

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It's Rick's fault; they should've attacked the Neganites at the first roadblock like Carl recommended. It's time for Carl to take over.

Even worse, they took away Michonne's sword. She's not Michonne without her sword.
 

Totenkindly

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Great tweet from James Hibbert:

Also: That @TheWalkingDead censors Negan swearing & won’t show nudity, but airs THAT feels like perf example of upside down puritanism

Thoughts? I can't really fault him. It does seem pretty silly and fits the typical American pattern of having trouble with language and sex while being much more fine with violence... and this might easily be the most violent thing that's appeared on a TV show. (I don't think AHS reached this level.)

It looks like the episode did turn off a number of viewers, and even The Quitter's Club has apparently finally decided this episode was the one to quit on.

I think perhaps I had blocked out some of the visuals of the episode in terms of the violence -- namely the closeups of one of the victims in Rick's mind. Maybe to other people, they lingered on it, but I wasn't really focused on it. The things I was thinking about involved the interactions between people, the whole sequence with Negan intimidating Rick ratcheting up the tension, and the aftermath. Those are the things I liked as far as story went. Probably the grossest parts of the episode, my mind was focused on all the subtext and emotional resonances. And then the way that survivors were responding, empathizing with them, seeing how they were going to pick up the pieces.

I just kind of fear they're gonna drop the ball again. I'm not really excited with the promo I saw of next episode; it looked rather dumb and even trivial in comparison. I mean, it had been get into some real psychological exploration of Morgan and Carol's mindspace; if it stays on the surface, it's going to feel shallow.
 

Flâneuse

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I have mixed feelings about the premiere last night.


Still, I wished they'd worked these events into the season 6 finale, even if that had made the episode a full two hours. Just take out a good half-hour of Rick and the gang running into Negan's roadblocks over and over, and add the events of this episode, but in chronological order. (I don't think seeing the death in flashback made it any more powerful; if anything, I think this story would have been more powerful if told in a straightforward way - there was enough tension with Negan's lecture and playing "eenie meenie", and I think drawing it out too long just makes the audience feel frustrated (like "get on with it already") instead of genuinely being on edge anymore.) Obviously, the biggest mistake was leaving the audience hanging for six months, giving us all this time to speculate and figure out who's most likely to die.
The premiere was decent and had a few genuinely shocking and devastating moments, but imagine how much more powerful this could have been if it'd happened last season instead of giving the audience so much time to prepare.
 

Totenkindly

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I was engaged with some friends on facebook about it, a lot of them hated it and considered no longer watching the show because of the way the episode seemed exploitative and/or torture-porn. There were a few of us who really liked the episode.

After letting my brain spin on it for awhile, I realized that the two deaths (and two minutes of footage they probably entailed) might have been the points they were focusing on, but my enjoyment was based on many other things and in fact I kind of mentally "skipped over" the deaths and the imagery of them because I had already kind of guessed them, one was done pretty much straight out of the panels of the comic (even down to the visual details), and they didn't hold much interest. What I was focusing on (and that I liked):
(1) the impending threat of the hatchet
(2) the interplay of Negan trying to break down Rick, which comprised much of the time of the episode
(3) the ending after Negan's men all leave
(4) the pacing and the consistency of tone / emotional current -- decent acting, directing, and editing in that regard
(5) Performances by Lincoln and Morgan, they were both quite good (esp Morgan)

Long story short, I realized we were discussing different things... the part that was offensive to them wasn't even something I was thinking much about, I was focused on the rest but for some those 2-3 minutes of footage and what it represented dwarfed everything else. And having Nicotero direct it, well, he's a zombie special effects guy who has been in the business for 30-40 years, and he might have just lingered too long on that shot of Glenn because it's his thing.

... as far as the overall show, I wouldn't say it's been on my "great" list for some seasons. The problem is that it is too inconsistent WITHIN seasons. Essentially there will be 1-3 good episodes in a row, and then they bomb 1-2 episodes in some way, and the rest tend to be mixed. Often the worse episodes seemed to be the mid-season cliffhangers or the culmination to major plot points. This wastes any emotional currency that was being built by the good episodes. I kind of don't expect a lot of the show at the moment, or rather I expect to see a good episode every so often and the rest are middling/muddled a bit, and then there's a real dud in there somewhere.
 

Tellenbach

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Abraham's rocket launcher would've come in handy. They used one last season in their first encounter. I thought they had at least 4 missiles.
 

Mayflower

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I have to admit...I was actually caught off guard at the premier. 'Red Wedding' was pinging in the back of my head through most of it. Things are starting to get interesting again. I felt that when they settled in Alexandria, the "survival" aspect was lost, which was its draw. I liked how they brought back a central antagonist like they did with The Governor during the prison arc. Keeps things dynamic.
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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I don't normally watch this show, but I caught this episode. It had a tiger!
 

Totenkindly

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well they decided to lighten things up a bit in this episode.
...And yes, there was a tiger.

About the funniest scene is when Carol is collecting gear.


It was kind of a "yeah, okay" and setting up the Kingdom a bit + Ezekiel. So no need to something crazy to go down.

Ezekiel and Carol had a decent convo near the end.
 
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