Bill Needle

Personally I can't wait to see what Henry is up to next season on account of Gilbert, Whitey, Violet Rutherford, and Larry Mondello getting him into yet another pickle before 'Ol Gus comes by to learn them all something.

Josh-da-man

Yeah, he became Tyreese 2.0.

And, yeah, they’re handing off Carl’s arc from the comics to Henry. And it’s going to become painfully clear what a bone-headed decision it was to get rid of Carl. Henry in that arc just won’t have the same gravitas it would with Carl (and Rick).

Thos19

I know the writers are supposed to be building up this tension by only giving hints so we will be SHOCKED when it is revealed what caused the rift between Michonne/Alexandria and Maggie/Hilltop, but honestly I don't even have tepid interest.

candyrocket786

I thought it was the whole "lets put Negan in prison" thing.

Josh-da-man

Maggie seems to have made her peace with keeping Negan alive after she declined to kill him herself.

This is all off-comics stuff; at this point in the comics, Alexandria, Hilltop, Kingdom, and Sanctuary were all getting along and in a functioning partnership.

So far, it looks like four things happened:

1. The Sanctuary fell. The former Saviours joined the other communities or went rogue.

2. Something happened to Michonne, and possibly the whole community of Alexandria that made them mistrustful of outsiders. Likely related to the “X” scars.

3. Relations between Alexandria and Hilltop soured, possibly with the Kingdom caught in the middle.

4. Darryl became a hermit, and also bears “X” scars like Michonne.

I wonder if all of this is related to a single incident, or if they’re all unconnected.

windom

So will we be getting those Talking with Chris Hardwick episodes now that TWD is on break for 2 months? Probably not. It looks like they have holiday movies scheduled for next Sunday. Maybe in January? They should just run them in the week after Christmas when barely anyone will really notice anyway.

Abob Teff

I don't know what more to say ...

B-C level characters are what we think we have because of the past showrunner who wouldn't develop the fascinating characters who were being introduced. Instead we had years of Rick perpetually fucking things up and staring off into the distance like a drunken clothespin. Now those birds are coming home to roost because the actors have finally said "fuck this." It is a shame because Angela Kang is showing signs of trying to right the ship.

Jesus was horribly underdeveloped and I am sad to see him go, particularly because I thought he, Aaron, and Daryl were going to make one hell of a team.

I know the Whisperers are from the comic book, but it is sad when Z Nation continues to take pot shots at TWD and manages to do it "better". They realize some of these story lines are schlock and embrace that -- they don't try to pretend they are best show on TV. (I particularly liked Addy's line this past week: "We aren't the nation building type; we're more the 'tear shit up' type".) Edited to add: Wait a second ... Chris Hardwick's wife is on Z Nation!?

For a mid-season finale ... meh. It should have ended on Rick in the helicopter.

Now that the secret is out for the Whisperers, what's left? I'm afraid this is going to go the way past villains have gone. I will admit, I like the idea of turning leadership over to Negan to be a war time general ... and then he will refuse to relinquish power.

Deftones

I thought the reveal was cool as hell. Everything else was horrible. So they have a choke point for the walkers in the graveyard. They can't stand right by it and hit them one at a time as they come in until there's a dead walker barricade? Hell, one of them could've done that while the other got Eugene out of there. So ridiculous.

hdnmickey

Don't blame the actor playing Jesus for wanting out. I remember when they first introduced him on the show and he was on Talking Dead. He was going on abut being excited given how the character was a bad-ass in the comics and how he had a ton of training so he could do most of the fight scenes himself. And then, basically nothing until that last episode. Good job Gimple.

I was extremely disappointed that they actually had a couple characters going on about how they might actually still be walkers. The whole thing would have been far better had they just had the one walker surprisingly fight back just as Rosita and or Eugene start to tell the group they had heard them talking and they must be another group in walker suits.

Abob Teff

What are you talking about? Gimple gave us this Jesus classic! [ / sarcasm]

VinVega

^

ben12

This is like this series' official motto!

SkullOrchard

Yakety Sax makes anything funny.

Jason

I think it would have been better if the fighting back walker had been dispatched by falling over a cliff or something while the others ran away. That way the whispers would still be ambiguous. Now they'e just another bunch of insane assholes that the group has to deal with to level up.

hdnmickey

Truth.

But hey, they mixed it up and now these are a bunch of people tthat never epxerienced the Governor's attack, so this is different!

Abob Teff

S1/2: My Partner is an Insane Asshole
S3: Insane Asshole Flu / Ex-Con Insane Assholes
S3/4: Seemingly normal insane assholes in Utopia (with a tank)
S4: Insane Assholes, MINE!
S4/5: Insane Cannibal Assholes
S5: Insane Cop Assholes
S5: Your Husband is an Insane Asshole, Want to Hook Up?
S6: Insane AssWolves
S6-8: Who's the Bigger Insane Asshole: Rick Asshole or Negan Asshole?
S7: Cray-Cray Butt-Butt People
S9: Let's Do the Insane Asshole Warp Again ... and [quietly] Insane Assholes [/ quietly]


And now the big reveal for the show ...

windom

^ Are you saying that climate change is responsible for zombies?

Red Hood

Lol! Posted my thoughts in the wrong thread

ben12

If they set up the communities correctly this season (which they didn't), the conflict would be about more than just "another group wants their stuff."

In the comics, the four communities are relatively functional. They work well together. I think there's some drama with the Saviors at some point, but it's not like people aren't talking to each other or have resentment of the other communities or want their shit. No, over the however many years that have gone by, they've started to rebuild civilization. It's not like it was before the zombies, but they are real communities. They live and raise children without constant fear of being eaten alive. Travel is safer with regular patrols and killing off any zombies within mapped-out safe zones. There's trade and farming and all that good shit. The "fair" they keep talking about is the major symbol of this success. All the communities come together for a big county fair essentially! What a change!

And then they run into the Whisperers, who are like "No, fuck that shit. We don't want civilization. We live with zombies now!"

It's a major contrast, and it's fucking interesting! But this show can't stand anything too interesting.

DRG

As someone who's only dabbled in the comics, he seemed like Tyreese in the sense he was a pretty popular character in the comics (at least based on reactions when they debuted) but didn't make the same impact on the show.

VinVega

This is a great post. They really have the opportunity to develop the story you are describing with so many episodes. Instead of filler episodes where they get a character lost and follow them around for 45 min, they could be using that time to develop the story you described above.

hdnmickey

Oddly enough I thought the Fear show almost has something original with the "Scavenger" group they ran into. But since both shows as so poorly executed these days, what started as a pretty intense situation ended with a really lame and totally illogical conclusion just like so many other finales on each show.

ben12

The writers on this show so desperately want to be writing a different show, and that's how we end up with this mess. They really want to be working on a Mad Men or Sopranos, where you can do these deep character studies with short interruptions of drama or violence. But Walking Dead should be a plot-driven show. The characters matter to the extend that we see how they respond to these things (or other people/groups) happening to them!

They instead want to just dig deep into these characters and really explore them. But in the zombie genre, that's rarely interesting. Plus, I don't think the writers have the chops for it.

Bill Needle

Exactly...and that's how we end up with bottle episodes of Tara. TARA!!!

I think they are trying to write like this because that is the only way to milk the story for years and years. Without in-depth character development it is just one chase scene after another. But as you aptly point out, even handed a decent road map in the form of the comics source material the current writers are not nearly good enough to create that sort of show.

Abob Teff

I guess I am in the minority ... oh hell, I’ve known that for some time. Not about the quality of the show ... we agree on that. But regarding the direction:

*I actually liked the bottle episodes and digging deep into the characters. Even Tara’s! And the Governor’s! It’s actually a refreshing change from the “find a new home, fuck up a new home, rinse, repeat” cycle. Hell, give me an entire series that is nothing but an ensemble/anthology piece in the zombie apocalypse!

*I am so glad Rick Grimes is gone. There has not been a shallower, dumber, douchier character in TV history. Hell, Steve Urkle was less predictable. Every time Rick fucked up another group that welcomed him in and then stared off into space in shock, I could just hear “Did I do that?”