Likes: 
Faceplams: I'm way too bored. This reminds me of the Farm season.
Bent Member
I'm way too bored. This reminds me of the Farm season.
Banned
What was with the scene before the opening credits when we saw ants on the kid's cookie? Why was that supposed to be menacing?
Stubby Member
I took it as a mirror of the walkers about to swarm into Alexandria. You're right it wasn't very menacing though.Originally Posted by Ryan
I've always been one to defend the show generally, even though I dislike a lot of the changes they've done from the comic, but this episode was very disappointing. I hyped myself up to see some of the big scenes and they just never happened... I could accept the slow pace in Season 2 and 3 because at least every episode or two there was some forward movement, but the entire second half of this season has just been filler to me almost... All of the filler paired with them completely destroying Morgan's character from Season 1 and Season 3, other than a few of the major events this season it's been pretty disappointing. I'll still keep watching though just because I enjoy seeing the major events and characters from the comic realized in film, but it's definitely moving past being one of my favorite shows.
Also was that Dwight who gave the speech to Abraham, Sasha, and Daryl?
I was nobody. Nothing.
I just got into the show and i fucking LOVE it.
I don't understand all the hate for it, except that "it's not like the comic."
I have that problem with stephen king adaptations
I was nobody. Nothing.
@NYRexall , i'm damned glad i haven't read the comic.
Active Member
Yeah I haven't read the comic and I'm pretty damn close to giving up on the show and digging into the books. This season has been awful.
Banned
God damn I just remembered the dream I had last night! Rosita, the lesbian doctor and I think Tara were put on some kind of bench and Negan and his dudes decapitated all three of them while the group was forced to watch.
THAT would have been an epic mid-season finale!
I was nobody. Nothing.
Well see, i fucking LOVE the show.
And if the comic is wildly different from the show, i would just bitch about that, just like when i watch a stephen king movie.
I guess i'm in the minority at this point, but i can't get enough of the show.
Also, i've never been into comic books/graphic novels. I like to fucking READ-i've been an insanely voracious reader since the age of 2 and a half. Comics don't have enough words.
Ahhhhh, Atlas Shrugged. I read everything she ever wrote. I was a right wing extremist in another life.
The movies were being planned back THEN, in the late nineties.
And by the time they came out, i had become a socialist
I will always have a place in my heart for Ayn though.
Active Member
The show is MUCH better when you can binge watch it IMO. Otherwise the storylines take way too long to develop and kind of fall flat when you are watching week to week, season to season.
I like the show, but I'd say that episodes are split 25, 50, 25 between really good, middle of the road and garbage. For me, it's not that they are not like the comics, it's that the show doesn't quite reach the impact that the comics has. I feel more for the characters in the comics, whereas there's only a few characters on the show that feel that fully fleshed out that aren't extremely dumb.
Anyway, I didn't think the mid-season finale was that great, and overall I haven't loved this season. It's taken them 8 episodes to get through 48 hours, though so much shit has happened that it feels like 2 or 3 weeks or even a month.
Active Member
Yeah, I don't get saying "Well, I think the worst version's great, so I'd hate to see a better version of it!" The comics are absolutely addictive, incredible, fantastically written and aside from a handful of instances have been vastly better than the show in almost every single way. They've turned some of the most exciting sequences and issues of the series into some of the blandest, most drug out and boring snoozefests of a show time and time again. It's ridiculous.
The most frustrating thing is knowing a big reason is them not having a high enough budget to move quickly. I have no idea if it's since changed, but at least for a while AMC had a trend of cutting the budget every year as ratings went up and because of that we got the "everyone walks around and does nothing that particularly matters and maybe two important things happen, if it's a mid-season finale" formula that has been multiple half seasons again and again.
I'm really into the comic series and have been really, really behind on the show, and went around on catching up on season six in the past week. They took one of the most thrilling and eventful arcs of the whole series so far and just took all steam out of it. Almost nothing actually happened in the season finale, an episode that, had it been remotely faithful, could have been the most important episode since the series premiere in the grand scheme of things. The number of character deaths, the level of tension, the amount of action, the amount of lasting character development created from it -- so much should have happened, and didn't, and instead we got everyone standing around in rooms with typical long pauses and the same conversations recycled over, and over, and over some more.
It's so disappointing. This show has a fantastic blueprint to build off of and instead dismantles it regularly. At its best it's been great, but the highs are so few and far between. I wouldn't watch it at all if I didn't like the source material so much and didn't have hopes that some of the better moments would be brought to life, like the scene where Rick tosses that kid's dad through the window, which was done excellently -- I was so hopeful for the show from that point on, and really expected it to get back on track in full, and instead, nope! Let's have tons of characters acting stupid, stalling, pausing constantly, only ever dying from the dumbest moments of over-sight or even literally laying down in a pile of corpses.
They were poised to have this midseason end with one of the most famous, crazy panels of the comics, with a series of some of the most intense and lasting deaths and in turn some of the biggest character development for some of our mains since the prison arc and instead, none of that happened. Like, not even a second of it happened. At all. It was so frustrating to watch. When the wall came down last episode, I was so ready to let go the Glenn catastrophe and was so excited to see the list of incredible things I'm too lazy to spoilertag so I won't mention to happen, and then somehow, they found a way to stall until the next premiere. And we already know the premiere won't pick up where it left off, and at this point, even with the awesome casting choice, I'm so terrified of how absolutely disappointing I'm now expecting Negan to be.
Negan alone is every possible reason to pick up the comics, because there is absolutely no way in Hell most of his greatest "hits" will be put into the show (especially a very specific series of hits, haha). I'm fully prepared for a severe lack of vampire bats, of ironing out the rules and undoubtedly most of his famous lines. I love that AMC will show people smearing guts across themselves, will show people being torn open with teeth and hands and eaten while screaming and crying, will show amputations and sprays of blood and zombie children and so many dead bodies that they become blase, but to let a character known for their swearing swear is just too much. Remember when Scott Gimple said they turned "fucking with the wrong people" to "screwing" because "kids watch this"?
Ugh. This is why I never talk about this show.
Active Member
Several times this week I have written something in this thread and then deleted it. I didn't want to be another person to put down this show for turning against some of the greatest source material put to ink... but I can't take it no more. They absolutely wasted Tyrese who's relationship with Carol and Michonne was so central to the comic as well as his conflict with Rick at the prison. To ignore what the Governator does to Rick in the comic takes away so much from his power and bad-assery. I do enjoy what the tv version of Carol has become and the invention of Darryl was a smart move as well. Source material aside I feel that most of the performances on this show are entirely made from wood. These characters stretch out and over dramatize the simplest lines of dialogue en masse as if the script notes specified them to do so. Perhaps in order to fill out the run time of these empty empty episodes.
Active Member
Agree on all points. I get that things need to change to fit the format, and I get that things are going to diverge -- and, if it's for the better, I don't mind at all -- what Carol has become, the Hunters becoming the Terminus community which, while drug out, was a neat change and expanded it well, Daryl's introduction, etc. I know some people have suggested that Daryl be the show version of Dwight with The Saviors, and done right, that could be fantastic, but I hope they do nothing of the sort because I have zero faith in these writers to execute it well. But so many other changes are just so bad, and sacrifice some of the strongest and most memorable scenes, some of the strongest images and greatest lines of dialogue in exchange for a group of pretty stupid people barely not dying in the middle of the woods time and time again. Almost no one is as simply intelligent as their comic counterpart, and it's so bizarre -- everyone feels dumbed down just to allow for easier, cheaper, more convenient story changes and cheap fake-outs to boost numbers. So many bad changes seem entirely budget-motivated, too -- watering down the prison arc and double-dipping The Governor story arc which in turn just completely killed it and made it feel desperately cheap just to cash in on the prison set some more, then having a season of everyone wandering down the same three vague strips of road to save cash -- this show should be on HBO, with a decent budget, and creative freedom to do whatever the fuck it needs to adapt the material without having characters who will disembowel and brutalize one another but are too polite to swear around anyone. Character motivations are so butchered, so worn thin, so totally inconsistent. It's so frustrating. This could be one of the best shows on TV. It refuses to be.
I try to only talk about things when I'm positive, and that's why I've not been regularly active in this thread almost ever, but just, wow, it's getting very old. They just blew such a fantastic story so terribly. It's such a shame.
I don't know, I've been watching Fargo, and every episode, no matter what risk they take, or what surprising path it goes down, I'm able to rest back comfortably and be completely confident that I am in the hands of fantastic writers and incredible talent who know what they are doing, to trust them and enjoy the ride, and I always do. It's been incredibly rich and rewarding. Meanwhile, every time TWD does anything different or surprising, I get incredibly anxious because I have zero reason to believe that they'll pull it off well at all, and for good reason -- they almost never do.
Banned
I dunno if I'm more excited about TWD or The X-Files 6 parter.
Anyway, I have been reading some stuff to hype myself. Who thinks they will stay true to the comic and make Glenn die via Negan? Or who thinks they'll change it to someone else? I personally hope it stays as Glenn.
Throbbing Member
I don't think they're gonna kill Glenn quite yet. I'm thinking it'll be Morgan or Darryl, or maybe even Carol! I just hope it's someone from the main cast. It would be awful to waste that moment and that shock on some red-shirt.
Bent Member
I'm betting on Glenn dying in the next episode, and Darryl getting Lucilled.
Stubby Member
NEXT episode? Did everyone forget how they jerked off during the entire mid-season finale up to Carl's big moment and ended up not even showing it? There's no way they're going to do an additional major character death on top of what's coming later. That would be way too fast paced and exciting for what the current showrunners are doing.
Bent Member
That's what I said. I haven't forgotten anything.
Banned
There's a new French promo image with Carl wearing a bandage over his eye.
Banned
Oh I like the sound of this:
http://io9.gizmodo.com/this-may-be-t...-to-1758732958
The Walking Dead has never been accused of being a happy show, but it’s one of the few series to be called “misery porn”—an exercise in watching characters face tragedy after tragedy until their eventual horrible deaths. I’ve never thought this was true... but having seen this Sunday’s mid-season premiere, I wonder if the show has finally earned that label.
Mild spoilers for this Sunday’s episode, “No Way Out,” may follow.
I’ve been watching The Walking Dead since the beginning, so I can promise you that I haven’t been laboring under the delusion that it’s a “happy” show. It’s violent, it’s depressing, it regularly features human beings in dire straits and humanity at its worst. This is not a light-hearted show. I know that beloved characters can die at any time, and that lesser characters will die pretty regularly to keep the tension high. That’s fine. I’m a big fan of zombie entertainment; I know how it works.
And yet “No Way Out” disturbs me in a way The Walking Dead has never done before.
Look: It should not be a surprise to learn that a few characters shuffle off their non-zombie coil on Sunday; AMC and series creator Robert Kirkman have gleefully been announcing the deaths for weeks now. Having seen the mid-season premiere, I can assure you that they are not lying, and I can likewise promise you that this is not a Glenn situation, where they exist in a Schrodinger’s Walking Dead box, and we don’t really know if they’re alive or dead. They dead. It’s not up for debate.
I don’t want to get too specific—I’ll be plenty specific in The Walking Dead recap on Monday morning—but there is/are a character(s) whose death feels wrong in a way I don’t remember having encountered from the series before. And perhaps the largest reason for this is because the deaths are, in a word, dumb.
Not that every member of Rick’s group makes a smart decision every time, lord knows, and the Alexandrians are painfully naïve. But generally all the survivors have a general core competency that keeps them from needlessly, senselessly putting themselves in danger. (E.g., they may run into a crowd of zombies to save a friend without thinking of the consequences, but they wouldn’t just try to get a zombie to slow-dance.) Between the zombies and evil humans populating North America, there are more than enough threats for Rick and the others; they don’t need to be stupid to add to the danger.
And yet that’s exactly what happens in “No Way Out,” a death (or deaths) that suddenly requires a character (or characters) to be an idiot(s!) to take place, which in turn creates another problem: It makes the death(s) gratuitous.
Yes, I’m aware that I’m calling a death “gratuitous” in a show about the zombie apocalypse, but bear with me for a minute. The thing I’ve always enjoyed about The Walking Dead—and one of the main reason I believe it’s been such a popular show—is that it’s incorporated the violence and the horror of the genre, but has actually managed to use them to produce story, drama and character development. When a major character dies, it serves a narrative purpose beyond a “Gotcha!” moment. Minor character exists almost solely to die horrifically, to keep the stakes high and the threat omnipresent for viewers. Either way, there’s a purpose being served.
But the death scene in “No Way Out” feels like a scene that exists solely to upset viewers, as if to proclaim, “Betcha didn’t think we’d do that, huh?!” It feels crass and exploitative, which is somehow not something I’ve felt even in TWD’s most insane moments. Seriously! When Lori goes into labor during a zombie attack in the prison, and demands that Maggie perform a C-section and that her son shoot her in the head immediately afterwards, before she becomes a zombie—guys, that was ridiculous. And yet it worked, partially because the narrative really made it feel like Lori was backed into this corner; that it redeemed her problematic character a bit to sacrifice herself for her baby; and that it had a profound, lasting effect on Rick and Carl. Her death was one of the most brutal in the series, but TWD made it meansomething.
And when Carol was forced to kill Lizzie back in season 4, it was horrible, but it worked because the narrative had forced Carol into a situation with no other solution—and it still devastated her, even though she was already Stone Cold Killer Carol. It was definitely upsetting to watch Carol execute a kid because she was a danger to herself and others (especially baby Sofia), but the show treated it with the appropriate gravity, and didn’t exploit the scene by filling it with gore, or putting it in slow-mo, or wallowing in its horror. That the event actually occurred at all was horrific enough.
My point here is that when I tell you that “No Way Out” features the first death(s) that actually disturbed me, I hope you know it’s not because I’m a delicate flower who can’t handle a man being eaten alive by the living dead. But what I saw in the mid-season premiere was, for all intents and purposes, “misery porn”—a violent, disturbing scene that exists for no other reason than to be violent and disturbing. Like TWD feared it was losing its reputation for being brutal, and felt that it had to re-assert its horribleness in the most brazen way possible.
My real concern is that if The Walking Dead does cross a line in the mid-season finale, it does not appear to have any intention of walking it back. Speaking with EW, Andrew Lincoln said this about the season six finale:“I felt sick to my stomach when I read the script. It was the first day in the whole six years of working on The Walking Dead that I was late for work because I woke up in the middle of the night and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I was so angry and frustrated and I felt sick. And that was just after reading it.”Given that Lincoln actually has had to make the damn show, I imagine he’s even more inured to TWD’s darkest nature than I am. And note his language; he isn’t just sad or upset, he’s actually disgusted at what happens in the finale. For the first time ever. Since Lincoln was presumably hunky-dory about what happens in “No Way Out,” I am not looking forward to the season finale to discover whatever made him so “angry” and “sick to his stomach.”
It’s possible Andrew Lincoln and I have wildly differing sensitivities, and the two elements which upset us aren’t tonally related. Or maybe what upsets him is something completely bizarre, like the TWD finale is super-racist for some reason. I have my doubts. I believe The Walking Dead is beginning to put the most upsetting things on TV that it can, with no other reason than shock value. And I suspect if whatever horror awaits us in the season finale actually served a good narrative purpose, Andrew Lincoln wouldn’t have reacted as viscerally as he did.
I don’t know for sure. All I know is that for the first time since season 3 that I’m not particularly looking forward to watching The Walking Dead (and back then the problem was that it was boring). The show has always relied on horror and violence and tragedy—I mean, it’s a show about the zombie apocalypse, for goodness’ sake—but they always served the story, not the other way around.
If that’s changing, then I don’t think that’s a Walking Dead I care to see. The lives of Rick and the others are plenty miserable enough, thanks.
Banned
New Walking Dead and new X-Files on the same day. I'm horny.
Banned
Halfway through. Bye bye Jessie and her sons. Bye bye Carl's eye!
bye bye wolf man!
Last edited by Ryan; 02-14-2016 at 11:40 PM.
Stubby Member
Finally an episode that lived up to my expectations coming in as a reader of the comic. Based on the last half of the season I fully believed they'd try to spread that entire episode out over 2-3 episodes. Heath finally got some more screen time as well. Hopefully Spoiler: the Saviors show up soon as well.
24.24.2.2866
Hell yeah!
Welcome back The Walking Dead, thanks for not screwing the pooch.
Quiet Member
Fuck's sake, with the even-more-than-usual chaotic, utter clusterfuck that's become of my life in the last few days, I somehow COMPLETELY forgot about the mid-season premiere till I noticed the thread bumped into the index here. THANK YOU, ets!!!
Man, what a GREAT fucking episode.
They still need to just go the route of using the actual comic panels/dialogue as storyboards, Sin City/300/Darabont-style, but this was an EXCELLENT step in the right direction. I will say, though...I liked the older-brother/Michonne variation of the big moment with you-know-who midway through. It was effective in its own right and a GREAT example of following the comic book's lead while spicing things up with respectably-executed variations which serve the TV side of things while giving the comic audience something new but not fully betraying the near-flawless (and, again, proven storyboards-on-silver-platter) source material.
This season REALLY has my attention now. Can't wait to see the rest!
Not to mention Daryl's EPIC crossbow-upgrade, lol. Did he just stumble upon the final solution for the zombie apocalypse? Sure, it's no cure, but it looks like flashbang firepits at night are THE WAY TO GO towards seriously thinning the marauding herds everywhere. Everyone saw how well it worked. Surely, the show will capitalize on that further later on down the road. Regardless, it was badass moment for our hero.
Speaking of which, does anyone else think it would be AWESOME if Daryl gets held captive by Negan and his murder finally gets Alexandria to rise up against the Wolves? While he's taking the fall in place of you-know-who getting killed to keep the gang in line, it would almost be THE MOST EPIC THING EVER if Rick and gang LITERALLY say, "If Daryl dies we riot," just before he's killed and the whole town fucking EXPLODES with violence avenging him and exterminating the Wolves.
I mean, if he's gotta go sometime that might be how I'D do it!
Anyway, gotta sleep.
It's not just "The X-Files" today but "Better Call Saul," too!
(Fucking LOVED the reference to the first movie of the former in the sneak peak of the latter, btw!)
XD
Active Member
Wolves =/= Saviors
Saviors = Negan
Negan =/= Wolves
Banned
I'm sick of Carl. Wish that bullet just went right through his head.
Active Member
Bye bye Carl's eye!
Only By Night
Dammm, that episode was pretty fucking awesome. I liked the segment where the camera was fixated on all of them hacking the shit out of everything... very cool look on camera. It also followed the comic a little closer than I thought it would have. What is STILL so annoying is how many times can they pretend that Glenn is going to eat it?? It makes me roll my eyes every freaking time... I'll take it as obvious foreshadowing that he is definitely going to eat it when Negan comes into play.
Real Hippie Asshole
Carl hasn't been an annoying burdensome pussy for ages now, why you hating?
Banned
He just bothers me. I think it's the puberty thing.
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