I thought we got a pretty good episode tonight. The last scene was great, though crushing for Daryl. I’m not sure if I’m in the minority, but I’ll miss Merle. Any predictions on which regular (if any) will die in next week’s finale? Daryl is too important to the group, so he’s got to be safe. The loss of Merle would bring Daryl closer to Carol and I think he’d crack if she died, so I think she’s safe too. Ever since Hershel’s blonde daughter considered suicide, but ultimately chose to live, I figured she would be safe to further highlight her choice. Maggie and Glen want to get married, but the pessimist in me says they reached the peak of their relationship and could soon face some disappointment. Hershel already gave his consent to Glenn, so his only role is to be the group’s conscience...but Rick seems to be finding that through visions of Lori. If the Governer thinks Rick gave Merle the green light, he may take out Carl or the baby as revenge for protecting Michonne. It’ll be interesting.
Question: Zombies are one of my favorite subgenres of horror, but I'm not into them enough to be as knowledgeable about them (as ridiculous as that sounds) as people can get, and I thought of something tonight that's been really bothering me and I wondered if there was some kind of answer for it. Why don't zombies attack/eat each other? I thought they needed to kind of eat the life out of someone in order to survive, but at least in this show they show them eating corpses of humans and animals all the time. Is it something we're just supposed to accept about zombies that other zombies don't satisfy them the same way the more recently living do? Or has that been explained somewhere along the line?
I'm only about halfway through tonight's ep, so what I have to say is not in reference to that except for this fact; there are several scenes where we see people facing walkers that are behind bars, or fences. They have stabbing weapons. Tools of walker destruction. Why isn't everyone just casually stabbing walkers in the skull as they walk by? Not like it would take a lot of effort. I mean, you might end up building a dead body wall around your compound, and that's gonna stink like shit, but didn't the first AND second season show us that walkers ignore the smell of other walkers when it comes to prey? That would be a good thing. You have swords and knives and fucking screwdrivers and whatnot. As you walk the yard and walkers are clawing at the fence, how about gank them in the brain?
To quote Chris Hardwick on "Talking Dead", "Who knew that the death of Merle would make us sad?" Dude (not quite) redeemed himself. He certainly seemed to have a revelation of character at some point, wherein he realized he could be best used ruining the Governor's shit. That scene with Daryl having to re-kill him almost broke my cold dead little heart. So, to ask a question, ask some opinions... Why do you think Merle let Michonne go and dragged a mini horde towards the Gov? Change of heart? Did she get to him? Did Daryl get to him? Did he just realize he was a giant asshole?
I think they're playing it where Michonne got to him. But at least that saved us from the inevitable poorly written scene where Merle and Glenn try make amends had he lived.
Disclaimer: I'm not Bill Simmons. Anyway, since Andy Greenwald gave up reviewing The Walking Dead for Grantland, various writers have been jumping in and writing articles. This last Sunday, Bill Simmons took it over, and spent most of the article making fun of the guy that plays Rick. He started comparing the cast to that of Lost made a comment about if Matthew Fox played Rick Grimes how better the show could be. I immediately went "ooooo, that'd be interesting."
It all comes down to the zombie's semi-supernatural origins. Basically, when George A. Romero created the zombie as we know it, zombies were the recently dead, buried and unburied, coming back to life (regardless of bites or not, the bites just killed you, you'd come back anyway as they've started to do in the Walking Dead as of Season 2). It was never explained why they'd risen, but anything from the wrath of God to scientific reasons was a possibility. Whatever had caused them to come back, zombies would want to prey on the living, satisfying their most basic primal instinct, i.e. to feed. However, it's fairly well-established in zombie lore that even though zombies will eat, they don't actually need the sustenance. They have no functioning digestive tract. Recently they've started adding zombies eating animals and whatnot into the mix, but the key here is, all zombie prey is either LIVING OR RECENTLY DEAD. Zombies won't touch old carcasses, which is why, presumably, they don't turn on each other. Some incarnations of the zombie might blur the line a bit with zombies only consuming "non-turned" meat, i.e. you could feed them cold cuts out of a morgue or some such. I mean, when you start to break it down zombies really don't make all that much sense scientifically (except, barely, 28 Days Later rabies zombies, but they're technically alive), so there's no "right" answer. Canon dictates they only prey on living or recently deceased animals. /End Learned Discussion I thought it was a solid episode, although I caught myself thinking "C'MON!" for the first half, but it picked up nicely towards the end. Goodbye Merle, one of a very few interesting characters. Ah well, saw that coming a mile off. Anyone catch the very obvious nod to Romero? When Merle is drawing the walkers with his bait-car, the camera focuses on a zombie wearing plaid with a fucked-up face, and follows him as he reaches the car. The zombie looks exactly like this guy, who has a pretty iconic scene (as well as being on the cover) in Romero's original Dawn of the Dead:
I too also find it stupid why they don't just randomly kill zombies. I mean the smell can't get worse. My bet is the special effects cost too much so they just let zombies in trapped areas die.
Why am I not surprised that our resident ESPN employee chimed in? You were right about Rick being a bad actor, he was fine at the beginning when he was essentially playing a stock sheriff character. Outside of the scene were he realized what Carl had to do, he is fucking shitty at playing an actual character with any depth. The Merle-Governor fight was staged horribly. The longer that fight went on the more absurd it got that the man with a knife hand didn't just start slashing randomly. I could accept the governor getting the jump and beating Merle, but that protracted fight would have left him really fucked up. Merle is bigger and has a knife hand! The show is really good about throwing in something that takes me out of the suspended disbelief. I think sometimes they feel that the fact they have zombies involved means that they can do anything regardless of how it would play out in real life.
In fairness, Merle had had the shit kicked out of him a few seconds earlier, not to mention, the governor is COMPLETELY FUCKING CRAZY. It takes a serious amount of Loony to bite someone's fucking fingers off. I think the point they were trying to make is that Merle, while fucked up and badass, is still sane. You just can't win in a fight against a crazy person, because he doesn't give a shit, and it was just a relentless hail of blows. There was never a moment in which Merle had a chance to get his wind back or focus (It'd have been funny if Merle was recently bitten and the Governor infected himself by doing that, though). Also, I don't think Rick's that bad of an actor. He's had some fairly powerful moments (like when he and Shane are looking at Carl watch the deer and then he gets shot, or when he meets the ripped-in-half zombie and tells it "I'm sorry this happened to you"). I think the problem is that his lines are some of the worst-written at the moment ("You're not real", I mean, come the fuck on) and that the actor's really struggling to get a handle on his character because he changes to serve the plot virtually every episode. First he's the "We're not a democracy any more" badass, then he's the "I'm not your governor" hippy. First he wants to give Michonne up, then it's the worst idea ever. It's not character progression; it's just all over the place, and I think the actor's feeling it.
Jesus fucking Christ. That scene an episode ago where Andrea is in the warehouse... Did it not feel to you like the writers all got together and said, "Mkay guys. We have 26 minutes of show and need to fill out the other 16. Who has ideas? ... Yeah you intern" 'I was thinking maybe we could actually advance the plot a bit, have some meaningful conversations, not make all of the characters one dimensional caricatures of real people or something like that' "Nah. Too much work.... Anyone else?... Yeah, you janitor, go on" 'I was thinking we could have a really dark scene in a warehouse..." "I'm liking this, keep going..." 'Then it could be totally pointless and make no FUCKING SENSE WHATSOEVER FOR HOW A NORMAL FUCKING PERSON WHEN BEING CHASED BY A SOCIOPATH WOULD ACT!!!!" "YES! Perfect. Sold. Lets film that" I want to shake a baby when I get done with this show for how much time they waste without answering any questions and without really ever moving the plot along. I keep watching it in some masochistic send up to how good the first season was. I.. I just don't understand.
I've always found the actors to be decent to pretty good, it's the writing that drags things down, especially the cheezy one-liners that sound like they're from a 90's TV movie, that take me out of a scene. Even Andrea -- at times I've felt bad for the actress because of all the stupid things they make her say and do. I fast forwarded through Glenn proposing to Maggie for exactly that reason (I assume he proposed, and I assume it was stupid as fuck). And yeah, killing zombies (Glenn cuts a finger off a zombie but doesn't bother stabbing her in the face?). I stopped hoping for that early this season. Pretty funny how, after however long they've been in the prison, it took Michonne to come up with the idea of adding extra obstacles (for the Woodbury folk or the zombies) around their fortified home, and Rick looks at her like "Whoa, what a genius." The writers just don't seem to care about that stuff. Just thought of something I must have missed: why wasn't Rick going out to the meeting spot at the same time as the Govenor? I know he changed his mind about giving up Michonne, but was it established that he was gonna blow off the meeting completely? Good episode though. Nice follow through by Daryl. EDIT: My money is on either Glenn or Maggie dying in the finale. No real reason. Just a hunch.
The Governor didn't become a sociopath, he is a sociopath, and like most sociopaths he can only hide it from everyone for so long before a few people realize there's something not quite right about that dude. The interesting question here (at least in theory, the show and the comic both fuck it up a bit) is what life would be like in a zombie apocalypse with someone like that in charge. Milton was the fire bug. Tip off is Tyrese not knowing where the gas is. Milton and the Governor have a little stare down after this too just to drive it home. Andrea didn't take the truck because she's a dummy but really because the Governor wouldn't leave the keys in the truck. He beat her to the prison by virtue of having a faster way of getting there and knowing where she's going. She didn't hear him coming because she was tired, surrounded by zombies making noise, and expected him to be dead so she wasn't on the lookout for anyone hiding in wait for her. He knew where she'd pop out of the woods roughly because there's only really one good way to get into the prison. No one that knows about the front door is going in the back door without a gun and a light; she had neither and I'm not even sure she knows there is a back door. Anyone else pick up on who the guy was that took a bullet for the Governor? Gonna be interesting to see how that plays out. Poor Merle and Daryl. Never thought I'd end up liking them based on S1 but here we are.
Yeah it was white dude's son that was with Tyrese's group. I'm not sure that is going to become a big thing but it is definitely interesting it went down. That guy is going to flip out and fuck something up, but more of a plot point than anything else.
Maybe it's because Michael Rooker is good actor or I just like anti-heros more than another kind of character, but Merle was great. Especially over the last few episodes and everyone was waiting for the other shoe to drop with him being sort of spy for the Governor. Great character. The series is doing things anachronistically compared to the comic. Based on the timeline, can't tell if next season is going to be about: Spoiler The Alexandria Safe Zone or Hilltop Colony and the Saviors.
I skipped Game of Thrones for that shit? That was supposed to be a finale? By my count we were treated to 3 minutes of a prison shoot out and 30 minutes of Andrea trying to pick up pliers with her toes, which then (somehow) cut through handcuffs. And the whole part where the Governor blows away his entire army due to a little morale problem was a bit cumbersome. A great twist would have been Rick and company returning to the prison finding a good chunk of them dead. At least Andrea is gone.
THIS SHOW SUCKS MY NUTS. I just made it through the prison shootout while writing this and I already started downloading GOT. Fuck this show. I keep waiting for it to be better but fuck me if it just keeps disappointing me, they have a gold mine on their hands and they are bound and determined to run it into the ground.
Couldn't agree more. WTF MAN!?!?! Moment 1 Right. You have a sucking mortal gut wound and I'm going to stop to have a truly irrelevant conversation with you about why I stayed instead of using my comically clean and french manicured feet to pick up a pair of pliers that have a magic handcuff cutting apparatus conveniently attached to them. WTF MAN!?!?! Moment 2 Right. You guys ran away from the scene of what was supposed to be a glorious snuff film because some people got shot with bullets... from guns strangely enough... So fuck you lot, I'm going to kill you all. But wait! I've left someone alive that has just seen me massacre 20 people that I've known way longer than him. He has a gun and my gun is lowered. Surely he could just shoot me? Nah. I'll slowly raise my weapon and shoot him even though his is levered at me currently. He won't shoot. I got this shit locked. WTF MAN!?!?! Moment 3 Riihk. I gots ta tell you bout yo boy. He the only person round these parts makin any sense an' thats 'ginning ta bohtha me. You need ta go on an' do somethin bout that. He's stealin up all the intelligence round here and ain't none left fa nobody else. WTF MAN!?!?! Moment 4 Listen. I know we came into your town and shot the fuck out of everyone once or twice, but why don't you come back to our prison with us even though in this town there is food, hot water, clean beds and electricity. We ain't got none of that but don't let it influence your decision in the least. Oh, not to mention your town is easily defendable against -let me do a quick head count- what appears to be only 3 dudes with guns still out there. Sounds good right? I mean my people are brainless idiots cept for my son but he's only small so no big deal there. They'll be cool with it even though I just told them not 6 hours ago that this is no longer a dictatorship but a democracy now, cept apparently I have veto powers. At least I finally got to see Andrea die. Fuck her sloppily written, Dues Ex Machina channeling, hidden lesbian scene having, canned speech giving, Oscar Award winning for how NO ONE ONE THE FACE OF THE EARTH would respond while trapped in a warehouse with a sociopath, "Oops, did I forget to take the only running vehicle for miles because that would get me to the prison sooner to warn these people I supposedly care about" scene in a drama, self. Fuck her and fuck this show.
My thoughts on the finale: 1) I can buy into the governor killing everyone. He's a complete psychopath that hit his breaking point when his attack failed, so he was obviously going to lash out somehow. It was a bit extreme, but whatever. I know some people want the explanation behind him being the way he is to be fleshed out a bit more, but regardless of background, you know he's a nutcase and something like that wasn't entirely unexpected. 2) Why in the fuck did that retard with the son who got killed just stand there while the governor massacred everyone else? You watched the guy kill a ton of people, then aimed a gun at him which I'm sure won't make him happy. Then you watch him slowly raise a gun to you and don't do anything? Absolutely ridiculous... 3) ...but not as ridiculous as Andrea's death. You are having a prolonged conversation with someone you know is going to turn very, very soon, and then stop randomly to just stare at him. What shitty fucking writing for a shitty fucking character. For perspective: the governor managed to attack the prison and then waste 80% of Woodbury's population while Rick was able to defend the prison and then make it all the way to Woodbury...all in the time it took you to pick up a pair of fucking pliers with your feet. For real? 4)There's no reason anyone should be upset about Carl shooting that other kid. A few episodes ago he watched his dad refuse to even acknowledge someone that was begging for their help and leave him on the side of the road, essentially condemning him to death. Now, you have a kid that just attacked the prison with a small army that is running through the trees with a gun for...well, what could be any reason. Maybe he was told to act panicked so anyone he encountered would lower their guard and then he'd waste them and anyone else he encountered along the perimeter. Based on everything Carl has seen Rick do, there's no reason to think he WOULDN'T shoot the kid. Also (spoilered for people who don't know how the comics go): Spoiler That incident could be used as a good way for Carl to interact with Negan and The Saviors if that's where they go next season. I didn't mind the finale overall though. It definitely wasn't great, but I didn't find it as bad as some people here did. Given how dumb she was and the blatantly terrible writing, it kind of annoys me that so much time was spent on Andrea, but at least we never have to see that cunt again.