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The Walking Dead!

The Sarge

By The Sarge,
in Film, TV & Radio

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Stoppy2000

Stoppy2000

Posted
Posted
14 hours ago, Capwn said:

Having missed these last batch of episodes, would it be mad to watch the finale only?

I hadn't watched it for years (gave up in the season 7 maybe) - just watched the finale. The montage at the end made me remember some utter twats which put me off the show in the first place.

As for the finale itself - just typical TWD. 

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Clipper

Clipper

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Its odd, they spent a couple of seasons on the whisperers which I thought didn't deserve more than half a season given their limitations as an adversary. THen they spend less than a season on the COmmonwealth, a huge community of thousands. It was all horribly rushed and as a result they had to jump from one conclusion/plot point to the next without any time. If you want to have political intrigue with a governor etc you have to give it time otherwise it will just look compressed and messy.

 

the final episode made little sense and the closure wasn't there. the reappearance of

 

Spoiler

rick and michonne was utterly pointless and undercut the whole point in taking them out of there in the first place. Either bring them back properly before end of season to give the series a send off or leave them in their spinoff zone.

 

It's all watchable as I like zombie films/tv shows and watch them all and this is a decent stab at a zombvie tv show, it just could have been so much better.

 

As for the possible spinoffs, Daryl is ok I could watch more of him if he was given good material. Carole is spent as she has checked out and back in so many times it isn't relevant anymore. Negan as a character was almost destroyed by the finale but he is always watchable so I could stand a spinoff with him. The rest I can take or leave. I like Khary Peyton as an actor but that send off actually worked for him I thought.

 

I will now continue my rewatch from season 3 episode 2 :D

 

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Stoppy2000

Stoppy2000

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1 hour ago, christaylor said:

Watching the finale after bailing around s5/6.

 

How the fuck are 

  Hide contents

Eugene + Gabriel

still alive?! I'd have shivved them both myself years ago if I was in that group. 

Thought exactly the same. Couldn't believe they were still stinking the whole show up. 

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Garibaldi

Garibaldi

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On 22/11/2022 at 21:47, Rudderless said:

 

It didn't even offer a satisfying sense of closure, really - a couple of solid moments aside, it mostly felt like an extended trailer for three separate spin-offs. 

 

Yeah, jamming the trailers in at the end was tacky, especially considering the episode was too weak to earn the goodwill needed for you to say 'eh. I'll allow it.'

 

As a season ender, this episode would've just been ok. As the ending to a series that's been going for more than a decade it was astonishingly poor. I'm still annoyed at the intelligent zombies being reintroduced from season one, when Darabont obviously had plans for them going forward, after being forgotten about for much of the show's run. Not only that, they didn't really do anything with them. It's an intriguing plot-point totally squandered.

 

Frankly, I'm amazed Norman Reedus is up for more of it, but maybe he just realises he's been thoroughly typecast by now and the safest career route is to ride this train until the wheels fall off.

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Treble

Treble

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Mrs. Treb wanted a full rewatch. We fell of it at season... 7? 8? It all blurs into one. As of six months or so ago, she wanted to understand how Negan and Maggie could possibly team up, as per the trailers. 

 

I mean... my god, its so bad. We're up to season 10 episode 8, and the same pattern is just endlessly repeated. Introduce new baddy or faction, keep them alive as a threat waaaay past their dramatic usefulness in order to have enough content to fill a season. 

 

Loads of other problems it's lumbered along with too, but that'll do until we hit the end. Then I launch into a full-on rant about how much of a waste of time and money this show has been since the Governor was allowed to shift into a second season. 

 

 

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Clipper

Clipper

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My rewatch is now 3/4s of the way through season 3.

 

I can see why they got rid of Darabont mid season 2. Darabont wanted an achingly slow simmering build which he couldn't quite pull off, I am not sure why he went so off piste with this as Darabont knows how to entertain with horror. 2nd half of season 2 showed what they wanted which was more action and protagonists.

 

Season 3 so far is pretty good, probably as good as Season 1 with some caveats. As I mentioned before there should have been 1-2 episodes covering their 6 month winter hell which would have given the audience a good reason for why they holed up in a fucking prison full of zombies! If we had seen the desperation of those months then maybe we could understand but all we saw was actors returning after a break between seasons all saying "yep winter was tough" and then they go live in a prison, full of zombies! I wouldn't mind but Woodbury is a short drive away you would have thought they would have spotted that!

 

The other thing I worked out in Season 3 (due to the prison zombie scenes) is why the Walking Dead seems to rely on teleporting zombies and 50 zombies round a corner. THe filmmakers and editors don't know how to do slow zombies and don't know how to shoot action with them. We all know that slow zombies are tricky beasts to make scary as you can run away, you can outpace them and you could even walk round them (as Barbara points out in Night of the Living Dead 90). Good directors and editors like Romero make it look easy as they direct and edit the action so the zombies are a threat, and if they teleport a zombie (all slow moving zombie films do it all the time) they do it with sleight of hand or sleight of edit. The walking Dead creative team seemingly don't know how to do this. So Rick turns back to look lovingly at his crew in the prison compound and suddenly there are 20 zombies there, Virgil loses a leg, Carol ends up hiding in a cell, T Dog has to die and Lori dies. ANd all because they couldn't spot 20 teleporting zombies and instead of reacting to 20 slow moving zombies sensibly they all fly off in different directions.

 

The other thing they can't do is edit/direct action without confusion. Those prison corridors make no sense and I cannot follow who is going where and why, I am sure they are trying to give the impression of confusion but you don't do that by confusing the viewer! The trick of a good sequence is we completely understand the layout of corridors, we know they are confused, we know they are doing the wrong thing and going the wrong way and can feel the oncoming disaster. But no the Walking Dead creators think it is better that we are as confused as the cast.

 

Other thoughts on aspects of season 3 (I am on episode 12).

 

Governer. Good villain poorly used. David Morrissey does a damned good job even though some of the material he has to work with is clunky, some of the switches between strong leader and damaged human being just fall flat and make it look like he is two different characters. His humiliation of Maggie was a really uncomfortable watch, probably one of the creepiest scenes in the Walking Dead. That showed how he ould ahve been used more effectively.

 

Anthea is almost good. Her build up through the season and falling for the governer makes sense and works as she wanted something like normality and Woodbury seemed to be that. Her viewing the experiment by the science guy works as she is appalled but there is a tiny glimmer that she hopes he is right. However once she realises what the Governer is really upto it falls apart. Sending her to the prison is a mistake unless you intend her to rejoin the group. Her character deciding to still go back to Woodbury to fix things is madness as it is obvious the governer is as mad as a box of frogs.

 

Michonne is a great character and it is a good introduction to her. She is a bit too stand offish when she finds them at the prison but it still works. Strong scenes for her throughout

 

Merle is great and helps to save Woodbury being just the Governer's bland backdrop. He is one dimensional but Rooker plays it to perfection. The attempt by Daryl to save him is a good set of moments but those scenes also highlight that Norman Reedus is out of his depth playing against Rooker, the latter acts him off the screen. Merle's desperation when Daryl leaves him is palpable

 

Woodbury itself lacks texture and colour, it is too bland a backdrop. It is completely about the Governer (and Merle) and that is it. SO much wasted potential

 

Lori is a wasted completely and she is just a vessel for Rick's plotline which is pretty unforvgiveable. In fact her character is poorly written from the start, she exists just to help form the male characters of Shane and Rick.

 

Rick - I like the actor but having him stumble around for two episodes answering phones and being out in the wilderness - well 5 yards from the prison gate really did him no favours.

 

PRisoners - wasted potential as they were barely used.

 

Tyreese's group - wasted potential so far.

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3 minutes ago, makkuwata said:

What Darabont really wanted was a rug-pull twist.

 


Certainly would have made for a very different show.

That definitely does sound like a great twist on the narrative, would've loved to have seen it. Surely if that was the plan for a season 2 opener and you got Witwer in to do the zombie in the tank you'd shoot the stuff needed for the followup/prequel episode at the same time? Otherwise you have to get the tank and the expensive set together again.

 

In the end he was show runner for the first half of season 2 and  it felt like a show that wasn't sustainable. I get the slow burn zombie survival idea but it was lacking in action you need to drive a plot and Carl lying in bed for several episodes with your lead giving him blood transfusions wasn't enough to sustain it. There were obviously lots of things going on behind the scenes as well and that didn't help but I think the direction of the Season 2 oopening was Darabont's idea and it wasn't working yet. Now the reason Is ay this as I have read about Darabont's plans for those characters and they link up with the vibe and feel of the first half of season 2. He was going to have Dale and Andrea get involved (he called it a May to December thing) and you can see that start to happen in that first half and then it is killed literally stone dead.

 

Maybe Darabont was hard done by when it came to season 2 budget (Season 1 was good!). Maybe he wasn't up to showrunning a big TV series when alot of his expeirence was in film. I love Darabont and would loved to have seen how his version of Walking Dead would have panned out. I still think that slow burn thing he likes would have been a hurdle but maybe we would have avoided alot of the pitfalls it fell into as well.

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This is going to be a sporadic series of ramblings as I rewatch, sometimes it will cover half a season or part of and sometimes not - this time I just watched S3 E12 and 13 and it is the perfect exmaple of the chalk/cheese decent/shite mix that is watching the Walking Dead.

 

S3 E12 - The one where Rick finds Morgan again

The setup is clunky to get Rick to meet Morgan and the Carl/Michonne scenes are not good but the Rick/Morgan stuff is superb. Lennie James is great here and shows why it is such a shame they overused Morgan and messed the character so much over on "Fear...". Morgan's despair over losing his son and how it happened is moving and Rick's reaction is spot on. Such a good episode, mostly well written and acted. I know at the time some people said that Morgan should join the show but given the fact the writers had no idea how to use him properly on Fear I think we got off lightly

 

Then compare and contrast to the next episode

 

S3 E13 - The one where the Rick and the Governer "negotiate"

It is as if someone watched the previous episode and thought "you know what I can do the same thing of two actors working in a tense environment acting and bouncing off each other AND I can make it ten times worse"! Andrea continues down the "wtf" path by getting Rick and the Governer to negotiate when she knows the governer is mad and won't change. The reveal of the gun strapped to the table is stupidly early (it should be a nice surprise mid-tension) and then they don't even fucking use it. The opening gambit from the governer is "we are negotiating terms of your SURRENDER" dun dun dunnnnnn.... then he chats to rick for 20 mins about various other things/moments/negotiations unrelated to surrender before settling on "ok well just give me Michonne" followed by the hilarious scene with henchman after saying "hahaha we will kill them all" FFS. The opening ploy is just weird bait for the audience and then he drinks whisky and persuades rick to drink some.

 

 

From the (relative) sublime to the ridiculous.

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Clipper

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Now to the end of Season 3 and hmmmm

 

S3E14 - the one where nothing of real consequence happens

A bit of a nothing episode. Andrea finally realises that the Governer is very very bad (sigh) and tries to escape to find Rick and the others at the prison. Quite meh really, the writers burnt their bridges with Andrea earlier in the season so this part fails to land well. The burning of the walkers and Tyreese's group is laso just not well developed enough to be of interest.

 

S3E15 - the one where Merle nuts up

Rooker again effortlessly moves up through the gears and steals the show. I like Michonne but she is acted off the screen here. A great character piece and well worth devoting almost the entire episode to it. The final 10 mins or so where Merle finally nuts up and takes on the governer is brilliant and makes us realise the governer isn't just all talk he is quite adept at fighting. Good stuff but does flag up the fact that the rest of Woodbury is faceless.

 

S3E16 - The one where there is a final conflict and the governer is defeate.... wait WHAT THE FUCK?

Yes I had forgotten that this was the finale that wasn't. It seems the showrunner didn't want to lose the governer so despite losing Woodbury and the battle with the prison they decide to have him run away with two henchmen at the end. Terrible way to end an arc. For a show that revelled in its ability to kill off characters with no warning it really doesn't know when to let go of characters.

The episode starts with Michonne forgiving Rick for giving her up to the governer (snore) and captured Andrea being left with the freshly murdered Milton - again the governer showing his brutal side and nicely done. The scenes of Andrea trying to get the pliers is weirdly intercut with the main action, taking away the tension. You could easily intercut the initial moments of her talking to Milton and then once we are on the pliers sequence stick with it and play it out raise the tension and her desperation. Intercutting it all weakens it.

Intercut with this is the "main action". The sheep of Woodbury follow the governer to the prison and suddenly they have rocket launchers and woohoo time to blow that budget on blowing up bits of the disused prison they must've had a cheap long lease on (there is no other excuse for the fact they fucking stay there when there is a town nearby after this!). They arrive with all the subtlety of the bikers from Dawn of the Dead , it is such an utterly stupid attack that is makes little sense. Ont heir first attack they were precise and incisive, got a kill straight off and made the prison grounds fill with walkers this time they bumble around blowing up stuff at random! Once they have ineffectually blown up some bits outside they go inside and , oh no rick and the crew have gone... or have they! Of course they haven't and the governer walks into a trap so obvious that even Wil.E.Coyote would be giving it the side eye.

RETREAT is the call when the trap is sprung and a chunk of Woodbury sheep are driven off without a single prison inhabitant being so much as wounded. The Governer follows the retreat and then guns down his own people for running away before himself then errrrrr running away with two henchmen!

 

Overall I actually enjoyed season 3 and when it hits highs it is very good (THe morgan/Rick episode and Merle episodes are real high points), but it is frustrating as the dunderheaded decisions they make elsewhere are so easy to fix. For example, following the Morgan/Rick episode with a Rick/Governer negotiation episode is poor plotting/pacing as you need those tight episodes spread out (and better written in the case of the latter). The governer is a great villain but they don't quite nail him quite right and waste him a bit.  I know that this is meant to show the fact he is unhinged since losing his daughter and him becoming more erratic but it doesn't sit right. I guess part of the problem is the way that Woodbury is so undeveloped as a location and populous. Apart from Tyreese's group and one henchman there are literally no recognisable characters, they could have employed different extras each episode (and I'm sure they did) and I wouldn't have noticed.

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Clipper

Clipper

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Well I am 4 episodes into season4 and I thought I'd update on my rewatch.

 

Fortunately the nasty aftertaste of the Governer surviving the last arc is slightly dulled as for the moment he hasn't reappeared - I know he will but these 4 episodes and general opening to season 4 really benefit from not having that baggage being intercut. It is a fairly strong opening to the season overall with some decent set pieces and good performances. The slow build of the community that now live in the prison (ffs) is handled well and the necessary culling of the cast is also well done.

 

 

S4E1 - The one where we recover from season 3

 

Woodbury residents have joined Rick's group at the prison for some reason I cannot fathom (that cheap lease on the old prison I assume) and months have past - must have as there is a flourishing vegetable garden. Rick isn't leader and is moping in a  vegetable patch for reasons, there is a council in charge of the community but it barely gets any screentime. Michonne has been Governer hunting for months and months. I am being a bit mean as this establishing stuff is well done.

 

Carol is teaching the kids to stab zombies and she seems to have lost her way a bit which continues as the series progresses. This is good as Carol was all used up by the end of Walking Dead so it is easy to forget she was pretty decent early on.

 

The group going on a raid and the alcoholic guy causing someone to die by grabbing booze is a little on the nose but this is a decent episode establishing the new community and the end of the episode has a nice sting to it.

 

S4E2 - The one where we cut down on the number of cast members

 

Yes with my cynical hat on it is obvious that the "flu outbreak" storyline was concocted to get rid of many of the community (mostly ex-Woodbury residents). However I like the way it builds and is handled. THe initial outbreak and walker attack by someone who died of flu masks the fact that the flu is going to run rampant through the prison. Again showing us that zombies are not the real threat, just a consequence.

 

All this stuff is great, the walker attack on the fence  is less interesting and I think they make the mistake of thinking every episode must have walker attacks in it. If you want slow build and slow burn then bunging in a walker attack looks cheap and this is a common complaint with these opening episodes. A sense of dread and tension can be built without the showy stuff.

 

They can do it though as the Carol subplot builds nicely here and the two girls, Lizzie and Mika are pushing that along nicely - I know this doesn't end well in some people's minds but I like this.

 

The crucial scene at the end revealing two burnt corpses oddly enough wasn't telegraphed at all and is a shock but also loses a bit of impact as a result which weakens...

 

S4E3 - The one where Tyreese shows some personality

 

But not in a good way. The opening scrap between Tyreese and Rick is impactful but not in keeping with how the characters have gone until now. If you want Tyreese and Rick to have a big fight you need to have those characters have a bit of history and there is barely any to latch onto. So we are left with Tyreese lashing out (understandable) and Rick going off on one for no reason.

 

The young and old are quarantined and Hershel breaks that to tend to the sick as the flu continues to help thin out the extras budget and they tease us by ensuring Glenn gets it but we know he is safe surely :). Again the flu plague is well handled and Hershel steps up nicely but it is spinning its wheels waiting for the rest of the plot to catch up.

 

Daryl takes a group to get anti-biotics from a vet college and their antics are entertaining enough but lack bite.

 

Carol again lifts this with her internal conflict and final confession to Rick which is very well handled and is the highlight of the episode. We can question the writers about how well thought out and developed Carol's motives are but the performances and scenes are superb.

 

S4E4 - The One where Rick is ruthless

 

THe Carol storyline reaches a mini-climax as she accompanies Rick on a food run and he tells her in no uncertain terms to go off on her own as she is likely to be dead if she returns to the prison and Tyreese finds out what she did. Their scenes are really strong throughout and their dealings with the two young people they find are very well done as well. Rick is more ruthless than Carol despite the fact she is the one who has to walk away with his treatment of the young couple being particularly harsh.

 

Daryl's group is less interesting and the cliche alcoholic endangers the group by going for booze is as dull as it was in episode one.

 

This is probably the best episode of Season 4 so far, however I can feel the stench of the governer cannot be too far away as they resurrect that dead plotline.

 

 

 

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S4E5 the one where the flu really kicks off

 

Yes the slow build disease runing through the prison finally claims more victims and they rise and bite more as the culling of the extras budget continues ruthlessly. Again I am being unfair as this whole area of the plot is tense and keeps you on edge nicely. HErshel gets some poor reviews at times but in this episode his performance is outstanding (until the end) as he tries to keep people alive in the cell block. You can see his desperation as he tries and fails to stem the tide. The stuff with Lizzie is really good as she leads a zombie away from Glen in a curious way and her reaction to the death later on. Lizzie is an odd charatcer and I don't thinkt he writers quite nailed it but they did a good enough job to make her unsettling.

 

The rest of the episode can't match up to it. Rick and Carl try to prop up the fence but the walkers breach it and start to come into the courtyard. The pressure from all those walkers is too much, given that our cast was overrun and part slaughtered by a dozen or so zombies in the courtyard this time it is surely a dire situation. Nope Rick and Carl shoot them all int he head pretty calmly from a safe distance. THis is one of the first times that they blatantly take the zombie threat and make it look like a minor nuisance, a slippery slope.

 

The group fetching the meds appear and the ones who survived the flu and zombie outbreak in the cell block are treated and obviously there is a rapid upturn so that threat is over with a little too cleanly but heyho.

 

A good strong mini arc at the beginning of season 4 and the reason I say this is that the end of the episode reveals the governer watching the prison from about 50 ft away. For fuck's sake.

 

 

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S4E6 the one where he's back

 

TL;DR review? FFS!

 

The Governer is back and the writers fuck it right up. When we left the Governer he had gunned down his own people but Martinez and "another guy" stood there, did not shoot him and instead got in a truck with him and drove him away. The new episode jumps back to that moment and plays it all out in horrendous detail. Firstly within a day they abandon the Governer(!?). The governer goes and sets (bad cg) fire to Woodbury and goes solo.

 

Now we see him later with a beard and he finds a family which includes Tera - so that is where she is from - I completely forgot how Tera joined the cast. What follows is the governer, calling himself Brian (or ryan it is difficult to tell with the way they speak :D ) and he is trying to avoid people and yet this family get under his skin and reveal his humanity, oh yes indeed he is now a soft and squidgy Governer.

 

The father dies, the family and brian leave and fall down into a pit of walkers and it is revealed that Martinez operates it! Yes it is that dumb.

 

S4E7 the one where the Governer gets his mojo back

 

Martinez has a small group and they aren't very nice (surprise!) the Governer and family join them and slowly the Governer realises that his old methods and approach were the best - I mean there is no evidence for this he just descends into that role "slowly" over 1 episode and two expeditions.

 

First he goes out on an expedition with Martinez where Martinez initially says that he was going to leave the governer for dead if he didn't have family with him and then he whinges about loneliness of command and offers co-leader to the Governer. The governer responds by knocking out Martinez and dragging him to pit of walkers to be eaten while he says something like "he didnt want this"!!!

 

Someone else is given leader position and now we get expedition 2. He is sent out with two others (one of which is "new leader") - they spot a "suspiciuously convenient" camp and one wants to take their stuff and kill them, the other wants to be nice and not do that (They may as well have made them angel/devil and put them on the shoulders of Brian at this poiint. THey hunt for a bit then find the "suspiciously convenient" camp has been looted and they have been killed anyway. They could , of course have asked the other group to join them or asked to trade etc. but no it is two choices kill/loot or leave alone.

 

Blah blah he tries to leave with family and road is blocked by mud pit of walkers (for no discernable reason) so the Governer kills interim leader and tells the other to fall in line and now he is the leader or GOVERNER, Brian is no more.

 

Just to nail it all down and tie things up in a bow the Governer then decides the group has to move and there is a great secure prison they can go to - but "oh no!" it has people there already so they need to case the joint.

 

 

It isn't that it is rubbish, the performances are good and David Morrissey is always good value. The problem is that the  Governer is spent as a character/antagonist. So all they do is waste two episodes (so far) rehabilitating the governer only to then push him back over the edge and bring him back to square one with a new group and repeat exactly what he did at the end of season 3. Not badly acted or directed etc but just a big repeat of material for no reason.

 

 

 

 

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S4E8 the one where we redo the end of season3

 

Yes the governer is defeated finally in an almost beat for beat repeat of his attack on the prison from the end of Season 3 (yes he has hostages this time but meh it is the same). It is so fucking stupid and lazy I can't believe they did it.

 

That is it I have no intention of talking anymore about it.

 

S4E9 The one where it is cheaper to have less cast in each episode

 

That is the way it feels when they split the cast like this. I know that dramatically that it gives focus to various groupings of characters to give them time for character growth and scenes. So we get Rick and (mostly)Carl in this one (and a tiny bit of Michonne). The Carl stuff is good but the actor hasn't quite got the ability to take it to the next level so it is merely ok. The tiny bit of Michonne backstory that is here is nice to see and good that they don't elucidate too much on it as her mystery is what is interesting about the character.

 

After the fucking disaster of the "mid season finale" (which by the way is a terrible idea as it structures your seasons poorly) this is a breath of fresh air with some good scenes, some good zombie action and it isn't a rerun of a previous episode.

 

 

 

 

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Clipper

Clipper

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Well if it isn't the least popular rewatch continuing. The trauma of the return of the governer was solved by having a christmas break. I have watched the next few over the last month but as you'll see none of them warranted an indepth update.

 

S4E9 (covered before my break but belongs in this group.

S4E10

S4E11

S4E12

S4E13

S4E14

S4E15 - the ones where they pad and spin wheels while waiting for Terminus

 

It is never a good sign when I group episodes together and this time is no exception. This directionless 2nd half of season 4 is difficult to love or even watch. I can see what they are going for here, there is no "base" anymore and no big bad currently so they wanted to split up the ensemble into units and tell their stories and delve deeper into their characters. This is a laudable aim. The problem is they haven't the talent to pull it off consistently so it feels like filler with high spots.

 

There are some good moments here, some great character moments and some really tense scenes that are pulled off brilliantly. The problem is they are spaced out way too far and some characters are wasted. Daryl is wasted by being paired with Beth - she hasn't had much of a character til now and this attempt at fleshing her out is weak. Glenn is just moping after maggie, and "Bob" is just a character I cannot abide... not sure why but he ruins that section. The good bits can be very good - Rick has a great tense scene when hiding in a house - THe Lizzie subplot comes to a very well handled tragic end with Carole.

 

However it is 6 hrs of TV (ish) and there is maybe an hour of good stuff in it. The only saving grace is that characters that had little screen time are now more detailed, for better or worse. In theory this gave them characters to kill off that had significant screentime as opposed to when we lose non-entities and it feels like they are trimming the budget :D

 

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Good lord, I left s4e16 until last as I assumed it would lead to a good cliffhanger and reveal - instead we get

 

S4E16 - the one where they can't even get a cliffhanger right!

 

FFS

 

half a season leading up to repeating the end of Season 3 and half of a season wandering around train tracks and then they put a cherry on the shit pie with this finale. I know who the bad guys are obvously but if you didn't this was aneamic as fuck.

 

The Claimers plotline is actually pretty good but it should have been built up earlier in the 2nd half of the season, it is too rushed to have any impact. The way it ends is a damp squib.

 

Apart from that almost everyone makes it back together and reaches the "end of the line" (I wonder why they used THAT phrase - sigh) and discover that Sanctuary isn't. But the cliffhanger is they are bundled into a train car and left , that is it. I thought the cliffhanger was the opening to S5 which would have been superb but this is just a dribble at the end of a poor season.

 

 

So season 4 is the worst and I think it might represent one of the lowest points (I actually quite liked Negan unlike many so I am looking forward to him appearing).

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Season 5

 

Season 5 episode 1 - the one that has the cliffhanger that should have ended season 4

 

This is a pretty good season opener and it is a million times better than season 4. Cannibals is lazy but it is done well. The scene over the trough should have been the season 4 cliffhanger.

 

Other than that I can overlook Carol turning into a combination of Rambo and an expert fireworks display operative as it is brilliant attack on the base. There was real dread in that trough scene and the intercutting and timeshifts to show Carol/Tyreese came together really well and drove the pace of the episode very well. The THEN and NOW stuff played well and showed how far our characters are from being bad guys if only things were slightly different - they don't quite land it as they went from peaceloving to eating people a bit too easily.

 

If you want a niggle then Tyreese's lie is too obvious and should have been checked on but it's all good but couldn't they killed off Denise Crosby with a tar spillage :D

 

Strong opener and they don't feel the need to drag on this new "bad group" they just blow the shit out of them (yes I know they come back but you know what i mean).

 

Season 5 Episode 2 - THe one where everyone insta-hates Father Gabriel

 

Except me.

 

I like this episode it drops the pace after the blistering (for TWD) opening and gives the group a different conundrum. Is this mild mannered priest really THAT useless and how did he survive this long? I like concept of the troubled cowardly priest who hides and it is a blessed relief from the endless parade of evil rednecks who steal your shit and kill you.

 

The other parts of this episode are variable. Beth's kidnappers suddenly appear so Daryl can chase them - very meh and too coincidental. Bob on the other hand is a shit character and the basement antics are way too telegraphed that he has been secretly bitten. The capture by the remaining Terminus cannibals is genuinely creepy and unsettling if you can just get over the fact it is played a little too unsubtly - there is none of the creepy genius of "Parents" here.

 

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makkuwata

makkuwata

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30 minutes ago, Clipper said:

Apart from that almost everyone makes it back together and reaches the "end of the line" (I wonder why they used THAT phrase - sigh) and discover that Sanctuary isn't. But the cliffhanger is they are bundled into a train car and left , that is it. I thought the cliffhanger was the opening to S5 which would have been superb but this is just a dribble at the end of a poor season.


I feel like they thought it was enough to end with Rick saying the naughty word, but then they didn’t even follow through on that.

 

What a simpler time.

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