Walking Dead

[Velorath]

OOC: How would we (you) rank the seasons now that we have some distance from the early ones?

1.) Atlanta
2.) The Farm
3.) The Prison / Woodbury
4.) The Prison / Terminus
5.) On the Road / Alexandria
6.) Alexandria (current)

3,1,6,4,5,2 is my ranking right now...

You really like ranking stuff.

For me I just think the stuff that's been done with Gimple as shownrunner (season 4-current) as a whole has been better and more consistent than the early stuff. That's not to say that Darabont or Mazzara were bad. There's a lot of good stuff to come out of the early seasons. In particular the cast from the beginning that have stuck around this long are all doing great jobs. Also it's hard to know exactly how much AMC screwed them over with budget and creative control stuff early on which is likely what bogged season 2 down. The character development in the last few season has just been so much better than the days when they managed to just completely fuck up Andrea and Dale. Lori was already kinda bad in the comics but she was even worse in the show.

[Setanta]

Atlanta
Prison/Woodbury because Merle was my favourite character and the episode of his death was a probably the best almost-redemption story.
Terminus
On the road
Alexandria
Worst was The Farm except for Sophia and Shane getting taken down.

[apocrypha]

This episode... "Just walk it off"   

[Tale]

I really liked it.

[jgsugden]

....
You really like ranking stuff.
...

My 7th favorite pasttime. 

[TheWalrus]

 

[HaemishM]

So it really was the old switcheroo. I still think that was a bit of narrative bullshit, but hey, I like the character so I'm not minding too much.

Also, holy shit.

[TheWalrus]

Catching a break does not happen for these people.

[CmdrSlack]

And the midseason goes out with a "Meh."

[Velorath]

Mostly it just seemed like an odd place to cut things off, especially if you read the comics.

[jgsugden]

Right.... it seems like there should have been one more episode and then the midseason break if you want to get to all the action.  It seems like they realize that there are a lot of people that know the comics and they want to leave off right before several major beats....

The next episode that shows anything going on in Alexandria is going to be insane... although they could do an episode (or multiple) about the trio on the road before we see Alexandria again.  Or maybe they'll just mess with us massively and do a multiple episode arch on the Morales family that went to Alabama in Season 1. http://walkingdead.wikia.com/wiki/Morales_(TV_Series)

[Velorath]

I'm half expecting them to skip ahead a bit, and then go back and show stuff in flashbacks. It's quite possible that they felt that things would have been too brutal to play out on the screen in real time.

[Selby]

Man was that ever a snoozer.  I can get behind the character development and slow pacing of other episodes, but this was a real drag. I don't expect it to be non stop action but it just felt like it was stretched out to accommodate an hour as opposed to a fully fleshed out episode simply to leave on a cliff hanger that wasn't exciting.

[Evildrider]

As someone who kinda knows where this is headed from the comic books.. the episode needed 5 more minutes and it would have been a solid ending.

[jgsugden]

As someone who kinda knows where this is headed from the comic books.. the episode needed 5 more minutes and it would have been a solid ending.

I'm wondering if they stopped right there because it diverges from the comics substantially in the next 5 minutes.... and they thought that ending there would build expectations....

[CmdrSlack]

They teased the eyeshot like a million times. Also, the new big bad should have appeared....would have made for a better end. Just so meh on so many levels the way that it played out.

[Ironwood]

That was a very bad and very boring episode.

Just all kinds of wrong.

[KallDrexx]

Was Morgan's character as terrible in the comics?

[Ironwood]

No idea, but the whole basement thing was just ultra, ultra retarded and required all the characters present to act entirely contrary to previous nature.  Well, except maybe Doctor Good Hair.

The idea of reforming a wolf was bad enough, but to have Morgan be even more stupid, Carol to be less than clever and the gruesome threesome just hand over the weapons to Mr McKnifey was all roll-eyes daft.

And THEN Mr McKnifey took a hostage out into a zombie swarm.

Also, the whole episode was really, really badly edited with continuity all to fuck.

[HaemishM]

I can forgive Carol being a dumbass because she had a concussion. Rosarita or Tara not pegging Wolf Boy in the eyeball was a bit of WTF since we saw Tara at least headshotting the shit out of zombies with a pistol from farther way in the last episode.

Did no one watch the 2-minute thing they showed during Into the Badlands? Darrell, Abraham and Sasha got pulled over in the truck by Negan's peeps, so we won't see Negan until February.

[Segoris]

Yeah, out of character shittiness. In addition to Tara's incredible aim when the plot calls for it, Rosita is military trained with a gun aimed at a dude's head from less than 10' away....wtf. Then, after their stupidity kicked in and they tossed wolfdude the guns, wtf is keeping him from doing what he does by killing everyone in the room? Sure, it would bring more walkers around but that doesn't seem to matter to him.

I think that basement scene is the only thing more stupid than blond chick's son calling for mommy in the middle of the herd

As for the Negan thing, they showed that in the after-credits or w/e for the episode. It was so poorly placed I can see how people would easily miss it.

[Ironwood]

Yeah, it was where 'Next Time On' usually is in the UK, so we saw it.

T'was pish tho.

[jgsugden]

I'd imagine that we do not see Negan with residents of Alexandria until the last 5 to 10 minutes of the season.  I'm thinking more and more that they'll build it up to play out just like in the comics ... and then switch up who ends up where in the last three minutes (I'm betting that scene will be very drawn out).

Sasha is part Andrea from the comics - they want someone to fill that sharpshooter role.  It must be more of a key story element somewhere down the line that they need someone that can make an incredible shot.  I'm not remembering anything from the comics where you had to have a sharpshooter.

[Surlyboi]

Really good start to the second half of the season.

[Evildrider]

That could be my favorite episode of Walking Dead.

[Setanta]

Yep - I'll rate it at the top - it had a bit of everything from all the key characters.

[jgsugden]

[Ironwood]

I'm going to disagree, that was some serious bullshit.


That was awful.  But whatever.

[taolurker]

Thing I mostly had problems with was:

[jgsugden]

Generally, I'm with critics on this one. They'Re trying a lot of stunts this season with 'twists' and spectacles that are not true to the story.

[HaemishM]

I dug it. Yes the Wolf's turn was a bit much but I think it sets up some good story bits for later in the season. Also, they had to thin the crowd in Alexandria a bit somehow.

[CmdrSlack]

My biggest beef is that loud kid was loud way later in the episode than he was at the end of last.

[MahrinSkel]

--Dave

[jgsugden]

For those that have not read the comics: I'd say this is a place where the comics executed the story significantly better than the show. What worked on the show was also good in thecomics, and what failed for me in the show either did not exist in the comics or was executed much better.

[Ironwood]

Was just browsing the AVClub reviews and, damn, if they didn't hit the nail on the head for me.  It's like my review, except coherent.

http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/walking-dead-returns-and-everything-works-out-ever-232232