The Walking Dead

[Snowbird]

I am a little late getting hooked on The Walking Dead but I spent from Tuesday til Friday the week of  New Years glued to the marathon.  I had already seen some of this season's show so it was interesting to see how they got to where they are now. 
This is a show with very complex characters.  I find Darrell to be more likeable than Rick but just by a little bit. 
Feb. 8th can't come soon enough for me.

[Merry Prankster]

I warmed up to it slowly too Snow.  Interesting premise and the show presents a number of moral issues in a unique way.  I liked Rick, then I didn't, but it's nice to see him getting out of Gandi mode.  My favorite character is Carol--her evolution has been amazing and I believe she is the most complex character on the show.  One problem I have with TWD---they keep killing off my favorite characters, e.g., Herschel.

[Rowdy]

Can't hardly wait for the new Season

[Snowbird]

I have a shirt that says "If The Walking Dead or the Bulldogs (meaning Ga. Bulldogs) are on TV you are not allowed to talk to me." 

[Snowbird]

The new season started off with a gruesome, emotion filled show that has Rick feeling completely helpless for the first time.  We were not allowed to see who was killed until half way through the show.  It began with Rick telling Negan that he was going to kill him, not today, but someday he would kill him.  This angered Negan and he drug him off and shoved him in the motor home and put Rick's ax on the table, got in the drivers seat and dared Rick to kill him.  Rick took his chance but he wasn't fast enough as Negan grabbed his gun and held it to Rick.  Negan then drove off to a place where there were many walkers.  He told Rick everything that had belonged to him was now his.  He took the ax and threw it out among the walkers and ordered Rick to go get "his ax".  While Rick was out he imagined that everyone was killed by "Lucille".

In flashbacks we learned that the first one Negan beat in the head with an ax was Abraham.  We saw the awful results of Abraham's battle for life.  Then Daryl jumped up in anger and tried to attack Negan.  Negan had some of his men drag Daryl away and reminded them that he said if anyone whispered a word that he would kill someone else.  Glenn was the one chosen and while Maggie looked on in horror he was beaten to death.  The first hit left his skull open but he turned to Maggie and said something like, "I will find you."

When Negan brought Rick back to his people, he said Rick was still looking at him in a way he didn't like so he had Carl brought over to Rick and got a marker and drew a line on Carl's arm and handed Rick the ax.  He told Rick that he had to chop off his son's arm or he would kill the rest of them.  Carl told his father to go ahead.  Rick did a good job of showing the agony on his face.  At the last minute as he raised the ax, Negan took it from him.  He then made Rick say to him what he wanted to hear. 

This was a bloody, gruesome episode and all the actors made it seem so real. 

I have been reading the comic books that are out in book form.  I must say that I like the show twice as much as the books.  Some of the characters and the things that happen to them is different in the book.  For instance, Carole is a pathetic woman who finally lets a walker bite her on purpose leaving her daughter Sophia alive.  In the show Sophia is the one killed.  The book also is full of the "f" word which I see as unnecessary to telling the story.

I am hooked on this show.   

[Snowbird]

Although I love this show I do not like the direction it has taken this season.  It seems that they are trying to turn Rick Grimes into a villain and make Negan the good guy.  How can Negan be forgiven for the gruesome deaths he caused with the help of Lucille? 
I guess that was why Carl had to die so the story line could go in that direction but I could see a completely different direction and a lot of drama played out between Negan and Carl if Carl had lived. 
This new compassionate Negan and his philosophy of human resourses just does not and never can fit in with the man who beat people to death with a bat and burned people's faces with a hot iron.

I thought that Rick had already read Carl's letter before he went to look for the escapees but it looks like he didn't read it until after he came back.  He still knew what Carl had written to Negan because he read it to him.  Did he purposely put off reading his note because he didn't want to be influenced by it until after he got even?

[Merry Prankster]

MP sees your POV Snow but he has a different perspective.  MP has never viewed Rick as a hero or even as a consistently good guy.  He has always vacillated between ruthless leader and pacifist.  Currently he is at his most ruthless as he is on a revenge rampage for Carl's, Abraham's and Glenn's  deaths.  Do you approve of what he did to the Saviors?  How many people have died because of his revolt against Negan?   I think this season's story arc has underscored the point that Rick and Negan are not as different as one might choose to believe.  In a lot of ways, Carl was Rick's moral compass--without Carl, what happens to Rick?  If there is a hero in all of this, MP believes Maggie is emerging as one.

[Snowbird]

I see your point MP.  Rick has not always been a good guy but he has kept the group alive and looked after them for the most part.  People seemed to assume that he would be their leader I suppose partly because he was a former cop. 
There were lives lost because of the revolt against Negan but to me it was justified in the fact that Negan was a dictator whose cruelty and overbearing ways had to be stopped.  Negan demanded that the others work for him and treated them so cruelly when they didn't give him what he wanted.  None of the other settlements were living freely. 
I was very disappointed in Rick killing the saviors who wanted to join up with him last night. 

Who do you think Negan picked up?  My guess is it was Dwight's wife.

[Merry Prankster]

MP should probably clarify the thinking in his previous post.  Negan---for the most part he is evil incarnate but MP has seen enough remaining shreds of his humanity in Season 8 to become very curious about his backstory.  MP would love to see an episode or two about Negan’s backstory pre-apocalypse, how he changed post-apocalypse and how he became founder/leader of the Saviors.  The same goes for Jadis---not the evil incarnate part but the backstory part.

Rick—MP does not think of Rick as evil but as so fiercely loyal/committed to his small band of long-term survivors that he does not really care about anyone else.   He is capable of anything to protect them or to avenge them.  Contrast Carl, Maggie and Carol.  To MP, Rick has become more and more like Darryl.

[Snowbird]

I think Rick and Darryl are very much alike.  They both have learned to love as well as hate passionately.  However, I don't think there is anyone Negan cares about enough to spare them if killing them would serve as a reminder to the others that he is to be feared and obeyed.  I would like to see how Negan came about being the way he is now but I don't think any half way decent person could become as cruel as he is no matter what happened to them. 
I just wish we were given more episodes each season.  There are only a few more left before we will be left to speculate until October again.

[Snowbird]

Carl's death was suppose to be necessary for the story line this season.  So far, I don't see what his death did to make any difference.  Negan and Rick are still at it. 

I was hoping to see Sherry when Dwight opened the door to his room.  Instead it was bad news for Dwight.  I like Dwight and don't want him to be killed by Negan.  Maybe like is the wrong word.  It probably should be I feel sorry for Dwight. 

Next week is the last show until next Fall.  I think this show has fewer shows at a time than any other show ever!  It just gets started and it is over. 

[Merry Prankster]

MP agrees with you on Carl's death appearing to be gratuitous at this point.  Of course , it will be far from the first time TWD writers have  crafted dead-end or highly improbable plot points.  Carl did not die in the comic book series so they might have made  a serious mistake.  The only thing that gives MP pause on the outcome of the Negan/Rick blood feud is Rick's earlier flash-forward? in which Negan is portrayed as benign, even a friend.  But for either one to show mercy  appears totally ludicrous.  MP thought Negan's cat and mouse game with Simon and Dwight was one of the best episodes of the spring season.

[Merry Prankster]

So Morgan, who appears loony once again, is crossing over to Fear the Walking Dead?  HUH?  Have the writers lost their minds or is FTWD in such need of a ratings boost that the producers have gotten desperate.? This is ludicrous!

[Snowbird]

I guess I can see Carl's death playing up to the plot now.  What is a mystery to me was the way it ended with Maggie talking like she would take on Rick next season with Jesus sitting in front of her and Daryl agreeing.  The three (M, D, and R) have gone through too much together to be against each other. 

They should have let Morgan catch a helicopter ride down to Texas to join with FTWD.   

[Merry Prankster]

The whole episode was a mystery to MP.  Too many sudden character flip-flops without establishing the necessary predicate, e.g., Eugene, Rick, Maggie, Darryl, Jesus, even Ann (Jadis).  M, D and J turning against Rick w/o knowing his plans for Negan, without trying to talk to Rick and work things out?  Sorry, but the end of the Rick/Negan war turned a lot of things on their head in order to justify the asinine mistake of killing Carl.  Eighteen wrongs do not make a right.  And what will happen to the Mother of all Hordes? 

Morgan hitching a ride on the whirly-bird? LOL.  At least he kept his loon on.