[TV] The Walking Dead - Page 298

nah, there will be a council... its just different without dale around and the rick and the hand thing and the fact that woodbury has been pretty tame compared to the comics... its still compelling but i think alot of people are waiting to see "andrea the shooter" not andrea that dumb blonde.

I think rick will step down from the ricktatorship.

Daryl left because the dixon brothers now have there own game they get to run around and kill zombies on there own. Just like in the video game... IF you didn't see that one coming your a fool...

Governor attacks Prison, Prison unites to fight, Rick in his craze is unfit to lead, all is falling around them, at least 1 or 2 members of Prison group dies, all is lost, ENTER DIXON BROTHERS TO THE RESCUE. Daryl saves the day, rescues remainder of group, and in his final redeeming moment, Merle dies to save his brother from taking a shot in the back. Daryl can rejoin group now, Rick snaps to his senses temporarily but requires Carl to take care of him in his weakened state (possibly injured in a bad way from prison fight), and Judith dies in the conflict, freeing Rick from the haunting he receives from seeing her.

rick:

- his breakdown is fatally undermined by the gaps between those specific events where rick's mental state is shown to be compromised but he goes out and kills zombies or leads raids anyway, especially given that all of the things in this episode that apparently crush his spirit are beats the show has covered before. people leaving and bitching and whining isn't anything new, so the only argument for his breakdown ends up being lori, which doesn't work for so many reasons. rick already had his arc to get over lori that ended with herschel by the phone and his reuniting with carl, his hallucinations are badly themed (seeing shane in woodbury could have meant anything, the scene with judith was a good scene but still can be confused with guilt over the father of the baby), there is absolutely no coherent foreshadowing within the episode, the midseason break was stupid and reduced the sense of connection with that plotline, and ghost lori as a concept is a lazy and stupid way to conclude this entire too-light plotline.

- it was really never made clear enough that rick is in trouble. everyone is in trouble on the walking dead all the time, angry and out of sorts and disturbed unless they're beth or lori, and frankly there wasn't enough coherency in this to imply that rick was headed for drooling, pitiful insanity. basically, not enough setup was done.

- glenn didn't even "dissent", he's just being a chivalrous bitch.

glenn:

- "old acquaintance"? this is a minor point but, uh, your choice of words makes it sound like that if glenn had seen merle again he wouldn't expect beatings and torture and racism; that's kind of merle in a nutshell. maybe you didn't mean anything by this, but seeing merle from the very start, glenn was suspicious, so clearly merle being established as a bad guy was still very much in effect and glenn lost nothing in addition to his original woes by being beat up by someone he knew.

- it's not an overreaction, but man, is it stupid. I have never really minded glenn's character even though like all TWD characters he can be summed up in a few words, but this entire situation made him look both stupid and dismissive of maggie's capability in a way that was somewhat offensive. going back at the governor was totally impossible at that point, so he's just whining to whine - how does this help his character? it certainly doesn't make him rick-replacement material like you seem to be implying. speaking of implications...are you saying that because rick is exhausted, glenn felt justified in blowing up at him? huh?

- this "chivalry" thing...regardless of what actually happened to maggie, it isn't glenn's job to take up for his woman. it's not that he can't show concern (but...why wouldn't he just console her, rather than use her as a tool to dig at rick with), but he piggybacks that concern on his stupid, illogical rant to rick, so not only is it minutely offensive and presumptive for him to assume that she needs him to parrot her problems, it devalues it by the illegitimacy of the rant that preceded it.

- being assertive is rooted in confidence. glenn's own little breakdown reflects anything but confidence; yes, the structure and reality of the TWD universe means that glenn is still in the running for authority regardless, but I just don't see the narrative point in making glenn into a shitlord for 5 minutes and then concluding it later in the episode. it reeks of filler.

basically, this episode fuckin' sucked.

- there had to be a comedown, it didn't have to be a lifeless mess full of non-starter drama.

- well, when your points are based on the clear intent within the show it's not hard to "hit" them. I understand what they're trying to do; my entire few days of making TLDR posts in this thread has been spent listing reasons why this intent is muddled and flawed on the screen.

- okay, my language is sometimes confusing regarding "foreshadowing" so I'll clarify, and I'm going to use a direct quote from you to help.



why should we have been led to think that, as viewers, just to fuck with us? TWD is so very much not about that sort of misdirection as a theme. there is a huge difference between a plotline that is led out of sight, to fester and be in the back of our minds and is kept alive with artful use of foreshadowing, and what we got with rick, and there are multiple reasons as to why which I've listed again and again so you get the cliff notes this time.

1) he's had this arc completed before in a satisfactory manner with interactions between herschel and carl
2) spotting shane is way too confused and ambiguous as a symbol
3) at the very end of this plot resurrection, 10-20 minutes before ghost lori, we finally get a good scene within this theme with him and judith, and it's still confused because of the ambiguity between whether it's guilt over this last symbol of lori, over whether he thinks it's shane's child, or whether he's having a sort of PTSD reaction to the contrast between the prison peace and the woodbury conflict.
4) this show spends so much time establishing plot and cutting between perspectives that the idea of establishing some sort of connect-the-dots plotwork centered about only one character is really kind of laughable. it's not that they couldn't, but that they fucked it up because there is no focus on it, i.e. hey here's a shane sighting here but it doesn't matter because we've got torture and shooting and smashing and utter lack of subtlety but hey let's try subtlety. it failed.

please, make no mistake; technically, they can do this within the plot, ghost flashbacks and hallucinations make it really easy to just plug in insta-tension. the problem is we've seen it before and had emotional catharsis from when we (at this point, I will just say I) thought the arc was resolved, because that's the point of a character arc. doing it again...why the fuck do it again? what is the point, how do they want me to feel about this? do they give two shits about how I feel when I watch a plot redux, or is their want to destabilize rick that desperate and self-important that they'll just do it anyway?

- I'm pretty sure it's a conclusion because the ultimate purpose of this storyline isn't to make us feel for rick, he's felt this stuff before, it's to generate false tension and apparently give other people the chance to do stuff. I literally cannot understand why this is necessary; are we bored of rick? I'm not bored of rick, but man am I not the target audience for this.

- I'm pretty tired of people using previews as arguments against me. I watch the goddamn show, an episode is supposed to be an isolated progression of the storyline and with a show that's this acclaimed I should not be asked to do homework to contextualize an episode in an acceptable way. do the commercial editors get their own awards, or what?

- okay, and because glenn vents his frustration in an illogical way while the scene and his words paint him as an impotent idiot whose only recourse to his mistreatment is to turn everyone against him while using his girlfriend - who suffered just as much and yet is able to keep her shit together - as a battering ram, this furthers his character? it's within the realm of possibility, but it's not writing that makes me give two shits about him as a character.

- it's not my job to write for the show, if I bother doing that I'd at least want a cut.

- I'm not looking for a whole new plotline, I'm looking for one that isn't told at the expense of every. single. believable or empathetic. character in the show.