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This was an underwhelming episode for a midseason premiere. I really thought they were building up to something in the last 5 minutes that would establish a new arc, but nope.The Dark Project posted:Is this show worth watching at all, because I gave up in Season 2 when Rick shot the missing girl who was in the barn and thus a zombie. The show was not going in any good direction at all, the characters were doing utterly dumb stupid poo poo and the writers seemed to change the rules at every turn. You'll never escape that kind of stupidity in this show, but there are good arcs.
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Feb 10, 2014 15:40
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hollylolly posted:I thought it was a great episode, and I loved Carl's emotional arc, ending with his inability to face life alone if Rick was actually dead. Good acting too. I didn't mind Carl making dumb decisions or deciding to be a badass, but I'm wondering how many times we need to explore the relationship of overprotective Rick and rebelliously independent Carl. Can the show display these two within any other framework? I also reject that Chandler Riggs is a good actor and I point to the gif earlier in the thread as my first exhibit of evidence.
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Feb 10, 2014 20:03
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^^ poetry.hollylolly posted:I guess you missed that this was a resolution to that relationship tension by having Carl admit he did need his dad around after all, and Rick admitting that Carl was a man and didn't need to be treated like a child/protected. The writers took the time to let the characters resolve their issues. The relationship has been brewing to this point since the beginning, but I think it was a logical continuation. Now we can see how it goes from here, now that they have found common ground. That DICK! posted:The problem is they've done this exact same plot before, multiple times. Rick learns to give his son a little bit more leeway because he's growing up and living in a hellish apocalypse, and Carl learns maybe his dad does have whats best for him in mind after all. Exactly. They've done this story before, and this time it made no sense contextually. Why is Carl mad at Rick in this episode?
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Feb 10, 2014 20:59
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socialsecurity posted:Because he is an angsty teenager who thinks everyone else he knew just died so he is raging. It makes sense but it doesn't make for great TV. Fair point, but I don't think the episode does a good job of showing this. Instead, the first scene is Carl being a total dick to his father who may or may not be dying, and the make-up scene is Carl coming to terms with Rick's mistrust and overprotective nature. Imagine if the episode was centered around Carl trying to nurture/protect Rick, and Rick responded by questioning Carl's ability to do so. Suddenly, this episode makes sense. Carl can talk about Rick's inability to take care of others. Carl can be mad at his dumb dad for being authoritarian when he's physically incapacitated. Carl can say, "Remember all those times you didn't trust me? Now you have to." Then, when Carl explores and eats pudding and loses a shoe, he realizes that while he isn't a kid anymore, he still needs a community, i.e. his dad. He realizes that best intentions, like luring walkers away from the house, don't always play out favorably, and that maybe the same can be said for Rick's leadership and parenting. But no. Rick thinks Carl is careless, the end.
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Feb 10, 2014 21:42
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xxEightxx posted:I love the two follow up posts presuming a literal interpretation of the post you love. Based on the rest of the post, I'm not entirely sure it was a joke. Let's hope so! Surlaw posted:yes Carl being dumb and whiny was intentional. Nobody's questioning whether it was intentional. We're just asking for some context within the episode.
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Feb 11, 2014 02:49
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Surlaw posted:Carl thinks everyone he's spent the last year or two growing close to is dead, blames his dad, throws a fit, thinks he can make it on his own, learns that he can't. Which part needs more context? The bolded part. Why is Carl mad at his dad?
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Feb 11, 2014 02:57
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Surlaw posted:His dad was the de facto leader of the group through a number of bad decisions that led to the final conflict at the prison, several of which weren't really his fault but fell on his shoulders anyway. He failed to stop the Governor and everyone "died." It's not a logical response, it's an emotional one coming out of someone who just went through something horrible and needs someone to blame because he's human. But from where in the episode are you drawing this conclusion? And I guess my broader points: how does this make sense given the relationship already established between Rick and Carl in "Internment" and the rest of season 4? And how does this make sense with Rick in a near-death state? Maybe the answer is "angsty teenager," but I think that's weak writing in the context of the rest of the show. I also believe that the recurring theme of "Rick is leader, bad things happen, other characters rage against Rick" is uninteresting at this point in the series.
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Feb 11, 2014 03:10
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Surlaw posted:Carl literally says it. It's his whole monologue. It's the whole point of bringing up Shane. He's hurt, scared and lashing out and it makes him do and say some dumb things. It's less teenage angst and more scared child, even if he is A Man Now. Oof -- sorry, I didn't express myself clearly so that's my fault. Carl says those things in his monologue, yes, but I'm wondering how that actually fits into the rest of the episode. It just seems like a total copout to unload all of this on the audience with 5 minutes to go in the show. Instead, there's a bunch of imagery about Carl missing out on a normal childhood (wandering the neighborhood, sitting on the roof eating pudding, marveling at the teenager's room, looking at the video games, etc.) and that feels disjointed compared to what's actually, supposedly going on. And while the death of everyone else is certainly a game-changer, I don't think that the midseason finale and this episode properly set up Carl and Rick to regress to their relationship from two seasons ago. I understand your argument and agree with that being the writer's perspective as well, but we'll probably just have to agree to disagree on whether or not this is an effective piece of writing. edit: actually, I probably wouldn't be this annoyed by this storyline if it hadn't taken over an entire episode, so maybe that's my main complaint. i am the bird fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Feb 11, 2014 |
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Feb 11, 2014 03:32
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A back-half arc of Carol saving/finding everyone and amassing her own town/army, ending with her accepting Carl and Michonne into the fold and telling Rick to gently caress off would be amazing.
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Feb 11, 2014 19:42
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euphronius posted:It's not a documentary. How does the ghost in Hamlet work? It makes no sense. Horrible play. Hamlet is a witch doctor. Need I remind you of his interest in skulls?
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Feb 13, 2014 16:06
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-Blackadder- posted:I generally agree with this, especially lamenting the fact that Andrea and Tyreese's characters were hosed over pretty hard and it's a shame. And considering that Daryl pretty much is the show version of comic Andrea in nearly every way save gender and using a crossbow instead of a rifle, it's hard to argue the other point as well. However I think a big part of the problem, wasn't just Daryl, it was also that the writers were just not comfortable writing black or female characters. I made this point earlier in the thread, but if you look at just the first two seasons the treatment of the black and female characters is so loving obnoxious you almost believe it's meant to be a parody. And then there's Michonne in season 3. I still remember goons live posting "USE YOUR WORDS!!" every time she was on screen. Apparently intersectionality makes you a mute. This. The entire season spent at Hershel's farm was a clinic on how to write terrible women. There's literally a scene where the women go to the kitchen to fix food while the men debate the proper course of action. It's bizarre.
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Feb 18, 2014 15:51
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Crankit posted:My wish is that it turns out the south is the only place where Zombies are a problem. Like in the rest of the country there was an outbreak of zombies but they just loving dealt with it and it turns out that zombies and snow are like southern kryptonite. All the people of Georgia had to do was put different tyres on their cars and they would have survived the apocalypse. And D.C. is trying to fund a zombie clean-up policy but the evacuated southern politicians filibuster it because of big government feeding off the common man. A Tea Party protester stands in front of the White House holding a sign: "Who are the real zombies?"
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Feb 25, 2014 22:03
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Darko posted:Darabont had the right idea with a lot of flashbacks and shifting focuses (ie., if he did this episode, we would have seen the chaos in the club for the episode, and Daryl would have shown up in the last act or something to do some really quick development). AMC didn't want to do that because it was too expensive. We're stuck with mostly no flashbacks now. This is what I guess I don't understand. Flashbacks give them a great out for character development and a reprieve from constantly rehashing scary zombie scenarios. Why not use them? The Michonne one was weird as gently caress but it was far more interesting than anything else in that episode. One problem seems to be that they've hired writers who think that "zombie apocalypse" is the plot rather than the setting.
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Mar 5, 2014 02:59
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I can't decide if the writers think the audience is stupid (possible and accurate) and needs hand-holding to understand character motivation, or if they're just bad at writing non-action/non-plot driven scenes. I'm fine with spending multiple episodes on character development, but give me something new and interesting and paced well. They spent 4 episodes doing what they could have done in 3. There's no reason why Michonne/Carl/Rick or Beth/Darryl each needed 60 minutes of story for what has actually happened thus far. Even the Maggie/Bob/Sasha group has already repeated its story: Maggie will stop at nothing to find Glenn, but she realizes she needs help from other people; Bob, who used to be depressed and alone, has a revelation about being given another chance to find a purpose in this world; Sasha is in despair, but she reluctantly fights on.
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Mar 10, 2014 15:55
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Blazing Ownager posted:Character development and dialogue are really good things, but ask yourself one question: What more have we learned about anyone from this? Do you know more about Maggie now than you did before this began? Or Glenn? Or Rick? Or Michonne? Or Daryl? To me it feels like I've learned exactly zero from all of it about their characters, with no new insights or evolution to them. Because character development actually does require stuff to happen. Yeah, this is basically my point. Even the best scene of Daryl thus far (where he blames himself for the prison disaster) is basically a rehash of when he blames himself for Sophia and becomes an angry introvert with no cause for living.
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Mar 10, 2014 23:17
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And running Terminus will be a man with an eyepatch... over his left eye.
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Mar 12, 2014 00:46
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euphronius posted:The car was driven by Littlefinger and Beth is now ensconced in the Vale. I hope he embraces it, murders the leader, and becomes the new Bandit King. Like a Khal. And Beth can mount his stallion or whatever the gently caress.
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Mar 12, 2014 14:38
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The survivors are in purgatory and Terminus is a metaphor for heaven and hell.
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Mar 12, 2014 21:35
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euphronius posted:Also without the scripts we don't know what was written and what wasn't. As I've said before, I like your visual analysis. But, this is total nonsense. The dialogue is scripted. The action is scripted. The plot is scripted. We know this because most TV shows -- this one, in particular -- operate on scripts. TV is a visual medium but its foundation is words on paper. I can say it's bad writing because, for the most part, their attempts to humanize each character are extremely repetitive and reductive. I can say it's bad writing because the zombies operate as deus ex machinas to move the plot, and their 'rules' are totally arbitrary. I can say it's bad writing because most of the women are terrible female cliches and most of the people of color are lame racial tropes. I can say it's bad writing because sometimes it hinges on lame mysteries but other times it almost explicitly slaps you in the face in telling you not to care about those mysteries. I can say it's bad writing because some characterizations make no sense. Why are we supposed to sympathize with the governor's second arc when we know he's a murderer, torturer, and possible rapist? The tonal shifts are terrible. The good part is that they've created an interesting sandbox in which to play. This leads to the cool things you've identified, and makes it possible to have neat commentary on the human condition. There is a bunch of potential here, including some really good characters from time to time (Shane, Carol, Hershel). But poo poo, that doesn't mean I can't say that a good portion of the show is bad. Entertaining, sure because I wouldn't watch it otherwise... but also bad.
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Mar 13, 2014 23:56
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Surlaw posted:This part, at least, has been a lot less bad this season. It was super terrible early on. This is true. I'm harsh in my judgment because this season has been an improvement overall even if the last few episodes have been disappointing. Michonne, for instance, is a real person now. And as mentioned, Carol became a great character and hopefully continues to be one in the future episodes.
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Mar 14, 2014 00:30
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Irish Joe posted:Nothing offends me more than when black people are stereotyped as samurai. Until season 4, Michonne was an angry, exotic black woman who threatened white male authority and had literally no other motivation or characterization. That's a lovely and embarrassing character.
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Mar 14, 2014 02:02
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nutranurse posted:e.g., that awful scene back on herschel's farm where all the women went to cook/do laundry/clean while all the men went to do the planning. Juxtapose that with the Season 1 scene of the women doing laundry (and loudly questioning why there were assigned gender roles) and cringe even harder.
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Mar 14, 2014 02:16
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Tyreese learns Carol's secret, murders her, wears her corpse as zombie armor.
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Mar 14, 2014 19:31
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Surlaw posted:He's a dog now. The virus has mutated, The Walking Dog begins. The Wagging Dog -- the zombie apocalypse is a misdirect; men have always been zombies, and now they can feast with impunity.
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Mar 14, 2014 19:41
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In defense of the show, if you're looking for a plot driven zombie fiction then I'm not sure why or how you made it past season 2. This show has always been about the humans finding new ways to live, physically/emotionally/spiritually/communally/etc. We can always safely assume that the "plot" will be 'search for safe place, find conflict' then 'find safe place, but also new conflict' then 'leave now unsafe place, find new conflict' then 'search for new safe place' etc. Knowing Terminus or DC as the next 'places' isn't really the point of the show. radical meme posted:I'm one of the "self-admit to just hate watching" people. So much so that back in the Fall, when Rick left Carol stranded, I deleted the rest of the episodes from my DVR and haven't watched it since. A year or two from now, I may binge watch some more but that did it for me on the weekly grind of watching the same people make the same mistakes and do the same stupid things over and over and over. Before Carol was screwed over, I was already disappointed in the stupidity of the Fall episodes with the whole swine flu, we've got pigs sick but, nobody ever once bothered to ask Hershel, whose a drat vet by the way, to take a look at the sick pigs. It was just too hard to be emotionally invested in a show with people that dumb. Binge watching seems like the only way I could enjoy this show anymore since for a while I've felt that if these people are the future of the human race, then let it all end. I'm legitimately convinced that the writers forgot Herschel was a vet and just started treating him like a doctor.
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Mar 16, 2014 18:49
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Pretty dramatic shift from the past few episodes. The only misfire was the ending voiceover, which was super lame and totally unnecessary given what we saw. Poor Tyreese. 
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Mar 18, 2014 02:23
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Austrian mook posted:I wonder, when it does, how this show is going to end? Season 16, on the eve of Carl's re-election as president of New America. They solve the zombie crisis in season 7. Seasons 8-12 are about cleaning up, putting down the roving groups of cannibals and bandits, rebuilding a capital city, and beginning a new political, social, and economic era. Seasons 13-16 cover Carl's first term where he has to centralize power and begin to establish foreign relations with other states in reconstruction. The final episode takes place during the retirement ceremony of Five Star General Daryl Dixon. "You've served your country well, General Dixon." "Ah, mah time is up. I ain't your lackey no more." "Daryl... You also served your friends well." "Cut that poo poo out." "So, what do you think you'll do now that you have some free time?" "You know, I think I'll go... camping." The two share a laugh, then embrace. <guitar riff> <fade to black> Post-credit scene is Daryl being eaten by a zombie, played by Robert Kirkman.
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Mar 18, 2014 14:58
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Cannibalism is a wild scheme for a group that apparently has plenty of resources, including a garden, a secure shelter, and enough people/power to leave signs up all over the surrounding area. A people farm seems totally inefficient and unreliable.
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Mar 24, 2014 15:58
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Am I the only one hoping Terminus is an actual safe haven? It'd be interesting to see how relationships develop in a relatively harmless environment, at least for awhile. At the very least, it would make the 'go to DC' decision have some weight and we could lose characters based on that rather than "oh, they're dead now."
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Mar 24, 2014 18:47
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SocketWrench posted:I'm fairly certain just because they are cannibals doesn't mean they only are because there isn't any food. They can always be sick bastards much like someone that keeps a wall of aquarium heads Yeah, that's fair in this universe, I guess. I think the ratio of crazy people to sane people is incredibly inflated, but I guess it's a TV show after all. fake edit for this thread: quote:I think [fictional thing] in The Walking Dead is [unbelievably fictional], but I guess it's a TV show after all.
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Mar 25, 2014 12:45
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How much meat can one person produce, I wonder? Like, how much is needed to support this (possibly not real) cannibal society? Given how much time has passed, I'm still flabbergasted that this could be a viable source of food production. Someone earlier in the thread noted the ease of access to this place. That seems key, but maybe not as a cannibalist trap. Even cannibals wouldn't be dumb enough to have zero protection against a potential zombie horde, no? So what is it that makes this place safe if not its actual walls?
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Mar 25, 2014 20:47
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JEEVES420 posted:It is really disturbing how many of you are hoping for cannibalism when there has been next to no evidence of that is what they are walking into. Something is really wrong with you people. I don't want it to be cannibalism because I think that's incredibly stupid.
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Mar 25, 2014 21:04
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Season 4 just went up on Netflix. I'm excited to watch Internment again as I think it's easily one of the best episodes they did. I'm less excited to roll through the latter half of the season as a refresher for season 5. Despite being generally apathetic about the show, I can't quit it for some reason.
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Sep 28, 2014 23:21
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I guess I am excited for tonight. Last season had some good moments, but it was still bogged down by moronic issues from season 3. Now they're striking into new territory with a relatively solid cast.
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Oct 12, 2014 19:03
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I'm excited for the Governor arc this season.
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Oct 12, 2014 22:41
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Bob better not die. I'll take Bob-torso as a character over most of these jabronis.
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Oct 20, 2014 17:36
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Libertine posted:I'm curious to hear the hypothesis around long-term survival potential for a one-legged man who was bitten by a sewer zombie. Magic amputation powers prevented the spread of infection ala Hershel.
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Oct 20, 2014 17:41
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It's shocking that this show has three nuanced black male characters. I don't think we've talked about this enough. Killing Bob is a loving travesty considering everybody else -- Tyreese, Gabriel, and Goonie McGoonerson excluded -- is some version of loving Rambo.
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Oct 21, 2014 21:41
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precision posted:Dude did you see what Tyreese did to those zombies? WITH HIS BARE HANDS! Yeah, I mean, everyone is a zombie slaughtering machine, but Tyreese's murder-guilt is interesting (much like Bob's survivor-guilt or Gabriel's apparent let-my-parish-die-guilt). Conversely, none of the women are interesting right now. Carol somehow turned into Superman MacGuyver and then there's a bunch of other women, somewhere, somehow, maybe? Instead of killing someone, maybe just give a non-Carol woman some significant screen time? edit: of course, it's only been 2 episodes so this could all be addressed pretty soon! i am the bird fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Oct 21, 2014 |
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Oct 21, 2014 21:54
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Maybe Carol and Daryl will drive off into the sunset and spinoff into another show. Something something Team Caryl/Darol.
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Oct 22, 2014 18:25
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