the walking dead

I stopped watching this show so long ago, yet one of my greatest fears is that the final season will be amazing and I'll have to sit through 5+ seasons of shit.

I will say that parts of 6 and almost all of 7 and 8 were tough to get through. the story just seemed to go nowhere. sure you have to flesh things out a bit more for a tv show or movie but man they really dragged some of it out.

perhaps it is all the changes this season, but it does feel like a show worthy of my time again. there is also a fair amount of uncertainty again. that said there have been a few moments this season where the annoyance factor was raised.

i actually forgot about michonne's scar, even though like you said they basically had a football announcer pop in and draw a circle around it. for whatever reason i kind of assumed that was from some kind of surgery? maybe because it was a perfect X? i dunno. honestly if they're gonna do that big of a time jump i hope they just stick with it for better or worse. if they start showing prolonged flashbacks for every character i'm gonna be annoyed tbh

agreed. they can still address without giving an entire episode to it. just a minute or two glance at what was the cause/result.

I was also confused with the richonne baby at first. I though it might be her imagination showing her son before this all started. it now makes a lot more sense she was talking to him and not just rick/carl. I still feel like that could be the play, its just her mind playing tricks on her. the woman outside looked confused. who knows if it was because she saw the kid, or saw michonne acting out like a person was there.

hmm. that would be a dirty trick, since the shot from outside is clearly meant to portray the POV of prison girl. but as we've seen many times, this show is not above playing dirty tricks on the audience

the other thing is, it's supposed to have been like 7 years right? judith certainly seems to have gone from like 2 to at least 9 years old. but the more i think about it (and this is just from my recollection of a 2 second scene so i could be wrong) that kid in the window looked no more than 3 or 4 years old, which wouldn't align with it being rick's, right?

my wife mentioned that as well. have they addressed the exact length of the big time jump yet?

the first was 18 months in episode one if memory serves. the second episode then jumped 30 days to deal with work on the bridge. after you know who left...I am not sure how much time has passed. was Judith that young before? I thought when they defeated the saviors she was like 4 years old or so. so 5 years might work for the overall jump...or did they say in the last episode how long it has been in totality?

I sometimes look at the timeline on wiki and it seems really hard to imagine, but does make some good points about certain key moments. so who knows.

there is a theory floating around that Negan is the father. I know it sounds crazy, but you know---this show right.? perhaps in a comforting moment she was weak is what is being suggested here and there. I doubt it.

my interest is on who runs Hilltop. We know it is a female leader, but did Maggie stay or has Enid or someone else stepped up?

did some quick googling so if you want to keep speculating don't read

 time jump is 6 years. kid is real and is indeed rick's (seeing a picture now he looks older than i remembered him looking and could easily be 5+) 

as far as maggie, that actress is leaving the show too, right? maybe they used the jump to just have her disappear to be explained later? seems like kind of an anticlimactic end for such a major character but giving her a similar send-off to rick at this point would seem cumbersome/redundant

also i guess you could view her story with negan and deciding not to kill him as a kind of finale of sorts

speaking of that plot, do you think they'll ever acknowledge that daryll is now basically responsible for rick's death on top of glenn's?? without his ruse trying to distract rick, he likely isn't put in the position of having to try to divert that herd by himself at the last second, right?

good question. there were moments where Daryll did blame himself (mostly when he was locked away at Sanctuary). I believe he brought his guilt to Maggie and she did absolve him of it. I think his character at his core is a genuine good person but never sees the big picture. I do suspect he will blame himself for Rick's removal (I will not call it a death since we did not see it, they already got us once with Glenn).

thanks for the info on the time jump. so that would have made Judith in the 3 year old range. so the new addition could be around 5 years old. I know it is so trivial being a tv show but I wish these details were addressed more directly

Oh I don’t even think they’re pretending ricks dead. Not sure if you missed the very end of that episode, but he gets pulled out of the river by trash lady and flown out in a helicopter. also I think the producers have confirmed that he’s going to have like a spin-off miniseries or made for TV movie or something?

Anyway, I guess that last episode answers the Maggie question. I wonder if they’re leaving these characters alive and just “gone” because they want to bring them back for whenever this show actually ends? Otherwise pretty uneventful episode. I like the touch of having Jesus listening to the Jesus and Mary chain tho

mid-season finale was pretty good despite it basically just building to a reveal that comic readers already know. i don't like that they killed off jesus, though. i guess the actor wasn't happy with the portrayal so it may have been necessary, but ironically this season they seemed to finally be getting the character right, so it's a shame. especially right on the heels of writing off rick and maggie (and honestly, with Danai Gurira having a budding film career i wouldn't be surprised if she peaces soon too).

saw the teaser for 2nd half of the season. you know alpha and beta looked pretty good.

oh also I forgot to mentioned earlier I know Rick was not killed off, but was just saying it because of how Daryll and other characters perceive things after.

I have yet to see any of the second half episodes. sean, are they maintaining momentum from the first half?

about as good as you'd expect really. they're following the comics fairly closely with the whisperers story thus far. maggie is gone, though she's not dead. she just...left? anyway, because they're following the comics it's obvious who they are using as proxies for the comic characters who are dead/gone. daryll is the new rick (makes sense -- he's a main character who has no need to fill a comics role since he's show-only), the kid from the kingdom is the new carl (makes way less sense, since he was not at all a main character that people care about [as evidenced by me not being able to remember his name even], plus they're trying to force a connection with daryll but it's brand new and obviously nothing compared to a father/son like rick and carl), and Tara is the new maggie (i'm ok with this, but i assume others hate it. i never minded tara tho). michonne has barely appeared, and they've announced that the actress is leaving next season (as was obvious), so alexandria has oddly not factored into anything. but i honestly don't even mind that because it's meant the story is way more focused, which has been an issue on this show in the past

but i mean it's still not Good, per se. honestly, it's hard for me to tell if i'm only still interested just to see how they adapt comics stuff rather than in the show itself

the character of tara never irked me, but sometimes the actress just did not have the chops in certain episodes. sure the show is not a showcase for great acting/writing but most did usually outperform the script. I hope to catch up this weekend.

not sure if you bothered catching up with this (or if anyone else still watches), but i'm not liking the direction they're going with the whisperers now after initially following the comics pretty closely. without really spoiling anything, they're basically turning it into just another battle with yet another boring adversary. part of what made the (not sure i even need to spoiler tag anything on this board anymore, but)  heads on the spikes  thing so shocking was that it was so unnecessary and out of nowhere. but now, they've essentially attacked the whisperers first and for all intents and purposes, kidnapped the leader's daughter (whereas in the books, alpha tells her to leave). it also means they've sacrificed the plot point where she shows rick (in this case it would be daryll) the giant herd as a warning. and while i'm actually glad they didn't go the route of having lydia be a routine victim of rape (at least not yet), starting another war because her mom slaps her every once in a while just doesn't track as much. also, i'm not sure how old she's supposed to be in the show, but she certainly seems to be in her upper teens at the very least and therefore it's a little infantilizing that they insist she needs "saving." i dunno, maybe i'm reading a bit too much into that last part, but still. can't say i'm happy with how the story has gone the last few episodes after a somewhat promising start to the arc

still have not had a chance to see any of the second half episodes yet. we move in about 6 weeks and time is just slipping away by doing other stuff. I am looking forward to seeing where things go, but not as a show diehard fan anymore. more as a guy who likes the universe mostly via the comic and has an interest in how things can differ/playout.

I am more interested in seeing dwight on ftwd though. he first season was very slow, season 2 ramped up towards the end. season 3 was great in every way, good character additions, interesting story. just good stuff. season 4 introduced some characters I like but  after nick's death  and the constant time jumps it took a big step back. it provides a different enough mood from the main show. so I stay in that universe but get some different stories.

is that where he is? i don't watch ftwd and was wondering why they would get rid of him at the same time they're shedding pretty much the entire main cast to other projects anyway. still seems kind of short sighted when the main show is hardly the ratings juggernaut it once was, but i guess no one is going to stop watching over dwight

yeah it was recently announced, at least new to me. I guess at some point he and morgan will be together again. that could be a neat pairing since they are two of the better characters and actors between the two shows.

dwight leaving is tough, he is such a vital guy in the comics. truly rick's #2. I thought with rick leaving darryl and dwight would then have that dynamic.

plus you will have the Rick spinoff with Jadis at some point, and I am certain a Maggie/commonwealth miniseries will be in the works at some point.

maybe the end game is to converge all the shows at some point for a conclusion with final totality. I am giving the people behind all the shows too much credit thinking this.

a Maggie/commonwealth miniseries

see, with her i didn't get the impression that the intent was to make another spin off. especially since she has that (terrible looking) new show on another network. i figured she just wanted to do other things for a while without closing the door on ever coming back. if they truly were setting up a spin-off, they seriously botched the execution. why have her leaving be so unceremonious? why have her leave at the same time as rick? and why not announce any other project immediately after her last episode like they did with rick?

anyway, i finally got book 15 (i only read the comics when the new books are released, so i'm never totally caught up) and it looks like the next battle will be against...capitalism? if so i'm definitely here for it

the Maggie spinoff or event series is just speculation, but since Rick is getting one I think it is possible. again not seeing the second half of the season may change my thoughts on this.

as for the comics, I initially got introduced with the first compendium, but do like the smaller volumes better. they have larger panels which save my eyes big time. I am also behing on these as well. we move in roughly 6 weeks, once all unpacked I am looking forward to kicking back and catching up on a few things, this included.

i'm actually a few episodes behind now, but i just watched the "scars" one and (of fucking course) they did indeed devote an entire episode to explaining the scars no one cared about. and providing a reason for michonne's isolationism. but michonne has been featured so little this season that they didn't need to invent that trait in the first place, let alone later have to explain it. they would have been better served to use the time with the character in the actual current story instead of wasting time on flashbacks that merely circled her back to her initial beliefs anyway. and creating that child murderer group for a one-off episode was stupid and indicative of what this show often gets wrong. for one thing, enough already with the "look how depraved people become when society breaks down!" it's not deep or profound at this point, it's redundant and boring. the show in general tends to go the sensationalist route for no good reason. in the comics, characters do evil things but you generally understand their reasons at least. and even if you don't, they at least have reasons. but "formerly average normal woman is suddenly teaching children to literally brand and murder pregnant women who were once their close friends for no reason" just doesn't ring true in the least. like, they literally didn't even attempt to explain what the reason for the branding could possibly be. it was literally just so that they could show the scars in the present and have something to "explain" in a flashback. and because that all feels cartoonish and unearned, michonne's being forced to kill a bunch of kids doesn't have the impact they intended it to

so, finally caught up to *that* moment, and i gotta say once again i'm scratching my head at their choices.

 so i totally get them not wanting to kill ezekiel or rosita, since they're some of the only characters left that anyone cares about, but why did they set up tara and henry as de facto "replacements" for major comic characters and then almost immediately kill them off? so now we have to figure out someone else to take maggie and carl's plotlines? (i assume daryll will continue to be the "rick"). and on top of that they've now spent a whole season making these people major characters just to kill them off. it's like they wanted to have their cake and eat it too. they wanted to have the head-spikes have the emotional weight that it did in the books without having to kill off even more beloved characters, but they've actually ended up with the short end of the stick on both fronts. they've wasted a year that they could have spent developing other characters and it wouldn't have affected this moment at all. if anyone cares at all about tara and enid, it's probably just because they've been there so long. there was no need to thrust them further to the front just to kill them. and henry, that poor shit now appears to have only been a pawn to advance lydia's character development more than his own. 

anyway, kinda rambling a bit for a show i don't even care about anymore. definitely weary of where they're gonna go with this now that they've botched it up already. frankly, if they don't kill alpha this season, i'll be pissed (and i know it's already aired, but like i said i haven't bothered keeping current). the thing that keeps the comic somewhat fresh is that they at least try to switch things up from time to time. having alpha established as some next big foe only to have her die almost immediately was a genuine surprise (and beta's death, while much later, was similarly sudden and anticlimactic in a good way). but knowing the show they'll probably drag this out for the entire next season

time for me to catch up so I can read what you post without feat of spoilers.

watched the finale. i actually didn't mind it much as a standalone episode (aside from the dumb pointless scene with alpha), but it doesn't bode well for next season. seems they're hell-bent on just making the whisperers yet another big baddie for them to fight for a season and never deviating from that formula. i'm bored with it already and it basically hasn't even started. they've also made it so the negan twist can't really happen. even if it plays out similarly, his arc with judith has made it so it won't be surprising. he's already well into his redemption arc and has a vested interest in protecting the alexandria crew.

also, this seems totally unintentional but between beth and now lydia, the show has accidentally made daryll seem like an ephebophile

last night I watched the first episode of the second half of the season. it lost all the momentum built up from the first half. such a lame way to kill off Jesus. also the actress playing Lydia already annoys me, and Henry is boring as shit.

I did enjoy the scenes with Negan and Judith. I especially liked when he returned to sanctuary, and just the realization that there is nothing left for him. he had to stop for that stupid jacket and I did chuckle when he stepped out after the dag chase. it was not subtle as usual, that this is his redemption as a person. I am still curious enough to see where things go and see what characters get killed off.

watching as a casual viewer, fan of the overall universe. there were some seasons where it was cant miss original airing for me. those days are sadly never going to return.

@box elder

sean, only 2 episodes to go. I finished watching the 'scars' episode last night. I thought everything in the episode could have been mentioned in a passing conversation and I would have known as much detail as the episode gave. you never introduce a group for half an episode and expect the viewer to care.

my gripes with the actress playing Lydia has been put to rest, she actually has done a good job. It was just the first episode where the character was insufferable to watch.the alpha and beta portrayals have been pretty good so far.

Henry is still the weakest link for me, I just dislike every second he is on screen. the guy conveys zero emotion no matter what is going on. It has been weird seeing a few things look like they may play out differently heading into the fair. I know what is coming in a sense but not sure which characters will be spared/executed at the end.

Judith in limited screen time has been one of the better performers this season. Also to my surprise Tara actually work at Hilltop in this take on the story. All in all even if the last couple of episodes disappoint, season 9 has been the best since 6 in my opinion. pretty low bar but it really felt like there were less standalone episodes this season, until 'scars' that is.

all caught up. I was a little disappointed in some of the selections they had for the big reveal shot. Sure more than half were throwaway characters. I really just wanted one true main character to be there and it did not happen.

guess my new found fondness of tara now is moot. Henry...finally. I do think just as a character arc to make Carol have to lose 2 children is pretty shitty.

yeah, like i said above, it seemed like they wanted that moment to be the gut punch it was in the books, but really couldn't spare any really important characters after the carl/rick/maggie exodus, so they spent the whole season trying to build up tara, enid, and henry enough that people would care the same. but in the end it failed on both fronts because it didn't have the desired impact and now they've wasted half a season focused on people that are just dead now