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The Walking Dead Season 7 (Comic Spoilers) What? Was the joke that bad?


The BlackBear

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On 11/15/2016 at 3:34 AM, Nictarion said:

Rick has two children  (and many others he cares about) to look out for. Carl was the main reason Negan was able to break Rick in the premiere. Dwight's wife was a similar situation. People are willing to work for Negan to protect their loved one's.  And the rest are just bad people that are enjoying themselves. 

I agree with this.

One of my observations is that with the exception of a few genuine psychos, by and large most of Negan's men behave almost like robots. Even with the murders of of Glenn and Abraham, the background characters were quite grim. Other than Simon, there wasn't any real chortling or gloating, (and even he behaved liked some macabre poet).

At the end, when they left the group and took pictures of the bodies of Glenn and Abraham, (now we know why those photos were above the beds in of the sleeping men in that outpost), it was eerily silent, like some of these men have been in the same position as Ricks group.

As for the sociopaths though, Negan probably does hold them check, so it's a double-edged sword.:dunno:

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14 hours ago, HokieStone said:

LOL...I see last episode seemed to break the will of people wanting to discuss the show any more.

Yeah, it seems like overall enthusiasm for the show is waning. I mean, it has been for several seasons I think, but TWD threads have always been busier. 

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20 hours ago, HokieStone said:

LOL...I see last episode seemed to break the will of people wanting to discuss the show any more.

Not only that, but they stopped watching it too. Ratings are  WAAAY down. Include me in that list. I didn't watch episode 2 until episode 3 was at least available too. And similarly, I've skipped the last episode until we at least have the main story continuing again. Then I'll watch both together.

This jumping around between 3 different storylines is just crap. And viewers agree, judging by the ratings plunge.

Furthermore, the Negan storyline is boring. As one article put it, his faux-Tarantino like monologues are excruciatingly boring. He is a flat, one dimensional villain, and they are dragging his repetitive speeches out because they banked on it being a hit, but it is not translating well from the comic book to the screen.

And his situation is not helped by the predictability of the future plot. We KNOW he will remain a villain for at least this Season and likely next. We KNOW there has to be a slow buildup before he gets overthrown. So we KNOW Rick and co will start off subdued and whipped, and then gradually start building a fight back.

So there is zero unpredictability in any given episode. We always knew Rick was not going to bash his head in with Lucille in the Alexandria visit. So any supposed anticipation in that episode was fake. Negan HAS to stay top dog for the foreseeable future, so we know we are in for a long haul of bullshit psycho analysis of the heroes' state of mind, and a gradual, boring build up to eventual war.

And lastly, I think the Showrunners seriously misjudged what made this Show appealing. It was the visceral and very vivid immediate survival type of experience, which meant that any person watching was thinking "how would I survive that, what would I do to get out of the city / get to the hills / find supplies / create a sanctuary out in the woods etc. These days the closest you get to that are the occasional supply runs, and even these have become boring.

People don't watch Walking Dead for the political maneuvering or grand strategic campaigns. They watch it for the lone survivor type of experience, wondering what choices they would make to survive from day to day.

I think the "expanded world" that the Showrunners are so excited about will paradoxically make a large chunk of the Show's regular viewership lose interest. The formula has changed, and I don't think the new formula will work for many of the core viewership from Seasons 1 through to the arrival at Alexandria.

Either they have to get the guys back on the road or in a small group on the farm type of situation, or this Show is going to become something very different from that which attracted its fans in the first place.

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S7E5 - "Go Getters" aka "Skater's Paradise"
*This episode also could've been titled--The Wrath of Rhee. I dig this girl power thing going on with Mags, Enid, and Sasha.

*Huzzah for more Steven Ogg, aka Lil' Negan.

*Gregory is such a douchebag. 

*I like how they're going to go there with the Carl infiltrating the Savior's base arc from the comics. Adding Jesus to the mix makes Carl's survival more plausible and gives a twist for comic fans--something this show excels at. Looking forward to those Negan and Carl scenes from the comic showing up. Especially now knowing some of Negan's backstory in the comics , it gives a new dimension to how Negan relates to teens. (Not in that way, you pervs!)

19 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Not only that, but they stopped watching it too. Ratings are  WAAAY down. Include me in that list. I didn't watch episode 2 until episode 3 was at least available too. And similarly, I've skipped the last episode until we at least have the main story continuing again. Then I'll watch both together.

This jumping around between 3 different storylines is just crap. And viewers agree, judging by the ratings plunge...

The ratings drop isn't surprising, and although S7E5 was the lowest rated episode since S3, this EW article explains ratings are down across the board for all shows in the USA--even our beloved NFL is seeing a ratings dive. I'd imagine TWD was hit harder because most Americans want an escape to a happier, non-dystopian world in their TV viewing after the election.TWD is bordering too close to reality for roughly 64 million Americans at the moment.

As for me, I'm loving this season. It's pretty damn interesting seeing these four different communities existing in the same TV world. I can see how this would be a turn-off for some viewers like @Free Northman Reborn --our main characters spread out yet again over four different areas, and possibly this is contributing to the ratings decline, too. However, I'm loving it. Four realms to keep up with ain't shit to any GoT fan.

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2 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

And Rosita and Carol.  

By the way, has Tara been written out of the show?  And Heath, too, I guess.  

Their storyline will be on tomorrow night.  I can't even remember what the hell they were doing.

Looks like Rick and Aaron will be hunting for something "interesting" for Negan.  What to get for the man who has everything? 

Yeah, last episode wasn't brilliant but they're just building up the plotlines for these different factions.  I still enjoy the show as much as I always have. I know the show isn't an Emmy award winning drama but I like the plethora of characters, the villains, and seeing where the show goes.  A few people at work watch it as well and it's fun to predict where things are going.  The people who religiously bitch about it confuse me because you'd think they'd just dedicate their time to something that doesn't frustrate them on a Sunday night. Sounds like a god awful way to end your weekend, really.

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On 11/26/2016 at 0:14 PM, l2 0 5 5 said:

Their storyline will be on tomorrow night.  I can't even remember what the hell they were doing...

Ditto. When I saw Tara wash up on some beach in last week's upcoming episode preview I was surprised to see her. With all that has been going on since S6E16 I genuinely forgot about her. Curious to find out what she's been up to.

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That was legitimately one of the worst episodes of this series. Why? Why was it written and aired?

EDIT:

Two more things.  1) I recognize that the actor who plays Tara was pregnant but Jesus couldn't they hide it any better?  They did a great job doing that with Sasha earlier in the series, kind of baffling that it was so obvious here.

2) Is Tara a racist?  I mean she sees a black zombie with dreads and immediately assumes it's Heath you know despite those people having different body types and genders and looking nothing alike beyond those two things.

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Wow...that was...not good.  I guess it's been so long since we've seen her, that I forgot how Tara acts...but I don't really remember the wise cracks from before.  If they're going to make her into that...at least give her good jokes.  At least she ended up back in Alexandria, so we don't have yet another separate character to keep track of.  Of course, there's the missing Heath. 

I really dislike jumping from location to location.  You introduce a guy with a tiger to the show...and then don't show him for 4 or 5 episodes?

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^ Yeah, I don't really like the one-character, one-location episodes too much either. I'm sure it'll work better for binge watching though. 

I didn't mind the episode as much as those of you posting above me, but I do question if it makes sense to introduce another community at this point. Eventually, yes, other groups need to come into the picture, but it seems like too much for now. 

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18 hours ago, Slurktan said:

That was legitimately one of the worst episodes of this series. Why? Why was it written and aired?

EDIT:

Two more things.  1) I recognize that the actor who plays Tara was pregnant but Jesus couldn't they hide it any better?  They did a great job doing that with Sasha earlier in the series, kind of baffling that it was so obvious here.

2) Is Tara a racist?  I mean she sees a black zombie with dreads and immediately assumes it's Heath you know despite those people having different body types and genders and looking nothing alike beyond those two things.

From the angle the camera showed the zombie it definitely resembled Heath's appearance. Going from human to zombie leaves the appearance of the person distorted, clearly. Was that an exact resemblance of Heath? No, but it was the only black zombie that had dreadlocks in that area so can you blame her for looking? In a moment of panic and fight or flight, she notices that particular zombie, and looks at it longer than she did the white zombies. Is that racist? Don't be ridiculous.

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In a vacuum, I didn't hate the Tara episode as much as most seemed to.  Enjoyed her smartass remarks, and particularly the fish boat/larder business.  But Gimple's over-reliance on standalones is certainly getting grating.  I was happy when he took over as showrunner as he seemed to stabilize the narrative and clearly structure each season based on the comics.  However, this structure has pervaded almost into an insufferable procedural each half-season:  break-up the cast, fill the middle episodes with standalones, then finally revisit the obvious crescendo in the last 2 episodes when the dangling threads are streamlined/united.  I tend to think the sagging ratings have more to do with the overall decline in viewership this fall and fans' frustration with the Glenn bait-and-switch and subsequent Negan cliffhanger, but Gimple as a clear one-trick pony is what bothers me more than anything.  Makes me actually appreciate D&D for at least presenting a sprawling narrative.

BTW, Alanna Masterson was NOT pregnant during filming of the episode; she had the kid last November. 

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