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Walking Dead Season 7 (No comic Spoilers)


Howdyphillip

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 I wanted to dislike this. I really hated the cliffhanger last year, and still feel like this would have been a better finale than an opening episode. With that said, this was nothing short of brilliant. Jeffrey Dean Morgan took Lucille and knocked it out of the park. This could have been absolutely cringe worthy with another actor, but instead, he sold his perspective. I bought him as a leader. I bought him as someone who could easily justify this brutality. He may just be the most terrifying villain that I can remember on TV because he absolutely 100% believes he is right. To tell you the complete truth, I'm not entirely convinced he isn't. If we would have started out Season 1 with the story of Negan, and never spent time with the characters we know, we might view this story in a completely different way. 

 The breaking of Rick Grimes, and the rest of these characters was believable as well. I have heard people referring to the graphic violence as gratuitous, but I can not disagree more. If we were not shown in detail what happened, I do not think his transference as a character would be in the least bit believable. 

 I'm still not convinced that we are going to have a very good season based on some of the shenanigans the writers have been willing to do. Glen's trashcan scene was superfluous, and unnecessary. If anything, it detracted from the emotional impact of tonight's episode because we have already resigned ourselves to his death in some way. The cliffhanger was still ridiculous and served nothing but disrupt the narrative. The only bright spot I can think of is that if this episode spotlights how well the acting will be, it still has a chance to redeem itself for some of its missteps. 

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I thought it was a good episode. I hated the cliffhanger part of last season, and was scared after the first few minutes of this season that they were going to wait until the end of the episode to show us who died.

I liked the way they did most of this episode, going to put most of it in spoiler tags since it's the first episode and people may have forgotten.

Spoiler

When he chose Abraham I wasn't shocked, I guess I only would have been shocked if it was Maggie or Carl. I had thought it was going to be Glen because Maggie is pregnant and I didn't think they would let them be happy. It was strange seeing Sasha and Rosita both reacting to Abraham dying and of course he gave one last one liner before dying.

Then when Darryl goes feral and it ends up costing Glen his life it was like damn, two for one episode. And again one last tear jerking one liner. So how moody and brooding will Darryl be for the rest of the time he is on the show knowing he caused Glen to be killed like that?

I wasn't surprised that Carl didn't get his arm chopped off, I mean he already has a damaged eye and then you would have to hide his arm for the rest of the time he is on the show, seems like a lot of work.

They definitely have set the mood to ultra dark now. After what they just experienced I can't see much optimism this season.

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Well, on Talking Dead, they said the next episode will have quite a bit of humor. Not sure if they were serious, or just teasing; but without getting into potentially spoilerish details, the clip they showed at the end had Carol and Morgan in another, apparently thriving, community.

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9 hours ago, Howdyphillip said:

 
 The breaking of Rick Grimes, and the rest of these characters was believable as well. I have heard people referring to the graphic violence as gratuitous, but I can not disagree more. If we were not shown in detail what happened, I do not think his transference as a character would be in the least bit believable. 
 

It was certainly an eye-popping scene.  :smoking:

Was very disturbing though, I guess after months of not watching the show I forget how brutally violent it is.  

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I see my own response to the opening is reflected in the lack of comments two days later.

Sunday came and went and I was still ambivalent about the show. Had my wife not suggested we watch it ondemand last night, I would've been content not watching it. 

The episode itself was well done. Rick's pain was heartbreaking to watch. JDM did a powerful job with Negan. I just found I didn't care because I've lost faith in the showrunners. 

My wife paced the room as she watched, not being able to watch as Rick was given the choice to hack his own son's arm off. If her response afterwards was any indication, she's done. It was too bleak.

Had this been the finale, I think I'd be in here praising how well they executed the raw emotions in a post apocalyptic world. But I feel more apathy after the rug pull.

Don't worry. I won't be here every week talking about how much I dislike it now. I hate that.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Myrddin said:

I see my own response to the opening is reflected in the lack of comments two days later.

Sunday came and went and I was still ambivalent about the show. Had my wife not suggested we watch it ondemand last night, I would've been content not watching it. 

The episode itself was well done. Rick's pain was heartbreaking to watch. JDM did a powerful job with Negan. I just found I didn't care because I've lost faith in the showrunners. 

My wife paced the room as she watched, not being able to watch as Rick was given the choice to hack his own son's arm off. If her response afterwards was any indication, she's done. It was too bleak.

Had this been the finale, I think I'd be in here praising how well they executed the raw emotions in a post apocalyptic world. But I feel more apathy after the rug pull.

Don't worry. I won't be here every week talking about how much I dislike it now. I hate that.

 

 

I marathoned seasons 1-4 on Netflix and it wasn't until Season 5 came out that I began the week-to-week slog of watching TWD.  And I think that is about the time where my opinion of it started to decrease a bit as well.  I think a large part of it, for me anyway, is that the constant cliffhangers and incessant commercial breaks (seriously, worse than football) make the show feel disjointed and kind of annoying when you are hit with a commercial whenever there is a moment of tension / have to wait a week (or until the next season) to have major plot points resolved.  It's much better when you can watch without commercials and just go ahead and play the next episode.  I have considered DVR'ing but not watching TWD until the entire season is over and then going back and watching all of it over the course of a week or so, but I lack the discipline to follow through on that plan + spoilers abound.  

A contributing factor is that the show doesn't seem to be working its way to some sort of resolution.  There's a sense that they are milking it just a little too much.  I was shocked last year when I heard that they were talking about going to 12 seasons or something.  How much more can the characters really take at that point?  And at what point does the shock value begin to wear off?  How many cycles of safe place, everything is shit, safe place, everything is shit are we going to have?  

Anyway, I also agree that I don't like it when people come into the thread just to bitch about the show so I'll limit that, and I still like it overall, but I kind of wish the whole thing was completed and I could just watch it all at once.

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21 hours ago, S John said:

A contributing factor is that the show doesn't seem to be working its way to some sort of resolution.  There's a sense that they are milking it just a little too much.  I was shocked last year when I heard that they were talking about going to 12 seasons or something.  How much more can the characters really take at that point?  And at what point does the shock value begin to wear off?  How many cycles of safe place, everything is shit, safe place, everything is shit are we going to have?  

 

Well, one thing they could be doing is setting up a new world for the group to live in. I mean, the graphic novels are still being written, so as long as people are still consuming the show why would they end it? Some shows I feel do need to end because of the type of show they are and how the writers and such move it along. This new world with Negan and King whoever could be a show reset. Whether people will still care and watch it remains to be seen.

Most people I talk to IRL about the show don't say, man I wish the show would end, they say, man I wish the season was longer.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 25.10.2016 at 10:21 PM, S John said:

I marathoned seasons 1-4 on Netflix and it wasn't until Season 5 came out that I began the week-to-week slog of watching TWD.  And I think that is about the time where my opinion of it started to decrease a bit as well.  I think a large part of it, for me anyway, is that the constant cliffhangers and incessant commercial breaks (seriously, worse than football) make the show feel disjointed and kind of annoying when you are hit with a commercial whenever there is a moment of tension / have to wait a week (or until the next season) to have major plot points resolved.  It's much better when you can watch without commercials and just go ahead and play the next episode.  I have considered DVR'ing but not watching TWD until the entire season is over and then going back and watching all of it over the course of a week or so, but I lack the discipline to follow through on that plan + spoilers abound.  

A contributing factor is that the show doesn't seem to be working its way to some sort of resolution.  There's a sense that they are milking it just a little too much.  I was shocked last year when I heard that they were talking about going to 12 seasons or something.  How much more can the characters really take at that point?  And at what point does the shock value begin to wear off?  How many cycles of safe place, everything is shit, safe place, everything is shit are we going to have?  

Anyway, I also agree that I don't like it when people come into the thread just to bitch about the show so I'll limit that, and I still like it overall, but I kind of wish the whole thing was completed and I could just watch it all at once.

I agree with the marathoning, I watched 1-3 in about a week and actually thought season 2 was the best of the bunch. I would be ok with stretching it to 12 seasons if they don't do that dumpster-bs again. I'm one of the few people who liked the cliffhanger last season, but Glenn dying this time didn't really have an impact on me other than going "It's about damn time". So, the conditions under which 12 seasons would work for me are:

- no more fake-deaths

- explore this whole Negan-thing over more than a season, since it's kind of interesting to see Rick not be in charge

- don't spend one episode over here and the next one over there, just merge all the characters together. I don't want to sit through a pointless Abraham-and-Sascha-are-hiding-in-a-house-episode again, those are lame

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5 hours ago, Criston of House Shapper said:

I don't want to sit through a pointless Abraham-and-Sascha-are-hiding-in-a-house-episode again, those are lame

I don't really mind a bit of group splitting, actually, as long as there are things happening with both groups.  When everybody is together and the plot focuses on just a few of the mains, it just seems weird that some characters get completely ignored for long stretches.

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11 hours ago, The Mance said:

I don't really mind a bit of group splitting, actually, as long as there are things happening with both groups.  When everybody is together and the plot focuses on just a few of the mains, it just seems weird that some characters get completely ignored for long stretches.

I don't mind so much splitting the gang up, as long as the show checks in with everyone each episode. Kind of like GoT did it in the early seasons. I just tend to not care as much about people I don't see for a month and they rarely do anything worth an entire episode with the characters they split from the main group.

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Could anyone tell what was going on in the fenced area of walkers and sweatsuited prisoners?  It seemed like the walkers were being managed or sorted in some way but I really couldn't tell.

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1 hour ago, The Mance said:

Could anyone tell what was going on in the fenced area of walkers and sweatsuited prisoners?  It seemed like the walkers were being managed or sorted in some way but I really couldn't tell.

No idea, I kept thinking that it would come to me but it never did. I guess we learned that if you put a bucket over their heads they are more manageable? Maybe they put a few new ones in there daily to make those people work or die?

Another episode where you only get one or two people. Don't think I like that very much.

This season has been wild swings from one episode to the next. We went from holy hell brutal bat beat down episode to happy go lucky lets play with a tiger episode to psychological torture episode.

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2 hours ago, The Mance said:

Could anyone tell what was going on in the fenced area of walkers and sweatsuited prisoners?  It seemed like the walkers were being managed or sorted in some way but I really couldn't tell.

I presume it is like La Colonia in Fear the Walking Dead, just an area of walkers as a protective barrier for anyone trying to attack.  Like guard dogs.

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I think it is also a punishment for those who cross Neegan to get put out there as walkers.  The term 'on the fence' was used a few times in a threatening way, and at the end the guy that burned face guy shot was put out there.  As far as the 'herders' it sure seemed like they were out there for more than just chaining up the dead, but I couldn't quite figure that out either.  At first I thought it was some kind of training, but more likely its a punishment in itself.  

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Slightly off topic, but what would be the endgame scenario for this series? In most shows that are not sitcoms there is a large plot that eventually gets resolved. Not so much here, we are mostly following the adventures of Rick's group.  How do you end a show like this, without either finding a cure or killing off all characters? 

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18 hours ago, House Balstroko said:

Slightly off topic, but what would be the endgame scenario for this series? In most shows that are not sitcoms there is a large plot that eventually gets resolved. Not so much here, we are mostly following the adventures of Rick's group.  How do you end a show like this, without either finding a cure or killing off all characters? 

Maybe with all the corpses from the initial global apocalypse finally decomposing, and the survivors having established routines/cultural rituals/etc that prevent, or at least limit the likelihood of, new waves of mass reanimation.  

At this point its really just a waiting game for everyone that has survived this long.  Eventually all the current walkers will decompose to a point where locomotion is no longer possible, and then it will just be a matter of monitoring the sick, injured and elderly until they pass.  

 

That, or the virus mutates away from human vectors.

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I think the only way to end it is to have them finish an arc and then jump ahead to an epilogue set years later.   So if they wanted to end after the current arc, they would build up to overthrowing Neegan and then show an epilogue with grownup Judith saying that was the turning point for  them reestablishing civilization or at least a stable/safe community (with walkers just being a part of the life cycle that is under control).

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After this episode, I have to join the minority and say that I find TV version of Negan really boring. His slow, meandering monologues that are just rehashes of each other. And, this may sound weird, but he doesn't feel threatening at all to me. Yes, he offed two main characters in the first episode, but that was done with a six month build-up. Since then, he's just been smirking and making idle threats.

I love the comic book version for his black humor and zany outbursts, but this version is just too monotonous for me to like.

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On ‎11‎/‎12‎/‎2016 at 8:35 PM, House Balstroko said:

Slightly off topic, but what would be the endgame scenario for this series? In most shows that are not sitcoms there is a large plot that eventually gets resolved. Not so much here, we are mostly following the adventures of Rick's group.  How do you end a show like this, without either finding a cure or killing off all characters? 

I have maintained that we will find out that newborns are not infected and are immune to the virus. That the current humans will all turn as they die but will eventually be bred out with children as the new hope.

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