[QUOTE=AMC]
The National Guard’s plan for the neighborhood is revealed; Travis and Madison make a difficult decision.
[/QUOTE]
Cobalt was the code name for this series during production. It also produces a lovely shade of blue, and was an active component in the doomsday bomb the mutants worshipped in Beneath the Planet of the Apes. 
In other news, the FTWD First Season will be a cheap DVD set, considering it’s only six episodes.
I wonder if anyone will ever want to buy or watch it more than once?
I found it less satisfying than last week’s episode… although still not actually BAD, per se.
I did not like the idiot lieutenant, but this week, he met an idiot’s fate, as per Lt. Neidermeyer, which I guess was appropriate for this particular Lieutenant. “I can do anything I want; I got GUNS!” Which he demonstrates when he insists that Travis fire a fifty caliber sniper rifle at a zombie. This lieutenant is too stupid to live.
We have a new black guy. Will he survive? Perhaps; he is most assuredly an asshole. On the other hand, he has tied his fate to Nick’s, which seems a bad idea, as last week, Nick made it clear he is the human equivalent of a cockroach; miserable, but likely to survive anything.
Ruben Blades has been given a whole lot to do, and plays it like a maestro. All hail Ruben Blades. There are other actors out there who weep to have a fraction of what Ruben Blades has been given to play with.
Altogether, this isn’t much more than a setup to our finale. Will Travis finally quit being an idiot? What will the military do to our neighborhood? What happened to Beard Guy from last episode? What will Black Guy and Junkie Kid do when push comes to shove? And what will happen to Ruben Blades’ daughter?
Sigh. This episode sets up more questions than it answered.
About the only character I’m liking is Ruben Blades’.
M e h -_-
Despite things happening, this episode was somehow boring to me. First, it was another episode without walkers. Sure, there was Kimberly, nd there were some in the building that the military guy got fragged in, and in the stadium, but none that our protagonists really had to deal with.
Where they might have shown something interesting, they instead show Travis sitting in the humvee looking constipated at the radio. I assume the team fragged their commander, but what happened to the other team that was “pinned down”? How does that happen, and how does a military squad fall to walkers? Would have been interesting to see.
Why does the svengali black guy say that he needs someone with Nick’s talents? Talents for what? Being a heroin addict and throwing up on the floor?
If Ruben Blades was worried about his wife, what was with the slow sadistic torture? It was more like he wanted to get his mind off his troubles than it was that he had any urgency to save his wife.
The franchise also took another extraordinarily ham fisted stab at addressing class differences, to no interesting outcomes. It did seem odd that such income disparities existed in their neighborhood. Perhaps I missed that they left and went to another neighborhood? Still, deciding to spend so much time on them playing with “rich people’s” stuff and then trashing the place was frustrating to me.
Random thought - what happened to every other governing body and police force? In 9 days, the local, city, county and state police forces/sheriff’s offices all completely disappeared? The national guard is just gone? There are no local, county, state or federal governmental agencies left? No fire, ambulance or other services left?
I mean, in just about one week’s time, these all just disappeared entirely except for one branch of the military? How? Why?
That would have been interesting to see.
My WAG is that those agencies are technically civilians and they are going to prioritize taking care of their own families. Plus a lot of them got et during the riots.
I may have missed something but why did Reuben Blade’s character go to a stadium? I thought the soldier told him they were at a college. I miss a lot when I have to keep pausing to let it buffer.
The soldier he tortured told him about the stadium; there were a lot of people, someone died, and soon there were a lot of zombies. So the soldiers locked everyone in and walked away.
ETA: As to why he was checking the story; drama, I suppose.
ETAA: Rubén Blades, by the way, and the character’s name is Daniel Salazar.
How many days have passed to date? It’s 9+ days plus at least 2 more nights? Is that enough time for Nick the junkie be clean and sober when he escapes the detention center?
Manipulative black guy plays mind games with muscle car guy until he drives muscle car guy out of their shared detention center wire cage. Next up - Nick the Junkie vs Manipulative Black guy. My money’s on NtJ.
Does manipulative black guy believe he can actually count on NtJ in a crisis, or will NtJ just be a diversion/scarificial lamb/potential future food source?
The English teacher’s ex-wife is learning to be the nurse she always wanted to be. While the government has reassigned trained hospital staff to St. Anywhere Else, they would have no control over where a civilian volunteer would be assigned, especially if the government didn’t know the ex-wife was working with the detention center doctor.
Salvadorians kidnaps soldier and torture him. Old habits die hard???
New zombie name -
Shooting holes in SKIN BAGS.
With his eye that close to the rifle scope, had the English teacher pulled the trigger on the 50 cal, the scope would have split his eyebrow, forehead, and maybe his skull.
Favorite quote - One slip up and we start finding out how the neighbors taste.
Operation Cobalt - Military evac from LA military base. And begin humain termination of… Stadium skin bags? Hospital patients? Detention center detainees? Entire safe zone?
Captive Bolt Pistol. Don’t leave home without it.
I liked it, Cobolt was darker than I expected, but do watches and cufflinks have any value at this point?
Entire safe zone. Too many people to evacuate, can’t protect them, better shoot them than let them get eaten and come back as more skin bags.
Loathsome. Gross. I don’t MIND loathsome and gross up to a point, but this is too much. I’ve hung in there with this show and I am now done.
Heroin addicts are going to 2 cufflinks each.
A key to the door locks may be had for a fancy gold watch?
In the last episode, Ofelia was willing to sell herself for medical supplies.
I’m gonna give it until the finale. Seen shows pull out of nosedives before. But I grow tired.
Hentor’s comment about how we show Travis sitting in a humvee instead of SHOWING US WHAT’S GOING ON is* spot on*. When the soldier says, “No matter what, stay in the truck,” to Travis, the first thing to cross my mind was, “Stay in the house, Carl,” the mantra of the second season.
And if all we’d got to see was a frustrated Carl sitting in the house for two or three minutes while we hear shots and screams outside, I think that TWD would not have made it to a third season. Is our budget really THAT pathetic? Or did our showrunners just fumble the ball, here?
The whole point of the show was to “show how the zombie apocalypse began, whatall happened when Rick was in a coma.” They have not. They have shown us a screwed up dysfunctional family standing around being confused while a zombie apocalypse happened somewhere in the background… where we could see and hear a* little *bit, but mostly, it’s an hour with jerks, every week.
I started out being bored with Travis. I am now actively disliking him. This is a guy who is apparently not very smart, does NOT know how to deal with his SON, of all people, and a disturbingly weak person who compulsively calls the Lieutenant “Sir” despite the fact he’s a civilian. Does he cowboy up, or does he get kilt and his wife takes the ball? And can we get TO that anytime soon?
Last week, I thought the Lieutenant was an idiot for his attitude toward civilians. This week, I decided he was insane for not allowing his men to sleep after fifty hours of patrols, and setting up a fifty caliber sniper rifle to shoot a zombie less than fifty yards away… and then insisting that Travis be the one to take the shot, despite Travis not wanting to and knowing as much about ANY kind of gun as a pig knows about politics. This is the point at which we go beyond “jerk” and into “jarring me out of my suspension of disbelief.”
And then we have the kids looting and wrecking someone else’s house. Why was this scene in there? Did we need a bonding moment between the stepkids? Or did we just have time to fill?
As usual, Ruben Blades carries it off with quiet aplomb. I just kind of figured he’s already figured out that his wife is toast, and is simply doing what he can, trying to save his daughter.
And yeah, we knew that the military’s bugging out, I saw that coming last week… but now we know they’re going to “humanely pacify” the surviving civilian population. Do we get a big battle next week? Is this what we’re saving up the budget money for? Or do we get Travis sitting in the house looking constipated while we hear screams and gunshots and explosions outside?
I’m in suspense for the finale… but for all the wrong reasons.
The black guy trading a watch and cufflinks for special privilege doesn’t bother me. Black guy has figured out that all the shinies in the world ain’t worth a lot… now. Soldier guy has not.
Although why Black Guy wants the services of a shivering junkie remains a bit of a question. I wouldn’t trust Nick with a burnt out match about now. But whatever happens, I suspect it will result in Black Guy getting killed and Nick getting away scot free…
I’m shocked at the bad reception this received here.
Ok this episode was so good, and so far above their usual output I’m not going to nitpick it. They did good.
I thought Daniel was making a fake bite mark on Soldier Boy at first, to give him leverage over him.
EDIT:But I will say it is clear these writers can handle zombie apoc writing, but can’t handle initial panic and psych tension.
Have you seen what junkies will do, sacrifice, manipulate, to get junk?
ALWAYS bet on the junkie.
EDIT:Travis man…I’d give a lot to get to shoot a 50cal, a LOT. And he passed up the chance.
I’m just wondering what you need a fifty cal FOR. Surely these soldiers have shot enough zombies by now that they know a fifty is sheer overkill. And insisting an untrained civilian try to handle one is sheer stupid.
I’ve always thought one of the key mysteries behind the ZA was why the military did what they did - why were they shooting innocent, non-infected civilians?
Now we know…and that’s why I thought this was the best episode of the season. They’re ordered to kill everyone so they won’t eventually die and turn, which means the government knew everyone was infected long before our heroes in Rick’s gang mixed with Jenner at the CDC.
That locked up arena full of people and or walkers…are we going to see those doors bust open and that herd take over Los Angeles?
And if this show is renewed for another season, will we get to see the same thing, only in another city?