I understand that you have an infatuation with T-Dog that the shows writers didn’t seem to share. Lots of people die in any ZA. That’s just the way it is. I prefer the writers be given the freedom to write their stories their way. YMMV.
Based on the FTWD storyline to date, I have no idea if Not Insurance Guy will be a hero or a sacrificial goat. We know he can trade for keys and junkies and he dresses well.
Except for the ex-wife/wanna-be-nurse, there are no hero’s in FTWD. All of the other characters have major flaws. I expect that some of them will go on to follow TWD’s Carol’s abused hausfrau-2-Green Beret, or Daryl’s loner redneck/brother of Merle-2-valued family member, but most of the characters will wind up as zombie chow.
It’s not so much an infatuation with T-Dog as an observation that black guys simply do not last long on the show. I figured T-Dog was toast anyway, because his character did not exist in the graphic novel, and it was fairly obvious that he was there largely as zombie chow. So naturally, I expected them to bump him off in the first season.
When they didn’t, I began to wonder what they were gonna do with him. And they didn’t do anything. And then they suddenly iced the guy. Right when the show suddenly develops another significant black character!
…and this is the route they’ve taken ever since. You know you’re about to sprout another black character when they lop off one of the old ones. It’s predictable, and it’s starting to feel a bit icky.
Hmmm, well I guess you’re right, but I never picked up on the ‘black guy pattern’ in TWD. I thought one of the things that made the TWD interesting is that no character seems safe- I didn’t expect Mom to kick off, and I thought surely Andrea was too tough and too interesting to go. And the kids! But alas, it’s a meat grinder out there.
I guess we have a little side wager here. Will The Closer make it to season 2, or is he doomed by his blackness like a Democratic president facing a GOP congress? Personally I think one use for the strange plot progression choices is that it creates an excuse for Nick to meet this guy. Finally he can have a strong male role model instead of the milquetoast Travis, one who sees value in his junkiehood instead of treating him like just another loser. I think The Closer is going to bring some direction to this rudderless family in the next season.
It seems likely unless he digs down, finds a pair, and starts paying attention to his friggin’ family. Either that, or he’s an eventual casualty that results from simply insisting that things are what they ain’t. At this point, it could go either way. It’s also occurred to me that they might well bump him off after the break, based on viewer reactions.
The Closer could well be the rudder that Travis isn’t. But I’m not optimistic. Black characters don’t do well on the show unless they’re Michonne, who started out as a badass in the graphic novel, and is developing into something interesting in the series.
I’d love to be wrong about the Closer, though. But I wouldn’t trust him any further than I could throw a zombie.
Tell you how I feel about the Closer, as we’re apparently calling him. I love that voice. I mean, his speech is written as an open invitation to chew the scenery, but damn I think he’d be wasted as fodder.
I too raise an eyebrow about how this show went back to the beginning and – whoops – skipped showing how it got so bad so quickly once again. I mean, all these zombie stories are feeding off eachother (as it were). Why not just read World War Z, because that guy did the thinking for the rest of the writers puttering around in the genre. Put your own spin on that guy’s work.
It was one of the biggest running jokes/memes in the fandom.
I’d agree the salesman won’t die, at least not in the near future. They made him too badass and interesting, and spent way too much time on him, so he’s clearly an important character with plot armor until he does whatever the writers have in store for him.
I plead ignorance. Until the threads for this show, I didn’t consume any zombie fandom. I watched TWD with my zombie-fan buddy and talked about it to just a few people, but that’s it.
Anyway, I am still waiting to see if lovestruck girl will get reunited with her zombie bf, or if her character will go anywhere. And it is looking like The Closer is the star of the show!
But they HAVE had multiple black characters on the show simultaneously.
And if people are going to complain that they kill a lot of black actors, shouldn’t they also get some love for hiring a lot of black actors in the first place?
Yes this often bugs me, TWD is I think THE single most popular show in the USA and I have been pleasantly surprised at how diverse the cast is. Fans have seized on the killing black characters meme and seem to ignore just how many black cast members they have.
Do they introduce black characters just to kill them off? Of course they do its a story about the near extinction of humanity.
I think they added a lot of those black actors in response to the criticism. First, we’re talking about the greater Atlanta area which does have a lot of black people in real life. In the first season we had T-Dog and some woman. T-Dog really wasn’t much of a character, no slight against the actor the writers just didn’t really care about him, and the woman didn’t do much and ended up committing suicide at the end season one. In season 2 we basically had T-Dog, who again, the writers didn’t seem to care much about him. In season three we’re introduced to a black prisoner and T-Dog is killed. Michonne shows up and black prisoner is killed.
It really seemed like there was some sort of quota for black characters on the show. Of course season 3 introduced us to Sasha and Tyreese, season 4 gave us Bob, and in season 5 we got the Reverend, Noah, and the return of Morgan who it looks like will be a regular character next season. So, yeah, they’ve improved, but I think the criticism of earlier seasons was valid.
It is the earlier seasons that got me started in the first place. And FTWD made a point of shellacking all its named black characters, almost literally, in the PILOT.
The Closer is possibly the most interesting character introduced in the entire five episodes. I’m hoping all that wasn’t for nothing.
The FTWD (Tom) Riddle has been answered. At least for me. Nick the junkie is Lord Voldemort. Harry Potter didn’t actually kill Voldemort at Hogwarts (just as Harry wasn’t actually killed by Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest). Voldemort must have had one more trick up his sleeve. He grew his nose back, moved to LA, and turned to heroin to console himself over the loss of his magical abilities.
Still of Frank Dillane in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
Frank Dillane was born in London (England) on April 21, 1991. He made his film debut as Tom Riddle Jr in “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” in 2009 before…
Nobody lasts long on a ZA show. The main character slots have been established as Rick, Morgan, Carol, Daryl, Glenn, and Michonne. Carl, Maggie, Sasha, Abe, etc. are secondary/supporting characters. The writers were nice enough to create a T-Dog character and, I believe, they can do anything they want with that character.
Shows written for critics, generally-speaking, don’t do well with the fans, and it’s the fans that the advertisers want to attract.
The combination (characters, actors, writing, makeup, locations) that is TWD has reached ratings gold. FTWD has been signed for a 2nd season based, I believe, on the curiosity of TWD fans and the quickly fading hopes that FTWD will actually become interesting.
I do look forward to tonight’s episode, though… in the hopes that they’ll finally ignite the characters and that they will become greater (or at least more interesting) than their situation.
The creator of this entire franchise has said Rick and Carl are the main characters and the only ones with true plot armor, and Carl will become the main character eventually.