Who gave 'em a free pass? I’ve been saying “these people are idiots” since the beginning of the season. And when they aren’t passing the Idiot Ball back and forth, they’re surprisingly dull.
Only in brief bursts have any of them seemed terribly interesting at all. Well, except Salazar. And Salazar is not a good guy at all.
I think it was just a “fuck you” to the soldier. Strand doesn’t need them, but it was a way for him to show the captain that he was escaping, and that he cared about something stupid like cufflinks more than he cared about the soldier.
I agree. And the way Travis immediately started getting in position to make a move on Andy showed that he wasn’t going along with some plan he’d hatched with Andy. I think the actor just made that up on Talking Dead without thinking it through.
Yeah, I wondered about that myself. Travis makes a deal, and then snaps because the soldier didn’t carry through? That’s a plot point that really should have had some exposition.
My take was that he let the soldier go because he still balks at cold blooded murder… and the reason he snapped was because when Ofelia got shot, Travis felt it was HIS fault, for letting the guy go in the first place.
The “why” doesn’t matter at all. People hoping for that answer are going to be disappointed.
I think Strand sees Nick as a wise investment because junkies are pretty resourceful and desperate enough to do some crazy shit. I don’t think he had a streamlined plan for Nick, just a general feeling that he’d be of some use to him. I guess it paid off pretty quickly because Nick was the one who stole the keys, right?
From Strand.
Yes, Strand bought the key with his jewelry.
I get the impression we’re just going to have to wait until next season to see what Strand wants with Nick. Will Nick choose his family over Strand? Will Strand offer him drugs? Will Strand get tossed off the yacht by his somewhat more realistic employees? Hell, does Strand own the yacht to begin with? And what happens when Strand realizes there will be no laundry services, ever again, in his lifetime?
Given there are no more episodes this season, I think this is a safe assumption. 
…well, I’d rather that than find out next season that Strand took Nick with him for absolutely no reason. Which is still an option.
Watching the first season of Walking Dead on AMC recently has kind of hammered it down how good TWD was in its first season… as opposed to how limp FTWD was. The absence of Frank Darabont is duly noted.
A successful heroin addict needs all kinds of skills to get his drugs. He has to be resourceful, sly, cunning, adept at conning people, clever enough to escape from danger, able to get what he needs by any means necessary.
…and apt to stab you in the back at the first hint of necessity.
In other news, I feel bad for whoever had to paint Madison’s living room. All that work to cover up the zombie brains, and now they’ve abandoned the place.
A successful heroin addict needs all kinds of skills to get his drugs. He has to be a master thief and a brilliant scrounger. He has to be resourceful, sly, cunning, adept at conning people, clever enough to escape from danger, able to get what he needs by any means necessary.
…if your average junkie was all these things, I question whether or not he’d be a junkie, or one of the Koch brothers.
So, who is “The Good Man” of the title? Seems like it has to be Strand, but I doubt he’s really all that “good”.
I don’t think Strand put all that much thought into why he wanted to take Nick with him. He saw Nick as someone just as soulless and selfish as he is, figured maybe he’ll hang on to him a while. Probably more as a pet than anything else, but figuring maybe he could sell his ass to some rapey survivors or something.
I think it goes back to something Daniel said “Good people are the first to die.” Daniel and Travis are still alive after doing some pretty bad stuff.
Property rights have become rather irrelevant at this point, possession is now 10/10ths of the law. Which is the law of the jungle.
I feel bad for the survivors that had a really specialized and now totally irrelevant job, like the best civil rights lawyer in LA or something.
As they said in The Day After when arguing about what books to burn for warmth, start with the tax law section.
Screw lawyers.
The problem is that it used to be legal to shoot guys stealing my boat, now they can shoot me to take away my boat and get rid of me.
In this case, all he really needs to be is slightly slower than Strand - the limp takes care of that nicely.