The Walking Dead; 6.02 "JSS" (open spoilers)

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Just when it looks like things can return to normal, or as normal as things can be in the apocalypse, a new problem arises for the Alexandrians.
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Kevin Smith and Paul Bettany are on Talking Dead.

im gonna guess… meh

I voted meh. The amount of commercials are really getting annoying. I’ll bet there isn’t 30 minutes of programming in the entire hour.

This episode had promise, but enough of the “We cannot lose our humanity” theme. The writers keep trying to hammer this home ad nauseum. Morgan’s actions were ridiculous and probably got 3 or 4 good guys killed.

Plus, where in the hell was the walker horde? They were coming towards Alexandria at the end of the last episode. Morgan was right beside Rick as they were all running to help the town. It seems like the writers have some sort of contract to keep the main characters out of a certain number of episodes.

Also, how did the wolves get into the town? They have a massive amount of long range sniper rifles. Rick has had time to give them the whatfor about security. There is no reason that there shouldn’t have been sufficient guards in towers to pick off wolves with head shots as they entered the complex.

I can suspend disbelief as far as zombies, but not for ridiculous character actions.

While the suburban picket-fence setting of Alexandria made the machete attack a bit jarring, the whole thing required a lot of suspension of disbelief.

If you are going to sit there and be useless, can I at least trade you for your AR-15? And does everyone other than Carol have to go through some ridiculous moral conundrum?

My biggest problem was how convenient it was that Alexandria had another never seen or mentioned physician all along; just what was that woman’s job before Dr Wifebeater died? :dubious: Other than that it was a fun episode. I was not expecting shit to fit the fan so fast Alexandria. We’re only on episode 2, and supposedly the Wolds are not the big bad this time.

Well, since we’re picking nits, why was JSS girl eating a South American Yellow Footed Tortoise? Couldn’t the prop master find a Box Turtle, a Gopher Tortoise, or something else native to the SE’rn USA?

…okay, the turtle is nitpicky. Call me when they accidentally run down a kangaroo or a polar bear or something, but I’m not going to squawk about a turtle.

Morgan’s quandary made sense to me. We met him as an ordinary guy trying to keep his son alive after the zombie apocalypse. His failure to deanimate his dead wife got his son killed. The next time we see him, he’s half crazy and wants to die, but can’t bring himself to do it. And now he’s found a measure of peace in his monasticism… but he doesn’t want to be a killer… and is now confronted with human monsters, and the question:* if he does not kill these people, they will go and kill others, again and again. How responsible is he for the murders the Wolves will commit if he lets them live?*

I look forward to seeing what he does with this. I also wonder if we will get any kind of explanation of the Wolves’ ideology; it sounded like that one guy was going to explain it until Carol kind of wandered up and shot him in the face.

One of the main themes of this show is how our characters retain their humanity… but are scourged by… the zombie apocalypse, and how our characters deal with it differently. Carol’s gotten spooky ruthless. Rick pingpongs back and forth. Morgan is wondering whether or not he has to kill. Eugene is having to live with his own cowardice. And to me, seeing how each individual deals with this is part of the appeal. It’s called “characterization.”

I don’t envy Denise. Now that Dr. Wifebeater is dead, she’s the closest thing Alexandria has to a medic, and she admits she doesn’t have what it takes, and she just lost her first patient. And that patient is minutes away from reanimating on the table and eating her face, and everyone just walked off… man, doctors got it rough after the apocalypse.

Why are the Wolves taking prisoners? Do we get to find out at some point?

Yes, the Alexandrians are a bunch of wimps. On the other hand, they’ve been safe inside the walls while their scavenger teams keep them fed (and apparently lose people on every supply run until Glenn showed up), while every walker within miles stumbled into the quarry. How many people live in Alexandria? And how many got kilt today?

I’m amazed they had a sniper in the steeple. Hell, last week, Eugene of all people got stuck on gate duty because an Alexandrian couldn’t be bothered to finish the shift. These people are too dumb to live, and this week, the piper showed up for his paycheck.

The one thing that begins to occur to me is “We’re losing people on every supply run. Every month, there are fewer people at the meetings. And no one has wised up yet?”

Well, that, and my utter agreement with UltraVires about the damn commercials.

I can agree with that at some points in the show. When your town is under attack by ruthless villains, you kill them. No quandary involved. Tying the guy’s hands up, wasting time so that you cannot help others (and keeping Aaron from helping others) is serving what purpose? Are we going to take this guy in front of the grand jury for indictment?

Standing in the middle of five attackers and carrying a gun, but fighting them with a fucking stick like a Jedi master while requesting that they please leave? Ridiculous. Morgan’s “mercy” caused the whole attack by leaving those two guys alive.

I’m not saying that in this post-apocalyptic world one should be inhuman, but when confronted with murderers, you probably shouldn’t send them down the road to murder the next guy (or in this case, your friends).

This could have been an awful episode, what with all the “extras” being the only Alexandrians killed. But… Wolf-Carol is the absolute best character ever on this show!! I loved it. Holy shit, she just jumps in and takes care of business. You need someone like that in the ZA.

And then Morgan lets some of them go? Maybe it’s time for Carol to take him out-- he’s a danger to the community.

My downloaded commercial-free version is 42:44, so if it’s an hour on TV that leaves 17 minutes for ads, promos, etc. More than a quarter.

I loved how Carol went from making a casserole and setting the timer, to Wolf Carol.

And then at the end, the timer pings (showing us that everything took about an hour) and home-Carol’s delicious casserole is taken out of the oven by Carl.

The ending was a nice juxtaposition of the mundane and the horror. And a reminder that the horror invades the mundane here, because they aren’t careful enough.

I wouldn’t care if it was a half hour of commercials, just make the show an hour and half long.

They gotta pay for that stuff you know.

Wolf Carol was AWESOME. That was one of the best episodes in the last three seasons. A little back story on Enid, and some flashback story of what was going on at Alexndria while Rick & the gang were driving the herd. When the wolves attacked, Carol was brilliant.

I was surprised the horn was just an accident.

And yeah, Carol. Fuck yeah. When she was baking I was commenting how much of a sleeper she was still being, acting all innocent and weak. I was just saying what an actual bad ass she was, when the shit started.

Best episode since she took out Terminus

Very Intense episode. I really enjoyed it.

Beyond the episode, though, I have a problem with what seems to be the Thesis of the show: you have to be a Monster to live in a world with Monsters. I don’t agree with that. You can be pragmatic and survive and still be civilized. That was how Alexandria was introduced originally but later the writers turned them into wimps and doofusses to make Crazy Rick correct.

ETA: I don’t think the horn was an accident. I think someone put a Zombie behind the wheel of a truck and sent it forward as a weapon so it would 1. Ram the Wall and 2. lean on the horn.

Liked it a lot and I thought it was better than the season opener for sure. I did think they should have kept one Wolf to interrogate though. Killing them all (even when they were down and injured) seemed wasteful.

On a side note, what is up with Maggie basically becoming an extra? They could replace her with an extra and it would not change the show one bit. She used to be important to the show but she seems to be downgraded and barely present.

Anyone else catch what Carl did not hear her say to him? And figure out who she left with?

Fascinating plot twist.

My interpretation is that Enid is one of the wolves. When they are sitting with their backs to each other she talks about Alexandria being to big and that’s how “we”… when she is interrupted by Carl. The note is her justification… I just wonder if she took Judith with her.

Yep, I had the same observation.

When the women were chatting early on, what did Carol say to the Pasta Lady? Was it something like “I’ll show you how to make pasta w/o a machine if you promise to stop saying on me through the windows [you fucking bitch!]”?

“…if you promise to stop smoking indoors. It makes you smell bad and it kills you, and too many other things are trying to kill you these days”

Or words to that effect. No idea how you came up with your version.

ETA: The irony being that shortly after this she was killed while smoking outdoors.