# The Walking Dead; 7.03 "The Cell" (open spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 6, 2016, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919 "2016-11-06T23:39:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919/61 "2016-11-08T14:55:18Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > I suppose, but do they need to rotate them a lot? It seemed to be a full time job. I thought it was new additions. ---
**Author:** ![rainy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c2a13f/32.png) [@rainy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rainy)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919/62 "2016-11-08T15:27:58Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > I thought it was new additions. Definitely new additions. The guy Dwight shot in the back was added towards the end of the episode. You know, the dead body he brought back, whilst also walking his mysteriously busted bike back home…as it turned into a walker. Think he draped it across the bike like bounty hunters used to drape outlaws over their horses saddles in the westerns? Also, I was expecting Dwight to get in trouble with Negan for killing that guy instead of bringing him back. That seems like that has been Negan’s M.O. – you can’t leave (because then I might have to do shit for myself) and if you run, we mobilize to come get you and then charge you a bunch of points that you have to work off. Right? Otherwise the episode where a whole bunch of Saviors track down Dwight, his ex and her diabetic sister and talks about how expensive the retrieval is makes no sense (the episode where the diabetic sister get’s killed by walkers and they take Darryl’s bike). ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919/63 "2016-11-08T15:33:36Z")
Negan does seem uncharacteristically lenient at times. Dwight got his face burned, and when Daryl tried to escape and the camera focused on his bare toes, I was sure he was going to lose some of those toes. He’s really got the hots for Daryl I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919/64 "2016-11-08T15:34:48Z")
> [@rainy](#): > > Also, I was expecting Dwight to get in trouble with Negan for killing that guy instead of bringing him back. That seems like that has been Negan’s M.O. – you can’t leave (because then I might have to do shit for myself) and if you run, we mobilize to come get you and then charge you a bunch of points that you have to work off. Right? Otherwise the episode where a whole bunch of Saviors track down Dwight, his ex and her diabetic sister and talks about how expensive the retrieval is makes no sense (the episode where the diabetic sister get’s killed by walkers and they take Darryl’s bike). Negan would prefer the runners be brought back alive, but I think he’s fine for them to ‘work the pole’. The point is to instil/maintain fear among the rest of the population. He can’t just let people leave. So you either come back to be punished for running (which keeps everyone else in line) or you end up working for Negan while dead (which keeps everyone else in line). ---
**Author:** ![youropinionman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/65b543/32.png) [@youropinionman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/youropinionman)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919/65 "2016-11-08T16:26:04Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > It was more than a couple of times. Only SNL has been this aggressive with commercials; I would guess this episode’s running time was well under 35 minutes (with the rest being commercials and a couple of minutes for the credits). Not sure why people always think this. The episode length was 42 minutes without commercials, same as pretty much every other hour-long show on television. Maybe they just bunch the commercials weirdly. ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919/66 "2016-11-08T16:32:50Z")
> [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > Well this is going to be stuck in my head for a week. Thanks Negan. > > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoQ4GidQP-k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoQ4GidQP-k) Please have the courtesy to RickRoll us next time. That clip almost started playing before I could click it off. ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919/67 "2016-11-08T16:44:54Z")
Sorry for the multi-post. > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > It’s not clear when or how the bike’s front wheel got messed up - the bike simply falling over sideways with Dwight nearly gets zombie-bombed doesn’t seem violent enough to cause such damage, and immediately prior to this when Dwight is pushing the bike along for no apparent reason, the wheel looks fine. Dwight looked pretty busted up when he finally caught up with his buddy, worse than just fighting off a couple of busted zombies. I’m guessing he must have crashed between the falling zombie overpass and popping a cap into his buddy. That would explain the busted front wheel and what appeared to be a pretty damaged shoulder. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919/68 "2016-11-08T17:38:03Z")
> [@Duke\_of\_Rat](#): > > Please have the courtesy to RickRoll us next time. That clip almost started playing before I could click it off. I regret nothing. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919/69 "2016-11-08T17:46:22Z")
> [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > I regret nothing. 🙂 [No ragrets](http://imgur.com/OG2hHwW)? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919/70 "2016-11-08T18:43:21Z")
> [@rainy](#): > > Definitely new additions. The guy Dwight shot in the back was added towards the end of the episode. You know, the dead body he brought back, whilst also walking his mysteriously busted bike back home…as it turned into a walker. Think he draped it across the bike like bounty hunters used to drape outlaws over their horses saddles in the westerns? Kinda makes me wonder how Dwight was expecting the get the guy home even if the retrieval went smoothly. At least take a motorcycle with a sidecar, dude. ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919/71 "2016-11-08T19:11:01Z")
What percentage of the population is dead/zombified, do people think? I’m guessing there’s less than .5% of the pre-Z population. StG ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2016, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919/72 "2016-11-08T23:09:17Z")
> [@StGermain](#): > > What percentage of the population is dead/zombified, do people think? I’m guessing there’s less than .5% of the pre-Z population. > > StG Sixteen million souls. ---
**Author:** ![Kaboodle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8edcca/32.png) [@Kaboodle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaboodle)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919/73 "2016-11-09T01:36:31Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Seems like a pretty regular occurrence, what with all the bone-shattered zombies lying around, and Dwight must be kinda dumb to look up at the overpass only when he was directly under it. There was a ‘behind the scenes’ segment on The Talking Dead. [QUOTE=Co-Executive Producer Denise Huth] You see these kind of broken trampled bodies on the ground and you see blood trails coming from the ones that are crawling. So we’re trying to tell the story just with a visual. So we never really explain, ‘Oh that car, drove off the overpass created a hole. The walkers have been falling, breaking their legs, crawling away.’ For Dwight it’s like, what the hell is this, what happened here. So the audience gets to go on that journey with him. [/QUOTE] Now my attention wasn’t completely focused on the episode when I watched it but even if it was, I don’t think I would have caught the ‘story they were trying to tell with a visual’. ---
**Author:** ![rainy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c2a13f/32.png) [@rainy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rainy)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919/74 "2016-11-09T17:05:00Z")
> [@Kaboodle](#): > > I don’t think I would have caught the ‘story they were trying to tell with a visual’. In an episode like this where relatively little happened, it does seem like they could have devoted just a little more time to that visual story telling. Like Duke of Rat says Dwight and the motorcycle appear to have gone through something, so apparently that scene got cut in favor of another dog food sandwich or some more bars of that catchy song. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919/75 "2016-11-09T17:14:03Z")
I noticed the huge blood splatter and it was evident something happened there, but it didn’t occur to me it had anything to do with Dwight or why he was walking the motorcycle or why the spokes were messed up. This isn’t the first time people have had to watch Talking Dead to find out WTF was going on in the show. Kinda sad, really. They’ve also expected us to have read the comics, which is stupid when they change things from the comic. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919/76 "2016-11-09T17:32:18Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > Oh, Negan’s a post apocalyptic brutal sadistic maniac who enjoys torturing and beating people to death, employs slaves, but he’s a feminist! How refreshing. You must ask for a lady’s consent in order to have sex. :rolleyes: And, according to the _Walking Dead_ wiki (which includes both the show and the comic), his pre-apocalypse job was as a [high school gym teacher](http://walkingdead.wikia.com/wiki/Negan_(Comic_Series)). ---
**Author:** ![theR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@theR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/theR)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919/77 "2016-11-09T17:43:45Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > It was more than a couple of times. Only SNL has been this aggressive with commercials; I would guess this episode’s running time was well under 35 minutes (with the rest being commercials and a couple of minutes for the credits). > > By the way, were we ever shown _why_ walkers were falling from that overpass? (It’s possible that I missed it due to being distracted or out of the room.) IMDB says 42 minutes, but it also seemed like a lot of commercials to me. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919/78 "2016-11-09T18:09:30Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > I noticed the huge blood splatter and it was evident something happened there, but it didn’t occur to me it had anything to do with Dwight or why he was walking the motorcycle or why the spokes were messed up. I’m not sure the spokes _were_ messed up before Dwight got zombie-bombed. He was just pushing the (not obviously damaged) bike along for no established reason. Stupidly (but by no means unusually, for this show), he walks past relatively immobile zombies instead of dispatching them as he goes. All this means is: 1. If something happens, he has limited escape routes since if he tries to run in any particular direction, he has to be mindful that one of the immobile-but-still-active zombies in the road could grab his ankle and trip him/bite him. 2. The constant sounds they make - growling and hissing and such - could cover the approach of a more pressing threat like a mobile zombie. All he needs is a sharpened length of broomstick and he can casually and easily silence every zombie on the road in just a few minutes, _then_ push his bike through if that’s what he wants. Anyway, if it’s now established that pigs will eat zombies, it remains unclear why insects won’t, and why in Virginia a walker is not rendered blind and immobile by such in a matter of days. ---
**Author:** ![rainy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c2a13f/32.png) [@rainy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rainy)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919/79 "2016-11-09T18:23:19Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Anyway, if it’s now established that pigs will eat zombies, it remains unclear why insects won’t… You are correct. That is a huge problem for the internal logic and consistency of the show (yes, I know). There really shouldn’t be any zombies in hibernation mode outdoors then because if 5 million feral pigs love zombie-truffles, the pigs awesome sense of smell should have no trouble locating a decomposing body. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2016, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919/80 "2016-11-09T21:40:17Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I hope the whole Negan arc gets better because I’m just not digging it. His character is more annoying than menacing. The whole “Lucille” thing is eye-rolly, and this episode seemed more like filler than anything else. Yes—Negan’s actual torture isn’t isolation, sadistic violence, or insipid pop songs, but rather, monologues. What were there, like three? Half way through the second, I’d have been ready for a tête-à-tête with Lucille. I mean, does that guy ever drone on and on and on… As an aside, though, does Daryl’s getting the picture of Glenn’s body—who was killed as his punishment—imply that the pictures of bodies next to the Saviors killed by Rick’s group (Glenn in particular) likewise weren’t their trophies or perverted keepsakes, but also reminders of past punishments? If so, that’s pretty damn dark. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-7-03-the-cell-open-spoilers/770919.md?page=5)