I’d forgotten who Spencer was or that he was still alive until he mentioned his mother. Speaking of people we haven’t seen in awhile; is Aaron’s partner still alive?
You know I think I have figured out, in an overly generalized way, what is lacking in recent episodes/seasons from TWD. A good understanding of scarcity, and how people respond to scarcity.
Early on in TWD, the group was low on food, gas, guns, ammo and even working cars. That was one thing that set Daryl apart early on was his self sufficiency using the crossbow with recoverable ammo. Rick rides the horse into Atlanta so he doesn’t have to scrounge for gas. Before recovering the bag, they fought walkers with axes and bats. The CDC offered them hot showers, remember how the characters rejoiced at that. That’s why the farm was like the promised land to them. Even though the writing painted with overly broad brush strokes, in essence the farm could provide an ongoing supply of food and security. Remember the farm even had that swampy area that trapped walkers. Those things felt very visceral and real to the audience.
And as various tragedies befell them, the went on searching for those basic things again, food, shelter, security.
The farm got overrun, they found the prison. The prison was a huge boon for security, and Rick took up the mantle of farmer. Woodbury was this seeming utopia of security, shelter and supply. And we got to contrast how each was run.
Then the prison got overrun and the cast had no shelter and had to wander, hardly any food (remember Carl eating that whole can of frosting), and zero security.
Then they found Alexandria, with better security than the prison, more shelter than since before the apocalypse, and plentiful supplies. The characters were determined not to let the same things that had happened in the past to happen again. But the writers lost that tight focus on scarcity, only giving it a passing mention. Carol was the only character who got to deal with the scarcity issue, making desserts from beets, and casseroles from whatever. But her stories felt real because of that.
If you look at how the writers have handled scarcity recently, it is in the clumsiest of ways; walking that long portion of the trip to VA nearly dying for water (I know that was supposed to be a wandering the desert thing, but come on the Eastern seaboard is rife with waterways), Negan completely taking away their guns, the ludicrous machine shop bullet, Tara’s comment about eating a packet of soy sauce, only passing discussions of how scavenging is drying up, Hilltop’s invisible farming activities, Ezekiel can ‘afford’ to feed a tiger and give half to the Saviors. Possibly the most egregious though is Negan’s endless supply of toadies he can treat as poorly and stupidly as he wants, and still remain in power.
Maybe the show runners will read this and consider returning to scarcity as a major motivator.