Clearly the Walking Dead takes place in a universe where not only is there no zombie fiction, there was also never Austin Powers (or James Bond, for that matter).
The ratings were good for cable, but way down from last year’s premiere. It’ll be interesting to see how they are going forward.
I liked someone’s idea for watching the show if you quit some time back. Starting with about season three, you only really need to watch four episodes a season–premiere, middle two, and finale–and you’ll get everything. Kinda like watching the replays on NFL Network where they cut directly from snap to snap.
I’m now leaning more to didn’t like it. Just too much stereotypical lazy writing.
10 minutes of cock-waving between Rick and Neegan should have been:
<Neegan>Ho Rick!. Look at the balls on you! thrusts crotch I think …
<BLAM BLAM BLAM>
Gabriel should have driven the car to rescue Xander or better yet let him be Zombie Chow®.
Oh hey it’s Neegan.
<Neegan>Hey, you got your shi…
<BLAM BLAM BLAM>
Overly complicating the plan. No I get the zombie invasion but Rick said he only wanted Neegan, was willing to spare the Lieutenants (I think) but his plan means the extermination of ALL of the Saviors, Neegan and peon alike. So why did they even attack? The didn’t really plan on shooting anyone. They could have marched the dead up to the gate, knocked it down and left for all the good Rick’s Rampagers ® did.
Nitpick: I think the arrows that Daryl and Dwight were trading included notes about who/where the lookouts would be. My interpretation was that Daryl was marking locations off of a list provided by Dwight.
How much time do you think was supposed to have passed between last season’s finale and this season’s beginning?
The impression i got, and that is reinforced when i look at your list of items, was that Rick and his team had quite a bit of time to plan out and set up their strategy. But it seems to me that Negan, with his overwhelming numerical superiority, his weapons advantage, and his massive ego, would have been much more likely to go back home, gather his troops together quickly, and launch rapid attacks on multiple fronts.
Is this supposed to be the next day? The next week? The following month? I didn’t see any hit of that in the episode, except that Maggie still doesn’t look pregnant so it can’t have been too long.
I read it some time ago so this is from memory (Comic Spoilers ahead):
[spoiler] Rick’s opening attack is very similar to this week’s episode. The main difference is a female character who is not in the TV show gets captured. Negan has to fight to clear Sanctuary of Zombies but eventually does. His counter strike to Alexandria is actually very similar to the attack he made on Alexandria in last season’s finale. The difference was the woman captured above was purposely turned into a Zombie by Negan as an FU to Rick vs. a trick by Sasha (who is not in the comics).
There is more fighting (my memory of the details is sketchy) but in the end Dwight betrays Negan, Negan loses and it captured alive, the Saviors, the Kingdom, Hilltop and Alexandria form a community based on mutual cooperation and then the story jumps ahead two years. [/Spoiler]
At the end of last season’s finale Daryl(?) finds a toy that he had previously seen in Dwight’s room at the Sanctuary. On the toy is written “didn’t know”, indicating that Dwight had not intended to double cross them.
That makes me think that at least a little time has passed between the finale and this episode, giving Daryl and Dwight time to come to a more solid trust relationship.
And I’m done with this show. At least until the end of the season after I read if it was any good. Not only was the episode incredibly boring, it was also poorly written. The lack of shooting people in the face, the non-functional pretend armor, the 3rd grade attempt at something artsy, so very very dumb. Supplies seem to be unlimited now which removes that as a obstacle, the zombies are a joke so that’s not an obstacle, it’s just down to people acting dumb.
And they don’t use their sites on their rifles! Ugh.
They could have “armored” the vehicles in as little as a week with the objective of providing concealment rather than bulletproofing. If you’ll recall, most of the cars had metal well above the tops and then they were parked in more of an obstacle course rather than as a wall of battle.
Still doesn’t excuse all the dick-waving when they should have been shooting, and then shooting like they were storm troopers instead of veterans who had survived as many years as they have, regularly head shotting zombies and conserving ammo.
Someone pointed out that wasting the ammo on the windows showed Negan’s followers that they are not safe, but I agree with most of you that they should have just shot the son of a bitch.
Will Gabriel or Morgan be the one to insist that Negan be imprisoned rather than executed?
They also need to kill Negan because that character is the single worst thing about the show. If anything were to drive me away from this show, it would be making him a regular, long-standing character. Kill him, and let’s get the story back on track.