Ugh. As soon as the bridge blew up but we didn’t see Rick die I knew they weren’t actually going to kill him and he’d survive. God that was fucking stupid. I mean that was like a literal deus ex machina coming from the heavens to save him.
…heh.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago I had dropped out a while ago. So I didn’t watch the whole episode, and just watched the last few minutes “on demand.”
And you know what? I think that’s enough to drag me back into the show. I didn’t want to see Rick die. I don’t want to see any of the characters die. The Walking Dead was always at its best for me when it showed hope. When the characters didn’t give up, when they survived against the odds. When they killed Glenn I struggled to keep up my enthusiasm for the show and so did many others and the fall in ratings . If they had killed Rick it very may well have killed the series.
So a time-skip and a reboot with a dash of optimism is exactly what I needed to maybe bring me back. Clean the slate, clear the board, start telling new stories, new showrunner, just what the series needs.
And Judith kicking ass? About time!
Spoilers for the current season of Z Nation.
This season of Z Nation they have introduced “Talkers”: Zombies that not only talk, but retain the memories/personality of the “original person”. Talkers need to keep being fed “biscuits” to retain their “humanity” otherwise they slip back to “zombiehood.”
But if they get fed biscuits regularly, they can function alongside other humans as normal. The current season is exploring the relationship between Talkers and Humans, with a clear analog to the immigration debate in America right now.
Judith and Negan have a weird friendship by the looks of it. That’s gonna be interesting.
I was OK with when I saw two things:
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Andrew Lincoln is going to come back for Walking Dead movies. I thought he was a fucking idiot for leaving such a lucrative job but he cleverly reserved a payday for himself while being able to expand his acting opportunities. Smart man.
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The insinuation in the preview of the next 3 episodes that there will BE
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SPOILER IF YOU DIDNT SEE IT
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Smarter Zombies!!! This is the direction the show needed to go to survive a season or more.
Negan missed a golden opportunity to escape when Maggie threw him out of the cell. If he could have overwhelmed her and taken her gun he could have shot Michaun and made a break for it.
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No, they’re both actively stealing from Romero.
Despite the last 3 minutes or so, I liked the farewell to Rick. I just hate that it copped out and wasn’t a farewell.
In hindsight, the whole thing looked lame.
I was waiting the whole time for him to over power her. Then when he crawled out like a little baby I was really wanting her to kill him, even though I was still expecting him to attack her.
I suppose now we’ll never find out what an ‘A’ or a ‘B’ really stands for.
You know, I was a bit suspicious the way they kept harping on this being “the last episode for Rick Grimes”, so I was not at all surprised when they didn’t actually kill him off. And the retrospective of him seeing the ghosts of Walking Dead past was just boring. Glad I recorded it so I could FF through it.
What if A and B turn out to be blood types? 
I don’t mind at all the idea of (spoiled for those who don’t watch the previews)
the Walkers are “evolving”. Could be interesting.
But I’m not really interested in watching stuff across multiple platforms if that is what it’s going to take. It might be interesting to see a few flashback shows.
Overall, though, this episode was maybe half a notch better than last week, but mainly just too drawn out to be interesting. Rick is pumping blood like an oil gusher and somehow stays alive. And the horse never spooks at the horde of Walkers all around. And Maggie lets Negan out of his cell-- it would have served her right if Negan killed her instead of her killing him.
I thought that was what was going to happen – Maggie comes to kill Negan, but gets overpowered while he makes his escape.
I loved Rick seeing Shane and Herschel again. Like the Wizard of Oz, Shane was the brain, Herschel the heart, and Michonne the home. Rick found his home, and his ‘family’.
Did Negan really want Maggie to kill him or was it all a ploy to make her let him live ? If she had really wanted to finish him off, she should have just shot him in his cell. But a version of the ‘talking villain’ trope takes over here, of course. There’s more Negan to come.
Is the show done for the year? It would be a good cutoff point right here till it comes back.
Wow. No, not over the episode but over the vitriol expressed here about the episode. Personally, I liked it but hey… we all have different expectations and opinions. I liked seeing Shane again and found that exchange to be really great. I also loved seeing Hershel, and the others. Even Laurie made a cameo. Haha. This show has always had great seasons and bad seasons, great episodes and bad episodes. I have found the last couple seasons to be mostly average to bad with a sprinkling of greatness. But I am really enjoying this season, I think they’ve done some excellent episodes. Yes, occasionally it is stupid people doing stupid things but that’s pretty much every single zombie movie or television show. I let that go a long, long time ago and take the show for what it is. I’m not particularly happy with the A-B Jadis twist there but at the same time they never said Rick was going to die.
Glad to see the next major comic book storyline is coming. Looks like they’re also bringing in some elements of the comic book regarding Negan (and in the comic with Carl).
Yeah, my hope is that the made-for-TV format allows the showrunners to experiment a little and explore perspectives on the zombie apocalypse that they wouldn’t be able to devote an entire spinoff too. Like delve into the earliest days (that FtWD glossed over) of it, or do something from the perspective of government officials trying (& failing) to keep order from a bunker. They could even do stories set entirely overseas. Admittedly the last suggestion would probably need to either have American characters (ala FtWD in Mexico) or be set in an English-speaking country (just for the hell of it film in the UK and have most of the British characters played by Americans ;)).
Nope…not smarter zombies. Think harder.
It seems like they stole the “Wake up!” plot from Futurama.
Why did the junkyard lady have to have a zombie bite someone? Aren’t they all infected already?
And if Rick isn’t an “A”, what criteria are they using the determine the rating?
I too thought Negan was faking, and he would smile at the end of that scene.
They should have had Carl come to Ricks dreams. Seemed remiss.
I was kind of surprised, too. And his wife.
But maybe the kid who played Carl was too mad about being killed off. And wife actress wasn’t available?
Or Glenn for that matter. They must not have wanted to lay out the cash. Criminy, the actor who played Herschel is now dead, and they got him.
Well… technically we did see Lori. snicker
Although I did not care for the retrospective scenes, I did think the “wake up” theme was a very effective plot device. Credit where credit is due!
I think the time jump will serve the series well. That is, I hope it will. They need to extricate themselves from the corner they’ve painted themselves into, so teleporting out is fine with me. 