The Walking Dead

[airtime143]

I am liking this Hornsby character. I love me a good old fashioned grifter and Hornsby nails it so well. That sleezy smile of his may be my favorite part of this season.

I will agree that he is a well made and well acted character. you just know any high end civilization in that world would be filled with people like him with motivation like his.

On that note I also feel like the leaders bitch-boy of a son is a realistic thing to expect.


Ares- your Maggie rant is about as good as it gets. Zero leadership, zero character, zero planning, and pretty much does more harm than good.
She bails for years, steps back in to leadership, picks a fight with a goliath, and destroys hilltop to kill a couple dudes.

Maggie seems to be the new Rick- every decision she makes turns to shit. (that is one of the things I loved about the show till the end of the saviors- rick couldnt stop stepping on his own dick, no matter what the situation).



On the new character point, I was really happy when the highwaymen showed up- I liked the head guy when he was in Fargo and Fury road.
Him and his guys had a different survival tactic than anyone else we had seen, and I wanted to know more. They would have added a lot to the show.
But they just joined the parade of randos that they bring in to kill off without wasting the fan favorites.
(brings to mind marco getting plugged in this last episode- you knew that shot was coming the second he stood up and smiled)


Looks like it is wrapping up as a political "thriller", unseating the government and blah blah blah.
She even managed to take a lot of the fun out of that- It is a caste system where what you were before is what you will always be. Yet they spend no time at all on that.

Given the way it appears to be headed- ousting the leaders and new ones installed... the only way i could really stomach it is if they put Zeke in charge. the dude continues to work for the good of everyone else.


What i feel the show deserves though is a darker ending. It has been a decade plus, and instead of eradicating the walkers people just continued to wipe each other out on grander and grander scales. At the end of the day, most eeryone was just looking out for themselves.
Let the commonwealth suffer the same fate as Alexandria, hilltop, kingdom and the sanctuary under the care of the "heroes"


In my fantasy world, they would steal the ending of Steven King's book "The Stand".
Have everyone gathered up at the end, and some lunatic wander in with a nuke and smoke the lot of them.

 

[airtime143]

So- As we lead up to the final episodes, We know daryl and carol will survive. They have that show coming up.

Does anyone think Kang will have the balls to kill off any major characters?

I half expect Negan to sacrifice himself in some way. I think Aaron is another easy kill.
I give a small outside chance that Eugene dies in an act of bravery, happy to do so because he finally found someone he loves enough to save.

Jerry and Zeke have to live.

Maggie shouldnt live but will. All the children will be fine.


Place your bets- of characters that appeared BEFORE the final fall of the saviors, who is in your deadpool?

..edit- I will throw in one addition to eligible players from after the fall of the saviors- Lydia. I say live, but would rather she didnt.

 

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OH- one other bet to place!
Who gets the Hornsby kill?

Daryl is the obvious choice, but I would be shocked if he gets it. He has had some very high profile kills, and he cannot get them all.
I put Carol as the favorite. She has access, and I can see Hornsby taking her hostage when shit hits the fan. She is crafty, and kills his hass for his effort.

... but Carol got the head lady at Terminus.... maybe someone else gets it?

If it is maggie I will be pissed.

 

[ZOMBIE@CTESPN]

OH- one other bet to place!
Who gets the Hornsby kill?

Daryl is the obvious choice, but I would be shocked if he gets it. He has had some very high profile kills, and he cannot get them all.
I put Carol as the favorite. She has access, and I can see Hornsby taking her hostage when shit hits the fan. She is crafty, and kills his hass for his effort.

... but Carol got the head lady at Terminus.... maybe someone else gets it?

If it is maggie I will be pissed.

Bet on something woke

 

[airtime143]

Bet on something woke

He gets crushed by a giant penis shaped tree?
He falls to his death down a moist valley lined with brush?

... goddamn it- you are probably right. Maybe he has an an epiphany on his last breath that the vagina is all knowing and all powerful.

 

[ZOMBIE@CTESPN]

He gets crushed by a giant penis shaped tree?
He falls to his death down a moist valley lined with brush?

... goddamn it- you are probably right. Maybe he has an an epiphany on his last breath that the vagina is all knowing and all powerful.

Honestly it prob be some cliffhanger type ending so they never shut the door and open things up for new shows or just rebrand it down the road. They have whored the shit out of this show.

 

[airtime143]

Honestly it prob be some cliffhanger type ending so they never shut the door and open things up for new shows or just rebrand it down the road. They have whored the shit out of this show.

I have been watching it all on AMC on demand with no commercials- except for the last one, and immediately I see the commercial for the walking dead chronicles. As far as I know, that isnt the carol and daryl show, so yea- they are beating this till it is dead, then putting a metal helmet on the walking corpse and setting it free.

 

[Ares]

The actress leaving the show definitely stunted Maggie's arc into this great leader. The seeds were planted, but her ill explained exile left them to die and now we're just left assuming she became an even stronger leader on the road.

You are right, she has not showed any real leadership since her return and Georgie has barely been referenced since as well.

Nah, let's move right on to revenge...just not for the father of your child because that would have been too awesome and this show stopped killing anyone I even cared about with Carl Grimes.

Meh...whatever.

I am liking this Hornsby character. I love me a good old fashioned grifter and Hornsby nails it so well. That sleezy smile of his may be my favorite part of this season.

Also consider this.

Maggie was living with another group all that time, within walking distance of Alexandria.

Was it a long walk? Yes.

Did they still fucking walk there? Yes.

So this bish abandoned her kid for 8 years and hung out close enough to have come home, for one.

And beyond that, she was with this community whom had a flourishing settlement and somehow allowed it to be ambushed/culled by Pope's group.

But she comes back and is in charge as if no one would be like "Hey idk if I want the woman who got that entire fucking settlement slaughtered, in charge of my safety."

And Kang thinks its perfectly fine to build story like this and not expect me to think logically about it, even for a moment?

If Maggie was important enough, maybe they shoulda re-cast her and built up an older/mature leadership Maggie, instead of bullshitting around.

 

[Ares]

One other thing that bugged me in last week's episode.

Daryl's old sweetie Leah and her deal with Hornsby.

First, let's remember how strict the Commonwealth is about vetting people to live with them, much less serve bearing arms.

Hornsby goes and finds a ragtag band of the remainder of Pope's old group, camping in the woods.

He decides to enlist them to do the killing at Hilltop and get rid of Maggie in particular.

So, Hornsby and his military dudes in the white armor, go and get Leah and her guys black clothing/gear/masks for the assault.

Cuz matching gear of all shapes and sizes for a ragtag band of psychos is just a thing they bring along.

They also give Leah and her guys, weapons, because that's what you do with a group of random murderers in the woods, you just hand them guns and masks and assume none of them will decide to use it on you and take the rest of your shit.

I also wanna take note that Leah had, at her disposal, 20-30 Men of military size and shape willing to don matching black outfits and follow her into the assault on Hilltop.

That group didn't have 20-30 people left when we last saw them and I again do not grasp this notion that Men 10 years into a Zombie Apocalypse simply fall in line behind the only woman of a group who has also (like Maggie) proven to be a failure as a leader.

I will ignore all that and just say, Leah and her 20-30 goons go on the assault and oddly Hornsby and the soldiers come with.

I thought the whole point of the goons and Leah was to have someone else do the dirty work?

Why not use your own armored soldiers if you're bringing them along on the assault with the black-outfitted goons?

I will ignore this.

They go on the assault and Maggie ambushes them with explosives which kill many of the black outfit dudes, but not all of them.

Leah being a strong female leader, decides to abandon her goons and goes after Maggie alone, presumably for revenge, because Maggie killed most of The Reapers, who in turn killed most of Maggie's people.

Who the fuck are all these dudes following along behind these emotionally unstable women willing to kill or provide matching outfits at the drop of a hat?

I'll end with this, the remainder of the fucking episode those black outfit goons followed Hornsby and his men around because Leah just bailed on them.

So Hornsby hired a group of goons and dressed them different just so he could bring with his idiot stormtroopers and confuse me as the viewer as to why he even hired them in the first place.

Oh right, Kang needed a reason for Leah to show up and 1on1 Maggie so Daryl could finally snap her.

This is what happens when you start with a premise like "Omg what if Leah ends up fighting Maggie" and build backwards from there.

 

[Ares]

Honestly it prob be some cliffhanger type ending so they never shut the door and open things up for new shows or just rebrand it down the road. They have whored the shit out of this show.

No doubt, it just gonna be a setup.

Assuming they do what they plan.

Rick movies
Daryl/Carol Chronicles
Fear The Walking Dead(I actually think they might try to tie it in)
Another New Show

I'd bet its all on 2 or 3 season contracts ala TWD:WB.

The main show's ratings have dropped so fucking low, I wonder if they can keep justifying the greenlighting of additional production.

Its one thing to milk a show/character/premise that people really like, to the point they don't enjoy it enough to keep watching.

AMC and/or someone with pull in TWD production decided to go from adapting a zombie comic series into compelling TV episodes, into stretching those comics into as many episodes as possible, and what better to fill all the space than virtue signaling at diversity causes.

The audience shrunk and shifted, and now they have no clue what to do because all they have left are die-hard zombie genre people and whatever base of people will watch a zombie show for the diversity soap opera of it.

Instead of building interesting characters and story arcs, they decided to pump in diversity characters with no purpose.

Like Maggie's bodyguard black dude who used to wear the mask and has the twin blade things.

He was weird and interesting (sorta) for like 3 episodes and then they were like "Yeah he's just a black dude who doesn't talk much now."

TWD a world full of Men who stand around quietly and Women who storm around angrily, hurah!

 

[airtime143]

One other thing that bugged me in last week's episode.

Daryl's old sweetie Leah and her deal with Hornsby.

First, let's remember how strict the Commonwealth is about vetting people to live with them, much less serve bearing arms.

Hornsby goes and finds a ragtag band of the remainder of Pope's old group, camping in the woods.

He decides to enlist them to do the killing at Hilltop and get rid of Maggie in particular.

So, Hornsby and his military dudes in the white armor, go and get Leah and her guys black clothing/gear/masks for the assault.

Cuz matching gear of all shapes and sizes for a ragtag band of psychos is just a thing they bring along.

They also give Leah and her guys, weapons, because that's what you do with a group of random murderers in the woods, you just hand them guns and masks and assume none of them will decide to use it on you and take the rest of your shit.

I also wanna take note that Leah had, at her disposal, 20-30 Men of military size and shape willing to don matching black outfits and follow her into the assault on Hilltop.

That group didn't have 20-30 people left when we last saw them and I again do not grasp this notion that Men 10 years into a Zombie Apocalypse simply fall in line behind the only woman of a group who has also (like Maggie) proven to be a failure as a leader.

I will ignore all that and just say, Leah and her 20-30 goons go on the assault and oddly Hornsby and the soldiers come with.

I thought the whole point of the goons and Leah was to have someone else do the dirty work?

Why not use your own armored soldiers if you're bringing them along on the assault with the black-outfitted goons?

I will ignore this.

They go on the assault and Maggie ambushes them with explosives which kill many of the black outfit dudes, but not all of them.

Leah being a strong female leader, decides to abandon her goons and goes after Maggie alone, presumably for revenge, because Maggie killed most of The Reapers, who in turn killed most of Maggie's people.

Who the fuck are all these dudes following along behind these emotionally unstable women willing to kill or provide matching outfits at the drop of a hat?

I'll end with this, the remainder of the fucking episode those black outfit goons followed Hornsby and his men around because Leah just bailed on them.

So Hornsby hired a group of goons and dressed them different just so he could bring with his idiot stormtroopers and confuse me as the viewer as to why he even hired them in the first place.

Oh right, Kang needed a reason for Leah to show up and 1on1 Maggie so Daryl could finally snap her.

This is what happens when you start with a premise like "Omg what if Leah ends up fighting Maggie" and build backwards from there.

Although the premise of the leah/ Hornsby thing was tiresome garbage, I perceived the situation as this...

We found out Leah sniped the weapons shipment, not negans peeps.

Hornsby finds Leah and recognizes that she has skills.
Hornsby, under the impression he will be taking out Daryl, Aaron and Gabriel on a stealth mission sees a change to off Maggie without being the bad guy.

I believe the coin flipping at the beginning was to split the soldiers in to armored commonwealth soldiers and black clad "Leah" soldiers.

I believe Leah was the sole survivor, got the weapons alone (there was nobody around her tent when Hornsby found her nor did they ever show anyone come back to the soldiers being in the camp).

I was unimpressed by the story, but I do think it was explained sufficiently- the black clad dudes were commonwealth in stealth mode.

As for Hornsby and the soldiers coming after things went down- my guess is he expected Maggie to be dead, Leah to be taken out (let Hilltop residents see her in there and doing the deed...then the commonwealth stealth guys put a bullet in leahs head to tie up the loose end) and her soldiers "retreat" as the commonwealth soldiers swoop in to save the day for a leaderless group.

... there might be a longstanding pattern of the commonwealth wiping out the leadership of every group they absorb to avoid challenges to the existing leadership.

 

[airtime143]

Watched the first two FTED episodes.... holy fuck they were bad.
No spoiler tags needed, because the premise of both were just the continuation of the same formulas used the past couple years.

Episode 1- "Hello random zombie fodder. I do not believe in myself."
"Hello main character. I lived a rich full life but now I believe in you after knowing you for a day.... aaaaaaaaaand now I am dead"

Episode 2- "Hi. I know you just met me and that you have many strong people working for you, but I am a main character and i am better so give me the mission."
"Hi. I am a random douche with a rich backstory and my own goals, and I am here to screw you over. But now I love you and we will be happy forever....aaaaaaaaaaaaaand now I am dead."

As for Alecia and her fever- it had better be from something stupid like typhoid or meningitis.
If it isnt, there are 2 options and they both suck.
1, she has a natural resistance to the zombie virus and that could be the endgame.
2, the zombie virus is weakening.

As far as we have seen, the infection gets inside you and replicates wildly, killing you within a day. It either gets in and starts the process or it is chopped off in time and never replicates. I will be pissed if there is a "minor version" or "just a small infection".

 

[airtime143]

Jeffrey Dean Morgan Calls Out Toxic ‘Walking Dead’ Fans After Melissa McBride Exits Spinoff

Jeffrey Dead Morgan called out "Walking Dead" fans for being toxic over Melissa McBridge's exit from the Carol-Daryl spinoff series.

variety.com

This kind of sucks. Carol decided she couldn't go on, and fans lost their shit.

Until I read about this, I had no clue what the series would be- and now I am fairly interested.

The only good scene in walking dead world beyond was the post credit scene in the final episode- some rando in France downloading hard drives of data and playing a vid from the cdc scientist in twd season one regarding developments... the French people he mentioned before all went dark. Thought it was a throwaway nod to an old character.

Basic gist is they were working on a way of jump starting the zombies metabolism, but all that accomished was smarter, faster, stronger zombies. And that was to be the show.

Apparently the carol/ daryl show is set in and filmed in Europe, and carol ducked out of the move. They were to wind up over there in the middle of it.

Honestly, it seems like an interesting way to make the zombies terrifying again.

 

[Ares]

Honestly, it seems like an interesting way to make the zombies terrifying again.

It won't though, Kang has clearly decided to just make the zombies stage props that provide whatever she needs.

Sometimes they are strong and dangerous, other times a character can handle 10+ without much trouble.

It will be the same thing on the new show, dangerous when needed, paper tigers when needed, background noise when needed, etc.

They've milked the series dry as fuck already, I doubt the spin-offs last more than 1-2 seasons.

Would be nice to see some alternative zombie shows.... Z Nation got woke and cancelled, Black Summer is pretty good IMO but likely won't have many seasons....

A World War Z TV show where each episode was a chapter of the book.

Original Story using a setting similar to Dying Light or Dead Island could be really good.

Dying Light - Any setting with a dense city walled off from the outside world, and zombies that become more aggressive/dangerous at night.

Dead Island - Any setting with a vacation/paradise style island isolated from the outside world, experiencing/surviving a zombie outbreak.

In either it would be interesting to focus on two main characters, a primary and a secondary, both experiencing the outbreak independently, but the viewer is watching both characters and desires for the two stories to collide.

 

[airtime143]

It won't though, Kang has clearly decided to just make the zombies stage props that provide whatever she needs.

Sometimes they are strong and dangerous, other times a character can handle 10+ without much trouble.

It will be the same thing on the new show, dangerous when needed, paper tigers when needed, background noise when needed, etc.

They've milked the series dry as fuck already, I doubt the spin-offs last more than 1-2 seasons.

Would be nice to see some alternative zombie shows.... Z Nation got woke and cancelled, Black Summer is pretty good IMO but likely won't have many seasons....

A World War Z TV show where each episode was a chapter of the book.

Original Story using a setting similar to Dying Light or Dead Island could be really good.

Dying Light - Any setting with a dense city walled off from the outside world, and zombies that become more aggressive/dangerous at night.

Dead Island - Any setting with a vacation/paradise style island isolated from the outside world, experiencing/surviving a zombie outbreak.

In either it would be interesting to focus on two main characters, a primary and a secondary, both experiencing the outbreak independently, but the viewer is watching both characters and desires for the two stories to collide.

FUUUUUUUUCK.
I googled to see if Angela kang was going to be involved with the new one... and fuck it, she is.

I have run back through the series several times. I looked up where Kang had contributed. Her pull grew over the years and jumped when she co-wrote 11 episodes in season 7-8... the last 2 years of the Saviors.
I would be willing to bet we could accurately pick which story lines were hers.

Once she took over in season nine, episode 1, it all turned to a disjointed mess.
The museum, the fractured communities... everything was literally pointless.
They never explored what maggie did for 8 years with Georgie, nor what ultimately happened to georgie.
They never had a solid explanation why the communities avoided each other or even held grudges.
It was just a hot steaming pile of touchy feelies.
they even ruined the heads on pikes scene by making it all about Zeke and Carol's relationship.
Hell- it became so fractured I really dont expect to ever know what went down with rick, and even if they do get around to it, I dont know if I will care. I am sure it will be unsatisfying and filled with plot holes.

Michonne wandered off in to a group of buckskin clad immigrants and has never been mentioned again. WTF.

I think I would totally be on board with them mining the franchise ad infinitum if the parent show actually followed a cohesive path through the conclusion without all the side nonsense.

The whisperers should have been one season maximum... preferably half.
The commonwealth should have been a couple seasons with an actual story line about the caste system.
Then they should have moved on to the CRM.


They have the new single episode walking dead chronicles coming up... and it feels 3 years too late.
Had they taken 50% of the walking dead and FTWD episodes and made them one off chronicles, I would have enjoyed them rather than mixing random shit in to a story that should have been concise and to the point.
World beyond honestly could have been condensed in to 2 or 3 episodes and we never would have missed anything important.

Its a shame.
season 9 on has been so fucking awful that it retroactively destroyed my enjoyment of many aspects of season 7 and 8, which for the most part were absolutely awesome.








Black summer is a little too disjointed IMO... but not bad. The single shot camera runs are particularly impressive- from point to point over long distances and subjects without a cut is not an easy task.
The out of order presentation can sometimes make things a little muddy and kill the point.
What I do kind of enjoy is the lack of a sole focus and the fact that they are just giving us samples of the world here and there with no backstory or set up- just events.

World war z was pretty awesome. A limited run of cleanup stories would be cool as hell.
Brad Pitt set the bar for my expectation of reasonable human behavior in a situation like that- He took duct tape and magazines on day one to make armor... something that literally everyone left alive within a week of an outbreak would focus on in the real world.

 

[airtime143]

Just saw that Tales of the walking dead has an air date- 8-14.
I think it will be entertaining, short stories of different people each show.

The one I am really looking forward to is Terry Crews. If We dont get to see him go beast mode ripping zombies to pieces and then standing over them flexing his pecs I will be sorely disappointed.

I would very much like to see at least one episode with comedic overtones, and Crews could probably nail it.

 

[ZOMBIE@CTESPN]

According to ign michone and Rick will be in the upcoming season.

 

[Ares]

According to ign michone and Rick will be in the upcoming season.

Well, at least that means the end is here, finally.

 

[airtime143]

Well, at least that means the end is here, finally.

I was all in through the saviors, but all since then has been just awful.
Watching just for closure at this point.

I can't help but think that if Lincoln and Mcbride had not left, the story would have been far better and over by now.

So- i wonder if this means they missed their window of interest and are nixing the grimes movies?

 

[Ares]

I was all in through the saviors, but all since then has been just awful.
Watching just for closure at this point.

I can't help but think that if Lincoln and Mcbride had not left, the story would have been far better and over by now.

So- i wonder if this means they missed their window of interest and are nixing the grimes movies?

I hope Rick Grimes comes back and just starts kicking people in their pussies.

Like can you imagine Rick and Shane circa 2010 vs these Commonwealth dorks?