Walking Dead Season 7

[Hector]

I assume the Oceanside people will join as well.

Oceanside? You mean that formidable Amazonian community who was overpowered and disarmed of all their weapons by Rick and a couple of others in under one minute? That Oceanside?

[Hector]

That junk/garbage people, which seems to be a matriarchal society...

Why do they all speak like that? Pretty silly if you ask me. I mean, I can see an entire generation that has passed after a zombie apocalypse talking like that. But only after less than one decade? Please, lol...

[emeraldknight47]

Oceanside? You mean that formidable Amazonian community who was overpowered and disarmed of all their weapons by Rick and a couple of others in under one minute? That Oceanside?

Yeah, I can't see whereas they would be of much benefit, either, but hey---woman power!!!

[drquest]

Oceanside? You mean that formidable Amazonian community who was overpowered and disarmed of all their weapons by Rick and a couple of others in under one minute? That Oceanside?

If they can point a gun and pull the trigger they'd be of use...

[hedrap]

But he's a complete caricature here, from the swagger to the speech pattern to the constant smirk. And he's shot far too often upwards to make him look theoretically larger and more menacing. All he's missing is holding a light under his chin to look more spooky. The dialog he's given isn't much, but he certainly hasn't made it any better with his interpretation. I find I want him killed off, not because I hate the character, but because I'm tired of it.

The last episode was just OK. We've been building up towards it since the end of last season, and the payoff off didn't warrant that investment. Obviously the big death was Sasha and that was hardly a surprise. Maggie's speech at the end left me flat. It was a fitting end to the worst season of the series. Maybe this episode will be better in hindsight once we start next season.

I don't want him around after all-out war. Simon has been a better threat.

Since on-set reports confirmed reshoots, all the fight scenes with Michonne and Sasha are insert shots, meaning there's no frame continuity with the other actors. For example, how does zombie-Sasha just wander off. The dead are attracted to noise and people, why would she leave the firefight and how did she not get shot to pieces in the crossfire?

My guess is Danai/Michonne was going to leave. She's shooting Black Panther now and has a lot of worked offered/lined up. But then Senequa/Sasha got the Trek gig and CBS wouldn't accommodate her schedule, which she and TWD people had alluded to after the anouncement. TWD execs knew they couldn't kill off both black female leads in the same ep without causing an incident, so they moved Rosita's death onto Sasha and shot Michonne's scenes two ways in case they had to cliffhanger her survival.

That's my gut take, because all Sasha scenes in the finale are inserts and the motivation given in one episode negates almost her entire story arc. If you remove the Abraham scenes, her eating the pills stills works because she has been on a literal suicide run since not just Abe's death but her brother's and Bob. That was her sniper subplot from last year and how she connected with Abe. Then, in one ep, her motivation is a valiant sacrifice for the team based off a conversation she's never alluded to?

I think the Garbage Gang swerve falls into the same mess. The producers needed the swerve to create false tension, like the boat zombies at Oceanside. But if Jadis negotiations are so mercurial, how could she not listen to see if Rick was willing to make a better offer? Negan was offering people? Rick could match that from Negan's survivors. But, if she did switch back, Negan's entire crew is dead.

It's a really soap opera ending. I'm guessing it's a side effect from all the "this is so bleak" criticism from Terminus/Wolves. They must think they've lost audience due to it being so downbeat. The problem, to me, is the repetition of scenarios.

[Hector]

If they can point a gun and pull the trigger they'd be of use...

Like they did against Rick, snitch Tera, and two or three other people?

Seriously...Oceanside could help...but I just can't get over how insipid and lame that they were overpowered by a vastly smaller and inferior force...truly illogical...bad writing all around, lazy in fact...

[Iron Mego]

The writing has actually been so bad for the last two or three seasons it's kind of insulting. So there are at least three, probably more, occasions when Negan should have been toast (Sasha, the lion--twice in fact, and Rick being an inch away from his face) and nothing happens. I can't forgive that kind of non-sense. I'm officially done.

[Mego Milk]

Dedicated to Bernie Wrightson was a nice touch.

[Nostalgiabuff]

Dedicated to Bernie Wrightson was a nice touch.

agreed. I thought that was really a classy things to do

[emeraldknight47]

Dedicated to Bernie Wrightson was a nice touch.

Yep, that was an unexpected, but very much appreciated, gesture on the part of the show.

[Gorn Captain]

Well, that was a mess.
Once the actual fight begins, the writer apparently took a day off and let the cleaning lady handle the writing chores. Talk about a poorly choreographed battle. Watch it again, and it just makes no sense. People standing around, waiting to be conveniently shot. People having clear shots, but not doing anything. Negan dodging every bullet. One moment, the heroes are unarmed, suddenly they're back in business, gun in hand.
To be honest, it felt like a Road Runner cartoon to me.
Rick getting shot in the gut, but "it's only a flesh wound!"

What would have made sense to me:
Eugene arrives, bullhorn in hand. Rick sighs, disappointed, and shoots the guy point blank.
They get betrayed, but are still armed, facing off. They know they won't survive another confrontation with Negan, not another Lucille moment, and they fight it out, just head-on. Hand-to-hand, guns, knives, clubs and fists.
Negan opens the casket, and Sasha rips his throat out. In the battle, he stumbles around, bleeding hard. He falls to his knees, his comrades desert him, leave him behind.
Rick comes over, and before Negan can start with another long-winded speech, Rick says "I told you I'd kill you", and shoots the guy. Repeatedly.

But I didn't see any of that....

[johnnystorm]

I think those guns they found originally belonged to a bunch of bad guys who once took on the A-Team.
You know, 5000 rounds hitting absolutely nothing!

Good news is this whole episode will play out over and over again next season!

[GlobalObserver]

This show has gotten so absurdly bad, with characters behaving in a manner that no real people would, that I keep expecting SAMCRO to ride into the fray.

[GlobalObserver]

Sooo bad.

[hedrap]

S1 and S2 were in the 3-5 share range, but you can see incremental growth over each episode. So Starting with season 3...

S3 premiere 5
season average 5
finale 6

S4 premiere 8!
season average 6
finale 8

S5 premiere 8.7
season average 7
finale 8

S6 premiere 7.4
season averaged 6.5
finale 6.9

S7 Premiere - 8.4
season average 5.4
finale 5.4

There's no way around how bad this season went. Over the summer, Gimple and co will chalk it up to "setting the bar so high, the only place to go was down", but the previous years show that's not the case. Terminus did better numbers and then held it across some weak episodes.

I caught a writers roundtable on NPR and they were discussing dystopian literature. One guy said, (paraphrasing) that dystopian and post-apocalyptic are not the same as post-apocalyptic is about ground-level viewpoint and dystopian is more marco society issues.

That's TWD's problem. Kirkman was no longer interested in post-apocalypse, he wanted to write dystopian. The more control he's given, the more dystopian the show has gotten. We talked in past seasons about how S7 would be about fifedoms and have a quasi-Mad Max vibe. Nobody was sure how that would play out because so many of those themes were covered by the Governor.

Now we know. People are not interested. I know we bang on JDM's performance, but the Kingdom has been interesting. Morgan has been great. It's not all garbahge.

To me, the problem appears to be the leap of faith is too great. It's too much to buy characters just accepting this scenario and trying to exist, as what exactly is the purpose of living? So Kirkman's non-interest in offering a How or Why answer, now coupled with a desire to not offer a What (is the resolution), feels unending. And that does not work for serialized shows. Episodic, yeah, because those have closure each episode with some lingering issues. The entire episode is not a dangling bait for next week. For example, I'm wondering how many people expected Rick's crew to actually make it to Washington DC, and once things stopped in Alexandria, did they tune out?

So I'm expecting a huge change announcement this summer as Lincoln's contract only runs through S9. Hurd is shrewd, she'll see the narrative problem and find solution compromises Kirkman can live with. The next big comic moments are not going to be a big enough change to draw people back to the show.