Walking Dead Season 7

[thunderbolt]

In the 1st season of Fear the Walking Dead, wasn't it shown the police or guard knew to kill with headshots? I'm pretty sure it was mentioned by someone.
And I think the garbage people may morph into the Whisperers?

They had to figure it out like everyone else, there is a scene towards the beginning where they or the cops didn't know and learned the hard way.

[johnnystorm]

In the 1st season of Fear the Walking Dead, wasn't it shown the police or guard knew to kill with headshots? I'm pretty sure it was mentioned by someone.
And I think the garbage people may morph into the Whisperers?

[great_chandel]

I am just glad Steven Ogg (Simon) survived!! That guy is such a good actor! He looks exactly like someone who would be a right-hand henchman. What is going to be interesting to see will be how long into the next season the writers will wait to introduce "The Whisperers?"

[Hector]

They allude to National Guard. You had the Woodbury ep where they ran across a surviving platoon. Fear Walking Dead dealt directly with it the first season.

IMO, the idea is National Guard went in head first putting troops at direct infection. So bodies were brought back to bases which turned, and eventually overran the facilities. Those that were stationed away survived like rat patrols.

It makes sense in that troops wouldn't know you need a headshot to kill, that early in the pandemic. My guess is they don't want to do a full military season as Day of The Dead covered most of that. It would also be impossible for Rick to beat a full platoon, and then you have the fact military would be constantly working on intel as they wouldn't accept the status quo. That would force Kirkman to offer exposition he doesn't want to detail.

Exactly.

Existing military would totally change the dynamic of the show...and it would be a totally different show.

But practically all experts in these things say that if a zombie apocalypse were to ever happen...the military would be the ones in charge...while the small civilian units like Rick and Morgans, would not. The military would initially decimate countless zombie hordes...but eradication would be next to impossible...as anyone dying...would turn...thus having a perpetual zombie population...150K people dying each day globally...the human race would be F'ed either way, lol...

[hedrap]

They allude to National Guard. You had the Woodbury ep where they ran across a surviving platoon. Fear Walking Dead dealt directly with it the first season.

IMO, the idea is National Guard went in head first putting troops at direct infection. So bodies were brought back to bases which turned, and eventually overran the facilities. Those that were stationed away survived like rat patrols.

It makes sense in that troops wouldn't know you need a headshot to kill, that early in the pandemic. My guess is they don't want to do a full military season as Day of The Dead covered most of that. It would also be impossible for Rick to beat a full platoon, and then you have the fact military would be constantly working on intel as they wouldn't accept the status quo. That would force Kirkman to offer exposition he doesn't want to detail.

[Mikey]

I'm surprised you never see US Army heavy duty equipment .

Just about every second town in the USA has a National Guard with a few tanks etc.

[Gorn Captain]

This show badly needs a strong, new direction. Some sort of resolution to the problem (a true sanctuary, or a cure/vaccin), or a Last Stand kind of finish, fight to the last man.
I honestly hope it ends positively, with some peace for our heroes.

Anything but Negan, really.

[sprytel]

The "bad guy shows up, home gets overrun, group gets divided... then form up to start a new community somewhere else" formula had gone stale. I understand the need to shake it up. And I liked the idea of moving to a period with more established communities and traces of civilization starting to return. They had some interesting pieces to work with. The Kingdom has been pretty enjoyable. The Maggie stuff (and Deeana before that) had the potential to explore the dynamic of "warlord" vs. "politician". But they squandered it. We should have gone instantly from "Negan kills two beloved characters" (which should have happened in the season finale) to "ok, this means war" (which should have been the season 7 premiere). Instead they burned through a whole meaningless season. Worse than that, all of the aborted attempts to deal with Negan-- Karl, Rosita, Sasha-- actually make Negan look like a remarkably restrained guy. A jerk, sure... but they had to do some ridiculous things with the Saviors to give the illusion of plot without actually altering the status quo. "Bury Me Here" was the only episode I will even remember this time next year-- and tellingly, it had no Rick and no Negan.

I hope they get it back on track. But Walking Dead has gone from "gotta watch it Sunday night (oh and let me hear catch the discussion of it on Talking Dead)" to "oh wow, I'm 3 episodes behind... I guess I better watch one to clear some space off the DVR." Not a good sign. Honestly, I'm way more excited about AMC's Into the Badlands, which keeps getting better and better, than Walking Dead.

[YoungOnce]

This show started out strong and now every season seems to be lather, rinse repeat. There just needs to be a big picture plot line in my opinion. There needs to be a goal other than to survive. I think the characters and actors are great.

[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.

[GlobalObserver]

Sooo bad.

[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.

[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!

[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....

[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.