RainOnToosdays

I thought she was signaling for backup with the flare so was fully expecting the Oceanside Amazons to appear. In all honesty though, the entire battle confused me. Especially the part with Daryl et al rushing towards a gate with what seemed like intent to do some big plan but then they couldn't open it so Daryl climbs on top of something (a truck?) and just stands there a totally unprotected target for why? I seriously think there had to have been much more filmed but the parts that would have made the battle easier to follow were left on the c utting room floor because some editor thought the scenes with Abe & Sasha were more important. I recall a raid on that compound where they killed everyone as they slept, the roadside bunch Daryl sent to oblivion with the rocket launcher, and the ones Carol and Maggie killed & burnt up. What were the other two that made 5? I can't even remember what triggered the initial, uh, animosity between Team Rick and the Saviors. I am really surprised people noticed that. Unless they are showing me a tiger or a throne or Gregory at his desk, I have a very hard time telling what neighborhood we're in and I pretty much don't even care as it seems that nowadays the people are often going and coming from one place to the other. I never questioned it because a last-minute reprieve-by-tiger was just damn good fun, totally willing to fan-wink that. :) Also - who is this Jerry I see mentioned several times here in the comments?

I liken Eugene to Andrea. They both, through no real fault of their own, fell in with the enemy camp. Andrea established a personal relationship with the leader which upped her status, she felt safe, she was enjoying the creature comforts, and even after clear indication that the Gov was bad news, even after finding out her original group was alive and at the prison, she chose to stay with the Gov at Woodbury. With the realization that many people might die, her course of action was not to kill the Gov when she had the chance but to talk in hopes of getting both factions to agree to a diplomatic resolution. Andrea's moral mirror was Michonne. Michonne knew things were wrong and she chose to have no part of it, and she risked her own life in leaving and in trying to kill the Gov. It ended badly for Andrea, with the man she parked her allegiance with killing her for being a traitor. But you know what? When the end came for her Rick's group was there for her and they forgave her. Eugene's story so far is exactly the same (the only exception being he knew 100% from the very get-go how evil Negan is) and in his story Sasha is his Michonne - an old friend caught up in the same situation but who makes all the opposite choices he did. Eugene has established a relationship with Negan, his status has gone up, he feels safe, he is enjoying all the creature comforts. He knows whats-what but even after being given the opportunity to get away (when Sasha and Rosita arrive) he chooses to stay. He can't bring himself to kill Negan even though he has the opportunity with that second pill, so he tries "diplomacy". That's how I saw it with him going ahead of the convoy with the bullhorn - he wasn't waving Negans's banner, he was hoping that as an old friend his old group would listen to him and back down and thus save lives including theirs. And as in Andrea's case, it didn't help. Now Negan is suspicious of him and given all of the above parallels, it is quite likely he will die at Negan's hands. I really liked Eugene so I can only hope that when it comes around for him, the old gang is there for him with forgiveness in their hearts as they were for Andrea.

I also credit Eugene with saving Glenn and Tara's lives. Back when Abe was sleeping in the back seat and Eugene purposefully mis-navigated Rosita so they'd end up at the end of the tunnel Glenn and Tara were going through. If they hadn't been there there would have been no cavalry w/ guns blazing to save Glenn and Tara from their predicament. And Maggie might have passed right on by - she couldn't have known Glenn was in there - had there not been a car there with three people in it to get her attention. If I recall correctly, Rosita was mad and asked Eugene why he led them back there and he said something to the effect of "because we still have to live with ourselves when this is all over". Anyone who has survived this long must have some sort of skill. Eugene's happens to be subterfuge. I like Eugene. I like the funny way he talks and his awkwardness and his ability to admit he's no fearless hero. False bravado will get you killed in this world.

Huh. I thought all of the men were taken out of the boxcar and brought to the slaughter room but now I am not sure.

Totally agree. Negan is obviously a pro at using fear to control people. My initial gut reaction to Glen making a scene over Maggie was NO NO NO don't show your cards like that .... But I think it actually benefited him and Maggie as they are now safe for the above reason. From a tactical standpoint taking out the biggest physical threat first is wise but beating a woman (especially a pregnant one or a young tiny looking thing like Rosita) or child to death would I think have maximum psychological impact on the survivors because it is just so totally taboo. You want to display just how deranged and heartless you are, that you will do absolutely anything to keep your subjects under control, that's one way to do it. But I don't think he did. My money is on Abe, too. I will be completely shocked if it turns out to be anyone else. He's the biggest physical threat, he said his goodbyes to Eugene, and he was planning a future with Sasha. The show built up his character this season making him more than just a cartoon spouting one-liners, and they gave him hope, so yeah I think of course they are going to kill him off. I've read comments that's Abe death wouldn't have much impact because he doesn't have strong enough ties to any of the other characters, that's he's little more than a glorified red-shirt. But I disagree. Abe's been around since just after the fall of the prison, he went through the horror at the trough at Terminus with the other men in the group, he's saved Glen's life at least three times that I remember, he saved Eugene, he's saved Michonne and Carl & Judith, and he has/had a romantic tie to two other characters. He may not be one of the Atlanta Five but he's still a core member of the family at this point so I think his death will be traumatic for the other characters and the audience. Also, Abe's story started out with him beating several men to death so dying the same way sort of fits with Morgan's "everything comes full circle".

Taking a response over to the new thread TWD Season 7 Anticipation - Evil Cliffhanger from Hell

Yes. Also he was a sitting duck up there in front with the big glass windshield, I was really worried he was going to get shot up and not even make it to the cliffhanger.

I just read somewhere recently (might of been in Rob Lowe's book) that no man looks good running on camera. Except Tom Cruise who seems to know it and runs in like, all of his movies, LOL. I tend to agree. No matter how much of a tough guy an actor is playing, they all look goofy running.

It totally reminded me of an exhausted Carol & Daryl plopping down on the same bunk together in the womens shelter in Atlanta. Two people so 100% comfortable with each other that they can do that without it being awkward. I didn't really see any sexual tension in either case, just a really close bond that could organically go to a physical place. Absolutely loved Rick & Daryl's road trip adventure, from putting in the CD to Daryl breaking off a piece of that KitKat bar to Rick purposefully jostling the unconscious Jesus into him and grinning in the mirror. And Daryl's "he's on the roof isn't he?". LOL. Perfect. Just two pals having a 'could it get any worse?' kind of day.

For a moment, when she stopped shaking so much and was giving him those surreptitious glances, I thought for sure she was pulling a Carol and was only faking it, waiting for a moment she could knock the gun away from him. As it is, I think she's a lot like Eugene in that she used brains rather than brawn to help herself. Except Eugene picked a good guy to trick into protecting himself, whereas Denise used a bad guy. Which is even smarter, getting the bad guy to help you. Ditto! It's dark but pretty damn fun. If I wanted logic and realism I'd be watching science documentaries. I really didn't even notice the day-to-night so many have issue with as in my mind, I thought is was already quite late in the day and getting dark when the last episode left off. The only thing that actually made me go Huh? and took me out of the moment for a moment was when Tara & Rosita said something about "let's go get Carol" and then poof, they were right there in the same room with Carol and Morgan waking up. I had thought that they were in a completely different building and was wondering how they knew where she was at and how they got there so fast. But I did have a lot of distractions going on during this episode and was not able to watch the rerun of the previous episode first to refresh my memory so I'm sure I missed or have forgotten something. I've never been a Rick Grimes fan-girl but darn, he looked good out there with the 5 o'clock shadow and hair plastered to his face. Thrilled to death that Gabriel and Eugene both got their game on! I've been swimming against the tide in liking both of them since their first appearances. Eugene's comment about wanting to be part of the story that will be told echoes Troy for me: I believe that Michonne now joins Carol as the only survivor to have killed a child. Rightfully so, she was protecting her people in killing Ron and we seem to unanimously condone what she did, but I can't help but wonder, what if it had been Carol? I can't help but feel that if it had been Carol it would not have been acceptable - there would have been an outcry over what a cold bitch Carol is and why couldn't she just have knocked him out or something instead .... But, it was Michonne and we seem to love her even more for it. I don't think Carol is at all responsible for Sam's behavior & death. She told him a scary story about monsters outside the gate that would eat him alive and guess what ... there really are monsters outside the gate that will eat you alive. If anything, his foreknowledge from Carol should have steeled him into behaving and doing as he was told. Suck it up Buttercup or die. He didn't and he did.

Rick and Carol ran into the "fruit hippies" the day Rick banished Carol, just before everything went to hell at the prison and everyone got split up before reuniting at Terminus. We don't know the timeline of Morgan's history, all we know is that everything we were shown last night took place sometime between Rick/Michonne/Carl running into him in "Clear" and him ending up at Alexandria. So it could have been Sam & Anna before Rick & Carol met them, but you're right - Sam was blonde and the guy last night had dark curly hair so it wasn't them. Darn. Would have been a neat little touch.

The young couple we saw briefly last night - the guy on crutches and girl giving Morgan a can of soup and a bullet - are they the "fruit hippies" Rick and Carol ran into? I vaguely remember one of them having something wrong with their leg.

Ahhh! He looked familiar but he has such a generic look I didn't spend any time trying to figure out where I might have seen him before, as it could have been in anything. I too thought the twist would be that the Cheesemaker (did we ever get his real name?) would turn out to be that Clayton Wallace Whoever, though I'm not sure what plot-point that would have served. Although having a psychotic killer do a 360 and decide all life is precious and take on a new nice-guy persona would actually have made more sense to me then the story we were given. It would have given support to the idea that there is hope for even the worst among us, even the wolf at the end, and thus don't kill anyone. I somehow missed all the turtle references (except for of course Enid eating the one). Is this supposed to be symbolic? If anyone has retreated into a hard shell to survive, it's Carol. Soft on the inside, hard on the outside. Was not a fan of all the here's not here stuff or of the episode itself. It should have been titled Redirect. The redirect of Morgan's character, and of the show itself, going from the first heart-pounding episodes .. to this.

Daryl's job & actions confused the hell out of me, too. I get that he and Abe & Sasha were supposed to lead the herd at least 20 miles out from town before coming back. But why was Daryl on a bike needed for that? Was he supposed to be going ahead of them to act as a scout? Did they need a human scent out in the open for the walkers to follow? I missed a lot of dialog this episode but here's the sequence I recall and my take on it: Shit hits the fan, Rick tells Glen & Michonne to run home as fast as they can, leave the Alexandrians if they have to. Via walkie-talkie he tells Daryl what's up but tells Daryl NOT to go home, stay with he mission to lead the walkers away. Daryl considers and decides F-this, I'm going "home" to help with whatever is happening there. Sasha gets pissed at him for deciding to go. (Why? See above. Why did they need him along with the car anyway?). He's on his way back to Alexandria when something makes him stop and raise Rick on the walkie-talkie, wherein he hears gunfire over it and no more Rick, thus realizing Rick is in trouble. So he turns around and goes ASAP to find Rick, his brother ya' know. But then we see him at the crossroads running back into Sasha & Abe in the car with the herd behind them, and it seems in the closing shots he had fallen back in place alongside them slowly leading the walkers again, rather than quickly telling them Rick was in trouble and he was off to find him. Did he mean to get back to Abe & Sasha and the herd or did he mean to go find/help/save Rick? Was it coincidence he ran into Abe & Sasha and the herd at the crossroads? Did that change his mind about what he wanted to do? Did he hear Rick trying to raise Glen on the walkie-talkie with no answer, then heard Rick and the gunshots, realized that Glen and Rick both might now be dead, and thus decided to carry out Rick's plan re relocating the herd because ..... ? I'm Thoroughly confused. And I know Daryl needing shampoo and a shower has been a running joke for a long time and I have always shrugged it off, but it's outt'a hand now. He's never looked as filthy and disgusting as he did in this episode. Yeah I get it, he's the gritty bad boy who doesn't give two F's about his looks or hygiene and it IS the apocolyspe, but c'mon Show, there is such a thing as too much, get your male lead cleaned the hell up!

IIRC, when the show started we only had three female characters of any note - Lori, Carol, and Andrea. Lori and Carol were married housewives, used to and accepting of traditional gender roles. Andrea on the other hand was a single career woman. It's understandable to me then that she was not willing to stand by as a 'little woman while the men did all the heavy lifting so to speak, as Lori and Carol did. Centuries of tradition and gender stereotyping don't immediately fall away just because it's the apocalypse. It takes time for the women to realize their strengths and break from expectations just as it takes time for the men to realize and accept it. As a woman in such situation you DO have to prove yourself, and you have to be pushy just to get the opportunities to do so. If you're not actively fighting for an equal place at the table you're not going to get it. It's telling that on one hand there is all this contempt for Lori and Carol for not doing enough while at the same time there is much hate for Andrea for trying to do more. Just as in real life, it's a catch-22 for women. Scorned for sticking to old fashioned gender roles, or disliked and viewed as bitchy, pushy, & out-of-line for trying to rise above. I liked Andrea right up until, as Michonne said, she gave up their friendship for a warm bed. I liked her wanting to learn to shoot, I liked her wanting to do guard duty instead of housework, I liked her going with the men on the truck to collect & dispose of the bodies, I loved her telling off Lori, I liked her no-nonsense approach to dealing with suicidal Beth (Current-day Carol would have handled it the same way - he beat you he's dead get over it), I liked that she was always trying to prove herself, and I appreciate the catch-22 her non-traditional behavior put her in with both the men and the women. Andrea was like a pioneer of the post-apocalyptic womens' rights movement. ;)

I see characters often being called a "Mary Sue" character. Can someone please explain what exactly that means and where it originated from? Thanks.

I was disappointed with last week's episode (after the season opener that featured the horror of Terminus and the ensuing escape I have high expectations for premieres) but last night's episode rocked. It should have been the opener but I understand they had to set things up to explain why most of CDB was not there. I too thought at first that Carol was entering into Crazy Town and hallucinating (or fantasizing) when we saw Smoking Lady get slaughtered. Wow! I am totally not a fan of the horror genre but that was just genius. To do something like that, in broad daylight, after showing Susy Homemaker making a dish and checking the baby monitor, with no ominous music to prepare us... totally unexpected and surreal. Which made it downright terrifying. Likewise, something about the scene with the wolf chasing Ron was seriously frightening. I don't have a DVR so will have to wait for an opportunity to re-watch on TV but it seemed to me that for a moment before Ron took off running from behind the tree, everything was still and there was not even any audio. Game set match. I sure won't mind if Ron dies but darn that shot had impact. The opening scenes of Enid's backstory - all I could think was darn, what a little Dixon. Surely she is Daryl & Merle's long-lost little sister. I never understood all the Morgan-love for a character we only saw twice before they brought him back in bits and pieces last season but I am definitely not liking him now. I too thought he was going to be shot by the girl Carol left to guard the armory and then would have to be treated by the not-really-a-doctor-doctor. I am wondering if the gun Carol gave him is what is in the bag he had with him on his apparent exit from Alexandria. I know Deanne is supposed to be all stressed and grieving but what is up with her look? They had her looking like death twice over, all drawn and sunken and skeletal in the face. Ack. Jesse using little hair-cutting scissors to dispatch the She-Wolf made me laugh out loud. Beth anyone? It's not the weapon it's the attitude & context. I was very happy Carol did not smoke the cigarette at the end.

The first She-Wolf I remember seeing was the one who Jesse encountered. And it hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks that unlike her male counterparts who were out not just to kill but to to over-kill in the most grisly way possible, she did not attempt to kill Jesse and make mincemeat out of her, she was satisfied to leave her just unconscious (though I am sure Jesse was faking it). Then I think Carol tangoed with a She-Wolf, the second and only other one I noticed. And it seemed to me that unlike their male counter parts both were unarmed? Does that say something about the Wolfpack's ethos? or about women in general? or about this viewer not noticing everything? (Maybe they were armed and I just didn't notice their weapon?)

I was really taken aback at first that Carl didn't shoot him immediately. I had even told my husband after last weeks preview that my money is on Carl - noone is getting in that house or anywhere near the baby with Carl on the job! Hesitating and possibly sympathetic didn't seem like the Carl I've come to know/expect. However, after the re-watch, I think it was because of Enid. They had just had their little chat in the house, with him saying something like '"they all have to die" and Enid was all "Why? they are just people". When he was facing off with the wounded wolf on the ground, Carl took his eyes off him momentarily to glance at Enid (which is what enabled the guy to get a hold of him). Then of course he had no choice, it was an up close & personal life or death situation. I think he had temporarily let his guard down because of Enid in the same way Daryl did back at the mortuary house because of Beth. They were both letting someone else's rose-colored glasses temper their natural tendencies. It makes me think of Rick wanting to shoot Jesse's husband but not doing so until Deanne gave him permission. Which in turn makes me think of Willard in Footloose not beating the crap out of the guys outside the dance until his gal Rusty gave him permission. Not sure where I am going with this other than it all seems to tie together. Whether it's for political or strategic or romantic reasons, a man's innate instinct is often tempered by a woman. So I think yeah, it was because of Enid that Carl didn't blow the guy away right off. He shot Morgan, too. Morgan didn't end up dying but Carl was shooting to kill when he shot him. I wonder if Morgan knows that?

Count me in with "most viewers" then as I don't get what you're getting at here? When they were talking in the car I felt strongly that Aaron really, almost desperately, wants to be a part of the family. The family doesn't bail on each other so he wasn't going to bail on Daryl. Welcome to Team Rick, Aaron, you just got your admission slip stamped. Later when Maggie was speaking at the meeting, she said they (the Alexandrians) want to be like them (CDB). I wish I had her exact words as I thought she was spot-on. It was supposed to be this group (CDB) being taken in and assimilating to the ASZ ways. Deanne even said "they are all one of us now" after the Glen/Nicholas dust-up. But the fact is, it's the Alexandrians who want to join CDB, not the other way around. I really like the connection between Aaron and Daryl. Ross Marquand is doing a fantastic job. To come on to a well-established show and be paired in most of your scenes with one of its most popular characters, that has to be very challenging, but I think he is really holding his own and is selling the chemistry between the two (and I mean that in a purely platonic way). Contrast that to Alexandra Breckenridge faced with the same challenge and well, I think Marquand is succeeding whereas Breckenridge is not. *Edited to insert the actors' names for better clarity. It originally looked as below.

That makes the most sense of all to me. In real life I am a big believer in "a place for everything and everything in its place" and am a bit obsessive with organizing & categorizing stuff. But in this regard I think too much categorization would be a headache for readers, posters and the Mods. I feel people might become afraid to post for fear of saying the wrong thing in the wrong place and getting in trouble with other readers or the Mods. One dumping-grounds thread where people can talk about the comics and the show and spoilers & speculations based on both is a good idea. Then people can post freely without worrying about being in the wrong place or whether they need a spoiler tag, and readers who don't want to be spoiled or speculated know to avoid that thread. Just my other two cents, I don't really care except for the fact that I really like how active this forum is and would hate to see it quieted by confusion.

I don't understand the bolded contradiction there. Either the comics are different enough from the show that people who have read them can still be surprised by the show, or they are so much the same that people who have read the comics know for certain what is or isn't going to happen. The way I see it, in addition to the episode threads (no spoilers, no comic talk), we already have The Comics: Same, Yet Different Watch Duty: Spoilers and Spoiler Speculation Speculation Without Spoilers "The Comics: Same Yet Different" seems to be there to serve exactly the purpose being requested - to talk abut the comics vrs the show. So I don't see the purpose in adding yet another section that would just further complicate things as far as where people should post what. If things get too confusing people will just stop posting. (FWIW, I don't read the comics and have no interest in doing so, and I don't like being spoiled, so I stick to the Episode threads and the Survivor threads.)

Since there are no signs of physical abuse on Jessie I was buying into that theory, Hoped the show was just giving us white herrings to make us think Jessie is the victim, leading up to a big reveal in the finale that WHOA, everyone (characters and viewers alike) is wrong, Jessie is the bad guy here. That would have been great and could have led to all kinds of new angst for Rick & Carol - doubting their own instincts, remembering to trust noone, feeling foolish for having been played .... But I think this episode pretty much cemented that no, it is indeed Jessie as victim, proceed with trope. And that's a shame because if this board is any indication of overall viewership, the vast majority are finding this story line ridiculous. Not good for a show that touts itself as the #1 show on television.

Pete didn't know Jessie and Rick had already been alone together in the garage. When Pete showed up on the stairs, Jessie and Rick weren't even standing very close together, IIRC. When Pete appeared, Jessie could have said something like "Hi Hon, Is Carl upstairs with Ron? Rick is here looking for him." Everyone proceeds with awkward small talk for a moment, Rick leaves. Crisis averted. Now Jessie has time (an hour - a day - anything longer than the blink-of-an-eye she actually decided in) to think things over and come up with a plan. Like, the next time Pete is passed out, just leave. Don't make a scene, don't give him any warning, just be gone when he gets up. Instead, as soon as Pete appeared Jessie says "No, Pete". No what? Now all Pete's danders are up and we've got a situation. And then she tells Pete to leave. That really galled me. If Jessie chose to leave, Pete had two options .. let her or physically stop her. Physically preventing her from leaving would be all kinds of wrong (unlawful restraint ... assault) thus Jesssie and anyone else would have the right to use whatever force necessary against him. It's all on Pete if it gets ugly. Ordering Pete to leave instead, that opens up a big ol' can of ugly from the get go. You know Pete is not going to leave voluntarily which means someone is going to have to physically make him. In this case Rick because he was the one there. And Rick (or any other man) being there makes it oh so much worse because now, to Pete, its not just about his wife defying him, it's also about losing face in front of another male. Which gaurantees he is not going to leave willingly and its going to get physical. Ordering Pete to leave instead of just leaving herself was all kinds of stupid. Either she's too stupid for words or she wanted it to get physical knowing Rick had designs on killing him.

I liked Sam running to Carol and clinging to her during the fight but I was surprised that he did not go to his mother even after she was knocked back by Pete. When everyone came running when Glen and Aidan got into their dust-up, Daryl held Nicholas down and wanted to beat on him but Rick pulled him off and made him stand-down. Daryl was ticked but he and Rick were OK with each other again that evening, Michonne stood over Aidan, daring him to get back up. Then this ep ended with her standing over Rick, with that "I f'ing dare anybody to do anything" look in her eyes. I thought her stance over Rick was protective, He's our problem and we take care of of own; you all aren't going to touch him. Part of Rick's rant was saying that "we know what to do and we just do it". Michonne knew what needed to be done and did it. I think Rick will understand when he comes to.