rab01

This season will look much better on a binge re-watch than it has playing out on-air. Schrodinger's Glenn messed up all the narrative flow because every other plot line was just another "damn it, stop wasting time with the boring people and get back to Glenn." That said, they did the do the one thing I demanded of the show -- they picked up his situation from the exact moment they left it and showed exactly what happened without any time jump. If it had happened all in one episode, it wouldn't seemed all that implausible an escape so I'm not too annoyed at them. I like Enid and I can't believe I'm saying this but I like Carl. I thought her reactions were plenty sensible to me - why would she want to go back? Either it's not safe and she dies or she gets attached to people and watches them die - either way, why would she want to go back to that? As for Carl, I think he still thinks of Ron as his friend and wasn't being snide during the gun lesson. Carl is both a really good shot and has killed more people than Glenn so, in his own mind, he is an experienced soldier trying to help teach the noob in the platoon. Carl doesn't see all the malice coming off of Ron because Carl would never kill somebody because a girl liked them better and doesn't know he's in a TV show so has no idea that foreshadowing is being dumped on them like anvils.

I should add that comic-book Negan is more believable than comic-book Governor so if they improve Negan as much or more than they improved the Governor (yes, the Governor of the comic books was LESS believable and more pure Eeeeeevil than he was in the Show), then the story could work.

I've been dreading the time when the show brings in Negan for a while. There are some parts of his character that are just WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too comic-book for me and if they don't fix them, blech. That said, the Negan storyline is definitely not just Governor mark II. Nor is it wandering in the forest. It leads to the main characters doing stuff they haven't done before this and can give a full narrative arc to a couple of seasons. I am slightly hopeful about that.

Tobin would certainly be better than either of those clowns but what about Morgan? Or Heath if she'd like younger than Abe for her rebound boyfriend? Or hell, Rick after we get rid of Jessie ... that's gonna happen in the season finale with FPP dying in the process, right? ;)

I think we're more likely to see civilization rebuilt by the end of the show than see an explanation of how the plague started.

Except the CDC episode. Nothing explains the CDC episode ;)

Given what we've seen, I don't think that a Walker's brain and muscles still operate like human flesh. They clearly aren't eating enough to keep a human body moving. There's also no reason to say that the bodies are really decomposing because they aren't "dead." They may become injured, non-essential bits can be torn off but so long as a muscle is attached to a bone, it appears that the limb still moves. I put it all down to the idea that the zombies aren't human flesh anymore - the bacteria/fungus/mold/whatever has colonized the host completely and replaced human flesh with its own stuff.

It's one possible relationship change this week -- a maybe Sasha and Abe; one new relationship last week -- Tara and the doctor; none for the three weeks before that and one new relationship last season - Rick and Jessie. That doesn't seem like a lot of new relationship drama to me.

I read the comics but there are so many twists and turns in the Negan storyline that it's hard to remember who he kills and why other than in his introduction which was .... memorable. But your basic premise is right - the show loves to take situations from the comics and change their timing and change slightly the characters involved. I think they are actually pretty effective at writing a two-level show -- one that satisfies and surprises both fans and non-fans of the comics by selectively keeping and discarding bits of them. They do, however, keep to the overall structure of the comics so that they don't have to invent completely new stuff down the line, which I find comforting because it gives me reason to not treat every episode as "lather, rinse, repeat" because the comics do go somewhere and I think the show will follow that path too. It's not all just wandering in the woods and dying stupidly from avoidable walker attacks. * - Meh, I'm not a Richonne shipper (or of any relationship other than the writers with believability (I ship the hell out of that one)) but I can certainly understand why people want the most awesome female character to hook up with the most awesome male character on the show. That I'd rather see Michonne boink Daryl or Glen is my preference and doesn't have to be yours.

I thought Glenn and Maggie had real chemistry when they first met. Back when he was still joking around and calling Rick dumbass and she was mocking his performance and cracking eggs on his head. Both of them have turned dour and purpose-oriented, which is sensible given what's happened to them but not as much fun. They need to be in scenes together doing stuff where they can talk to each other about stuff other than being schmoopy. (Assuming that when Schrodinger's Glenn resolves, he's still breathing.) I think Carol, Michonne and Daryl's celibacy are the least believable of the bunch. I agree with AngelaHunter that sheer excitement, relief, fear, adrenaline would have led to more sex. Why wouldn't the Daryl Dixon we first met have had sex in two years? I don't know whether he's into girls or guys but I don't believe he's not into sex. And, my headcanon for Michonne is that she likes both guys and girls and that there was a romance off-screen with Andrea but she is damn well capable of having approached a guy on-screen at some point and they would certainly have said "yes." I don't need to see the scenes, I don't need to have romances between the characters, but I need the show to admit that these bad-ass but wholly human characters that they've been showing us aren't all secretly a bunch of warrior-monks.

iRWTV, I like the snark but I am so hoping for the opposite of this -- I'm hoping for Maggie to have an early miscarriage because I really don't trust what the writers will do with her character. As for Rosita, I would say that I like her but I don't -- I just like the actress. The character barely exists on the Show. Breaking up with Abe might finally free whatever block the writers have about her character.

I can't excuse the stupid for anybody believing Eugene except maybe Rosita who I don't think actually gave a shit but I think the belief from CDB was worse than Abe's. Abe met Eugene when he had just lost absolutely everybody he loved and was planning suicide. Glenn met Eugene and never mentioned having actually spoken with a CDC scientist?

Unlike most here, I liked this episode OK. They warned us last week that this episode would be Daryl, Sasha and Abraham so the structure didn't bother me any. I like that the backstory on the other group wasn't just infodumped on us but I dislike that we didn't see any faces to "heighten" the mystery/tension because I think that's just a load of bullshit. It's not like any of the faces mean squat to us at this point. I also dislike the attempt to make it seem realistic that the 3 blind mice would have thought Daryl was part of their old group. How big would a community have to be for you to not recognize that a man with a crossbow was a stranger after living there for over a year? For me, the number would have to be over a thousand and there's no way the Show is adding a group THAT big. They should have just had a line where one of the idiots said something like "I should have known you weren't with them but we haven't seen other people in a long time." As for the friend they were trying to find - my theory is that they were trying to find the dead guy in the motorcycle helmet and the two glass enclosed walkers were just a randomly horrible find in the forest. I also think that there is supposed to be a more complicated backstory as to why they were fleeing their group -- maybe having something to do with diabetes girl, which is why the guy was apologizing and saying "we had to try" after she got bit. That complicated backstory will explain their turning on Daryl long after we have all stopped caring about it. (Man was that an undignified way for diabetes girl to die. Being a waifish blond is even more dangerous than being a black man on this Show.) The Sasha and Abraham thing will I think look better on a binge rewatch because Sasha sensing Abraham's interest may be the reason why she was so all-fired suspicious of Abe wanting to join her. Also, looking back on it, I don't think that Abe and Rosita have had a single scene together since they arrived at Alexandria and that Sasha's speech to him about choices ties back into that - I wouldn't be surprised if they've been planting clues of a break-up all the way back to before the Summer break.

My takeaway from FTWD is that so long as I can avoid assholes like that show's "protagonists," I can survive the ZA just fine. To bring it back to this episode, Diana is now the most well-defined redshirt on the show isn't she? How many zombies would they have to kill at the front gate every hour to thin that herd? I feel like it's a middle-school math problem - "If Timmy kills 25 zombies every ten minutes and takes a 30 minute break after every 20 minutes of killing, how long before he kills enough zombies to drive out to the nearest costco and pick up a pasta maker?"

In an early team challenge, always avoid the person who has won challenges but whose work you don't personally like all that much. They are pretty much immune but you could go home for their inflated ego and bad taste. there are tons of examples from the show but Santino in Season 2 with the lingerie instantly springs to my mind.

his face looks a bit thinner than it was a few years ago - a by-product of getting ready for his shower scene from last season?

I think complaint is the default nature of board discussion of most shows because otherwise it's all "Hey, you remember that thing. ... It was awesome." I think this has so far been a great season of TWD - the first two episodes were among the best they've ever done and the next two were good even if the morgan story was poorly placed in the season. This episode wasn't great but they've had worse. Most importantly though, JBody, you had better start caring about some ASZhats real quick or else they're gonna kill off a CDB cast member to make you feel sad when it's time to next kill somebody off. So, pick some Alexandrian redshirt (or FPP who can die in the process) and start expressing your love for them right now or else ...

I've only watched Season 1 and most of Season 2 so I don't know if they have a cliffhanger for every season. There is however, perfect closure after every episode except those cliffhangers so I'd say just don't watch any season finale episode until you're ready to start watching the next season.

Huh, I would have never thought of the actor who plays Aaron as handsomer than the one who plays Spencer but I'm a guy so what would I know. I agree that it would be nice if Jessie got a chance to remember what it was like to be her own person before she ended up as someone's girlfriend. I think that's my biggest problem with her storyline with Rick. The Show knows how to make us like her more - let her kill some stuff - but they aren't giving the character enough time to breathe and settle in. As for Michonne, I think she could "handle" Rick fine; I just don't know why she would want to. I don't see Rick providing anything in that relationship that she can't get from any decent looking male. Besides being incredibly good at survival and having come out of the other side of her loss with an immense amount of calm in the face of disaster, the Michonne I see on screen has a strong desire for something more than just surviving the day. So, I would like to see her with someone who would let her live those parts of her personality. RIck is too monomaniacal for me to want that to be all that Michonne gets. OK, saying that I don't see why she might want to date Rick s overstating it - Rick is noble and charismatic even if he is nuts. I would just rather that she gets someone better than that for her. As for people mentioning Morgan or Heath for her, Meh. I don't see it but we've barely met Heath. (I would have said that Morgan was way too old but google says that the actors are only 13 years apart, which is a decade less than I thought the difference was.)

Yeah, "not really" is right. He couldn't pull the trigger when he had a wolf in his sights and took the opportunity to stay outside and "guard" Deanna so he was pretty hateful in that prior episode too. It's not like he risked anything by spraying the windshield of an oncoming truck with a high powered rifle from a guard tower. I think we can expect him to be horrible but occasionally slick enough to get people to follow him and cause some epic disasters.

Sherlock isn't a serial -- each episode is a 90-minute movie and they may never stop making them at irregular intervals whenever their conflicting schedules align so it may never "end". Personally, I wasn't a big fan of Space Above and Beyond but I got hung up on some story choices that probably wouldn't bother anyone else. I just had a weird thought given the BBC, comedy and genre shows on your list -- did you ever try Red Dwarf? It had a long run so some of it is utter crap and all of it is low budget but I thought on the whole it was very funny.

I'd second the the Battlestar Galactica recommendation. I'd add Sherlock and Brooklyn99. I can't think of anything like Sldings and Arrows out there. Babylon 5 is pretty rough sledding in the beginning, with some pretty terrible acting to go with the poor effects but it gets better (maybe skip the first season) though I never more than liked it. I'm not sure what AD or BB are ...

I think that Michonne should have a love life. I just don't know that it should involve Rick. (Other than the fact that she's gorgeous and he's handsome, I don't see what draws them together.). I just haven't noticed a ton of sexual chemistry between them. So, question for the Richonne shippers -- does she ever smile at Rick or laugh at something he says? Do the two biggest badasses on the show have to hook up? Also why not Daryl and Michonne? I think they could be really good for each other. (Admittedly, I love the pairing of Carol and Daryl but if that's not gonna happen ...)

After 4 great episodes,* man did they throw up a stink bomb with this one. I think I know why the Show gave us an episode practically devoid of CDB people -- because if you want us to focus on ASZhats, then you can't place any shiny objects into our fields of vision. Don't let any interesting characters into those scenes or else we won't remember the turds the Show wants us to focus on. Hey, how about this idea Show?! Make the Alexandrians more interesting. Also, have them do stuff; they can still monologue while filling sandbags or killing walkers or something, anything, Hell, just have them walk purposefully towards a task - something. Some minor points: Deanna's little speech after confronting the walker would have actually worked if Michonne had saved her instead of Rick. As it was I just wanted to barf. Deanna's hitting the fence was a call-back to Rick from last season shadowing the walker on the other side of the wall. Deanna's son is a perfectly realized entitled little shit that was actually effective character work by the Show. Carol should have been in the crowd during Rick's speech. What she was wearing and how she looked would tell us whether she had managed to slip back into her Clark Kent disguise. Aaron's husband should also have been seen hugging him in that same scene. Not trying to thin the Walker herd is actually classic CDB behavior and we all know it; we just don't want to admit it. Morgan clearly had a ton of time to tell everyone about his pet wolf. Now, when something goes wrong, he has to own that as a decision. And, as many have already said, not seeing Rick's escape from the RV was utter bullshit. Sure, they used that magician's escape bullshit with Glenn last season but here it also totally undercuts some fine acting by Andrew Lincoln. He really sold the terror and hints of defeat a few weeks ago but his situation was really just no big deal?!? *OK, the parable of Blessed are the Cheesemakers wasn't what I wanted last week but it was well done on its own terms. ETA - JBody, get out of my head ;) Right after I hit reply, I see your post about AL's acting ...

I kinda liked this episode. It was tighter than some of the episodes by focusing on just three characters (Bernadette, Howard & Sheldon) with a few jokes/comments/greek chorusing from the others and a brief Amy sighting. The kids discussion has been pretty well set up for a while and is a nice sign that the writers haven't totally forgotten who these people are. Of course Bernadette was going to lie to her parents and her original response on kids was that she was willing if Howard took care of them - that was largely a "shut up" joke when she first said it but now we see where it came from. She loves her dad but doesn't want to repeat her mom's life. I don't think they are selling out Bernadette's character. This kind of discussion is pretty common among married couples before and after kids and I've met relatively few working people who were 100% certain beforehand that they wanted kids or didn't want kids. There is always room for second thoughts. All that said, you can't believe that Howard is going to actually take a full 50/50 share of the work (or more) of a baby until he starts doing it without kids. So, if they are still doing stupid "Howard's a spoiled baby" jokes, then all kid discussion has to disappear until he is regularly acting like an adult around the home.