BloatedGuppy

Woof. Well, there's your half-season over. From tip to tail this entire Negan run has been an unmitigated disaster, but I'm actually kind of shocked at how quickly (and badly) it has gone completely off the rails in the 2nd half. Where to start... GOOD Rick's angry posturing was okay, I guess? JDM treaded water as Negan. He had some okay Negany moments. That crazy gun Daryl was firing was really cool. The showrunners clearly knew it, too, because they kept cutting back to it at every conceivable opportunity. Zombie-Sasha's ambush was nice, and Sasha's arc FINALLY closes (pretty sure this time). Dwight leaving the soldier behind to apologize for the junkyard people was nice. I like to think it's also the writers telling us they didn't know they'd be so awful. The tiger did a thing. A cheesy thing, but still. Tiger! BAD So much tire spinning. They REALLY dragged their feet on Sasha this episode, in an attempt to punch up the emotion of her death. Sasha is a secondary character and it didn't work. What it did do was butcher the episode's pacing. Similarly manipulative was the return of Abraham, which felt a little flat. Then we have Maggie trying to call back to Glenn at the end. It's like the show was signposting "FEEL SOMETHING" at every possible instance, helped along by... Fucking horrendous music. I have no idea what has gone wrong with the people doing the music on the show this half season but it has gone badly wrong. Manipulative "feely" music, ridiculously dippy "triumphant" music...this episode had it all. I couldn't even invest in half the scenes because I was literally laughing out loud at the music. The Hilltop and the Kingdom arriving at the exact same time, and that exact time being mid-swing on Negan's bat was just so unbearably twee. It's supposed to be a stand up and cheer moment but again...so crassly manipulative and stagey that it's impossible to invest in. Also the logistics of them arriving at the same time is just stupid. Also stupid...Zombie-Sasha's "plan". Was she hoping for anything to come of that EXCEPT suicide? Because the actual sequence of events seemed highly unlikely. It was fun and made it into the good column (largely for lack of competition) but it was also very silly. The junkyard people were in the episode. That is always a minus, because they are risible. The junkyard people predictably betrayed them. The weird, insufferable, creepy junkyard people turned out to be untrustworthy. Who could have imagined?! What an extraordinary turn of events! The event sequencing and fight choreography was WOEFUL, to the point of being highly comedic in parts. We transition very badly from the Zombie-Sasha surprise to Negan having Carl captured...that was weird (and weak). There are numerous scenes of extras bopping around in the background pointing their guns at things but not firing...hilarious. The continuity is all over the place and what could (and should) have been a very exciting fight suffers for it. The Kingdom was even more preposterous than usual. Ezekial stopping to give a loud speech in the middle of a wild gunfight was pretty stupid. Also stupid was the sight of them all trotting off down the road in pursuit of Saviors. They looked like a bunch of 2nd tier LARPers running into the woods for an afternoon of role playing. Overall just really, really bad. It feels like there's been some kind of essential budget slashing or talent bleed on the production side of this show and it's actually very worrying. The writing is questionable, the direction is bad, and the effects budget (outside of makeup) feels gutted. Possibly a consequence of actor salaries draining the show too hard, or flubs elsewhere in AMC's lineup draining the coffers. I can only speculate. There's just no way a show this popular and this widely watched should be this bad. I happen to also think "Game of Thrones" has become in its later seasons a pretty bad television show, but it still does spectacle extremely well. Clearly the two shows do not have comparable budgets and I do not expect the same level of CGI overkill from Walking Dead, but that doesn't mean they cannot construct and shoot a coherent and exciting gun fight, or write more compelling side plots than Trash People talking like extras from a C tier Mad Max ripoff. Everything feels SO SHODDY this season. There's absolutely no excuse for it. This is one of the most watched shows on TV, and they're writing and shooting it like some third string syfy original. Anyway, that closes the book on my bitching for another season.

One more episode and we can escape this terrible half season. Surely next half-season will be better. It has to be, right? Right? GOOD They got the guns from Plot Device Village and now hopefully we never have to see it or the trash people again. The books this series is based off are full of weird plotlines and questionable developments, and generally the show has done a competent and at times even admirable job shifting them slightly or fleshing them out. However, when they are left to create characters and situations out of whole cloth, they tend to fall flat on their ass. Their early success with Daryl went to their heads, perhaps, or they suffered talent bleed. Both the Junkyard and Fishing People have been colossal missteps. Dull, poorly acted, off-tone, and very obviously worthless filler. I still like Eugene. He does well in his scenes. Some of the zombie makeup was high quality stuff. They put a lot of care and attention into those zombie looks for 0.5 seconds on screen. Let's hear it for the FX crew. Dwight has finally begun his incredibly predictable turncoat arc after 2-3 seasons of dithering. BAD The village is as terrible as I remembered it. I know we're supposed to feel sorry for these people and/or question Alexandria's behavior, but these are such one dimensional and poorly written "characters" it's impossible to get invested. Their brutality towards Tara in the previous episode and senseless xenophobia regarding 'outsiders' renders them cartoonish. The Grandmother was the worst of the lot, and poorly acted in the bargain. These aren't complex people making flawed decisions, they're hastily written archetypes dropped into a padded out narrative to create plot points and "drama". The whole thing has been incredibly tedious from start to finish and ate two episodes worth of screen time that could have been spent advancing meaningful storylines or developing interesting characters. I feel like I beat her up after every episode she's in but Alanna Masterson completely lost track of and/or interest in this character a season or two ago and has been almost unwatchable since it happened. Tara's scenes are ATROCIOUS. When an episode relies on her the way this one did it breaks down badly. Sasha still being alive is pointless. Sorry, Sasha fans but she has been in character limbo for a long time now while the writers try to figure out what to do with her. A brave/stupid death maybe wasn't the most interesting or satisfying denouement, but at least it closed the book on her. Alas, now she's back. Fah. They really need to be careful with their angles/lighting on JDM. From the wrong perspectives he looks every bit his age, and any air of menace the actor is working to cultivate gets completely lost. I feel like if they had the armory completely surrounded they could have just walked in and taken the guns and walked away and not bothered with all this nonsense involving bombs and treetop snipers and hostage situations. Yeah I know it's a placeholder episode and they're trying to stir up some excitement, but the whole thing was just shot and framed so lazily. It seems absurd. So we've now had about 20+ episodes of extremely protracted, poorly conceived and terribly executed setup for the Saviors arc to finally rev into gear and conflict to ensue. I really hope it was worth the wait. Depending on how this show manages its budget we might end up with a couple of grandiose set pieces and a lot of aimless sideplots to eat up the other 8 episodes worth of air time.

Reasonable episode. Would be solid filler in a strong season, but stands out ahead of the pack this year. GOOD Finally get a catharsis scene between Daryl and Maggie. Scene itself is a bit of a letdown (Cohen was flat) but Reedus brought it again. This incarnation of Daryl, while depressing, is a lot more interesting than the bland man-around-town he turned into during the Alexandria arc. When the writers give Reedus something interesting to do with Daryl, he generally does a strong job. Sasha and Rosita had a decent scene together. It wasn't brilliantly acted by either but it wasn't hard to watch, either. Was nice for them to finally take the edge off Rosita, she was becoming unnecessarily grating. Sasha's self-destructive arc finally appears to have reached some form of apotheosis. Would have been nice for them to get where they were going with this character a lot sooner. Ends up feeling like they strung her along for seasons to finally plug in as a plot element, but...well...she got there, at least. I think that's clearly Dwight at the end there, which means Dwight might FINALLY be getting on with this relentlessly foreshadowed turncoat act. We'll see though. No manipulative tinkling music, no junkyard people, no boat people, Negan's henchmen were (relatively) restrained, no horrendous CGI. BAD Gregory continues to be a cartoon of a character, although he was more dialed back here than he has been in prior episodes, so that's something. While the actor is portraying "unctuous weasel" well enough, it remains inexplicable that anyone would have accepted him being in charge this long. Katelyn Nacon is not a strong actress. She's no Chandler Riggs, but this show really hasn't done a good job casting its younger roles. Still not a fan of the whole "Eugene is a coward...again!" storyline. I love the portrayal of Eugene on the show and enjoy his screen time, but he's now one of several characters caught in this "waffling" state where their characterization bounces around. It's not very clean storytelling. Yes, in real life people regress, but it can make for some pretty pointless storytelling. I do hope they're going somewhere with it. The plan to "go in" if they missed ONE sniping opportunity suggests a terrible dearth of planning and creativity. Even for clearly suicidal characters who are being reckless it's a bit mind boggling. S'okay episode. Let's see if they can build some momentum off it.

They have tried, not always successfully, to demonstrate how Negan is able to gather and maintain loyalty. This was the purpose of sidebars like his interaction with Carl and his treatment of Eugene. Negan operates with a mixture of hair trigger menace and effusive bonhomie. He lavishes praise and favors on those who do good turns by him, and uses creative brutality against those who don't. Staying on Negan's good side is rewarding. The longer you do so, the more favor you accumulate and the more power you enjoy inside the structure he's assembled, the more motivated you are to help perpetuate things. Now I say "not always successfully" because the show has often strayed too far into the brutality side of the spectrum with Negan, and they've had him indulge in a few too many pointlessly petty humiliations of his own people. This breaks down the suspension of disbelief. It's something I complained about frequently last half season. Could a man like Negan operate using a blend of back patting and terror? Absolutely. Has the show shot itself in the ass repeatedly by trying to ramp up the Saviors' "antagonism factor" through making them out to be cartoon villains for no reason? Sadly, also absolutely.

Yeesh this show. Even the passable episodes are groaning under the weight of accumulated garbage. This has easily been the worst half season in the show's history, which is quite an accomplishment after the most recent half-season and the hospital debacle, to say nothing of the S2 tedium at Herschel's Farm. GOOD The writers finally found a way to return Carol and Morgan to the land of Characters Actually Doing Something. Morgan snapping when a replacement son dies makes sense for him (although that relationship was only very vaguely sketched in). Carol finding out about Alexandria and becoming motivated works for her, although her departure never really made any sense to begin with, so it's less an arc closing and more the writers continuing to waffle around with her character. That said, this is the good section, so I digress. Khary Payton continues to deliver in his scenes as Ezekiel. He's got a good stage voice. This is actually a surprisingly satisfactory ending to the Richard arc, both in terms of sketching in motivations (he felt his wife and daughter died due to inaction) and in terms of his death having the catalytic effect he would have wanted it to...even if the circumstances surrounding it aren't how he would have chosen it. Good shade of grey supporting character and one of the few capably handled by the show in recent seasons. There was no risible CGI to scoff at, and this episode did not subject us to either the junkyard people OR the fishing village. Hurrah! Morgan's choice to engage Richard's plan by killing him was some nice outside the box thinking. BAD Both the dialogue on the porch with the woman quoting floraly about the garden, and the dialogue during the first melon delivery (the pregnant pause before the "no" and "quite the opposite") was terrible. Leaden, overwritten, not how people actually talk. This isn't an area where I'd normally fault the show over much so it sort of stood out. The death of the Impossibly Earnest Boy Who Was Clearly Marked For Death From The Beginning finally happened, and it was just as ridiculously and clumsily foreshadowed as one might expect. That's the kind of ham handed scripting I expect from high school drama students. Why did the entourage from The Kingdom just stand and stare impotently while Morgan choked Richard to death? Everyone on both sides seemed equally surprised. The Saviors weren't baying for blood or demanding they stand down. Why would no one interfere? That whole sequence was puzzling. Lennie James having a flash cut freakout was probably not the most elegant way to portray Morgan's grief over the death of Benjamin. If they'd done a better job establishing that relationship to begin with, no freakout or signposting would have been necessary at all, the audience simply could have intuited his grief and anger. This is something plaguing the show a lot in latter seasons, this...plonkiness in terms of plotting and characterization. It's terribly heavy handed and amateurish. I feel like it would've been pretty easy to just drive right through those shopping carts. Probably smart, too, given it had the hallmarks of an ambush. That ending shot with the cornball "uplifting" music and the happy gardening was a ludicrous tonal departure. It's the 2nd or 3rd this the show has been guilty of this during this half season, so it seems evident they're trying to battle the ratings loss from last half season's grim-a-thon with a bunch of force-fed dippy enthusiasm. Early seasons of Walking Dead were grim and relentless. They didn't need to be counter balanced with tinkly music and corny upbeat dialogue. How about writing a better show. That's good for ratings! I find it hard to imagine Carol would choose to go to the Kingdom and not Alexandria upon discovering what happened to her friends. That's the natural course of action after hearing about a tragedy...to find the people you care about and give/receive comfort. Alas, she goes to the Kingdom because the show needs to keep the cast split up for budgetary reasons. That one super antagonistic Savior still being there after being the focal point of all problems several deliveries in a row puts a lot of strain on the whole "reasonable bad guy" angle. It just makes them look inept. Leave him at home! He's a troublemaker!

I feel like Masterson used to be better at this character. Not sure what went wrong. Too many body thetans, I guess. :P

Rick and Michonne scrounge, the episode. GOOD That scene with Gabriel and Rosita was money. The show is good for one solidly dramatic scene per episode, it seems. The show really ran up its zombie budget. Some nice zombie effects, especially with the one in the car. I like some good post-apocalyptic scrounging, especially involving foodstuffs. Tara finally comes to her senses. BAD While it was a nice "light" episode, once again the breezy tone felt forced. Too much heavy drama has occurred and the stakes are way too high for these dippy interludes. I appreciate that you cannot keep a grim/oppressive air going without losing viewers, but you cannot force your comic relief or upbeat moments either. Clunky. Possibly controversial, but I continue to not buy Richonne in the slightest. The two actors simply do not have credible romantic chemistry, and their scenes together have consistently been Lincoln's worst. This is not to blame them, very few actors have good romantic chemistry and generally are forced to go through the motions. It's just particularly bad in this case, not least of which because... Michonne's established character was that of a hard bitten, truculent loner, and now for reasons of plot she's forced to be a soppy milquetoast who flies to pieces at the thought of losing Rick. This is not a welcome or appealing arc for her character. At best, it takes a strong and resourceful character and makes her weak in order to humanize her. At worst, it's the goddam writers having no idea what they're doing again and just writing characters this way and that with no concern for consistent characterization. The junkyard people are back, and just as insufferable and stupid as ever. Nothing will ever make this not the stupidest thing ever seen on this show, and a strong contender for one of the stupidest things presently on television. That CGI deer was HORRENDOUS. What on earth has happened to the show's CGI budget? Whoever they hired, they need to rethink it immediately. One of the actors in a deer costume might have been better. The "oh no Rick maybe died" fake out was painfully transparent. Show, you are not going to kill your titular character like that. Don't insult us. It's especially egregious after that Glenn/dumpster nonsense. And on that subject, you are not going to have two secondary characters SNIPE your multi-season villain, making all this "gathering of the tribes" plotting irrelevant. It's hard for audiences to invest in plans that are obviously doomed to failure because of show structure reasons. It's a bit 4th wall breaking. Once again, zombies are too easily dispatched (and with another montage, no less). The zombies are not at the center of the show but they are still essential to the setting and mood. When you make them an easily overcome joke, you not only diminish your setting, but you cheapen all previous drama and death involving them. Find a better way for characters to be badasses than mowing down zombie hordes without effort.

Reasonable episode after last week's calamity, but I imagine the resident Negan-haters will not have enjoyed that much time spent in his encampment. Lots of waffling on the characters of Dwight and Eugene...at some point they're going to need to have a clean arc or it'll just be frustrating. This kind of back and forth is what slowly decimated Carol. I know you've got a lot of episodes to fill but for pity's sake just try and take characters from A to B, show.

Well that was...an episode. GOOD The Carol/Daryl reunion was well acted by both parties, even though McBride is called upon to bring a new aspect of Carol to the forefront every week because the writers have absolutely no fucking idea what to do with her. Reedus has done good work bringing pathos to his scenes on the show over the last several episodes. Daryl has at times been an insufferable character but he's carrying a lot of water right now. The initial bits re: the Kingdom and the Saviors were decently done. That one semi-reasonable Savior...that's how they ALL should have been. Oppressors, yes, evil men, yes, rule through threat of force, yes...but he seemed almost REASONABLE and SANE in his application of those threats. Like a rational human being, and not a gibbering cartoon. Shame about his gibbering cartoon henchman, but at least he treated him like the idiot he was being. WHAT THE FUCK I thought the fishing village episode was a new nadir for the series but holy hell I could not have anticipated the junkyard people. That wasn't a bad episode of a decent television show, that was HILARIOUSLY STUPID. Who wrote that? Who came up with that? That was FUCKING TERRIBLE. Why on EARTH are they speaking broken English and dressing like extras from Mad Max? It's been about five fucking years, not five centuries. And not just one of them! It's not just one person with an affectation, or one Drama major dealing with trauma through cosplay. There's about a hundred of them and they're all talking like idiots. What the fucking fuck. How do they relate to the boat? They broke into Alexandria and kidnapped Gabriel? What? Because they wanted the loot on the boat? But they never took the loot on the boat? Because they take, but don't bother? What? WHAT? WHAT THE FUCK? Why do they have a spiky trash zombie in a gladitorial pit? Why was it there? Why did it have a name? Why was it not a test and then they obviously used it as a test? Was that supposed to be winsome? Was the audience supposed to chuckle? What the hell? What...I can't... Did you guys see that hilarious green screen of the trash yard?! And they threw it up TWICE! Those were some early 80's special effects, there. Why did Michonne need a rusty wire cat? To "replace the one she had before"? What? Seth Gilliam delivers his worst performance of the series by a screaming long shot, and Masterson continues to flail around in her scenes. Serratos seems hell bent on ruining Rosita by making her a completely unsympathetic chore, too. Rick is all smiles throughout, even after getting his hand skewered on the trash zombie. Good characterization! And that cheesy upbeat music tinkling throughout!!!! Why did we need these people? Did the Kingdom and Hilltop not provide sufficient narrative room for redshirts? Who thought this was a good idea? Who greenlit this crap? I am feeling nostalgic for the fucking HOSPITAL ARC that was so bad. Give me the Andrea and Lori variety hour. Give me Dale's tiresome nattering. Give me Carl emoting like a block of wood. Anything but these junkyard idiots again. Whaaaaaaaaaat was that. Seriously. Oh my god. My dear god.

Yes but these people apparently elected GREGORY to be leader, remember. If Maggie hadn't come along they probably would have handed leadership to an exciting looking dog, or an interestingly shaped cloud.

Maggie just had to show up and be semi-competent, because for reasons that have not been made clear, the current leader of Hilltop is a cowardly, degenerate skulker who may or may not have dementia. If the mayor of Hilltop had been a piece of wood with a face drawn on it things could scarcely have been more preposterous.

I'm sorry to say this is the show recovering to some degree. If you want to see bad, watch the Tara-centric episode. It's almost unwatchable. Some of the worst acting I've seen in a long, long time. High school play quality. Although if you think the "Battle for Alexandria" was thrilling television, our tastes might diverge. That was Walking Dead at its most hokey/contrived. I remember rolling my eyes so hard they almost vacated my head.

As Maggie has drifted into moderate irrelevance and Carol has been degenerated into a catastrophe by terrible and inconsistent writing, Rosita has emerged as arguably my favorite female character on the show. Be a shame if she's slated for redshirt status, she's always felt like a second-stringer at best.

Best episode of a pretty lousy half-season, with the possible exception of the Kingdom episode. Which isn't saying much. Let's hope next half-season redeems this mess. Not holding my breath. Negan's theatrics aside, he was actually by far the most "reasonable" of the Saviors on site. What is WITH the henchmen? I've said it before, but it bears repeating. This aimless bullying and pointless antagonism is fucking ridiculous. One person acting this way, sure, but they act like that as a collective. There's no benefit in it. It doesn't even work from a power dynamics/gratification perspective because they're already firmly in control. It's horrendous mustache twirling of the first order, and rather than making me hate the Saviors it's making me hate the writers. Imagine if the Saviors behaved like a normal oppressive regime, instead of a pack of cartoon jackasses. Imagine how much more compelling that would be. Good grief. The apple scene with Maggie was plonky as hell. Speaking of cartoon jackasses, I'm still waiting for my explanation as to the behavior of Hilltop's "mayor". Jesus hand-waving it with "he's always been in charge" is insufficient. No problem with Daryl's escape, that compound is packed with people randomly rattling about and he had a change of clothes. The one person in charge of watching him (Dwight) clearly chose to let him slip the leash. Speaking of Dwight, his betrayal has been getting telegraphed for quite some time now (due to the nigh endless scenes of Negan dangling his wife in front of him), but I hope he has more of a plan than "let Daryl go". Rosita snapping and taking her shot, however ill advised, is reasonably within the confines of her character. Also liked her scene with Gabriel, who has been delivering in all his scenes lately. JDM's patented "Negan lean" where he's sizing someone up is getting way too much play. Dial it back, buddy. Find a different physical tick to express the character. It's starting to seem like Negan has back problems. Speaking of telegraphing, Spencer's death could be seen coming a mile away. I thought we might have a mutual betrayal situation set up with Spencer and Dwight but once he showed up with his bottle and his ingratiating I knew he was done for. So I guess that was Olivia who died? I'm just now learning her name. Farewell Olivia, you fulfilled your redshirt duty. It will be interesting to see which Carol we get next half-season, of the half dozen varieties offered up to us over the last two seasons. Maybe the writers will finally decide on a personality for her. That would be keen. Usually you don't need to wait until the 7th/8th season of a television show for one of it's longest running characters to get a consistent personality but hey...Walking Dead! I thought the Kingdom guy was hiding a bunch of guns in that secret RV, but it seems like all he has is some glass bottles. Maybe he was just in it for the camping, and damn the sign. Nice optimistic ending with a bunch of gormless smiling and resolutely standing in a circle. I was mildly verklempt at Daryl's show of emotion on seeing Rick. Although the scene I'd have LIKED to see was Daryl first seeing MAGGIE. Way to skip the big emotional payoff scene your stupid Daryl sub-plot set up, writers. If they decide to go to war and Tara doesn't spill the beans about the secret fishing village full of guns that character is SO DEAD to me. I was half-hoping she'd be one of Negan's victims, as the baby seems to have siphoned away Masterson's ability to convincingly portray her. Back to the original bullet, I seriously cannot even with the Saviors. Remember when Dwight poured out Rosita's water? Why? Why are they beating up Aaron? Why are they antagonizing Rick? Why are they punching Kingdom guys and generally acting absurdly antagonistic everywhere they go? It's like someone has a "how to incite a revolt" handbook and is going through it point by point. That Negan is apparently AWARE of the danger of revolt and does nothing to mitigate any of this behavior is just terrible, terrible writing. TERRIBLE WRITING. TERRIBLE WRITING SERIOUSLY. Here's hoping next half-season is better. Maybe the CGI tiger will CGI eat someone. That'd be neat.

It has nothing to do with her being slightly overweight. Eugene, for example, is significantly overweight. As we've seen with some other characters. It's a little bit silly, but nothing outrageous. It's the fact that only a few weeks have passed in show time and the actress has expanded substantially due to her pregnancy (in ways that her ludicrously baggy outfit cannot completely hide). If Andrew Lincoln came back next season 50 pounds heavier, we'd notice. It would be a startling physical change. GoT went through similar issues with the kids rocketing through puberty (especially Bran), although it had a little more leeway as the period of time wasn't so precise. When Marlon Brando showed up to the set of Apocalypse Now dramatically overweight, they truncated his screen time and hid him in a dark room. Coppola wasn't body-shaming Mr. Brando, he was just ensuring the continuity and logic of his film wasn't damaged. It's the zombie apocalypse. Food is tight. We've had entire story arcs around the fact food is tight. Tara was coached to act like she was desperately hungry and had barely seen food in days. Taking all that into account, yes, rapid weight gain is somewhat immersion breaking. Moreso than "lack of pit stains" or "perfect eyebrows". If they had entire story arcs about a lack of toiletries or grooming supplies, you might have a point there. The point of this is not to denigrate or punish the actress for having a baby, it's to question the wisdom of the show trotting her out as the central character in a tertiary (and dubious) story line. And "questioning the wisdom of the show" after an episode that plonky should not raise any hackles.