S01.E05: Madman Across the Water

[nodorothyparker]

AIrdate 2020.11.01

Quote

The group must cross a river. A plot to turn the group around hits a snag.

 

[CletusMusashi]

Well now, that can't possibly be very little plotline to fill an hour with!

Yet.. it's not one of the other two shows, so I still don't feel completely hopeless...

[Mr. Sparkle]

I wonder if there will be a lot of talking about feelings... 

[MrPissyPuppy]

Madman Across the Water is an Elton John album from the early 1970s, so I suspect there will be much Elton (corduroy suit kid) in this one.  

Edited October 31, 2020 by MrPissyPuppy

[Gulftastic]

The Olympic level stupidity of these people is making me angry. I might have to stop watching. He had the walkers trapped by the fishing line and decided to look at them for a bit, instead of, say, STABBING THEM IN THE HEAD! And when they confront any Walker why do they push them instead of STABBING THEM IN THE HEAD with their weapons which are designed that very purpose!  

ARGGHHHH!

 

 

[CletusMusashi]

On 10/30/2020 at 11:51 PM, MrPissyPuppy said:

Madman Across the Water is an Elton John album from the early 1970s, so I suspect there will be much Elton (corduroy suit kid) in this one.  

Yeah, that's not good. I like the idea of the little smart kid with survival skills. But a very small amount of him goes a long way. Because once it gets into a medium amount of him, it kind of seems like he's too busy auditioning for a Gilbert and Sullivan reboot. Elton was good with Felix. Because Felix took the adult role and dominated the scene. When Elton is given autonomy in a scene, we're left wondering things like "If he doesn't know what 'ass' means, does he know what 'fireworks' means?"

[tv echo]

A.V. Club gave this episode a grade of B- ...

Walking Dead: World Beyond hits the Mississippi and unboxes Elton's tragic past
Alex McLevy   November 1, 2020
https://tv.avclub.com/walking-dead-world-beyond-hits-the-mississippi-and-unb-1845519582 

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A lot of World Beyond’s early stumbles are starting to smooth out. The series is beginning to find a groove for its storytelling format, balancing a “side mission of the week” plot device (in this case, building a boat to cross the Mississippi river) with flashbacks for a particular character, sort of a combination of Lost and Z Nation without the absurdism. The wafer-thin characterizations are slowly being filled in, if not fully then at least to the point where they seem believably human. And the performances are starting to lock into place as well, as the actors find the souls of these restless people trying to do right by each other. Unfortunately, that leaves the real problem with the series highlighted in Technicolor visibility, a glaring issue that needs addressing: the writing.

“Madman Across The Water” is nothing if not a testament to how clunky writing can sink a promising setup. Right from the start, the dialogue not only struggles to sound natural, but is downright harmful to the concepts that are supposed to be conveyed by it. (The script is credited to Rohit Kumar, but this has been a problem for World Beyond from the start.) Exhibit A is the opening voiceover, meant to be the book that Elton’s mom was writing when she died. Oof. Elton’s mom is a bad writer! It’s not a good look when a 14-year-old kid’s contribution to a book sounds as reasonable—if not more so—than everything his parent had written before him. It’s the equivalent of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip showing the painfully unfunny sketches that were supposed to be brilliant, incisive comedy: It throws a wrench in our suspension of disbelief, calling attention to the jerry-rigged nature of this reality instead of seamlessly embodying it.
*  *  *
Similarly, the character exchanges in this installment too often resembled trite after-school specials instead of relatable conversations between human beings. Just when Annet Mahendru is starting to get a handle on Huck’s mix of casual bravado and laid-back cool, she gets saddled with eye-rolling writerly nonsense, such as assessing Felix’s potential for growth with a, “Maybe it’s not my place to tell him. Maybe he’s gotta figure it out for himself.” That’s not an insightful line, it’s a note on a whiteboard about how a character’s arc might look. Or Iris breaking up the argument between Hope and Felix with a loud, “We don’t have time for this!” Why not? At this point, there’s no sign of a storm approaching, no empties anywhere—they’re just building a boat, a fairly time-intensive process. She doesn’t say it because it makes sense; she says it because that’s what characters on TV shows say when they’re breaking up a fight. At one point, Iris literally says to Felix (after he monologues about the past), “I knew all that, I just didn’t know how you felt about it,” despite Felix more or less repeating points he articulated in the very first episode. These aren’t exchanges, they’re rehashes—characters just saying what they already think and feel instead of demonstrating it. It’s the opposite of “show, don’t tell.”

... Elton is still a bit one-dimensional in his “it’s the science kid who likes science!” presentation, but between the filling-in of his past and Nicolas Cantu’s sensitive handling of the character, he’s becoming one of the best parts of the series. When Elton grows visibly uncomfortable at Felix’s pressure to go against the others, or feels the need to immediately assure Silas, “I swear, I didn’t do that on purpose” when he spills the nail polish, the character’s increasingly three-dimensional inner life comes across.

Edited November 2, 2020 by tv echo

[Mr. Sparkle]

15 minutes ago, tv echo said:

Right from the start, the dialogue not only struggles to sound natural, but is downright harmful to the concepts that are supposed to be conveyed by it.

THIS. 

[tv echo]

Two more media reviews of this episode...

The Walking Dead: World Beyond Episode 5 Review – Madman Across the Water
By Ron Hogan    November 1, 2020
https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-walking-dead-world-beyond-episode-5-review-madman-across-the-water/ 

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... If nothing else, Nicolas Cantu remains the most interesting performer on the show, at least of the younger folks, and Elton remains the most interesting character, even more so when he’s given an opportunity to emote and be something other than quirky for the sake of being amusing.
*  *  *
That’s less of a heroic moment and more of an obvious thing, and it’s clear that the tension won’t be done with until Hope shatters Elton’s last bit of optimism somewhere along the way. What the audience has known since the second episode, that Hope is the person who killed Elton’s mother and sister, is finally, officially revealed to Hope in ham-fisted fashion as she gawks at a photo of his mother. I had assumed, based off of the way Elton has been triggering flashbacks for her, that she’d already put the clues together, but it certainly doesn’t seem like it based off of her reaction. It might be a needle drop for the character, but it’s not for the audience, and it’s pushed too hard here in the closing moments of “Madman Across the Water.” It’d be a good punch if the audience hadn’t been clued into it for so long, and for so obviously, that it makes Hope look silly for not knowing it. I’m all for dramatic irony, but it’s been too heavily applied

One of the issues with a show like this is that drama needs to be created amongst the group. Felix’s deceit seem to be resolved a little too easily, but the big secret—Hope’s big secret—is going to hang over the remaining episodes of the season until she blurts it out, probably at the worst possible time given how these things typically unfold on teen dramas. With as long as it’s been stretched out thus far, will audiences have any patience for this to continue very much longer?
*  *  *
The Walking Dead: World Beyond hasn’t exactly been a ratings smash, even if it’s still the fourth most popular show on AMC at the moment. It’s a limited series with limited appeal, in a nontraditional genre for AMC. And, more unfortunately for the show, it’s been done better elsewhere. I’m not quite ready to write the show off, but the shine has started to flake off a bit.

The Walking Dead: World Beyond Recap: I’m on a Boat
By Scott Meslow    Nov. 1, 2020
https://www.vulture.com/article/the-walking-dead-world-beyond-recap-season-1-episode-5.html 

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We’re still getting to know The Walking Dead: World Beyond’s band of teenagers — but despite Iris’s general warmth and grace, Hope’s rebel-without-a-cause act, and Silas’s tendency to snap and beat the shit out of random zombies and/or people, Elton is quickly emerging as my personal favorite of the four. Nicolas Cantu is a confident and idiosyncratic actor, and he manages to tackle Elton’s cartoonier aspects — his science-nerd monologues, his obsession with his mom’s book, his mustard-colored corduroy suit — and make it feel plausible and real.

So it’s a welcome treat that “Madman Across the Water” takes a deep dive into Elton’s backstory, giving us a glimpse at the events that shaped the brain of this very singular teenager. Unfortunately, these compelling flashbacks are offset by the present-day story, which is built around a thin internecine conflict that World Beyond doesn’t manage to sell.
*  *  *
Let’s start with the bad. Even Cantu can’t do much with this episode’s incredibly contrived central argument, which begins when Hope overhears Felix telling Huck that he still intends to drag the teens back to the Campus Colony. When Felix mentions that Elton is on his side, Hope freaks out and starts yelling at everybody.

This isn’t exactly true, of course; Elton’s big “betrayal” is basically just sitting on the fence and listening as Felix makes his case for returning home, which seems like a fairly reasonable thing to do. And there’s a fair amount of hypocrisy that goes weirdly unmentioned here; none of the other teens know it, but it wasn’t all that long ago that Hope was secretly leaving clues to their path for Felix and Huck to find. (And given how much Felix wants the group to head back to the Campus Colony, it is extremely weird that he doesn’t bring this up.)
*  *  *
I’ve complained that this group needs some actual discord to spice things up, and this is a step in the right direction — but I’m not convinced the answer is an argument in which no one is wrong and everything can be settled in a clear-headed, two-minute conversation. Fortunately, the episode’s actual action is a little more fun. Apart from the arguing, much of “Madman Across the Water” centers on building a boat, which the gang needs to cross the Mississippi.

Even for The Walking Dead, this whole plan requires some suspension of disbelief. (Seriously, they build a boat that’s sturdy enough to cross the Mississippi River in a single day? And it runs on nail polish?) But there’s an enjoyably practical montage of the little tasks everyone needs to do to make the boat seaworthy, and it’s a reminder that Walking Dead stories tend to thrive when an episode is centered on a clear, tangible goal.
*  *  *
• The math is imprecise, and who knows what kind of detours they’re taking — but for the record: The distance from Lincoln, Nebraska to the Mississippi River is around 450 miles, which means they’ve got about 700 miles to go before they hit the New York state border.
*  *  *
• First we had “The Night the Sky Fell,” and now we have the return of “the wind always wins.” World Beyond: Stop trying to make “fetch” happen.

 

Edited November 2, 2020 by tv echo

[Mr. Sparkle]

I actually enjoy the flashback stuff; I like seeing the start of the ZA that we were promised with FTWD. Seeing that it's moving along at such a slow pace, and it's only supposed to be 20 episodes total makes me wonder if they really have much of a story to tell. 

[deemac]

I haven't even finished watching the DVR of this and I'm already ready to give up on it.  Huck and her bobble head and constant working of her mouth even beyond that voice!  And then only Elton could fix the belt with skinny Hope and Huck with a longer reach available?  That plus never killing the empties that maybe they escape from but leave to possibly attack anyone else still around.  Iris and her impossibly neat hair.  Hope and her meticulously groomed eyebrows.  Obviously this show bugs me more than it's worth.

Edited November 2, 2020 by deemac
typo

[OoohMaggie]

I admit to joining this show rather late in the day, after catching up it’s just a shame I wasn’t even later. Is this the best they could come up with after so many years of TWD and Fear combined, this show should be the pinnacle of what the franchise has to offer. It amazes me how much boredom and tediousness they can pack into 45 minutes of television. As for the characters, fuck me, they’ve surpassed themselves, the little git looks like a reject from a Dr Who’s assistant audition, as for ‘Spanner’ boy, he reminds me of Big Gruesome from the Wacky Races 😋

Forgive my ‘snarkiness’ I’ve got a lot of catching up to do  🙄

Edited November 2, 2020 by OoohMaggie

[Mr. Sparkle]

3 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

I am sure they are not done with the flashbacks.  There at least has to be one for Silas.

Oh, we're headed for the rest of the Silas flashback, and I'm guessing a Huck flashback is on the way. 

[iMonrey]

OMG, the voiceover narration is horrendously painful to endure. Talk about your tedious monologues, having to sit through some emo teen waxing poetic philosophy. It's so damn pretentious and "writery." Good grief. As if the show doesn't have enough problems they have to frame it in this kind of shit.

The story itself isn't awful, it at least has potential. But so far none of the characters are the least bit engaging, especially the two teen leads. And it looks like the show is mired in tiresome "character study via flashback" formula week after week. Talk about unoriginal.

They've already shot themselves in the foot showing how easy it is to evade "the empties" anyway. They've just been swatting them away like flies since the beginning so there's no tension or suspense when a bunch of them are headed their way. 

[raven]

Been watching and still not sure what's happening because this episode is not really holding my interest.  I do feel badly for little kid Corduroy.

LOL at Hope shot the mom reveal.  The OMGGGGG expression on Hope's face is kinda funny.  I keep expecting us to find out that someone else actually shot her and she, being just a kid, only thought she was the one who did.

 

 

[gutbuster]

Wondering if it's going to come up that Hope shot Elton's mother not in cold blood, but in response to Elton's mom panicking and murdering Hope and Iris's mother first. Not saying it's justified, but she was a terrified child and I'm already dreading the likelihood of the reveal including heavy implication that Hope just randomly intentionally murdered someone without provocation. I think that whole storyline is ridiculous anyway. (Not to mention that that flashback was poorly shot because it still doesn't even look to me like Hope handled the gun in any kind of way that would have resulted in an adult getting in the chest.)

Wondering if/how Elton has somehow not caught a glimpse of his mother's distinctive bead/necklace that Hope seemingly wore/wears all the time and was playing with frequently in the early episodes but that has been conspicuously absent since.

It might almost be interesting if instead of the predictable anger and blame, they could somehow bond over being terrified and freshly parentless barely-not-toddlers who managed to keep themselves alive before being found/finding help.

That corpse didn't look fresh enough, but was that Elton's dad in the hallway? The kid was terrified being stuck in that box but had less than no response to seeing a mutilated person dead in the hallway. He was like 'meh, corpse' and then immediately got to shopping. I thought he might kick the guy on his way out.

I hate everything about the Huck character. Literally everything. I'm really not enjoying any of the acting choices. So many annoying affectations.

This show is coming off like a crappy bizarro version of Stand By Me where River Phoenix is completely absent but still somehow lacking in charm. And each kid has the worst traits of one of the boys in that movie while really just being different versions of Corey Feldman. And while on the adventure they stop every five minutes to put together an apocalyptic DIY segment, wasting batteries and resources to pretentiously document it with no sense of urgency since the dead body isn't going anywhere.

Honestly, with all the passionate and defiant talk and stubbornness over 'Getting To My Dad!' there is an awful lot of sitting around. Calmly doing nothing or talking about feelings and working out emotional shit. Can't they talk and walk at the same time, so you know, something might happen.

I know in real life looks can be deceptive and it would not be realistic to do so, but that river in the episode looked like they could have paddled across it with boogie boards. I don't like that everyone still looks so clean. And if Iris says 'You/we/I can do this!", without any real basis or evidence to support us believing that said person actually can 'do this', one one more time I'm going to lose it.

[gutbuster]

2 hours ago, raven said:

LOL at Hope shot the mom reveal.  The OMGGGGG expression on Hope's face is kinda funny.  I keep expecting us to find out that someone else actually shot her and she, being just a kid, only thought she was the one who did.

 

 

I actually thought this was going to, or might still, happen. The way it looked the first time they showed that flashback, it really didn't even look like Hope fired the gun. It looked like she'd barely picked it up before we heard a shot. I didn't think she had it pointed high enough either, but I might be misremembering.

[GreyBunny]

2 hours ago, gutbuster said:

That corpse didn't look fresh enough, but was that Elton's dad in the hallway? The kid was terrified being stuck in that box but had less than no response to seeing a mutilated person dead in the hallway. He was like 'meh, corpse' and then immediately got to shopping. I thought he might kick the guy on his way out.

I hate everything about the Huck character. Literally everything. I'm really not enjoying any of the acting choices. So many annoying affectations.

This show is coming off like a crappy bizarro version of Stand By Me where River Phoenix is completely absent but still somehow lacking in charm. And each kid has the worst traits of one of the boys in that movie while really just being different versions of Corey Feldman. And while on the adventure they stop every five minutes to put together an apocalyptic DIY segment, wasting batteries and resources to pretentiously document it with no sense of urgency since the dead body isn't going anywhere.

Honestly, with all the passionate and defiant talk and stubbornness over 'Getting To My Dad!' there is an awful lot of sitting around. Calmly doing nothing or talking about feelings and working out emotional shit. Can't they talk and walk at the same time, so you know, something might happen.

I know in real life looks can be deceptive and it would not be realistic to do so, but that river in the episode looked like they could have paddled across it with boogie boards. I don't like that everyone still looks so clean. And if Iris says 'You/we/I can do this!", without any real basis or evidence to support us believing that said person actually can 'do this', one one more time I'm going to lose it.

No reaction to his dead dad, if it were me I would have been screaming and crying. What did his dad think he was doing? He should have hid in the box with the kid.

Boogie boards? I could swim that section. Take off all your clothes, put them in a waterproof bag, and then swim across. (That’s how you get across icy creeks/rivers in the snow - you’re going to get wet anyway, swim/wade naked and keep the clothes dry.)

The Hope/Elton’s mother drama - I couldn’t care less. It’s just useless noise. 

The two sisters are boring and interchangeable. I’m thinking their dad left because he was annoyed. Speaking of annoying... Huck. Eugene’s lines are ridiculous but at least he has some charm. Huck is utterly charmless, I hope she gets kidnapped by aliens or eaten by Sasquatch.

The kids are too clean, they’re not worn out enough for hiking all those miles with clumsy bags and suitcases, no blisters on the feet or ruined footwear or sore backs? No bug bites? How are these sheltered babies going to handle running into horrible adults on the level of the Governor, Negan, the Whisperers, or Terminus? They still can’t even dispatch a simple walker worth a damn.

 

Edited November 3, 2020 by GreyBunny

[MrPissyPuppy]

Did the people behind Fear the Walking Dead seasons 4/5 move over to this show?    So we have a group of bubble wrapped helicopter "parented" kids who mostly push the walker/zombies rather than killing them.   WTF?  In such a situation you should neutralize the threat if you can do so safely.   Did they never go on field trips or have labs where they actually killed the things?   I mean, train them for what life is like NOW rather than in the past or distant future.   And the boat.   Rather than paddling, they make a steam engine kind of like the kids from Fear who repaired a plane enough to fly rather than walking out.   

And they never tied in Madman Across the Water.  

[Nashville]

12 hours ago, gutbuster said:

Wondering if it's going to come up that Hope shot Elton's mother not in cold blood, but in response to Elton's mom panicking and murdering Hope and Iris's mother first. Not saying it's justified, but she was a terrified child and I'm already dreading the likelihood of the reveal including heavy implication that Hope just randomly intentionally murdered someone without provocation. I think that whole storyline is ridiculous anyway. (Not to mention that that flashback was poorly shot because it still doesn't even look to me like Hope handled the gun in any kind of way that would have resulted in an adult getting in the chest.)

Something which REALLY REALLY bothered me about that whole root-of-Hope’s-angst flashback:

1. Hope and HopeMom are running for a pickup when EltonMom runs up with a pistol and says she’s taking the truck.
2. An unarmed Hope runs towards the panicky strange woman who’s pointing a pistol at her and mom (what a fucking brilliant piece of survival strategy THAT was, huh?), “startling” EltonMom into panic-firing and hitting HopeMom - square dead in the center of her chest, through the breastbone.  A sniper couldn’t have nailed center mass any cleaner.
3. EltonMom drops the pistol and starts squeaking “Sowwy!” noises, whereupon Hope picks up the pistol and (in what is almost certainly the very first time in Hope’s life she has ever touched a firearm) drops EltonMom in a one shot/one kill execution worthy of John Wick - apparently another heart shot.

These two trick shot masters are more accurate by accident than most shooters are on purpose.  At the very least, Arlen Spector would have been proud of Hope’s shot; this magic bullet went from being aimed (apparently) at EltonMom’s ankles, to hitting her in the center/upper chest.  Excuse the artifacts from this YouTube clip, but look at the angle the small child is holding the pistol at the point of discharge compared to where the bullet appears to have impacted the relatively tall adult woman:

 

One last thing: the first still image can’t really depict this, but Hope was still in the process of picking up the pistol when it went off - so this killshot was made without Hope even aiming.  🙄

If nothing else, this does tend to lend more credence to the notion of EltonMom catching the bullet from another shooter.  

And yes, the video was that fucking dark.

 

Quote

That corpse didn't look fresh enough, but was that Elton's dad in the hallway? The kid was terrified being stuck in that box but had less than no response to seeing a mutilated person dead in the hallway. 

Yeah, it was Elton’s dad.  Not sure if Elton realized that, though (not immediately, anyway); from Elton’s POV stepping out of the door DeadDad’s face was turned away, and Elton never stepped around for a closer look at the face - he turned and headed the other way down the hall.  Can't say as I blame the kid.  In any case Dad had apparently already (a) died, (b) turned, and (c) been mercied by somebody, judging from the bullet hole in the middle of his forehead.

 

Edited November 3, 2020 by Nashville
Hit ‘Save’ too soon

[diebartdie]

OK, am I the only one confused by this show? Here's my confusion. We've seen Hope, Iris, Felix and now Elton all (in flash back) at the very beginning of the zombie apocalypse and all of them were a LOT younger (Elton was 5 in that flashback, FIVE), all of them are now at least 10 years older, 10 years of the ZA. My confusion is with Silas. When they showed his flashback, he looked exactly the same age as he is now AND YET he was being put in handcuffs by uniformed police officers with flashing lights, sirens, an ambulance, all those things would be part of the world BEFORE the ZA, back when Silas would have been like Hope, Iris, et al, Silas would have been between 5-10 when policemen still wore uniforms and used flashing police car lights and sirens and handcuffs and ambulances took people to hospitals. Either that "kid" is older than Felix (and thus creepy as fuck lusting after Iris) or something is seriously wrong with this show. Help me out y'all, what am I missing?

[Mr. Sparkle]

I think he may be a bit older, but I got the feeling they DID have that stuff post-ZA. They seem to have a lot of technology, computers, etc. so it might be that they have ambulances in Omaha, a police force, handcuffs, etc. 

If not, he's like 25 at least, and they're 16-17. It's icky now, but I think in a time when there are a lot less people, social taboos might be lessened. 

Or, nobody on the writing staff is paying attention to detail, which is always a possibility. 

[OoohMaggie]

1 hour ago, diebartdie said:

Help me out y'all, what am I missing?

I think the guy he fought and killed was his Dad, going by the dialogue on the clip it seems to have happened whilst they were already living in the colony, which tallies with him looking a similar age to now. As they are still driving around in Jeeps and busses now, I would have thought an organised colony of over 9000 people would have use of an emergency vehicle or two as SC stated, I tried freezing the badge on the medic’s arm but it’s too blurred. I don’t think the writers would be that dumb, even on this show 🙄

[Nashville]

2 hours ago, diebartdie said:

My confusion is with Silas. When they showed his flashback, he looked exactly the same age as he is now AND YET he was being put in handcuffs by uniformed police officers with flashing lights, sirens, an ambulance, all those things would be part of the world BEFORE the ZA, back when Silas would have been like Hope, Iris, et al, Silas would have been between 5-10 when policemen still wore uniforms and used flashing police car lights and sirens and handcuffs and ambulances took people to hospitals. Either that "kid" is older than Felix (and thus creepy as fuck lusting after Iris) or something is seriously wrong with this show. Help me out y'all, what am I missing?

Societal rebuilding, maybe?  I’m pretty sure the “violent Silas” flashbacks weren’t going back more than a year, if that much.  Silas didn’t appear to have been a member of the Campus Colony for more than a few months, max.

[txhorns79]

On 11/2/2020 at 9:50 AM, Superclam said:

I actually enjoy the flashback stuff; I like seeing the start of the ZA that we were promised with FTWD. Seeing that it's moving along at such a slow pace, and it's only supposed to be 20 episodes total makes me wonder if they really have much of a story to tell. 

The thing that confuses me is they make it seem like things were fine one moment and then chaotic murderous zombie mayhem in the next.  I guess it would help to know what exactly was the tipping point, and why it all seemed to happen at the same time everywhere.  I do give young Elton credit though.  How he managed to keep his cool after finding his dad's mangled corpse with a gun shot through the head, I will never know.  I probably would have been a crying mess.  

Quote

The Hope/Elton’s mother drama - I couldn’t care less. It’s just useless noise. 

Yes.  It's too contrived a storyline, and it isn't like anyone could honestly hold a teenager responsible for decisions made while she was a small child in the middle of utter chaos.  Yeah, Elton might be upset if he found out, but so what? 

[ctlady]

On 10/31/2020 at 2:49 PM, Gulftastic said:

The Olympic level stupidity of these people is making me angry. I might have to stop watching. He had the walkers trapped by the fishing line and decided to look at them for a bit, instead of, say, STABBING THEM IN THE HEAD! And when they confront any Walker why do they push them instead of STABBING THEM IN THE HEAD with their weapons which are designed that very purpose!  

YESS!!!  This!  My only thought was that Felix was saving his killing energy for those walkers (I REFUSE to call them 'empties') who figured to go around the trees, leaving the rest to keep pressing against the line like dumbots.  But when Iris and Hope came a-swooping in and began 'pushing' them I was like WHYYY??  Iris has that staff with the stone spear at the end - USE IT!

16 hours ago, txhorns79 said:

Quote

The Hope/Elton’s mother drama - I couldn’t care less. It’s just useless noise. 

Yes.  It's too contrived a storyline, and it isn't like anyone could honestly hold a teenager responsible for decisions made while she was a small child in the middle of utter chaos. 

I kinda liked it and was a nice twist.  As soon as they showed the flashback with his mom pregnant, I said to Mr. Ctlady, "Huh - I bet that's the pregnant lady Hope shot in her flashback" and he was like "Yeahhhhh, good deduction!"  No, he can't do anything about it or hold Hope responsible, but it may bond them somehow

On 11/2/2020 at 12:37 PM, deemac said:

Huck and her bobble head and constant working of her mouth even beyond that voice!

I noticed the actress has eased up on the street-swagger talk a bit.  Still, she hasn't endeared me yet

The scene where Iris and Felix were talking with that barn in the background where they didn't hear a pin drop.  Then....as soon as they walk away we hear the walkers begin to growl.  That was bad editing.  They would've been growling non-stop.  They don't do selective growling or even stop when they hear people nearby

This entire premise of Felix and Huck going along with the kids and playing the long game in the hopes that they can persuade them that they're on a fool's journey and have the decision be THEIRS to turn around and go back is making my teeth grind.  Who are the adults and who are the kids here?  Felix - find your pair, keep your promise to protect them and tell them, "We're turning the eff back - NOW!  No questions.  No whining.  Nothing! And before you even think about trying to sneak out again - think twice."  Enough with coddling and enabling these TEENAGERS - UGH!!

 

[OoohMaggie]

16 hours ago, ctlady said:

Iris has that staff with the stone spear at the end - USE IT!

If she did use Elton’s ‘Dinosaur Horn’ I think it would do what it looks like it would do, fall off within five seconds .

I can’t believe they had theory lessons on how to dispatch Walkers, yet absolutely no practical lessons out in the field, it’s not as though there’s a limited supply of Walkers, even ten years after the outbreak, but that’s a different WTF.

The ‘why do something safely when you can easily endanger everyone’ technique has plagued all the shows, sometimes it works but mostly doesn’t. They promise the show will get darker pretty soon, i hope the pace picks up and crunches into second gear.I said I’d watch the first two or three but who am I kidding, I’ll still be there at the bitter end.

[OoohMaggie]

5 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

I would get out about six feet and go toes up and drowned.  I have taken tons of swimming lessons in my life, and whenever I get out far enough where the water is over my head I start to panic and flail.

I’ve never managed to be be able to swim like an average person, when I was about 10 or so I managed to get my 25 yard swimming certificate at school, heaven knows how. The issue didn’t raise its head until a trip to Australia when I was about 36, I was determined to try and obtain a basic Scuba Diving certificate, for which you had to be able to swim so many lengths of a pool, so I thought I was totally screwed. It was only my inquisitive travelling companion who discovered that instead of the swim, you could do the same distance but using fins and a mask / snorkel, which not only seemed more relevant to the activity in question, but  I discovered I could do forever and a day with no problem. To this day, with no mask or snorkel I might be able to keep myself afloat, but ask me to cover any distance and I’d be flailing around just like you.

Try a mask and snorkel, it’s absolutely amazing the difference they can make to your confidence in the water.

Edited November 8, 2020 by OoohMaggie

[Peanut]

Um. So I thought they were trying to get to Omaha.  Did they get to Omaha and I missed it?  I misread the sign and thought they were trying to cross the Missouri (which still doesn't make sense if they're trying to get to Omaha; they'd cross the Platte, which most of the time you can just wade across).  

 

I also hate "empties." Walkers makes the most sense. Meh. 

[Mr. Sparkle]

8 minutes ago, Peanut said:

Um. So I thought they were trying to get to Omaha.  Did they get to Omaha and I missed it?  I misread the sign and thought they were trying to cross the Missouri (which still doesn't make sense if they're trying to get to Omaha; they'd cross the Platte, which most of the time you can just wade across).  

The kids are trying to get to NY State to their father. They were crossing the Mississippi. I believe the grown-ups were trying to sneak the boat back to Omaha. (Now that I'm looking at a map, that makes no sense at all.)

On another note, New York is fairly large, it's almost 400 miles from Buffalo to NYC. I don't know exactly how this search is supposed to work. 

Edited November 12, 2020 by Superclam

[Peanut]

@Superclam I know they're trying to get to her father in New York; I just thought they were going to Omaha first. 

[Nashville]

7 hours ago, Peanut said:

Um. So I thought they were trying to get to Omaha.  Did they get to Omaha and I missed it?  I misread the sign and thought they were trying to cross the Missouri (which still doesn't make sense if they're trying to get to Omaha; they'd cross the Platte, which most of the time you can just wade across).  

No; Omaha (the primary settlement of which the Campus Colony in Lincoln is - or was - a satellite) is the community towards which Felix and Huck were trying to divert this moveable feast.  

Which gets to what is already my primary pet peeve with this series so far - feel free to pull out a map and join in the fun, if you like:

1. Each episode appears to be covering roughly two days in WB time.
2. When the kids were discussing cutting through the Blaze of Gory (helluva overblown name for a gawdawful pile of burning tires if you ask me), it was clear the BoG was relatively well-known to the Campus residents; local stories about it were exchanged, and these kids (who have never before been more than a couple of miles outside the Colony walls) were able to map it accurately enough to navigate straight to it.
3. In the course of their discussions one of the kids (Elton, I believe) stated the BoG was “about fifty miles” east of the Campus Colony, which is located in Lincoln, Nebraska.  Reference a map and this would put the BoG as somewhere in the vicinity of Union NE, near the Nebraska/Iowa border.
4. Between sleeping in treehouses, on open rooftops, in warehouses, stopping occasionally to push undead around without dispatching them, etc., it took the kids right about 4 days to cover the distance from Campus to the BoG.  This works out to an average of about 12 walking miles a day (which is a respectable hiking rate - we aren’t talking soldiers on a forced march here, after all), or 24-25 miles per episode; let’s be generous and call it 25 miles covered per 2-WB-day episode.

So how is it that over the next two episodes/4 WB days, the Teen Troop managed to cross the ENTIRE LENGTH of Iowa and land on the banks of the Mississippi River?  Go from Union straight east to the Mississippi, and you’re going to hit the river somewhere around Burlington IA which (according to Google Maps) is about 280 miles away by the most direct walking route.  Which means our hiking delinquents would’ve had to accelerate from their rather leisurely 12-ish miles per day to something more like 70 miles per day, which is insane; an army on forced march would be doing good to make half that, and doing it for 4 days straight would have them dropping like flies from exhaustion.  
 

So pardon me if my suspension of disbelief doesn’t extend to the notion of the Slacker Squad covering ground twice as fast as Army Rangers.  😛

[Nashville]

And don’t even get me started on Felix‘s harebrained scheme to get them to the Mississippi and then somehow “divert” them back to Omaha; every single step they’ve taken has been the exact opposite direction, and every waterway in that part of the country (including the Missouri River which borders Omaha) runs south and empties into the Mississippi, which is winding its way south to the Gulf of Mexico. So unless Felix knows some super duper secret river route back to Omaha by way of Memphis or New Orleans, he’s full of shit.

[Jack Kerouac]

On 11/1/2020 at 1:48 AM, CletusMusashi said:

When Elton is given autonomy in a scene, we're left wondering things like "If he doesn't know what 'ass' means, does he know what 'fireworks' means?"

He knows what the word 'ass' means; he apparently doesn't know the term 'haul ass.' I find it slightly unbelieveable that in a zombie apocalypse, the term 'haul ass' has gone out of fashion, but who knows? Show is still stupid.

Edited November 20, 2020 by Jack Kerouac

[Fen Tiger]

Hoo boy. This series is epically bad. Gimpel is a lazy moron based on this crap. Here’s an idea- check out some fan fic- find the best and most creative and offer those people writing gigs. Or the writers from 12 Monkeys. Re: Huck... wtf Annet? Is it the direction? Because you were my fave in The Americans, but are beyond lame here. Or is it the bad scripts making you incorporate some tics to try to stand out? Sad and angry about this show. Still love Julia Ormond, though. Got about 15 minutes into this episode and decided to call it done with this part of the franchise.