S06.E06: Bury Her Next to Jasper's Leg

[nodorothyparker]

Airdate 2020.11.15

Quote

A deadly explosion in the oil fields sends June on a mission to save as many lives as possible. Meanwhile, an investigation by Virginia threatens to undermine June's work.

And no, I have no idea who Jasper is.

[Madding crowd]

I liked the beginning of this season but thought the last two episodes were kind of boring. I wish June had let Virginia die because she can never be trusted and will not keep her promises. I also find the actress annoying and can't imagine anyone following her. In the surgery scene where the man died, are we supposed to believe the man received only a Xanax type drug and was able to remain perfectly still and asleep during abdominal surgery? Just, No. 

[nodorothyparker]

It's irritating when a show requires characters to behave stupidly to extend a plotline, or in this case a villain's lifespan, when there is literally no good reason to do that except to drag it out. The mothership did that with Negan, forcing longtime characters into increasingly ridiculous Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner scenarios to the point that it all but killed the show and made it all but impossible to care about those longtime favorites. Now this show puts June in the same position because 30 seconds after torturing a wounded man Virginia expresses an emotion about her sister?

Look, I get it. June is a nurse who wants to save lives. She's a true believer in the idea of helping people. So no, she doesn't want to kill anybody, no matter how many problems it might solve. But as presented here, she didn't even have to do that. It was a matter of doing nothing and letting things take their natural progression.  It also doesn't help that saving Virginia forces the second time in as many weeks of a supposedly deathless love that survived the ZA and separation to split up over dealing with her. I guess John is just going to go sit in his cabin 100 miles away and play Scrabble with himself, even if I did like the aerial shot of the decision to go.

I'm also going to need the show to decide where the unknown spray paint bandits land on the scale of villainy compared to Virginia's crew. So far all we've seen is cryptic graffiti and a claim of sabotage along with boobytrapping some walkers. 

[Dodginblue]

I wonder why the show runners / casting directors, whoever made the decision, thought that the actress cast to play Virginia was the best choice.  It's not that the actress is bad, it's just that her appearance, her voice, her mannerisms make it hard to take her seriously in this role. I find her comical and I can't imagine that's the reaction they were going for.  

That guy  with the ruptured appendix sure did turn awfully fast.  I didn't really understand what was going on there at first.  Are June and the other character just driving around looking for people who need medical assistance?  I guess that was part of the set-up so that later when she decides to save Virginia in return for a promise of a hospital we could understand why it's so important to her.  That was kind of ridiculous, though, the idea that all she has to do is find some leverage over Virginia and eureka! she'll get a hospital.  Stocked with what?  Although I realize that in both this show and TWD the characters find supplies magically whenever they need them. 

I appreciate horses being used for transportation and not as walker food although every time one appears on the screen I'm terrified that it's going to get attacked.  

 

[One4Sorrow2TooBad]

Was really hoping June put an end to that POS Virginia. This season continues to drag ass, people scattered all over. 

[DrNowsWeightScale]

I still like John Dorie, and while I kind of understand Dorie's decision to leave Lawton / Ginny, I was disappointed and a little bewildered he left June (his wife).

I'm not totally clear on Dorie's choice about leaving: is he just upset over Janis' death, does he feel like his job as a Ranger is a farce so what's the point in staying, OR, is he afraid Ginny may have it in for him and try to kill him later? Or maybe some combination of any/all of that?

Dorie wasn't exactly forth-coming with June about what went down with Janis, he refused to go into detail and explain more.

He spent much of season 4 tracking her down. Now he's just left her? I don't totally buy into his choice to leave, no matter how unhappy he is to be staying at Lawton. 

I can see June still wanting to play nurse and help sick people, but her in the back of a big rig to use it as an ambulance looked rather ridiculous and kind of impractical. 

At least with this season, they've course corrected - season 5 has some really moronic, goofy, inexplicable story choices, but now, the characters and storylines have improved (for the most part).

Anyway, I still like John Dorie but am currently a little ticked off with the character and baffled by his choice (to leave June), considering he was previously willing to walk through Hell to find June again (back in season 4). 

And as someone above touched on - so he escapes Ginny, great, but to what end?

To sit around in his cabin (or someone else's cabin) all alone, playing Scrabble by himself?? He will be back at square one - very lonely without June. Unless the show writers have him run into new characters or whatever. 

Well, at least he's getting screen time lately.
He's my all time favorite TWD character (of any show), but they usually ignore him for entire shows.

Edited November 17, 2020 by DrNowsWeightScale

[meep.meep]

17 hours ago, Dodginblue said:

 

That guy  with the ruptured appendix sure did turn awfully fast.

 

They gave him a shot of adrenalin when his heart stopped.

I wish they would explain what the Rangers are all about and why they wear the stupid keys.  

[One4Sorrow2TooBad]

June's "Save The Hospital, Save The World"  mindset,  made me think I was watching one of too many of the most forgettable episodes of  Grey's Anatomy. Maybe John reached a point like so many of us have at a time in our lives where no matter how wonderful or attractive the other person is, someone is sick of their shit. 

[Daltrey]

Why is Ginny so scary and all powerful? It makes zero sense, nothing about her even remotely implies tyrannical despot. That everyone is so implicitly fearful of her is laughable. It would be nice if they could show us a backstory for once to explain how she was able to rise to power.

[BasilSeal]

On 11/16/2020 at 6:25 PM, icemiser69 said:

June is an idiot, she must be related to Rick.  When you have an opportunity to take out the "Big Bad", you don't hesitate, you just do it.  Sometimes the enemy of your enemy can be your friend, at least for the short term.  I am talking about those that are spray painting.

It would seem that the spray painters are Nihilists, (again), who want to destroy humanity, or at least human civilisation because reasons. maybe they think human civilisation is rotten to the core and has somehow caused the apocalypse, or that the zombie plague is a manifestation of society's ills and they need to end civilisation so something better can rise up in it's place, or something.

But whatever, it's   setting up a conflict between those trying to rebuild and preserve human civilisation, and those who think our current  civilisation needs to be destroyed. what's going to play out, i suspect, is that our heroes are going to have to pick a side between Virginia and the end of the world is nigh crew, and really, they're going to have to pick Virginia, aren't they?

[BasilSeal]

3 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

That entirely depends on how big that other group is.   I think we have only seen a couple of people so far.  I don't know how those two tie in with the dead dude that was using his dog to try and hunt down Morgan.  That dude was hired by Virginia to hunt down Morgan, but he also knew the spray painters.

Are those spray painters in the same group with Dwight's wife or are they a different group entirely?

I think, though it's not clear, that the two dudes morgan killed weren't friendly with the bounty hunter, given that they rammed the truck they thought he would be driving.

The bounty hunter tracked down the guy who was running from Virginia and took the key from him, my take is that spray painters attacked the truck because they were intending to meet up with the guy running with the key, remember they were waiting for someone at the beached submarine? when that guy doesn't show they go after the bounty hunter because they guess that he must have intercepted their agent who has  somehow acquired the key, which someone suggested my be to launch the cruise missiles on the sub.

We don't know how many spray painters there are but they're an insurgency with agents within Virginia's communities, and it's very difficult to fight an insurgency. I think the other group with Dwight's wife in is unconnected to the spray painters but again it's not clear.

[BasilSeal]

8 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

I thank everyone for the feedback.  I enjoy reading what you all have to say, and I've learned a lot.

TPTB seem to have a pattern with character development and I am not too thrilled with the redundancy.   Dwight and his wife meet up and then go their separate ways in a prior episode.  The same thing in this episode has just happened with John Dory and June, though I do think John will turn around and go back with June.

Also, the antagonists tend to win too many confrontations before they are finally taken out.  It would be better if there was more of a mix.

I think we may see Virginia on the backfoot from now on, and the end is the beginning crew are an existential threat to both her and to Team Morgan, even if morgan and his allies were successful in taking out Virginia and either forming their own community or taking over Virginia's empire and running it in their own more liberal way, the Nihilists would still be trying to end their project regardless of who was in charge. 

Virginia losing her hand may be symbolic as we see her empire under threat and her own position weakened as she starts to loose ground to the  spray painters, we may also see her painted as more sympathetic, (good luck with that one, writers), with her reasoning for what she's trying to do explained and her relationship with her sister expanded.

The key theme with fTWD, and i think it's a interesting one despite them not always exploring it coherently, is the morality of survival. everyone who has survived until now has done so at the expense of others, whether that be simply failing to help others because you can't save everyone or actively fucking over other people to save yourself. the last tow seasons have been about the remaining characters trying to come to terms with this and finding some peace. 

Morgan's group save people because they view life as being precious, where as Virginia is purely pragmatic, she want to preserve life but only as much as those she saves are useful to her project, she'll just as soon kill someone if it serves her project, but her project is to preserve human civilisation, which isn't actually a bad thing.

This sets up a dichotomy between simply surviving, and actually living, in as much as you have a life which is worthwhile. As baby Morgan's doomed father says, living in Virginia's community  was relatively safe but it wasn't worth the price you paid in terms of giving up your personal freedom and autonomy

Morgan is morally right but there's also a place for Virginia's pragmatism if humanity is going to survive, so i wonder if the writers are manoeuvring towards a position where the two groups  will find a happy medium to unite against the people who want to destroy human civilisation completely?

 

Edited November 20, 2020 by BasilSeal

[Donder]

Gaia theory always has been Robert Kirkman's secret sauce compared to Romero's general social commentary on moral decline, Kirkman is celebrating the demise. We deserve it and the planet is ridden itself of a parasite. Tigers are recovering. The ecosystem will heal in 100 years. Very Unabomber approving show.

[BasilSeal]

On 11/21/2020 at 12:58 AM, Donder said:

Gaia theory always has been Robert Kirkman's secret sauce compared to Romero's general social commentary on moral decline, Kirkman is celebrating the demise. We deserve it and the planet is ridden itself of a parasite. Tigers are recovering. The ecosystem will heal in 100 years. Very Unabomber approving show.

It does look like this is the message the spray paint people are pushing, get rid of humanity, or at least human civilisation, and let the planet make a new start: The end is the beginning'. Hence they are trying to destroy Virginias project, which puts preserving civilisation above the rights, or even the life, of the individual.

Edited November 29, 2020 by BasilSeal

[meep.meep]

Isn't that the identical message that the Wolves on Original Recipe WD were all about?  

[MrPissyPuppy]

3 hours ago, meep.meep said:

Isn't that the identical message that the Wolves on Original Recipe WD were all about?  

Their message was "wolves not far" or as some joked, "wolves unfair". 

[wrlord]

On 11/16/2020 at 6:04 PM, Dodginblue said:

I wonder why the show runners / casting directors, whoever made the decision, thought that the actress cast to play Virginia was the best choice.  It's not that the actress is bad, it's just that her appearance, her voice, her mannerisms make it hard to take her seriously in this role. I find her comical and I can't imagine that's the reaction they were going for.  

Couldn't agree more, especially after watching her in the Boys, where she was perfectly cast.