S01.E08: The Sky is a Graveyard

[nodorothyparker]

Airdate 2020.11.22

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A horrific discovery finds the group at a crossroads and prompts one of them to revisit past trauma.

 

[OoohMaggie]

Another budget buster this week, a Big Gruesome special.........zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, we’ve got two hours of this in the finale 😱

[Mr. Sparkle]

Yeah, I saw the last one is 2 hours. That's a lot of talking about feelings. 

You're totally right about the low-budget nature of this show. Find an abandoned location, film the cast talking about feelings, wear a bad wig, talk a lot, have maybe 2-3 walkers. Repeat. 

[OoohMaggie]

6 hours ago, Superclam said:

Yeah, I saw the last one is 2 hours. That's a lot of talking about feelings. 

You're totally right about the low-budget nature of this show. Find an abandoned location, film the cast talking about feelings, wear a bad wig, talk a lot, have maybe 2-3 walkers. Repeat. 

Lol,

I think the $1000 an episode budget must be starting to hurt, they definitely cut back for this week, maybe they’re saving up for the end of season extravaganza. Let’s hope for a horde of at least four Walkers, as it’s approaching Christmas they might splash the cash on a few CGI bullet effects 🙄

[WaltersHair]

All parents seem to be dirtbags, missing, or dead.

[GreyBunny]

So, Huck is a rat which is a surprise to no one.

[txhorns79]

3 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

So Huck is the daughter of the Big Bad Lady?   It would seem strange that Huck would mention the watch as "dad's watch", when BBL gave it to her if she wasn't related to the BBL.

I was surprised, as I thought they were setting it up to be Hope.  (i.e. adopted, looks somewhat like Julia Ormond, etc.)  Unless Huck is really sheltered, I'm not entirely sure how the person who killed her fellow marines rather than let a bunch of innocent people be killed, is in league with the Civic Republic.  I get that she may not have been aware of what they planned for the campus colony, but surely that was not their first foray into mass slaughter of innocent people.

And I did feel for Silas.  I can't imagine how traumatized I would be if I killed my abusive parent, only to have him come back up as a zombie and try to kill me again.

[theredhead77]

1 hour ago, txhorns79 said:

And I did feel for Silas.  I can't imagine how traumatized I would be if I killed my abusive parent, only to have him come back up as a zombie and try to kill me again.

Same. I feel really bad for Silas and I think the actor is doing a great job portraying someone with some serious internal demons. It also sheds light on Silas freezing when he has to kill a walker.

[theredhead77]

28 minutes ago, icemiser69 said:

From what was shown, his mother wasn't much help either.  His mother is the adult, she had an obligation to protect her child, not the other way around.

His mother was a battered, abused woman whose abusive husband turned walker was trying to eat her brains (literally). That level of compounded trauma could render anyone useless.

[theredhead77]

28 minutes ago, icemiser69 said:

That wasn't the first time she had been abused, there had been a long history.  The neighbor pretty much hinted that was the case.

No one deserves to be battered and/or abused, no one.   However, she is the adult.  She had an obligation to protect her child.  if she wanted to put up with the abuse, that is the choice she had made for herself, but her son had no choice in the matter.

The neighbor may have been willing to help, to go to the police or the remaining authorities but we don't know if she took that path before and the police did nothing. Or where she could go, if she did leave. Did she have financial resources to support herself and Silas? A support system? Did the abusive husband threaten to kill her or Silas if they left?  

We have no idea why she chose to stay, and it's unlikely we'll ever find out. Leaving is not nearly as easy as it appears from the outside in normal circumstances and when you now add a zombie apocalypse with even more limited places to go (or hide) and you have a whole other barrier.

[rmontro]

Ugh, these flashbacks.

That's mainly what I wanted to say, but I will add that I didn't think Silas' mother's reaction to him killing his zombie dad rang true.  She had been living in an abusive relationship all this time, and she's suddenly repulsed because her son displayed some justified (and necessary) violence?  Just seems like manipulative writing to me to pile more angst on to Silas.

[iMonrey]

OK, we've been discussing just how much of a threat Walkers would be 10+ years into the zombie apocalypse, when they are barely a solid form anymore. Seems like at this point a slight breeze would disintegrate them. Indeed, thus far none of these characters has been in any real danger from Walkers. They've been shoving them aside and flicking them away as one would a gnat. 

But Silas's father was a newly risen zombie. And yet Silas was able to simply shove him away and keep him at bay just by closing and locking his bedroom door.  But Silas's mother? Totally in peril. WHATEVER, show.

I know we're supposed to feel sorry for poor, traumatized Silas, but he does in fact remember exactly what happened with his father given the flashbacks that made up most of this episode. I don't know what's stopping him from telling his friends his father was abusive and beating him up and he accidentally killed him defending himself fighting back. And that he simply does not remember whether or not he killed Percy or Tony because he blacked out. 

When every character on the show mopes around crying "Woe is me" you end up not feeling bad for any of them.  

[rmontro]

19 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

When every character on the show mopes around crying "Woe is me" you end up not feeling bad for any of them.  

I had to quote this because it's so very true.

[theredhead77]

Would Silas be more sympatric and less gruesome if he wasn't a big awkward dude with questionable social skills? Silas was a kid / young teen when his abusive father attacked him, resulting in Silas killing his dad in self-defense, then having to kill his dad again, as a walker. We know Campus Colony had at least one therapist; we have no idea what sort of help Silas received after he killed his dad, twice, or what help he received as a kid. And I still stand by what I said a few episodes back, Iris shouldn't be his default therapist because he has a crush on her.

Don't get me wrong, the writing is terrible and I don't think TWD franchise is the best to handle domestic violence, no matter how much they try but in Silas' mind he blacked out and killed his dad, abusive asshole or not, he was still his dad.. 

[Boofish]

His dad a season 1 walker? How he get up those stairs so quietly?

I want to give this show a chance out of desperation for something to watch but Iris' Whitney Houston last week of life wig and Hope's grandmother good church wig has me questioning my standards. 

[tennisgurl]

Silas's dad became a Walker is absolute record time like damn. I did feel for Silas, that really is a terrible thing to have to live with, especially with the flashbacks showing that his dad wasnt always an abusive prick, and I think the actor did a good job. It also sucks that apparently his mom didnt want much to do with him after this, which would certainly make everything worse. 

Unfortunately, I cant even get that invested, because everything on this show is so boring and dour all of the time. Its just being angsty and going from one abandoned building to the next, its just so dull. They are going super hard to give everyone the most Tragic Backstories Ever and have them sit around talking about feelings and getting flashbacks, it just feels like nothing has actually happened at all this season. 

So is Huck the general ladies daughter? So I guess either she has no idea what her people are getting up to, considering they have slaughtered so many people, or she has decided she doesent care much about mass murder so much now, after her whole backstory where she killed her whole unit to avoid killing civilians. 

[BasilSeal]

5 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

So is Huck the general ladies daughter? So I guess either she has no idea what her people are getting up to, considering they have slaughtered so many people, or she has decided she doesent care much about mass murder so much now, after her whole backstory where she killed her whole unit to avoid killing civilians. 

Yes, she's Elizabeth Kublek's daughter, she also mentions her father in her interaction with Hope at the derelict high school a couple of episodes back.

huck talks about the greater good, which is clearly the main theme the writers are dealing with here, it's a common theme across the franchise; the moral ambiguity of survival and the necessity of doing bad things to certain individuals, or failing to help certain individuals, to serve  some long term goal of helping the wider community. she presumably believes that her betrayal / deception has some higher purpose for the 'greater good' of humanity, it's also likely that huck isn't aware that the people at the CC have all been massacred.

The CRM aren't a conventional big bad in this because although they're ostensibly the bad guys who are  set against the de facto heroes, their main aim is the continuation of civilisation, and they're up to something WRT research into somehow stopping or curing the zombie virus, or bacterium, or er, magic spell, or whatever it is that causes zombies, but obviously this isn't necessarily a bad thing.

My take on what's to follow. Kublek talks about 'the asset', back the at CC her soldiers report that they've failed to find 'her', so my guess is one of the sisters is for some reason materially important to their great plan, and that either Hope of Iris is in some way special, and relevant to the 'stop the zombies' research programme.

Now Elton and Silas have branched out on their own, it seems likely to me that they'll find Percy, (Murphy's first rule of the apocalypse: we didn't see him die, so he's not dead) who will tell them what actually happened and likely reveal huck is betraying them, and hence their friends are heading into a trap, and they will then decide to go to their rescue. if they don't meet Percy then they'll find out about the betrayal some other way and the effect will be the same.

[Mr. Sparkle]

7 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Unfortunately, I cant even get that invested, because everything on this show is so boring and dour all of the time. Its just being angsty and going from one abandoned building to the next, its just so dull. They are going super hard to give everyone the most Tragic Backstories Ever and have them sit around talking about feelings and getting flashbacks, it just feels like nothing has actually happened at all this season. 

The whole season seems to be a slow crawl (almost literally) to whatever is going to be revealed in the last episode. It is hard to stay interested. If it was open ended without the 2 season cap, I probably wouldn't stick around. 

8 hours ago, Boofish said:

I want to give this show a chance out of desperation for something to watch but Iris' Whitney Houston last week of life wig and Hope's grandmother good church wig has me questioning my standards.

I'm not particularly observant, but this is so obvious. Iris' wig doesn't even fit her and Hope's looks like bad Barbie doll hair. 

[iMonrey]

Quote

They are going super hard to give everyone the most Tragic Backstories Ever and have them sit around talking about feelings and getting flashbacks, it just feels like nothing has actually happened at all this season. 

Preach. It seems like I say this every week but nothing really happened here except backstory until the very end, with the reveal about Huck. And who cares anyway? It's not like we're so invested in these characters we feel angry about the betrayal. I couldn't care less if any of them live or die. That's how poorly they've been written and executed. 

[Nashville]

7 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

I don't think either girl is the asset.   I can't think of a reason why one girl would be an asset and the other wouldn't. 

Keep in mind Hope and Iris aren’t biological sisters; they were both orphaned as infants, and happened to land in the same orphanage.  According to Dr. Bennett, the orphanage had the two paired up in the same crib when the Bennetts came calling with adoption in mind. Doctor B and the wife originally intended to adopt only one infant; the two together in the crib were inseparable, though, so they ended up adopting them both.  
So it’s entirely possible the ‘asset’ designation is related to the parentage or genetics of one girl and not the other; personally, I lean more towards the genetics rationale.

[BasilSeal]

12 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

I don't think either girl is the asset.   I can't think of a reason why one girl would be an asset and the other wouldn't. 

I think the asset is probably Harry Pantsuit.  

The girls aren't biological sisters so one could have some  genetic , er, thingy, that the other doesn't.

Elton isn't the asset, after the CRM destroy the campus colony the soldiers report to Kublek that they can't find 'her', hence the asset is female.  Also, at one point Huck, whose job it is to deliver the asset, suggests Felix return to the CC with the boys while she continues to New York with just the girls, it seems unlikely she would suggest this if her job was to deliver Elton.

[BasilSeal]

Just now, icemiser69 said:

That would truly suck if it is one of the girls. 

It's got to be one of the girls, Kublek has some influence over the decision of Iris and Hope to leave and find their father, and really she had no way of knowing if her manipulation of the girls would work, so it's stretching things a bit for this to be some sort of nefarious plan, but she does have some agency here because she gives Iris the map. However she has no agency whatsoever in getting Elton and Silas to go with them, because they decide this for themselves, there's no way Kublek could have known these two would tag along, elton and Silas' involvement is entirely random, hence elton and silas aren't part of the plan.

[Mr. Sparkle]

3 hours ago, BasilSeal said:

It's got to be one of the girls, Kublek has some influence over the decision of Iris and Hope to leave and find their father, and really she had no way of knowing if her manipulation of the girls would work, so it's stretching things a bit for this to be some sort of nefarious plan, but she does have some agency here because she gives Iris the map. However she has no agency whatsoever in getting Elton and Silas to go with them, because they decide this for themselves, there's no way Kublek could have known these two would tag along, elton and Silas' involvement is entirely random, hence elton and silas aren't part of the plan.

I think it's clear it's one of the girls. The show's writing isn't clever enough to have it be a surprise. I also think it'll be Hope because of her name, and I'm being serious. 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Hope Myfatherisntazombie Bennett

Edited November 25, 2020 by Superclam
I remembered their actual last name.

[theredhead77]

4 hours ago, Superclam said:

Hope Myfatherisntazombie Bennett

Is he related to Bob wehadababyEETSaboy?

[Slade347]

They've emphasized the relationship between Hope and Huck to the point that I think there's been at least one scene involving just the two of them in each episode. I don't recall seeing any with just Huck and Iris. That could be a red herring, but as mentioned, this show doesn't appear clever enough to even attempt to pull something like that off.

[txhorns79]

16 hours ago, BasilSeal said:

Elton isn't the asset, after the CRM destroy the campus colony the soldiers report to Kublek that they can't find 'her', hence the asset is female. 

In fairness, now that we know Huck is her daughter, that could have been the "her" being referenced.  She may have been glad her daughter was not there to see the bloodbath.   

[BasilSeal]

11 hours ago, txhorns79 said:

In fairness, now that we know Huck is her daughter, that could have been the "her" being referenced.  She may have been glad her daughter was not there to see the bloodbath.   

Very good point, that would actually make more sense.

[For Cereals]

On Turkey Day, I’m thankful for this forum because I’ve been watching this mostly on fast forward and missing major plot points about assets and what not. 

I think Silas would have a much better chance without Elton.