S06.E11: The Holding

[nodorothyparker]

Airdate 2021.05.02

Quote

An infiltration turns rescue mission as members of the group dig deeper into an underground community.

 

[cdnalor]

Well, they found that underground community pretty fast, I thought I might have missed an episode.

[Bad Example]

Me (not having paid all that much attention):  "Why didn't Alicia leave with everyone else?"

Mr Bad Example:  "Because this show does stupid things."

...aaaaand I think that about sums it up.  

[DrNowsWeightScale]

I watched tonight's episode back to back,
(edit: I mean, I watched the premiere of it, then when AMC ran it again right after the premiere, I watched it again)....
but even so, I was continually flipping channels back and forth between "Fear" and super hero movies like "Shazam!" on the TNT network, so I did miss bits of tonight's show.

From what I saw, it was interesting.

(Though I still miss John Dorie. RIP, John Dorie!)

This new group of bad guys reminds me a little of the Terminus cannibal guys (from the original show).

The cult is using zombies as mulch / fertilizer, apparently(?)

Now, I did miss the part of the show explaining why this weird cult is embalming the newly dead. (Was that even explained? Maybe it wasn't...)

I mean, are these regular people who were murdered by the Cult people, then "kept fresh" via embalming, for the express purpose of being used as mulch for the cult's under-ground garden?

I guess the bad guys were intending on embalming Alicia while she was alive, until she killed that one guy in that room. (Unless I got that wrong.)

I'll try to watch this episode again.

AMC will re-air it later this week at some point, maybe twice. If I can stay up (and not fall asleep), I'll try to watch it again later tonight, when they re-air it again tonight.

At least the show kind of, sort of made use of the one-time sort of dippy story line about that guy and Alicia painting graffiti all over the place. They managed to incorporate that in tonight's episode.

The show established that the Cult people know who Morgan is and that the leader may have some kind of vendetta / grudge against him.

Edited May 3, 2021 by DrNowsWeightScale

[Utpe]

So, that's what John Connor did to the bunker after Terminator 3.  Never knew he was forming a cult!

[BasilSeal]

3 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

 

I thought there was a spy in "Morgan"town, but evidently that may not be the case.  Teddy said that he learned about Morgan and the rest of the protagonists while listening in on the walkie talkie conversations. 

 

some of Teddy's guys attacked morgan  early in this season when he was driving the  bounty hunter's truck, they thought he was the bounty hunter who had in turn caught the guy who was escaping from Virginia, and recovered a key from him. Teddy wants the key, he's interested in morgan because he knows Morgan has the key. The guys who attacked morgan were waiting at the  beached submarine, presumably the guy who was running from virginia was  with them, and was bringing the key to them.

It looks like the key has something to do with the weapons system on the sub. discount Charles Manson is head of a doomsday cult who intend to destroy what's left of the world to create a new beginning, they want to launch the sub's missiles, or maybe just detonate them where they are, i don't know, their actual motives are pretty clear now, the only question is how much virginia  knew about their plan. She apparently had the key, if we assume the guy running away from her had stolen it, which suggests she may have known what it was for.

What could be tedious is if we have to go through a whole 'has alicia joined the cult or not ?' story line, as  discount Charles Manson tries to brainwash her.

[BasilSeal]

3 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

ETA: Teddy knows that Morgan and the rest of his group are going to be a problem.  Yes, Teddy wants the key back, but he also knows by monitoring the conversations on the walkie talkies, that Morgan and the rest aren't just going to sit by and let him proceed with his plans.

Have they been listening to the walkies? I thought Teddy recognised Alicia's voice from the recorded interviews they did when they were inducted into the underground cult. They know who morgan is, but didn't know the others were associated with him or presumably they wouldn't have tried to recruit them.

 

3 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

I do wonder if the embalming fluid would affect the soil, and possibly poison the food they are growing.

They're not using the embalmed walkers to fertilise the soil, their 'belief' is that decay feeds new life, they 'punish' their enemies by killing them and embalming them so they will not decay and will not live on in this way.

 

3 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

I don't think Teddy has a death wish.  I assume he moved underground in an effort to try and protect himself from the "fallout" after he sets off the nukes.

Indeed, they told Alicia and co that they were intending to shut themselves underground for good in the very near future, so it looks very much as if they intended to nuke Texas and ride it out in their improvised bunker. This makes feck all sense obviously, where does their water come from? would it not be contaminated by the fallout? what about when any of the machines they are using wear out and need parts they don't have? or they need medicines? or new clothes or shoes? even if they avoid  the radiation which seems unlikely as a parking garage isn't designed to be a fallout shelter, they will still be suffering from anemia and vitamin D deficiencies soon enough.

[BasilSeal]

2 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

And what was the significance of having one of those enemies in that room wearing a mask?  I didn't recognize that individual at all.

that was a CRM soldier in the black body armour the CRM 'storm troopers' wear to protect them from walker bites.

the significance was that Al thought it might be her love interest from the previous  season. when they are going through Wesley's brother's stuff, Al finds  some CRM map cards, which presumably belonged to the captured CRM soldier.

[nodorothyparker]

I could have sworn Cult Weirdo Teddy said he recognized Alicia's voice from the walkies too, but I don't care enough to go back and double check. 

Leave it to this group to never ever ever learn a damn thing. This would be what, the fourth group of baddies they've encountered who knew waaay too much about them because they have whole long conversations and get deep in their feelings over walkie talkie and leave tapes of themselves all over the place on the off chance of helping someone. And yet at no point have we seen them acknowledge maybe they need to cut that short or at least develop a code.

[BasilSeal]

6 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

Is that due to lack of sunlight?

yeah, it's a good idea to take vitamin D supplements in the winter because of low light levels, it helps boost the immune system, if they're on a mostly vegetarian diet they'd probably need iron tablets eventually as well. they could conceivably  be hoarding vitamin supplements but it's what? three years or more since the world ended, not like they can just pop round the the all night chemist to stock up, and even a good supply would be finite. they're using walkers to fertilize the soil and return fertility that they're extracting from the growing medium, by growing vegetables and eating them. This makes sense, but where will the walkers come from once they've nuked the outside world?

There's quite a bit that doesn't quite add  up, some of it like the vitamin thing one could gloss over as purely pedantic nit picking, other things not so much, which makes me wonder if this is just sloppy writing or if  perhaps  Teddy knows his underground Utopia isn't sustainable  but he's not bothered because he's just a Nihilist who wants to destroy everything and is just stringing his followers along. 

6 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

I could have sworn Cult Weirdo Teddy said he recognized Alicia's voice from the walkies too, but I don't care enough to go back and double check. 

I'm 99% certain he says he recognises her voice from the interview tape, it's possible that he may have listened to the walkie conversations too, but that's the specific line he says in the embalming room.

[Iguessnot]

On 5/4/2021 at 8:14 AM, BasilSeal said:

that was a CRM soldier in the black body armour the CRM 'storm troopers' wear to protect them from walker bites.

the significance was that Al thought it might be her love interest from the previous  season. when they are going through Wesley's brother's stuff, Al finds  some CRM map cards, which presumably belonged to the captured CRM soldier.

I thought it was her girlfriend until she was talking to Dwight about finding the beer lady. I guess I was supposed to recognize the walker wasn't the beer lady but I have no recollection of what the woman looked like.

[BasilSeal]

4 hours ago, Iguessnot said:

I thought it was her girlfriend until she was talking to Dwight about finding the beer lady. I guess I was supposed to recognize the walker wasn't the beer lady but I have no recollection of what the woman looked like.

she looks like this, according to the internet. (i couldn't remember what she looked like either, i just went on Al's reaction to deduce it wasn't her in the embalming room)

 

[Iguessnot]

7 hours ago, BasilSeal said:

she looks like this, according to the internet. (i couldn't remember what she looked like either, i just went on Al's reaction to deduce it wasn't her in the embalming room)

 

Ok I missed Al's reaction. But it sure didn't make sense how they were pussyfooting through the room. They are bound and essentially gagged. All they had to do was walk right through.