S11.E01: Acheron: Part 1

[Smad]

1 hour ago, rmontro said:

She actually talked as if this was the first time they have shown lurkers, but I'm not sure that is true.

They have shown them before. The walker who bit Hershel in the prison. He was dormant on the ground until Hershel bumped into him. That's one example I can think of.

[iMonrey]

Quote

They explained this on Talking Dead.

Oh, well then. 🙄

Edited August 24, 2021 by iMonrey

[diebartdie]

7 hours ago, iMonrey said:

OK, since when do walkers "sleep?" ...That's a new one.

Episode 1, Season 1

[rmontro]

2 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Oh, well then. 🙄

Believe me, there have been numerous things on this show that I had to have explained to me on Talking Dead.  Maybe Chris Hardwick slips some money to the writers under the table to keep him relevant.

[Mr. Sparkle]

1 hour ago, rmontro said:

Maybe Chris Hardwick slips some money to the writers under the table to keep him relevant.

 I can't imagine what Hardwick does under the table to keep himself relevant. 

[Smad]

15 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Well, he's not everyone's favorite. There are still a few of us left that aren't willing to hand-wave all his crimes just because we love watching JFD chew the scenery. This happens way too often on TV. Characters ultimately don't have to pay long-term for their crimes because the actors are popular with the audience. 

It's one of the main things that has ruined the show for me.

Oh I know. But this forum here is like the only place I have seen where the majority is anti-Negan. What baffles me is that so many women are stans of him. Forget everything else he's done but as a woman myself, I will never forget that this guy kept himself what essentially amounted to a rape harem. And I will never get behind this show trying to redeem a serial rapist (and sadist and torturer). And what really angers me is that so many people, even those who are not up for a Negan redemption, always forget the rape harem.

[raven]

2 hours ago, Smad said:

And I will never get behind this show trying to redeem a serial rapist (and sadist and torturer).

The show tried to have it both ways by carrying over stories that might work in print but not so much on TV.  I've not read the comics but from what I understand, he is immensely popular with those who do.  I think the show was trying to have him be the other side of Rick, who def had his flaws but did not rape anyone and was not sadistic that I recall - maybe when he killed the cannibal guy with the red machete.

I can't get past the rape harem - which has not been addressed on this show at all - and MIGHT be able to get beyond killing Abe and Glenn but this show is incapable of nuance.   Having Negan walk around with a sad panda face does not mean he is truly regretful.  We skipped past his so-called punishment of being jailed.   Now the show will beat us over the head with how smart he is, he is the only one who will bring up these points, etc., which is annoying to me no matter what show it happens on.  You don't need to make your other characters dumb in order to prop up another character, not if you can write well.    Instead the show will twist itself into a pretzel to justify his continued existence.

JDM is a decent actor and I found Negan's interactions with Gabriel the best of anyone that they put Negan with (or maybe I just enjoyed Negan getting creeped out by Gabriel, heh).  IMO they should have continued on this path, maybe have him address his more grievous sins with Gabriel or something.    Yet we see that Negan pre-apocalypse was still an asshole.  So, show, why should I care about him again?

[diebartdie]

2 hours ago, Smad said:

Oh I know. But this forum here is like the only place I have seen where the majority is anti-Negan. What baffles me is that so many women are stans of him. Forget everything else he's done but as a woman myself, I will never forget that this guy kept himself what essentially amounted to a rape harem. And I will never get behind this show trying to redeem a serial rapist (and sadist and torturer). And what really angers me is that so many people, even those who are not up for a Negan redemption, always forget the rape harem.

We live in such a pervasive rape culture that MANY people only see "rape" when a (as close to virginal as possible, preferably a white, cis-gender female) victim has been beaten almost to death by a horrible stranger who sexually assaults the woman. In other words, a whole lot of people saw Negan's "wives" and accepted them AS WIVES, not as sex slaves being regularly RAPED.

[nodorothyparker]

One of the more interesting things about the franchise in the past couple of seasons for me is that the only one of Negan's "wives" we've ever gotten to know, even a little, ended up on FTWD, where Sherry and Dwight's reactions to other characters and situations have been very much colored by their experience with Negan. The characters have discussed it several times and it's been offered as THE primary reason for why Sherry has done a number of things she's done.

It's like the franchise wants to have it both ways in having Sherry and Dwight, and even Morgan too, quite openly acknowledge that Negan was a Very Bad Guy who hurt a lot of people. But they have to do it Over There, where Negan's conveniently not on that show. On this one, because the show's down to a couple of OG characters and only a couple that have any discernable personalities that make them identifiable, Negan is for all intents and purposes this show's leading man regardless of Norman Reedus' top billing. And so the writing and the fandom follow suit.

It leaves me wondering if or how differently this all might have looked had Austin Amelio not needed to move shows.

 

[iMonrey]

Quote

They have shown them before. The walker who bit Hershel in the prison. He was dormant on the ground until Hershel bumped into him. That's one example I can think of.

We may have seen inactive walkers lying on the ground before, but not a huge roomful of them. It just seems . . . unlikely? I mean, did they all just sort of collapse at once? Like they wandered into this room and all got tired at the same time a laid down for a nap? Or did they wander in one by one, see other sleeping walkers and decide it was a good place for a nap?

It seems like in the past when we've had some passive, seemingly inactive walker suddenly grab someone by the leg it was simply for shock value. Encountering a whole herd of them should have been something that took them by surprise.

[rmontro]

21 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

We may have seen inactive walkers lying on the ground before, but not a huge roomful of them. It just seems . . . unlikely? I mean, did they all just sort of collapse at once? Like they wandered into this room and all got tired at the same time a laid down for a nap? Or did they wander in one by one, see other sleeping walkers and decide it was a good place for a nap?

My impression with this bunch is that they were never really active.  They were all put in bags, apparently in the early days of the disaster.  I'm assuming this was because authorities thought they were dead, so they bagged them up and stored them in the tunnel as a makeshift mass grave.  It doesn't quite square with the rest of the series, but I notice with this show it's best not to think about things too deeply.

[sugarbaker design]

33 minutes ago, rmontro said:

My impression with this bunch is that they were never really active.  They were all put in bags, apparently in the early days of the disaster.

The poster may have been referring to the sleepy walkers in the army base, and not the cellophaned ones in the subway.

[rmontro]

1 hour ago, sugarbaker design said:

The poster may have been referring to the sleepy walkers in the army base, and not the cellophaned ones in the subway.

Ohh, sorry, you're probably right.  I thought that bunch was kind of odd too.  My impression with them was that they were active, but there were no brains to eat, so they settled down.

[iMonrey]

Quote

Ohh, sorry, you're probably right.  I thought that bunch was kind of odd too.  My impression with them was that they were active, but there were no brains to eat, so they settled down.

No food! Hungry! Sleepy now, nap time.

[madmax]

55 minutes ago, rmontro said:

Ohh, sorry, you're probably right.  I thought that bunch was kind of odd too.  My impression with them was that they were active, but there were no brains to eat, so they settled down.

I actually thought they made more sense than the subway sleepers.  Figure they were all turned around the same time, all the edibles were depleted/turned, they all wound down about the same time and just dropped where they were.  Waiting for some yum yums to drop from the sky.

The subway sleepers made less sense.  Every time someone dropped a wrapped body, the rest would wake up.  And if it flooded in the subway like Negan said, they wouldn't have been so neatly placed.  

[seacliffsal]

It's all the same again and again and again. The only surprise was that Princess is very, very observant (which may continue to come in handy).  As for Maggie? I think she'll go through the same hole that Dog and Daryl went through.  I will probably not last the season and I've been here since the beginning.  I think the final blow for me was when the show had to go "woke" and show an undeteriorated poster against racism (don't get me wrong, I am definitely anti-racist but trying to be woke in this show when the most popular character is a noted rapist, murderer, etc. [Negan] and then they're trying to show their relevancy it's just a bit too much for me).

Okay, a couple more nitpiks: if the lurkers are in body bags, why do they take the time to stab each of them-I don't see how the body bag lurkers could ever get them (let alone stand up).  And, in the army barracks, they clearly showed the deterioration of their teeth; however, skin would deteriorate far more quickly than teeth so it just doesn't make sense (and yes, I know that I'm not supposed to expect this show to make sense, but sometimes I just can't help myself...).

[sugarbaker design]

14 hours ago, seacliffsal said:

I am definitely anti-racist but trying to be woke in this show when the most popular character is a noted rapist, murderer, etc. [Negan]

And sadistic torturer.

14 hours ago, seacliffsal said:

it's just a bit too much for me).

Me too.  

[rr2911]

On 8/23/2021 at 7:13 AM, KeithJ said:

I have a feeling that was a red herring and he will save her.

At this point, they just need to kill off Rosita.  She has done absolutely nothing in what, three seasons now?

Interesting.  Can you explain about Negan maybe saving Maggie?  I was thinking the same thing but in the previews Daryl questions Negan about Maggie.

[Starchild]

I love how Daryl is all "Carol's gonna Carol" now lol.

She unexpectedly does something dangerous and instead of the usual pouty drama, he's like "yup there she goes, but I was expecting this, so I'm just gonna cover her ass like we planned this or something, no big whoop"

I'm looking forward to their show.

[tennisgurl]

This Maggie vs Negan conflict is already so tedious. I was excited to have Maggie back to remind everyone what horrible things Negan has done, despite the shows attempts at giving him the hero edit, but they aren't really doing a lot with it. Maggie is just pissed and Negan is smug, and that is mostly it. I am sure that Negan not saving Maggie is a fake out, but at least we are finally getting a reminder of what a shit Negan has been and how consequences he has felt for his actions. 

The integrations with the Commonwealth were honestly a whole lot more interesting. Despite really not being a funny situation, I got some actual laughs out of the interrogators reactions to the quirky weirdness of Princess and Eugene while Ezekiel and Yumiko are just totally disdainful of all this crap. Good to know that people are still running judgmental job interviews even after The Fall where people get shitty about your degree of education.  

Edited August 28, 2021 by tennisgurl

[xaxat]

Anyone who wears a tie after the zombie apocalypse is a straight up sociopath. 

[Nashville]

9 hours ago, xaxat said:

Anyone who wears a tie after the zombie apocalypse is a straight up sociopath. 

…or into some light S&M/B&D, at the very least.

[ctmd]

This episode was so dark and so soft that I felt like I didn't actually SEE most of it. I had the volume up so loud that the commercials were BLARING. That said- I liked Negan leaving Maggie to die, and I'm sad that she probably didnt.

Spoiler

We actually know she DEFINITELY didn't die, bc Angela K on Talking Dead said that we'd be seeing a lot of back and forth with the Negan/Maggie relationship as it develops, or something along those lines. It was very clear that there was more current relationship coming at least. 

 

I also kind of love Princess, even though she's annoying as fuck and batshit crazy (the actress seems like she may be a little unhinged herself, from what I saw on talking dead). But observing the intricacies of all the relationships was very HER and turned out to be very useful as well. 

[rmontro]

On 8/30/2021 at 2:46 PM, ctmd said:

I also kind of love Princess, even though she's annoying as fuck and batshit crazy (the actress seems like she may be a little unhinged herself, from what I saw on talking dead). But observing the intricacies of all the relationships was very HER and turned out to be very useful as well. 

I wouldn't say I love Princess, but I do like her.  Unlike a lot of the cast on this show, that I feel completely numb to, and seem completely interchangeable to me.  It's funny that Princess, who spent so much time alone and isolated, is the one who is most perceptive about social behaviors.

[BasilSeal]

On 8/25/2021 at 1:08 PM, raven said:

I can't get past the rape harem - which has not been addressed on this show at all - and MIGHT be able to get beyond killing Abe and Glenn but this show is incapable of nuance.   Having Negan walk around with a sad panda face does not mean he is truly regretful. 

This. The writers had Negan talk a lot about consent to his minions, he tells Dwight he can sleep with one of the women in his hareem, but only if she says yes, he kills his minion who tries to rape Sasha, i thought at the time this was an attempt to sanitise Negan's hareem, but it just paints him as a massive hypocrite, because for all his talk about choice and consent it's not like any of the women he's chosen as his wives have any choice in the matter. Dwight and Sherry are on the run when they first meet Daryl to save Sherry's sister from the fate of having the 'marry' Negan. (coincidently the sister is killed by a dormant 'sleeping' walker that wakes up suddenly and takes a chunk out of her, the sleeping walkers have appeared in the show before and are definitely 'a thing').

 

On 8/25/2021 at 3:40 PM, nodorothyparker said:

t's like the franchise wants to have it both ways in having Sherry and Dwight, and even Morgan too, quite openly acknowledge that Negan was a Very Bad Guy who hurt a lot of people. But they have to do it Over There, where Negan's conveniently not on that show. On this one, because the show's down to a couple of OG characters and only a couple that have any discernable personalities that make them identifiable, Negan is for all intents and purposes this show's leading man regardless of Norman Reedus' top billing. And so the writing and the fandom follow suit.

These are very good points. I think the writers have greatly overestimated how interesting the Negan character is, they think he shits gold bricks but i always wondered why somebody didn't just shoot him and make him shut the fuck up. My guess is that they're lining Negan up to take on rick's role in the comic for the final commonwealth story line.

[SharonH58]

On 8/21/2021 at 3:25 PM, BasilSeal said:

why not shoot the zombies in the hangar from above *before* sending your people down there? or failing that, once they're down there lure them all into one of the other rooms and shut them in, i mean, it's an army base full or useful shit and weapons, but we'll just steal a few freeze dried ready meals and be on our way.

 

 

I was thinking they should have stabbed them all while they were laying there.   But since they did the same thing in the subway I guess they couldn't have them being smart twice.   Between Maggie and Negan, I'll take Negan.    

[Nashville]

On 8/28/2021 at 10:08 AM, Starchild said:

I love how Daryl is all "Carol's gonna Carol" now lol.

She unexpectedly does something dangerous and instead of the usual pouty drama, he's like "yup there she goes, but I was expecting this, so I'm just gonna cover her ass like we planned this or something, no big whoop"

I'm looking forward to their show.

Just re-stumbled across this thread, and this comment didn’t age well.  😆

[Mr. Sparkle]

On 8/17/2021 at 7:25 PM, Superclam said:

I feel the next 23 episodes are going to be "who's going to kill who?" and the series ends with neither of them dead, and maybe a valuable lesson is learned. Hope I'm wrong. 

I was right. :( 

[Starchild]

3 hours ago, Superclam said:

I was right. :( 

What was the valuable lesson?

[Mr. Sparkle]

10 minutes ago, Starchild said:

What was the valuable lesson?

Those of us that don't die will get valuable tv contracts to keep us working for another year or so.