S07.E08: Padre

[raven]

Quote

Alicia enlists Morgan's help to search for a new home for her people, but the search is complicated.

Airdate 2021.12.05

[GustavMahler]

Only hackneyed writers could create such faux drama by having Alicia tell Strand “we are going to war” without any immediate consequences. If Strand allows them to simply leave, well that is just lazy writing at its lamest….

Edited December 6, 2021 by GustavMahler

[kevvoi]

I agree - horribly stupid to just announce that (though I suspect we will have some silent walkers stumble in to disrupt things in order to let Alicia and Morgan get away - these shows too often seem to rely on Chekov's zombies).

Alicia better have cut her hand off in time - I am pretty sure that I am done with the show if she goes.  Her sickness has to be something else - since I swear several months have passed since the bombs. It would be the slowest-slow burn of zombie infection otherwise.  It feels kind of like the fake out when Grace thought that she had radiation sickness from the powerplant and instead was pregnant.

Who uses the old bones from their arm and hand as their fake arm????  I am amazed her arm bones looked as whole as they did considering the blunt instrument she used to amputate them with.

[GustavMahler]

I think Alicia’s manufactured “will she or wont she” eventually become infected is entirely contract related. If the actor,Alycia Debnam-Carey wants to extend her contract then the infection will be held in abeyance. If she wants to leave the show, then she will finally turn into zombie putty…..

[Crashcourse]

This show is slowly circling down the drain......

[rmontro]

2 hours ago, Crashcourse said:

This show is slowly circling down the drain......

This show was circling the drain when I quit watching it back in season four or whenever it was.

[One4Sorrow2TooBad]

This series jumped the shark with the start of the season. Horrible writing, worse that Chinball's Doctor Who writing.

[BasilSeal]

On 12/6/2021 at 3:15 AM, kevvoi said:

Alicia better have cut her hand off in time - I am pretty sure that I am done with the show if she goes.  Her sickness has to be something else - since I swear several months have passed since the bombs. It would be the slowest-slow burn of zombie infection otherwise.  It feels kind of like the fake out when Grace thought that she had radiation sickness from the powerplant and instead was pregnant.

They've been teasing the idea that Alicia is not long for this world for ages now, she got covered in radioactive zombie guts a couple a series ago and that was supposed to be a death sentence, unless the writers forget about it, then it isn't.

It's a bit like the joke about the farmer who owns a  pig with a wooden leg, his neighbour asks why the pig has a wooden leg, and the farmer tell him how the farmhouse caught fire and the pig ran into the burning building and rescued his wife, yes says the neighbour, but why's it got a wooden leg? well, says the farmer, when you've got a pig that good, you don't eat it all at once.

In the AMC plus screening they have a bit tacked on the end where the show runner talks about how clever they've been with this episode  in a similar vein to a small child proudly displaying the contents of its potty to it's parents' dinner party guests. This time he said how excited they all were at the concept of the slow burn zombie infection idea they'd all just thought of. I had to laugh when Alicia was lying in the infirmary bed with puss literally oozing out of her gangrenous stump, having self amputated her arm with a blunt bit of metal she'd just used to gut a zombie. i'm sure there's no infection  risk there, dab of germolene, it'll be fine.

Then she discovers Strand has killed the love of her life who she'd known for two whole weeks, most of which she'd been unconscious for, so she says 'I'm so going to war with you Strand', because it's always best to tell your enemies you intend to attack them, especially when they're surrounding you with armed minions.

I've always been a big defender of fear as i think over all it's been better then the main show. This is testing my resolve though.

My prediction is that Padre is the origin of the CR, we had a brief glimpse of some documents relating to it in this episode, no doubt some shut in on you tube will have freeze framed it and tried to read the text so i suppose i could seek them out to see if there are any answers there.

[Mr. Sparkle]

4 hours ago, BasilSeal said:

I've always been a big defender of fear as i think over all it's been better then the main show. This is testing my resolve though.

The quality of the acting has always been at the top of the WD universe. Colman Domingo, Ruben Blades, Lennie James - all give solid performances. Which means it's the writing. The pacing, the inconsistencies, the parts where it's hard to suspend belief even on a show about zombies. 

[BasilSeal]

1 hour ago, Superclam said:

The quality of the acting has always been at the top of the WD universe. Colman Domingo, Ruben Blades, Lennie James - all give solid performances. Which means it's the writing. The pacing, the inconsistencies, the parts where it's hard to suspend belief even on a show about zombies. 

Agreed. I think Fear has managed to be more consistent in what it has tried to say. From the outset they were examining the morality of survival, i've gone on about this before but fear was about how one survived at the expense of others. i think one of the early tag lines was 'you  can't save everyone' and this was very much in evidence. there was also the dilemma between looking after your own narrow interests and gaining advantage from working with others.  In the later seasons we see them try to atone for the things they've done in the name of survival by trying to help others, and i think it was an interesting idea, to look at what it means to try and be a good person in this world and if indeed this is possible.

In recent seasons this hasn't quite worked, but at least you could see what they were trying to get to, the main show hasn't really managed even this. 

The main thing that bugs me about the main show is the lack of coherence to the themes, what exactly is the show's message supposed to be? The characters continually strive to establish a safe haven and community and this gets destroyed by some monstrous crazy person who sets out to destroy what they have because, er, because, it's the apocalypse and people do shitty things because reasons.

I mean, i get it, a world like the one in TWD turns people into monsters, both literally and metaphorically. We can see that the existential threat presented by the zombies forces people to do shitty things in order to survive. Negan and the Governor etc are just the logical conclusion of this, but why are they all hell bent on destroying team rick?

The Governor particularly burns up valuable men and resources attacking the prison when it poses no threat to him and has nothing he needs, it's like he just does it because he's the baddie and is contractually obliged to. Kirkman wants us to see that this violent world generates these violent desperate reactions, he wants the characters to be shown having to make impossible choices and enduring terrible violence and loss, but seems to forget that there still needs to be a good reason for all this, other than just 'it's the apocalypse and this is what we do now'.

Ultimately one can only rebuild civilisation through cooperation, i'll grow the food, you keep the lights on, fix the drains, invent a cure for cancer or write the next great American novel. shooting people who aren't you and taking their stuff only works in the short term, but this does seem to be the preferred solution in TWD, so what's the message supposed to be here? The only way to survive is to be a bigger c*** that the next guy? don't bother trying to stop climate change just buy lots of guns so when the inevitable societal collapse comes you can slug it out with all the other gun nuts for the last can of beans in Walmart?

I've been watching Narcos Mexico, and that's a show similarly full of terrible violence and extreme situations, but the show runners still manage to give the characters some humanity and some consistency to their actions, they do terrible things, but there is a logic and reasoning to these actions. that's missing in TWD, the characters just flip flop randomly between trying to be good and see the best in people and help others to just saying fuck it, let's kill them all and let god sort them out.

I suppose what the writers are reaching for is the perennial TWD theme that there are no good people. Everyone is compromised by survival and their nihilistic world view is just how it is and you either embrace this and live, or try to be the kind of wishy washy liberal who only kills people when there's an R in the month and end up dying horribly because the only way to survive in this world is if you're one of the baddies. Or something.

I've felt that up til now, although it is still flawed, Fear had avoided some of these pitfalls, but i'm afraid even i'm not going to defend the current season.

[TWOPrefugee]

Has Alycia Dabney-Coleman always been that bad of an actor?  Was it the writing? Or perhaps she's just phoning it in, because that was absolutely terrible. This show makes ZNation look Shakespearian.

The only good thing I got from this episode was that someone finally mentioned Padre Island. Jesus, it only took eight episodes for someone to ask the obvious question, but I guess it's too much to ask for writers that have never even looked a a map of Texas to think that maybe the word Padre has a connection to Texas.

Edited December 7, 2021 by TWOPrefugee

[nodorothyparker]

MOD NOTE

Do NOT discuss spoilers or casting news here. If it hasn't happened on the show yet, you can talk about it in the spoiler thread but it doesn't belong in an episode thread. Your posts will be removed.

[ctlady]

On 12/5/2021 at 9:13 PM, GustavMahler said:

Only hackneyed writers could create such faux drama by having Alicia tell Strand “we are going to war” without any immediate consequences.

It's as if they're trying to recreate Negan's Season 7 finale "We are going to war!" tingles.  Didn't care for it then.  Don't care for it now

[heisenberg]

On 12/6/2021 at 11:27 PM, One4Sorrow2TooBad said:

This series jumped the shark with the start of the season. Horrible writing, worse that Chinball's Doctor Who writing.

There is writing in Dr Poo?😐

[One4Sorrow2TooBad]

The asshat writer's on that show the past couple of years ,have  taken what was once a great series (possibly a national treasure in GB) to a total woke shitshow. 

[heisenberg]

1 hour ago, One4Sorrow2TooBad said:

The asshat writer's on that show the past couple of years ,have  taken what was once a great series (possibly a national treasure in GB) to a total woke shitshow. 

Along with Dr Karen who acts like a plank and run like a duck. 

But you are right, he did in one episode erased 50 years of history. 

Edited December 19, 2021 by heisenberg
Spell

[FierceCritter]

On 12/7/2021 at 11:44 AM, TWOPrefugee said:

Has Alycia Dabney-Coleman always been that bad of an actor?  

Yes.

She's wooden in her delivery. She was actually worse on The 100.