S07.E10: Mourning Cloak

[raven]

Streaming on AMC+. Enter at your own risk for spoilers before the scheduled airdate.

Airdate 04.24.22

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When Charlie shows up at the Tower unexpectedly, Howard recruits a young ranger in training to determine the reason for her visit; as they journey beyond the Tower together, Charlie's true motives are revealed.

 

[heisenberg]

[heisenberg]

Red shirt dies at the end.  Check.

Semi-red-shirt semi dies at the end.  Check.

Villain alone in a room with 3 people who wants to kill him, not a scratch.  Check.

Roof top exit,  now serving 242.   Check.

"I wanna be a ranger", "No you don't".  Check.

Why were they going to that building?  Elevator pieces?  Did I missed something? 

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

I'll probably watch it tonight if I can gather the emotional strength. 

[heisenberg]

1 minute ago, Superclam said:

I'll probably watch it tonight if I can gather the emotional strength. 

Oh you have not?  Sorry to spoil you (A little). 

So dumb and so funny at the same time to resume.

[Mr. Sparkle]

Just now, heisenberg said:

Oh you have not?  Sorry to spoil you (A little). 

So dumb and so funny at the same time to resume.

No, this is an "enter at your own risk" thread. Anyway, there's nothing you wrote that hasn't happened a million times before.

And who tf is Charlie? 

[heisenberg]

1 minute ago, Superclam said:

And who tf is Charlie? 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Doesn't ring a bell, but I skipped a few seasons. Looks like I picked a lousy time to start up again. 

[heisenberg]

No one cares about her,  even if you had seen her before you would not remember, care or bother.  She's the "semi-red-shirt" I was talking about.

[heisenberg]

They saved a couple of orphans years ago,  she was from that pack.   But children in FTWD are as valuable than in the TWD, so...😂

[Witchz]

This show and the first were possibly the worst Tv I have ever seen.  So slow and boring - they must want to just kill this show?

[Mr. Sparkle]

I have AMC+ and I haven't been able to make myself watch E10 yet. I may just be saying farewell to this show. 

[nodorothyparker]

On 4/18/2022 at 5:29 PM, Superclam said:

Doesn't ring a bell, but I skipped a few seasons. Looks like I picked a lousy time to start up again. 

The only remotely interesting or memorable thing about her is that she killed Junky Nick and the group pretty much collectively shrugged and adopted her. And it was never mentioned again.

[Mr. Sparkle]

8 minutes ago, nodorothyparker said:

The only remotely interesting or memorable thing about her is that she killed Junky Nick and the group pretty collectively shrugged and adopted her. And it was never mentioned again.

Well, I consider that a plus. 

[Mr. Sparkle]

So I just watched it, and I have to say I didn't hate it. Way better than last week. At least something happened. Obviously, this season is going to be a big battle for the tower involving Madison somehow that'll end on a cliffhanger. 

[Mr. Sparkle]

On 4/18/2022 at 5:34 PM, heisenberg said:

She's the "semi-red-shirt" I was talking about.

She's not dead though, right? I thought I missed something. 

I could've skipped the "Fault in our Stars" parts, but they did kid romance better than Teens of the Walking Dead. 

[DrNowsWeightScale]

Hope everyone is doing well.

I watched parts of Fear the Walking Dead tonight.

I just watched long enough, or paid enough attention, to see Charlie approach a building, then some guy showed her a room of butterflies, then she sat down and talked with June. 

I have sort of mostly "checked out" of this show, and even though I turn to the channel when it comes on, I get so bored with it now - and distracted - I sometimes pay more attention to checking e-mail or whatever than I do in paying attention to this show, so I have lost track of most of the plots and characters.

I mean, I still recognize some of the established characters (June, Alicia, Strand, etc), but I'm not fully sure what is going on with them, or who the new people are.

I never thought I'd see the day when I lost interest in any of the Walking Dead shows, but I've been there for awhile now - and they're going to be doing more spin offs(?)
They don't seem to feature the zombies as much on any of the Walking Dead shows any more, which is a big reason why I started watching years ago in the first place.

[heisenberg]

12 hours ago, Superclam said:

She's not dead though, right? I thought I missed something. 

I could've skipped the "Fault in our Stars" parts, but they did kid romance better than Teens of the Walking Dead. 

Well, I did not wrote she was dead but taht she his "semi-Dead"...  Right?🤔🤨

You think I would spoil you 'til the end?😂🙂

[nodorothyparker]

It was better than the previous episode but that's not exactly a high bar, is it?

Because I'm a mom with kids the ages our main pair was claiming to be and this is the world we live in, I was distracted googling both actors during their big butterfly doomed romance scenes. We're told Ali and Charlie are 15 and 12, almost 13 for their big first kiss. The actors are 19 and 15, almost 16 respectively, which is closer to what I pegged them to be. Any feelings about that aside, I'll give the actors and the show credit for doing a better job than we've previously seen on this or the mother show of teens of the apocalypse and meditating on all they've missed with the world ending just as childhood did for them as well. At least they're not out taunting walkers or smoking with zombie heads or weirdly roller skating through zombie infested woods.

But because it's this show, we again get weirdness of selective radiation poisoning. Oh, you were five feet over there? You're fine. Sorry kid, you were two feet to the right for 20 minutes. Death montage for you. I don't claim to be anything of an expert on the subject, but color me a bit skeptical that June can magically diagnose a fatal case of it 6 minutes after exposure. This is, after all, the same show where Grace mistook pregnancy for a radiation-induced tumor.

I've liked Omid Abtahi in nearly everything else I've seen him in, but I really don't like him here. Howard was introduced as a history professor who holed up with all of his favorite things to wait for the end and I could respect that as something I think a lot of us would do instead of joining cannibal cults or wannabe warlords to nonsensically fight over whatever. We've never been given any explanation for how he was enthusiastically Team Strand the next time we saw him humoring and enforcing Strand's campy great dictator bullshit. The portrayal is missing some believable hardness or something for a man indifferently carrying out orders and watching people get tossed off roofs. Sort of like an actor we know is better than this from other projects is wearily phoning it in.

[KeithJ]

First of all, Charlie is only 12?!?  Did I know that and just not remember?  The last thing I want to see is a romance between a 15 (dead) year old and a 12 (soon to be 13 dead) year old.  Thankfully it didn't last long.

Also, the writers really need to be more consistent with the radiation poisoning. It's like flipping a coin if you get it or not.

I also can't believe the radiation building (that's where she got poisoned right) is the only other building in the area with an elevator.

[iMonrey]

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It was better than the previous episode but that's not exactly a high bar, is it?

Yeah, at least there were more regulars in this episode. But, once again, it was an episode that revolved around a new character that just gets killed off at the end, just like last week. Why do they keep doing this? They apparently don't have the money to pay all the main characters to appear in every episode, but maybe have a few more of them and stop introducing new characters every week. 

Also, where was Strand supposed to be this whole time? Why is he going out on missions and such when he has rangers for that? And what exactly keeps this tower safe from all the nuclear radiation? Magic? Is there some secret entrance/exit that bypasses the walker hoard outside?

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They saved a couple of orphans years ago,  she was from that pack.   But children in FTWD are as valuable than in the TWD, so...😂

No, Charlie was part of the caravan that parked outside the stadium back in Season 4. I can't remember what they were called, I think maybe the vultures. She was a mole for them and worked her way into the stadium and then found all their weaknesses and reported back to the vultures. Her deal is that she's good at "finding things." Those other kids you're talking about were introduced in Season 5 and seem to have disappeared.

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The only remotely interesting or memorable thing about her is that she killed Junky Nick and the group pretty much collectively shrugged and adopted her. And it was never mentioned again.

And I've never gotten past that. Alicia should have killed her the first chance she got. I'm still mad about it.

[nodorothyparker]

Unless I'm forgetting (which is possible as I tend to zone in and out of this show), Howard was pretty vague about Strand being "out." Probably off hunting more silly hats for more great dictator ensembles.

[Mr. Sparkle]

2 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

Unless I'm forgetting (which is possible as I tend to zone in and out of this show), Howard was pretty vague about Strand being "out." Probably off hunting more silly hats for more great dictator ensembles.

It's not easy to get new berets in a zombie apocalypse! 

Strand being "out" is definitely a plot point here, I wonder if this will mean Strand is leaving the show? Like Danai Gurira, Colman Domingo has become a lot more in demand lately

[iMonrey]

Surely this is the last season? AMC can't possibly believe this show can survive on its own once the mothership ends, can they? How delusional are they?

[nodorothyparker]

It's already been renewed for season 8. I imagine they're going to let it limp along at least until they see if any of the planned spinoffs of the mother ship catch fire when they premier supposedly next year.

[Mr. Sparkle]

I know you're correct about the renewal, but ratings are pretty bad (less than a million per episode) and I can't imagine it brings that many new subscribers to AMC+. 

It must be relatively expensive, I don't know why they don't kill it in favor of the spinoffs. 

[ctlady]

Do the writers of FTWD even know what an almost 13 year old girl and 15 year old boy look like?  Certainly not the actors portraying them.  The actress looks to be 17-18 and the actor portraying Ollie looks 20-ish

[GustavMahler]

3 hours ago, ctlady said:

Do the writers of FTWD even know what an almost 13 year old girl and 15 year old boy look like?  Certainly not the actors portraying them.  The actress looks to be 17-18 and the actor portraying Ollie looks 20-ish

I gather, the writers did not want to push the fact they were adhering to the Romeo and Juliet laws too far by having them look the parts.  

[nodorothyparker]

4 hours ago, ctlady said:

Do the writers of FTWD even know what an almost 13 year old girl and 15 year old boy look like?  Certainly not the actors portraying them.  The actress looks to be 17-18 and the actor portraying Ollie looks 20-ish

It bugged me enough I googled both actors during their butterfly love scene. The actress is just shy of 16. The actor is 19.

I have kids the same ages they were purporting to be so I knew it looked off. Charlie's actress is suffering from Arya Stark syndrome in that show time is passing much much slower than she's aging up.

[Starchild]

That was...what was that?

Whoever wrote this episode doesn't seem to know this show and these characters at all.

Everyone's characterization seemed a little bit off, like we were watching versions of them from an alternate universe. They were all acting so weird that I thought for sure everyone was playing this kid, acting out some plan. When June came out of the infirmary saying Charlie was dying I was thinking how obvious it was that she was lying. 

But then our heroes are talking amongst themselves and not giving it away, so I thought they must think they're being spied on. But no, it seems to actually be all true. 

Charlie is a regular and she received her fatal dose of radiation offscreen? What? 

I'm still finding it hard to believe this all is for real, but if it is, at least Charlie is dying, so something good is coming out of this mess.

Although I would have preferred to see Madison shoot her in the head, but oh well.