S11.E24: Rest in Peace

[rmontro]

1 hour ago, Audpaud said:

I fall in the category of underwhelmed with not only the finale and the last few years but also have loved the show, lol. More needed to die (All of the newer characters plus Eugene) and Rick needed to land a helicopter on the roof of the helicopter and rescue Judith to rescue Judith for it to come full circle.

That would have been an interesting ending.  The "kill everybody" seems a little callous, especially considering there are spinoffs to come.  Although maybe sparing us those would be a good idea.  I was actually looking forward to the Carol and Daryl one, but now I hear Carol won't be in it  :(  Also the Maggie and Negan one I guess, although that has more potential to go south.  Rick and Michonne just to find out what happened, and how they've kept Rick from returning all this time.

[Iguessnot]

7 hours ago, Audpaud said:

Thank you for the answers iguessnot. I haven't gotten techno enough with the quote feature so hope you see this.

I fall in the category of underwhelmed with not only the finale and the last few years but also have loved the show, lol. More needed to die (All of the newer characters plus Eugene) and Rick needed to land a helicopter on the roof of the helicopter to rescue Judith for it to come full circle.

This finale worked for me only because of Rosita's performance and the group living in peace. They had a bunch of pretty explosions but there was no tension to the Commonwealth storyline. 

The best you can hope for are these pockets of happiness. Eventually someone is going to die in their sleep then start eating through the community.

Hopefully they'll develop a push button walker alarm to warn everybody when there's trouble inside, but that's the reality of this existence.

[TVMovieBuff]

On 11/20/2022 at 1:16 PM, Superclam said:

NO IT ISN'T

Now it is. I watched last night on my AMC+, streamed. 

Of course the first 4 seasons were pure gold. I was tearing up at the end. 

Edited November 24, 2022 by TVMovieBuff

[BasilSeal]

Having made it to the end i thought it was ok, i enjoyed it, i mean, there are plenty of things you could pick holes in but it could have been a lot worse.

the change of ending is very one brand for TWD from the outset they've gone in one direction then another, changing show runners, changing the narrative focus and swapping stuff around trying to fix things. I tend to agree with those who've said they'd like to have seen the show Darabont would have made had he been left in charge.

I get the nostalgia for the early seasons, but they really weren't very good, terrible writing, poor characterisation that fails to define what individual character stand for, characters flip flopping between different ideas and personalities just to accommodate sloppy writing, characters withholding important information for no good reason other than to drive the plot. I think the reason we hark back to the early seasons is because back then the show was at least fresh and new, and it did the set piece zombie action stuff really well. Back then they were also fearless, they'd have killed anybody off, well apart from SHUTUPCarl,. they waited until he grew up and stopped being quite so annoying, then they killed him.

i think Angella Kand did as well as she could of done given the mess she inherited from gimple, this last season seemed a bit rushed, i think had it not been for the pandemic they'd have spent two seasons on this, we've ended up with nearly as many episodes but the lockdown filmed ones were just filler, so ultimately the commonwealth storyline wasn't explored as much as it could have been, and the characters lacked depth, we didn't have time to get to know about them and actually care what happened to them. In hindsight they'd have been better spending a season less on the negan storyline and giving more time to the commonwealth.

Given the postscript scene with rick and Michonne i guess The Rick Movies Which Are Definitely Going To Happen (TRMWADGTH), now definitely aren't going to happen (TRMWADNGTH). who could have foreseen that? From what we saw on World Beyond i'm guessing much of the expanded universe stuff yet to come is about finding a cure, that's clearly the hook that links the different shows together.

One final thing that didn't seem to be resolved was where were they taking Connie? did it not imply that she was going somewhere different to the others? maybe i just read it wrong, but i wondered if they were hinting that the commonwealth might have been secretly involved in live subject research on zombification like the CRM. or maybe it's just another loose end that never gets explained, wouldn't be the first time.

[nodorothyparker]

On 11/24/2022 at 6:37 PM, BasilSeal said:

Given the postscript scene with rick and Michonne i guess The Rick Movies Which Are Definitely Going To Happen (TRMWADGTH), now definitely aren't going to happen (TRMWADNGTH). who could have foreseen that?

It's not that they're not going to happen as much as they morphed into what so far has been promised as a limited run series slated for sometime next year finally answering what happened to Rick and where Michonne went after she trudged off screen. No doubt that covid didn't help at all, but you get the very distinct impression in interviews that Andy Lincoln's post WD career hasn't been what he thought it would be and he missed the steady gig where he was acknowledged as THE star. I'm still a little surprised they got Danai Gurira to commit to it with all the other projects she's got going, but whatever.

As for the finale itself, it was never going to be more than what it was once they decided to start announcing all the fifty-eleven spinoffs and who would be in them well before they wrapped. At that point they were committed to where many of these characters were going to go and the ending for this show had to be a tablesetting exercise to get each of those characters into place. On that note they also did adequately well and left several of the non announced spinoff characters in decent positions where you could be reasonably satisfied with their endings while also leaving open the possibility for them to also show up in one of the spinoffs or in another still yet to be named project. I missed good chunks of this last third of the final season as real life commitments got in the way, so while I was as amused as anyone to finally tune in and find that the mere presence of CDB had nearly caused another functional community to fall into ruin, it does make narrative sense that after 11 seasons of striving and striving some more to find a safe place that's what they ultimately won in the end.

[TVMovieBuff]

15 hours ago, WatcherUatl10 said:

  On 11/21/2022 at 7:17 PM, rmontro said:

I thought it was strange that Eugene got the last moments with her, instead of her child and Father Gabriel.  It was touching though.  

Because someone needs to be there to step up and put the person down, before they turn into a walker. It traditionally has to be someone who cares the most about the person. Coco shouldn't be there during the death or the turning. Perhaps Gabriel felt he couldn't do it, or wanted to be with Coco throughout. Eugene was Rosita's oldest and dearest friend. 

[SharonH58]

On 11/21/2022 at 12:19 AM, Taget said:

I would say I feel sorry for Judith being abandoned again by a parental figure for reasons.  But at this point it's just par for the course.

All that said still looking forward to the spinoffs.  This show has jumped the shark too many times and just got stale.  It needed a hard reset.  And hopefully the new locales and a brand new story with new characters will provide that.

i agree.   I was trying to think what WD could have done to make me happy with the finale.   Not counting the spin offs I would have enjoyed Rick waking up in the hospital.  I think a lot of people should have died.  Number one is Eugene.  I won't be watching any of the spin offs.  I was glad this one is done.

[TVMovieBuff]

I would like to send props to Josh McDermitt, whose performance as Eugene this last season, I consider him the star of the final season of TWD

⭐

[DesertCyclist]

On 11/24/2022 at 3:37 PM, BasilSeal said:

I get the nostalgia for the early seasons, but they really weren't very good, terrible writing, poor characterisation that fails to define what individual character stand for, characters flip flopping between different ideas and personalities just to accommodate sloppy writing, characters withholding important information for no good reason other than to drive the plot.

I had to check to make sure I wasn't in the Lost forum.

[natyxg]

Well, so that's the end of TWD (sorta). I thought it was okay. About as good as one can expect from this show, though not truly good or truly satisfying, I guess.

The story stops simply because the writers decided to leave it there, so they scrambled to try to create a sense of completion and tried to give things some sort of meaning. But at this point I can't help but think that there's no reason why this should feel like an ending. There's no reason why the Commonwealth might not collapse, or for the same thing that always happened to happen again. I guess, theoretically, that's true of every story, but with this one I feel it much more keenly. You spend 11 seasons highlighting the horrors of human nature, well, hard to believe that was solved by the end.

In general, I thought the entire plot of the Commonwealth was beyond dumb.

It was dumb that Lance was obsessed with getting Alexandria, Hilltop and Oceanside when he literally had the entire empty world at his disposal. If he wanted to create new communities for the Commonwealth all he had to do was pick a spot, clean it up and get people there. The end.

Trying to tell some sort of revolution plot for the Commonwealth to me also didn't work because while the Miltons were corrupt and harmful to some people, for most of the 50,000 people there life would've been normal life. Flawed perhaps, but the alternative was ZOMBIES. I rolled my eyes so hard at people caring so much about some random people being disappeared by the government and being willing to REVOLT about it when there are ZOMBIES out there. If they wanted to tell that story, at least show starving people and show a totalitarian government that people are genuinely afraid of. Instead, it seemed like using the Commonwealth was an allegory to criticize OUR world, I guess? But again... THE ZOMBIES out there make it just not work.

Another problem I had with this season, although I guess it could apply to most seasons, is the fact that our "heroes" don't really have a real moral compass to follow (only "survive"). The show just pretends that they do in order to paint the villain of the season as the bad ones. But most of what Pamela did I could see our heroes do as well, with perhaps the exception of bringing the horde to the city as a distraction (and her actions after that). But it bothered me to see them kill so many people this season, then act all indignant at the Commonwealth. Those soldiers they killed without remorse or doubt had families too, for example. Carol obsessed over killing Alpha when she killed Henry, and got people killed in the process (right? iirc). Is what Pamela wanted to do with Eugene all that different? I always had the same problem with the Negan/Maggie interminable plot from hell. Everyone lost people in the apocalypse, and it was grating to me how Glen was given so much more importance. Maggie herself did similar things to what Negan did, and the beef with Negan started with them killing a bunch of sleeping saviors who hadn't done anything to them (yet). But somehow killing Glen was a bigger sin than all the other sins and we must pretend that Maggie's grief is somehow bigger and more important that everyone else's. It is, but just because the writers chose to, and it grates (to me).

I was glad to see Lydia survive. I really liked that actress, even though she got little to do after Alpha. Aaron was a nice dude, and I wish he had found a new husband. Maybe they could've thrown him a bone in the last episode. If they're in a 50,000 people city there's more chances of finding other gay men there. Glad to see Magna and Miko (I think they were called?) reconcile. Poor Rosita, but I guess someone big had to die.

I never would've thought that Eugene and Gabriel were gonna have the most comprehensive character arcs of the show, but here were are. Heh.

I understand that Michonne leaving her children behind was because the actress left, but boy do I think badly of her whenever they remind me that she's out there looking for Rick, lol.

[Shriekingeel]

That was awful. Angela Kang should never be allowed near a television studio, or even a television, again. 

[Iguessnot]

Was the fake Stephanie storyline ever addressed? Someone reacted to a post I made in an earlier episode and I just don't recall what happened to her and her shady gang of cohorts.

[Mr. Sparkle]

I vaguely recall her and some of her friends doing some menacing to our gang. I don't remember much of this season which, to me, indicates how uninteresting it was. 

All telling is how this is the last episode and there are barely 2 pages of comments.