S01.E03: People Are a Resource

[nodorothyparker]

Airdate 07.02.23. Streaming on AMC+. Proceed at your own risk for spoilers before airdate.

 

Quote

Dark instincts reveal themselves as Maggie and Negan form a strategy. Armstrong is tested and Ginny embarks on a daring journey.

 

[OoohMaggie]

I promised myself i'd approach this episode in a different frame of mind, it's just a rescue mission and should be enjoyed without trying to tie it in with the rest of the Walking Dead world and expecting too much.

Even with my relaxed approach, it was a trifle dull, we did at least learn some things, how they manage to "keep the lights on" in NYC, also what happened to Negan's Annie and the name of their child.

We saw yet another glimpse of the Old Negan, Ginny getting to NYC all on her own 🤔 and Maggie burning the Dino, that needs some thought when im not tired.

I still find it strange how these ever more demented villains seem to be impervious to attack from their subordinates.

The whole "Octagon" scene just smacked of desperation to come up with something new, If that was the best show they've seen in years then I can't imagine what's come before.

Next week looks as if things are going to become more exciting 🙏 

Edited June 30, 2023 by OoohMaggie

[heisenberg]

Is it me or nothing much really happened this week?🤔

22 hours ago, OoohMaggie said:

The whole "Octagon" scene just smacked of desperation to come up with something new, If that was the best show they've seen in years then I can't imagine what's come before.

Can we call the new villain: "Governor 2.0"?

[OoohMaggie]

2 hours ago, heisenberg said:

Is it me or nothing much really happened this week?🤔

I wish it were just you my friend, alas it was just rather dull all around 😢

As regards to the Gov, he was / is my favourite Villain of the entire series, so far this new guy, although admittedly we've not seen much of him, so far hasn't come anywhere close to the intricacies and complexities of The Gov.

Unfortunately I feel the Croat is yet another use and dispose villain, the show feels like a quick affair, it doesn't feel as though anything we've seen so far leads us to believe that we'll be seeing anything of the protagonists again, as much as that pains me being somewhat of a very minor Maggie fan 😱😱😱

Edited July 2, 2023 by OoohMaggie

[Starchild]

On 6/30/2023 at 7:12 PM, OoohMaggie said:

We saw yet another glimpse of the Old Negan, Ginny getting to NYC all on her own 🤔 and Maggie burning the Dino, that needs some thought when im not tired.

I guess at some point she learned about Ginny's Dino, can't recall when that happened. It's like she knows Ginny's around, but she doesn't want that kid distracting Negan from helping her find her kid.

But I guess Ginny's about to whistle...

So the Croat is mining walkers for methane and using it to power the city? As well as using them as a low-rent substitute for 'shrooms? I want to hear about this science.

[nodorothyparker]

I realize there's not much story there for her if Ginny just sits at Hilltop 2.0 and waits for whoever comes back from New York to come back. But once again, I had to laugh at the logistics of a kid biking all the way from Virginia, then rowing in what appeared to be a plastic tub, and then managing to get through a walker-infested Manhattan to come within feet of Maggie and Negan in seemingly no time without a map, GPS, or ability to even call or text ahead and simply ask "where are you guys." After multiple shows of this, I can only conclude that the same virus that turned most of the world into zombies apparently also gave the survivors super GPS tracking abilities.

I'm kind of with the Forbes reviewer ‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’ Episode 3 Review — Okay, You Have My Attention in that I really don't know at this point if the rest of the franchise has lowered my expectations so much that I'll take any halfway decent crumb they throw or whether this is really that much better, but again I'm finding this much more palatable than I would have had any reason to expect this far in. I rather enjoy the discordant chemistry our two leads are consistently showing where they're never fully sure and neither are we if they're being wholly truthful with each other or whether in this particular case Maggie is willing to sacrifice another kid who's bought a ticket on the Uncle Negan Happy Fun Times train to keep Negan from getting distracted from their current rescue mission. It's also an interesting character beat in light of the aforementioned Happy Fun Times Uncle Negan with random orphans and strays we've been fed since the days of him pumping Judith for information through his cell bars to learn that when push came to shove he understood what he's capable of enough that he willingly sent his own kid away and hasn't made any effort to even check on them.

Liked the city dwellers (no idea what they're calling them) sitting around the table talking about how the ZA happened there even if it reminds me again how badly this entire franchise has whiffed on actually showing that in any of its various offshoots in favor of the easier and likely cheaper to portray aftermath. I also wish they were doing a better job of developing Armstrong as a character because I honestly can't tell if they want us to root for him or not. Having to kill a walker and then dig through its intestines for his handcuff key was a nice set piece. Who knew you could cheese grate someone to death, even if it immediately made me worry that Negan didn't seem to be in any hurry to make sure he couldn't come back.

[Starchild]

3 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

I realize there's not much story there for her if Ginny just sits at Hilltop 2.0 and waits for whoever comes back from New York to come back. But once again, I had to laugh at the logistics of a kid biking all the way from Virginia, then rowing in what appeared to be a plastic tub, and then managing to get through a walker-infested Manhattan to come within feet of Maggie and Negan in seemingly no time without a map, GPS, or ability to even call or text ahead and simply ask "where are you guys." 

I read in some article that Hilltop 2.0 is somewhere in NY or NJ. Mind you, that doesn't seem any more credible than Ginny's cross-country trek. It seems unbelievable that they couldn't settle somewhere closer to Hilltop 1.0 than having to traipse 400 miles north before a feasible option presented itself.

[Mr. Sparkle]

This show is more of the same, but at least it's a new setting and new characters, so I don't mind watching it. 

My early prediction: they save Hershel, but then Ginny is captured and they have to find her in Season 2. 

4 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

Liked the city dwellers (no idea what they're calling them) sitting around the table talking about how the ZA happened there even if it reminds me again how badly this entire franchise has whiffed on actually showing that in any of its various offshoots in favor of the easier and likely cheaper to portray aftermath.

Promised in Fear TWD, and I'm still salty about it. 

[nodorothyparker]

I will forever be salty about "... and then nine days later behind a chainlink fence while everything interested happened right over there" as well.

41 minutes ago, Superclam said:

My early prediction: they save Hershel, but then Ginny is captured and they have to find her in Season 2. 

I'm assuming this too. If and when they get Herschel back they're going to need a reason to keep them stuck in NYC.

[BasilSeal]

12 hours ago, OoohMaggie said:

As regards to the Gov, he was / is my favourite Villain of the entire series, so far this new guy, although admittedly we've not seen much of him, so far hasn't come anywhere close to the intricacies and complexities of The Gov.

For me the Gov was typical TWD villain in as much as he was someone who was bad for the sake of it, it was hard to see what rational thought process was behind his vendetta against team rick. You could see why he wanted to maintain his own fascist power base at Woodbury, but the prison dwellers weren't really a threat to him and had nothing he wanted, well at least not until he'd pissed away his own community trying to destroy theirs for no good reason. this is, i think, the fundamental problem with nearly all the TWD villains, it's like they just do bad shit because they're the bad guys and they're contractually obliged to or something.

 

On 7/2/2023 at 1:33 AM, OoohMaggie said:

Unfortunately I feel the Croat is yet another use and dispose villain, the show feels like a quick affair, it doesn't feel as though anything we've seen so far leads us to believe that we'll be seeing anything of the protagonists again, as much as that pains me being somewhat of a very minor Maggie fan 

It does look that way re The Croat but i'm going to keep an open mind for the moment. the title, people are a resource too, comes from something Negan himself said. Resources are something g people are fighting over post apocalypse, fuel, vehicles, tools, food guns, ammunition, a safe place etc. Negan points out that people, their skills, knowledge or simply their ability to work or fight are also a resource that needs to be conserved, cultivated or used, though the Croat seems to have taken his words literally and is distilling the dead to make power.

i think where the narrative is going is a retread o the old TWD theme of 'are we the goodies?'. Negan still argues that he committed acts of extreme violence because that was what he needed to do to keep the majority of people safe, this doesn't stand up to scrutiny because leadership doesn't have to be through fear, you could just be a good leader and inspire loyalty, or like rick, you  could still inspire loyalty be being a shit leader with terrible ideas that get your people killed several times over, but i digress.

They're clearly looking at the moral equivalence between Maggie's actions and Negan's. as it looks like Maggie is setting up Negan to be swapped for Hershel. in this ep we also see Maggie burn Jenny's dinosaur, she realises it means Jenny is there but she wants to hide this from Negan, knowing he'll divert from her plan to save Hershel to help Jenny, but Maggie doesn't  give a feck about Jenny as long as Hershel is OK.

so that's where i think the story is going, if they can convince us that The Croat has logical motivations for what he's doing then that's a bonus, though it's more likely he's just another psycho with a batshit plan that makes no sense when you actually think about it, we'll just have to see.

Short version, this season looks to be about asking whether Maggie is just as morally compromised as Negan because look, she does bad things too, do you see?

The answer is no because though Maggie is clearly flawed and morally compromised because everyone in this story is, she's not a murdering. rapist, former slaver who beat people to death for shits and giggles. so there's that.

[Starchild]

4 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

I'm assuming this too. If and when they get Herschel back they're going to need a reason to keep them stuck in NYC.

Could just be all the boats are gone and they have to wait for another to come along, assuming someone else is crazy enough to come to the island.

The similar ages of Maggie's son and Negan's pseudo-daughter, along with the fact that they're teenagers, suggests a romance may develop between them, further complicating the animosity between the parents.

[theredhead77]

What was the liquid the Croat was storing bodies in? I couldn't tell if those bodies were alive with face masks to supply them with oxygen (similar to Children of Earth from Torchwood) or if the masks were to sedate people and get people high.
 

3 hours ago, BasilSeal said:

as it looks like Maggie is setting up Negan to be swapped for Hershel

100%. I also think, based on what Negan told Maggie in episode 1 about taking care of Ginny (or telling her something, I can't recall) that "new" Negan was willing to sacrifice himself to get Hershel back. I think he has (or had) true remorse about killing Glen and his other actions and this was his way of making things right. Of course, now that Ginny is on island, things will change.

The cheese grater was gnarly and I'm not looking forward to that level of gore on a regular basis.

[Mr. Sparkle]

I couldn't tell though, was cheese grater guy killed or just injured? I thought that was an important secondary character. It was too dark for me to really see. 

[theredhead77]

1 hour ago, Superclam said:

I couldn't tell though, was cheese grater guy killed or just injured? I thought that was an important secondary character. It was too dark for me to really see. 

It looked like he hit his head when he fell and died from that but they didn't show Negan staking his brain so I'm not 100% sure he's dead. Whatever path Negan is on, I don't think he's on the 'create new walkers' path. Not yet.

Edited July 4, 2023 by theredhead77

[Starchild]

The way he fell on that pipe, and the sound it made, suggested to me there was some kind of protrusion that went straight into his brain, and that's what killed him. Since the brain was punctured Negan didn't need to do anything more to ensure he stayed dead.

[OoohMaggie]

On 7/3/2023 at 5:24 PM, Superclam said:

Season 2. 

😱😱😱😱😱

I can't believe I'm saying that, but hey 😭

Edited July 4, 2023 by OoohMaggie

[OoohMaggie]

18 hours ago, Superclam said:

couldn't tell though, was cheese grater guy killed or just injured?

The fall onto the pipe wasn't immediately fatal, this is where Negan of old reappears with that 'look' on his face, he then pushes the guy's head down onto the pipe to finish him off, I don't believe it was out of concern for the guy's suffering either 😂

Edited July 4, 2023 by OoohMaggie

[Mr. Sparkle]

1 hour ago, OoohMaggie said:

😱😱😱😱😱

Who know what's going to happen? I can't believe we have a least 2 new spin-offs to go. 

[Crashcourse]

When the guy's head hit the pipe, he was pretty much done for, and Negan knew it, so I thought he pushed the guy's head down to put him out of his misery.  It was kill or be killed, so Negan was lucky there just happened to be a cheese grater nearby. 

[OoohMaggie]

1 hour ago, Crashcourse said:

so I thought he pushed the guy's head down to put him out of his misery. 

Yeah, but didn't you see the look on his face when he did it? that's the old Negan if I've ever seen it!

[OoohMaggie]

2 hours ago, Superclam said:

I can't believe we have a least 2 new spin-offs to go. 

I cannot believe I'm even questioning the appearance of The Beautiful One for a second series 😱, but things have got to step up and improve, heaven knows what R&M can give us fans to keep us watching. 

The sad thing is, that I believe all of us hard core fans will end up watching anything WD related until the very end, we'll put up with the worst of the worst until the show is finally shut down. Lets just hope that the final run in is something we can all enjoy and that whichever character/s we've been following manage to see the journey through!

[rmontro]

3 hours ago, OoohMaggie said:

I cannot believe I'm even questioning the appearance of The Beautiful One for a second series 😱, but things have got to step up and improve, heaven knows what R&M can give us fans to keep us watching. 

I've been thinking Maggie's been taking kind of a back seat on this show.  Her objectives are driving the plot, but Negan's supplying all the entertainment.

[borealis]

On 7/3/2023 at 9:20 PM, Starchild said:

The way he fell on that pipe, and the sound it made, suggested to me there was some kind of protrusion that went straight into his brain, and that's what killed him. Since the brain was punctured Negan didn't need to do anything more to ensure he stayed dead.

Yes, the pipe turned (from the floor) at a 90° angle, and was sticking up. He fell onto that, going into the base of his skull. Negan pushed him further into it. And yeah, that was Ye Olde Negan sparking back to life...

[OoohMaggie]

21 hours ago, rmontro said:

but Negan's supplying all the entertainment.

I was even thinking that maybe, just maybe that we could possibly see the resurgence of the old Negan, we've seen in various instances him reverting to the guy we once knew. I know the show has tried so hard and expended so much to make us believe that good old Negan has changed, that he accepts his past and is willing to go to the ends of the earth to make amends for his past deeds.

Maybe its just me, but I get the feeling that good old Negan may just be biding his time until he reverts to the Negan of old, watch out Maggie, i'm not sure where this is heading!

Edited July 5, 2023 by OoohMaggie

[rmontro]

19 minutes ago, OoohMaggie said:

Maybe its just me, but I can't rule out old iron face from making a reappearance, then reverting to his take over the current gang and enforce his will upon them philosophy 😱

That would be quite the twist ending, but I'm not sure what they would do with it in the future.  If Jeffrey Dean Morgan is done with the character, it might be a fitting ending.  But I don't really want to see future series showing characters battling Negan.  The original series already stretched that out way longer than it should have been.