S05.E05: Self Help

[RustbeltWriter]

I wonder if Abraham is self-cutting that wound on his hand out of guilt. Maybe that's why it won't heal.

[Rosiejuliemom]

That one walker at the prison, seemingly swallowed Lori whole, hair, clothes and all.

 

 

I don't care what Word of God says about Lori's body, I call bullshit on that one. Carl somehow missed her brain, she reanimated, and is currently shambling around the bowels of the prison, having found two male walkers to mindfuck to her missing heart's content.

 

I wonder if Abraham is self-cutting that wound on his hand out of guilt. Maybe that's why it won't heal.

 

 

That's what I thought.

[JackONeill]

 

I almost wish we didn't have The Talking Dead. I kind of preferred way the show did it - not all questions answered but the emotions were clear as a bell.

 

 

Normally, I'd agree with you, Poppy.  But from my perspective, and it seems many who are writing here agree, we didn't know why Abraham went berserk and killed those guys with a can.  In my mind, he may have just gone nuts, a la Rick Grimes (Is this phone working? No. Well, I want to place a call anyway).  The expression from his wife and kids was like "Who is this man, and why did he just do what he did?"  They looked truly frightened of Abraham.  But, I think, knowing what happened to them BEFORE Abraham went on his can-killing mission sort of pulled things together.  Did we need to know everything?  No.  I admit, though, I'm not sure how I would have filmed it without spending a lot of time that didn't to have a lot of time spent on it.  But I think the producers spent too little time on it.

[nodorothyparker]

Unlike last week, I was at least able to make it through a rewatch on this one.  I actually found it more tolerable on second viewing even if the same issues remained. 

 

Is it weird that while Abraham still leaves me mostly flat despite his terrible awful backstory, I find myself minding Eugene less now that they've dropped the pretense that anyone is going to be taking his "I'm a scie-un-tist" schtick seriously?  I still don't care for him in that I want to see him as a main character, but he had small moments that I liked enough (the amazing face plant on the asphalt and his confession about his "Tennessee tophat" lie) to make me think he can at least bring needed moments of amusement and levity in what is often otherwise a seriously dour show.  Assuming that the whole band will be back together at some point, it'll be interesting to see what they do with him going forward as everyone learns about his fraud.  Something tells me he's going to have to learn to to start pulling his weight fairly quickly now that no one's going to be carting his ass around like the golden ticket anymore.

 

Hey, if they can find a role for Father Pee Pants it's not really that much of a stretch going by their theme this season of everybody's done something.

[morgankobi]

All he had to say was, "They won't touch any of you again," and I think that would have given enough of a clue to Abraham's motivation to make the scene work.

Done.

[Ottis]

Like everyone elese he is just looking to survive and if civilization is going to be rebuilt, you'll need smart guys.

 

 

i'm not sure Eugene is smart. He spouts off things that any devoted forum watcher of sci-fi shows could spout off. I thought we were going to hear that his hair was that way because he was an Elvis impersonator before the ZA.

[JackONeill]

 

All he had to say was, "They won't touch any of you again," and I think that would have given enough of a clue to Abraham's motivation to make the scene work.

Done.

 

 

Perfect!  You're hired as a writer.

[Luckylyn]

Eugene's story made me think of this Terry Goodkind quote, "People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People's heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool."

 

Eugene told them what they wanted to believe and even though there were obvious holes in his story they all wanted to cling to the hope the lie provided.  When desperate, I think it's difficult to not to be tempted to believe a lie that will give you relief from your desperation.   I think they had to know he was full of crap but that silver of a chance he was telling the truth was something they could not ignore.

 

I can forgive Eugene for the lie because he was trying to survive.  What I think was unforgivable was the things he did along the way to delay reaching DC that endangered the lives of the people he was using for protection.  That car accident could have killed them.  That he would rather risk his life and get people killed than admit the lie is horrible.

 

The filming of Abraham's back story was badly done.  Until I got to this forum, I mistakenly thought he'd killed a bunch of walkers in front of his family.  I had no clue they were live people or that his family had been raped.   I should be able to tell what's happening by what's happening on screen and not have to get clarity from other sources. 

 

edited to add:  I assumed based on what I saw that it was early in the zombie crisis and that they hadn't seen many walkers before.  His family had been sheltered and unaware of the dangers, and so were shocked by Abraham killing in front of them.  I assumed they were like early Hershel believing the zombies were temporary and could be cured and were horrified to see Abraham kill.   Because they underestimated the risk, they left Abraham's protection.  Now I know that my assumptions were wrong and the actually events make Ellen's decision to take her children into danger make less sense to me.   She knows that humans can hurt her and her kids and that walkers can hurt her and her kids.  She knows that Abraham is going to do everything to protect them and so she leaves that protection to get herself and children killed.  I feel less sympathy for her now that I know the whole story.  Endangering her children was just stupid and unforgivable.  If she were ignorant of the dangers of the world, I could understand it but the attack against her family means she knows exactly how dangerous the world has become. 

Edited November 10, 2014 by Luckylyn

[Bruinsfan]

I seriously couldn't tell what they looking at at first when they stopped in the road.  I don't know if I need new glasses or it really was too poorly shot for us to immediately understand that there was supposed to be a huge herd off in the distance because I wasn't sure until they told me.

I was watching on a 42" screen in a darkened room, and I could only tell what was going on by inference. The fields of walkers looked like fields of mud to me.

 

I also think Eugene acts so strange, I could never imagine him working in a lab, writing scientific papers, etc. 

I have a friend who works as more or less a scientist wrangler for a large laboratory, and that aspect of Eugene would fit right in. But if he'd been telling the truth he'd have been only too happy to ramble on about his specialty despite no one understanding what he was talking about.

[Pete Martell]

I think if the walkers are now so flimsy that their skulls can be crushed by a fire hose, they'd be getting a lot slower and flimsier overall. We should be seeing things like their leg falling off when they try to walk. Or their jaw falling off when they try to bite through multiple layers of clothing.

Speaking of weapons, why is there so little use of anything between "gun" and "knife or fist?" YSB's hand would probably heal up just fine if he would carry a machete or something, instead of getting so close all the time and PUNCHING!

I give Rick a lot of crap for his dumb speeches and random decision processes, but apparently the writers are going to do that no matter what. That "We go forward, no matter what!" speech was the same exact nonsense.

"Hey, we need Abraham to make a Rick speech here." "So what's the problem? Just grab one out of the Rick jar."

Best part of the episode was by far the previews for next week. Daryl and Carol, kicking ass and taking lollipops.

 

Hadn't those walkers been rotting away in a room for an extended period of time?

 

I felt like they were trying to say that most of this stuff, especially from Abraham, IS nonsense, and defensive posturing. His big speeches would have likely gotten them all killed, for nothing.

[Pete Martell]

What distracted me was Glenn standing there with his mouth hanging open when Eugene made his confession.  Glenn was at the CDC, he met Jenner, he knew what went down.  His CDC amnesia is annoying.  

 

The CDC guy was isolated and also clearly mentally destroyed by his wife's death. I could see why Glenn might want to believe there was something he didn't know about. I wish they'd mentioned it, but it doesn't bother me that much. 

 

I think everyone who believed this lie had to believe it, because what else did they have to keep them going? 

[ghoulina]

Technically it's this season. AMC did that split season thing. The first 8 episodes shown 6 months ago was when the biker gang guy tried to rape Carl.

 

Yea, they do a split season, but it happens in Dec. Not over the summer. Carl being almost-raped was the end of season 4. Season 5 started in Oct and we will get the mid-season finale Nov 30, with the back half of this season resuming in Feb. 

[JackONeill]

Forgive me for not taking precise noes, but has it ever been definitively stated that Abraham was military?  I always thought he was, and I always thought those were dog-tags around his neck.  But then he ripped them off after he found that his wife and kids went on a starvation diet.  Why'd he do that?  What did his dog-tags have to do with anything?  And, in that scene, he wasn't wearing army fatigues.  Were the buddies he killed also military?  Is that something else we were supposed to intuit?

[The Mighty Peanut]

I can't believe I'm saying this but Tara has won me over. I like that she says 'dude' and fist bumps. All the other dorks have died or become BAMFs. I like dorks. 

Edited November 10, 2014 by The Mighty Peanut

[Pete Martell]

Yes... as in the 'slaughtered' part of my post, was it confusing? Sorry about that, if it was. I was making two different points.

My first was she was not armed (or had any way to protect herself and her family during a zombie apocalypse), and her family was attacked (raped, as per Talking Dead) by 'friends,' which is why Abraham killed them.

My second point was, then she ran off, afraid of Abraham (why? I have no idea. Being raped (which I've never been, so I don't have a real frame of reference)by friends would be more terrifying than my husband killing them from pure rage) would , and was slaughtered by walkers.

None of it made any sense to me.

 

The flashbacks were so vague, but going by the rest that was said, I can't blame her for her reaction. She'd just been gang raped, her daughter had been raped. She was clearly in shock, horribly traumatized. She likely couldn't go near any man, and when she saw Abraham looking like an animal, covered in blood, she probably just felt some urge to get away, get anyplace else. 

 

I also wonder if she was so isolated that she just didn't know the dangers the way she should have.

Forgive me for not taking precise noes, but has it ever been definitively stated that Abraham was military?  I always thought he was, and I always thought those were dog-tags around his neck.  But then he ripped them off after he found that his wife and kids went on a starvation diet.  Why'd he do that?  What did his dog-tags have to do with anything?  And, in that scene, he wasn't wearing army fatigues.  Were the buddies he killed also military?  Is that something else we were supposed to intuit?

 

I assume he tore them off because in his mind he'd failed as a man, and also because he didn't want to wear them while he was eating a gun.

I am reading a number of comments that people enjoyed AF's backstory. or that some would enjoy Rosita's backstory.

 

I would agree...if we had a series of volumes we could get deep into as we wished.

But this is a TV program that has only 16 episodes.

 

We still don't have a backstory for Sasha do we? Or Tyreese? And I have opinions and feelings for those characters based on what I do know.

We got the backstory on Terminus--Gareth, Mary, Albert, everybody--in 2 minutes at the open, and 2 minutes at the end.

We got enough backstory on the fruitpeople in 1 minute that we cared and still think they would have been good characters to keep.

We got very little on Bob---and still don't know what was in the freakin' box!--yet it was enough to care.

Speaking only for myself, I did not need last night's "revelations" to take up an entire episode. Not with this short a season.

 

I'm not sure if people necessarily meant a Rosita-centric episode. For me, a few lines or one flashback scene would do.

[Caelicola]

You know, I expected to be really bored with this episode, and instead I enjoyed it quite a bit. I remember loving Cudlitz in Band of Brothers, so I was saddened and disappointed that I not only didn't care much for Abraham, but I didn't like Cudlitz as Abraham. Well, I liked him in this episode.

I also -surprisingly- ended up finding myself liking Eugene, mostly when he came clean as he saw that the situation was escalating and Glenn and Abraham were about to come to blows, with Abraham holding a gun, no less.

Historically, I think this show doesn't have the greatest track record when it comes to introducing characters and making them interesting right away; they need screen time, and plot, to engage me in a character (I started finding Daryl interesting in the middle of season 2, Lori at the beginning of season 3, Carol towards the middle of season 3, Hershel in season 4 and so on...I think the only characters I was invested in right away were Rick and Morgan, and that was mainly because the pilot was -and still is- on a whole different level than anything else this show has produced), so I'm not bothered by the time given to characters we don't know yet.

Other shows are able to make characters interesting right from their very introduction, this one has a slower burn, and I've gotten used to it to the point where I kinda enjoy it.

I also liked that the flashbacks were so minimalistic and sparse, because for one, I don't really need to see rape as a plot device once again, and two, I think the important part of the plot wasn't why Abraham killed those dudes, but that he did it at all, and his wife and children were traumatized and terrified by him. We have been shown enough assholes and rapists that I can imagine those dudes were bad news of the worst kind, without it being shown. I'm okay with that.

Still really liking Tara.

All in all, surprisingly enjoyable for an episode that I thought was gonna leave me super cold.

[Ellaria]

Do you think Glenn's thinking: "You know, compared to Abraham, Rick's a right sane fellow!"

 

So, are they going to keep going to Washington?  Why?  (And do I -- do I really -- care?)   I'm sorry, I'd be headed back to the church.

 

I am curious to see how they handle Glenn's thought process going forward now that he has witnessed Carrot Top's meltdown and Eugene's confession. Glenn was amazingly insightful and practical early on in this series. He has become rather boring and one-note since falling in love.

 

Finally, the show runners hit a comic/ TV paradox. They wanted Abraham, Eugene and Rosita from the comics and their storyline but they couldn't figure out how to mesh it well with the TV only visit to the CDC.  They need to watch out for these pitfalls in the future because it's inconceivable that no one in Rick's group brought up the CDC visit when Eugene was spinning his tale.

 

Agree. Eugene and his deception was never sold well in the show. IMO, he was played as a measure of comic relief rather than someone that could be telling the truth. We needed a little less of a Sheldon Cooper type of character and a little more of the "I'm smarter than you" persona. The (pervy) nerd characterization and lines like "its classified" didn't help convince me that he could be telling the truth.

[Boofish]

I wish Eugene had yelled "DO NOT LAY HANDS"

 

My problem with Eugene is that they made it too obvious he was lying to the audience therefore making all the other characters look like idiots. They could have easily retooled him for the show and kept the audience at least guessing and not do a collective "DUH" 3 seconds into him coming on screen. Milton would have made a better Eugene

Edited November 10, 2014 by Boofish

[Trek]

Assuming that the whole band will be back together at some point, it'll be interesting to see what they do with him going forward as everyone learns about his fraud. 

Judith is the luckiest girl in the ZA. She now has not one (Tyreese), not two (Pee Pants) but three people to babysit her while the gang is busy doing “stuff” even if Beth quits or never returns.

[marceline]

I cracked up at the reaction to the giant herd up the road. Well, gosh, what do they think is waiting for them in DC? It's a big urban area with plenty of hiding places for both walkers and people. All those apartment buildings, hospitals, government buildings and museums are going to be wall-to-wall zombies, especially when you consider how many "undisclosed locations" there are where people could hide with a group only to get bitten when someone dies and turns. Plus the further north you go the cooler it is so walkers don't decay nearly as quickly.

 

ITA on the lighting. Sometimes I feel like this show is lit by a couple of open refrigerator doors.

Edited November 11, 2014 by marceline

[eprime]

I enjoyed the episode for the most part. I could see everything just fine. They were playing with chiaroscuro  effect in the scene between Maggie and Glen and the sex scene, and they did the silhouette thing with Abraham and Glen, but that was all deliberate. The zombie horde scene was bright on my screen. Had no trouble making them out. Did you guys accidentally select the non-HD version? I do that all the time to my husband's annoyance. ;)

 

But, oh my word, did I want someone to gank Abraham when he was  bellowing in the middle of the road. The enormous zombie horde isn't THAT far away, moron. Sound carries. 

[ghoulina]

Forgive me for not taking precise noes, but has it ever been definitively stated that Abraham was military?  I always thought he was, and I always thought those were dog-tags around his neck.  But then he ripped them off after he found that his wife and kids went on a starvation diet.  Why'd he do that?  What did his dog-tags have to do with anything?  And, in that scene, he wasn't wearing army fatigues.  Were the buddies he killed also military?  Is that something else we were supposed to intuit?

 

He introduced himself as Sergeant Abraham Ford, I believe. But yea, it was weird that when he started the ZA he was in civilian clothing with his family, and the first time we see him he rolls up in a military vehicle with military garb. I wonder if after he met Eugene he went back to his base or something and found some other military guys to work with? Did he steal that vehicle, or was he given it to take Eugene to DC? We got more of the backstory, and I'm relatively satisfied, but the stickler for details in me still has questions. 

[Pete Martell]

Great the number one drama on television and AMC is going to be cheap.  It has to make up the money it lost on its prestige shows, but never made real money, "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad."

 

Screw them.  If I can't see what is going on- I won't watch.

 

In this case, several cases this season, I don't even think they were trying to be cheap in terms of lighting. I think they're going for realism or mood. On paper I get the idea of dark night contrasted with garish post-apocalyptic seizure bright white lighting in Abraham's flashbacks. It's just that this is another example of "realism" I don't really need. I don't care if it's unrealistic to be able to see people clearly at night. I'd like to see them.

[Pete Martell]

Glenn and Maggie's involvement seemed pointless.  Glenn was just too willing to follow Abraham, and Maggie basically just let Glenn make the decisions.  They were both like lemmings.  Considering their previous harrowing experience with the Governor and their own proven badassness, their blind follower status was just out of character for them.  It was like the producers didn't trust the episode to be entirely devoid of any of our familiar cast members, so they thought 'let's throw Glenn and Maggie in there'.

 

My takeaway from this episode?  Abraham is no Rick - and just because it was in the comics doesn't mean it has to be in the TV show.  If the producers were testing the waters to see if they could kill off all of the original characters, including Rick, and replace them with new characters, then my response is "hell, no".  If Season 1 of TWD had featured Abraham, Eugene and Rosita as the main cast members, then I would've quit watching after the first episode.

 

Now I'll just wait with renewed appreciation to see Rick, Darryl, Michonne, Tyrese, Carl and Judith again on my screen.

 

Glenn's always been a follower. He followed Shane, he followed Rick, he followed Hershel. I don't think it's OOC for him to cling to hope, especially after what he saw in the church. I do hope they have him question himself after his last two attempts at hope (Terminus, and now Eugene) ended so terribly, but I also like him in this role. I don't really want angsty loose cannon Glenn - we had that in season 3 and it didn't work for me. I also like seeing Glenn on his own and not just with Rick's pack, because there are already 2-3-4 characters who fill his old role with Rick's group. 

 

There's a "less is more" approach with Glenn's writing that works for me, most of the time. 

 

I do wish Maggie was better written. 

 

I don't think they're trying to replace Rick. I think they're trying to expand to other worlds and survivors who are funhouse mirror versions of Rick and might potentially test him. 

 

The main problem for me is Abraham has been too cartoonish, and yes, too comic book. I haven't read the comics, but frankly, I have a feeling he's more low-key in the comics than he is in the show. Comic only stuff doesn't translate well. 

 

The other problem is that in the comic, there seems to be a revolving door for Rick's second/third-in-command. The show has a far different structure. Characters like Abraham or Tyreese who might have been designed as contrasts or backups to Rick run into the brick wall that is Daryl Dixon. The show solves some of the female translation issues by dividing up Andrea's role, but that isn't as easy to do with the male characters.

 

I really wish they would ditch that Pippi Longstocking hair and some of the forced edge. I wish we could see more of the man we saw on Talking Dead last night. 

 

Hopefully we're going in that direction, as the episode was Abraham's personal hell and by the end even Rosita had had enough. There's nowhere to go but down, which in his case in terms of characterization, is a very good thing.

[40Love]

My first was she was not armed (or had any way to protect herself and her family during a zombie apocalypse), and her family was attacked (raped, as per Talking Dead) by 'friends,' which is why Abraham killed them.

My second point was, then she ran off, afraid of Abraham (why? I have no idea. Being raped (which I've never been, so I don't have a real frame of reference)by friends would be more terrifying than my husband killing them from pure rage) would , and was slaughtered by walkers.

 

None of it made any sense to me.

 

My take on the wife venturing out into Zombieland with no protection and no weapon is that perhaps this was pretty early in the apocalypse and people really didn't quite appreciate the extreme insanity of the situation.

 

Early on: people thought it was sickness that people could be cured of (Virgil and the farm folks), people were living in campsites (CDB, Michonne, her lover and his friend etc.). A lot of folks were just walking (or in Rick's case riding on horseback) into danger. 

 

Perhaps Abe's wife thought they could just side-step the slow moving sick people and get away from her homicidal husband, who at that point she thought was just as bad or worse that the SOBs who her raped her.

 

I can see how she wouldn't exactly be thinking straight: she's on the run, she's tired, hungry, terrified, confused, gang raped ...and on top of all that she and the kids watch dad take out 5 people with his bare hands and canned goods... Yeesh --- IMO it's not really a stretch, especially if this happened in the early stages of the outbreak. 

 

Plus, girlfriend looked like a seriously delicate flower, a majorly skittish Nervous Nellie. I'm sure her brain and emotions were on overload! I get it!

[Boofish]

I find Ginger Spice more sad than interesting. He basically replaced his wife Eugene. Someone to keep him going/alive and someone he could protect. It was low key but very telling that when that bus crashed the only persons survival he was interested in was Eugene's. Never bother asking if anyone else was ok. And this is the second time he put a woman (not that there's anything wrong with that) in charge of "U GEEN" safety. At Terminus he yelled for Rosita to "not leave his side" and basically told Tara to get him safely off the bus. Eugene is not Judith although if we were picking teams and I was captain, I would take Judith over U'GEEN and Father Pee Pants. Hell I'd take a walker over U'GEEN and Father Pee Pants

[Constantinople]

What distracted me was Glenn standing there with his mouth hanging open when Eugene made his confession.  Glenn was at the CDC, he met Jenner, he knew what went down.  His CDC amnesia is annoying.

 

 

The CDC guy was isolated and also clearly mentally destroyed by his wife's death. I could see why Glenn might want to believe there was something he didn't know about. I wish they'd mentioned it, but it doesn't bother me that much.

 

It bothers me. Something that significant shouldn't be left to fanwanking.

Considering that Jenner showed Glen, and everyone else who was at the CDC, the tapes from the resurrection of TS-19, and provided pretty specific details about what was known and wasn't known, I'd think Glen would give Jenner a little more credit than someone spouting generic BS about worldwide weather patterns (perhaps Glenn suffered repeated brain damage while he was imprisoned at Woodbury, but I don't recall one way or the other).

But even if Glenn, Rick, etc decided, somehow, that Eugene wasn't full of shit, it's totally bizarre that no one who visited the CDC has even mentioned it before concluding that Eugene was the real deal. Rick's totally suspicious of Father Gabriel from the get go, even before Carl found the marks and the "You'll burn" comment on the outside of the church. But everyone's accepts Eugene without question? It's especially odd that they keep thinking that after they were taken in by the Terminus fraud. Back in Season 3, even Andrea didn't buy Milton's BS.

 

The zombies are much easier to kill now that they're rotting.  I think that's canon, right?

I thought it was water cannon.

[Morrigan2575]

I almost wish we didn't have The Talking Dead. I kind of preferred way the show did it - not all questions answered but the emotions were clear as a bell.

Normally, I'd agree with you, Poppy. But from my perspective, and it seems many who are writing here agree, we didn't know why Abraham went berserk and killed those guys with a can

I'm pretty sure in the episode Abe said they were safe now and they didn't have to be afraid anymore.

I think that's what confused me the most, it was clear from the way Abe was acting that he was protecting them so I couldn't figure out why they ran.

In fact up until we saw their bodies outside I half wandered if the flashbacks were part of Abe cracking up and we'd find out that the "men" Abe killed were in fact his family and he created a false memory.

The sad part is, knowing that Abe in fact killed men that hurt his family. I'm at a loss to figure out why the family ran and while I felt for suicidal Abe and the ending explained so much about the character, I can't help but think the wife was an idiot. If she was raped by people that were friends and she knew before the ZA and had a husband that was strong enough to beat 4 men to death with a can... Why on earth would she run? I mean she thought it was better off to face Walkers or strangers than stay with her husband who protected them. WTF?!

[nodorothyparker]

Judith is the luckiest girl in the ZA. She now has not one (Tyreese), not two (Pee Pants) but three people to babysit her while the gang is busy doing “stuff” even if Beth quits or never returns.

 

My husband and I were joking about this last night.  After the show's utterly abysmal portrayal of women in the first two seasons where they were mostly relegated to child care, dishes, and laundry, isn't it fascinating that we now have two full-grown, able-bodied men who are apparently too inept to take care of themselves and a third who won't?  When they get bored around the campfire, they can now have their own re-enactment of Three Men and a Baby.  It's quite a role reversal.

Edited November 10, 2014 by nodorothyparker

[Spartan Girl]

I KNEW IT!  I freaking knew a scientist would never have a mullet!!!!!

 

God poor Abraham.  He presumably kills those guys to protect his family only to have his life pull a total Lori on him.  But even Lori wasn't stupid enough to flee with the kids right into the path of the walkers.  Maybe Abraham and Rick should have a drink and bond over their shitty wives.

 

Did anyone else kind of laugh when Eugene did a faceplant into the cement?

[Pete Martell]

I forgot to mention something in my last post that JackONeill just brought up. I really felt the zombies and this episode were pointless.

Many times now, when they kill walkers, it's like they are doing it just because they have Nicotero there to make cool things happen. It wasn't necessary. It didn't move the story. It was just a cool special effect. Meanwhile where are the people we care about?

 

I don't mind the walkers being background decoration. I find it oddly believable, somehow. The group generally knows how to survive against walkers at this point. Their weakness is other humans, and their own baggage. 

 

A lot of fans still watch the show for cool walker kills, so they portion off some airtime for that, and then get back to business. 

 

Bob still got bit and died, so the walkers are still a danger, but they are no longer the true danger.

 

I first noticed the shift at the start of the season when Carol blew up the propane tank and the walkers went flying. I actually felt pity for them. (I'm not criticizing Carol for doing it, obviously!) 

[Boofish]

Did anyone else kind of laugh when Eugene did a faceplant into the cement?

 

Watched it 5 times hahahahahaa

[mandolin]

I don't mind the walkers being background decoration. I find it oddly believable, somehow. The group generally knows how to survive against walkers at this point. Their weakness is other humans, and their own baggage. 

 

A lot of fans still watch the show for cool walker kills, so they portion off some airtime for that, and then get back to business. 

Oh, definitely. They are there and have to be handled, but that water hose scene took up waaay too much time, IMO. It was in the season 5 promo, so I feel like I've seen it a frillion times already. 

 

I'm all about a good walker take-down, but it really felt like "look what our special effects department can do!" 

[Pete Martell]

I see what you mean. I didn't mind it because I thought it showed Eugene's mindset (in many ways still a teenage boy) and was a good tension-reliever, but I can see where it might annoy. That's how I always sort of felt about the well walker scene.

[nachomama]

I got enough in the dark scenes to know Abraham was having the convo with Glenn but in the like zoom out if we were supposed to see or believe there was someone watching or imminent danger or something we "should" see I wasn't getting it. 

 

Without Talking Dead I would not have understood why Ford's family freaked. They did not do a good job of filling us in but thankfully it wasn't all flashback, I need parts of the group (even if it's Maggie who can't remember she has a sister) to remain focused. Personally his rage was justified if his family was attacked/raped and the wife fleeing was just dumb but I think they're going for a vibe that Abraham has anger issues and yes he is repeatedly opening the wound on his hand, not intentionally like a cutter but it can't heal because he can't heal.....omg I've had a moment of depth....not. 

 

Not a shocker that Eugene was full of crap, he stalled going on Glenn's mission to find Maggie, he went back for them in the tunnel, he sabotaged the bus, he finally could stall no longer. I do actually feel bad for him because he's at least more interesting than Beth or Ford. Michael Cudlitz is capable of making me care, I just think they are making him too cartoony. When he got on top of the firetruck and saw the sign and laughed, he could have been Yosemite Sam with red hair and whiskers. 

[Boofish]

This band of wandering idiots don't even know to knock and make noise before entering a dark building. 

[lookattheflowers]

Is it just me or my television set? The scenes at night are SO hard to see. Even with all the lights off in the room. I wish there was a little back lighting going on, like moonlight.

 

 

It's not you OR your TV, it's the broadcast.

This mood-lighting shit is getting on my last fucking nerve.  Just so you know.

  

I've taken to watching with closed-captioning turned on. Helps immensely. We shouldn't have to do that or turn up the bright settings on our TVs though. Last week I didn't see our gang walking away and Gareth's group approaching the church until the third time I watched.

  

So much word. I have the lighting setting on my TV as far up as it will go, all the lights out and I can't see jack. It made it even worse with the A&R sex seen, you could barely see Eugene and Tara's faces during the conversation, and as they were talking I was distracted by all the moaning and groaning. I was literally cringing during this entire scene.

After five seasons of all the violence and brutal killings the scariest thing ever on this show was having to be subjected to a sex scene between Rosita and Abraham!

I have to disagree. The Lori and Shane sex scene was by far scarier.

[JackONeill]

Not that I'm being judgmental (especially considering it's only a TV show), but Abraham sure replaced his wife quick, when little hottie Rosita came strolling along.  So, true love is another casualty of the ZA?!?

 

I don't know if anyone's mentioned this specific thing:  At the end, yes, Rosita stood up to Abraham.  But did anyone else notice that she had her hand on her gun, like Carl did back in the church as he waited for the bad guys to come through the door?  And like Carl, I think Rosita would have used the gun, friend or no friend.  Even she knows a nut!

[CletusMusashi]

Yes, Rosita knows Abraham's nuts. Both of them, in fact! Must... block out... the phrase "dolphin smooth..."

OK, what I really came on here to mention was that whole deal with Eugene and his crushed glass. He honestly thinks he caused the accident? Tried to, okay, but the accident consisted of the bus flipping upside down. It was caused by either a tire blowing, as the recap suggests, or, as someone in the live-posting thread suggested, by Abe taking driving lessons from Lori. It just seems like, for purposes of narrative simplicity, they should have had Eugene's sabotage actually have something to do with the accident. Otherwise, if the bus is only going to last two minutes anyway, who cares?

I think the next time they get a vehicle, they should only drive at night.  AMC isn't going to piss money wrecking a car that nobody can even see, right?

Edited November 10, 2014 by CletusMusashi

[Pete Martell]

Not that I'm being judgmental (especially considering it's only a TV show), but Abraham sure replaced his wife quick, when little hottie Rosita came strolling along.  So, true love is another casualty of the ZA?!?

 

I tend to see it as Abraham dying the day his wife and kids did. The new Abraham found Eugene, then whoever else and Rosita. I wonder if any of them even know about his past. 

[Pirula50]

Hmmm, well now this is interesting because I thought that Abe looked very military in his flashback.  To me he looked like he was wearing some kind of desert camo uniform or something.  I don't know a lot about this stuff, but that's what it appeared to me to me. And not just him, but the four men he killed as well; they were all wearing the exact same uniform.  So I figured, not only did these guys obviously do something terrible to set him off (and like others, I didn't need the details for it to be effective), but these were his comrades in arms at one point, making it even more horrible.  I could be completely wrong about this, will rewatch to double check, it may have been the wine.  : )

 

I didn't think I'd like this episode at all, and it was slow, but I liked it for giving us more knowledge into Abraham, whom I'd never liked, but now sort of do.  Same with Eugene.

 

But I miss Rick. (and Michonne....and Daryl....and Carol.....and Rick......)

Yeah.  No.  It was the wine.  He's wearing a plaid shirt.  Never mind!

 

But the dog tags......

[Pete Martell]

 It bothers me. Something that significant shouldn't be left to fanwanking.

Considering that Jenner showed Glen, and everyone else who was at the CDC, the tapes from the resurrection of TS-19, and provided pretty specific details about what was known and wasn't known, I'd think Glen would give Jenner a little more credit than someone spouting generic BS about worldwide weather patterns (perhaps Glenn suffered repeated brain damage while he was imprisoned at Woodbury, but I don't recall one way or the other).

But even if Glenn, Rick, etc decided, somehow, that Eugene wasn't full of shit, it's totally bizarre that no one who visited the CDC has even mentioned it before concluding that Eugene was the real deal. Rick's totally suspicious of Father Gabriel from the get go, even before Carl found the marks and the "You'll burn" comment on the outside of the church. But everyone's accepts Eugene without question? It's especially odd that they keep thinking that after they were taken in by the Terminus fraud. Back in Season 3, even Andrea didn't buy Milton's BS.

 

I agree. I do think they should have mentioned Jenner. I guess they may have chosen not to because it would just make it even more obvious that no one should believe Eugene, but a mention wouldn't have been a bad idea. 

 

I tend to handwave it because I think these people are just desperate and aimless and were latching onto anything. They were also shellshocked from Terminus and the prison falling. If the prison was still intact I wonder if Rick would even consider going anywhere else.

[Statman]

What distracted me was Glenn standing there with his mouth hanging open when Eugene made his confession.  Glenn was at the CDC, he met Jenner, he knew what went down.  His CDC amnesia is annoying.  

 

So Jenner's conclusions from 12 months back regarding the virus meant that no other scientist in the world was also doing research on the virus at the same time or after Jenner's passing? 

 

In addition, Jenner never said that there was no cure for the virus.  In fact, he specifcally stated that the French was closest to finding a cure before communication was lost.  The fact that Glenn was at the CDC makes it more likely for me that he bought Eugene's BS because he was aware that there existed scientists who were working on a possible cure. 

 

 

Where fresh water is at a premium, to waste it all on killing Walkers, dumb.  Especially when they were just hours earlier drinking water out of a toilet tank.

 

I am sure 500 gallons of drinking water is going be useful for Glenn, Tara, Maggie, Abe and Rosita when they are dead after being suprised by a horde of walkers. 

 

 

This band of wandering idiots don't even know to knock and make noise before entering a dark building.

 

After their run in with the Termites, I wouldn't be surprised if the group was more concerned about humans than zombies when entering an apparently deserted building.  I'd probably take my chances with predictable zombies than alert any humans potentially lurking in the bookstore by knocking on the door or loudly announcing your arrival. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 10, 2014 by Statman

[Mu Shu]

i'm not sure Eugene is smart. He spouts off things that any devoted forum watcher of sci-fi shows could spout off. I thought we were going to hear that his hair was that way because he was an Elvis impersonator before the ZA.

I don't think Eugene's smart. I think the whole scientist schtick was an online persona developed in his parent's basement.

[ghoulina]

Did anyone else kind of laugh when Eugene did a faceplant into the cement?

 

No. But my husband and I couldn't stop laughing when he yelled out, "I'm not a scientist" several times. It was just so ridiculous that I found it hysterical. Of course you're not a scientist! DUH. I know it was supposed to be this big dramatic moment, but I just found it funny. 

 

 

 

I got enough in the dark scenes to know Abraham was having the convo with Glenn but in the like zoom out if we were supposed to see or believe there was someone watching or imminent danger or something we "should" see I wasn't getting it.

 

Yes! That was the part that got me too. I even said to Mr. Ghoulina, "Who's out there? Is someone watching them?" He replied that he thought it was just a walker, but I really couldn't tell. And when that first tire rolled out of the fire station I thought there was going to be a kid in there, someone crazy Child of the Corn, screwing with them. Yea, my mind can really go off on a tangent! 

 

 

 

Not that I'm being judgmental (especially considering it's only a TV show), but Abraham sure replaced his wife quick, when little hottie Rosita came strolling along.  So, true love is another casualty of the ZA?!?

 

Things move fast in the ZA. We're a little over 1.5 years in, right? So that's like 8 years in ZA time. I don't know how long ago Abraham and Rosita met, but some of the things he said last night made me believe they had only recently started getting more serious with each other. Perhaps they started out as friends who would hook up, and it turned into something more? That's one of the things that actually doesn't bother me. I don't even hate on Shane or Lori for getting together just WEEKS after thinking Rick was dead (if even that). Life or death situations do strange things to people. Sex can bring a feeling of comfort, and a feeling of being alive - when everything around you is dying. I get it. I think that's probably how it started to Robraham, and recently it's started to morph into something more. Her steadfast dedication to getting Eugene to Washington probably meant a lot to Abe. She may be the type to call him on his shit, but she hasn't left him yet. 

Edited November 10, 2014 by ghoulina

[Whimsy]

In addition, Jenner never said that there was no cure for the virus.  In fact, he specifcally stated that the French was closest to finding a cure before communication was lost.  The fact that Glenn was at the CDC makes it more likely for me that he bought Eugene's BS because he was aware that there existed scientists who were working on a possible cure.  

The part that got me the most was, that when they DID get details from Eugene, even though they were vague, they seemed to be more about getting rid of the walkers that already existed and not curing whatever is causing people to turn into walkers.  He very obviously didn't know that everyone is already carrying the virus.  Especially when he alluded to bombs or whatever.  That was definitely about eradication, not curing.  So, in my mind it should've been obvious to those who had been to the CDC that he had no idea what he was talking about.

[ghoulina]

In addition, Jenner never said that there was no cure for the virus.  In fact, he specifcally stated that the French was closest to finding a cure before communication was lost.  The fact that Glenn was at the CDC makes it more likely for me that he bought Eugene's BS because he was aware that there existed scientists who were working on a possible cure.

 

Right. What I got from Jenner was just that communication went down, so he was no longer able to communicate with others. But that doesn't automatically mean that every other government worker, scientist, etc. was dead or had given up. They just didn't know....

[seltzer3]

lol dolphinsmooth is trending on twitter.

[peach]

If a gang of men rapes my kid and me, my husband is more than welcome to can them to death, and it doesn't even have to be the ZA.

 

Also, Abraham is so cock-sure and loud and in a hurry, it never occurred to him that the fire truck was backed up against a door FOR A REASON.  Then they wasted gallons of potable water on zombies, to reveal a message they couldn't read BEFORE they let them out.  Stupid.

 

You can't light campfires inside buildings.  There's this thing called smoke.  This show is supposed to be better than this.

 

Lastly, if I were to find a nice, safe bookstore to make camp in, I would never leave!  lol

[JackONeill]

But the rednecks from Season 2 specifically said Washington was overrun.  Which makes sense.  Look at Atlanta.  And I know we're rehashing things that were said earlier, by many other people.  But as another poster theorized an episode or two ago (sorry I can't remember who you are): The CDC storyline and the Eugene storyline doesn't match.  So the writers are trying to forget about the CDC storyline because these writers want to follow the comics more closely.  Witness a character with flaming orange hair!!!