S01.E05: Cobalt

[Macbeth]

I like the show but I am conflicted on the how they are showing the apocalypse in a major urban area.

 

They needed to do a major urban area.  However, there is no way they would ever have the budget to do an apocalypse in an urban area properly.  The costs would have been astronomical.  So I understand the limitations.

 

However - the writing isn't helping.  A major part of LA was contained in just 9 days? - No zombies anywhere?  Just some strays? - I don't think so.  Also that unit only killed 84 zombies -  in 9 days really?  Are they all playing golf.  If their kills are so small - LA should not be this contained.  I understand that there are probably other units around, but still. 

Edited September 29, 2015 by Macbeth

[phoenix780]

So Travis doesn't surprise me, and neither does the family's complacency.  They're waiting for someone to tell them what to do, where to go, or that it's over. They got jostled with Nick being taken and yeah, a LOT of parents I know wouldn't care at all about their "captor" being tortured if it means they'll find out where his fellow captors took their kid.  To me it's interesting to see these pieces of the characters come out.   It hasn't been that long, if they run out of food or water, we'd see a difference I think.  Most of them are in their own homes, they feel protected, whatever.  As soon as the necessities and comforts go, it's over.

 

I wish I could get there, but I just can't.  I think for me what it comes down to is that they have enough characters to have been consistently showing a variety of reactions.  Have your people in denial, the ones in hiding, the complacent/accepting (though I have a much harder time buying into that because we're such an info-hungry culture, imho...hell, the whole pitch for the show was providing us with more info).  They now have Ofelia getting mad or getting upset, which is nice but she's kind of a secondary character.  Who knows, maybe this whole thing is too subtle for me and I'm missing the nuances that are being shown as characters experience things.

 

I think I'm also locked into a point where this isn't an entertainment experience for me.  My brain keeps getting caught on the construction of the story instead of falling into the flow of it.  So, again, I may be missing something.

 

On another note, speaking of food and water...is that being delivered to them?  Do they all shop at Costco and have supplies?  They have intermittent/no electrical, which means no real refrigeration, right?  Wouldn't they have already passed into the realm of Discomfort?  Not to stereotype too much but this is LA. One of them has to be jonesing for a Starbucks, or some free-range organic fresh goodness from Trader Joe's.

 

And if the idea is that conditions are such that the military would break down so quickly, how could the ordinary folk make it even a few days with their routines fundamentally disrupted?

Edited September 29, 2015 by phoenix780

[oakville]

I like the show but I am conflicted on the how they are showing the apocalypse in a major urban area.

 

They needed to do a major urban area.  However, there is no way they would ever have the budget to do an apocalypse in an urban area properly.  The costs would have been astronomical.  So I understand the limitations.

 

However - the writing isn't helping.  A major part of LA was contained in just 9 days? - No zombies anywhere?  Just some strays? - I don't think so.  Also that unit only killed 84 zombies -  in 9 days really?  Are they all playing golf.  If their kills are so small - LA should not be this contained.  I understand that there are probably other units around, but still. 

 

Agreed. It would be very costly to film hordes of Zombies on the streets of LA. The TWD only filmed a few scenes in downtown Atlanta. I did not enjoy the scenes of Daniel torturing Ophelia's BF soldier. That makes no sense. He would probably have told Daniel them where Griselda was. There was no upside for Daniel. Even if he found out where she was, he would have to escape the safe zone, & wander into a well protected military hospital to find her. How would he carry her back to the safe zone? Wouldn't Ophelia's BF punish Daniel if he was allowed to live?

 

The Cobalt plan doesn't make sense. I can understand the military retreating to bases & leaving healthy civilians unprotected. Killing everyone in the safe zone makes no sense.

 

The show has been disappointing so far.

[Ripley68]

Yes - did Chris imply that Travis had an affair with Maddie and that is why they got divorced?  It was real quick, spit out, after Chris told Maddie he wanted to talk to Travis about "Family business"

[raven]

WRT to food and water, a couple of eps ago someone (was it Doug? I thought it was a bearded guy) was yelling about the power or something.  That was probably a priority and we see intermittent power.  In the ep where Madison and Tobias are at the school, she says that she has plenty of food.  People may be raiding other houses.  We saw running water.  It doesn't seem like there's a lot of people grouped together, so even if the services are intermittent, at least they're there.  It's been 9 days, my guess is right on the cusp of unrest.  I really think it's human nature to back down from the authority figure with the gun as long as they're getting the basics. Personally I would hate being confined and I honestly think I would have snuck out once I saw how easy it was to do.  Maybe the military guys weeded out trouble makers (like the Salesman) along with the sick and locked them up.  Nick didn't go to the hospital like Salazar's wife after all, why take chances that he'll be screaming in the street?

 

With the military, what we see is just starting to break down IMO (the soldier with the beaten up face, the snarking, the soldier saying he was leaving, etc).  I think the experienced, responsible soldiers were gone a few days ago.  Maybe they underestimated the threat and the Cobalt order makes them realize it's hopeless.

 

To me, there is a sense of things just barely holding together.  Something's going to tip it over the edge.  I don't mind this kind of fill-in-the-blank thinking here, it makes me wonder what I would do, where I would go, etc.  I like not knowing and seeing, i see alot on the other apoco-type shows I watch.

 

 

My brain keeps getting caught on the construction of the story instead of falling into the flow of it.

 I usually have some of that with whatever i watch but can go with it if the premise is interesting and/or the characters are compelling.  I've got enough of both with this show, it's not perfect by any means and doesn't grab me the way TWD in its first episodes, but I'll be back next season.

Edited September 29, 2015 by raven

[Giselle]

Ok so, I like the show, but I have never watched TWD. Not really a fan of Zombie shows, but I liked the focus of this show in the previews, so I gave it a try. Here are some questions that I do not understand regarding Zombies. If the answers contain spoilers, please hide. I do not mind the spoilers though. 

 

1. Once a person turns, will they stay zombie "alive" forever unless they get a head shot? 

2. Can zombies exist forever without eating? Can they die of starvation?

3. Will the Zombies turns on each other and eat each other? 

4. Do Zombies have strength or cognition? If so, why couldn't Susan bust through or go around the fence?

5. Can Zombies open doors or figure out things like putting a key in a lock? 

6. Will Zombies eat ANY live thing (cats, dogs, fish, wild animals, mice?)

7. It is a virus? (I assume). Does it affect ALL living things? 

8. Can dead people (in cemetaries) become Zombies?

9. Does the person have to be infected as a live person and THEN they can become Zombie after they die? If never infected, never a Zombie?

10. So, if this is an infection, is it safe to say that anytime any person dies, they WILL become a Zombie?

11. Where did the virus come from? Is anyone immune?

12. How does exposure occur?  Body fluids, aspiration, only by bites, blood? 

 

Ok, I hope that is not too many, but some of these questions have been bugging me since day 1. I agree with everyone else. These guys need to start preparing for what may happen. Stockpiling weapons, food, water etc... It is about to get real serious. The military was actually keeping them safe. Not anymore. Strand is a very interesting character, wondering where it all goes with him and addict boy. 

 

I'm a new to zombie genre.   I began seeing differences between different movies, shows and books so my boyfriend explained it to me like this. Who ever writes or directs the book, movie or show gets to make the "rules" of that universe. So you can have zombies that will act differently from book to book, movie to movie and so on. With that being said, to answer all of your questions, my opinion would be yes and no for each one.

Edited September 29, 2015 by Giselle

[mightysparrow]

Colman posted this on Facebook and I thought I would share.

 

Cut line from Ep. 5. I will share....Liza-I'm looking for a Latin woman with a hurt foot. Strand-Aren't we all? @FearTWD @AMC_TV

[Macbeth]

I absolutely adore him.

[Giselle]

Agreed. It would be very costly to film hordes of Zombies on the streets of LA. The TWD only filmed a few scenes in downtown Atlanta. I did not enjoy the scenes of Daniel torturing Ophelia's BF soldier. That makes no sense. He would probably have told Daniel them where Griselda was. There was no upside for Daniel. Even if he found out where she was, he would have to escape the safe zone, & wander into a well protected military hospital to find her. How would he carry her back to the safe zone? Wouldn't Ophelia's BF punish Daniel if he was allowed to live?

 

The Cobalt plan doesn't make sense. I can understand the military retreating to bases & leaving healthy civilians unprotected. Killing everyone in the safe zone makes no sense.

 

The show has been disappointing so far.

 

Maybe someone higher up in the government thinks it's more humane and better to die from however they plan to do it than being munched on by your neighbor.

 

But what would cause traumatic brain injury on a mass scale?

[Ripley68]

I heard it as they were humanely killing the people at the "hospital," not the whole area.  Didn't they say they had fenced off 6 square miles?  That's a lot of fence to patrol, but also a lot of stores/houses and various other things.  heck, in one city block of LA you get 5 donut shops, 3 dry cleaners, 7 foreign grocery stores and 35 apartment buildings!  In 6 square miles in any normal town you would have a very wide range of income levels.

[Giselle]

 

Can someone tell me what happened during the last two minutes?  My dvr cut off after the doctor gave the gun to the ex-wife.

 

 

Liza put her down like a steer in a slaughter house.

Edited September 29, 2015 by Giselle

[Raven1707]

On another note, speaking of food and water...is that being delivered to them?  Do they all shop at Costco and have supplies?  They have intermittent/no electrical, which means no real refrigeration, right?  Wouldn't they have already passed into the realm of Discomfort?

 

In "Not Fade Away," we saw Alicia & Ofelia getting supplies from Adams (who Ofelia flirts with); later we see Alicia pulling a child's wagon filled with boxes, presumably filled with MREs or other food items, up the driveway. As for the water, so far it seems to be still running from the tap, although Moyers advised them that their rations included water purification tablets, so maybe it's problematic. 

[Daryleena]

Interesting the magician reference- he immediately put me in mind of the voodoo guy in Disney's The Princess and the Frog.

I find the character creepy and not a nice person (the way he manipulated Doug into more hysterics and his removal)... but at the same time my biggest thought was, "FINALLY. NOW the show is starting."  He is just some much-needed energy.

 

 

 

I'm going to disagree a little bit with their answer to #8, because we saw

some bodies that had long been buried in a riverbank emerge as Walkers as the ground eroded.  To me that implies that there are a lot of Walkers banging around in caskets.  

Hey, "Bad Example", that was a bad example....those were mudslide killed folks...not dead bodies

[grumpypanda]

This episode left me so confused and apparently I'm not alone. So at this point we really don't know if they intend to bomb everything or just the hospital and the arena? How did Daniel get to the arena, shouldn't there still be walkers everywhere? Did he just drive there? If so, why didn't he just drive to the hospital? Why was the black guy in the nice suit locked up in the hospital in the first place? He didn't seem sick or crazy. What was the point of operating on Gizaldia and the other people at the hospital if they were planning on killing them anyway? And finally, why does Madison just sit at the table drinking coffee all day?

Anyway, I also find it unbelievable that the military is killing innocent healthy civilians this early on. If you kill everyone who will be left to rebuild society?

[queenanne]

Whenever they mention dropping a bomb on LA, I'm reminded of the scene from The Simpsons - "We've tried nothing, and we're all out of ideas!"

 

Heck, you get this reaction "only" in reference to the mention of a bomb?

 

This statement could apply to the whole show!

[Cthulhudrew]

I am not at all surprised at how evil the military apparently is in this universe. "Evil authority guys with guns" is an easier to write enemy than zombies, I guess. They're easier for an audience to hate. 

 Especially when there are no zombies to be found.

They needed to do a major urban area.  However, there is no way they would ever have the budget to do an apocalypse in an urban area properly.  The costs would have been astronomical.  So I understand the limitations.

 

 I bet Detroit would have been willing to let them film there at a discount rate. :D

Edited September 29, 2015 by Cthulhudrew

[Emily Thrace]

This episode was interesting. I think part of the reason this show is struggling is that its a family show but everybody is off doing there own things. There isn't any real cohesive group moments to make you want to root for these people as a group. Even when you hate certain characters on the mothership you don't always root for them to get eaten because of how it would affect other characters(ie Lori) we don't have that here yet. We need to see these people working together instead of sniping at each other . Camp Dinner Bell was more cohesive than this bunch even by episode 5. 

 

Also I want to like the new guy cuz he seems smart . He's also giving me flashbacks to LJ from Resident Evil 2(the movie). This is not a good thing. We need more on this guy beyond 'salesman".

[Jack Kerouac]

 

Most of what he said and did didn't make a lick of sense, but I didn't give a shit because at least he was doing SOMETHING.

 

Thank you! Totally agree. So far, this series has been terrible. It's all tell - don't show. I will watch the last episode, but I think that's it.

[GaT]

I'm glad there's only one more episode.

[Nashville]

This is Kirkman we're talking about, who seems perpetually 13 and stuck on the idea that anybody who tries to be the boss of anybody must be EVIL.  More and more I get the sense that when military recruiters came to his high school for career day one of them must have laughed at his drawings of a death ray or something.

 

Really?  I always figured it was something like the high school ROTC kids stomping his favorite D&D dice into the ground.

  I bet Detroit would have been willing to let them film there at a discount rate. :D

 

Yeah, and it would've been SO much cheaper on production costs. 

I mean, they wouldn't have to spend a cent to make Detroit look like a war zone.

[nobody30]

I'm sorry but all this show does is confusing me with extremely sloppy writing, and I don't mean only in details, but the whole storyline itself, because I'm usually not that concerned with the writing if the drama makes up for it (which it unfortunately does not in this case).

 

First of all, the military does exactly what? Creating safe zones, then killing everything and everybody outside these zones, taking certain people like drug addicts out of the safe zones (because they are a danger to what exactly?), making efforts to raid every infected building there is to lose dozens of men every day, but secretly planning to desert all people in the safe zones and the hospital, and kill them in a "humane" way at the same time in a big conspiracy? Seriously?

 

And I guess we will never get any explanation for this mess, because that seems to be convenient for the showrunners, like it is with the "virus". I get that the showrunners don't want to get into details about origin and morphology, but you can't write a whole show about the outbreak of a zombie-virus without touching the simple question on how it spreads. Is it just bites or can you be infected any other way (in the sense that you die immediatly because of the fever, I know everybody is in fact infected). You don't need to be a scientist to figure that out, it's just observation, everybody would know it by now, and talk about it all the time. And unfortunatly it always comes up in the storyline in one or another way (people with masks, the story of the stadium,...), but is never answered, only that's something that influences descisions and reactions of all characters involved (for example the military).

 

So I guess we will see the release of thousends of walkers from the stadium next week, which I'm looking forward too (putting aside on what a stupid idea that is). Only problem with that is, after that the last bit of civilisation in L.A. will be gone, which makes the show basically TWD 2.0., so I don't see the point of S2 to be honest.

[Haleth]

I've been interested to see how things pan out, but I agree the show has been pretty pointless.  Watching a handful of not very compelling characters interact in a family drama, more or less restricted to one neighborhood, while the ZA happens outside the fence is not what we signed up for.  I'm sure all hell will break loose in the finale (don't open the door, Daniel!) but by this point, who cares?  It would have been a better show if it had focused on the military or the hospital.  Make the doc the protagonist, trying to hold things together, instead of Maddie sitting at her kitchen table drinking coffee.  The doc, Liza, Strand, Nick, add Daniel to the mix... follow their stories instead of bored teenagers who smash other people's belongings.  I completely agree that viewers were more invested in Camp Dinner Bell by epi 5 than the extended Clark family.  I understand the writers felt they had already done the "strangers come together" thing and wanted to show the perspective of a family trying to stay together, but it hasn't worked out as well.  

 

Strand is the only character who has made me perk up, but I can't say I like him.  He was really cruel to poor old Doug.  His agenda is certainly self preservation.  If he can get Nick and Liza out of the hospital to meet up with the rest of the family I may change my opinion.

[BetyBee]

The scene where Alicia and Chris trash the rich neighbor's house seemed a waste of time on the surface.  However, I did think that Alicia staring at her dressed up self in the mirror represented her thinking that this would be the the last time she is ever dressed up.  Sad, at such a young age.  I like that she and Chris are bonding and I hope they keep romance out of it.  It's no wonder they are frustrated.  Their parents ignore them and find them annoying - Travis because he's all about the wondrous (not!) Maddie and therefore must put Nick before his own child and for Maddie, it's always been about Nick.  I have no idea why Liza left Chris, but it was fairly interesting to see Liza adapting.  I hope they don't kill her off just as she and Chris are reunited.  I do think that it will be Dr. Exner who does not survive and that is why she is imparting a crash course in medicine to Liza, the quick learner.  What would be the point otherwise?  No WD group needs two medical experts, but who knows?

 

The military plan is so bizarre.  It just makes no sense.  Why not at least leave these people alive to see if any survive on their wits?  I hope the tortured soldier ends up as one of the team.  He went out on a limb for Ofelia, so why not keep him around a while?  It might be interesting to have constant conflict between him and Daniel.  That could be a redemptive arc for Daniel, the torturer.  

[Macbeth]

First of all, the military does exactly what? Creating safe zones, then killing everything and everybody outside these zones, taking certain people like drug addicts out of the safe zones (because they are a danger to what exactly?),

 

Just because there is a zombie apocalypse doesn't mean the war on drugs has to end.  The military/police zombies have to have something to do when they turn.

[nobody30]

Just because there is a zombie apocalypse doesn't mean the war on drugs has to end.  The military/police zombies have to have something to do when they turn.

 

Now I get it! :) When it comes to life as a zombie, eating the flesh of your beloved ones, say yes! But when it comes to drugs, just say no! Drugs will kill you, and turn you into a zombie, and you will end up eating the flesh of your beloved ones, which ist indeed perfectly fine with us, so do drugs....I mean....whatever....we're all screwed anyway. :)

[JemiW]

Why does this show insist on telling rather than showing?

IMO the script writers are doing a really bad job, and/or they don't trust the cast. Perhaps they think we're morons who need everything spoon fed to us in one boring, pompous soliloquy after another. Daniel's was over-the-top. Strand's was worse. Let them all just go away and have the story follow the dishy Guardsman back to San Diego.

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

 

Smooth Operators
The zombie crisis is worsening, but some are pressing their advantage with nefarious life skills against the tide.

[The Mighty Peanut]

Hehe, poor Detroit. Whenever someone does a post-apocalyptic photo shoot it is either modeled on Detroit or is actually in Detroit. Like many Michiganders I feel Eminem should just buy the damn thing.

[ZoloftBlob]

First of all, the military does exactly what? Creating safe zones, then killing everything and everybody outside these zones, taking certain people like drug addicts out of the safe zones (because they are a danger to what exactly?), making efforts to raid every infected building there is to lose dozens of men every day, but secretly planning to desert all people in the safe zones and the hospital, and kill them in a "humane" way at the same time in a big conspiracy? Seriously?

 

And lets not forget that apparently no one in the military has a soul or family they're worried about. I mean, as a veteran myself, I don't fetishsize the military as full of super awesome heros - the military has its fair share of assholes and jerks just like the civilian world, but there is an element of *some* honor in the service. Things fell apart too quickly for a draft to have occured so we're talking about a volunteer force, probably National Guardsmen, who at the beginning probably took things really seriously. The depiction of the military as "we're all a bunch of violent amoral assholes who just want the civilians to die" is a huge leap and really is a bit overdone.

 

eta and if you don't think these guardsmen are talking to the civvies about what's out there, you have another thing coming. There would be next to nothing to keep these guys from telling fellow Americans whats up. They're not patrolling in Bagdad, they're patrolling in Los Angeles where most of them live

Edited September 29, 2015 by ZoloftBlob

[Raven1707]

The Sunday Cable Ratings are in for "Cobalt":

 

Fear The Walking Dead was Sunday's top original, with a 3.4 adults 18-49 rating, up from last week's 3.3 adults 18-49 rating. [Total: 6.655 million viewers]

 

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2015/09/29/sunday-cable-ratings-fear-the-walking-dead-tops-night-rick-morty-basketball-wives-the-strain-more/473460/

 

Which brings us to the first Live + Same Day viewership increase for this series:

 

08-23-15 “Pilot” 10.130 million
08-30-15 “So Close, Yet So Far” 8.184 million
09-13-15 “The Dog” 7.185 million
09-20-15 “Not Fade Away” 6.623 million
09-27-15 “Cobalt” 6.655 million

[Omar G.]

And lets not forget that apparently no one in the military has a soul or family they're worried about. I mean, as a veteran myself, I don't fetishsize the military as full of super awesome heros - the military has its fair share of assholes and jerks just like the civilian world, but there is an element of *some* honor in the service. Things fell apart too quickly for a draft to have occured so we're talking about a volunteer force, probably National Guardsmen, who at the beginning probably took things really seriously. The depiction of the military as "we're all a bunch of violent amoral assholes who just want the civilians to die" is a huge leap and really is a bit overdone.

 

 

I thought they went out of their way to show soldiers questioning orders and the one soldier with Travis saying he was ditching the plan to go be with his family in San Diego (in fact, he held up a photo for emphasis).  I don't think the soldiers are all being portrayed as amoral or cruel.

[ZoloftBlob]

They're hauling people to a death camp. American citizens are locked in cages for no crime at all and being extorted by soldiers for their jewelry. Thats pretty damn evil in my book, I do agree there is some questioning of authority, but lets see, the leader refuses to give info as he golfs, and technically abandoning one's post is kinda amoral, especially if the civilians in the safe zone are depending on the soldiers for their safety.

 

They're not all amoral, no, but lets not sugar coat the fact that they're "just following orders" at the death hospital.

[Beast Saver]

 

Deleted because question already answered

Edited September 29, 2015 by Beast Saver

[Watcher0363]

I did not want to go here. But after reading some of the comments about emo teenagers and this show being a cross between a Lifetime movie and a cheap Scifi channel movie. I feel safe in declaring that the Fear the Walking Dead, is Young Adult Chick Scifantasy. Which means for me I will tough out the last episode. Then rely on the posters here to clue me in on rather the show gets better in the second season.

I want to thank Frank Darabont for giving us a gritty much more adult Walking Dead. Also I want thank him for bringing production values to the TWD. Although they have watered down both the grittiness and production values of the TWD. It is still miles ahead of the Fear the Walking Dead.

[KirkB]

Right now I think Z Nation is miles ahead of Fear the Walking Dead because a) It has zombies, all the damn time and b) It's fun and has characters I am actually interested in watching.

 

This episode did nothing for me. The finale better blow me out of the water or I may not come back next season.

[gaPeach]

Ok I get that production costs don't allow a lot of mass zombie scenes but I can't believe how naïve the people inside the fence are at this point.  They would have had to have seen the military shooting and killing zombies within range of their little sanctuary if the military did in fact clear the area.  Right?  So there had to have been zombies around them.  They had to have seen at least that right?  So the total lack of knowing ANYTHING is beyond me.

 

And the way people are slipping out into the Zombie Red Zone with no weapons or even a good working knowledge of what a Zombie is and how to take it out is also beyond stupid. 

 

Travis can become Zombie bait any time now. 

[ChipBach]

The Cobalt plan doesn't make sense. I can understand the military retreating to bases & leaving healthy civilians unprotected. Killing everyone in the safe zone makes no sense.

 

I guess the assumption is that all the people are "potential zombies" and therefore need to be eliminated.  I think the flaw in this plan is that the soldiers should be more worried about the genocide of their families than anything else.  Hence the dude rolling to San Diego right away.  I can't imagine the briefing:

 

Moyer:  OK guys, and 09:30 hours were are going to wipe out all human beings and run to a really cool fort.

Soldier:  What about our families that live right here?  My girlfriend, mom, little brother?

Moyer:  Nope.  Dead, dead, dead.

Soldier: Will there be any girls in the new world?

Moyer:  We don't seem to have any whatsoever in our outfit, so I suggest you start playing golf...

Solider:  This is gonna suck.

 

The scene where Alicia and Chris trash the rich neighbor's house seemed a waste of time on the surface.  However, I did think that Alicia staring at her dressed up self in the mirror represented her thinking that this would be the the last time she is ever dressed up.  Sad, at such a young age.  I like that she and Chris are bonding and I hope they keep romance out of it.  It's no wonder they are frustrated.  

 

I kind of flinched when I hear her say "This is the life we deserved"...  I was somewhat confounded by the "rich" peoples home.  Their house didn't seem very opulent actually.  What is "rich" in her neighborhood?  A second story house?  She's gonna hate a lot of survivors if that's her standard for good old class envy.  Go down the road and beat up Lady Gaga's house.  I could get down with that...

[natyxg]

I guess the assumption is that all the people are "potential zombies" and therefore need to be eliminated.  I

 

But why spend days there, wasting supplies and water on people they end up killing? Why not take people with them to where they're going? Or just set up camp somewhere where there is no people?

 

Do they not plan at all? Cause it seems like they're just making shit up as they go along.

[KirkB]

Yeah, now that you mention it, that doesn't make any sense. I could see one of the higher ups putting a cobalt type plan into action but if the idea is kill off anyone who might turn into a zombie why bother keeping any of them alive in the first place? Gather them together and then shoot them, then go out, find some more unlucky saps, round them up, rinse and repeat. Why bother with the pretense of maintaining normalcy? Especially since they seem to get going out and killing anyone else they find instead of even bothering to bring them back. The only thing I can come up with is the gated community was never intended for their protection but was meant to keep the lab rats in one cage, and now someone had decided it's time to burn down the lab.

Edited September 29, 2015 by KirkB

[Jack Kerouac]

Yeah, and it would've been SO much cheaper on production costs. I mean, they wouldn't have to spend a cent to make Detroit look like a war zone.

 

They might have to spend money to make it LESS crappy - no one would believe a city could get that bad.

 

First of all, the military does exactly what? Creating safe zones, then killing everything and everybody outside these zones, taking certain people like drug addicts out of the safe zones (because they are a danger to what exactly?), making efforts to raid every infected building there is to lose dozens of men every day, but secretly planning to desert all people in the safe zones and the hospital, and kill them in a "humane" way at the same time in a big conspiracy? Seriously?

 

And lets not forget that apparently no one in the military has a soul or family they're worried about. I mean, as a veteran myself, I don't fetishsize the military as full of super awesome heros - the military has its fair share of assholes and jerks just like the civilian world, but there is an element of *some* honor in the service. Things fell apart too quickly for a draft to have occured so we're talking about a volunteer force, probably National Guardsmen, who at the beginning probably took things really seriously. The depiction of the military as "we're all a bunch of violent amoral assholes who just want the civilians to die" is a huge leap and really is a bit overdone.

 

eta and if you don't think these guardsmen are talking to the civvies about what's out there, you have another thing coming. There would be next to nothing to keep these guys from telling fellow Americans whats up. They're not patrolling in Bagdad, they're patrolling in Los Angeles where most of them live

 

This is the part that bugs me the most. It's been NINE DAYS and already the 'military' has turned into soulless goons, who are willing to kill civilians for no discernible reason. Makes tonnes of sense.

[rab01]

KirkB, natyxg - Agreed that none of this makes sense given what we've been shown but I'm guessing that the writers did not intend that Cobalt to be part of a master plan from the beginning but a last ditch response to other plans failing. If the production budget had allowed for it and the directors paid attention to the details and they hadn't claimed that there was a safe perimeter and the streets weren't empty whenever Maddie strolled outside the fence (ok, a lot of "ifs" but bear with me), it could almost make sense as part of the army constantly falling back while trying to contain the spread of the plague - setting up roadblocks, checkpoints and safe zones, only to be pushed back by masses of PEOPLE (not walkers) trying to escape the walkers behind them.  Eventually, the army starts gunning down everyone to try to maintain its barricades but even that falls to the masses when some of the soldiers turn into walkers and take out their comrades (or turn against orders to take out unarmed civilians), etc. If they had the budget to show the futility of trying to "clear" a city as huge as LA and the vision to show it as a city on fire with riots and walkers and gunfire from homeowners and criminals and soldiers .. then you could see a situation where the army would have to bug out.

 

(I still say they'd just leave, rather than try to kill everyone first but ...*shrug*) 

 

I don't think the writers knew how awful the follow-through on the sets was going to be ...

[Chicago Redshirt]

I'm sorry but all this show does is confusing me with extremely sloppy writing, and I don't mean only in details, but the whole storyline itself, because I'm usually not that concerned with the writing if the drama makes up for it (which it unfortunately does not in this case).

 

First of all, the military does exactly what? Creating safe zones, then killing everything and everybody outside these zones, taking certain people like drug addicts out of the safe zones (because they are a danger to what exactly?), making efforts to raid every infected building there is to lose dozens of men every day, but secretly planning to desert all people in the safe zones and the hospital, and kill them in a "humane" way at the same time in a big conspiracy? Seriously?

 

The military created safe zones thinking they could use them as a beachhead and then attack and take back Los Angeles (and presumably, all other cities.).

 

As we can intuit from the latest episode, that's not going so well. The one squad got entirely taken out by zombies. The Staples Center (or whatever stadium that is) is chockfull of zombies. The doctor (and presumably multiple people in the chain of command) are aware that whenever someone dies, they will become zombies unless they have sustained a traumatic brain injury.

 

Since basically everyone who dies is subject to zombification, it seems a reasonable approach to remove anyone who is a disproportionate risk to either die or kill someone else, or for that matter, stir up trouble. Otherwise, your safe zone is not so much a safe zone as a zombie Golden Corral.

 

As a junkie, Nick is disproportionately likely to die of an overdose or do something stupid that will result in his death or someone else's death. Griselda was sick enough to die and then become a zombie, so she needed to be taken and put down. Depressed guy, one could argue, was a great risk for suicide. He needs to be taken out.

 

As I alluded to above, the number of zombies should be growing geometrically. After 9 days, if my conservative math is correct, there is something like 1.5-3 million zombies across the country.

 

As it's becoming clearer that the plan to retake L.A. (and again, presumably other cities) is failing big-time, the only thing that really makes sense is another retreat.

 

I agree that firebombing the civvies in the safe zone doesn't make sense. But what I assumed Cobalt meant was destroying the hospitals and those infected, not the safe zone people.

[Jack Kerouac]

eta and if you don't think these guardsmen are talking to the civvies about what's out there, you have another thing coming. There would be next to nothing to keep these guys from telling fellow Americans whats up. They're not patrolling in Bagdad, they're patrolling in Los Angeles where most of them live

 

That's a very good point. There is nothing stopping these soldiers from confiding in the civilians about what is going on and no pressing reason to lie to them. The whole thing doesn't make any sense at all.

KirkB, natyxg - Agreed that none of this makes sense given what we've been shown but I'm guessing that the writers did not intend that Cobalt to be part of a master plan from the beginning but a last ditch response to other plans failing. If the production budget had allowed for it and the directors paid attention to the details and they hadn't claimed that there was a safe perimeter and the streets weren't empty whenever Maddie strolled outside the fence (ok, a lot of "ifs" but bear with me), it could almost make sense as part of the army constantly falling back while trying to contain the spread of the plague - setting up roadblocks, checkpoints and safe zones, only to be pushed back by masses of PEOPLE (not walkers) trying to escape the walkers behind them.  Eventually, the army starts gunning down everyone to try to maintain its barricades but even that falls to the masses when some of the soldiers turn into walkers and take out their comrades (or turn against orders to take out unarmed civilians), etc. If they had the budget to show the futility of trying to "clear" a city as huge as LA and the vision to show it as a city on fire with riots and walkers and gunfire from homeowners and criminals and soldiers .. then you could see a situation where the army would have to bug out.

 

(I still say they'd just leave, rather than try to kill everyone first but ...*shrug*) 

 

I don't think the writers knew how awful the follow-through on the sets was going to be ...

 

Can I watch your show instead of FTWD? It sounds way better.

[KirkB]

Can I watch your show instead of FTWD? It sounds way better.

 

 

I agree. Because RAB01 is clearly thinking of TV as a visual medium, where you SHOW things happening instead of expecting people to intuit it. 

[Raven1707]

Since basically everyone who dies is subject to zombification, it seems a reasonable approach to remove anyone who is a disproportionate risk to either die or kill someone else, or for that matter, stir up trouble. Otherwise, your safe zone is not so much a safe zone as a zombie Golden Corral.

 

 

Agreed. Cold as it may seem, you can deal with them now or you can deal with them later, but you will have to deal with them at some point. 

[oakville]

The military created safe zones thinking they could use them as a beachhead and then attack and take back Los Angeles (and presumably, all other cities.).

 

As we can intuit from the latest episode, that's not going so well. The one squad got entirely taken out by zombies. The Staples Center (or whatever stadium that is) is chockfull of zombies. The doctor (and presumably multiple people in the chain of command) are aware that whenever someone dies, they will become zombies unless they have sustained a traumatic brain injury.

 

Since basically everyone who dies is subject to zombification, it seems a reasonable approach to remove anyone who is a disproportionate risk to either die or kill someone else, or for that matter, stir up trouble. Otherwise, your safe zone is not so much a safe zone as a zombie Golden Corral.

 

As a junkie, Nick is disproportionately likely to die of an overdose or do something stupid that will result in his death or someone else's death. Griselda was sick enough to die and then become a zombie, so she needed to be taken and put down. Depressed guy, one could argue, was a great risk for suicide. He needs to be taken out.

 

As I alluded to above, the number of zombies should be growing geometrically. After 9 days, if my conservative math is correct, there is something like 1.5-3 million zombies across the country.

 

As it's becoming clearer that the plan to retake L.A. (and again, presumably other cities) is failing big-time, the only thing that really makes sense is another retreat.

 

I agree that firebombing the civvies in the safe zone doesn't make sense. But what I assumed Cobalt meant was destroying the hospitals and those infected, not the safe zone people.

Very good points. I do agree that operation Colbalt is about terminating the infected.

[slf]

L.A. itself has 4 million citizens and LA county has almost 11 million. (That gives that one county half the number of people of New York STATE. There are more people living in California than Canada.) This is the show's greatest failure: it was overly ambitious. "We'll set this in one of the most overcrowded, diverse cities in the country! Urban warfare taken to a whole new level! There's already unrivalled tension between citizens and law enforcement we can use! The city will become a lawless concrete jungle they'll never escape!" However the reality probably set in early. I doubt they ever had the budget to pull this off the way they envisioned it.

But they didn't need a lot of money, imo. They should have a) cast more charismatic actors (and told Dillane to stop watching Johnny Depp movies before coming on set), b) dropped the addict storyline, c) doubled the number of individual attacks in the first episode, d) not have the characters just squint whenever they saw something unusual but just carry on with their day- they should have had characters react and recognize something was really wrong so as to build tension and paranoia, and lastly,

e) they should have made the protest the big kick-off. THAT'S what I was expecting. The cops take down that female walker we saw but behind them, in the crowd, two or three walkers emerge from various alleyways and attack bystanders, Other people start screaming, running, trying to intervene, and while the cops fight their way through the crowds the people attacked die and turn. Maybe the cops kill a few but the cops themselves get bitten (a throat ripped out here, a calf gnawed through there) and they die after a few minutes and turn too. Total chaos. The family barely makes it out of there and when they home they have to hole up. They're paranoid, have to deal with one or two attacks on the house and they take seriously the need to leave; they pack and plan and discuss the need for weapons and which vehicles they're gonna use. They realize they don't have enough food for nine people (!) and they have to do a supply run. Maybe when they come back you do the military take-over thing, whatever, but my point is they could have done a lot more than they're doing now with all the pointless driving around the find Nick, sitting around bored waiting for other people to get back, etc., bullcrap they've been doing. They promised us the beginning but then they skipped the beginning.

The writers for this franchise have always massively sucked at writing dialogue that normal people would say. But it's even worse with this show because there's only like 5% of the action we got in the first season of TWD. (To say nothing of the fact they don't appreciate that a character drama is not an action movie with the action parts taken out. It's a completely different genre that requires a completely different skillset. Over the shoulder angles and half sentences do not a study of the human condition make.) So it's just mostly boring, uncharismatic people sitting around during the apocalypse (literally the world is ending and they are just hanging out).

Madison being more willing to put down a walker (and having done so) makes her one of the most valuable people in the group but I'm not willing to make a decision about her condoning the torture, not just yet. She had her son ripped from her by men with guns, who were supposed to be protecting them, because, what? He's a drug addict? Sketchy. She's recently had to kill a friend and colleague to defend someone. She's had a friend and neighbor, whom she saw every day, turn into a walker (which attacked her daughter) and then get mowed down by soldiers. I do think she might be in a state of shock (or the actress can't act for crap, but I liked her in Gone Girl so I don't know).

I should have known they were going to drag out the boredom until the finale and then give us all the action then.

[Arnella]

Grizelda was great at the end.  Pity she's dead.  I'm seeing a major 'redemption' arc for Salazar.  And I'm seeing a HUGE drop in audience for the season finale.  Which is a shame because the real talent just showed up.

I thought Grizelda was beyond creepy at the end, although she did admit to her past transgressions, but that was creepy too. I expected Liza to want to see first hand how someone turns, but she blindly believed Dr. Exner, and without much thought, put a cattle gun to Grizelda's head.

 

I've always liked Rueben Blades and was hoping he wouldn't be wasted.  Now he's the only one I can stomach.  I liked Grizelda's speech and what it hinted at.  I wish Ophelia could have heard it.  How cool to find out your sweet, housewifey mom was a badass freedom fighter.  I wish they hadn't gotten rid of her. They desperately need another person who is wlling and able to do what has to be done.

[FierceCritter]

Madison being more willing to put down a walker (and having done so) makes her one of the most valuable people in the group but I'm not willing to make a decision about her condoning the torture, not just yet. She had her son ripped from her by men with guns, who were supposed to be protecting them, because, what? He's a drug addict? Sketchy. She's recently had to kill a friend and colleague to defend someone. She's had a friend and neighbor, whom she saw every day, turn into a walker (which attacked her daughter) and then get mowed down by soldiers. I do think she might be in a state of shock (or the actress can't act for crap, but I liked her in Gone Girl so I don't know).

I should have known they were going to drag out the boredom until the finale and then give us all the action then.

This sparked something for me. So far, the only way some of these characters have been made interesting is by making them... bad. Madison okaying the torture. Daniel DOING the torture. Strand gaslighting Doug. Nick being a selfish junkie. Is this going to be one of those shows where all the protagonists are asshole antiheroes?

(To say nothing of the fact they don't appreciate that a character drama is not an action movie with the action parts taken out. It's a completely different genre that requires a completely different skillset. Over the shoulder angles and half sentences do not a study of the human condition make.) So it's just mostly boring, uncharismatic people sitting around during the apocalypse (literally the world is ending and they are just hanging out).

SO this. ^ Thank you.

[Raven1707]

The writers for this franchise have always massively sucked at writing dialogue that normal people would say.

 

 

I used to "teach" creative writing -- I say "teach" because it really isn't something that can be taught -- and one of the exercises I used to assign my students was to try and transcribe (if they could) a minute or so of ACTUAL conversation. Believe me, very little of what normal people say to each other in the real world would hold anyone's attention on television.

 

Writing dialogue is hard.