S01.E06: The Good Man

[Watcher0363]

Just finished Days Gone Bye for the Sixth time. The difference between what Frank Darabont put on the screen and the crap that is the FTWD. Is nothing less than shameful. How much you came to care for the people on TWD in just one episode. Compared to not liking anyone for six episodes of FTWD.

[kj4ever]

I don't think they could ever make everyone happy...it comes from a much beloved show.  That being said, it didn't have to be such an epic failure.  I mean seriously did they give the actors screen tests?  I like a junkie better than anyone left and I have had experience with one, and trust me a junkie should not be my favorite person on the show.  He can act though.  Imagine that!

 

There are just so many ways they could have went but got a bunch of sub par actors with an even worse script.  I came into this determined not to compare it to the Mothership, but my God I was more invested in the characters a half hour into the pilot of TWD then I was all of these characters six episodes in.  That is just so not good.

 

A guy I work with has a theory that they made it dreadful on purpose to make TWD look even better.  I'm DYING for the premier next week, but I have to admit all the characters could just stand there and not say anything for an hour and I'd be more entertained than this POS.

[Raven1707]

Yeah, I'm good to go for Season 2. There's very little on television that interests me, and I'm quite willing to make allowances and give this show the extra time it needs to hit its stride. I like Nick and Chris and Alicia, which surprises me a little, because I wasn't looking forward to The Walking Dead 90210.

[Jodithgrace]

Well, I have to say that this show did not achieve the goal which i had set for it. I was watching this show to see if it made me interested in watching The Original Recipe TWD. It did not. I do not like zombies, and surrounding them with a bunch of bad actors and a stupid plot did nothing to make them more palatable. I gave it a shot. but I am out. There are plenty of other shows I can binge watch when I get some free time, but TWD will not be one of them.

It was fun hate watching with y'all. Adios.

[phoenix780]

Word to that - My wife said the same thing - "Nice, don't tell the family with kids about the fact that they are defenseless and THEN leave the gates wide open for the nice family to face a horrible death"...  Nice.

 

I think that was supposed to show an arc for the character.  We meet her lying to help a kid at school, because she's a caring person.  A couple episodes later she's debating talking to the neighbors across the street about stuff because she cares but she's slightly more cautious.  Then, in less than two weeks (that's the timeline, right?) she's hardcore, driving her family out of town while leaving everyone else to die, either from walkers or Cobalt.  It's hard to tell, though, because the actress doesn't really shift gears, as has been discussed. 

 

Speaking of Cobalt- doesn't this ending violate a basic principle of storytelling in that they show a gun (Cobalt) and it never goes off?  Wasn't the military supposed to firebomb something, not just abandon it?  

 

As far as hate-watching this show- I have a few reasons: hope that it would improve at some point, my unyielding addiction to terrible soap operas, my growing desire to see them get eaten, if only to see if that garners some kind of reaction.  My level of bitterness, well, that's because I feel like they were either lazy or deliberately bad.  It was a cash grab, imho, and I feel like people who do that ought to get a bit of a lashing.

 

This whole viewing thing- it's an exchange.  I'll suspend disbelief and stop nitpicking (and abandon the boards, usually) if they give me some indication they're trying to tell a coherent story within the limits of the medium.  They violate that, I rant (which is a great outlet for my irritation at things in real life that can't be ranted at).  Just walking away doesn't bring the same weird sense of satisfaction.  

 

So...I'll be back for Season 2, I'm sure, though I may start reading spoilers so I can get the whole "what fuckery is this?" ranting out of the way before the episode airs.  Plus, my expectations are much lower now, I think I can have more fun with it going forward.

Edited October 6, 2015 by phoenix780

[FierceCritter]

Did Maddy seem just a little bit happy?

That was just her trying to get a gnat off her face by squinching her mouth around.

Edited October 6, 2015 by FierceCritter

[peach]

Well, I have to say that this show did not achieve the goal which i had set for it. I was watching this show to see if it made me interested in watching The Original Recipe TWD. It did not. I do not like zombies, and surrounding them with a bunch of bad actors and a stupid plot did nothing to make them more palatable. I gave it a shot. but I am out. There are plenty of other shows I can binge watch when I get some free time, but TWD will not be one of them.

It was fun hate watching with y'all. Adios.

Aww.  That kinda breaks my heart, because this garbage is the antithesis of the original.  :-(    Maybe just watch the pilot.  It's one hour and might change your mind.

[mandolin]

I'm head East to the desert is the new "stuff and thangs"

Come on, now, don't even. Stuff and thangs is iconic. 

I'm doing stuff, Lori. THANGS.

 

The whole east to the desert thing will be forgotten now that there's a boat. :P

[FierceCritter]

 

Alicia & Chris eating popsicles while on the balcony was surreal.

In that does Strand strike you as the type of guy to have the cheapest popsicles in the world in his freezer? 

Shopping list:

Diamond cufflinks

Rolex

Armani suit

Yacht

Twinpops

Spaghetti-O's

RC Cola

[FierceCritter]

Then finally there's some bit of actual jeopardy but they just happen to hook up with super-rich guy because he's taken a weird shine to their junkie son AND who just happens to have a beachfront property with limited road access and a freakin' escape yacht!?!?

Have we ever gotten an explanation of why Strand was locked up in the first place?

[tennisgurl]

I saw one thing on TV tropes that said that we were not supposed to feel sorry for the innocent people in all the homes because they "let" the soldiers take Nick, and then didn't do anything while Ophelia was yelling at the soldiers. Yeah...bullshit. 

 

The problem I have with the characters actions was how fast things seemed to escalate. When the characters on TWD do morally ambiguous things, like torture or kill or leave people to die, its usually out of desperation. They have been in the ZA for ages now, and have become hardened by it. They only have each other. These people? I can see how Daniel could escalate that fast, considering he was a torturer or something. But how did a couple of suburbanites suddenly jump to torture, violence, and opening zombie pens to let countless people die? That does not seem desperate. It just seems nasty, and does not do much to endear the characters to me.  

[FierceCritter]

 

My take away from these episodes. I will never go into work totally exhausted because I binged watched the episodes for the fifth time.

While watching this last night, I thought to myself I'd rather be re-watching season 5 of TWD - which I JUST finished re-watching the day before.

 

Next season on a boat! I hope the bar is stocked!

If the popsicles are any indication, it will be. With Boones' Farm, Old Crow, Thunderbird and PBR.

[FierceCritter]

 

The long pan out to an ocean full of .... nothing sums up this show better than probably anything else ever could.  Hey, here's an interesting image.  There might be something there you'll want to see if you just stick with it.   Oh wait, no there isn't.  But made you look.

I was all, "Wait for it! Wait for it. Wait for it... Wait..."

...Still waiting...

[seacliffsal]

The highlight of each episode had been the commercials for The Walking Dead. But last night when the commercial came on I didn't really care. This show has dampened my love of The Walking Dead.

Watching the episode I thought that I might check out season 2 as I liked Liza. Nope. Can't have nice things. The disregard all of these characters have for others totally turns me off from caring about any of them. I couldn't believe it when Madison didn't say anything to the person walking the dog or when they didn't even close the gate when they left.

I think the message is that the military is evil, but I just didn't see it. All of those members of the military were at their base rather than with their own families. Sure there may have been a few bad men, but they were facing a situation they had no real knowledge about and they were actually right to remove those who were dying. I think that the "heroes" caused more deaths...

Hopefully I'll get excited for the start of season 6 this Sunday, but this show definitely left a bad taste in my mouth.

[natyxg]

The problem I have with the characters actions was how fast things seemed to escalate. When the characters on TWD do morally ambiguous things, like torture or kill or leave people to die, its usually out of desperation. They have been in the ZA for ages now, and have become hardened by it. They only have each other. These people? I can see how Daniel could escalate that fast, considering he was a torturer or something. But how did a couple of suburbanites suddenly jump to torture, violence, and opening zombie pens to let countless people die? That does not seem desperate. It just seems nasty, and does not do much to endear the characters to me.  

 

For me the thing here was that there was no need.

 

For example, in episode two, IIRC, I liked the part where Madison and Alicia see the walker outside and Madison just closes the door and doesn't help the neighbour. I thought it was very human because she was alone with a young teen, a junkie in withdrawal, no gun, no help and flimsy windows. And she had only encountered one zombie before and was pretty traumatized by that. So I get trying to lay low to not call attention to them, even if she felt bad about it.

 

But this whole mess just wasn't necessary, imo. It would have taken them less than a minute to close the fence and to tell someone to tell everyone that the army was leaving. They could have just found another way to break into the hospital (maybe using the army guy's uniform or something) and just break out the two people they wanted. Something.

 

But no.

They were assholes.

 

Was the whole "people do evil things because of fear" thing supposed to apply to them, too? Because if that was the point of this whole mess, the execution really didn't work, imo.

Edited October 6, 2015 by natyxg

[FierceCritter]

 

 

Floating zombies, on the other hand...

Frankly, that's what I was half-expecting to see on that Long Long Look Over the Ocean closing shot - a floating island/raft of zombies riding the waves, or tangled up in the kelp offshore....

Scene: Yacht anchored off Monteray Bay, California. The cast are sitting around, droopy, dejected.

Suddenly, one of them spots something, something floating closer and closer to the yacht. And they smile. And as the rest of them stand up to see what's there, they also smile.

Pan in to two zombies, floating in the water. Close-up on their clasped hands. They start to struggle to hold on to each other as the current causes Zombie #2 to float too far from the other. Partial focus on zombie #2 floating away in a circle. Cut to faces of the people on the yacht, still smiling despite the zombies sadly having become separated.

Zoom in to the first zombie. Then pan slowly down its arm, to it's hand, which is once again clasped in the hand of zombie #2. Zoom out slowly, until we see that zombie #2's arm has come disconnected at the elbow. Continue to zoom out and see zombie #2, sans arm, floating out of camera range. Fade to black.

Edited October 6, 2015 by FierceCritter

[Watcher0363]

In that does Strand strike you as the type of guy to have the cheapest popsicles in the world in his freezer? 

Shopping list:

Diamond cufflinks

Rolex

Armani suit

Yacht

Twinpops

Spaghetti-O's

RC Cola

 

 

While watching this last night, I thought to myself I'd rather be re-watching season 5 of TWD - which I JUST finished re-watching the day before.

If the popsicles are any indication, it will be. With Boones' Farm, Old Crow, Thunderbird and PBR.

Well just because you rose out of the ashes of poverty to obscene riches, does not mean you forget the comforts of childhood in the hood. I still miss my days of over sweet kool-aid and cheap store brand bologna.

Edited October 6, 2015 by Watcher0363

[Starchild]

Y'all are missing the obvious reason Strand hooked up with Nick and his family: Abigail needs a crew!

 

As for wasting my time with this show, I blame myself. I should have realized from the title that there would be a serious lack of imagination in the writing. So now, we are going from missing the beginning of the fall of civilization by being behind a fence for nine days, to missing the middle of it by being on a boat out on the ocean. Thrilling. What was the point of creating a new zombie apocalypse show where no one is actually involved in it?

[peach]

As for Liz asking for a bullet to the head before she's even sick, I think if I knew I was going to turn into something that would potentially involve my killing (and eating) my child, I'd be sure to get it taken care of too, before things got taken out of my hands.

 

But would you let him finish his popsicle first? 

[peach]

 

Speaking of Cobalt- doesn't this ending violate a basic principle of storytelling in that they show a gun (Cobalt) and it never goes off?  Wasn't the military supposed to firebomb something, not just abandon it?  

 

Yes!  Whatever Cobalt was supposed to mean, they never mentioned it again, thus violating the principle.  After that buildup, we never heard anyone shouting "Cobalt!" over a radio or anything, or the doctor mentioning it or anything.  Just...lame.

[nodorothyparker]

AMC is currently airing episode 4 of the mother show's first season. Even with all the Lori drama and goofiness that was the existence of Camp Dinner Bell, watching it after this show is like going to the symphony after attending my son's fourth grade violin recital. It's a much needed palate cleanser.

[rab01]

Well, I guess we know now how civilization in LA ended - Travis and Maddie were its downfall.

They allowed walkers into the safe zone and destroyed the army base.  Congratulations, job well done!

 

I want to give this show some credit - everything that the characters did onscreen this episode made emotional sense. If some of it was stupid, rash, hasty or mean, it was at least coming from a consistent place within the characters. People weren't doing idiotic things just to advance the plot.

 

I'm going to assume that I misheard the plan for cobalt last week and the army was just bugging out. If so, at least we avoided mustache twirling evil from the army this week. Even the soldiers in the garage weren't so bad (yeah they couldn't possible really need a car but that's a plot hole, not a character issue) because despite the creepy overtones they didn't actually make any move towards kidnapping Alicia.  Also, I think the soldier who got bit and walked into a helicopter blade did it on purpose to avoid turning.  As for the soldiers' uselessness at the fence, I think they were just panicked into shooting center mass in the dark, rather than headshots.

 

ETA - I'm trying to look at the silver lining. (Plus, this was a better episode than most in this series - we got action, zombies and relatively few scenes of Maddie talking. As for our crew destroying LA ... Hey, they never promised us that the main characters would be the heroes of the show, rather than the villains.)

Edited October 6, 2015 by rab01

[Boofish]

From this point forward anything bad that happens to these clowns I vow to scream "That's what you get for opening that door"

[Texasmom1970]

I know it wasn't meant to be funny but seeing Strand and Nick walking together in the facility. The juxtaposition of him in his suit and Nick in those senior citizen duds, too funny.

[Lexx]

Yes!  Whatever Cobalt was supposed to mean, they never mentioned it again, thus violating the principle.  After that buildup, we never heard anyone shouting "Cobalt!" over a radio or anything, or the doctor mentioning it or anything.  Just...lame.

 

Not to mention, for a supposedly EVUUUUL military plan, they were bringing in a pretty large chopper to evac all the wounded and sick the doctor and Liza were caring for.

[chad]

This show is a damn mess and I am beyond happy to have made it to the end of S1 to officially say that I gave it a shot and I am soooo done with it. I have so many issues with the way things unfolded and how annoying/awful/idiotic/boring the entire cast is/was/will continue to be. I hope some of you stick around to S2 because these recaps and forum posts have been one trillion times more entertaining than this trainwreck of a show.

[Maverick]

 So help me if there's a time jump and we learn they've spent 3 years sailing the Abigail to somewhere in Virginia.....

 

 So much WTF in this episode.   A couple of jammed freeway sections does not make up for completely open roads with 3 random walkers roaming about.  Presumably Strand doesn't keep Abigail just anchored in the middle of nowhere all the time, so he must have put it there once things started going to shit.  So if you safe on the boat, why go back on land (for a fab dinner party?  a night at the club?) where he was caught and locked up.  And why was he locked up?  I thought the people in cages were supposed to have some kind of medical condition (either physical or mental).  Was Strand suspect because he was dressed too well for the end of the world?  And back to the yacht, really...no one thought to evacuate LA via water.  No one was boxed in the city, saw the yacht and stole a rowboat, built a raft or made a swim for it?  You damn well know some looter would be on that boat, sipping Reunite and listening to YachtRock on SiriusXM.

 

 This show was such a bait and switch.  We barely saw anything about the early days and didn't learn anything new that we hadn't already heard about on TWD from characters who experienced the early days.   We saw kids staying home from school and one riot.  Scintillating.  And now that the world is over, we have a show that's a pale imitation of the original, only with characters having their dramatic moments on a beach instead of a peach orchard.     

[phoenix780]

So help me if there's a time jump and we learn they've spent 3 years sailing the Abigail to somewhere in Virginia.....

 

I'd be down for a time jump.  Let's fast-forward 10 years, see where we're at.  We know the beginning now (it was totally boring and not worth depicting).  We know the middle from the other show, with the aimless wandering and whatnot.  Let's see how humanity fares at a different point in the timeline.

[halkatla]

I´ve found out the hard way that I can only get involved with one boring show about zombies. I´ll take the one that has some exciting stuff over this mess any day. I never thought I would be rooting for the zombies but if these kinds of folk were all that was left, then I say (in theory): I hope they all die. Awful characters, soooo boring plot, not nearly enough zombies, no story..... just :(

 

The only thing this show had going on better than TWD was that it actually had 2 mothers constantly loosing and looking for their sons.

Edited October 6, 2015 by halkatla

[txhorns79]

The problem I have with the characters actions was how fast things seemed to escalate. When the characters on TWD do morally ambiguous things, like torture or kill or leave people to die, its usually out of desperation. They have been in the ZA for ages now, and have become hardened by it. They only have each other. These people? I can see how Daniel could escalate that fast, considering he was a torturer or something. But how did a couple of suburbanites suddenly jump to torture, violence, and opening zombie pens to let countless people die? That does not seem desperate. It just seems nasty, and does not do much to endear the characters to me.

 

I tend to think that Madison and Travis thought Daniel unleashing the zombies would simply serve as a distraction for the Army, i.e. the soldiers would be distracted by having to dispatch the horde, but it wasn't something that they wouldn't be able to handle.  They didn't comprehend that it would get out of hand in the manner it did, and cause so much death and destruction.  As to the torture, Travis really wasn't comfortable with it.  I think Madison was okay because she wanted Nick back, and had, had some traumatic experiences with the zombies, so it left her more open to things she had not previously tolerated.   

[NurseGiGi]

I think that was supposed to show an arc for the character.  We meet her lying to help a kid at school, because she's a caring person.  A couple episodes later she's debating talking to the neighbors across the street about stuff because she cares but she's slightly more cautious.  Then, in less than two weeks (that's the timeline, right?) she's hardcore, driving her family out of town while leaving everyone else to die, either from walkers or Cobalt.  It's hard to tell, though, because the actress doesn't really shift gears, as has been discussed. 

 

Speaking of Cobalt- doesn't this ending violate a basic principle of storytelling in that they show a gun (Cobalt) and it never goes off?  Wasn't the military supposed to firebomb something, not just abandon it?  

 

As far as hate-watching this show- I have a few reasons: hope that it would improve at some point, my unyielding addiction to terrible soap operas, my growing desire to see them get eaten, if only to see if that garners some kind of reaction.  My level of bitterness, well, that's because I feel like they were either lazy or deliberately bad.  It was a cash grab, imho, and I feel like people who do that ought to get a bit of a lashing.

 

This whole viewing thing- it's an exchange.  I'll suspend disbelief and stop nitpicking (and abandon the boards, usually) if they give me some indication they're trying to tell a coherent story within the limits of the medium.  They violate that, I rant (which is a great outlet for my irritation at things in real life that can't be ranted at).  Just walking away doesn't bring the same weird sense of satisfaction.  

 

So...I'll be back for Season 2, I'm sure, though I may start reading spoilers so I can get the whole "what fuckery is this?" ranting out of the way before the episode airs.  Plus, my expectations are much lower now, I think I can have more fun with it going forward.

Agree with your whole post except for the part about being back next season.  One and done for me.

 

The yacht is dependent on fossil fuel, right?  So is their intent to just bob around in that one spot?  Confusing.

[RustbeltWriter]

A few more observations:

 

• Travis "Mr. Mayor" Manawa, man of the people, leaves the neighborhood and does a couple things that are seemingly out of character; he leaves the gate open and he doesn't tell anyone they are leaving. I thought he was the community liason but I guess that's only when things are relatively smooth. When things get tough, Travis leaves you on your own.
• The army pulls out and doesn't tell anyone. Just one more example of what the showrunners think of the military.
• There was a promo that fast forwarded through the downfall of society with more depth than six episodes of the show. It was the one that showed riots, fires, helicopters around downtown and then the lights going out. They should have made a whole series out of that promo.

Edited October 6, 2015 by RustbeltWriter

[KirkB]

This is a nitpick I know, but everyone else has covered what little there was to talk about in this episode, so...why the hell was Strand's boat parked so far away from the house? Are they going to swim out to it, or does he have a boat to get to his boat?

[JBody]

Welp, depends on the draught of the hull -- if it's big he has to have it moored far enough offshore that it's not scraping the bottom.  

I'd think he'd have a dinghy at least to get out to it.

[JBody]

I just want to say that I'm bummed if this dreck has turned off people from TWD.  As said up thread, if they could only watch 1 hour of TWD, watch THE PILOT.  It could be a wake up call to TPTB, but I think it's popular enough that they will hand-wave away the naysayers.  I wish they would listen to the criticism that FTWD has generated.  I think it's been more than fair.  Yet they seem hell bent on delivering a product nobody wanted, effectively saying love it or leave it.

 

It's just the huge wasted opportunity that pisses me off.

[nobody30]

I could bring up a lot of points on why I don't really care about this show the way I do with other shows, be it the characters themselves being stupid assholes nobody really roots for (getting probably thousends of people killed by releasing zombies and opening the fence without warning anybody, great), be it that it's, at least in my opnion, not what it was promoted to be (we didn't see civilisation fall apart), or the really lazy writing and poor acting (partly).

 

But the main point why I'm not so sure if I will give season 2 a try is that the show has basically become TWD 2.0 at this point, or if you will TWD Los Angeles, like there are numerous CSI spin-offs nobody needs. I mean where is the difference? Small group trying to survive after the apocalypse, that already happened (thank you show!), only this time it's two (patchwork)-families, wow.

 

I mean 6 episodes, ok, but a full season? And at the end the try a cheap, are there water-zombies now, ciffhanger? I'm not sure I care, or how this will be relevant in any way to the story. I think I stick to TWD, Atlanta. Maybe there will be TWD New York or Chicago next year, or NavyTWD. :)

[Boofish]

I need more of Strands back story. He just don't seem like the type of guy to have "don't forget to buy popsicles" on a sticky note. This is my problem with the show; too many conflicting situations.

 

1. You can't even tell what time of year it is - Alicia is wearing booty shorts but others are wearing jackets. 

2. ZA Idris Elba is packing crisp white shirts like he off to Cannes to ride out the outbreak

3. Instead of grabbing food and weapons Madison is making sure her son can get high

[Ronin Jackson]

I've seen a lot of comments saying the actors are bad. Actors don't create characters out of a vacuum. They require scripts, usually written by someone else, and direction. Blaming the actors implies a different actor could have done more with these scripts. Cliff Curtis and Kim Dickens are not bad actors. Cliff Curtis especially has been excellent in other roles. This show has weak characters but this is definitely a case where the writers are the ones to blame.

[The Mighty Peanut]

For me the thing here was that there was no need.

For example, in episode two, IIRC, I liked the part where Madison and Alicia see the walker outside and Madison just closes the door and doesn't help the neighbour. I thought it was very human because she was alone with a young teen, a junkie in withdrawal, no gun, no help and flimsy windows. And she had only encountered one zombie before and was pretty traumatized by that. So I get trying to lay low to not call attention to them, even if she felt bad about it.

But this whole mess just wasn't necessary, imo. It would have taken them less than a minute to close the fence and to tell someone to tell everyone that the army was leaving. They could have just found another way to break into the hospital (maybe using the army guy's uniform or something) and just break out the two people they wanted. Something.

But no.

They were assholes.

Was the whole "people do evil things because of fear" thing supposed to apply to them, too? Because if that was the point of this whole mess, the execution really didn't work, imo.

Agreed. I recall

when the backpacker begged Rick for help and Rick left him to die badly. Herschel (RIP) was still Rick's moral compass at this point and was leading Rick to allowing more people in the group. Later we see the backpack at Terminus along with the possessions of other victims.

A lot has happened since but it's still considered an ethical low point. The reaction of Maddie and company in FTWD has all of the apathy, none of the complexities, little history, and not much of an internal struggle aside from long looks and occasional day drinking.

First season, six episodes, the burden of TWD...it's not easy to live up to all that. But I think overall it's a classic case of pleasing nobody by trying to please everybody.

Edited October 6, 2015 by The Mighty Peanut

[Cthulhudrew]

I've seen a lot of comments saying the actors are bad. Actors don't create characters out of a vacuum. They require scripts, usually written by someone else, and direction. Blaming the actors implies a different actor could have done more with these scripts.

 

While I agree that the writing is certainly sub-par, and even good actors can only do so much with bad scripts, the obverse is also true, and bad actors can kill good scripts. Neither is mutually independent. A good actor can often still turn in a good performance from a bad script, if allowed to do so (and this goes beyond the writing as well, and into the directing and editing purviews.)

[diebartdie]

The highlight of each episode had been the commercials for The Walking Dead. But last night when the commercial came on I didn't really care. This show has dampened my love of The Walking Dead.

<SNIP>

<SNIP>

Hopefully I'll get excited for the start of season 6 this Sunday, but this show definitely left a bad taste in my mouth.

I came here to post something along these lines as well.  I recognize most of you from TWD thread (and most of yall from TWOP too), I know how many of us profess our love of TWD, heck I started TWD as the monthly comic so Ive been with it a long time now but even so, all of us know how epically stupid TWD can be

Beth and her tiny scissors anyone?

but still, it is chock full of interesting, awesome, goofy, lovable, hateable, nuanced characters. This show though, FtWD....well tbh it really drew my mind to remembering all the stupid

(Lori.....just everything Lori)

, shitty

( The Guv...just everything The Guv)

, boring

(the magic farm)

about TWD and Im kind of not as enthused about it as I normally would be days from the beginning of the new season.

 

FtWD was a bait-n-switch cash grab that had the nerve to have FILLER in only 6 freekin episodes. Seriously, it felt like 1/2 the final episode was nothing but driving around empty (EMPTY!!! THE MIND BOGGLES) L.A followed by a 20 minute montage of water. With some brown sea weed floating right below the surface that looked kinda gross to me but Im an east coast girl wo what do I know about west coat ocean? Why am I even thinking about THAT instead of "of dear lord how are they possibly going to get out of that predicament?!?!?"

 

I honestly thought this show was going to be awesome. It's not and it had very much tarnished the mother show for me.

[kj4ever]

I've seen a lot of comments saying the actors are bad. Actors don't create characters out of a vacuum. They require scripts, usually written by someone else, and direction. Blaming the actors implies a different actor could have done more with these scripts. Cliff Curtis and Kim Dickens are not bad actors. Cliff Curtis especially has been excellent in other roles. This show has weak characters but this is definitely a case where the writers are the ones to blame.

I don't care how good a character is written....If you can't move your face and show one emotion (I think it is mild disgust?) you are a bad actor.

[Cthulhudrew]

1. You can't even tell what time of year it is - Alicia is wearing booty shorts but others are wearing jackets. 

 

In fairness, this is southern California. My friends will throw on a jacket when they're cold in spite of the fact they're walking around in shorts, an incongruousness that still baffles me after living here nearly two decades.

[Cthulhudrew]

And back to the yacht, really...no one thought to evacuate LA via water.  No one was boxed in the city, saw the yacht and stole a rowboat, built a raft or made a swim for it?  You damn well know some looter would be on that boat, sipping Reunite and listening to YachtRock on SiriusXM.   

 

There's an idea. How about next season they turn into a comedy about a misfit crew of survivors and their pirate radio broadcast from their tiny little yacht off the coast? Zombie Radio!

 Was Strand suspect because he was dressed too well for the end of the world?     

 

Given how the writers seem so keen on stereotyping authority figures in the post-Apocalypse world they have created, I'm guessing it's racial profiling.

[ACW]

It was dark when they went in and well after sun-up when they came out.  I doubt they did a pre-dawn raid so they were probably there for hours.  I love how they parked the SUV in the middle of the garage in the most conspicuous place instead of in a parking spot next to another car to try to hide it.  No wonder the military creeps made a bee-line for them.  Nice how it was just the two teens and no adult with them, not that Travis would have been useful.

 

  I was assuming that the soldiers showed up before the 30 minutes were up; and after that, the kids didn't have keys to the other vehicles.

 

Not to mention, for a supposedly EVUUUUL military plan, they were bringing in a pretty large chopper to evac all the wounded and sick the doctor and Liza were caring for.

  I'll grant that they may have been planning to evac the wounded patients, who were probably all military.  Not the folks in the pens, though.

[Ohwell]

I've seen a lot of comments saying the actors are bad. Actors don't create characters out of a vacuum. They require scripts, usually written by someone else, and direction. Blaming the actors implies a different actor could have done more with these scripts. Cliff Curtis and Kim Dickens are not bad actors. Cliff Curtis especially has been excellent in other roles. This show has weak characters but this is definitely a case where the writers are the ones to blame.

I we're talking about the two main characters, I've seen Cliff Curtis in other roles and he's been pretty good, so I agree it just might be the script. 

 

I only remember seeing Kim Dickens in "Deadwood" where she wasn't a main character, and I'd say she was ok simply because she wasn't that important.  Didn't see "Gone Girl" so I don't know how she was in that.  l think her problem with this role is that, good script or not, she is just not bringing it.  As someone mentioned earlier, she just looks like she's about to throw up all the time.  A good script can't help that. 

[Ronin Jackson]

While I agree that the writing is certainly sub-par, and even good actors can only do so much with bad scripts, the obverse is also true, and bad actors can kill good scripts. Neither is mutually independent. A good actor can often still turn in a good performance from a bad script, if allowed to do so (and this goes beyond the writing as well, and into the directing and editing purviews.)

 

Of course the reverse can be true and I never claimed they are mutually independent. In fact every good and bad performance is a result, in some respect, of a collaboration between usually at least three people. It's not necessarily difficult to determine where the weak link is... certainly not in the case of FTWD. Is Cliff Curtis' performance in "Three Kings" or Kim Dickens performance in "Gone Girl" more reflective of why the characters in FTWD failing than the scripts they've been given.

 

Remember, even a bad performance has to be approved by a director. Actors, like anyone else, have good and bad moments. If a director isn't making sure they get good moments on camera and letting bad performances get into the final cut, that's on them just as much as it is the actor. Even if an actor is hopeless, someone still made the decision to give them the role. 

 

 

I don't care how good a character is written....If you can't move your face and show one emotion (I think it is mild disgust?) you are a bad actor.

 

So you are going to look at one performance and declare that an actor is utterly incapable of more expressions than what you see in that specific performance? Right.

 

Honestly I think Cliff Curtis and Kim Dickens are mailing it in and collecting a paycheck. They are capable of more but no one is asking them for more, and it's hard to ask for more when there's so little in the scripts to work with.

I we're talking about the two main characters, I've seen Cliff Curtis in other roles and he's been pretty good, so I agree it just might be the script. 

 

I only remember seeing Kim Dickens in "Deadwood" where she wasn't a main character, and I'd say she was ok simply because she wasn't that important.  Didn't see "Gone Girl" so I don't know how she was in that.  l think her problem with this role is that, good script or not, she is just not bringing it.  As someone mentioned earlier, she just looks like she's about to throw up all the time.  A good script can't help that. 

 

Maybe it's the scripts that's making her want to throw up?

[Ohwell]

Maybe it's the scripts that's making her want to throw up?

 

Maybe it's smelling Nick all the time.

[peach]

 

I honestly thought this show was going to be awesome. It's not and it had very much tarnished the mother show for me.

 

I felt the same way, but Netflix was the cure.  Watched all of the original season 1 last night.  ALSO only six episodes, and omg, the contrast is unbelievable.  Chills, tears, feelz, and I've already seen it more than once.  In fact, watching all the characters when they were so young, healthy, innocent, and CLEAN (and alive for a large number of them) was poignant in and of itself.  I think AMC is running the entire five seasons around the clock this week.  Only takes a little of the real WD to erase the stupidity of the spinoff. 

 

What amazes me is that I only hate Lori half as much as I used to, compared to Madison Clark.

[peach]

Of course the reverse can be true and I never claimed they are mutually independent. In fact every good and bad performance is a result, in some respect, of a collaboration between usually at least three people. It's not necessarily difficult to determine where the weak link is... certainly not in the case of FTWD. Is Cliff Curtis' performance in "Three Kings" or Kim Dickens performance in "Gone Girl" more reflective of why the characters in FTWD failing than the scripts they've been given.

 

Remember, even a bad performance has to be approved by a director. Actors, like anyone else, have good and bad moments. If a director isn't making sure they get good moments on camera and letting bad performances get into the final cut, that's on them just as much as it is the actor. Even if an actor is hopeless, someone still made the decision to give them the role. 

 

 

 

So you are going to look at one performance and declare that an actor is utterly incapable of more expressions than what you see in that specific performance? Right.

 

Honestly I think Cliff Curtis and Kim Dickens are mailing it in and collecting a paycheck. They are capable of more but no one is asking them for more, and it's hard to ask for more when there's so little in the scripts to work with.

 

Maybe it's the scripts that's making her want to throw up?

 

Kim Dickens was a hard nosed investigator in Gone Girl, and I don't remember her doing anything but staring pensively at that Nick, too.  It fit that character.  In FTWD, the script would have to literally say "Madison doesn't react" on every page.  Maybe it does!  lol  Anyway, if they are just phoning it in, it's still on them as actors.  It's possible for everyone involved in this to be doing a weak job.

 

I have no problem with Cliff Curtis' performance.  Travis is just unlikable.