S03.E06: Red Dirt

[raven]

Alicia did say birth control, so I figured she meant condoms. 

19 minutes ago, MDKNIGHT said:

I choose to think she'd do the exact same things if the opposing group were white so she is an amoral manipulator, but not a racist. 

I definitely think she would - she is an opportunist.   She grabbed this chance to make her point and if Walker's group were white, she would have done the same. 

I think your Cain & Abel scenario is an interesting one; who would be easier manipulated, Troy or Jake?  Either way, Jeremiah would need to go.  I wonder if that's part of Madison's plan, though I suspect she's just winging it.  She realizes that if she wants to be in a position of authority, she can't supplant Jeremiah and his sons, they have too much support.  Though the way people are leaving at the first sign of trouble, maybe not as much loyalty as she first thought.

[Sentient Meat]

Madison's finally crossed a line where the writers finally have a good excuse to kill her off.  Let her die in a blaze of hubris filled glory with Troy and reboot the show around Alicia.

[Canada]

They need to reboot this show around a whole new family or group of people.

[FishyJoe]

I'm officially Team Walker now! I hate Madison and her self-righteous attitude. She is poison and killed all the people in the hotel. Now she is going to kill all the people on the ranch. She is worse than Troy. 

I don't think Travis is even dead, we didn't see a body. 

[Haleth]

Troy's speech about defending the ranch and protecting the people there sounded exactly like Rick Grimes at Alexandria. 

How did Madison get so important that she could butt in with her 2c at every meeting?  She only arrived a few days ago, why would anyone on the ranch listen to her?  And why on earth would she back a psychopath as the new leader?  Because his decisions will keep them safe? 

She and Troy still have a skeevy relationship.  I think Nick is jealous.

I agree a character named Walker is confusing. The writers probably think it's clever. 

Edited July 4, 2017 by Haleth

[xaxat]

This holiday weekend my binge watching options were FTWD or Orphan Black.

I chose poorly.

[Nashville]

5 hours ago, MDKNIGHT said:

If she said birth control (which I think she did) instead of specifically the pill , then she may have meant there were condoms there. 

Might be a generational thing; I'm a Late Boomer, and when Alicia referenced "birth control" my immediate thought was of the Pill.

 

5 hours ago, MDKNIGHT said:

Additionally the two brothers wanting to take over for the father reminds me about the story of Jacob and Esau with Jake being Jacob.  Esau/Troy the hunter is violent and not smart.  Jacob is the brainy one.  In that case the mother schemes to put the brainy son in charge through trickery, when the brawny one was going to inherit.  In this case the maternal figure is pushing the dumb one but Alison is pushing the brainy one. The thing was that the smart one in the bible was the one best equipped to lead the Jews in that time and place.  The show may be setting up the question -in the apocalypse which type of leader is the right one to lead THIS group.  It may be that the brainy one gets himself killed and the thug survives. However I'm with whoever said upthread that given what we've seen so far of this show it is more likely neither of these guys makes it.

I love the Jacob and Esau parallel you've drawn - enough so I'm pissed at myself for not coming up with it myself. :)

A point to consider, though: is Madison truly pushing Troy as the leader?  Personally, I don't think so.  I get it definitely appears so on the immediate surface, but let's look a little closer. Think about what Madison already knows about Troy specifically, and the Ottos in general:

• Troy is a sociopath whose immediate response to any problem or challenge is to pick someone to kill.
• Troy threatened her family at the base and fully intended to kill both Travis and Nick; they survived only through Jake's intervention. 
• Upon arrival at the compound Troy continued his not-so-veiled threats toward her family, saying Madison deserved to be there but Nick did not.
• Madison initially approached Jeremiah overtly about his sociopathic son, but she immediately ran into an Otto-sized brick wall.
• Jeremiah's difference in how he treats the two brothers telegraphs a clear preference for Jake over Troy as Jeremiah's prospective successor.

Maybe I'm being nitpicky, but IMHO none of these points quite qualify as good leadership skills. 

I believe Madison is playing a much deeper game.  Jake is obviously the saner leadership choice between the two brothers; Troy is not without his uses, however, especially when taken into consideration the arising conflict with Walker and his tribe.  Madison's decision is to puff up Troy's ego with false approvals, then turn him loose on Walker&Co. - let Troy blow up on them.  For all his handicaps, Troy does have a certain gift for effective (albeit appalling) military strategy, so use that for the defense of the compound - and if Troy survives the coming onslaught, it's virtually guaranteed his slash-and-burn tactics will horrify the remaining compound inhabitants to the point of guaranteeing support for Jake, the sane brother and the one Madison actually trusts.

 

5 hours ago, MDKNIGHT said:

Anybody thinks the headaches of Jeremiah are cinema short hand for brain tumor is going to kill him any minute so Esau and Jacob can fight over the estate sooner? 

 

That, an impending stroke, or a brain aneurysm building toward a pop.

[Haleth]

Yeah, Jeremiah is going to go all walker (not Walker) on them soon.

4 hours ago, Nashville said:

I believe Madison is playing a much deeper game.

You give her a lot more credit for deep thinking than I do.  Then again, a convoluted plot to first raise up the crazy one only to have him self destruct so the saner brother could take over could be something that makes sense to Madison.  Never mind the collateral damage.  As long as precious Nick is unharmed.

[Juliegirlj]

I hate what they've done to this show. 

[Muffyn]

16 hours ago, MDKNIGHT said:

Anybody thinks the headaches of Jeremiah are cinema short hand for brain tumor is going to kill him any minute so Esau and Jacob can fight over the estate sooner? 

If I've learned nothing from WebMD, I've learned that headache = brain tumor and everything else = cancer. Whatever is causing the headaches - migraines, stress, seasonal allergies, aneurysm, looking at Madison's constipation face, being close enough to Nick to smell his  hair - it will ultimately kill the old man, unless Madison finds a way to kill off all of the compound members first.   

[Gobi]

2 hours ago, Muffyn said:

If I've learned nothing from WebMD, I've learned that headache = brain tumor and everything else = cancer. Whatever is causing the headaches - migraines, stress, seasonal allergies, aneurysm, looking at Madison's constipation face, being close enough to Nick to smell his  hair - it will ultimately kill the old man, unless Madison finds a way to kill off all of the compound members first.   

That leads me to a theory. Is it possible that Madison is the Typhoid Mary of the ZA? A carrier, unaffected by the virus, who is spreading it everywhere she goes. Seems likely to me. Since I would have to re-watch everything to verify it, alas it will remain unproven. Could explain why her expression never changes.

[Bongo Fury]

Madison sure seems to be taking a turn towards the dark side. I wonder if TPTB are reacting to the criticism that it is only (or at the very least are the vast majority) the psychotic that survive and build communities in the ZA. They tried awfully hard to make the Governor a textured character and paint him and Rick as varying shades of gray. He was much more believable than the one dimensional cartoon villain from the comic, though IMO they failed completely to make him a sympathetic character. So I wonder if they are taking Madison and making her into one of these sociopaths in the attempt to show us how 'normal' people are forced to change when confronted with suck extreme situations. Her journey to the dark side would then justify (in their minds) all their nut job antagonists (Gov, hospital, Sanctuary, Wolves, Negan, GPK, etc).

 

Of course the logical solution to the problem at hand would be for the Ranch and the Native Americans to join forces and build a strong community that would dominate and secure the entire area. They'd have a large population base that would allow for specialized division of labor to feed, house and protect the community. You'd have people intimately familiar with the terrain and could secure all the approaches preventing a large scale incursion by zombies or humans. The ranch has a lot of supplies and the unified group could forage in a large radius to scavenge a ton more, enough to thrive until they can get farms and livestock established. Of course, this all makes sense, but it's boring, conflict is sexy, so we know what we'll get.

[ParadoxLost]

13 hours ago, Haleth said:

Yeah, Jeremiah is going to go all walker (not Walker) on them soon.

You give her a lot more credit for deep thinking than I do.  Then again, a convoluted plot to first raise up the crazy one only to have him self destruct so the saner brother could take over could be something that makes sense to Madison.  Never mind the collateral damage.  As long as precious Nick is unharmed.

I've been taking it as a given that she is playing out her "plan" from earlier in the season that they were staying even if they had to take things over.

She likely sees Troy as the easiest leader to overthrow.  Dad dies and Troy takes over.  Then he goes unchecked psychotic and then after stirring up some "how could Jake let his crazy brother commit these crimes" or needling Troy to kill his brother then Madison shoots Troy and "saves" everyone.

[mightysparrow]

On 7/3/2017 at 7:16 PM, MDKNIGHT said:

(BTW I never saw the first few eps....Travis was Maori but what ethnicity was her kids' father.  Did they ever say? Nick doesn't look fully Caucasian to me.)

 

 

I don't know what Nick and Alicia's ethnicity is but the actor who plays Nick is biracial. 

[rmontro]

15 hours ago, Bongo Fury said:

Madison sure seems to be taking a turn towards the dark side. I wonder if TPTB are reacting to the criticism that it is only (or at the very least are the vast majority) the psychotic that survive and build communities in the ZA.

Let's face it, that's always been a main theme of The Walking Dead and this show.  That moral people are going to die, and it's only those with no scruples that survive.  Meh, I don't agree with it, but that's what they're selling.

[JackONeill]

50 minutes ago, rmontro said:

Let's face it, that's always been a main theme of The Walking Dead and this show.  That moral people are going to die, and it's only those with no scruples that survive.  Meh, I don't agree with it, but that's what they're selling.

Although this has probably been said a million times, this approach (the immoral survive!) gets old quick. Sure, I understand if you have a show about good people it would probably get boring. So, yeah, you need tension. Good people don't provide tension because they're, well, good. No complaints, and everyone goes to bed on time.

In an end-of-the-world environment, you would think there would be lots of things to explore. BUT------ all I'm seeing from both shows is that it comes down to who has water, who has walls, who has bullets, who has manpower, who has a tiger, who has a bat. I have seen nothing more complex than that -- with one exception: the cannibals. That was some nuanced (in a ham-fisted way, but this is TWD/FTWD) story-telling.

[minamurray78]

On 3/7/2017 at 9:29 PM, FishyJoe said:

I don't think Travis is even dead, we didn't see a body. 

Well, he was badly wounded on his neck from a bullet and had a bite on his stomach. If he survived the fall and everything else without turning, then this show is fully done.

Which I think is also part of Madison's motivation to rally the ranch against Walker and his people, she craves a bit a vengeance. I think Travis' demise is what pushed her to give no fucks anymore: she finally has her 2 kids together, in a place with food weapons, and, well, not as many crazys as some other locations the've been before. She thinks she can handle Troy, who¿s been drawn to her form the start, and she's willing to exploit that. It's just a matter of who'll bite the bullet first: Troy, his brother or their father. Still, mid season finale is coming, so we know it's all going to go to hell and half the people on the ranch will probably die, ranch 's gonna burn down to the ground, etc etc, the usual crap the Clarks lug around with them wherever they go.

 .

[Gobi]

According to the show runners on Talking Dead, Travis wasn't bitten. He was struck by a bullet that entered his abdomen and exited from his neck. I still think he's dead. The actor was too happy on Talking Dead for his character to still be alive.

[Nashville]

1. Travis took a bullet which entered his lower right abdomen.
2. The bullet exited the left side of Travis's neck - a distance travelled through body tissue of something in excess of two feet.  This degree of penetration at distance indicates Travis was hit by a high-velocity rifle round.
3. Whilst making its merry way through Travis's innards, the bullet (and/or its fragments) presumably did some degree of damage to everything between entry and exit - appendix, large and small intestines, heart, lungs, veins and arteries- including the left carotid artery, which was spurting from the exit wound.
4. Travis then FELL OUT OF A FREAKING HELICOPTER, at a height of at least a hundred feet or more; lower than that, and they'd have already been running into treetops, hilltops or power lines before the first shot was fired.

So - unless someone is reasonably trying to postulate the fall didn't immediately kill Travis AND he didn't bleed out within minutes from the lacerated carotid AND the peritonitis from the gutshot didn't eventually kill him AND infected on the ground didn't immediately fall upon the wounded, bleeding man who just fell from the sky, I don't see how there's any question on the issue.  

Assuming, of course, Travis is not Danny Aiello and this is FTWD, not Hudson Hawk.

[DesertCyclist]

On 7/3/2017 at 5:09 PM, Sentient Meat said:

reboot the show around Alicia

If they'd let Alycia Debnam-Carey channel her character Lexa from The 100, I'd watch the shit out of that show.

[Nashville]

1 hour ago, DesertCyclist said:

If they'd let Alycia Debnam-Carey channel her character Lexa from The 100, I'd watch the shit out of that show.

Does AD-C have a rider in her contracts which states her characters' names have to be phonetically similar to her own?  :>

[FishyJoe]

7 hours ago, minamurray78 said:

Well, he was badly wounded on his neck from a bullet and had a bite on his stomach. If he survived the fall and everything else without turning, then this show is fully done.

Which I think is also part of Madison's motivation to rally the ranch against Walker and his people, she craves a bit a vengeance. I think Travis' demise is what pushed her to give no fucks anymore: she finally has her 2 kids together, in a place with food weapons, and, well, not as many crazys as some other locations the've been before. She thinks she can handle Troy, who¿s been drawn to her form the start, and she's willing to exploit that. It's just a matter of who'll bite the bullet first: Troy, his brother or their father. Still, mid season finale is coming, so we know it's all going to go to hell and half the people on the ranch will probably die, ranch 's gonna burn down to the ground, etc etc, the usual crap the Clarks lug around with them wherever they go.

 .

I think it would be hilarious if she got the two sides entangled in a bitter war as revenge for killing Travis, even though Walker was the one that nursed Travis back to health. Can you imagine? They are fighting against each other and Madison sees Travis on the other side?

[Nashville]

5 hours ago, FishyJoe said:

I think it would be hilarious if she got the two sides entangled in a bitter war as revenge for killing Travis, even though Walker was the one that nursed Travis back to health. Can you imagine? They are fighting against each other and Madison sees Travis on the other side?

The hilarious bit would be if Travis had a raven sitting on his shoulder....

[minamurray78]

On 7/6/2017 at 1:21 PM, Gobi said:

According to the show runners on Talking Dead, Travis wasn't bitten. He was struck by a bullet that entered his abdomen and exited from his neck. 

uuugghh that sounds like there was a lot of...ripping and tearing from the inside.

[Raven1707]

The Sunday Cable ratings are in for "Red Dirt"

AMC’s “Fear the Walking Dead” landed on top in the Sunday cable ratings this week. The “Walking Dead” spin-off series raked in a 0.8 rating in adults 18-49 on the network, down two-tenths from its previous 1.0. [2.193 million]

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/daily-ratings/sunday-cable-ratings-july-2-2017/

Here are the Live + Same Day ratings for Season 3 to date:

06-04-17 “Eye of the Beholder” 3.109 million
06-04-17 “The New Frontier” 2.698 million
06-11-17 “Teotwawki” 2.504 million
06-18-17 “100" 2.396 million
06-25-17 “Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame” 2.499 million
07-02-17 “Red Dirt” 2.193 million

Perhaps attributable to the holiday weekend, but...not good.

[Big Papi Juan]

Am I the only one that hates Madison?! I hate her more with every episode. Kill this bitch off ASAP! Really, they kill off Travis but keep this fucktard on board?! I love, love, love a tough strong confident woman, but Madison comes off like some self centered arrogant vainglorious bitch. I can't stand her.

Edited July 10, 2017 by Big Papi Juan
grammatical error

[Raven1707]

The Cable Live +3 ratings are in for "Red Dirt":

“Fear the Walking Dead” made the biggest gains of the week, growing by 0.7 in adults 18-49 [to 1.5] and by 1.5 million viewers. [3.699 million viewers]

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/dvr-ratings/cable-live-3-ratings-for-june-26-july-2-2017/

Here are the Live + Same Day ratings, followed by the Live +3 ratings for Season 3 so far:

06-04-17 “Eye of the Beholder” 3.109 million; 4.656 million
06-04-17 “New Frontier” 2.698 million; 4.180 million
06-11-17 “Teotwawki” 2.504 million; 3.803 million
06-18-17 “100" 2.396 million; 3.658 million
06-25-17 “Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame” 2.499 million; not reported
07-02-17 “Red Dirt” 2.193 million; 3.699 million

[bookrat]

I wasn't paying attention at the end. Who was on the ground that everyone was standing around?

[ACW]

On 7/6/2017 at 1:53 PM, Nashville said:

So - unless someone is reasonably trying to postulate the fall didn't immediately kill Travis AND he didn't bleed out within minutes from the lacerated carotid AND the peritonitis from the gutshot didn't eventually kill him AND infected on the ground didn't immediately fall upon the wounded, bleeding man who just fell from the sky, I don't see how there's any question on the issue.  

Assuming, of course, Travis is not Danny Aiello and this is FTWD, not Hudson Hawk.

Air bags!  Can you believe it?

[Nashville]

2 hours ago, ACW said:

Air bags!  Can you believe it?

FINALLY SOMEBODY GOT THE DAMN PUNCHLINE!!!!!  :D

[rmontro]

On 7/6/2017 at 1:53 PM, Nashville said:

1. Travis took a bullet which entered his lower right abdomen.
2. The bullet exited the left side of Travis's neck - a distance travelled through body tissue of something in excess of two feet.  This degree of penetration at distance indicates Travis was hit by a high-velocity rifle round.
3. Whilst making its merry way through Travis's innards, the bullet (and/or its fragments) presumably did some degree of damage to everything between entry and exit - appendix, large and small intestines, heart, lungs, veins and arteries- including the left carotid artery, which was spurting from the exit wound.
4. Travis then FELL OUT OF A FREAKING HELICOPTER, at a height of at least a hundred feet or more; lower than that, and they'd have already been running into treetops, hilltops or power lines before the first shot was fired.

Oh, if you look at it medically he should definitely be dead, a few times over.  But it's more at the discretion of the writers in this case.  They did confirm on Talking Dead that it was a bullet through the abdomen, not a bite.  And they also confirmed he was dead.  So for now at least, I believe he is dead.  They can always change their mind though.  I don't expect that to happen, but anything's possible.

By the way, I recall some people saying Travis died heroically because he threw himself out of the helicopter, to lighten the load and increase the odds for the rest to survive, or whatever.  I really don't think that makes any sense, because he was muttering "Help me" the entire time.  It looked to me more like he was in shock and out of his head, and stumbled off the helicopter.  Just like sine people suffering from altitude sickness walk off a cliff while climbing Everest. 

[ACW]

On 7/19/2017 at 0:06 PM, rmontro said:

Oh, if you look at it medically he should definitely be dead, a few times over.  But it's more at the discretion of the writers in this case.  They did confirm on Talking Dead that it was a bullet through the abdomen, not a bite.  And they also confirmed he was dead.  So for now at least, I believe he is dead.  They can always change their mind though.  I don't expect that to happen, but anything's possible.

By the way, I recall some people saying Travis died heroically because he threw himself out of the helicopter, to lighten the load and increase the odds for the rest to survive, or whatever.  I really don't think that makes any sense, because he was muttering "Help me" the entire time.  It looked to me more like he was in shock and out of his head, and stumbled off the helicopter.  Just like sine people suffering from altitude sickness walk off a cliff while climbing Everest. 

At the time, I took that as Travis meaning "I'm about to die, help me get out of the helicopter before I turn."

[rmontro]

3 minutes ago, ACW said:

At the time, I took that as Travis meaning "I'm about to die, help me get out of the helicopter before I turn."

Eh, it's possible I guess.  People don't usually turn instantaneously though.

[Iguessnot]

There's also the problem of some people grieving over the recently dead and not ensuring they don't turn. So Travis might have tossed himself to save those who might be foolish enough to believe he could be saved.