S09.E09: Adaptation

[Persnickety1]

18 minutes ago, Ohwell said:

Ok, so is she with Gabriel now?  I was washing dishes and missed some of this stuff.

Apparently so.

For the record, washing the dishes was probably more entertaining than a few segments of tonight's episode.  

[iMonrey]

Quote

It is amazing that after all that time Luke is still unable to defend himself against walkers, and is still alive. Has his group been carrying him all around?

And feeding him well, apparently. Seriously, how is anyone overweight at this point? What the hell are they eating to stay overweight 10 years into the ZA? Did they find a stash of Hostess Twinkies somewhere? Contrary to urban legend, those do go bad. But even if they're living off pre-packaged junk food, they're wandering around aimlessly and dropping like flies until there's only four left in their group. That's not exactly the kind of sedentary lifestyle that leads to weight issues. 

[Ohwell]

Who is Luke?  There are too any people on this show.

[nodorothyparker]

Luke is the music teacher played by Dan Fogler who came in with the latest group of survivors.  I like the actor a lot and think he's giving it all he's got to try to do something with the role, but yeah he looks a little ... rotund to have been on the run this far into the ZA.

[AngelaHunter]

4 minutes ago, nodorothyparker said:

Luke is the music teacher played by Dan Fogler who came in with the latest group of survivors. 

Thank you. Now I know who he is. And yeah, walking around 10 years post-apocalypse with a big jelly-belly would likely have people all around cornering him and asking suspiciously, "How do you do that?"

[AngelaHunter]

6 hours ago, Jel said:

Also, their festering, decrepit, advanced periodontal diseased teeth would barely be able to stay in their mouths and would definitely come out with one bite, and that would be the end of that. There should be way more toothless walkers at this point and way more walkers who can't really muster up the energy to get up. I get that it's horror and not science fiction, but I feel there needs to be at least some logic involved in this stuff.

All the flesh would be long since rotted off by now. We saw the one that grabbed Negan's belt and just by moving forward he ripped the walker in half since they are so fragile, yet one of them can kill a pack of big, well-fed healthy dogs. How did the dogs stay so healthy? Who knows. Dogs will eat rotted meat, but living on a diet of decayed flesh of walkers would be very bad for them and they'd be suffering all kinds of diseases, parasites and bacterial infections. Ugh. I guess it all falls under the usual category of some genius saying, "Wouldn't it be cool if..."

[Ohwell]

22 minutes ago, nodorothyparker said:

Luke is the music teacher played by Dan Fogler who came in with the latest group of survivors.  I like the actor a lot and think he's giving it all he's got to try to do something with the role, but yeah he looks a little ... rotund to have been on the run this far into the ZA.

Ok, thanks.  I had never seen him before early yesterday when I saw him in Scenic Route.  He was really good in that.

Alas, I think the walkers will love dining on him.  

[Nashville]

4 hours ago, sarthaz said:

I needed context clues to figure out who "Adam" and "Eric" are, and I just take you at your word that those are their names. That's how many characters are on this show that make no impact on me.

Methinks “Adam” = Aaron.  Eric was Aaron’s partner, who died in the assault on the Sanctuary last season.

2 hours ago, Ohwell said:

Ok, so is [Rosita] with Gabriel now?  I was washing dishes and missed some of this stuff.

Rosita and Gabriel being a couple was referenced in the first half of the season; not much more than a sentence fragment’s worth of mention in this episode.

Edited February 11, 2019 by Nashville
Eric expansion

[SoSueMe]

For all that is holy can they please devise some subplot to rescue Carol and Michonne from those atrocious wigs?

[Persnickety1]

39 minutes ago, Nashville said:

Methinks “Adam” = Aaron.  Eric was Aaron’s partner, who died in the assault on the Sanctuary last season.

Rosita and Gabriel being a couple was referenced in the first half of the season; not much more than a sentence fragment’s worth of mention in this episode.

LOL, you're right.  I think I'm the one who called him "Adam" earlier in this thread.  

I guess that shows how interchangeable/irrelevant some of these characters are to the show.  

I'm waiting to see the fallout from Gabriel overhearing Rosita talking about being pregnant.  

[AngelaHunter]

37 minutes ago, Nashville said:

Methinks “Adam” = Aaron.  Eric was Aaron’s partner, who died in the assault on the Sanctuary last season.

I believe that is correct, if you're referring to the person who finished off Jesus, although keeping names straight with this revolving door of secondary and new characters is difficult. Speaking of Aaron, he has an actual metal hand with fingers and knuckles on the end of his metal arm. Who was capable of fashioning that? (please don't say Eugene)Does the hand work, or is it just aesthetic? Excuse my ignorance.

So I just tried doing something I haven't done in ages with this show, and that's rewatch the ep since I obviously missed a lot. I just started and thought, wait - what? Here's Negan wandering around and it's night. My memory is horrible but I'm pretty sure when he saw him get out of jail last season it was daylight. He's eating the tomato and it's night. Judith catches him on the fence and it's daylight again. We're supposed to think that someone who escaped jail would meander around all day and all night and into the next day at the location of his incarceration before even thinking of leaving and not a soul, other than that brat, saw him? He goes into Michonne's house (she seems to see no reason to lock a door with two small children there) and into the kid's room and still is undetected? Wow, is all I can say.

Everything I've read and heard about escaped prisoners indicates that the first thing they do is get away as far as fast as they can.

[AngelaHunter]

Just now, icemiser69 said:

Wasn't Neil the dude that was trying to protect the horses from the walkers on the bridge way back when Rick was still on the show?

Nope. That was someone else,  who was I think talking about his father or Henry's father or something like that. Neil was sitting in the car with Maggie when some Savior stopped them on the road and "Oh, no!" they shot Neil! Oh shit. 

[nodorothyparker]

6 minutes ago, icemiser69 said:

Wasn't Neil the dude that was trying to protect the horses from the walkers on the bridge way back when Rick was still on the show?

That was Ken, son of Brett Butler's character, Tammy.  He was in just that one episode to protect the horses and then died.  We joked at the time that he was the Neil of season 9.

Neil was some random background character who was sitting in the passenger seat next to Maggie when one of the Savior bigwigs shot him in the head after they broke out of the Sanctuary.  Maggie immediately began caterwauling that "they shot Neil!" and making her revenge in threatening to kill other Savior prisoners all about justice for Neil.  Except that I don't think we'd ever heard Neil speak and didn't know anything about him.

[jackjill89]

I find it a little humorous that the only two people that Negan actually seems to like in the ZA are two kids. He's shown more respect in his weird Negan way to Carl and Judith than to anyone. 

He's so cartoony, I find it hard to be really disgusted by him.  Yes, he did horrible things to people, but the writing was so over the top that I just never have taken him too seriously. He wasn't a good villain. They really blew it with him, and the Saviors. That whole "I am Negan thing" and his asshole lieutenants. They were all so unlikeable, and not in a good villainy way. 

I feel like the show wasted a lot of time on this.

The Whisperers appearing seemingly out of nowhere and using the arrows as bait -- now that was good and creepy. So much better than that stupid whistling. 

[theredhead77]

9 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

I don't like watching any animal violence.  I am tired of it.

Same (I don't even like watching the dinosaur feeding scenes in Jurassic Park). That's why I am glad whatever happened was off screen.  I would have been more upset if Negan fed Dog or a domesticated dog to a Walker but these dogs just tried to rip him apart, it's kill or be killed. I already spend enough of this show worried about the horses and now worried about Dog.

On the topic of dogs, IMHO it's cool that the doggie actors look healthy and well fed. I don't need to see an emaciated dogs, or want them to starve a dog for realism.

[AngelaHunter]

2 minutes ago, theredhead77 said:

or want them to starve a dog for realism.

Of course no one would starve animals for realism (unlike human actors who do that to themselves. Looking at you, JDM) but if they can't make something look even vaguely realistic, don't include it. The dog scene was an utterly pointless time filler, as so many scenes are here.  Historically, animals are included in this series only to die horrible deaths, pronto. I'm hoping they don't do this to Daryl's Dog, but I'm not counting on him surviving. I guess I shouldn't bother saying that at this point there would be no purebred dogs like Daryl's Malinois and after generations of random breeding they would all look vaguely like Dingos. Oh well, I did say it.

[Ocean Chick]

9 hours ago, mightysparrow said:

None of the people who rode with Rick all that time can be bothered to spend a little time with his daughter?  Carol is 'raising' Henry (and doing a terrible job, by the way) yet she doesn't know that the daughter of TWO of her closest friends is hanging out with a rapist/mass murderer?  Bullshit.

Judith is Michonne’s daughter, not Carol’s. Carol is at the Kingdom so she can’t and shouldn’t be expected to keep an eye on Judith who is st ASZ. That’s on Michonne and the people who live there. 

And Henry’s just too stupid to train and deserves to die. That’s on him and not Carol too. Lol

[sarthaz]

1 hour ago, Persnickety1 said:

LOL, you're right.  I think I'm the one who called him "Adam" earlier in this thread.  

I guess that shows how interchangeable/irrelevant some of these characters are to the show.  

I'm waiting to see the fallout from Gabriel overhearing Rosita talking about being pregnant.  

Holy crap. This is the most Walking Dead thing ever. LOL I had no idea you were wrong, and I suspect neither did half the people in this thread. 

I've been trying to think of something I'd care about less than Rosita being pregnant, and I've got nothing. 

[mightysparrow]

11 minutes ago, Ocean Chick said:

Judith is Michonne’s daughter, not Carol’s. Carol is at the Kingdom so she can’t and shouldn’t be expected to keep an eye on Judith who is st ASZ. That’s on Michonne and the people who live there. 

And Henry’s just too stupid to train and deserves to die. That’s on him and not Carol too. Lol

I don't think Carol should be dropping in everyday to make Judith lunch.  I just think that Rick's friends should keep an eye on his children because they loved him.  Daryl should be making way more of an effort than Carol because he lives close by. 

And I can't argue about Henry being too stupid to live.

I noticed Michonne's new voice.  Perhaps it's the weight of the new wig that's straining her vocal cords.  Between the clanging of falling anvils and the sotto voce speaking, I couldn't understand half of what Michonne and Daryl were talking about.  Luckily, I'm well versed in 'meaningful looks' so I think I have some idea.

[One4Sorrow2TooBad]

Lol, I didn't know this was on last night. I remember back when I truly looked forward to seeing the new season, but that faded about 2 or 3 seasons ago. 

[riverheightsnancy]

8 hours ago, marcee said:

I, too, am having logistical problems with the Whisperers as a "thing". Yes, it's creepy and interesting... but at the end of the day, what is the purpose? If they spend their time slowly shuffling around in the midst of zombie hordes when and where and how do they get food and clean water. Everything's been stripped bare. If they're not growing food or taking time to purify water... how are they surviving? If they're caring for their hordes, how are they caring for themselves? If they really believe the world belongs to the dead, why don't they just join the dead? I can't imagine a long term strategy for this story that makes any kind of sense.

I so agree with this. There is no end game with the Whisperers. Besides the flesh that they take from the dead would continue to decompose and fall apart. The whole thing is creepy, but makes no logical sense. The thing that I really hated though, was the fact that AMC just completely spoiled these guys before the show even came back.  If you saw ANY commercials at all before last night, you saw what would happen. That kind of ruins it for those that have never read the novels. I think they made a huge mistake getting rid of Carl as well. Carl leading the younger crew would have been of interest to me. Judith, not at all. 

[Diane M]

7 hours ago, Ohwell said:

Michonne and that hot mess that's on her head.  I wish she'd just get a haircut. 

Bingo!  They should let the actress forget the wig and wear her own close-cropped hair.

[Diane M]

That young girl is Judith?  I didn't watch the first of the season, so how many years have passed?  The last time I saw Judith she was about four years old.

[diebartdie]

29 minutes ago, riverheightsnancy said:

I so agree with this. There is no end game with the Whisperers. Besides the flesh that they take from the dead would continue to decompose and fall apart. The whole thing is creepy, but makes no logical sense.

Right unless they are tanning the skin but then, wouldnt that just make it leather and how is that blocking living human smell anyway?

[mightysparrow]

23 minutes ago, riverheightsnancy said:

I so agree with this. There is no end game with the Whisperers. Besides the flesh that they take from the dead would continue to decompose and fall apart. The whole thing is creepy, but makes no logical sense. The thing that I really hated though, was the fact that AMC just completely spoiled these guys before the show even came back.  If you saw ANY commercials at all before last night, you saw what would happen. That kind of ruins it for those that have never read the novels. I think they made a huge mistake getting rid of Carl as well. Carl leading the younger crew would have been of interest to me. Judith, not at all. 

I couldn't understand why there was so much talk about the Whisperers all over AMC.  It just seemed to defeat the purpose and remove any element of surprise.  And then throw in that it doesn't make one single lick of sense.  These people are walking around in herds of walkers, wearing walker skins.  Why?  What purpose does it serve?  The Governor, Termites even the Saviours were evil for a purpose.  What do the Whisperers get out of this mishegas?  They scare people.  That's it? 

Like so many have said, the boilerplate excuses just don't make any sense any more.  My husband/wife/son/daughter/pet was killed so I decided to become evil.  It's more than 10 years into the ZA; who are you terrorizing anymore? 

I get the feeling that the Whisperers are going to be Neganx100.  It only works in a comic book.  A character that walks around carrying a baseball bat talking about his dick might work on paper but not in live action.  Dwight and Sherry's story was much more interesting than Negan's story was because they were REAL people trying to survive, not cartoon characters.

[AngelaHunter]

49 minutes ago, Diane M said:

That young girl is Judith?  I didn't watch the first of the season, so how many years have passed?  The last time I saw Judith she was about four years old.

Six years passed between the end of last season and the start of this one.

[Jel]

Does "Alpha" have anything to do with the "This one is an A and this one is a B" business?

[Haleth]

16 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

I don't think the problem was losing the main characters.  I think the problem was that the writers didn't really attempt to build up any of the newer characters to replace the main characters until they started losing the main characters.

Really.  When they are scraping the bottom of the barrel by making Tara a lead character?  Not good writing.  Reading this thread I have to keep reminding myself who all these people being mentioned are.  Luke?  Alpha?  Adam?  Ha!  I thought I knew who Neil was but I guess I was mixing him up the horse guy, too.  It was surprising that Bret Butler is still in the cast. 

The characters we care about need to be together so we can see them in each episode.  Filling time with poorly written people whose names we can't remember isn't going to cut it, neither is the wash, rinse, repeat plot of someone gets lost, others go to find him/her, they get captured by bad guys, war ensues.  That said, this is still better than the tedious Saviors plot.

Never mind who is watching Judith, who is watching Michonne's baby?

I agree the Whisperers make no sense.  Shouldn't they be scavenging food and water instead of shuffling around with the walkers?  What's the point?

I also agree that trying to redeem Negan is disappointing.  However, JDM acted the hell out of the scene with his return to the Sanctuary.

[SamBeckett]

41 minutes ago, Haleth said:

I also agree that trying to redeem Negan is disappointing.  However, JDM acted the hell out of the scene with his return to the Sanctuary.

 

At the risk of ticking off the anti-Negan (which I feel I'm a part of for obvious reasons), I too thought JDM did a great job the other night. The scene when Judith caught him going over the fence — I mean he could have easily bopped her on the head, or taken her gun. But he didn't . . . and I think it's that he likes her AND didn't want to hurt her. I think you saw the turmoil on his face and even in his movements. Freedom was right there ... but for this little girl.

Not that JDM is Laurence Olivier, but when compared with ALL the other actors currently on theis show, he STANDS out. (Except when he goes on one of his 20-minute monologues which seems to be only dick-related. Not exactly Shakesperean!!!)

[Bryce Lynch]

23 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

Technically, Judith is the daughter of Shane and Lori.

I do agree that someone should be keeping an eye on Judith.  I don't know why she is allowed to run all over the place with a revolver in her hands.  I am surprised that the antagonists haven't kidnapped her yet.   The adults get caught all of the time, and Judith can wonder all over the place without being in any danger of some bad element even sneezing on her.

Nope, Judith letting Negan go is more reliable than a DNA test.  She is Rick's.   Shane's little girl would have blown his head off.

[CletusMusashi]

21 hours ago, diebartdie said:

Fuck it, let's talk about those dogs. I was thinking about them when I watched the shitty shitty show last night. That one big black one had cropped ears. How would that be a thing? I mean dogs generally live 8-15 years. All those dogs looked young and healthy so clearly, they were born wild and free and were all younger than Judith. Aint gonna be no cropped ears on dogs that late in the ZA. 

The ears could have been bitten off by a zombie. I assume that any existing packs of large dogs are habitually eating zombies. A lot of their diet could just be scavenging the completely-dead ones that get shot and left behind every week, but based on their aggressiveness toward Negan I would also assume that they often hunt and kill their own prey, only seriously avoiding confrontations with groups of zombies or humans.

What I do have a problem with is that, reagrdless of whether the individual in question was a zombie, a whisperer, or a chupacabra, if they or it could be spun around like a ragdoll so easily by Negan then the dogs should have torn them to pieces pretty easily. I mean, we've seen Daryl rip off a zombie's head one-handed, for christsake. You can swing a chain through three of their heads at once. You can kill them by squirting a fire hose! Even it lands a lucky kill bite on one, you really think none of the other zombie-hunting dogs are going to chomp into its ridiculous cardboard skull and put an end to it?

Edited February 12, 2019 by CletusMusashi

[AngelaHunter]

2 hours ago, Haleth said:

When they are scraping the bottom of the barrel by making Tara a lead character?  Not good writing.

It's sad to see TPTB getting desperate enough to promote Miss "I have two expressions in my repertoire" Tara in this way.

1 hour ago, SamBeckett said:

Not that JDM is Laurence Olivier, but when compared with ALL the other actors currently on theis show, he STANDS out

I agree he's a competent actor for sure and that showed the few times he was acting like a normal human being.  After he joined TWD I checked him out in another role and he was likable and personable but his previous performances here - although I know he was just doing as asked to be Bobby K's self-insert -  made him so annoying, loathesome and boring that for me it taints everything else he does.

34 minutes ago, Bryce Lynch said:

Nope, Judith letting Negan go is more reliable than a DNA test.  She is Rick's.   Shane's little girl would have blown his head off.

But Real Rick would have blown his head off too. He never hesitated to blow heads off.  He killed Shane, after all. Pod-person "Can't we all just get along?" Rick, invented to make sure Negan stays around forever, was a fairly recent incarnation.

[nodorothyparker]

9 minutes ago, AngelaHunter said:

But Real Rick would have blown his head off too. He never hesitated to blow heads off.  He killed Shane, after all.

Depends entirely on which Rick you were dealing with.  Kill 'Em All Rick, the guy who murdered people pre-emtively, sure.  The Rick who doggedly insisted that it was better to shoot at windows than take out the source of so much of their misery for some larger ill-defined lesson about building a better world, not so much.  That's where the show really wasted Jon Berenthal's cameo in Rick's big death fantasy dream sequence.  Instead of retreading the same tired old banter the show should have had dream fantasy Shane smacking Rick upside the head and asking him WTH he was thinking leaving someone like Negan alive.  We know Shane wouldn't have.

[AngelaHunter]

Just now, nodorothyparker said:

The Rick who doggedly insisted that it was better to shoot at windows than take out the source of so much of their misery for some larger ill-defined lesson about building a better world, not so much. 

I should have said, "Pre-Negan Rick" rather than "Real" since Post-Negan Rick was someone else, someone who would turn on his own people to protect the person who would have been Carl's murderer if not for the intervention of a frickin' tiger.

[Smad]

22 hours ago, nodorothyparker said:

At this point, I don't know if Henry's naive hothouse flower routine is indicative or being raised by two people who'd already lost too much and did the equivalent of bubble-wrapping him or it's a larger indictment of these communities that appear to have mostly sat behind walls for most of the six-year time jump.  In the meantime, the ASZhats seem to have given up all pretense of paying any attention to Judith, who gets to hang out unsupervised with a serial murderer and torturer whenever she isn't out wandering the roads with a gun that any adult could easily take off of her at any time were he so inclined.  That's a level of child neglect Lori Grimes would be deeply impressed by and would have made Carl envious.

At this point I'm wondering if the writers are trying to make the argument that nature trumps nurture. But at the same time shielding the children with much more plot armor. Judith seems to have the same nature as Carl, in that she always sneaks off and tells no one. It doesn't seem to matter how many times the parents say 'don't do that', the kids don't learn. It also seems that Judith's sneaking off doesn't seem to have had the dire consequences that Carl's did. I mean Carl got people killed with his antics and he was often himself in need of a last minute save. They don't seem willing to do the same for Judith which is weird.

I don't fault Carol for Henry. That little idiot was this way long before Carol even became a 'parent' for him. He's been doing the sneaking off, running into danger, not having control over his emotions or holding back when needed since we met him. His older brother makes an interesting contrast to that. They had parents, then the older brother raised Henry (probably like his parents raised him) and both then sort of taken in by Ezekiel. But the brothers are different, hence the conclusion that nature trumps nurture. Henry won't change (much like Carl didn't) and it will be continued trouble for everyone.

[mightysparrow]

42 minutes ago, CletusMusashi said:

The ears could have been bitten off by a zombie. I assume that any existing packs of large dogs are habitually eating zombies. A lot of their diet could just be scavenging the completely-dead ones that get shot and left behind every week, but based on their aggressiveness toward Negan I would also assume that they often hunt and kill their own prey, only seriously avoiding confrontations with groups of zombies or humans.

What I do have a problem with is that, reagrdless of whether the individual in question was a zombie, a whisperer, or a chupacabra, if they or it could be spun around like a ragdoll so easily by Negan then the dogs should have torn them to pieces pretty easily. I mean, we've seen Daryl rip off a zombie's head one-handed, for christsake. You can swing a chain through three of their heads at once. You can kill them by squirting a fire hose! Even it lands a lucky kill bite on one, you really think none of the other zombie-hunting dogs are going to chomp into its ridiculous cardboard skull and put an end to it?

Unpopular opinion, but I didn't feel a twinge of 'poor doggies' in that scene.  That herd of fat and sassy dogs would have torn any and all walkers to pieces.  Shit, they were going after Negan, weren't they?  The showrunners put the scene off camera because they knew that a lot of animal lovers would get the vapours at the mere suggestion of animal danger.  Forget that there's a little girl hanging out with a mass murderer/sexual predator.

I think DreamShane told Rick Judith was his just to fuck with him.  No child of Shane is going to let a danger to his loved ones live.  That's all Rick Grimes. Or whoever it was that was wearing Rick's clothes by the time Andrew Lincoln checked out. 

There was a time when I LOVED Rick.  The Rick who tore a man's throat out for THREATENING to rape his son.  When Rick Grimes said 'They're messing with the wrong people' I CHEERED.  That Rick Grimes got lost somewhere on the road and by the time they got to Alexandria, I couldn't stand him.  It made me sick to see one of my favourite characters ever get stuck with a man so unworthy of her. 

Being an asshole must be sexually transmitted because I don't know who this dreadlocked person carrying a katana is.  It sure as shit isn't Michonne.  She doesn't even SOUND like Michonne anymore.  Michonne was working on a charter for all the groups to follow.  Now we're supposed to believe that Michonne doesn't want to have anything to do with the people she fought and bled with.  That she would turn her back on MAGGIE.  No matter what Maggie felt about keeping Negan alive, she was Glenn's wife.  Little Hershel was Glenn's child.  I will never believe that Michonne would turn on Maggie.  Michonne was ride or die for her family, not just the guy she was fucking.  But they had to shit on Michonne because they didn't want to pay Lauren what she was worth.

[Ohwell]

26 minutes ago, mightysparrow said:

Unpopular opinion, but I didn't feel a twinge of 'poor doggies' in that scene.  That herd of fat and sassy dogs would have torn any and all walkers to pieces.  Shit, they were going after Negan, weren't they?  The showrunners put the scene off camera because they knew that a lot of animal lovers would get the vapours at the mere suggestion of animal danger.  Forget that there's a little girl hanging out with a mass murderer/sexual predator.

I agree!

[Smad]

21 minutes ago, mightysparrow said:

Being an asshole must be sexually transmitted because I don't know who this dreadlocked person carrying a katana is.  It sure as shit isn't Michonne.  She doesn't even SOUND like Michonne anymore.  Michonne was working on a charter for all the groups to follow.  Now we're supposed to believe that Michonne doesn't want to have anything to do with the people she fought and bled with.  That she would turn her back on MAGGIE.  No matter what Maggie felt about keeping Negan alive, she was Glenn's wife.  Little Hershel was Glenn's child.  I will never believe that Michonne would turn on Maggie.  Michonne was ride or die for her family, not just the guy she was fucking.  But they had to shit on Michonne because they didn't want to pay Lauren what she was worth.

I don't understand why the show went all archaic with that relationship specifically. The 'stand by your man' mentality was more suited to the early days of TWD but it would never have been Michonne to adapt such a mentality. Especially when you consider that she previously stood by her man and it cost her her son. I mean her bf didn't just start doing drugs in the middle of the ZA, he clearly did before. And prior to getting with Rick she was never shy of expressing an opinion different from Rick's. But suddenly she is silenced and just lets him do what he wants and even defends him and his decision to others. I don't know who that is but it's not Michonne. Michonne has been more group oriented and first in line to stick up for people and the good of the group. But suddenly she's all 'as my man goes so goes my nation'? Urgh. And now she is just a ball of anger and anti-group and they don't give a reason why.

[mightysparrow]

1 hour ago, Smad said:

I don't understand why the show went all archaic with that relationship specifically. The 'stand by your man' mentality was more suited to the early days of TWD but it would never have been Michonne to adapt such a mentality. Especially when you consider that she previously stood by her man and it cost her her son. I mean her bf didn't just start doing drugs in the middle of the ZA, he clearly did before. And prior to getting with Rick she was never shy of expressing an opinion different from Rick's. But suddenly she is silenced and just lets him do what he wants and even defends him and his decision to others. I don't know who that is but it's not Michonne. Michonne has been more group oriented and first in line to stick up for people and the good of the group. But suddenly she's all 'as my man goes so goes my nation'? Urgh. And now she is just a ball of anger and anti-group and they don't give a reason why.

Exactly!

We're supposed to forget that Michonne went upside Rick's head with a rock when he endangered their new-found life in Alexandria, a life that was so important to her that she put down her katana and put on a deputy dawg uniform.  But Rick Grimes' dick was so powerful that it turned her into a meek little woman?  It didn't work that way with Lori.  Rick was barely 'dead' before Lori was jumping all over Shane. 

The second Michonne got with Rick her past life was thrown away, along with her relationships with anyone else on the show.  It seemed to be forgotten that Michonne had been CARL'S friend.  That's why Rick said 'it's for you' in one of the most iconic moments in TWD. Carl was the one that Michonne told about the Peanut and what happened with Mike.  Carl was the one who decided that Michonne was 'one of them'.   After Michonne started fucking Rick, she and Carl barely spoke. 

There were other characters that Michonne was close to.  Sasha and Michonne shared some important moments before Michonne got dickmatized.  Michonne and Daryl were very close.  They rode together, searching for the Governor and were witnesses when Rick tore a man's throat out for his son's sake.  THAT'S a bonding moment.  But it seemed that they were afraid to put Michonne and Daryl in the same scene.  I have my own theories about that. 

Another mystery is the reluctance to put Michonne and Carol together.  Over the years, they've barely spoken.  One would think they would have so much in common; two women who lost their children so brutally.  Maybe it's because they were rivals in the comics.  I also have  theories about it.

I have no idea why they felt the need to destroy Michonne.  She's one of the most iconic characters in the TWD universe.  Not only that but Danai is one of the strongest (it's a toss up between her and Lennie) actors on the show.  It's like they gutted her character and gave Carol all of Michonne's qualities in order to build that character up, since Carol is long dead in the comics.

It's been very upsetting to see what's happened to my favourite character on the show.  Her wig has gotten bigger and her voice has gotten quieter.  It's almost impossible to hear what she's saying and when you can hear, it doesn't make any fucking sense.  Michonne was one of the most direct people on TWD; now she speaks in riddles. 

[AngelaHunter]

Warning: Boring rambling about dogs + TWD, because it just annoys the hell out of me.

First of all, most dogs would have perished after the ZA with no one to feed them since many have been bred into such extreme forms with no prey drive they simply could not and would not know how to catch anything, or been bred to not harm other animals (Golden Retrievers, etc). Primitive breeds with high prey drive (Huskies and other Northern breeds) would be most likely to survive and reproduce. There should be a lot of dogs at Hilltop - all looking vaguely the same - the Kingdom and other settlements, but there are none. Dogs are drawn to wherever people are and humans have enjoyed a mutally benefical relationship with them since our ancestors huddled in caves. They are an alarm system beyond compare and excellent protectors.

The first pack of dogs we saw when CDB was on the road and starving made more sense. They were mangy looking and hesitated, standing and (CGI)snarling at our group since they were domestic and would still be uncertain and inhibited about attacking humans and may not have done so, even if very hungry.

Negan's dogs: 10 years into the ZA, and we have three  dogs of different and distinct breeds(who's breeding them? Some looney backyard breeder in the woods who turns them loose?) born within the last few years. One of those dogs is a Cane Corso(!!) with, as someone mentioned, cropped ears. Wtf? Anyway, a CC is a powerful mastiff breed used since ancient Roman times as a herding and guard dog. Even ignoring the absurdity of these purebred dogs, we are expected to accept that one skeletal corpse could overpower just this one dog, who could bring down a bull. It would be laughable if not so irritating.

What inspired my dreary rant is seeing Angela Kang nearly wetting her pants in excitement at the OMG! cleverness of creating this pack of purebred, well-fed dogs. Okay, she's not well-versed about canines, but this is purely imbecilic and I doubt anyone on the planet could watch without eye-rolling at the plain dumbness. Not one person on this show said, "Wait..."?

Okay, I'm done. I don't even know why, on a show filled with nonsense, this bugs me so much.

[mightysparrow]

1 hour ago, AngelaHunter said:

Warning: Boring rambling about dogs + TWD, because it just annoys the hell out of me.

First of all, most dogs would have perished after the ZA with no one to feed them since many have been bred into such extreme forms with no prey drive they simply could not and would not know how to catch anything, or been bred to not harm other animals (Golden Retrievers, etc). Primitive breeds with high prey drive (Huskies and other Northern breeds) would be most likely to survive and reproduce. There should be a lot of dogs at Hilltop - all looking vaguely the same - the Kingdom and other settlements, but there are none. Dogs are drawn to wherever people are and humans have enjoyed a mutally benefical relationship with them since our ancestors huddled in caves. They are an alarm system beyond compare and excellent protectors.

The first pack of dogs we saw when CDB was on the road and starving made more sense. They were mangy looking and hesitated, standing and (CGI)snarling at our group since they were domestic and would still be uncertain and inhibited about attacking humans and may not have done so, even if very hungry.

Negan's dogs: 10 years into the ZA, and we have three  dogs of different and distinct breeds(who's breeding them? Some looney backyard breeder in the woods who turns them loose?) born within the last few years. One of those dogs is a Cane Corso(!!) with, as someone mentioned, cropped ears. Wtf? Anyway, a CC is a powerful mastiff breed used since ancient Roman times as a herding and guard dog. Even ignoring the absurdity of these purebred dogs, we are expected to accept that one skeletal corpse could overpower just this one dog, who could bring down a bull. It would be laughable if not so irritating.

What inspired my dreary rant is seeing Angela Kang nearly wetting her pants in excitement at the OMG! cleverness of creating this pack of purebred, well-fed dogs. Okay, she's not well-versed about canines, but this is purely imbecilic and I doubt anyone on the planet could watch without eye-rolling at the plain dumbness. Not one person on this show said, "Wait..."?

Okay, I'm done. I don't even know why, on a show filled with nonsense, this bugs me so much.

I get why it bothers you.  I'm not well versed in dogs.  I didn't catch the thing with the cropped ears.  But I I know enough to realize that a dog that size could take down a weak and scrawny walker without breaking a sweat. 

It's the disrespect for the audience, thinking that we're so easily played.  Some of us are but it would be nice to believe that tptb thought more highly of the people who've hung in there and put them where they are now.

[Gobi]

The dog thing bothered me, too. Those dogs would have had zero problems taking down that zombie.

[theredhead77]

Maybe the dogs didn't die. If it happened offscreen did it even happen? Time will tell if we see them again.

[OoohMaggie]

1 hour ago, AngelaHunter said:

we are expected to accept that one skeletal corpse could overpower just this one dog, who could bring down a bull.

Even if Mutley did feel out of its depth and was scared, it would have just gone back through the swing doors the way it came in, why didn’t they just play the noise of the dog / dogs ripping the walker to pieces and having a good feed? Because they’re still trying to make us believe that the Walkers are dangerous, when in fact packs of wild hounds are far more life threatening, especially now that nobody seems to be carrying a firearm.

Edited February 12, 2019 by OoohMaggie

[SamBeckett]

Talk about a stray rambling, here's one for you! It bugs me, not just with TWD, but in any show or movie about the end of the world (or afterwards) when the script calls for a dog, or horse, or cat (although you rarely see that), or a young kid, to be a part of the "drama." To me that's artificially ramping up the tension. You know they are ill-equipped to fend for themselves, so you sit there fearing and dreading when they're going to killed or hurt. To me, it's cheap and lazy writing. It's a way-to easy way for the writer to create suspense. Yeah, not everyone feels the same way about animals, but many of us do.  Many of automatically cringe when we see an animal come loping onto the scene. How many of us are already fearing for Daryl's dog??  And the TWD writers have gone to this well too many times. I think the writers for this show are all hacks and they keep showing the same thing time after time, just in different clothes. Of course, here we are watching!!!!

[raven]

3 minutes ago, SamBeckett said:

How many of us are already fearing for Daryl's dog??

I know I am.  The only thing that makes me relax is I'm pretty sure Norman R. demanded nothing happen to the dog.

I was extremely aggravated about the whole dog scene for the reasons you mention, then when I think about it I realize that the dogs should have easily taken down one shambling dead person (which is what I originally thought was going to happen).   Then of course there's the dog with the obviously cropped ears, which should not be the case.  So the whole thing was just dumb.

I'm of a weird mind where I think Negan's expanded role hurt the show and took time from characters I care about, yet I thought his meandering was some of JDM's best work.  He seemed pensive, sad, angry, lost, etc.  I still don't care about him though.

I would have liked to have seen Carol and Ezekiel.  I don't care about Henry being in the drunk tank but don't they?  I don't remember if they know or not.  I want to see Jerry.  The showrunners just don't seem to know/care/whatever that a great many people want to see the characters we've followed for years and not be wondering why we should care about Vaguely New Character 1, 2, etc.

[SamBeckett]

7 minutes ago, raven said:

I know I am.  The only thing that makes me relax is I'm pretty sure Norman R. demanded nothing happen to the dog.

I was extremely aggravated about the whole dog scene for the reasons you mention, then when I think about it I realize that the dogs should have easily taken down one shambling dead person (which is what I originally thought was going to happen).   Then of course there's the dog with the obviously cropped ears, which should not be the case.  So the whole thing was just dumb.

I'm of a weird mind where I think Negan's expanded role hurt the show and took time from characters I care about, yet I thought his meandering was some of JDM's best work.  He seemed pensive, sad, angry, lost, etc.  I still don't care about him though.

I would have liked to have seen Carol and Ezekiel.  I don't care about Henry being in the drunk tank but don't they?  I don't remember if they know or not.  I want to see Jerry.  The showrunners just don't seem to know/care/whatever that a great many people want to see the characters we've followed for years and not be wondering why we should care about Vaguely New Character 1, 2, etc.

TPTB allows way too much to pass before we see certain characters. Then, like everyone has said, there are too many new characters, but even they come and go. To me Daryl, Michonne and Carol have become bit players. And as far as the second-string I can't think of one I care about. Maybe Jerry, but other than being funny, I'm not sure why. I certainly don't KNOW Jerry. It's gotten where you can only tell the characters apart by things like: Oh, he's the one with the horse; she's the one who has TWO knives; he's the one that's fat and funny. But what makes them tick — forget about it!!! Now, when you DO come to find out something about them, that's when they get killed.

[AngelaHunter]

1 hour ago, mightysparrow said:

It's the disrespect for the audience, thinking that we're so easily played. 

The thing is, I really believe they aren't being disrespectful or deliberately insulting to us. They don't know any  better and I think they feel whatever they do is just wonderful and brilliant and we should be able to see that.  Kang's big proud idiotic smile shows that. It seems whoever comes up with dumb shit are a bunch of kids who stick in anything they feel might be cool or neat, with zero attempt to find out if whatever is actually possible.

Could not one single person working on this show open Google and type in: "Can tigers purr?" to find out they cannot, but it looked cool that the tiger purred at Daryl to show how special he is, right?  That still annoys me. In fact, everything about the tiger still irks me.

They can make zombies do anything they like since zombies aren't real, but FFS, at least make an attempt with real people and animals and stop making horses - at 40mph -  that can't outrun zombies and ferocious 100-lb dogs that can't escape or kill one. These are not things only a scientist or biologist (of which I am neither but I do know quite a bit about animals) would notice. A child knows a horse can run faster than a shambling corpse! Tyreese, a mere human, got totally mobbed by zombies and not only walked away, but didn't even get one bite, yet a tiger couldn't fight them off. I guess walkers are only dangerous when the story calls for it. The rest of the time they are merely slightly annoying.

I think it's the laziness and stubborn ignorance of these people who high-five each other for their cleverness that bugs me more than anything. There is no excuse.

All nit-picky rants above are JMO.

[mightysparrow]

The writers at TWD are so incompetent, they don't even know the basic rules of writing.  A show like this needs anchor characters. characters that audience relates to and sees the world through their eyes.  They got rid of almost all of these characters and now we're stuck with people we don't even know.  Not only that, most of us don't want to know these people.  They haven't been introduced properly and they're not compelling enough to hold our interest.  I can't say that the caliber of actors is very high (looking at you Allanah) but there are some actors who I've seen in other roles and know they'd be much better if given the right material.  But tptb are too busy thinking about their outside projects to focus on the job at hand.

[OoohMaggie]

1 hour ago, SamBeckett said:

Talk about a stray rambling, here's one for you! It bugs me, not just with TWD, but in any show or movie about the end of the world (or afterwards) when the script calls for a dog, or horse, or cat (although you rarely see that), or a young kid, to be a part of the "drama." To me that's artificially ramping up the tension. You know they are ill-equipped to fend for themselves, so you sit there fearing and dreading when they're going to killed or hurt.

To be fair to the ‘end of the world’ shows, if they are attempting to reflect what reality would be like, then animals will be hurt, any animal, even those one would never consider eating in normality, is fair game when all stored, prepackaged food has been consumed.

Growing food is not an easy thing to do to those used to visiting the supermarket, if a protein, vitamin source presents itself in front of someone who is starving then it is going to die, no matter whether it looks cute or can fetch a ball.

In a ZA situation, the breeding of dogs, cats, chickens, rats for consumption would become the norm as long as it prolonged human life. Only once people reached a ‘Hilltop’ level of existence would they then begin to revert to keeping dogs as pets or working members of the society.