S05.E07: Still Standing

[nodorothyparker]

Airdate 2019/07.14

Quote

Strand and Charlie seek safety as John helps Dwight.  Morgan and Alicia stay focused on the greater mission

[DrNowsWeightScale]

I did watch most of this episode, but I left the room a few times here and there, to warm stuff up in the microwave, so I may have missed some stuff.

Alicia got radio active zombie blood splashed on her face, I did see that.

Morgan went back to the nuclear power plant to talk that lady (Grace?) into leaving. 

John Dorie is my all-time favorite Walking Dead character (on both shows), so he was at least on tonight's show a little bit.

Dwight wasn't angry at Dorie when he leveled with him that he with-held Sherry's "don't look for my anymore" note before.

Not a whole lot went down in this episode.

Seems like most of it revolved around Alicia trying to convince that blonde girl to get on the plane with everyone else, and fighting off zombies at that fence.

[Iguessnot]

Just as I queried last week. How do walkers who can't escape rotted intestines manage to knock down fences. Well tonight they managed a synchronized untethering and pushed down gates.

I also wondered how anyone was supposed to avoid killing an irradiated walker. And this episode showed that such worries are just a pipe dream when your life is at stake.

I hate these new kids. Who decided we needed a sugary sweet soccer mom, we all get a medal, retelling of the zombie saga? 

Luciana always flew under my radar until that episode where she was supposedly high from her medication. I hadn't noticed her difficulty with English before, but it was brutal listening to her deliver all those stilted lines in that episode. She is now the embodiment of this insipid writing and I never want to see her again.

Morgan as muse has been a disaster.

[SamBeckett]

I’ve said it before, as others have, and I’ll say it again, as others will — there are simply too many characters. And we didn’t even see the trucker and the guy in the wheelchair last night.

Which then leads to— when’s the last time any significant character got whacked? (The beer guy. Whenever that was. And he was only in 3 or 4 episodes.) My point: Where’s the tension? FTWD has sort of become the Hallmark version of TWD.

I remember people screaming that TWD seemed to be stuck in one spot. Well, this crew has been stuck in one spot (actually several because the cast is split up), but the viewing audience, it seems, has no idea what’s happening or why. Every step forward, and there’s two back. I get things go wrong. But when they realized the were out of gas, Al all of sudden announced her being held at gunpoint. Then she goes on to say she had some lesbian love. But she only told June. Convenient since June was the only one there. Though Al worried about, I felt zip worry about what her “friend” would say or do about Al stealing the gas. 

I just don’t feel any tension. 

[nodorothyparker]

Strand in his skinny jeans pied pipering a bunch of walkers into the wreckage of the beer bottle hot air balloon and later trying to emote some reaction when those same walkers suddenly splattered on the other side of the silk was about as entertaining as this one got.

I feel like I say it every week: I like most of these characters.  I want to root for them.  So why does the show make it so incredibly difficult and dull to do so?  Look, Alicia, I know you've got issues.  But when a group goes to a significant amount of trouble to do zombie arts and crafts projects involving stringing them up with their intestines to keep people out, maybe let them go?  We're too many seasons in for both shows to still be dithering around on trying to save people who clearly don't want to be saved.    It was mildly interesting the first few times we saw it, usually with much better actors.  Now it's just a lot of rinse and repeat, and in the case of this show, long strings of monologue delivered via walkie talkie.  

What should have been a fairly significant reveal that John kept the kiss-off letter from Dwight, thus negating the last year and change he's spent chasing a woman halfway across the country in the worst game of Where's Waldo ever, also fell curiously flat.  Part of it was that is required us as viewers to have ever been invested enough in the neverending Negan story on the mothershow to care whether Dwight ever found his wife, and part of it was that for all practical purposes on this show, she was Schrodinger's Wife.  We never saw her here.  She could have been alive or dead and it would have made no difference on this show beyond Dwight's ability to sell us on why it even mattered, and even in that they've had to so heavyhandedly try to make it parallel John and June as if they were the same thing.  That Dwight couldn't manage much more than a "huh, well then" reaction to being told that he's at the trail's end or that this one decent guy who's taken him under his wing unilaterally decided he shouldn't know that feels anticlimactic at best.  The show could have gotten the same result by simply having Dwight show up in this timeline and announce to Morgan that oh, "she died and I kept walking." 

I'm still not convinced radiation or the whole irradiated walker thing works the way the show seems to think it does.  

[SamBeckett]

The other thing about Dwight's wife is: Do we really need to add ANOTHER character? The answer to me is NO. So I never thought that story line was going anywhere. Besides, other than Dwight, who out of theses characters would even care (really) if she showed up. 

Which then leads me to ask: Are these people not at all wary? You know, worried about other people. They almost approach dunce-level. I fully expect to see a KICK ME sticker pasted on their backs. A far, far cry from the days of Madison when she'd shoot first then ask, "You good or bad?"

Going back to my first point, which has been my main point all season: Too many characters. And I think we're about to add Grace as a new character. That's so obvious it's very nearly glowing in the dark. (Radiation. Get it?)

[nodorothyparker]

It is almost comical at this point how hyperfocused this group is on the idea that everybody can be saved that they're not even asking basic common sense questions before inviting strangers to join up.  Does anybody besides maybe Alicia have any idea at all just how nutjob crazy Morgan once was or how far he's gone trying to overcorrect in the other direction that's also led to shoddy decision making?  When Morgan first saw Dwight, there was a moment of tension where Dwight appeared to feel obligated to try to explain himself and Morgan immediately waved it away.  Have not one of these people wondered at all about that?  I know we've joked about how nobody wants to watch Dwight go through a detailed explanation of what went down with Negan and how he lost his wife in the first place, but they've gone so far the other direction John thinks he's looking at a situation similar to his when June disappeared on him.

It's fairly obvious something happened where they both came from that sent them both running.  But no, they're all so busy navel gazing at their own misdeeds and wanting to make up for it to be heroes to somebody that they can't think about that at all to do even basic due diligence like checking to see if hey, are the guns you've been pointing at us loaded.   It's like this show has managed to become the bizarro version of the mothershow.

[Ohwell]

I commented about Morgan's always clean-shaven head, but I'm also amazed that Strand could keep such a neat haircut.

[DrNowsWeightScale]

I wanted to ask - and this is even though I watched the show twice last night (you know how the AMC channel repeats a new episode 3, 4 times the same night):

Did I hear correctly, did June tell Al that after June ran away from John's cabin that John didn't find her until a year later?

I'm pretty sure she said "year," but perhaps I misheard.

This isn't a huge deal. I was just curious.

I was thinking Dorie found June within a few weeks or months - it didn't feel like an entire year to me.

I agree with a lot of the comments and criticisms of the show and episode above by others.

All in all, it was a pretty under-whelming episode (yet again). Such a shame - they have some great characters, good possibilities, but the story writing and/or exposition is either bland, boring, or non-sensical. I just hope going forward the show gets better.

The guy who reviews every new Fear episode over at the Forbes site didn't like this episode, either. He did like a few parts of the show, but he felt there was a lot of fail, too. His criticisms of the show are usually pretty similar to what I'm thinking.

Edited July 15, 2019 by DrNowsWeightScale

[SamBeckett]

I think June did say a year. Which seems ridiculous to think that someone would actively keep looking for someone in the mess that they're in. I mean, how would you know if the person you're looking for didn't get eaten. Remember Lorie? They never a sliver of that poor girl. If it hadn't been for Carl being there to put a bullet through her, no one know.

Speaking of June—I know John is a darling of nearly every viewer. And I like him, though sometimes he comes across as a doofus. And I like June, though I might be in the minority on that point. My real point, though, is I think TPTB made a mistake making John and June so damned lovey-dovey. Yes, it can be cute (and sickening), but the problem is you know it's NOT going to last. One is going to die saving the other.  So there's earned tension there, It fact, it's the worst kind of tension, contrived tension. Just like when they bring an animal on the show. (Even though Skidmark lived.)

[ratSenoL]

Can someone please refresh my memory on why they need to fly that plane out of the area?  I don't think I missed an episode, so I'm stumped on why can't they just drive out?  It's not like they're on an island in the middle of Central Texas!  I am so stuck on this plot point (or lack thereof) that I can't seem to accept any other character's actions and choices. 

And, definitely agreed, there are too many characters, so they are underutilizing the most interesting characters.

[nodorothyparker]

Something something mountains.  And the nuclear plants.  That's the closest we've ever gotten for an answer as to why they can't take the seeming 5,000 vehicles they've found and just convoy back to their starting point.

[Mr. Sparkle]

10 hours ago, Iguessnot said:

Well tonight they managed a synchronized untethering and pushed down gates.

Synchronized untethering is my favorite Olympic sport, BTW. 

[CloudySky]

1 hour ago, nodorothyparker said:

Something something mountains.  And the nuclear plants.  That's the closest we've ever gotten for an answer as to why they can't take the seeming 5,000 vehicles they've found and just convoy back to their starting point.

I burst out laughing when Dwight said something akin to "Hell I'd even walk". Remember when all these groups did was walk?? And that was at the start of everything when cars and gas were still functional. According to John it'll take days to get across the mountain on foot...That still sounds like a better plan than fixing a crashed plane with broken propellers and a leaking fuel tank...But what do I know.

[timesywimesy]

3 hours ago, Ohwell said:

I commented about Morgan's always clean-shaven head, but I'm also amazed that Strand could keep such a neat haircut.

Neither one of them can even remotely touch Al’s perpetually geometrically precise coiffure. 

[nitrofishblue]

The writing on FTWD has gone downhill so bad, the series is hard to recognize from its beginning. My husband watches with me but is not quite the fan that I am (or used to be). He is a gun man and understands shooting. He just holds his head at the stupid things they do. Then we have the walkie talkies that never seem to need charging or cars that never run out of fuel. I know there have been constant comments on the perfect grooming of the folks. Never a hair out of place or a scrubby beard on the men. Where do they get the soap and razors for all this? I know this is a fiction but they could at least act like real people.

Morgan has been the biggest disappointment. He was awesome in TWD but that character got lost in the crossover. His whinny "We have to save them all" mantra is getting very old very fast. I swear it is like the people have never faced a problem before. Makes me want to puke.

[MVFrostsMyPie]

I don't even understand what direction they're trying to go in. Are they even trying? Or are they hoping this show gets put out of its misery, along with its permanent instagram filter? 

Why is that girl wearing a beanie all the time? She's like Victoria from Survivor. It's hot AF and that thing must be so itchy and smelly. 

Um, how big is this plane again? Is everyone going to squeeze in like a clown car or are they making multiple trips?

Can we stop with the walkie talkie monologues? OMG, stop talking. 

Also why does Luciana even exist? Can she go next? 

Can they at least bring back Skidmark? I felt more invested in the kitty cat than I've ever felt invested in any of the characters on this show (although I did at least like Cliff Curtis).

[Dodginblue]

8 hours ago, ratSenoL said:

Can someone please refresh my memory on why they need to fly that plane out of the area?

 I guess I've been assuming that it's for the same reason we fly now, to get somewhere faster than they could otherwise and because the area between where they are and where they want to get to is too dangerous to drive or walk through.   There be dragons, something like that.  I mean, in reality, there would probably be lots of no-go areas at this point in a ZA, the problem  would be figuring out where they are.  A plane gets them over all that.

Edited July 15, 2019 by Dodginblue

[One4Sorrow2TooBad]

What is up with the group being scattered all over the damn county or counties? Stay together, there's strength in numbers.  Plot lines so thin they remind me of a cheap B rated   horror movie at the weekend drive in. Huge hole in the plotline is that the radios they are using can only transmit about a mile or two away. Seems like they have an endless supply of batteries.

[DrNowsWeightScale]

9 hours ago, SamBeckett said:

(point 1)

I think June did say a year. Which seems ridiculous to think that someone would actively keep looking for someone in the mess that they're in. I mean, how would you know if the person you're looking for didn't get eaten. Remember Lorie? They never a sliver of that poor girl. If it hadn't been for Carl being there to put a bullet through her, no one know.

(point 2)
Speaking of June—I know John is a darling of nearly every viewer. And I like him, though sometimes he comes across as a doofus. And I like June, though I might be in the minority on that point.

My real point, though, is I think TPTB made a mistake making John and June so damned lovey-dovey. Yes, it can be cute (and sickening), but the problem is you know it's NOT going to last. One is going to die saving the other.  So there's earned tension there, It fact, it's the worst kind of tension, contrived tension. Just like when they bring an animal on the show. (Even though Skidmark lived.)

Re: point 1. Thank you for the info. I thought she said a year but wasn't sure.

It felt to me as though it took him two or three months to find her, not twelve.

Re point 2: I've made it no secret on these forums that I'm a big John Dorie fan. ☺️

I don't read him as a doofus so much as a good ol' country boy with a lot of common horse sense.

(I have a few family members who are kind of like him in that way - they weren't educated but weren't stupid people.)

But I don't know about the character (he worked as a police officer). At some point in real life, a lot of police around the nation started requiring applicants to have bachelor's degrees.

I don't know if Dorie went to college or not.

I just wish the show would give Dorie better story lines.

The episodes of him with Morgan were okay, and the one of him alone in the cabin where he met June (aka Laura) was excellent, IMO.

Re: "Yes, it can be cute (and sickening), but the problem is you know it's NOT going to last. One is going to die saving the other."

I do apologize for being repetitive on this point, as I've said this ten times over the last year on this forum, but I am hoping the show writers keep Dorie as he is (upbeat and optimistic and sweet).

We already had to sit through two story arcs of two good guys (Morgan and Rick) on the original show (and kind of on this one) go through a sort of "bad guy" phase, where they become really violent, then they feel guilty about being violent and start questioning when and where to use force.

Though we already had a bit of that with Dorie but it took place off -screen: he told June that before the zombie apocalypse that he had accidentally killed a man who was robbing a gas station.

But I can see him going south and getting violent if a bad guy kills off June - then he'll get the Rick Grimes or Morgan story arc of losing his mind, becoming really violent, etc. Then he'll have to find a man with a goat who tries to make cheese who teaches him how to chill out with big sticks. 

I was relieved that the cat made it.

Both shows have been horrible to animals. Horses, owls, dogs, a tiger, and more have been killed by people or eaten by zombies. It's about time they let animals survive once in awhile.

Edited July 16, 2019 by DrNowsWeightScale

[DrNowsWeightScale]

6 hours ago, timesywimesy said:

Neither one of them can even remotely touch Al’s perpetually geometrically precise coiffure. 

Yep. She has a 1980s sort of style cut. Very new wave. If she wants to keep all those sides short and that one side of her bangs oh so pointy, she'll have to find a hair salon. Someone up thread (or another one) said that the Helicopter People probably have a hair dresser.

[DrNowsWeightScale]

5 hours ago, MVFrostsMyPie said:

(point 1)
Why is that girl wearing a beanie all the time? She's like Victoria from Survivor. It's hot AF and that thing must be so itchy and smelly. 

(point 2)
Um, how big is this plane again? Is everyone going to squeeze in like a clown car or are they making multiple trips?
 

point 1.
I remember a year or more ago reading an interview Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Negan on the original show) gave, and he mentioned how it's 110 degrees where his character is living (and in real life they are filming the show), yet he's wearing a thick, leather jacket. I think the actors realize that some of the things in these shows are ridiculous and unrealistic.

I've often noticed the wardrobe of the zombies and the people, too - I've lived all over the nation, but especially in the south and inland states where it does and can get to 90 degrees to 120.
And when it gets that hot, you don't want to wear full pants and long shirts, and certainly not with jackets.

But almost all the people - even the zombies!! - are walking around these states where it gets really freaking hot in the summer and part of the fall, but they're wearing heavy clothing.

I've not yet seen a zombie who is wearing a pair of shorts with a tank top, or a zombie in swim trunks or a bikini.
(Or did they have one in that episode where Alicia and June had to wade through a zombie infested pool to get some supplies??)

I think the show people are trying to save a buck: I bet the reason they dress their zombies in long sleeved shirts and pants is that it doesn't take as much make-up to cover their exposed skin.

But it looks weird to never see zombies in the south wearing short skirts, tank tops, capri length pants (aka pedal pushers) etc. We've never seen a zombie woman in a night club in a mini skirt and high heels.

edit. Almost forgot Point 2.
Some of them will sit on the air plane wings.  ☺️

Alicia is radio-active now, so she is probably like Captain Marvel and can fly on her own.

Edited July 16, 2019 by DrNowsWeightScale

[DrNowsWeightScale]

4 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

They're adding a third series into the mix, and they can't even coherently write for the mothership and that is based on a comic book  (graphic novels for snobs).

I don't think they have a clue when it comes to writing FTWD.  

BTW, who is watching the cat?  Has he been left to fend for himself?

IIRC, last week's episode was the lowest rated for the season.

I think the story lines for this season of Fear have gone downhill, and they seem like they are struggling for story lines.

It makes me wonder if they are not capable of doing their third spin-off show (which is supposed to feature a group of children) - they're already having issues with this second spin off show (Fear).

The last I recall of the cat, he was being fed and looked after by the Mo Collins character and the guy in the wheel chair. I think I remember in an episode or two ago they fed the cat atop one of the tables in Daniel's warehouse

(edit - or a truck stop? I don't recall exactly where, I just remember the cat on top of the table eating some food they fed him).

Edited July 16, 2019 by DrNowsWeightScale

[heisenberg]

Very boring indeed.   Every time they were taking a brake mumbling about life I was putting it on pause to do something else...  Took me more than two hours to finish it up.

Why Alicia did not join the children to run away with them? 

She could have dive into the river to put out the blood instead of keeping it for a few hours...  Anyway...  She is so filthy that if she does not die from radiation she will from bad hygiene and microbes invasion.

[Haleth]

19 hours ago, ratSenoL said:

Can someone please refresh my memory on why they need to fly that plane out of the area?  I don't think I missed an episode, so I'm stumped on why can't they just drive out?  It's not like they're on an island in the middle of Central Texas!  I am so stuck on this plot point (or lack thereof) that I can't seem to accept any other character's actions and choices. 

Someone suggested in last week's thread that because of that hurricane that went through last season all the roads are out, so the only way out of the area is by plane. <shrug>  Hey, why not?

That one shot of Morgan looking at a walker banging on the door, where his own face was reflected onto the face of the walker?  Foreshadowing his death or overly clever illustration that "we are all walkers" blah, blah fishcakes?

10 hours ago, DrNowsWeightScale said:

It makes me wonder if they are not capable of doing their third spin-off show (which is supposed to feature a group of children)

Ugh.  Count me out already.

[diebartdie]

12 hours ago, DrNowsWeightScale said:

I think the show people are trying to save a buck: I bet the reason they dress their zombies in long sleeved shirts and pants is that it doesn't take as much make-up to cover their exposed skin.

But it looks weird to never see zombies in the south wearing short skirts, tank tops, capri length pants (aka pedal pushers) etc. We've never seen a zombie woman in a night club in a mini skirt and high heels.

By this point, all clothed zombies should be piles of mush covered bones while the unclothed ones could still be shambling.

[CloudySky]

4 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

The cast is so huge, if they were all kept together, there wouldn't be enough lines for all of them to read.

God forbid they'd have to cut down some of those 2 page monologues :-)

[heisenberg]

13 hours ago, icemiser69 said:

With all of the time they have spent trying to fix the damn plane and convince the kids to go with them on that plane, they probably could have walked home.

Am I dreaming?  I tought in the first episode that the windows on that plane were broken and now they look like new?  Anyway, the whole plane was like schredded to pieces and now they have built a brand new one with a hammer, a set of vise-grip and a bunch of children...

[DrNowsWeightScale]

This article raised a point I had not really noticed before:

Quote

Remember earlier this season, however, when Grace confiscated Morgan’s stick from him after he used it to kill one radioactive zombie? This week, Morgan killed scores of them with his new stick and just kept on using it, radiation be damned.

The internal logic of Fear the Walking Dead has fallen apart — no one is bothering to sweat the details, and if there’s anything we’ve learned from showrunners like Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad), it’s that the details are everything. When a showrunner sweats the details, everything else falls into place.

That comes via Uproxx:

How Alicia’s Apparent Fate On ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Could Hurt The Series - Uproxx Site

[Gobi]

That whole bit with the hot air balloon really bothered me. Other than raising and lowering a hot air balloon (and even that can be problematic, people were killed near me when their balloon came down on a busy interstate),  you have no control over where it goes and are completely at the mercy of wind currents. That this one managed to go exactly in the direction they wanted it to go was ridiculous.

[heisenberg]

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

You people here were talking so much about izombie that I gave it a shot, just finished the first episode and I quite like it.   I don't know if it will be more funny than TWD and FTWD ('cause it is funnier when they don't intend to), but I like the story so far and the actors are cool. Up to now it reminds me of Lucifer, same funny spirit but with zombies.

I'm going back to it now.

Thanks!

Edited July 19, 2019 by heisenberg

[Mr. Sparkle]

9 hours ago, heisenberg said:

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

You people here were talking so much about izombie that I gave it a shot, just finished the first episode and I quite like it.   I don't know if it will be more funny than TWD and FTWD ('cause it is funnier when they don't intend to), but I like the story so far and the actors are cool. Up to now it reminds me of Lucifer, same funny spirit but with zombies.

I'm going back to it now.

Thanks!

I'm a big fan of the first two seasons. 

[Texasmom1970]

I know they say that the Alicia character is the big draw for people to watchthis show. Guess I am the wrong demographic because she is my least favorite!