Hell, they could've ended with Abraham's death and held Glenn's death back for the premier and really screwed with everyone and it would've been a much stronger narrative.
^^yup... this, definitely this
Hell, they could've ended with Abraham's death and held Glenn's death back for the premier and really screwed with everyone and it would've been a much stronger narrative.
I missed it. At what point?
I don't care if the quote was from the comic book or not. Rick lost a hand in the comic and I would still think it would be dumb if they put it in the show. I'm not judging the series on how close it follows the comic. I'm judging the quality of the show.
IIRC correctly it was after he was hit on the head the first time. I remember them flashing to a side view of him and he gave the peace sign to Sasha, ten they flashed to her face
I see this manipulative complaint over and over. How exactly are they being manipulative? Aren't all shows, and books and movies for that matter, manipulative?
The Walking Dead basically just wallows in misery, drags out its storylines, showcases gore, and otherwise f---s with its audience. At one point in time, it was interesting and engaging. Now? It's a shadow of its former self.
There are a few ways that tend to intersect.
First, you've got things like excessive gore. I mean, I get that it's the zombie apocalypse, but at the same time, the show sometimes seems to revel in the gore in ways that just aren't that appropriate. For example, remember when "Everybody ate Chris" last season? Guy who got caught in the revolving door and torn apart by walkers? The show lingered on his death as it happened. It made a point of really showing you the death in all it's awful detail. Like I said, I get that it's the zombie apocalypse, but at the same time, why bother lingering on his death? What purpose did it serve? We're already well aware of the horrors of this world. So it ends up being gore for the sake of gore, and that's just cheap manipulation. A way to generate shock by going to the lowest-hanging fruit. We may not really care about the character, but we'll care about the gore!
That character was another good example of the kind of "cannon fodder" character that the show very often uses, where it introduces a character and lets you BARELY get to know them, and not even really care about them, only to then kill the character off later. We'd spent, what, 5? Maybe 6 episodes with that character in the cast? We knew very little about the guy, but he was just a little more than the usual mooks who get eaten in the show. And that was pretty much the only role he served. He was introduced just so he could be exited later and have it mean more than "Townsperson #5." Except that the show never really did anything to make that actually work. His death was STILL meaningless, because the show hadn't really gotten us to connect to him. So in the end, he's just a redshirt with a name, whose death serves only to shock and nothing else.
The show also has major, major issues with plot speeds. It cannot seem to find a balance. Half the time the show is stringing along nonsense plotlines, in some effort to have us connect with the characters, but it does so in a way that's usually just boring. The trip to Terminus is a good example. Instead of having anything, you know, HAPPEN, the show basically just had everyone walking from Point A to Point B and having little vignettes for a while, grinding the actual story to a complete halt. Instead of revealing the characters through actions that advance the plot, the show did a hard split with "plot episodes" and "character episodes" with the end result feeling like the "plot episodes" try to do too much at once, and the "character episodes" feeling like boring interludes where nothing happens. Into this mix, we throw the introduction of named redshirts to be killed at a later date, and the end result is we just stop caring much about ANYONE.
Finally, there are the incredibly cheap manipulations like Glenn's fake death last season. There was, truly, no point to that EXCEPT to make audiences yell "OH NOES!!!" at their screens. It was a story beat that was shoehorned in purely as a "let's generate watercooler talk" moment. It existed for no other purpose than to f--- with the audience. That's just bad writing. Sure, a lot of shows have moments like this, but those shows often do a lot of other things right in the telling of their tales. The Walking Dead basically just wallows in misery, drags out its storylines, showcases gore, and otherwise f---s with its audience. At one point in time, it was interesting and engaging. Now? It's a shadow of its former self.
Taking Daryl hostage was the one thing that made this episode pointless. Neegan wanted people to provide for him, but he still killed two and tried to break the rests will but obviously didn't think he acomplished that. Hence the need for a hostage. Like Rick said, he has an army and Daryl. Right, so the prolonged abuse was not at all neccessary then?
What do you think the group would have done had they left Daryl? Likely give it a couple days, pile in the van and get the F out of Dodge. That leaves Negan without them producing for him and a source then of possible weakness and embarrassment to his crew.
Taking the hostage further embeds them to his will.
That was my point. The abuse didn't work so why do it. All he had to do was take one hostage.
Last season alone, we had the Benny-Hill-Truck-into-the-Pond, Super-*****, and the Glenn-fake-out. It's pretty clear that the writers have lost all regard for their audience's intelligence, and for the integrity of these characters.
It's not scripture, not what I'm going to base my life off of, its ENTERTAINMENT. Take it as such. If you don't like it move along, if you do great. No need for anyone to start taking jabs at anyone else's views. (point made to EVERYONE not specifically Ms. Sprite)
That was my point. The abuse didn't work so why do it. All he had to do was take one hostage.
Man, the apologists for this show kind of crack me up. If you want to keep watching, that's fine. I refuse to give them the viewership and I refuse to use their hashtags on show-day. What started out as a genuinely well-written show about what surviving a catastrophe does to the human psyche has devolved into a gore-fest of stupidity.
His death served to push the Alexandrians with him to the realisation of how brutal the world had become. It was gory for that reason, to show why it would be horrific and traumatic to them. As an audience member would you buy it if he was just left to the walkers and the camera moved on to see this guy getting shellshocked over it for a few episodes.
We live in a brutal world now, in the event of zombie apocalypse it would become that much more horrific. Why should it be shied away from in story that is centred around that apocalypse and horror?
It was used in this episode for the same effect. We needed to see it to understand how much it would break the characters, not just Rick (he just took longer). it's done to give us empathy with the group. Had it been cut aways from the bat swing, it would mean nothing, and people would now be calling them out for not going there and saying Rick was ***** for acquiescing so quickly..
We have to have characters come and go with varying degrees of attachment to them, again, would an audience buy it if was red shirt of the week getting killed? You would have zero investment in it at all.
There has always been excessive gore in this show, I really don't get why it's becoming a problem for people all of a sudden.
For me, this adds a "realism" to the show. Life doesn't always move at a perfect pace, can be feast or famine at times. But I appreciate what you're getting at, It just suits the show and the subject for me.
I can't think of one show that doesn't do this.
What cracks me up are all the people that have quit watching, or threaten to quit watching again and again, yet always find their way back to make sure the rest of us know how far beneath you the show has become. Like you're the cool kids for not liking something that's popular. Please, by all means, move on from the show. Just stop telling us every week that you have, or that you're going to. Have some conviction. Actually take a stand and stick with it.