The Walking Dead - Season 6 Discussion

[Nismo]

Has Walking Dead peaked? Was the encounter at Terminus the high point for this show? We've been watching since season 1 and this is the first time I question why I am still watching?
There is something about how the story line is being stretched that doesn't smell right to me. I am not against pacing, flashbacks, or character development at all but this season has been a stinker since that first ludicrous idea of pulling those walkers from the pit while simultaneously ignoring everything about the Wolves. When did the writing go bad?

When is enough enough? Does the show intend to catch up to the comics? Are we expected to sit through 10 seasons of this group of survivors going from compound to compound?

Maybe it is time to flash forward to Carl as an old man sitting on a porch somewhere with a shotgun in his hand staring off into the wooded distance as a blurry figure (human, undead??) approaches.. fade to black.

I kinda think they made a mistake in making it to DC too quickly..in season 5 500 miles was plenty of chances for problems to come up....to run across other people/walkers - they could have spent some time developing characters more...maybe created some chances for Eugene to use his brains and contribute to the cause...etc

 

[Usagi Pilgrim]

Here's my perspective-

I think a show like this one HAS to have at least a bit of something that we, as an audience, can relate to. If there's no one in the cast, or, nothing in the setting of the show that we can identify with, then most people will tune out. Now, this show is set firmly in a fantasy realm as far as I'm concerned, based solely on the premise.

For a minute, take the Walkers out of the equation, & replace them with something a bit more realistic, or at least relatable. Say, something that caused all house pets & animals to go feral, reproduce like rabbits, & attack people on sight. Imagine when it first happens, it's so unexpected & folks are so unprepared, the human population gets decimated down to TWD numbers, & we're living more like the characters in the show. That's the premise.

Now, are you going to be Rick or more like Morgan? In my mind, although my scenario if still improbable, is more relatable, I I see people having less proclivity for killing other humans just to survive at any cost. Plus, although I love the Rick character & punch the air when he has a BA moment, He's selfish about his group. Two episodes back, he told them to kill anything that got in their way, & leave the others if it came to it. The ones who followed his advice, are on their way back home. The one who chose to be JUST LIKE MORGAN, as far as we know (), died, & the world is mourning him, partly because he is the one character that's never lost their humanity. He was the 'good' one.

Morgan isn't blind to the situation, nor is he oblivious to what his choices may mean, but he's made a decision about who he is & what he's going to do & not do. He's not deluded himself into thinking things will get better. He knows that he will die. He knows that everyone will eventually die. He's just decided that living the longest means exactly SQUAT if you''ve become something that you can't live with.Seeing how a man like that continues to live in this world, is much more interesting to me.

 

[Knightjar]

Absolutely not boring. I found it fascinating. Don't understand why Morgan annoys so many people. Not every character has the same philosophy and it would be a dull show if they did. The episode was a welcome change of pace and scenery without being just 'filler'.

 

[Solo4114]

I suspect it feels like "filler" primarily because of what came immediately before it. Glenn's apparent death (or "death"), Rick in deep doo-doo, the walkers bearing down on Alexandria, etc.

Right when the audience wants to find out "WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?!" the show says "Hold everything! Let's take roughly two episodes to explore this guy's philosophy and what made him who he is."

In general, that's interesting as a sort of side-story. It's not (at least, at the moment) apparently related to the plot very much, and the last few episodes have been pretty plot-heavy. To just bring all that to a screeching halt and focus on backstory for one character seems...a poor choice when you're dealing with a weekly show. THAT'S why it feels like filler. It's as if they didn't want to deal with the plot for fear of running out of it. And they didn't want to take this story and either condense it into a single normal episode, or do flashbacks during an episode like they've already done.

It's a storytelling choice and I think it's ultimately one that irritates the viewers, particularly given the sort of BS cliffhanger they left the last episode with, likely all just to mess with viewers' heads about "IS GLENN DEAD?!?!?!?!" when, duh, no he isn't, but we aren't going to tell you why.


This has been a trend in shows lately, especially shows that feature a heavy amount of plot movement. They'll often drag the plot to a screeching halt to peer deeply into a given character, at the expense of moving the story forward, rather than trying to harmonize it with the plot movement. Likewise, they try to "outwit" the audience and fool them.

The last bit there, the "outwit the audience" thing has grown increasingly tiresome for me over the years. It strikes me that writers for shows are too often concerned with creating a single "moment" and will sacrifice the good of the overall story to achieve that moment. Like, they want to surprise the audience, and surprising the audience ends up taking precedence over the story's integrity. So, in TWD, the showrunners try to head-fake that Glenn is dead. But, of course, he isn't. We have the set photos, we have the lack of an appearance on Talking Dead's In Memorium, we have the angles of the camera in the sequence, etc. There's just a bunch that doesn't line up, but because the show runners want to create a "surprise!" moment, they subject the audience to it. Then, because they want to keep folks interest level in finding out the answer to the "Surprise!" moment high, they delay the reveal which makes it even more of a big deal, when it's already guaranteed to be a lose/lose. If Glenn survives, half the audience will cry "Bulls***!" because it'll be some cop-out thing. If he dies, then the other half of the audience cries "This sucks!" because the show killed him in such a silly way.

Really, this is just poor storytelling. I mean, the show can obviously survive it, but it's still a very poorly executed approach to this particular storyline. The Morgan story might be interesting in its own right, but shoehorned into this storyline, it just distracts and delays the big reveal for no apparent purpose. The show also isn't telling its audience why any of this is relevant, so it just seems like more filler. And if Morgan ends up dying in short order later, and that death doesn't otherwise affect Rick or anyone else, if he basically goes out the way Bob did, just another black guy who tried to be optimistic and got killed for it, then all of this will have been for naught. This is well trod ground on TWD by now. Morgan's philosophy isn't all that different from either Tyrese's or Bob's. Neither of those guys really had any affect on Rick or the rest of the group. They were just black dudes who had a different philosophy and then died. The end. No lasting impact, really. I hope that Morgan's story goes differently, but I'm not that optimistic about it doing so.

And because of that, I say "What's the point here?" I mean, great, we get a character study of a guy who'll probably die later this season or next season, and meanwhile it's just a distraction from the plot of the Alexandria community and its troubles, and how they'll survive. Without making any more of a connection as to why any of this stuff matters, without showing the audience where this is headed, who cares?

 

[Usagi Pilgrim]

But if his actions directly have an effect on the survival of the Alexandrians, then it's majorly important.

If Morgan letting the Wolves live causes the death & destruction that most folks think it's going to, then we at least have his reasoning & motivations, whether you agree with them or not.

 

[Solo4114]

But if his actions directly have an effect on the survival of the Alexandrians, then it's majorly important.

If Morgan letting the Wolves live causes the death & destruction that most folks think it's going to, then we at least have his reasoning & motivations, whether you agree with them or not.

Well, yes and no.

I agree that, if his decisions end up having major repercussions, then yeah, showing how he came to be this person matters.

I still think that the timing of this was poor, though. It'd make more sense to show an episode like this AFTER Morgan's decisions royally screw Alexandria, or after he has some major impact on Rick or whathaveyou. Basically, we haven't been shown that he matters enough yet to warrant the deep dive into Morgan's background. His pacifism has been a minor issue thus far, and Rick managed to dispatch the Wolves who attacked the RV well enough. And he hasn't otherwise rubbed off on Rick to the point where Rick is softened or more optimistic or anything, really. So, all it is -- at the moment -- is a detour from the cliffhanger where we left off last week.

 

[Riceball]

I think that the placement of this latest episode makes perfect sense, if it had aired after this next episode it's going to seem like a big let down to have a slower episode after so much action. Having a break after 2 or 3 episodes of straight action is going to make the next episode that much more exciting and helps keep the overall pace of the action up for longer in the season. This is particularly important for a show that has as few episodes a season as TWD does, if they didn't intersperse the slower episodes in between the more action oriented ones you're going to wind up with a very uneven season with all of the action confined to just one half/part of the season and all of the slower character development episodes all in the other. Start off the season with the slower episodes people might tune out and think the show has gotten boring, save them for the latter part of the season people might stop watching because the show has now gotten boring after all of that action at the beginning. So, the best way to avoid is to spread the love around so people stick around during the slow times knowing that they'll be getting more action in another episode or two.

 

[Usagi Pilgrim]

Plus, I like the fact that it answered whether Morgan killed the Wolf or not. I know Glen isn't dead, so that was the bigger cliffhanger to me.

 

[DaddyfromNaboo]

Or stronger and smarter. Depending on your POV

That indeed is true. In a world with a dominant species of undead killers it may be better to become "stronger and smarter", but if our moral system is applied (and that is what Eastman IMO taught Morgan, kind of resetting his moral compass) his actions are IMO "violent and unforgiving". And even more so because the other "inhabitants" of that world are, from a viewer´s POV, also violent and unforgiving. Rick IMO becomes more and more absorbed by the violence. That being said, and thinking about this, it does seem odd that a couple like the one that Morgan meets at the end of the episode has made it that long.

 

[Bryancd]

I enjoyed the episode a lot and think the show has earned the right to take these little detours away from the main storyline.

 

[Feraud]

There were better characters who embody the idea of a moral compass. Let us not forget Dale, Hershel, and a particular favorite of mine who loathed to kill, Tyreese!
These characters espoused an unwillingness to simply "Kill or Be Killed" without all the pseudo spiritual/psychological mumble jumble and ridiculous kung-fu bo staff. To be fair Hershel had his never ending shotgun.

I'd love to know what happened behind the scenes that led to the decision to turn a character that showed such intelligence and pathos in S1 into a 21st century Friar Tuck.

 

[Usagi Pilgrim]

There were better characters who embody the idea of a moral compass. Let us not forget Dale, Hershel, and a particular favorite of mine who loathed to kill, Tyreese!
These characters espoused an unwillingness to simply "Kill or Be Killed" without all the pseudo spiritual/psychological mumble jumble and ridiculous kung-fu bo staff. To be fair Hershel had his never ending shotgun.

I'd love to know what happened behind the scenes that led to the decision to turn a character that showed such intelligence and pathos in S1 into a 21st century Friar Tuck.

I hope I'm not misunderstanding or putting words in your mouth, & I apologize if it comes across that way, but where do you get the idea that spirituality & intelligence are exclusive to each other? If anything, I felt that Eastman, & by extension Morgan, came to their ways of life by having the intelligence to recognize the end result if they continued down their path.

I agree with what you said about the other characters, except for Dale. Couldn't stand the character. As a matter of fact, before Carter died in the first episode of this season, I thought we were going to have to deal with another 'Dale" all over again.

 

[joshvanrad]

I agree that this episode was aired at the right time and that it did not have to be "energy level through the roof" just to fit in with TWD. However, it didn't have to be a 90 minute mega-episode.

 

[cayman shen]

our moral system

...there isn't just the one! My leanings are pretty heavily Social Darwinist/LaVey Satanist/Nihilist, so I imagine my moral system, which I know is not in line with most of my peers' morality, is naturally more Rick/Carol. I'm mystified by people like Morgan. I absolutely don't think there's anything particularly precious about life (I feel a little tingle when Dr. Manhattan says the universe won't care if there's no life in Watchmen). I used to hate reading the SW EU because Luke had become SO FRIGGIN WISHY WASHY. It wasn't the "passing a test" of ROTJ, it was feeble hand wringing. But I digress...I will say that the writers are looking at this situation from a variety of moral perspectives, and I think that's great. I just know that every time, say, Rick goes full Rick, my inner Vulcan thinks "he's just calling it how it is" and all my friends, who apparently have hearts or something, think he's being dangerous and scary. So there's something for everyone in the show.

 

[DaddyfromNaboo]

...there isn't just the one! My leanings are pretty heavily Social Darwinist/LaVey Satanist/Nihilist, so I imagine my moral system, which I know is not in line with most of my peers' morality, is naturally more Rick/Carol. I'm mystified by people like Morgan. I absolutely don't think there's anything particularly precious about life (I feel a little tingle when Dr. Manhattan says the universe won't care if there's no life in Watchmen)...

It is of course true that there are many moral systems, I was unintentionally referring to "our" cultural circle, i.e. most of the western hemisphere, and one that I share. My mistake, sorry. But looking at those various cultures I find core "values" shared by all of those who want to live in a community. That thinking of course is put to a test here in TWD.

I do not think that the writers look at the events from a variety of moral perspectives, but look at the majority of moral beliefs and see how they can move and push the viewer, emotionally and intellectually. Kirkman and Moore did this in the comics series already, which is what got me hooked. Moral questions like what if small kids become killers and what do you do with them, or what if you lose someone but he won´t stay dead etc. are what IMO separate this series from most of the zombie and undead media.

 

[Wetwired]

I thught the Eastman/Morgan episode was very well directed. The pace and writing was excellent. Since the season has so few episodes I question the decision to ignore the recent events and make a flashback episode though.

 

[ghostryder]

 

[annanake]

anybody hear the theory that nick is imagining/hallucinating the whole death scene ? it apparently stems from him running out of bullets right before they climb the dumpster then of course he zones out . and it never shows him reload so he had no ammo in the sig to shoot himself with (it would have jammed anyway over priced junk is what they are). I am still betting on the 4x4 jacked up dumpster to save Glenn if he makes it , cuz t.v. and movies never cared about bullets or reloading .

as for a moral system they should go with yellow beard " I will kill anyone who gets in the way of me killing anyone."

 

[CB2001]

anybody hear the theory that nick is imagining/hallucinating the whole death scene ? it apparently stems from him running out of bullets right before they climb the dumpster then of course he zones out . and it never shows him reload so he had no ammo in the sig to shoot himself with (it would have jammed anyway over priced junk is what they are).

I read that Greg Niccotero, who filmed the episode, shot that theory down. Or was it one of the others? It's hard to tell when there's so many of them.

Let's all face it: Glenn is the Schordinger's Cat of The Walking Dead right now.

 

[annanake]

hopefully the box will be opened Sunday unless they show the attack on Alexandria from Judith's point of view this time.


they convinced me he rolls under the dumpster an somehow makes it . just on the fact that I have never seen that much ground clearance on dumpster in my life .