The Walking Dead S9

[Joelist]

Well The Walking Dead is back and theses first five episodes are being billed as "Rick Grimes final five episodes". Was it any better?

Yes and no.

They did do the time jump and yes the communities are rebuilt. The visuals of nature encroaching and roads being overgrown and such were nicely done. I also liked the notion that they are actively working on agriculture now as opposed to scavenging, and even their excursion to the Smithsonian was to get packs of vacuum preserved seeds and some other farming implements.

On the other side, the pacing issues are still present and though reduced the navel gazing was there. Plus as usual for this show they manage to lose a person really for no good reason mostly because they mess up on their trip. And finally they had things too dark, literally. They REALLY needed to change the tone of the show and get it centered on rebuilding.

 

[PussyGalore]

The zombies can't possibly still be a threat on this show. It's one thing to stretch the premise for a few seasons but at this point it's gotten ridiculous.

 

[Joelist]

That is a long standing problem with all the Romero type media - the issue of zombies decaying. By now all the original zombies from the collapse of civilization would be gone.

 

[PussyGalore]

OMG, I'm watching this episode and I had to pause it to make this post. This is perhaps the stupidest junk I've ever seen. They're at the Smithsonian and they are needlessly moving heavy stuff over a glass floor which of course has zombies underneath. Their reason being that they have to use an old covered wagon to "back engineer" more covered wagons. Seriously? We are expected to believe this nonsense? Seriously???

 

[PussyGalore]

And why do they need an ancient, heavy canoe????? OMG, this show is making my brain melt!

 

[PussyGalore]

Well there goes a good hour and a half of my life I won't get back. Horrible, truly horrible. I'm at a loss for words to describe how bad this show actually is. How Gimple and Kirkman aren't in prison for bad writing is beyond me.

 

[Joelist]

Why they needed the wagon I have no idea. Seeing as some of them rode in on a wagon they obviously do not need a wagon as a model. Same comments on the plow - there are really NO books in the Smithsonian on making farm plows? All they needed were the seeds (that was legit) and books. Add in the tone was still overly dark and melodramatic and those are the negatives (aside from there still being lots of walkers).

It did have its good points. The visuals of a world starting to be overgrown and infrastructure starting to collapse from lack of maintenance were nice. Some of the acting was decent - like Carol. I even liked the conclusion that both Maggie and Michonne came to that they need to set up some type of actual rules and consequences for their little community.

On balance it still wasn't great or even good - just not as stupid as in the past.

 

[PussyGalore]

Why they needed the wagon I have no idea. Seeing as some of them rode in on a wagon they obviously do not need a wagon as a model. Same comments on the plow - there are really NO books in the Smithsonian on making farm plows? All they needed were the seeds (that was legit) and books. Add in the tone was still overly dark and melodramatic and those are the negatives (aside from there still being lots of walkers).

It did have its good points. The visuals of a world starting to be overgrown and infrastructure starting to collapse from lack of maintenance were nice. Some of the acting was decent - like Carol. I even liked the conclusion that both Maggie and Michonne came to that they need to set up some type of actual rules and consequences for their little community.

On balance it still wasn't great or even good - just not as stupid as in the past.

The seed archive thing was a good plot point. It made perfect sense. But huffing the wagon and the canoe down the stairs and over that glass floor was insanely pointless. It made absolutely no sense to risk their lives retrieving those items. There are thousands upon thousands of fiberglass canoes in sporting goods stores across the land. These things will never degrade. They will last for generations. There was absolutely no logical reason to retrieve a wooden canoe, not even to learn how to back-engineer it. Any competent wood worker could figure it out should the need arise -- which it wouldn't.

And as for the wagon, every farm in existence that has equine livestock has some type of wagon. They aren't a relic of olden times, they actually still exist. I've seen it numerous times and I don't even live on a farm. Regardless, there's absolutely no reason to back-engineer a simple wagon. And the plow they retrieved wasn't that big that they couldn't have set it on the wagon they brought with them, so again, retrieving that covered wagon was a moot point.

Additionally, it cannot be stressed enough how ridiculous the zombie premise is at this point in the story. They kept mentioning "herds" as if they were still a genuine threat. There simply is no way that human flesh could retain any semblance of cellular integrity after years of being out in the elements. There would be no graphic zombie bite death scenes because zombies would literally not be able to bite. Their bodies would have rotted away and composted years ago. They wouldn't exist outside of the random fresh zombie via someone dying in one of the outposts. There most certainly would be no herds roaming the countryside.

 

[Tripler]

Well those herds of zombies keep up there stamina by eating brains . Oh wait ... that was another movie . Oops !

PS ,,,What ! there's a season 9 ?

 

[Joelist]

Episode 2 is pretty much the same nonsense with a totally stupid romance out of the blue and hints that they are going to have all the progress towards building a civilization fail - which would be utterly stupid and nihilistic.

 

[PussyGalore]

Episode 2 is pretty much the same nonsense with a totally stupid romance out of the blue and hints that they are going to have all the progress towards building a civilization fail - which would be utterly stupid and nihilistic.

Did the utterly useless canoe they risked their lives to obtain make an appearance in this episode?

 

[Joelist]

Nope.

 

[PussyGalore]

Nope.

But I've become emotionally invested in what happens to that canoe.

 

[Joelist]

But I've become emotionally invested in what happens to that canoe.

Only the canoe? How about the Contestoga Wagon? And the Plow?

 

[PussyGalore]

Only the canoe? How about the Contestoga Wagon? And the Plow?

I'm indifferent to the wagon and plow. The canoe on the other hand, well, that is such a rare find for our intrepid band of warriors that one can't help but become invested in it emotionally.

 

[Overmind One]

So, Rick Grimes is dead now? Anybody watch this show who can tell me how this played out and if they think the show can go on without him?

 

[Joelist]

Well...



Everyone THINKS Rick is dead but after he blew himself up he was found on the riverbank badly injured and carried away in "the helicopter" they teased last season along with another character. He will be back in some "movies" in a year or so. And meanwhile the show just time jumped again - this time a number of years.

And I'm serious...this is the ACTUAL story.

 

[PussyGalore]

Well...



Everyone THINKS Rick is dead but after he blew himself up he was found on the riverbank badly injured and carried away in "the helicopter" they teased last season along with another character. He will be back in some "movies" in a year or so. And meanwhile the show just time jumped again - this time a number of years.

And I'm serious...this is the ACTUAL story.

Time jump? Again???

I'm so glad I gave up on this show years ago. It got too fatiguing to even "hate watch". The insufferable earnestness of Andrew Lincoln's acting was a big part of that to be honest. Now that he's gone I'm sure it will be too little too late to fix the show. The time jumps certainly don't help either.

 

[Joelist]

This is one of the milder reactions to the episode

https://tv.avclub.com/rick-grimes-deserved-a-better-sendoff-than-the-walking-1830211946

 

[PussyGalore]

This is one of the milder reactions to the episode

https://tv.avclub.com/rick-grimes-deserved-a-better-sendoff-than-the-walking-1830211946

The problem with this review is that Alex McLevy is carping about what a bad ending it was for Rick while completely ignoring the fact that the writing for TWD, and Rick especially, has been atrocious for the majority of the show; certainly everything post-season 2. Seriously, he's acting like it was an insultingly comedic, ignoble ending to a great heroic character when in truth Rick was poorly written for the majority of his tenure on the show. (Andrew Lincoln's ham fisted acting didn't help the role either.)

McLevy excels at being obtuse when he refers to this episode as "idiotic" while completely ignoring that idiocy is a prime element of the writing for this show. Rick's demise could only be written as a dim witted, slow motion Benny Hill skit because that is the only way the writers know how to write the show and the character. McLevy expecting to get any different ending for the character of Rick Grimes is just plain dumb.