Walking Dead & Alcohol(Mild Season 4 spoiler)

[Eric]

So one of the characters this season is an alcoholic....ummmmm....so during a zombie apocalypse that's still a possibility? You would think that given the difficulty of getting alcohol that you would detox naturally, but Walking Dead has found a way to show us there's somebody who not only survives, but gets his sweet nectar in the process.

I dunno, I just found this a bit ridiculous.

Survival list:
Weapon
Food
Shelter
Alcohol?!

[Shrinweck]

Detoxing doesn't mean that you won't crave it when you find more later. Not every alcoholic is teetering on the edge of alcohol poisoning constantly.

[Flip]

This season, i think, has been a little lame. I need more moving out of the prison and less crying about everything.

[Shrinweck]

Yeah this season isn't great but it's still twice as good as season two.

[Zeus]

Three wasn't that fantastic either.....

[Shrinweck]

Three was good for the most part. Or maybe it was 50/50.

Haven't comic readers been saying from the start that it's downhill after the first storyline in season one? If not then I'm saying it now :D

It's good that a lot of the story isn't following the comics but the comic really really bogged down in the prison same as they're doing - so they're just making the same mistakes but differently.

[Blotus]

I dunno, I just found this a bit ridiculous.

Survival list:
Weapon
Food
Shelter
Alcohol?!

Never underestimate the power of habitual substance abuse. Have you ever been addicted to anything? It sucks.

[SineSwiper]

Yeah this season isn't great but it's still twice as good as season two.

It's more character development, which is what people get all poo poo about, even though that's really what Walking Dead is about. It's not about zombies. It's about the characters themselves.

[Flip]

Yeah this season isn't great but it's still twice as good as season two.

It's more character development, which is what people get all poo poo about, even though that's really what Walking Dead is about. It's not about zombies. It's about the characters themselves.

The problem is is that its obvious character development. A guys GF gets murdered so he rages, ho hum. The only shocking development was Carol suddenly becoming tough as nails, but then the show got rid of her. Good job, show, the only interesting character development twist is completely wasted.

Luckily, the gov is back soon and all his crazy.

[Zeus]

Yeah this season isn't great but it's still twice as good as season two.

It's more character development, which is what people get all poo poo about, even though that's really what Walking Dead is about. It's not about zombies. It's about the characters themselves.

Name me 2 good characters and why you think they're good

[Shrinweck]

Well two is easy - Glenn and Carl. Three would take some effort. Glenn is acted well, a minority on television that they don't CONSTANTLY remind us is a minority with every plot point, he isn't one of those asshole characters that's constantly road blocking plot points, and it's interesting to watch him develop. Carl developing into a psychopath is one of the more interesting things in the comic. I'm kind of glad the blond farmer's daughter and him stopped making eyes at each other. It's becoming more and more obvious as real life time marches on that the blond is actually an actress that's near 30 and it was starting to get weird.

Oh, oh, that's my third, the blond farmer's daughter (Beth) is being taken in a cool direction. Maggie is also technically ten million times more interesting in the television show than the comic., but they hardly do anything of note with her so she doesn't count.

The Walking Dead is about character development, which I'm fine with, but, yeah, this is shitty character development. Daryl becoming respectable - good, layered character development as a response to a few things happening to the character at once. Nearly everything else is just these foolios reacting like anyone would to external stimuli. This season is just largely about people talking about uninteresting, obvious things in dimly lit rooms.

[Zeus]

Darrell, IMO, is the only good character. They've actually done a really good job with him. They don't overdo his character and he's never been ridiculous. What they did with him and his bro was excellent, no doubt about it. And he's grown as a character since then. One of my fav characters on any show right now.

Glen is fine but he's a secondary character who's hardly done anything for a while. The rest are annoying or just not well flushed out. I don't mind Hershel, actually, but his character has no choice but to be eliminated at some point (I haven't seen Sunday's episode). They've been setting it for a long time and honestly, I'm shocked he made it off the farm. Since then, he's just kinda been around as Rick's sub-conscious talking to him or he's basically been the non-crazy Rick fill-in and that's about it.

I really don't like Carl....at all. "Oh look, my kid loves to shoot things....THIS IS BAD!!!" and watch Carl react to it. Ugh.

I'm not that enamoured with anyone else, really. Rick's character is silly, this whole "stress is making me a psycho I can't control therefore I have to remove myself from any decision making" thing is stupid. I can get if the stress gets to you, I'm sure it would to most. But the way it was done in the show (hallucinations, ridiculous actions) was stupid. Hershel's daughters are nothing more than plugs at this point to being across some point they wanna make. I'm not much of a fan of what they've done with either black male character and Mishone, who had a purpose with the Governor around, is just in a holding pattern now.

And that's kinda the problem with the show in Season 4, it's in a holding pattern while they try to figure the next big plot point out. That's why they introduced the virus, it's giving a lot of the characters (Glen and Hershel, for sure) something to do. The odd seasons were the best but the even seasons seem to just be treading water without going anywhere (at least so far for Season 4).

[Shrinweck]

Rick is kind of a shitty protagonist. Comic book readers are pining for his death during the current comic storyline but I doubt it's coming. The interesting things about his character just kind of go away without

Spoiler: show

Shane or his wife around.

(not sure why I spoiled that considering they're spoilers from previous seasons). His insanity is kind of brought up in a better way in the comic. The stuff here to move it to a visual medium was, yeah, dumb. He just isn't a compelling character unless he's confronting an antagonist any more. And even that ends up kind of being lost in the comic.

Daryl is probably their most popular character now so it kind of just feels like they're trying to broaden his audience further by softening him up.

Tyreese hasn't been given much of anything to do yet and Michonne's awesome shit she does around now is probably going to be absent from the television show just because it's so fucked up that Kirkman was still responding to mail about it months and months (years?) later in the letters sections of the comics. Actually Tyreese had a sweet moment in the comic too but because of the way they played with continuity (in the comic he's there when they're first clearing out the prison and that's when he starts to shine) he's just some stranger to the audience. They called back to Tyreese's prison clearing moment when they

Spoiler: show

left him behind to die at the car but he got away

in that episode two or three back, but it just wasn't done well and didn't resonate with the audience the same way.

Kind of sad.. Tyreese's actor is good and I loved him in The Wire and also I saw him again at my gym a month or two ago... so that's kind of cool I guess.

[SineSwiper]

The only shocking development was Carol suddenly becoming tough as nails, but then the show got rid of her. Good job, show, the only interesting character development twist is completely wasted.

I didn't like the "suddenly" part. It felt like your standard "we just thought of this plot point this season" BS. Shoehorned in.

Overall, though, it was the right choice for Rick to kick her out. I wasn't expecting that, but it made sense. Carol crossed a line, and Rick couldn't let her get away with it.

[Shrinweck]

Got around to watching the latest. I think that was the best episode they've done since season one. The drama was good and so was the action. None of the characters did any of the annoying things that usually act as nothing but a roadblock to interesting things actually happening.

Literally nothing in this episode had any kind of correlation with the comic and I think that's finally 100% a good thing.

Also not that this series has been guilty of this in the past but the featured song didn't seem like they were just trying to make a buck with a catchy tune. I hate it when television these shows seem to be more of a cross promotion of a product, especially when that product is a song. At least a good writer can make selling a car or cereal funny, but there's really no way to promote a song with integrity when the credits are voice-overed with "BUY THE LATEST ALBUM BY ____, NOW"

[Zeus]

Tell me you guys liked Sunday's episode.....

[Shrinweck]

An interesting episode. I definitely have hope for the rest of the season after the last two episodes.

Spoiler: show

Did... he tear out that zombies spine through its neck? I guess that's certainly a way to sever brain function. I think that end in the pit has him winning most gruesome zombie kills.

New girls seemed cool. Hope they stick around.

Edit: After sleeping on it, I have decided that my post was incomplete without me mentioning how god damned terrible the opening montage was. The opening montage was god damned terrible

[Zeus]

After "terrible" replace the words "opening montage" with "the entire episode" and I'd agree. That's the definition of AMC-ing a show

[Shrinweck]

I kind of agree - it wasn't the best episode, but it takes the season in a direction that's better than 'lets look for carol's daughter for an entire story arc' or 'people are sick, let's get them medicine!'

The women are complete idiots (i.e. not figuring out to destroy the brain and SCREAMING out in the open) but the performances are good and I could see them going somewhere. The fact that one of them has medical expertise makes me think

Spoiler: show

Hershel is done for, but obviously that's just speculation.

[Zeus]

I've been waiting for that for a couple years now. But I don't think so, they have use for that character and appear to be more building around it than attempting to destroy it. I'm leaning towards that character hanging around a lot longer than anyone thinks, particularly the way the last few eps have gone

[Shrinweck]

Happy with the general events in last Sunday's episode, but the scene to scene stuff was just... so bad at times.

Spoiler: show

Daughter playing alone, no supervision. Idiotic. Daryl using a rotten zombie as a shield against automatic weapons fire. Fucking lol. That tank. WTF. No corpse, baby possibly not dead (or this is just AMC struggling with limitations of what they can show on cable, in which case this isn't that big of a deal). Also a grenade blowing up an entire tank... wouldn't that at best have destroyed the barrel? And how the fuck would the guy inside have even known about the grenade?

It looks like they were just building up Hershel just so people would care more about his death.

Going to be interesting to see what they do with the nurse's character and her sister.

I heard that Kirkman is starting to retain more creative control and wants it to follow the comics more. Which just means this show is in imminent danger of becoming unwatchable since this is where the comics started to get bad. Depending on how much control that is, Daryl is almost certainly going die soon. Kirkman takes a certain amount of glee in pissing off his fans with character death and he's already been quoted that Daryl's fans being the way they are is basically just a dare for him to get killed off.

[Flip]

I thought it was kind of a weird 3 episode arc. They reintroduced the Gov and killed him off so fast, just as i was starting to like his role in the show. For him to take control of the new camp and lead them to a massive battle seems far fetched. If i had a solid group and some psycho guy came out of nowhere, I dont think i'd follow him. I'm glad they kept him crazy, though. Him turning into a nice guy would have been even more far fetched.

All in all though, i'm glad they are out of the prison now. It'll finally be something new to look forward to what happens next. I didnt really bat an eye when Herschel died, most of us were expecting that.

My nitpick of the week, Sorry, but I dont think you can use a license plate to cut through ropes on your wrists. Lame.

[Shrinweck]

I dunno. Considering people seemed to be ignoring her and she was gone for like the entire fight, it can be assumed that she spent like 15-30 minutes with the license plate... I'm willing to suspend disbelief enough that considering how diligent she is that she would put in the time and effort required to use something with barely any edge... and those ropes weren't heavy duty and quite thin. I think the bigger WTF with her is how she wasn't just immediately blasted in the back of the head by the governor the second the fight started. It's also quite likely the dude she killed had a knife, since it's the zombie apocalypse after all. Or they ignored her so completely that she just plain recovered her sword and that'd make short work of rope.

I was pleasantly surprised by how the episode packed in content. I thought they were going to draw this out for the entire next half season.

[Zeus]

"Lame". That pretty much describes the entire show right now, Flip

[Shrinweck]

I won't go as far as saying all these episodes have been great, but I do like the storytelling involved in the series a lot more with a bunch of small groups than with one big group. It allows the characters room to actually be people as opposed to big groups where the story has to be about some bigger cause. Zombie stories are at their best when it's focused.

Also the twist in tonight's episode was pretty fucking nuts. Solid four out of five episode. Good stuff. Tempted to say five out of five simply because the episode's motivation wasn't the whims of a teenager. I don't really understand how some tree sap made an infection go away in less than two days, but hey, killing off Chad L Coleman like that would have been fucked up.

I really hope the Terminus isn't supposed to be the facsimile of the current settlement where the events of the comic are happening now. If it is we're in for some truly horrible television. Hopefully there are enough checks and balances with the network and other writers that it just won't fall into the trap of the abysmal storyline the comic is stuck in right now.

[Zeus]

This show is just proving 2 things right now:

1) how much they truly miss Darabont
2) exactly what the term "AMC-ing" means

[kali o.]

This show is just proving 2 things right now:

1) how much they truly miss Darabont
2) exactly what the term "AMC-ing" means

As usual, I have no idea what you are on about. If (and I am just taking a guess here) you mean they are stretching stuff out / moving too slow, I'd agree with you. I don't mind the style change (more individual stories) but not enough is happening. Should have condensed the last 6 eps into 3 tops.

But other than that, I still enjoy TWD. Much better than Community, the current season feels like it really should not have happened and just ended last season.

[Zeus]

This show is just proving 2 things right now:

1) how much they truly miss Darabont
2) exactly what the term "AMC-ing" means

As usual, I have no idea what you are on about. If (and I am just taking a guess here) you mean they are stretching stuff out / moving too slow, I'd agree with you. I don't mind the style change (more individual stories) but not enough is happening. Should have condensed the last 6 eps into 3 tops.

But other than that, I still enjoy TWD. Much better than Community, the current season feels like it really should not have happened and just ended last season.

Yeah, that's basically it. In the 3 shows I've watched on AMC (Breaking Bad, Rubicon, and Walking Dead), every last one of them ends up having overly drawn-out storylines where they try to place the characters in over-dramatic situations to a) make you give a shit about them; and b) make one episode's worth of content last for 4-5 episodes. For me, it has the opposite effect and I start to care less about the characters and get annoyed at the filler.

That's how you get almost anything involving Skylar in Breaking Bad, how you ended up with 13 episodes on the farm that only really had about 5 or 6 episodes worth of content in Walking Dead. Or what they're doing this season, where they have this split of the group from the prison and instead of properly following multiple groups per episode (2 at least, maybe touch on a third; like HBO does with Game of Thrones) and lead to the eventual reunion at Terminus to keep the individual group storylines moving and fresh in your mind, they focus solely on one per ep like they figure the audience couldn't keep up. I mean, how many eps has it been since we've seen the main character? 3? Kinda have to remember what the heck is going on with some of these groups. I sorta recall what's going on with Glenn, but I might need a bit of a refresher. And that's not even including the idiocy of some of the situations, like the two little girls (I'll avoid spoilers just in case). That really, really didn't need to happen and, honestly, adds nothing to the story IMO. It was just a forced shocking thing they did to try and keep the show interesting.

Just a combination of all these issues and missteps by the shows, especially stretching across multiple series' on the same network, leads to an indication of a mentality at an executive level which I'm just not fond of. It's almost like they're minimizing the quality of their shows with a specific forced formula (i.e. over-dramatized, sometime shocking situations that stretch out content). Hence the term "AMC-ing".