Sunday, October 18, 2015

WALKING DEAD, Just Stop the Stupid

"JSS," tonight's episode of THE WALKING DEAD, focused on what was happening back at the safe zone while so many of its inhabitants were away on Rick's insane zombie-herding scheme. In the course of it, we get the source of the mysterious horn that, at the conclusion of the previous ep, began to attract the zombies toward the town.

It proves to be quite an "in the course of it" though.

Most of the first 15 of the eps 40-something minutes are merely soap and filler. Scene after molasses-in-winter scene of absolutely no consequence that could have and should have been left on the cutting-room floor. At about the 15 minute-mark, Carol puts a dish in the oven and sets a timer. It's tick-ticking away and she strolls over to the window and sees her neighbor, with whom she'd been talking earlier, having a smoke. Suddenly, a big machete-wielding pirate comes out of nowhere and attacks and kills the woman! It's a big shock and the filmmaker in me immediately recognized it as the scene that should have concluded the cold opening of the episode--cut right from it to the opening title sequence. TWD instead made viewers wade through a lot of pointless mush.

The safe zone apparently has no one on look-out,[*] even after such a big deal was made out of this last season and even after they know there's a hostile element in the area, and it's caught with britches down by an attack by the "Wolves" group, piratical raiders who cut the letter w into the foreheads of their prey. They don't have guns, only blades, but most of the safe zone's more competent combatants are out herding zombies and a lot of carnage follows. Carol, in order to maintain her secret identity as a mild-mannered housewife, dons a mask, hood and a long-coat that could certainly double for a cape and, no doubt in the name of truth, justice and the American way, takes to kicking serious ass. The mysterious horn is revealed to come from a truck the Wolves were driving. The Alexandrian who apparently wasn't on look-out suddenly is on duty and he shoots the driver as the truck barrels up. It crashed into the wall and its horn momentarily locked down.

After tonight, I suspect a significant portion of the TWD fan community that so long clamored for the return of Morgan may be feeling as if they've been sold a lemon. Consistent with TWD's soap melodrama model, Morgan, like all the other characters, has actually been several characters over time, his characterization changed radically, repeatedly and arbitrarily to suit the needs of the plot of the moment. At first, he was a very take-no-nonsense regular guy; basically a good fellow but if Rick was bitten or meant any harm, Morgan would have put him in the ground without a second thought. When he appeared again (in season 3's "Clear"), he was completely out of his mind and actually did try to kill Rick, Carl and Michonne. His third and most bizarre incarnation is that of a peaceful, staff-wielding Jedi master, suddenly proficient in martial arts.

It's becoming hard to see this as anything other than a big step down.

Last week, when Rick tried to let the incompetent Alexandrians handle some zombies, Morgan 3.0 looked upon this with disapproval. Then when Rick had to kill Carter to avoid derailing the herd and getting everyone killed, one would have thought from Morgan's droopy visage that Rick had just committed some sort of war crime. Tonight, Morgan returned to the safe zone and took up the fight against the marauders but he's clearly starring in the wrong comic. Battling subhuman Wily Wolves out to do nothing but commit rape, murder, arson and rape, he's Merciful Morgan who doesn't want to hurt anybody, suddenly doesn't seem to know what kind of world in which he's living (though he's been living in it for, at this point, years) and while the Wolves are tearing the town apart and carrying out their carnage, he constantly stops for long intervals and tries to reason with them. After taking down one of them, he even ties up the fellow! When Carol sees it, she has the right reply--she just walks up and shoots the guy. She hands Morgan a gun, which he looks upon as if she'd just handed him a day-old turd before passing it off to the equally worthless Father Gabriel.

Morgan squares off with the last several attackers. He gives them a pretty good beating but he tells them to leave and never come back if they want to live, in a scene that looks uncomfortably like he's siding with them over his fellow Alexandrians. They finally get the hint and flee. Everyone knows what happens on TWD when the characters don't properly deal with situations like this. Not Merciful Morgan. He gets a lesson in it moments later but all it does is make him look sullen and walk away, a time-limit counter practically flashing across the back of his head. The stupid is strong with this one.

An amusing running sequence has to do with Coral holing up in order to protect Judith. He manages, at one point, to save Pete's worthless son Ron from a Wolf but nearly gets himself killed because of his moronic failure to put the guy away. Then he immediately turns to Ron and, with deadly earnest, says "Come inside--I can keep you safe." Yeah, I laughed. Ron, having just witnessed Carl's proficiency in dealing with trouble, wisely passes.

But for the incredible amount of padding and the offensively stupid take on Morgan, this could have been a good ep. All the actual notes being hit here, though, are quite stale indeed. TWD isn't doing anything new.[**] It isn't doing anything interesting either.

--j.

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[*] 19 Oct., 2015 - Some readers have objected that there is an alleged lookout on the wall, a fellow who gets torched at one point, but like the fellow who is later shown in the tower, he somehow missed the entire invasion. He's killed by molotov cocktails chucked from inside the town, where people are already being audibly killed while he remains oblivious. A TWD "lookout" who never sees anything is the same as no lookout.

[**] 19 Oct., 2015 - Further underlining this point, reader "Wolverine Smith" notes that "This episode seemed like a recycling of last season's premiere, 'No Sanctuary', except with Morgan standing in for the role of Tyreese and Carol playing the role of, well, Carol (or at least Carol 2.0 with the Rambo twist. Once again, the real badass fighter has lost the stomach for killing and Carol 2.0 must show them the way." The Morgan/Tyreese parallel is obvious but the "No Sanctuary" parallel hadn't occurred to me.

32 comments:

  1. The criminal mismanagement of Morgan is made all the worse by all of the buildup they had been going for since the beginning of season 5 of the eventual reunion with Rick.

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    1. But is it really all that surprising? From this show, I mean?

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  2. This episode seemed like a recycling of last season's premiere, "No Sanctuary", except with Morgan standing in for the role of Tyreese and Carol playing the role of, well, Carol (or at least Carol 2.0 with the Rambo twist. Once again, the real badass fighter has lost the stomach for killing and Carol 2.0 must show them the way.

    The beginning of this episode was ridiculous, for even TWD standards. Carol is cooking while everyone else in town goes about their daily routine calmly, almost oblivious to the fact that Rick and the rest of the people are herding a gigantic pack of walkers, thousands strong, around the town. That's what I call real confidence that Rick and the gang would not screw things up, especially given the fact that Rick's plan had only a thousand ways it could go wrong and no one in their right mind would have attempted such a fool-hearted venture, especially when you had thousands of zombies trapped in a single place where dispatching them would have been too easy.

    I hope Morgan has gotten this madness out of his system before the writers feel the need to serve him up as zombie chow like they did to Tyreese. I think that a zombie apocalypse is a bad time to decide to become a pacifist, especially after acquiring all those ninja skills since Rick last saw him. Of course, Carol somehow found commando training in the few short weeks she was kicked out of the group

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    1. The parallel between Morgan and Tyreese is obvious but the--now that you've pointed it out--rather obvious parallel of this ep with "No Sanctuary" hadn't occurred to me. Good catch. It goes along with my commentary about the series recycling itself and I may add a note about it to the article itself.

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    2. They were going on about their daily routine because it was not supposed to happen that day, they had to execute the plan earlier than expected.

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    3. To be clear: the plan is still ridiculous, but them not being worried is not a plot hole

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  3. I was pretty entertained by these cartoon-pirates so I thought it was pretty decent for WD.. I agree though that the first 15 minutes where useless and soapy..

    The lookout (Spencer?) was on duty if I remember correctly, he couldn't hit anyone though..Makes one wonder why they would take their best sharpshooter to.. .ride a car? (Didn't they know about the Wolves too?)

    Furthermore.. What is the point of this? The scavengers in the comic was a group of survivors trying forcefully to get access to Alexandria.. Rick's idea to put Andrea in the tower and quick thinking took them down without a hitch, which progressed the story so Rick could take over from Douglas. This though?

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  4. My disbelief is suspended and I am still offended by how downright dumb this show has gotten. I may feel a bit differently if I had never watched the pilot or the first season. I just watched the first season finale of Z Nation. While the production value obviously isn't there. I'd actually like to see what that crew could do with TWD's budget.
    My wife has quit watching TWD. I will continue to watch because I have trouble quitting once started. Have only given up on a few series The Lone Gunman spin off (and I'm a huge X-Files fan) is one of them. Truthfully, can't think of another off the top of my head. I even stuck it out through Lost (my wife loved it) which was like Season 2 of TWD for about five seasons.

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    1. I think ZN does great without TWD's budget--it's by far the better show, even with its most recent ep--but if its creators had that kind of money, it would certainly make life easier on them.

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  5. Forgot to mention the flat out disgusting handling of Morgan. Which I'm sure will be well covered by others... but the amount of paradigm shifts some of these characters go through with zero explanation/backstory is show breaking, honestly. Rick could die in the next episode and they'd just write Gabriel as Rick and pretend it's "character development". It means I flat out don't care who lives and dies. Darryl has been non-existent through two episodes now and he was neutered towards the end of last season. Bad-ass one morning... crying in the woods by lunch... flip flop flip flop.

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    1. "the amount of paradigm shifts some of these characters go through with zero explanation/backstory is show breaking, honestly." It's the soap melodrama model at work. I've been griping about it since my first article on this series, way back in season 2. People watch a prime-time drama in the expectation of seeing a character drama, not a daytime soap where "characters" shed their personalities like a snake its skin and constantly don new and entirely different ones.

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  6. http://daddywarpig.com/2013/02/13/cinematic-indulgences-whats-wrong-with-the-walking-dead/ This blog post is spot on with how I feel about TWD.

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    1. Good catch. I don't think it gets to the full picture--I've always believed a lot of cynicism lurked behind TWD pretentiousness--but yeah, it points in the right direction.

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    2. If you watch "The Talking Dead" when Gimple or Nicotero are on... or any of the actors (particularly Melissa McBride) you'll understand that pretentious is an understatement. They really do believe they are creating some sort of high art or something... it's bizarre. I wonder if that's why some of the actors aren't really allowed on the show. I got the impression while watching the aftershow for Fear the Walking Dead that the actors don't really feel the same way. They seemed a little more... real... about what kind of hack show they're involved in. They are constantly talking about the depth of certain things and talking about backstory that doesn't exist "in world" but is only talked about on the aftershow. Enid was on last night and she was talking about "I think this" and "I think that" in regards to why Enid is the way she is... Why can't they just show us that. And no... showing her eat a tortoise doesn't do that. Although that was a nice attempt and bringing survival into it. When it was really just another way for them to throw JSS up on the screen again. Hit me with the JSS bat again please, Mr. Gimple. And again. And again. And again. And again.

      Blah.

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    3. That's fucking annoying haha. I remember Lori's actress was also quite pretentious about the show and herself. Why would any of them think such a thing of a show set in the ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE? How much more silly can you get than a premise like that?

      Do you have any examples of the FTWD cast-members being nonchalant towards the show? I'm in the mood to watch some interviews.

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    4. James,
      I cannot remember them having an actor on The Talking Dead that wasn't a pretentious hag. Even Carter who was on last week... that dude that was on screen for about 95 seconds total was acting like he really had the flesh out the character or something tough. All he needed to do was put on his red t-shirt and remember six lines.

      Lori's actress (Sarah Callies or whatever her name is) was similar to McBride. Tyrese was similarly freaking goofy talking about it. About the only one that seemed to have fun with it that I can remember is the leader at Terminus (Ethan?) I can't remember his name. That actor seemed to have a good time on TTD. Also Carl (Chandler Riggs) seemed less upity about it all. But the ones who are more laid back aren't really on the show much. TTD is what it is... a shill for TWD. That much is transparent. But that doesn't mean it can't be fun. TTD is not longer a fun aftershow like it seemed to be a few seasons ago. They have even gotten rid of the fun repeat guests. That thick black lady (no clue what he name is), but she's typical rabid TWD fan. She writes down in a diary while she's watching the show... pages of notes. She was entertaining because of how into it she was. It was weird.

      But she's not even on any more. She was over-the-top to the point of being fun to watch. Now they just have whoever is paying for a seat on the couch so they can't plug their new show or new season's premiere. Boring. It used to be worth watching about 25% of the time, but it hasn't been for at least half a season now.

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    5. That lady actually will be on the next TD episode if your wondering!

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    6. Jacob,

      That's probably also why they got Hardwick to host the show as he's nothing but a kiss-ass.

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    7. Fro the most part. To his credit, there have been a few times he's caught the writers off guard. He quickly goes back to fanyboy Hardwick though. I do remember one time that Gale Hurd was caught off guard by a criticism by one guest (I can't remember the dude's name) and she quickly went if the defensively about a particularly scene. It was the third or fourth Talking Dead episode of Season Four.

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    8. Hmm, I could be wrong but wasn't it James Gunn that openly criticized the TWD on Talking Dead? That could be who you're talking about. I do know a few guests were trashing the show early on.

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    9. I might go back to find some early TTD episodes or clips. It's a boring echo chamber now.
      I usually only watch about 15 minutes of it before getting bored. I don't remember when I first started watching the aftershow. Probably season four or so? Maybe last part of season three.

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  7. So let me get this straight.. The horn was an accident after an obvious idiot ran into the wall and got stuck on the horn-button? Or was that a plan by the wolves? put a zombie in the truck, ram it into the wall so it honks the horn?(absurdly stupid but this show never disappoints in that department).

    So these maniacs whom last year directed zombies around and had a lot of them stuck away aren't on purpose responsible for the herd that'll crash into the safe-zone? It's just an absurd coincidence?

    Help me out here.

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    1. They needed to do something to further destroy Rick, so they set his plan up to fail. They needed to finish wrecking Morgan's character... so they sent him back first to complete his "pussification". The horn was a device... what was the truck doing anyway? Was it to haul stuff away... I could buy that. If so, why is he rolling in at a million miles an hour during the early stages of the fighting? It certainly didn't seem like a walker until the guy shot him. Was the truck full of walkers and was going to be a "Trojan Horse" type of deal? We saw them with tractor trailers loaded up with walkers before... so maybe that was the plan. Either way the Wolves inside didn't seem to be looking for it at any point... which means it was probably contrived solely as a device to make the walkers turn so they can spend most of the season flipping between the groups in ASZ, Rick/Michonne, and Daryl/Abraham/Sasha without actually moving the story forward more than at a snail's pace. If you want to stretch a story you either tell it slowly or you tell it three times. Last season it was slowly this season it looks like they're going for the telling it three times approach.

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    3. I just assumed it was a wolf member that wanted to hit the tower to take out the sniper, but died in the process.

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    4. ^^ It was. The lookout sprayed a few bullets at him and then he lost control after being shot.

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  8. Hilarious ironic that you guys are calling The Walking Dead pretentious, I bet you think shit like Z Nation is good. Bet it makes you feel great sitting on your ass gulping down Mountain Dew and Doritos while your greasy sausage fingers have a seizure on the keyboard about how "horrible" The Walking Dead is because you have unchecked inferiority issues. Stay autistic.

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    1. Sounds like someone over here is projecting. It's not hard to change your diet, man. Just think, you could end up like Kevin Smith (one of Talking Dead's favorite guests if you don't know who that is) that should be motivation enough to quit the Dew.

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    2. Z Nation doesn't THINK it's good. That's the difference. Both are silly zombie stories. One knows it's a silly zombie story. One thinks it is a work of art. You do understand what pretentious means, right?

      Autistic... really? I bet I haven't had Mountain Dew for over a decade. Doritos not quite as long. My fingers are also not made out of sausage. I think Mr. Hook is right. Projection Junction.

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    3. I disagree on the matter of art. Both TWD and ZN are art. It's just that TWD is bad art made by unbearably pretentious people. ZN is great show made by people who create art but are humble and without any pretension on that point.

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  9. Maybe you should stop the stupid. Ever think of that?

    The 15 minutes is a very well setup. We got a little backstory of the girl, who likes to go outside on season 5 and this explains her survival tendency (and this is 6 minutes of some survival scenes with the turtle included). And some Ron character that be an enemy to Rick with Jesse's taking Rick's side. Then we got Carol bonding with the girls and communicating with them like a normal housewives, before turning everything to full-on killing massacre. Maybe if a "critic" or "filmmaker" (<- yes with "") like you could understand more of the meaning of character development and growth rather than calling it a "soap" or "filler". If you really are a "filmmaker", your movie quality would be the same as IMDB's top 5 lowest movie ranking.

    Calling it a pointless mush for a great development and characterization in the episode making me stop reading your shit. Have a good day "filmmaker" or "critic" wannabe.

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    1. Enid's "backstory"--really just some filler moments--doesn't add anything. Neither does the business between Ron and his mother. We had already established all of that in his interactions with Rick in the previous episodes and, because repetition is the soul of TWD, his mother had also explained it to Rick then as well. The business with the woman trying to be a doctor could have been explained on the spot when the wounded woman came in. Or, better yet, just excise that entire plotline, which, like all the other stuff already covered, adds nothing to the show. Carol's conversation with the housewives should have opened the show, followed by her watching her neighbor be killed--cut to the opening credit sequence.

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