Monday, November 9, 2015

WALKING DEAD, Now Hear This!

Tonight, THE WALKING DEAD followed up last week's 90-minute filler ep with a 60-minute filler ep. Its official title was "Now" but a better one would have been "Now Hear This!" With the exclamation point. The characters on TWD never just talk to one another. They don't have ordinary human conversations. As I've long noted--since my very first article on this series, in fact--even banal interactions between them too often tend to be expressed via a form of brutally anti-naturalistic soap-opera speechifying and "Now" was one of the worst dialogue eps in this respect in a while, nearly every significant interaction being some preposterous speech that tries to grandiloquently express some ever-so-profound-and-important sentiment but just ends up leaving any viewer with any sensitivity to dialogue with an ear infection.[1] Now hear this!

It begins with Rick and Michonne's group hauling ass through a horde of zombies that are shambling toward the safe zone. The writers have arbitrarily afflicted Rick with a rather severe case of slug-footedness lately and some of the slow, shuffling creatures are actually outpacing him as he, at a full head of steam, heads for the gate. Two weeks ago, in "Thank You," it took him 20 minutes to run only a mile but by the time you're being outrun by critters that have been corpses for nearly two years, perhaps it's time to pray to the writers for speed that more obviously reflects your script immunity.

Next, it's the script's turn to get slug-footed--pretty much nothing of any substance happens beyond those opening moments. With the town surrounded by zombies, Rick immediately delivers the first speech of the evening, a rundown of the situation intended to boost morale which he packs with gravitas, gesticulation and dramatic pauses though he's only addressing about 10 people who are milling about in his immediate vicinity. Rick tells the assembled the best move is to try to make the dead forget they're there--to be very quiet at all times, pull the drapes at night or, better yet, don't turn on the lights at all. "We try to make this place as quiet as a graveyard to see if they move on." Not a bad idea but, consistent with TWD's descent into self-parody, one delivered as part of this unnecessarily loud speech. The community entirely ignores this advice throughout the ep--we see lights on at night, people talking, even people loudly arguing. Most hilariously, Rick himself is seen shortly after his speech standing on the wall in full view of the dead outside! Worse, he sets up a regular watch there, so there will always be live people in sight of the hungry dead (who, of course, won't be going anywhere as long as this is the case).

Some of the Alexandrians decide the end is nigh and get it in their heads to raid the community pantry, gruffly rejecting the notion that, with the town surrounded by zombies, they need to carefully ration the food. This leads to another big speech, this time by Deanna's son Spencer, who manages to shame the would-be pirates out of their raid with a dimestore angels-of-our-better-natures schtick. Rationing is a necessary measure but food shouldn't really be an immediate concern. One of the filler scenes in "JSS", set earlier that same day, established there was so much that some of it had been sitting there collecting dust for ages and as a consequence of the raid by the Wolves, there are now a lot fewer mouths to feed, both facts that seem to have slipped down a Memory Hole. The Alexandrian leading the pantry raid who was charged with complaining that he didn't want to watch his family starve was a rather fat fellow.

The unintentional self-parody creeps in at every turn. Throughout this season (and the end of last), TWD has constantly hammered the theme that our heroes have been out in the apocalypse and know what they're doing, even as their every action loudly screams otherwise. Tonight during Rick's opening speech, Aaron sounds off at one point with a mini-speech of his own in which he praises their experience and talks about how Daryl has proven wiser than he. "Now," with Daryl, Sasha, Abraham and Glenn--a big portion of their experienced hands--out in the field and away from town, this ep saw both Maggie and Carl independently plot to even further reduce the veteran manpower on hand during the crisis by secreting themselves out of the safe zone to search for, respectively, Glenn and Enid. Put your lives in the hands of these pros, Alexandrians.

Jessie comes across a zombie in a house. She opens the door and kills it but then she, too, must turn to the other ten townspeople who have randomly gathered to watch this and deliver another motivational speech about this being how life looks these days and how they all have to fight.[2] Maggie and Aaron try to slip out through a sewer that leads outside the walls--a rather huge potential security risk to suddenly pull out of a hat like a rabbit at this late date[2a]--but they find the pipe doesn't come out beyond the assembled dead. Aaron notes there are only a few zombies and that they could fight through them but Maggie, in an utterly random and inexplicable twist, suddenly decides not to go and puts a stop to the adventure. Then to "explain" this, she gives yet another speech,[3] this one about how both he and she will just have to live with whatever happens in life. A rambling, teary-eyed diatribe that doesn't explain a thing.[4]

In the end, Maggie and Aaron decide not to go look for Glenn, Carl doesn't go to look for Enid, the Alexandrians don't raid their own community pantry, the fate of Glenn isn't resolved or even touched upon, the Wolf whom Morgan is holding isn't mentioned and the disastrous effects of Morgan's recent behavior remain unaddressed.[5] In short, this was an ep in which there were lots of unintentionally funny moments, lots of dialogue that doesn't remotely approximate any form of actual human interaction but one in which, beyond the opening minutes, absolutely nothing of any consequence happened. Another ep full of foam to tick off the season order and nothing more.

--j.

---

[1] The awful dialogue made me think of last season's "Consumed," and I wasn't really surprised when, just prior to beginning this article, I looked it up and saw that Corey Reed, the writer-of-record on tonight's opus, was a co-writer-of-record on that previous mess.

[2] Alexandrians didn't seem to have much to do tonight but mope around listening to speeches. Fat Guy, who led the raid on the pantry, was, like several others, present for Rick's speech, Aaron's mini-speech in the middle of it, Spencer's speech and Jessie's speech. Imagine how motivated he must have felt that day!

[2a] 9 Nov., 2015 - It also could have been the means of the safe zone's salvation. One of my constant gripes about TWD is how the characters spend so much time on ridiculous soap nonsense at the expense of time devoted to how they can survive their situation--the thing that would, in such a scenario, be their primary focus. Here, someone or a team of someones could slip out through that drain, find some wheels, make a little noise and lure the herd away from town. Instead, it materializes just like that magician's rabbit solely for Maggie's attempted search-and-rescue mission-- or, more specifically, to work in all the melodrama surrounding that--then is forgotten as soon as she changes her mind.

[3] Lauren Cohan has always had trouble keeping Maggie's faux-Southern accent consistent but throughout this ep, it's hilariously awful, particularly when she's doing this big, impassioned speech.

[4] The ep runs a little over 40 minutes sans ads and the total speech-count was five or six, depending on whether one counts Aaron's early remarks as a new speech or as part of Rick's speech.

[5] The ripple-effect of disaster from Morgan's behavior continues; the group of Wolves whom Morgan allowed to escape at the end of "JSS" immediately encountered and tried to kill Rick in the RV at the end of "Thank You." Probably because of damage inflicted by the gun one of those Wolves took before fleeing, the RV wouldn't start and Rick couldn't lead the herd away as he'd planned. As a consequence, the safe zone is now surrounded by the dead. The closest tonight's ep came to addressing any of this was a line in Rick's speech about there being more than needs to be discussed, offered while he was looking right at Morgan.

26 comments:

  1. I think that the zombie Jessie killed was one of the Alexendrites. There was a woman who reacted to Rick's speech as any sane person would, "We're all gonna die!" I thought that this was the person who slashed her wrists and reanimated as a zombie. Err...walker.

    Otherwise, spot on. Although I'm a little sad that you didn't mention the "fight" between Coral and Ron.

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    1. It was the wife of that dude that gave Michonne a note awhile back. Everyone probably forgot since they are going to take nearly a month to tell us if Glenn "died". Such a pathetic show.

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    2. I certainly didn't realize it and I'm pretty good for details like that. If that's the zombie in question, it makes the handling of that moment even more atrocious from a dramatic standpoint.

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    3. Yes... you have to watch The Talking Dead to get the backstory of moments like that. Michonne doesn't even tell this chick that her husband is dead... yet she slits her wrists. What if he just stayed behind to help someone carry some stuff? She's been home for ten minutes, this chick cuts her wrists. It was very WTF. Of all the garbage that "happened" during last night's episode they couldn't spare 30 seconds for this lady to actually confirm that her husband was dead.

      I might be home 20 minutes late from work today... hope my wife doesn't pull the same stunt as Betsy.

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    4. Michonne didn't take the note the guy wrote his wife, which was then lost (which didn't make any sense--why would someone hold on to something to be given to his wife in the event that he was killed and didn't return?). She did, however, read it. She didn't go to the wife and talk to her. We wouldn't really have to see such a scene but it needed to be clearly suggested and there was nothing like that. It didn't happen as suddenly as you suggest though. There was a passage of at least some time between Rick and co. returning and Rick's speech, because Rick talked about their having reinforced the damaged wall panel. There was no overt connection made between the zombie and the wife though. I'm not even sure any previous ep established any such connection and without that, the scene with Jessie had absolutely no dramatic impact (and Jessie's speech at the end of it would have been absurd anyway). I just assumed the zombie was one of the Alexandrians killed by the Wolves.

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    5. They could have at least let us know it was Betsy.

      I thought she reached back through and grabbed the note? Or maybe I'm thinking of the fact she rubbed off the thing she wrote on her wrist?

      I thought it was a random Alexandrian too... but TTD clarified. TWD never established who Betsy was... Then had her commit suicide for effect. Hahah

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    6. I couldn't bear another hour of Walking Dead material so I haven't watched Talking Dead as yet. I recognized the zombie as the character from Rick's speech. It was, like most of the episode, absurd. I hadn't realized she was the wife until Jacob's mention.

      The show gives us these tertiary characters, and kills them within minutes, and somehow there is supposed to be some emotional reaction from the audience. They're worse than red-shirts, even more disposable. They exist for the show makers to point at and say to the audience, "See how dangerous the world is? See how bad-ass Rick & Co. are and how feeble everyone else is??? Oooooo...dangerous, dangerous world."

      The note was trampled under walker-foot as the poor husband was devoured alive as Michonne and the others watched with majestic detachment...She later rubbed the writing off of her arm.

      In the writer's minds, perhaps there are connections between these characters and events. Connections which they are so steeped in that they presume them to be obvious to the viewer. They are not.

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    9. The Talking Dead: I couldn't imagine another hour of talking about the Walking Dead; this isn't The Great Gatsby they're discussing. The characters spend enough time repeating the same speeches over and over again, often in the same episode, and always repeated multiple times each season. Who would want to watch more talking about a show that always tells you what's happening in long winded ridiculous speeches instead of showing you what's happening. I don't think anyone at TWD realizes that television is a visual media, you can show viewers what's happening, and you don't need twenty minutes of dialogue to discus two minutes of action. TWD makes us watch characters talk about what we've all just seen them do; and then a few minutes later usually talk about the same thing again. Because the only thing easier than writing bad dialogue is getting to use the same bad dialogue over and over again. This was possibly the worst episode of TWD yet. That's something.

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  2. Dear Mr. Riddle,

    Your constant snipping in TWD has lost the series one viewer, namely myself, for many of your criticisms are most apt, to the point where one say what the hell happened - I still remember the first season well, but its been downhill since and this Season has not really engaged me whatsoever - indeed, Z Nation gets my vote, at least that has some good jolly moments, whilst TWD and FTWD seem now just lame to me - which is a shame as I do actually like the Zombie genre greatly.

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  3. Laughably bad episode. When you really go back and watch the whole series... this show was four good episodes followed by five seasons with a couple of speed bumps down the road to hell. I watch it now only to see how far it has fallen and out of some twisted desire to see where they take it based on what I've read in the comics. My guess is they will handle Negan so horribly that it will finally pound the last nail in... AMC can't have Negan on this show.

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  4. This episode was so bad I don't even know where to begin. I laughed my ass off at the beginning where Rick was leading the zombie herd right to the town. It's just so dumb it hurts my brain. We just spent the early part of the season showing the great lengths Rick and the whole team were willing to take to lure the zombies away from the town. Did he suddenly forget about all that? So instead of running away from the town to lure the zombies in a different direction, he heads right to the place where he was trying to avoid zombies finding? Not to mention, the last we saw of Rick he was in a camper surrounded by zombies. How the hell did he get out of that situation?!

    Also, I thought Rick doesn't take chances anymore? Seems like he took a big chance bringing the zombies back to the town where his son and all the people he's trying to protect live. Oh but we got a good speech about how only half the zombies showed up to the town that could have, so I guess we're supposed to applaud that.

    I also want to know where was Carol during last night's episode. You'd think she'd have been there at Rick's speech at the beginning, but nope. Was she too busy taking a dump or baking cookies to care about all the zombies that showed up? I guess the producers didn't want to hire the actress for the episode, so they wrote her out of it completely even though the lack of her character being at any of the discussions in town after Rick showed up made no sense.

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    1. Carol was present for Rick's speech. She doesn't say anything but she's there in some background shots.

      I can't fault Rick for heading back to town. The dead were already heading in that direction and without wheels, he had no chance of ever getting away from them. It was head home or die. A lot of people today have, in various venues, complained about Rick's unseen escape from the RV. That didn't really bother me. It wasn't as if he was left in an unescapable situation there--it's just something that happened off camera.

      The moment that made me laugh--and laugh pretty hard--was Rick, after giving that speech about being quiet and hoping the dead will forget they're there and just leave, standing lookout in plain sight of the dead below. Bad, bad TWD.

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    2. Figured she would have been handing out brownies or something.

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    3. Rick ' we gotta get out of sight and be quiet'
      (Immediately climbs ladder and stands in full view of thousands of zombies)

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    4. Want to say that I forced my wife to sit through Rick's speech last night telling her all 43 minutes was that bad. She laughed. I also noticed Carol, although I am not 100% sure it wasn't a stand in or a cardboard cut out. lol

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  5. Yes, Rick running back after magically being excused from the broken down RV was laughable.

    It's also hilarious that Carol didn't make the speech and that Rick implies that he knows that Morgan let those guys go with a gun...?

    WHY AREN'T THEY THINNING THE HERD AT THE GATE?! Get some long sharpened sticks. Some rocks to drop on them. SOMETHING. DOOOOOOO SOOOOMMMMMEEETTTTHHIIIIINNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!

    Sleepwalkers do more stuff at night then these ASZers do all day long for weeks on end. These are presumably the same people who got organized enough to assemble this enormous wall, yet they can't be bothered to patrol it or start thinning down the walkers.

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  6. Stopped watching two weeks ago when they pulled the "Glenn-death-fakeout". I saw the incompetent ass writers coming from a mile away and realized what they where gonna do.. "slamming on the brakes" I believe you called it? Well that's exactly what I thought..

    I'll probably pick it up after all episodes are out for this half.. Keep doing the reviews though, they're amusing.

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    1. Agreement.
      Keep the reviews coming- they're highly amusing .

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    2. The only reason people suspect Glen is still alive (myself included) is because TWD is so predictable that Glen can't possibly be dead, because we all would have seen his death coming at least 2-3 episodes earlier.

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  7. nice blog and review.
    this episode wasn't even worth so many words.
    embarrassingly bad.

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  8. It appears that terrible walking dead episodes are good for buisness .... 'eh' Riddle

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  9. I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here, but I think that for the moment being Rick has no choice but to put watch. He is expecting the other members still outside of Alexandria to give some sort of sign that they are coming back or at least that they are still alive, so they have to be on the lookout for that possibility. After that situation is resolved, then they can implement the plan of being less conspicuous to the zombies outside.

    An as for food. Maybe some of the food got stolen or ruined during the Wolves' surprise raid. In any event, they always rationed food and supplies in Alexandria. Now that the survivors are more scared than ever and envision that they have their days numbered some of them are not happy with the rationing, and forgetting reason and common sense demand more. As the saying goes, "Living for today".

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