The Walking Dead (no comics spoilers)

If that is true, why the big speech from Rick that they only need to take out one, aka Negan?

 

Again, it was all in order to get the horde to the compound. Rick knows full well Negan isn’t going to sacrifice himself for the greater good of the saviors. Negan and the saviors all believe they outnumber rick and co and have no idea about the horde.

 

I'm with you take the chance to kill the leader when you have it and let everything else fall into place. Sorry but if you take Negan out you have no idea what they will do, we already know Dwight has turned on him and I am sure there would be many more that would as well if Negan was gone. Take the leader out which Rick had the perfect chance to do and you weaken the group big time. jmo

 

No, you're missing my point. He went on and on to the crew that they only need to kill Negan. Was that all just for show? What was the point of it? The plan may have been like you said, but Rick sure didn't act like that when he was trying to rally the troops.

 

This would fall under one of the personal beefs I've had with TWD over the past few seasons. The creative team seems to have subbed in sloppy writing and audience manipulation in place of cohesive and compelling storytelling. You look at some of their recent shenanigans - Glenn's fake death, multiple hints/nods of Negan's impending arrival, then the season cliffhhanger of who he killed, to the following season's startup of having Abraham offed as a fake-out to Glenn's actual death - and you see less concern in building dialoge and events to create a subversive narrative, and more in just plain screwing with the viewers.

I can understand their could have been reasons Rick may not have wanted to simply cap Negan straight away, but it doesn't follow with some of the things he was saying earlier in the episode. Not to mention, if every follower identifies themselves "I am Negan", it would seem taking him out would run pretty deep with the Saviors as a whole.

 

I am not saying they should have killed Negan in the first episode as I agree it would kill the story line but come on he is standing right there. Like you say make it real have Negan inside maybe send his top guys outside and have Rick and the group shoot up the building thinking they were shooting at Negan.

That scene had me feeling like I was a kid again watch show after show of the A Team where thousands of rounds get fired and not a scratch.....

All in all it is setting up for a pretty darn good season, but I am bummed out that our Steelers will be playing the same time as this. Now I have to wait until Monday night and stay off facebook so I don't see or hear what happened.

 

I agree with the sentiment that yes, you knew they weren't going to kill Negan off, but Rick making the speech about killing him being so important, and then Negan being out in the open for an easy shot.....Negan is showing his confidence that he believes Rick will lose, but realistically, it didn't make sense. Still, it was a good episode, and I hope that they learned from their mistakes last season with dragging things out and spending too much screen time on minor things that could have been covered in 10 minutes or so.

 

Careful you are getting into "debbie downer" territory!!!

 

Yeah, this is where I'm coming from. Obviously, it would have been anti-climactic to kill Negan off in the first episode (not to mention it would've ruined all the All Out War promo posters for this season), and I wouldn't have really wanted it anyway. It's just the general sloppiness the creative team has exhibited in building up to things. Some seasons have felt like the only real episodes to watch are the first and last, with the middle being aimless filler.

 

So what is everyone's thoughts on this weeks show, I will admit I was kinda confused. For the record I had no idea who Morales was and don't remember him from season 1. All in all it was a good episode but I was so confused my head hurt when I was done watching. I feel like I need to watch it again......

 

There were so many no namers fighting each other this week, it was sometimes hard to tell who was who during the fighting. Overall, it was a decent episode, but it was a little too disjointed.

 

I'm glad I wasn't the only one confused. Who is where, who are the bad guys and who are the good guys?
Who that dude that Aaron was worried over and got shot? Am I supposed to know him? It was dramatic so was i supposed to care that he got shot?

 

Heck I was confused when Morgan got shot I wasn't even sure it was him cause I was like no way he goes out like that.......

 

That was Eric, Aaron's BF, who was initially opposed to the whole violence/war thing. Aaron had to convince hIm it was the right thing to do.

I was a bit confused as to all the goings on myself. I had a gist of what was actually going down, but I didn't recognize a lot of the players either.

And did anyone else think the aggressive Savior gal's death was a little strange? She figured out that the plan was to surround her camp and kill some comrades so they turned into walkers, then sat there with a dumbstruck look on her face while a turned comrade lumbered over and ripped her throat. I dunno, I probably would've put up a little fight, lol.

 

The episode was a bit of a mess, including that part. She seemed stronger than that.

I remembered Morales. When the group left the initial campsite, where Rick first reunited with Lori and Carl, Morales split off from the group as the rest headed for the CDC.

That twist was fine. Rick and his crew failing to shoot Negan the moment he showed himself in the first episode? That was just ridiculous. Given the crack shots these guys are when taking out walkers, it made no sense.

 

Not cool with all the excess unnecessary ammunition they're using with the spray and pray method of warfighting. Especially, when you made it a point to show us that guns and ammunition is hard to come by.

The attempt at some sort of drama with the facial close-ups was terrible. Wasted screen time for me.

Was listening to a podcast and they had the same gripe about the way they're telling the story so far.

The viewers don't know the plan and have no idea where the action is going on. For example are they all at the same compound or are they spread out attacking different groups at the same time? Exactly who is with each group and why? You have to guess what they're trying to do and what the consequences are if they don't do their part (Which we don't know, because they didn't tell us)

They phrased it like watching Oceans 11 and not knowing whether they were going to kill someone or rob someone and why.

 

Yeah, that's what I understand it to be, too, but I agree that it has been confusing how they've been portraying it.

 

I agree and my wife said the same thing about not knowing where they are. I for one didn't think that was the confusing part as I thought they did a good job showing them killing the lookouts and Rick marking off the spots on the paper. You had to pay attention and think about that but I agree it did get confusing. Like I said I wasn't sure if it was or wasn't Morgan that got shot.

The whole spraying of ammo to me was dumb, I don't care that they got guns and ammo from the water girls. I think if you are preparing for war you need to save ammo. Remember before Negan splattered Glenn and Abe the Saviors showed how many they had by send so many people to close all the roads????

Also the fact that Rick didn't kill Negan while he was in the wide open after Negan was seconds away from killing Carl right next to him before Sheba showed up is dumb. How many times has Negan went after Carl in the last few shows and Rick just let's him walk. Again someone pointed out he should have been inside and sent his men out. That would have made the whole spaying of bullets and not taking the shot at Negan more realistic.

But then again what do I know I am just a Debbie downer.......

 

I think the storytelling and narrative arc has been off for awhile. It's almost like there are certain things decided upon that will happen through the course of a season, and the rest is filled in around it, whether it makes sense or not. Like with Negan in the first episode - obviously it didn't do much for the storyline if they kill him off that quickly, but having he and his top lieutenants stand on an open walkway in front of Rick, et al, with their automatic weapons and armored cars - and having no one take a shot - is dumb. It just didn't make sense for Rick's group (unless they suddenly became self-aware that they were part of a weekly televised series... Ratings! ).

Another thing I found odd in last week's episode was the part where Morgan ran distraction by perimeter of the Savior outpost, though it might just be me. First, some of the group spoke to him like he was taking such a big risk, him ending their concern with the phrase, "I don't die." Okay. He proceeded to go to the fence line and rattle the walkers over. So the fence separated him from the walkers, and the walkers blocked him from view of the sentries. So how was that a huge personal danger?

The biggest challenge there, as I saw it, was whether the girl with the bow (Diane, I think) could take out the two sentries once the commotion ensued, before they could sound an alarm or fire a shot. However, the two arrow head-shots that followed were EXTREMELY close together. I don't even know if Legolas could've pulled that off with two orcs.

 

Yeah, I noticed that too, and had the same thought.

 

She almost would've had to nock two arrows at once, except then the split second pause may have been too much.