The Walking Dead TV series on AMC

[Cagliostro]

Then again, the Walking Dead does take place in the South, and Georgia specifically (at least at the beginning of the series. It's a different world from the one I'm used to, especially from driving down there to visit the parents of my now ex. I had long hair, and people wouldn't even look me in the eye or talk to me. So maybe because it is set there, {South bash, South bash, comment about racism, child molestation, and backwards ways}, it makes more sense.


Since it doesn't always come across in online forums, this post is in jest. I mean no insult to the South, the people who dwell there, or their ways, other than the ones I meant.

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

THR: Negan is coming in the season six finale. How would you describe his first entrance?

Norman Reedus: That episode is the most hardcore episode you've ever seen on the show. Ever. And it's so well directed [by exec producer Greg Nicotero] and it's so well played out. And so terrifying. It's so good. A lot of effort went into making that the best episode we've ever shot on this show.

No doubts there.

[Rawedge Rim]

I'm about done with this show. I think mainly because with the cliffhanger ending, I found I couldn't care less who the "lucky" person is.
Plus, I find the world view of this show abhorrent. I know it is a show and that if everyone got along, there would be no drama. But I would imagine if something like this ever happened, people would band together more and there'd be smaller pockets of the horrible dickhead leaders, instead of them seemingly everywhere. It seems to me when horrible things happen, people just want to feel safe and taken care of, and tend to try to work together to make that happen, which we've seen several times throughout history, at least in my lifetime. I don't see people of today putting up with a leader that kills his or her own people, and living under that fear for very long. I just don't see the type of people they frequently encounter on the show surviving long.
I've mentioned this to others at work and they find me naive.

Hate to say it, but in the short run at least, those willing to be the biggest assholes probably have the best chance of surviving.

[Fist and Faith]

I'm probably done with the show. I couldn't take it. Turned it off when he got the pen. Fantastic show for years. I think they felt they had to step it up. They did. But too much for wimpy me.

[wayfriend]

I understand the underlying themes about finding humanity. But if it's gonna be all violence porn, I may let it go, too. Not sure I am up for a whole season of last night.

[Zarathustra]

I shut it off after ...

Spoiler

Glenn.

Wayfriend is right. Violence porn. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Anyone who watches that for entertainment might as well watch videos of people stomping on kittens. I am not so starved for entertainment, so desensitized and bored that I'll watch such gratuitous brutality for fun. That's not fun. I'm not horrified as much as I am offended that the writers think that's what I want to see. They must think their viewers are zombies.

Life is beautiful. I'm going to go play bass.

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

I'll have to take the minority position here. I found ...

Spoiler

Glenn's death

... to be touching (horrific and sad, but touching) especially the thematic line, ...

Spoiler

"Maggie, I'll find you."

--------------------------------

I could theoretically see myself dropping the show, if it cheaply turned to base titillation (violence porn). But I just haven't noticed such a turn. Not as of yet. And I doubt, for many reasons, that the show will take such an unwise turn. Though I suppose that I could be wrong.

[Zarathustra]

I think that particular character is going to have some trouble finding anything, lol. Seemed like a blatant, brutal attempt pull at the viewer's heartstrings.

If Fonzi had used his motorcycle to grind the shark into chum while its crying shark friends watched, then perhaps we'd have a good cultural metaphor for what this show just did. 'Jumping the shark' just doesn't capture it.

[aTOMiC]

I was shocked and emotionally affected by the opening of Season 7. But it wasn't the first time and it won't be the last. Hershel was one of my favorite characters and I was similarly moved watching what happened to him and every other meaningful character on the show since the beginning. I generally avoid entertainment that features this level of graphic violence but I think I understand this show and how the creators and filmmakers work. Though a bit different what happened on Sunday night's episode had long since happened in the comic so anyone familiar with the written story line couldn't have been all that surprised.

Though brutal and grim this episode was designed to demonstrate what it would take to make an audience believe a dynamic, win at all costs character like Rick Grimes would succumb to anyone. I didn't enjoy watching it but I did understand it. IMHO

I also understand why others would find it unbearable to watch and continue watching.

[Zarathustra]

Well, that's interesting about Rick. I suppose I didn't give the episode enough time to find that out. It certainly would be difficult to believe Rick would succumb under any other circumstances. That's actually interesting.

The fact that it was in the comics is also encouraging, that they didn't just make it up to shock an increasingly desensitized TV audience.

Damnit, I wish I hadn't deleted it now!

[Cail]

This is a show about the end of the world and the collapse of civilization, and people are shocked at the violence? Really?

I've been hate-watching this show for a while, and I found this episode to be a return to form. What happened was absolutely necessary, and as Tom said, vital for Rick's character. It was extremely unpleasant to watch, but also one of the better episodes of the series.

[High Lord Tolkien]

I thought it was great.
I was on the edge of my seat waiting for what happened next and that almost NEVER happens to me watching TV shows.

I find people turned off by the bat strike to head scenes amusing.
All the ripping throats open, decapitations, strangulation and bullets to head throughout all the other seasons were ok but a Glen's death was too much?


I prefer the antagonist to be more of the Zombie and foraging/sustaining kind. I barely watched during the Governor seasons. I found it boring.
Negan threatens to be much of the same but he's interesting to me so far though.
I want to see how the Saviors function. Their clothes were clean and their numbers were high. They must have a lot of tribute from many different places. How many? It will be interesting if they have a massive central base of some kind.
The Kingdom looks interesting.
I hope we learn about other communities.
I also want to see how Glen's death affects Daryl since it was in response to his actions.

Oh, and this is funny too:

[Zarathustra]

Cail, if you're not shocked at that violence, you've lost every shred of your humanity. I thought being shocked was the point. Weren't they trying to shock us?

I just thought it was gratuitous, insulting to the viewers. Now that I know it's actually about character development, I've changed my mind slightly.

HLT, yes, we've seen lots of violence on the show. But context is everything. I don't believe we've ever had one of the beloved main characters get his head bashed in while his wife watched, and the evil villain saying, "Duuude, you're eyeball has like totally popped out of its socket! LOL, man! Gross! Yar, yar, ha, ha." I thought that was juvenile. I don't understand the people who can laugh it off.

[Cail]

To be fair, it's make-believe violence.

And sure it's shocking, but there's a point to it. That's a shift from prior seasons (I'm thinking of the blonde sister of Hot Farm Girl who was killed for no reason at all other than for the shock value). So for me, this is the show finally realizing what it is. Post-apocalypse life should be brutal, and brutal is brutal. So much of this show has hinted at this brutality but failed to deliver. I was hoping we'd see more of this in Terminus, but that was dispatched quickly.

[Cagliostro]

I'm pretty sure I'm done, and not because of the shocking violence and all that (very little in the episode was as bad as stuff we've seen in the past eps), but because it is losing again for a while what I found interesting about the show - the survival, trying to reclaim humanity and rebuild. This is going to be a major step backward, and I will be as annoyed and bored as I was during the Governor storyline. The revenge train has left the station and more and more good people are going to die before it is over. I find shows about power dull and typically stupid. Movies and tv sure seem to be into the villians and antiheroes lately. Seems odd to say this on a site for an author who created one of the best antiheroes, but maybe I got all that out of my system then and why I can't seem to enjoy reading the new Covenant books now enough to finish them.
It might have been timing too. We did just bury my wife's dad this weekend, and it was pretty stressful. And then watching a show for entertainment and watching that pile of stress just wasn't what I was in the mood for. But I haven't been enjoying it lately as it moves further and further from what I'd like the show to be about, and instead devolves further and further into watching another jerk treat people like crap. I get enough of that in real life, and I don't find it entertaining to watch. Especially

Spoiler

a father nearly forced to chop off his child's arm

.
So I asked myself at the end of the episode, "do I truly enjoy this show anymore? Am I getting anything out of it other than a gut reaction to the horror presented?" Since my answer was no, and that was mainly from last season that I got that feeling, I'm ready to quit. At least until real life gets carefree enough that I desire delving into the dark side for some invented unpleasantness. Since that isn't happening much these days, I think I'll put it away.

[Rawedge Rim]

I didn't see anything there that hasn't happened in the not to distant past in Rwanda, or Somalia, or is happening right now with ISIS and the Taliban. Both have decapitated people and posted the videos.

When civilization is gone, brutality comes to the fore.

[wayfriend]

But I haven't been enjoying it lately as it moves further and further from what I'd like the show to be about, and instead devolves further and further into watching another jerk treat people like crap.

This. I should I said this the first time. It's not just that it's violent, its that if all the show is about is people suffering under hopeless brutality, then I'm not that interested.

[aTOMiC]

In my opinion TWD is about a great many things and the most prominent of them is evolution. The transformation of this group of protagonists by the environment that they are struggling to survive in. How they deal with this evolution is central to the story. I don't watch it for its brutality and I don't watch it (at least not anymore) because of zombies. I watch it because the evolution is still a journey worth witnessing. I haven't and am not defending how brutal the last episode was but I find myself continuing to be curious how these people handle adversity.

On a less philosophical note I don't know how I would maintain my interest if the story demanded that Rick Grimes be eliminated. I'm not sure I would find the remaining characters interesting enough to continue. I hope I never have to find out.

Of course its possible (as others have suggested) that the entire series is just a Rick Grimes fever dream / nightmare he has while he lies in a hospital bed recovering from a gunshot wound. I hope not but its possible.

[Cail]

Good post Tom. I too hope that the series doesn't end on a Tommy Westphall note.

[JIkj fjds j]