Jump to content

Walking Dead S07


Odine
 Share

Recommended Posts

The show has always shown gross stuff. The biggest difference here is it happened to characters we have been, and have recently become, heavily invested in. The show is running into some problems, and this episode addressed them.

 

1). Payroll management. The longer the characters been around, the higher the salary. By killing off only red-shirts you inflate your payroll expense. It's called employee turnover equilibrium. A show like this affords plenty of opportunity to keep payroll from becoming a problem, and should take advantage of that.

 

2). Plot armor. The show has, at many times, allowed fan favorites and main cast to survive situations that red-shirt characters would have zero shot surviving. This removes tension in the show, and loses credibility. This season's first episode was brutal. By doing what they did, they showed zero respect for the characters involved. Not everyone is going to get a wonderful and graceful send-off; which gains back credibility.

 

3). Pandering to fan favorites. Guess what? Everyone's favorite character doesn't always do things the audience loves. If the fan favorite can do no wrong and pleases the audience no matter what...It's just too unrealistic in terms of cause and effect. Everybody has to make a mistake every once in a while to show that aren't superhuman; and a certain fan favorite has some blood on their hands for making a big, big mistake and caused the audience some pain.

 

4). Too many characters, not enough screen time. This has become a problem that has been slowly metastasizing, and has reached a point where they have to divide everyone into squads to get any screen time, and this has at times bogged things down to a slow crawl. The more characters they have, the less stuff seems to happen in terms of overall story.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It wasn't even the gore for me (although, I did find myself wondering if it crossed lines for me that I didn't even know I had) - it was the 20 minute "build up" to the reveal. My gripes about the writing on this show are well documented and that was the last straw for me. It's insulting as a viewer.

 

I might binge it once or twice a year to stay up - or maybe just read the occasional synopsis, but I'm certainly done with the week by week viewing.

 

Everyone should go watch Westworld at 9pm next week.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ordinarily the violence in Walking Dead has a slight thread of sardonic black humour to it. Or if it doesn't and they're just trying to show something horrible, the camera doesn't explicitly show it all.. Cause we get the point. This had no humour, was sadistic and literally showed it all. I guess it was a bit much for most people, which is totally fair enough. It's not essential to see someone's skull cave in, eyeball pop out the side with blood streaming down their face as they try gurgle out some last words. It was even less necessary to have the camera linger on the twitching corpse with a skull now red paste as the last nerves in the body making fingers move. I mean, the makeup was incredible but that level of violence was borderline pornographic. And I don't consider myself a prude in any sense.

 

If the show intended to make us feel sick (and that somewhat gutted empty feeling that goes along with it) they surely hit their mark.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've always wanted to get into this show because I love the concept but I just gave up on it a couple of years ago. It has the same problems that a lot of shows do by getting boring and repetitive at times, but what sets it apart is the sheer bleakness of it all. Even a buddy of mine who loves violence and dark stuff to an alarming degree had to walk away from it.

 

I wasn't surprised to hear that this episode had such an effect on people. It's basically torture porn at this point. I realize that you have to have some of that in a zombie story but it just seems like this show goes out of it's way to sicken it's audience. You know it's bad when even the actors get turned off by it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest El Chalupacabra

I'm with some of you. I'm out for good this time. Last season was where I stopped watching, but I got sucked back in and binged it a month ago. For the premier, I knew one of them would get it because I read wikis on the events of the comics. I knew the other would eventually get it. Well, what do you know, they both did in the same episode.

 

As this show goes on, the only constant is "let's push the violence further." They went a little too far for even my tastes this time. We get it. No one is safe, and everyone is a piece of meat. But there was no point to this other than to just spend an episode and watch someone's head get caved in. There literally is no other point. For, I'd say at least since season 3, no change to the world these characters are in, except for the worse. The character development is either static, or we watch them become less and less sympathetic. Last season showed little difference between what Rick has become and what the Governor was. I am still trying to figure out why he is still considered a protagonist, or the other survivors for that matter. This season premier is exactly as some described: torture porn.

 

Sure I can say I want to see how they get out of this one, but at this point, I really don't care since any of them can be killed off afterwards even if they do, and honestly considering how the characters have devolved, I don't think they deserve to get out of it, anyway. How many times did one of the victims have near deaths and escaped, and that person dies in the end, anyway? So what's the point if that is true?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am certainly looking forward seeing Negan get his.

 

Yes, the show is bleak. We knew that a couple of seasons ago. Turning into a zombie, no matter how you die, is bleak news to find out.

 

I was not grossed out, or upset. I was just like, 'Wow'.

 

I guessed the first death weeks ago. The second I had heard about, so to speak. When it didn't happen at first, I was a tad relieved. But, then..... Character will be missed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re-reading this in light of Tank's disagreement with running away from a TV show you've had ample time to "know what it's about."

 

http://nightly.net/topic/66350-okay-jerks/

 

Also: ignore the fact that I so ardently defended LOST. Binge watching shows cures a lot of thematic/writing ills. It didn't take me long to sour on that finale/final season. Not sure why I felt so strongly at the time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH.

The sound I imagine it made when the point went over Seth's head.

 

Oh I got you just fine-- you decided you've had your fill. Cool.

 

Re-reading this in light of Tank's disagreement with running away from a TV show you've had ample time to "know what it's about."

 

http://nightly.net/topic/66350-okay-jerks/

 

Also: ignore the fact that I so ardently defended LOST. Binge watching shows cures a lot of thematic/writing ills. It didn't take me long to sour on that finale/final season. Not sure why I felt so strongly at the time.

Man-- that must have really made you salty if you remember that! I totally forgot about it.

 

I'm responding to the argument that the Walking Dead suddenly went "too far." They've been this way since day one. This is their playbook-- they tease things out as long as possible, they kill off beloved regulars, they are graphic as hell. If this is suddenly news to somebody, they haven't been paying attention.

 

If you're saying my complaints about LOST make what I am saying here hypocritical, you could also go digging into the past to see a LOT of complaints I made about WD over the years. It's been very uneven, and I have said myself several times that all this bleakness sans some sort of reward for the audience is indeed super alienating.

 

I get all of that.

 

I'm mainly arguing against anyone who says the show has changed or gone too far. It hasn't. This is what they do. if you don't like it-- that's totally fine. I fully get that.

 

Just know that you are leaving because it's on you, not because the show was a big meanie to you.

 

Now if we want to argue over whether or not WD is any good... that's a lot tougher. Like I said, it's been very uneven. They are fully guilty of dicking the audience around and taking too long to get to things sometimes.

 

But in the case of this episode-- had they gone to the killing in the open people would have cried it was anticlimatic. In this case, I thought it worked.

 

That said-- killing Glenn, who has been the heart of the show since day one, is a big risk. We'll see what the numbers say next week.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It was a tough watch but I knew what to expect since I've been keeping up with the comic through the trades. It was a lot more brutal than I was expecting and being spoiler-free for the episode I was surprised when Negan

killed Glenn, too!

 

 

 

I am certainly looking forward seeing Negan get his.

If it's like the comics, he

doesn't! Or he doesn't die, at least, just gets imprisoned.

But I guess the show may do something different.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nah. All good. Mostly my misunderstanding - your FB post and subsequent post here elucidated your point. I mostly agree with your stance on the "that [violence or whatever] was the last straw!" people. I also wouldn't disagree with them though when they say that episode did go above and beyond (almost) anything else we've seen on the show. It was exceptionally brutal. Everything kind of lingered a second too long.

 

RE: LOST

 

I just found it an amusing coincidence, I wasn't sure how closely you bailing on LOST and me bailing on TWD correlated, but I remembered you "quit" the show so I was just reading the first thing I found. Fun/painful memories!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest El Chalupacabra

I'm out too. I mean. why did this how get scary and kill somebody? I thought Negan's bat was going to shoot flowers and stuff. I didn't see him killing somebody at all, that was just weird.

way to be flip.

 

Look, I think most people who watch this show aren't really grossed out that much by that/those scenes, or scared by them. Or even the fact the show is dark, and bleak.

 

My complaint, at least, is there is no point to the show other than to be explicit. I love a dirty joke as much as anyone else, but if someone just grabbed a microphone, and just simply swore into it, without a punch line, or even a story, I would be just as bored. That's what it's like to watch TWD these days. This most recent episode just highlights that fact. TWD doesn't seem to have anything useful or entertaining to say. There really is no point to the show, other than "guess who's gonna die tonight!" Boring. Droll. This jumps the shark more than happy days ever did.

 

Another thing is Ash VS the Evil Dead is every bit as (maybe more) gross, but at least it is interesting, and has a plot and a goal of the series driving it forward that TWD doesn't have.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.