“You need to wake up.”
“What’s your wound?”
“I need to find my family”.
(SPOILER WARNING!)
Well that was a bit of a game changer. I’m still not all that sure it was a great episode, but The Walking Dead is not going to be the same after this one. Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 9, Episode 5 – What Comes After”
“We’re the same. All or nothing. You’re trapped, same as me, you’re connected to the dead, same as me. We are the same, and you can’t stand that we’re the same.”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
This felt very much like a continuation of the previous episode – it probably didn’t help that I watched them back to back, but the tone and the content was so nearly identical I had to check to see if it was the same writer – no, this ep was down to Rosemary Rodriguez after Corey Reed’s stint last week. Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 9, Episode 4 – The Obliged”
“We gave Rick’s way a chance. It’s time to see Negan.”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
After the previous, quite focused episode, The Bridge, this week’s Walking Dead felt more like filler, enlarging on the already-established tensions between the now uneasily-at-peace communities but not resolving anything. On the face of it, it was a fairly uneventful episode (albeit with a bit of Walker action shoehorned in to give it a bit of pace). Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 9, Episode 3 – Warning Signs”
“We deserve to live in peace. Negan and the Saviors tried to take that away from us. Alexandria, the Hilltop, the Kingdom and Oceanside came together. To fight for a better future.
“We won.
“Not without painful losses. Today, we try to heal. We try to forgive. Now, the work begins. The new world begins.”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
Fine words, Rick Grimes. This is indeed a new world for The Walking Dead. A world where showrunner Scott Gimple has been replaced by veteran scriptwriter Angela Kang. A world with a plot other than about Negan. A world where Carl Grimes, alive in the comics, is dead – and his father is about to join him. Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 9, Episode 1 – A New Beginning”
“If you care, you do something. You don’t just ‘hope’. It takes more than that.”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
And so, The Walking Dead’s largely uninspiring eight season has limped to a mid-season finale that was… uninspiring. Plenty of action to be sure, and some welcome reversals for Rick’s Rabble in their thus far implausibly successful campaign against the Saviors. Yet it all felt too manufactured somehow, as if the writers, and the showrunner in particular, were just running on autopilot. You can just hear them brainstorming in the writers’ room – “Oops, mid-season finale coming up. We haven’t killed anyone of note, better put some people in jeopardy to bring the viewers back next year… check. Oh, and who can we kill off that will really shock people but won’t make them hate us as much as if it were Carol or Daryl?” Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 8, Episode 8 – How It’s Gotta Be”
“Those who use, and take, and kill, to carve out the world and make it theirs alone – we end them!”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
OK, I know I let the last half of The Walking Dead’s last season slide by without writing a word about it. It wasn’t that it was terrible; it’s just that it wasn’t terribly good, either. Let’s face it, there’s only so many times you can see the guys encountering a new bunch of survivors being terrorised by Negan before it starts getting a bit repetitive. If it had been dreadful, it would have been interesting to write about; if it had been good, it would have been interesting to write about. As it was… meh.
Still, the show’s back for its 8th season. AMC aren’t going to let their cash cow die, even if the show about zombies has become something of a zombie itself. The season premiere is also a milestone (if not a millstone) for the production team – it’s the show’s 100th episode. That leads to a certain amount of expectation, and to be fair, that’s always hard to live up to. Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 8, Episode 1 – Mercy”
“Have you ever had to kill people, because they’d already killed your friends and they were coming for you next? Have you ever done things that made you feel afraid of yourself afterward? Have you ever been covered in so much blood that you didn’t know if it was yours, a Walker’s, or your friend’s?”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
Blimey. Even by Walking Dead standards, that was bleak. I mean, sure, there was plenty of action – and oodles of gore – but even this show rarely offers an episode so suffused with hopelessness. We knew the Wolves’ attack, and that blaring truck horn, had put a crimp in Rick’s Walker-herding plan, but I wasn’t prepared for quite how catastrophically wrong it all went as a result. Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 6, Episode 3 – Thank You”
“I know this sounds insane, but this is an insane world. We have to come for them before they come for us – it’s that simple.”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
After six uneven weeks of its nascent spinoff, it comes as something of a relief to welcome back the original Walking Dead, in an extra length season premiere. Six years in, though, the show has seemingly explored nearly every possible storyline in their zombie apocalypse – can there be anything left to say, or is the show simply being prolonged because it’s AMC’s biggest hit? Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 6, Episode 1 – First Time Again”
“People die now, Deanna. They do. There’s times like this, when you can decide who and when – or it can be decided for you.”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
After last week’s high drama, this week’s ep of The Walking Dead was a slower paced affair. But while it may not have been packed with action, the tension has never been higher between our gang and the sheltered residents of Alexandria. It hung palpably in the air, just waiting for the inevitable explosion; and when the balloon finally went up, it was no surprise that it was Rick who was the spark that lit the fuse. Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 5, Episode 15 – Try”
“Just because we’re good people doesn’t mean we won’t kill you.”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
Watching the previous episode, I had cause to remark that, after all the shit our heroes have been through, it was about time they caught a break. In this week’s ep, it seemed that that break had turned up in spades. The only trouble was, with Rick and the gang so hardened from their experiences in the post-apocalypse wilderness, could they find it in themselves to trust their luck?
Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 5, Episode 11–The Distance”
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