The Walking Dead – Page 6 – Simon’s Incoherent Blog

The Walking Dead: Season 5, Episode 15 – Try

“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”

The Walking Dead: Season 5, Episode 14 – Spend

“You wanted a future. You need us for that.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

After a slowish (but still interesting) couple of weeks to ease Rick and the gang (and the audience) into its new setting, this week The Walking Dead went back to full throttle. The uneasy relationship between the newcomers and the established Alexandrians shows no sign of getting any better, with the suspicion now coming from the other side. Meanwhile, we got back to some meaty Walker action with two expeditions outside the wall that didn’t go entirely as planned, leading to some dramatic consequences. Continue reading “The Walking Dead: Season 5, Episode 14 – Spend”

The Walking Dead: Season 5, Episode 12–Remember

“What do I want? I want you to help us survive. I know you can help us to do that.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

After a predictable Twitter backlash about last week’s fairly chaste kiss between two men, The Walking Dead’s new tone of hope continued to develop this week, in a thought-provoking, character-driven episode as the gang (and the audience) got to know more about their new refuge. After several years of having all their suspicions about such communities justified, their (and our) scepticism was understandable. But this ep seemed to show that Alexandria really was everything Aaron had claimed it would be; leaving us to wonder where the danger would come from this time. And in a final bombshell, we found out.

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The Walking Dead: Season 5, Episode 11–The Distance

“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?

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The Walking Dead: Season 5, Episode 10 – Them

“We do what we need to do. And then we get to live… We are the walking dead.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

After the previous rather experimental season opener, the follow up was a much more conventional affair. That didn’t mean there wasn’t plenty to enjoy – depending on what it is you enjoy about The Walking Dead. If what you’re after is zombie action, violence and gore, but you don’t care much for character development, you were probably shit out of luck with this one.

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The Walking Dead: Season 5, Episode 9–What Happened and What’s Going On

“To face it. Keeping your eyes open. My dad always called it ‘paying the high cost of living’.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

As ever this time of year, I’ve been absent from blogging while having a whale of a time at the Los Angeles Gallifrey One Convention. It was as much fun as ever, but once again, I’m behind in looking at The Walking Dead, which returned from its mid-season break the night I arrived in California with a typically bleak but unusually experimental episode. On first viewing, I found it confusing and hard to follow (though that might have been the jetlag), but interestingly a second viewing gave me quite a different perspective.

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Your Christmas TV Highlights!

It’s the time of year again when normally sensible TV genre shows abandon all logic in favour of doing “the Christmas episode”. While Christmas episodes sit well in comedy shows, they always seem oddly forced in shows like, say, The X Files, Supernatural or Grimm. Unfortunately it now seems de rigeur, especially for US shows – though we in the UK have the wildly fluctuating in quality annual Doctor Who special, which this year seems to have outdone itself by actually including Santa.

It’s only a matter of time before even critically acclaimed dramas will be obligated to produce a “Christmas episode” every year. What could that look like? Let’s find out…

Continue reading “Your Christmas TV Highlights!”

The Walking Dead: Season 5, Episode 8–Coda

“You keep telling yourself you have to do what it takes just until this is all over. But it isn’t over. This is it.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

So this week we bid farewell to The Walking Dead for a little while – till February, anyway. As has been traditional since season 2, the show has taken a mid-season break, giving rise to that new style of cliffhanger, the “mid-season finale”. Compared to previous years – and indeed to this season’s slam-bang opener – this was a surprisingly low key affair, both in action and in stakes. In season 2, the mid-season finale brought an unusual bit of excitement to Hershel’s farm when the barn zombies broke free and we discovered the tragic fate of Sophia; season 3 brought the reunion of the Dixon brothers after Rick’s ‘terrorist attack’ on Woodbury; and season 4 had the spectacular destruction of the prison along with the deaths of several established characters.

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The Walking Dead: Season 5, Episode 7–Crossed

“We all owe Carol.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

This week’s Walking Dead had a welcome return for Rick and the rest of the gang at the church, as the three narratives we’ve been following for the last four episodes finally came together, much as I’d expected, in readiness for the big mid-season finale. After three eps which focused very heavily on particular characters while gradually driving the plot forward, this week had a lot more action as Daryl and Noah led the increasingly hardass Rick on a rescue mission for the captive Beth and Carol.

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The Walking Dead: Season 5, Episode 6–Consumed

“You’re not who you were, and neither am I. I don’t know if I believe in God any more, or Heaven, but if I’m going to Hell, I’m making damn sure I hold it off as long as I can.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

This week’s The Walking Dead found us rejoining the plot thread involving the show’s two fan favourite characters with the rhyming names, Carol and Daryl; though the ep as a whole was properly devoted to her rather than him. And that’s a good thing. No disrespect to Beth or Abraham, who’ve been the focus of the last two eps, but Carol’s a fan favourite for a reason – her character arc has been probably the most powerful of the show, played with quiet dignity and intensity by Melissa McBride. Some extremely good writing this week from Matthew Negrete and Corey Reed gave her plenty of meat to chew on this week, and the result was another quietly devastating episode to rank with last season’s The Grove.

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