One little thing to get off my chest and then I’m done with current TWD canon for the foreseeable future.  And if you are avoiding next season’s canon, look away.

So NR posts that video proclaiming how the show is back to being appointment television, a video which flashes on scene that carylers clearly have no interest in seeing, and will IMMEDIATELY be polarizing to this huge subset of the fandom.  What exactly was the point to be made there?  And this is not a hit at NR (and don’t comment back with your hate/annoyance towards him as a human, that’s an immediate block) because he was just attaching the official video of a show he’s proud to work on, and his feelings for all these people he works with, are clearly very different than ours are.  My point is simply that the OFFICIAL video, chose to include that clip.  A plot development that like (and I mean literally have seen actual polls put up) over seventy percent of the audience has voted AGAINST having any interest in seeing, and yet, TPTB folded that stupid ass shit into the TV series because it was a plot point for ANOTHER CHARACTER in the comics.  Speaking not as a shipper, speaking as a simple fan of the show, THIS has always been my issue with the producing team when they (objectively speaking) fucked things up.  They add in these plot twists that nobody wants to see and that do not work/make sense in the TV series even if they did work/make sense in the comics.  And this would be the point in time to make the huge ass reminder that the characters who are alive and dead in each medium are very different, so to jam the ‘original’ storylines from the comics into the show, and cherry pick different pieces of those stories onto TOTALLY DIFFERENT CHARACTERS WITH TOTALLY DIFFERENT BACK STORIES AND ONSCREEN RELATIONSHIPS, doesn’t work.  It’s just stupid.  I mean, the Negan storyline, the communities storyline, the war storyline, this ‘new’ storyline, (and it’s really probably more of a one episode blip but whatever, it’s being added to canon so it counts) none of these things have been very popular with the general viewers of the show, they’ve only been popular with the readers of the comic.  That’s not a huge portion of the viewership.  Yet the network continues to hype these events in SPITE of what the viewers would like to see.  And I’m not saying they do these things TO spite us, I’m saying they do these things IN spite of us.  Because again, they’re just trapped in this ridiculous belief that because the comic created this billion dollar industry, that it is the bible that MUST be followed TEN years in now, even though it simply no longer works.  Again, see above different characters, different relationships and people who are real writers and not network executives know that you can’t just disregard onscreen history for the sake of offscreen, unrelated, lore.  And I appreciate the comic blueprint was used to create the world, but we hit a huge fork in the road back around the Governor years in terms of who was alive and dead in each medium, and that was the point where they needed to start stepping back to the comic being a ‘loose’ guide and not the main guide.  But they haven’t.

Still.

Anyway, I don’t want to discuss this further than I have :)  I caught the glimpse and rolled my eyes and had this little diatribe to get off my chest.  And I’d turn off comments here if I could because I’m not getting sucked into the show again now, it’s just going to chafe me into genuinely bad feelings for characters that I don’t want to have genuinely bad feelings towards.  And FYI if it helps any shippers, (and I know this from reading the comic wiki a year ago) this storyline was originally “assigned” to M and our gal got stuck with it instead because again, plot points jammed in for different people where they don’t work for those other people at all.  Also, it’s literally a flash in the pan event because So and So will/should shortly (by season’s end probably) suffer the fate that 99% of the characters on the show have already suffered.  It happens with the next Big Bad.  So, what TPTB have done means nothing, truly, it’s just the principle of it making zero sense in OUR televised world, and violating the principles of an ‘existing relationship’ that those actors/characters (neither of which exist in this incarnation of the comic!) have spent all this time creating, which annoys the ever loving crap out of me.  It’s shitty writing.  Period.

TWD Spoilers - Dead Or Alive Or (8x11)

/

/

/

/

/

This is not a cheery post so unless you’re in the mood for grumbling, look away!

First, that’s awesome how they made Tara a fucking moron.  I mean, could we go one story arc without someone either playing the Raging Avenger (Carl/Rick/Morgan/Michonne/Daryl/Rosita/Tara) or a Complete Pacifist (Morgan/Jesus/Carol/Gabriel/Eugene/Ezekiel)?  I get it, feelings are hard, and they’re a little bit harder in the Apocalypse, but Christ, they play these same storylines over and over, year after year,and it really kind of feels like there are OTHER stories to tell.  You know.  And we finally get to a moment where Rosita and Daryl are working a hundred percent off intellect and not emotion, and here comes freaking Tara to play Bonehead of the Week!  Yes Tara, we know you want Dwight dead.  We all want Dwight dead.  It’s not the time!  He had just proven himself to be INCREDIBLY ‘helpful’ with the swamp escape route, and then you go run him off like an asshole.  Oh but wait, that finally presented an opportunity for him to truly prove to her that he’s on their side.  Who gives a shit!?  She and Daryl still plan on killing him at the end, so *shrug* to that big revelation.   It just raised another moment of making me actively dislike a character that I was previously fond of.   I honestly felt this sickening turn in my stomach seeing her pull out her gun, and all I could think was, ‘nope, you do this, I’m done here.’   This might have been another thing coming out of the comics, but either way, they keep ruining people.   Eugene used to be Amusing/Annoying but basically likable, if not frustrating.  Now tonight he’s a Full On Piece of Shit Douchebag and I am fine with him getting tossed in the oven because I don’t even have a general level of ‘fondness’ for him anymore.  Like if he’d died last year at least I’d think, ‘oh that sucks.’  Now he deserves whatever he gets.  Fuck him.  And Rosita, even if she’s using her brains again she’s still not redeemed from the Raving Bitch cycle she went through all of last year.  I don’t blame her for Olivia, that was Glenn all over again, but I do blame her for Sasha.  She got her captured and killed, and she was hateful to her all the way to the end.  So again, don’t really care what happens to her anymore.  King E was a fun likable dude, but then his little pity party he threw himself when he refused to help his people deal after the massacre.  Not a fan at all, of grown men throwing themselves pity parties. Don’t care if he had borrowed a vagina by the time Gavin died.  I just see him now as weak willed and I have no vested interest in his survival.  Perhaps some people might think I’m being a little harsh writing so many of them off for having ‘foibles,’ but you can’t build a show around people who are already Anti-Heroes (having to kill just to get by in the world) and then then make the ‘good people’ lack basic moral fiber outside of the killing.  What the hell am I rooting for?    Assholes and idiots.  Super.  Basically, they’re kind of burning me out on Team Family.   

And back along the lines of stupid, oh, oops, we killed another doctor.  Because doctors are Red Shirts in the Apocalypse.  I get that at this point it has to kind of be an inside joke for production that they kill ALL the doctors, but as a viewer it kind of takes you out of the moment watching them CONSTANTLY murder every doctor, always KNOWING that they’re mother f’ing doctors.  There are no more schools!  The doctors you have now.... that’s all the doctors.  Ever.  But yeah, kill them all.  I was kind of cranky already when I watched tonight but this is one type of stupidity that has genuinely angered me since the pattern emerged.  This is TWO doctors now that the Saviors have put down like there’s a frigging Doctor Tree and they’ll just go pluck another one.  But wait, there is no Doctor Tree.  And now there are no doctors.  😑

Also along with that scene, so Gabriel’s the blind one, yet Carson couldn’t keep track of the whole TWO people standing around him, and that’s why he gets shot.  Totally believable.  

Maggie. The LC crap tainted her.  I was afraid it would happen, and it did.  I tried to watch her but then the character was being obnoxious too, (let’s give rations we don’t have, and fun prison perks to the people who will slit your throat the second they’re given a chance, super great leadership) so I ended up muting her because I don’t care to listen to her talk anymore either.  And I absolutely think that the Savior dude (don’t even know his name) who tries so hard to play nice with her, is going to end up being the first one to turn on them and kill someone in the camp.  Fingers crossed for the J-man...but I know that’s not going to happen.

Anyway, I know this was kind of a bummer review but I really wasn’t in a great mood while I was watching so I was already viewing with a negative slant, and honestly I thought the show would make that better but it really just made it worse.   I think I would have been okay with the episode up to the halfway point, because that’s when all the stupid/obnoxious shit started happening.   Also the caryl reunion didn’t help because AGAIN, they showed the whole thing in the teaser!  WHY?!  I mean, why?  Why?  

Why.   

At this point, they have literally shown us every single moment they’ve either shared together, or has been ‘intimated’ about the ship, in a teaser.  Every moment.  And every time I think, ‘they’re not going to blow their whole wad, they’ve got more on the reel.’  Except they don’t.  They just keep blowing their wad.  So if that’s the plan of the Einstein Monkeys working in marketing, I don’t feel the need to watch any longer for them.  Seriously.   Because eleven episodes into the season, I am one hundred percent positive that if they’re going to have them screwing by season’s end, that we’ll just see that on an official website release plastered all over YouTube.  So why waste my time continuing to watch all this other stuff that’s bugging me?  Again, I know I’m grumpy tonight but it feels like the right thing to step away now before I genuinely sour on the show.  Right now it’s still individual characters that are fading to black for me.  I still love Daryl and Carol, Rick and Michonne.  Not much more, admittedly, (Aaron/Morgan) but I don’t think outside of Morgan, those other five will be going anywhere anytime soon so I’d like to come back to their world when I feel like I'll enjoy being there.  That’s not happening on our current path.

And Carylers, I’ll still be writing (I really do have an update for this week) and I’ll be here doing my little photosets and if anything happens, please do let me know.  It’s not frustration about the ship driving me away so don’t add me to the Debbie Downer negativity list, because that’s not it.  It’s the larger arc that’s pushing me off.  I just need Negan, et al, to be gone, and take whatever collateral damage is going with them, away, and we can all start fresh with something new in season nine.  So, adieu for now.  And anyone sticking with them, I honestly hope you enjoy the rest of the season :)

/ 

/ 

/

Couple additional notes (TWD Wrath)

/

/

/

One more point here on the finale just to get something out that’s rolling around my head.

Even as someone who was never TeamMaggie, (and so much less so now for other reasons), the whole idea that she would handle this situation with Rick, this way, is a disservice even to the character that I was never in love with to start.  An adult person, a ‘leader’ as she is now being portrayed (and she did step up and filled that vacuum) would have simply pulled Rick aside after the battle scene (this is provided she didn’t just kill Negan flat out at the time) and said to him, “this isn’t what we agreed.  You didn’t have the right to make this decision on your own, and I am not okay with showing him mercy.   If you don’t kill him, I will.”  If Rick still at that point pushed back, and he would to some extent because of Carl, THEN Maggie’s choice to handle things on her own would at least be grounded in some reality of how a person might react to this situation.  The way it’s being set up is such soap opera nonsense.  You live in a world where dead people eat you, and most other living people can’t be trusted.  You have a family that you built, you have a family disagreement, the first approach to resolving the disagreement with the people who have kept you alive for YEARS, would be to use your words.  Not start plotting revenge behind their backs.   That’s such shitty, stupid, writing.

And beyond that, presuming they had a conversation, even if Rick still didn’t agree with the idea of killing Negan, I don’t think he’d choose that hill to die on.  Metaphorically.  I think he would hear her out, consider the situation from her side, and he’d come to a compromise.  Rick isn’t a dick.  He tries to do the right thing.  Right now he’s grieving his son who has been dead for less than a week.  He made a decision based on that grief and guilt that is crushing him.  I think the real conversation with him and Maggie would be more like, “I get what you’re saying, but I still think we need to keep him alive for X reasons.”  Maggie still says, “fuck that, this is a deal breaker for me.” so he says, “how about this?  We keep him in this prison until his wounds heal or until the leaves change, or the baby is born, whatever you want.  Pick a date, and then if on such and such day you still want him dead, I won’t stand in your way.”  Just something that’s logical, and makes sense for the characters that we’ve known for ALL these years.   Because Rick and Michonne didn’t commit some irreversible, unforgivable, transgression.  They didn’t ‘take’ something from Maggie that she can never get back.  They didn’t set him free.  They just didn’t kill him on Wednesday, so they can kill him on Thursday, or Sunday or whatever.   Again, I just really hope it’s more that LC doesn’t come back next year, or comes back in a VERY limited role so this stupidity is not something that we have to deal with at all, because it’s just too ridiculous.  Like deal breakingly, ridiculous.  One additional point here, I looked it up, and I can’t see anything on the WikiComic page to indicate this was EVER a storyline over there.  So it makes even less sense to shoehorn in such a ridiculous contrivance, when it’s not coming from anywhere.

Anyway, in the meantime, I’m going to step back from the fandom again because people are idiots and already are calling Daryl a traitor because again, people are idiots, and it’s just a TV show and it’s so not worth putting up with the stupid.  So fanfic is the way to go in the meantime, and God willing we won’t have to put up with any leaks in the meantime for next season’s arc, until the SDCC trailer in July.  

TWD Spoilers - The King, The Widow, and Rick (8x06)

/

/

/

/

/

/

First, whoever wrote this one, credit due that it did have some great lines.  That said, the theme of the whole episode seemed to be, “Everyone Does Stupid Shit And Almost Dies Because Of It,” which genuinely did detract from the overall ‘enjoyment’ shall we say.  Because everyone was acting like morons and if these people were really all that stupid, they wouldn’t have survived beyond day one of the turn.

Examples (getting all the negative stuff out up front):  Michonne and Rosita.  Both still limping around, completely unable to fight, “yesterday” decide “today” to just go off on their own to do some Savior Compound sightseeing.  In the process, nearly get themselves both killed, and nearly LIBERATE the Savior Compound(!), because neither of them were strong enough to take out the one woman who was driving off with the damn speaker truck to clear the place of the walkers.  

Which leads me to Daryl and Tara.

Yes, yay, they saved Rosita and Michonne’s bacon by taking out the Speaker Truck and the Savior woman driving it.  EXCEPT, them deciding to go rogue means that the people who are supposed to be keeping track of Rick and whether or not he gets out of the garbage heap alive . . . have just abandoned him.  Good job, guys.

Which leads me to RICK!

Dude, WTF?!  Why would you walk in there alone with NOBODY nearby to save your ass?!  These people have already turned sides on you.  I do agree that it is not unreasonable to think that they might not turn again, but as of right now, they are aligned with Negan.  And now you’ve been taken hostage, stripped naked and dumped into a transport crate to be shipped off to the Saviors.  Oops.  

Now let’s go to Carl.

Another callback to season 1 . . . Carl being an idiot 😑  I don’t care if the new guy seems okay, your dad said to leave it alone because you can’t trust new people right now.  But yeah, fuck that because again, you’re Carl so you just do whatever the fuck you want.  And oh look, you almost got eaten FOR NOTHING!!!  The whole thing was just so, so stupid and was more of something season two Carl would have done when he was like eleven.  It was eleven year old stupid.  

The Hilltop.

There are only three people I’d like to see dead by the end of the season.  Negan, Dwight (because it’s the only way to end that story line) and . . . Jesus.  I did mute every time he spoke because I’ve been done with the sanctimonious bullshit for three episodes now.  Please note, he gave away their emergency food supply to the people possibly about to be executed because they missed A meal!  Like it wasn’t Day Six of the Siege!  All of the events of these episodes are overlapping.  You took them hostage, and took them for a walk, and then gave away all of your people’s emergency food storage on THE SAME DAY!  I was so glad Maggie took him to task for that, and that she flat out told him that she wasn’t keeping those people alive because he wanted it (as in he was right) but just because it was the only pragmatic move in case they needed to do a hostage trade in the short term, but in the long term she was executing their asses.  THANK YOU, MAGGIE!  

We need SO much more Maggie, and NO MORE, Jesus, please and thank you.

The Kingdom.

So E is just a pathetic spineless bitch now?  Because that was what I got from his scene.  I understand he was pretty devastated by recent events, (rightly so) but he had some time to get his shit together and Carol very calmly explained to him how he needs to stand up and go help those people grieve because he DID make those decisions for them, and he needs to take responsibility now for his actions, and he’s like, yeah, no.  Not happening.  So I hope all those people who were thinking C and E would be a great couple (*eye roll*), get how they can fucking suck it.  Because if you think The Amazonian Warrior who has suffered from pretty much day one and still keeps on kicking ass and taking names, deserves to be saddled with a man who has so little personal character that he can’t even take responsibility for what he did, then you have no respect for Carol.  At all.   That’s just putting aside the fact that she already has a man, and it’s a huge fuck you to the Caryl relationship to be an A, B, C, D’er, but whatever.  And I don’t even blame E for the deaths, but I do blame him for how he’s responding to those deaths.  You made choices, and you got people killed.  It happens.  But if you take to your bed now like you have the damn vapors, then fuck you, you’re being a punk bitch.  We already have Eugene filling that role.  And no matter what else happens with him later, E’s already shown his true character here and he’s tainted because of it.  Sort of like last week with Negan and all of the pathetic penis commentary.  It seems deliberate that these characters are being knocked down off their pegs to make them less likable for whatever is coming next.  Not saying it’s bad writing, I’m saying it’s people being pushed to the wall and now showing their true colors.  The results have been pretty abysmal for both of them.

Now to the Positive stuff, because that was a lot of bitching :)

Good opening line from Rick:  “It’s scarier than I thought it would be.”  

For some reason I really love that they wrote letters to each other with the updates.   And that The Kingdom letter wasn’t to E.  it was to Carol, because her people know that Carol’s the one in charge :))

Poor Carol getting saddled with another kid.  Like she needs that shit.  

Jerry breaking my heart:.  “He told me that I didn’t need to do this anymore . . . this is what I do.”  Again, pointing out that E’s failure here as person, is doing a hell of a lot more damage beyond just the deaths.  Jerry doesn’t know who he is if he’s not this guy.  

Maggie cuddling baby Gracie.  💕  Though I do think it’s fair to wonder if Gracie’s mom might still be alive out there.  

Good line for the new guy, Sadiq:  “Killing them would free their souls.”�� And it is an interesting idea.  That is one thing that hasn’t been touched on much is the ‘spirituality” of the undead.  Back on the farm Hershel et al thought they were just sick and could be cured, but that was just because they were in denial.  Since then walkers are just treated as monsters and that’s that.  It did add some needed depth to show someone who saw them differently.  And saw killing as many as he could to be a ‘righteous’ act, and not just a matter of “vengeful clearing” like Morgan does.  It was funny though because before Sadiq even said that, I was looking at that walker stuck to the post trying to get the bag he would never reach, and I was just picturing that as being someone’s eternity.  And how that would be a special kind of hell.  Then he freed him from that.  

I liked that Carol’s pep talk to E didn’t include the words “I need you,” because she doesn’t.  She doesn’t need him.  She needs for him to get his shit together to go deal with his people.  That’s what she needs.  

The one positive of Gregory is that he’s done with Jesus and is just going to call him Paul again.  The passive aggressiveness of it, pleases me :)

No Caryl this week.  Not even an inferred bit.  Though at least the mid-season finale is lined up for both of them to be at the Savior compound.   

Side point to that, I skipped Talking Dead even though it was MMB because it made little sense that she was there so it seemed like they were wasting her time.  It wasn’t her episode.  Airtime was pretty evenly split with everyone, but Christian or Danai still would have been more logical choices because it was their first episode back and hearing their take on things to date just made much more sense.  For some reason it just felt like Melissa was the only member of the main cast who agreed to go, if that makes sense, and it kind of annoyed me in an odd way.   And then they put her with someone brand new who we have no allegiance with at all, so I didn’t even feel the need to watch to see her interacting with a friend.  Meh.    

Anyway, overall the episode felt kind of bloated.  TWD has always been at its best with more focused scenes and constant whiplash trying to keep up with everyone at once, in all these locations, doesn’t allow for that to happen.  I’m just glad the next big fight is coming up so the crew will get culled down a bit more and we’ll be getting even closer to re-consolidating back to just one (maybe two) communities.  I hold out hope because if we think back, so often the A to B storylines totally shifted gears, so maybe we’ll luck out and the Negan stuff will start to wrap much earlier.  I just want to move on to what’s next 😔

Aaaah, yes!  Because it seemed impossible when those walkers were on top of him that he WASN’T bit, but he acted like he was fine.  But damn it, that was like two episodes ago!  I know time is moving at a snail’s pace, but how the hell are we supposed to put two and two together for THAT, without somebody walking it along?!  Because as it stood on the end of tonight’s episode, you just figured he got bit when he was knocked unconscious by that explosion.  This way though, does give me a little satisfaction with my earlier episode notes (provided this is precisely when it happened) that I was right in that Siddiq would in some way be responsible for his death, and that circled back around to the season premiere and Rick demonstrating mercy (the name of that episode) and not killing him at the time, and that would lead to him losing Carl.  And yes, if Rick had just shot Siddiq when he fired at him, then he wouldn’t have been alive later for Carl to go back and be stupid to try and help.  Then he wouldn’t have gotten bit.  Again, the flat circle.

It also takes all of the lingering ‘is this Daryl, Tara’s’ fault out of the arena because what they did at the compound had nothing to do with this.  Carl wasn’t bitten by one of those walkers from the herd.  He was already dying by then.  Also, Dwight confirmed it was Eugene who got Negan out of the compound so that should also take the heat off Daryl et al.  Of course there is a contingency on twitter pissed at him, but that’s always the way it is because they still want their pound of flesh for Glenn.  Oh well.  

Oddly though, coming across this tweet, made the episode better than it had been to me before.  Maybe because it made so many things fall together, when before it all seemed so random.    

TWD Spoilers - The Damned (8x01)

Thoughts below, as with last week, super spoilery so don’t look if you’re trying to remain unspoiled.

/

/

/

/

/

/

These are mostly just bullet points because the episode did go by very quickly.  Not in a bad way.  Because at least this week AMC had not ruined 75% of the scenes, by “pre-releasing” them before the episode aired!  It was so much more enjoyable that way! -_-

So, so nice to see Rick and Daryl together :) . . .  AS IT SHOULD BE!!!

It’s like Jesus is just LOOKING for reasons to make me actively hate his guts.  I got his point about the ‘moral quandary’ of shooting somebody who was unarmed with his hands up when you had the second to stop and take a breath.  The point where that mofo smashed Maggie’s vitamins, said the bitch and her baby were going to die, and then tried to put a bullet into your brain, was the point where the ‘morality’ of the quandary, went away.  Evil. Bastard.  Put that fucker down, and go on with your day.  Jesus.  Literally!

Hearing Ezekiel drop his “I AM THE LORD KING OF THE UNIVERSE’ voice for the “fake ‘til you make it, baby!” was REALLY funny!  Ha, ha!  

Resurrected Morgan clearing the hallways as ‘Crazy Ass Morgan But God Damn, You Can’t Help But Love The Guy,’ was nice.  

Oh, and look now we’re outside and taking POWs!  What the frig are you going to do with all of these assholes, Jesus?!   These aren’t the workers, these are the ones actively trying to kill you back.  Now you’ve got them all rounded up.  You have to keep them in some sort of a prison (you don’t have one of those), feed them (don’t have extra food), and not ever turn your back on them, ever, because they will kill you.  The stupidity of that decision is just astounding on so many levels.  And that piece of shit who killed Benjamin, are you KIDDING me right now that at the very least HE doesn’t get taken out?!  Jesus in charge of a war, is a pussy ass war.  I just wanted Morgan to walk out and walk down the line, “fixing” the situation.  Rick gave them their orders.  It’s day one, if you can’t follow orders on how to win the damn war on day one, you aren’t winning this shit.  

Eric finally got to be a badass like his husband . . . and pretty sure he died for it.   Sort of a wah, waah, moment :(  I have nothing against Eric, but he’s not Aaron :)   He was there though.  He had a name.  He’s like Tobin.  You’re there and you have a name.  They took out that chick that also had a name, but I don’t know it.  I felt kind of bad, because I was thinking, yeah you live in Alexandria and . . . drawing a blank.  Sorry you’re dead!  And that was that.

Carol’s infinite patience in dealing with men and their ra, ra, enthusiasm for war.  Universe bless her.  She’s just like taking a breath and letting it out with her, ‘adult’ approach to war which is, ‘I kill people because I have to, now let’s just get this shit done.’  This episode, the women were the ones with their eyes on the prize.  Outside of Morgan (who’s a crazy bastard) the men were the ones either pushing things too far tactically (you know from the dust and smoke opening that Ezekiel is making a huge mistake with his battle play) or just getting tripped up on the end game. Jesus.  To his stupidity, you guys were living under an oppressive, violent, regime that murdered innocents with impunity.  You decided to go to war to fight for your freedom.  You stockpiled guns and bombs and bullets and soldiers to spill blood, and win the war.  You cannot be ‘kind’ in the middle of battle, when you’re fighting a group like the Saviors!   They’re like SS soldiers.  You KNOW what they’re capable of, they’re horrible people, who do horrible things.  Not to defend themselves, but just because they can.  They’re sociopaths.  You kill them, or they kill you.  God, it’s like I want to “enjoy the war” (which is a terrible phrase, yes) but it’s too frustrating if we’re going to have to put up with Jesus and his biblical teachings as a side dish.  If they want to make it not just ‘cool shooting and blowing shit up,’ but really work in the consequences and devastation of making wrong choices in battle, Rick’s scene of finding the baby, was a perfect one.  He thought that the guy was protecting the room with the guns, turned out he was protecting the room with the baby.  Gracie.  That’s a morally devastating moment.  You killed a dad, who was ONLY trying to protect his little baby daughter.  You’re taking that one with you, to your grave.  More of those, less of Jesus’ bullshit.  SO much less of Jesus and his bullshit, please, I beg of you, Dear Lord Santa.  Amen.

But to the end ... MORALES!  Wooh!  Nice!  Though, it is kind of HUGE leap, given how they ran into each other six states away from the last place we saw them, and I thought the Morales plural, were heading for like Oklahoma, which was even ‘more’ west, but still, I’ll allow it :)   It was a great, “hey, I know you!” moment! :)  Because just before he said Rick’s name, I was thinking, “hey, I know you!  You’re Morales!”   Ha, ha!   And I haven’t seen season one in a while, he just looked exactly the same :)

No Caryl this week, but we were never going to get it every week.  At least we got some Rickyl, AND some Carol.  Last season, Carol was like an extra at this point so I’ll take it.  But I want C and D back again, by like episode four.  Next week is clearly a direct follow up from this week and they are fighting battles in totally different neighborhoods, so I’m not expecting them to cross paths.  Need to keep the expectations reasonable :)

So yeah, that’s that for this week.  If my muse doesn’t get smashed again with this new canon in my brain, then I’m going to try to stick out the season, because it’s clear right now all these battles and days are running together, to keep the momentum and excitement up.  It’s mostly working but they need to drop the idea that every single season, needs to have one character go pacifist.  It’s a dead, dead, horse of a plot line that’s been done with Morgan, then Carol, now Jesus . . . mid battle.  So again, we need so much less of Jesus or Jesus gets a huge comeuppance for these stupid ass moves, or that actually would be grounds to stop watching, on its own.  Because those were just some majorly obnoxious scenes.  I want so much for Maggie to come out of the gates like, “WTF?!  Did I TELL you to bring back prisoners?!  No!  I sent you off to war, you’re supposed to kill these people!  Like they killed MY HUSBAND!”  That, would be the best outcome for me :)

Toodles, kids!  Have a nice week :)

/

/

/

/

I know I’ve shared my issues with the war story arc, but honestly when I see some of the people who are ‘on my side’ with this, it makes me want to beat my head against the wall.  Like over on Twitter someone bitching about tonight’s episode that it was so “lame and boring” and “what has happened to this show?” because all it had first was “some talking” with Daryl, Rosita and Eugene.  

Some talking.

Daryl threatened to cut out Eugene’s tongue with his twelve inch hunting knife, before Rosita jammed a gun under his chin, and told him that he was a coward, a traitor and basically a mass murderer and that the world would be better off if she pulled the trigger.  This all ended with Daryl taking on a group of walkers by himself and Eugene upchucking his lunch all over Rosita’s chest and face.

Then the other complaint was there was only some “mild drama” between Negan and Simon.  

Mild drama.  

Negan CHOKED SIMON OUT, then strapped Walker Simon to the fence like the greatest ever oversized yappy dog.  

Clearly neither of these scenes were “lame” “boring” or “mild drama.”  I mean you know again, issues have abounded these last two seasons, and maybe someone might have just overall not enjoyed the whole episode for whatever reasons, but you’re going for a total reach using examples like THOSE, (very bad examples) to prove that the show is shit.  You’re clearly just looking for a reason to bitch, so it basically negates all of the arguments you want to make about the show sucking, when you’re demonstrably an idiot.  If you’re sticking with it right to the end of this arc, you can clearly see that they’ve been killing off named characters in almost every episode now.  This HAS to happen to end the war, and reinvent the wheel for next year.  So yeah, maybe you’d like to see something completely different happening on the screen, (I’d happily watch nothing but Daryl and Carol silently eating dinner in her little cabin for an hour) but there are only so many minutes in an episode and only so many episodes in a season.  Gimple has them written into a corner with Negan, and they’re trying to machete their way out of it now.  It’ll all be over next week when a crapload more characters will die, the war will end, and we can start fresh in the fall with a whole NEW story arc.  Big picture people, big picture.  The light is there, BLOOMING, at the end of this long, dark, tunnel which has consumed us all Io, these last two seasons.  Let’s just embrace the end :)

TWD Spoilers - Do Not Send Us Astray (8x13)

I was bored and left tonight’s ep on as background.  

/

/

/

Still not entirely sold on the ‘science’ of dipping weapons in walker blood making people turn.  I mean, everyone is already infected so how does it kill you faster?  If I have HIV, and you GIVE me HIV, I don’t suddenly have AIDS . . . I still have HIV.  It’s the closest analogy I can think of to a real disease progression where one is sort of dormant state to the actively dying state.  And yes, I know HIV fucks you up on its own, again, loose analogy to a real disease cycle.  I’m willing to listen to any pseudo science arguments that make walker blood penetrating living flesh being immediately deadly, seem logical though.  

I’m sure it annoyed a lot of people in the fandom, but I actually liked that Carol had a talk with Tobin.  For one, she is literally the only person left in their world who has ANY connection to him at all, and the actor has been on the show long enough for his Death Episode to at least be worthy of him getting a few real lines of emotionally grounded dialogue again.  Plus to show that there was still someone left in the world to genuinely mourn his death and he wasn’t just another Red Shirt.  Letting him have those two quick scenes with her seemed to be showing him (character and actor) respect, if that makes sense.  More even than that though, it hearkened back to the old days when threads of ‘relationships’ (as the word can be defined for everyone’s interactions with others in the world) were given acknowledgment and closure.  Again, shrinking cast, confined living space, enables them to do things like they used to do them.  Of course the whole thing was intended to be bittersweet because she was going to have to be the one to put him down, but still, it was important to show either way.  Because remember the events of ‘season 6′ only took place like two months ago for them.  So no matter what else happens, her being brutally honest and telling him that she was just playing a part with that little flirtation, A) showed he never really meant anything to her romantically, and B) flat out had her state that she’s moved forward from believing that Cookie Baking Carol was a viable approach to existing in their world.  Playing parts and running away and all of it, that’s gone.  Now she’s to the point where she accepts this is their life, and fighting the good fight, even if you only get one more day, is the whole point of it.  To my mind, that immediately made me think of the conversation Daryl had with Aaron back when they were stuck in the car and surrounded by walkers.  How Daryl felt more himself being out there fighting for his life, than he ever had when he was inside the walls of Alexandria, trapped in domesticity.  Personally, I saw that as finally putting C and D on the same page on how to live in their world.  They both took the long way around, but I think they’re there and that’s important to how they would move forward together.  Even if they kept Rick’s camp as their base, I can easily see them choosing to regularly go out on the road together in season 9, as has been intimated would be happening with at least some members of the group.

Carol’s conversation with T tonight though actually tied back well with Daryl and Tara’s later talk too.  Him speaking about Merle and the dumbass decisions he made and how if Merle had stayed in charge of Daryl, they would have ended up with the Saviors or someone just like them.  Plus Tara pointing out how the group you end up with initially can in large part just be a game of luck, then Daryl pushing right back and saying yes, but once you figure out those are bad people you’re with, that you then have to make the decision on whether you’re going to be a bad person too.  Like when he hooked up with those psychopaths out on the road in season 4, but didn’t know how bad they were until it was almost too late.  See, more of the hearkening to the old day.  Plus just TALKING to each other!   And to that end, it was great that Tara finally addressed the point a lot of people had with her initial suspicion of Dwight switching sides . . . that she’d done it too.  Again, acknowledgment of the events of their lives before season 8, shaping the people they are now.  I don’t know if Gimple was already on the way out here, (I imagine some discussions had probably at least been had) but all of these undercurrents make me feel like the torch was being passed so they could start going with what we’d now consider to be the ‘retro’ approach of doing things.  Which was how they did things for the six years before Negan showed up.  Either way, I was happy.  It felt more like I was watching the show I used to watch.  Still won’t be an avid viewer to the end of the war arc, (because I still don’t care about the Saviors) but enough to keep leaving it on as background and to turn off the mute if something looks interesting with Team Family.  

Lastly, I will say they are pushing hard to the net with the Redemption of Dwight.  Him giving Tara the heartfelt apology out in the swamp for her girl’s death.  Now tonight cutting around Simon to give her the good (non walker blood infected) wound so she wouldn’t die like the others.  I still don’t think he ‘deserves’ to stay on and join up with them, (he did too much bad shit after he knew Negan was evil to make a few kind acts fix it all) but they’re at least succeeding in making him less of a piece of shit.  As in at this point I’d probably feel more genuine emotion at seeing him get killed than I would Eugene.  Because let’s not forget, everything that happened tonight with the walkers, that was all Eugene’s idea.  Just like how the Saviors got out the first time.  He doesn’t HAVE to keep giving Negan good ideas!   These are random, obscure thoughts that nobody else is coming up with so if he doesn’t say them, the thoughts will never exist in the world.  Basically, everyone that’s died since Negan broke out of the Savior’s compound the first time, all of that blood is on Eugene’s hands.  I will say, he’s kind of a perfect Eichmann analogy for this fake world.   Obviously I’m not making a genuine Holocaust connection here because no.  🙄  But just pointing out that behind the scenes, pencil pushing, banality of evil and how those kinds of clever cowards in wartime, who never want to really get their hands dirty, can and will, get more people killed than any single soldier with a gun.  It’s different than being a chickenhawk because that’s all jackasses blustering for wars where they have no skin in the game either way.  Eugene knows these people.  They cared for him, and protected him, which is why he’s now beyond redemption.  And I think he’s smart enough to know that there’s no going back.  

I’ll miss Josh though 😕

TWD Spoilers - Honor (8x09)

/

/

/

/

/

Overall it was really good, with a few flashes of great.  Not on par with Tyreese’s last day (that is my benchmark for death episodes, one of the best things they’ve ever done), but I wasn’t watching here with general frustration and annoyance, and that’s good.  And I’ll do kind of meander here on my thoughts, with just a few of my usual bullets.

Siddiq.  I like him.  I do.  His few previous scenes I’d already had a good feeling about him, but we locked it in on this one that he’ll be a nice addition.  His kind of desperate pleading with Rick, (who is obviously devastated and in shock and not likely to be trusting strangers in this moment), to allow Carl to just take the Motrin.  That it will help with the fever so he won’t be in so much pain.  That faint crackle in his voice basically of, ‘he saved me and this is all I can for him.’  In that one line, it added a layer of compassion and decency to someone we don’t know, and also established, ‘hey, this dude is another one who looks to have some solid acting chops.’  I’ve said before, all the critiques I’ve ever had, the casting department is not one of them.  They do an incredible job, and I’m hoping this guy will really step up.  My one critique of him here was that he got a longer goodbye with Carl than anyone outside of Rick/Michonne.  It should have been a quick, two sentence thing and then take your leave from the scene because you don’t know this kid and that’s not your moment to take from his family.  But they gave him over a minute!  It was odd how he just kept talking, and it jumped out at how odd it was.  I don’t blame the character though, I think it was just a bit of an overreach in terms of trying to ingratiate him quickly with the audience, so there was a slight stumble in the dialogue he was given.  His lines should have been cut back on the final draft before they ever filmed it.  We can give that one a pass.

Back on point though, I know a key element here of me being more ‘inclined’ to welcome him aboard, is that he’s coming in as a straight addition to Team Rick.  My feelings about the communities as a concept and how they’ve hurt the structure of the show, are well known here in my notes :)   So I know that I don’t welcome characters from other communities.  Period.  They detract from the show I want to watch, which is a show about Rick’s group against the world.   What we’ve had for the last two years is a show about Rick’s group and all of his Hillbilly Helltown neighbors, against the world.  And I’m hoping, fingers crossed, that adding a new Team Rick person to replace the FIVE key ones we’ve lost the last two seasons, is another solid step in moving back to the core of the show.  Like I was saying to my friend C, the only real reason all of these communities had to get so much screen time (outside of the obvious, stuck with the damn comics blueprint) was because they had a common enemy.   Once the war against the common enemy ends, allies disperse, everyone goes home.   I know that doesn’t line up with the comics because the communities still exist there, but killing Carl was a major deviation from the print world, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they’re going to start going their own way with the show and just borrow ‘elements’ from the comic world, like The Whisperers I know is supposed to come next.   It’s just that this community concept, which I’m sure you can cover just fine, however you want, in a graphic novel (you can churn out as many of those as you please) comes off SO bloated for a TV show.   I said last year, it’s like watching a bunch of CSI type spinoff shows (”TWD: Hilltop!” “TWD:  Kingdom!”)  and none of us signed up for that.  So yeah, consolidation is key moving forward into season 9.  

Gavin.  Damn it.  Literally the ONLY Savior that I liked and the first named one to go.  He wasn’t a psychopath, he’d admitted up front last year in the melon episode, he only joined up because it was the easier path, and his frustration with everyone rising up was that it rocked the boat.  Why does everybody have to make this hard?  I don’t agree with it, (tyranny=bad!), but I get it.  Even at the end, his ‘get Ezekiel a pillow, I want him to be comfortable.’  He wasn’t an evil guy, he was just trying to get by and if everybody would just cooperate damn it, nobody has to die... except him :)

This below....tears.  Of course me later, “oh geez, I hope their hand prints aren’t on one of the buildings that burned down!”  Ha, ha!  But yes, that would terrible 😂

But really that whole montage of Carl living his Best, Last Day, Life, was so sad and sweet.  The letters to everyone, playing with his baby sister, taking Polaroids with her, planting a tree (killed me with that one), all good.   If you knew you only had a day to live, that’s the stuff to do.  And I read in one of the print interviews after the ep, that those letters he wrote to everyone, will have a ripple through the rest of the season.  So it’ll be interesting to see what his last words to them will be.  That could be a catalyst for Caryl.  Truly.  What else is he putting in letters to Carol and Daryl (outside of the thank you, love you guys) that is going to genuinely affect their choices going forward?  I see a ‘get on with your lives, and choose to be happy together,’ being buried in there for at least one of them.  Again, you reach your last day, you definitely tell the people you love to quit dicking around!

The tunnel.  Carl giving Judith the hat.  Oy.  Then showing Rosita going over to support grief stricken Michonne was a nice touch.  Rosita has been kind of useless since Abraham died, which is dumb because she was never defined by her relationship with him, far from it, but she just became such a raving irrational bitch that remember she was the one that most of us were hoping would go rather than Sasha.  And that moment in the tunnel was the first time in forever that she showed genuine empathy and concern for a member of the group, and not just a driving rage to murder in DEFENSE of the group.  Her doing that though, then Tara promising Rick they’d get everyone to Hilltop and Daryl taking Judith and swearing he’d keep her safe as he squeezed his shoulder.  That was all FAMILY stuff.  The stuff we’ve been missing for so long with the splintering of the group.  Now they’re back together and looking after each other in a real way that shows emotional bonds and not just, “I will kill outsiders to defend you, as a way of showing that I love you.”  Yes, thank you.  However, there are also OTHER ways to show your family that you love them, and I am hopeful (again, so many fingers crossed here in these events) that this will be another turning point back to how things used to be with the familial interactions.  If they’re killing Carl off to make a seismic shift in the show, THIS is a shift we need.  And his death could be the catalyst for them to start behaving like they used to before they all got so isolated and angry and bitter with the world.   A reminder to be grateful for the people who are left.

I liked the nod from Daryl to Carl.  He obviously wasn’t going to get all mushy or suddenly give a lengthy monologue on their years together, but him starting to walk off and then turning back to look again was a nice touch.  He didn’t want to leave him :(

Total side note, no Maggie here.  Did anyone miss her?  How many episodes has she been in this season?  Not even half maybe.  And this was after a point was most definitely made this year to fold all of the core cast members back into as many episodes as possible again.  I don’t think Carol, Daryl or Rick missed one.  Yet, no Maggie, and yet, things have been rolling on just fine without her.  Yes, you can see the real life snark bleeding into my comments here, but seriously, can you think of a WORSE time to be trying that bullshit bargaining chip that your contribution is more valuable than the other women on the show, than a year when you’re barely appearing, and nobody is even missing your character at all?  Please.  If she wants to leave, which is so obviously what this is, just let her go before Maggie is tainted too.   I’m not saying kill her off, just forget about the Hilltop as a place we care about, because spoiler, we don’t care about them!  She can stay there, have the baby, maybe the others visit her little town for something two or three times a season.  They can mention her activities in the off times.  She can come back for guest spots, and at the same time move on with her career.  It’s a win for everyone.  

Back to the episode.  The future dream.  That it turns out to actually be Carl’s dream is genuinely sad.  It was funny though that Jerry pops up in it looking for dessert :) but then we move along to find Eugene.  And that was so poignant because it showed so much empathy and kindness to see a future where he was forgiven for what he’s done and welcomed back into the fold.   That said, seeing Negan pop up two turns later was QUITE jarring!  Negan can’t be redeemed.  I know there’s some attempt in the comics, but that’s over many years!  Negan has to die to end this story arc.  There is no other way because he’s just going to keep coming back and killing more of Rick’s people if they don’t take the head off that snake.  Negan is both the head of the snake, and the snake.  Also, not to be all disagreeable with a dying kid’s wish, but he SORTA glossed over how Rick showing mercy to the governor the first time around, later led to the Governor’s comeback/the complete destruction of their prison home and the murder of SO many of their family members!   So yes, Rick could maybe take a more compassionate approach to (some) of the Saviors, but again, Negan has to die.  My concern here is more that this means Dwight will be allowed to live.  I just want him gone, and this is going to be the damn door that gets us stick with him for at least another season  🙄    

Now to the end, finally.  At first I was very annoyed and perplexed (as in, don’t they get what we’ve been bitching about these last two years!?), with the narrative approach of cutting up Carl’s death scene with the Ezekiel situation.  Like guys, we could not give less of a fuck about Ezekiel right now.  Carl wasn’t even one of my personal favorites and I’m like WTF are you doing diluting this moment for that bullshit?!  So needless to say, outside of watching the bloody, beautiful ballet of Carol and Morgan killing scores of evil men, those cutaways were annoying AF.  Honestly, all that was getting me through them was thinking, ‘okay, at least we’re knocking out the Carol/Morgan fight scenes from the teaser, in this first episode back so now better odds of Carol staying with the family.’  That was my silver lining.  But then we got to the last twenty minutes . . . and things started to get super dark.  That was around the point that Rick and Michonne are dragging their dying son through a burning street, while Morgan is tearing out another human being’s guts, with his bare hand.   I know literally fighting for his life, pinned down, that was the only (apparent) way to go, and it was still a JESUS CHRIST moment.  And that’s even having previously seen Rick tear a guy’s throat out with his teeth.  You do what you have to do.  But here, it was clear that Morgan had the upper hand once he’d gouged into that wound, and he could have just flipped the guy and then killed him in a “civilized” fashion.  Such as that goes.  Instead, he does that.  Crazy is as crazy does, and I think it was the first time that even Carol, let alone Ezekiel, had seen how far down the rabbit hole he had gone.  Then when he went after Gavin, and they started cutting back and forth with Carl’s last moments.  And we finally get to this culmination of Carl reminding Rick of the boy he murdered in the woods, and everything Rick had done to change his own behavior after that so Carl wouldn’t turn out to be a sociopath, all against Carol telling Morgan to stop his murder spree now, that they’re done, Gavin can live.  And Morgan crying, saying he can’t stop.  Then suddenly Henry from stage left gouges Gavin’s throat out . . .with the skill set he learned from Morgan.  And Morgan’s utter devastation for seeing that, ‘this is what you wrought’ against Carl (once a little murderer like Henry) about to die as an honorable man.  It was really great way to drop those puzzle pieces together to see where we were going with this all along the episode.    

If interested, separate thoughts over here, on Rick and Michonne, and how their scenes were played around Carl.

Here, a couple of my favorite tweets I saw on the Morgan/Carol slice and dice.

And...

Funny, even though I enjoyed this episode, I am seriously debating stepping back from watching live, and just catching up at the end of the season.  The problem is, I write in this fandom, and because I do that, I tend to watch everything here with a really critical eye.  Not so much intentionally, because I would love to just enjoy the show without thinking too deeply about everything, but unfortunately I’m constantly looking for gaps in logic or missing scenes or ways I’d do things differently.   You know, like I do in my writing to come up with story ideas.   So continuing to watch here now, just in my notes you can see I have ‘ideas’ on how I’d like to see things move going forward, and how I’d handle this if I was doing it.  Basically I’m mentally writing current canon when I really just want to be focusing on my ‘long days past’ canon, i.e., the stories I already have going.  That’s why I think it might be best to step away because it’ll just be one more distraction in terms of getting existing chapters wrapped up.  That said, I will definitely at least watch next week’s episode for the reunion below, and then I’ll decide at the end of that one if it’s worth it to stick with it or not.  Later folks!