Some info and speculation, I did not see any plot spoilers:

http://uproxx.com/tv/walking-d...-negan-have-a-beard/

In. Excited for the return.

Me too! I will be watching tonight!

Got the auto-tune set!

I will shut that shit down! Been watching the marathon while working in the garage today! I'm ready!

I liked it. Not a lot of action but a setup for the rest of the season.

Who was the group at the end? I wonder what made Rick smile?

Carl has a 1911 now!

quote:

Originally posted by Tommydogg:
Carl has a 1911 now!

Carl has been keeping an eye out for a 1911 for quite some time.

quote:

Originally posted by Wreck Tangle:
Who was the group at the end? I wonder what made Rick smile?

I think he smiled because they found another group and they have weapons. Could it be the garbage pail kids?

I thought Michonne took a surpressed beretta from one of the saviors at the end of last season? Could it be a fopaux from the writers?

Is this group of women different from the one Tara ran into?

quote:

Originally posted by Echtermetzger:
Is this group of women different from the one Tara ran into?

They were all women and all packing so it had to be, I guess. That seaside group was so forgettable, I wouldn't bet the bank.

OK episode at best. No surprises for me and none coming up any time soon based on next week's preview. The slice capade was fun but Rick's smile at the end was the highlight.

quote:

Originally posted by Texas Bob C.:

quote:

Originally posted by Tommydogg:
Carl has a 1911 now!

Carl has been keeping an eye out for a 1911 for quite some time.

I see what you did there...

quote:

Originally posted by Texas Bob C.:

quote:

Originally posted by Tommydogg:
Carl has a 1911 now!

Carl has been keeping an eye out for a 1911 for quite some time.

But I think he may have a cross dominance issue...

This article is not kind to the writers. I'll agree, Daryl's lines seemed to be written after someone pointed out "We can't have Daryl scowling the entire episode, write him a few lines."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/er...emiere/#7dff93c56454

The Walking Dead' Season 7, Episode 9 Review: A Disastrous Midseason Premiere

“The dead don’t rule us.”

~Rick Grimes, The Walking Dead S7E9

Watching Sunday night’s episode of The Walking Dead would have been painful if it hadn’t been so (unintentionally) funny. I can’t help but wonder if the show’s writers and producers are simply phoning it in at this point. Certainly many of the actors seem to be.

Let me be blunt: This show has lost its way. Maybe it never found its way to begin with. Whatever the case, quality is on a steep decline across all categories. Acting, writing, plotting and so on and so forth. Only make-up and special effects seem to remain unscathed by the general decline eating away at the rest of The Walking Dead, as surely as any zombie rot.

The television program we just watched Sunday evening is not the same program we used to know and love. Now there are multiple different communities that the survivors travel between with ease. There’s always a car and a tank of gas at hand. There’s little to no dramatic tension. The focus on character has shifted to a focus on factions, clumsy politics, and increasingly bad dialogue. I’ve always had complaints with The Walking Dead, but at this point complaint would be an understatement.

Even some of the more beloved characters fell flat this Sunday. Daryl rarely speaks in The Walking Dead. In “Rock In The Road” his brief utterances were bad, cringeworthy, nonsensical tidbits.

After King Ezekiel gets done talking about how he needs to look out for the people under his care rather than put them at more risk, Daryl spouts off “You call yourself a damn king! You sure as hell don’t act like one!” as though “acting like a king” means heedlessly rushing off to aid Rick in his war on the Saviors rather than thinking of the welfare of his people. Is this actually something Daryl would say? Or is it just the writers flailing, looking for some way—any way!—to give Daryl a reason to speak and look tough.

After all, it took Rick and his people a whole half of a season to decide it was time to fight. Why should Ezekiel change course after one conversation with a raggedy band of strangers? Strangers who admitted to making huge, immensely stupid mistakes in the past when trying to take Negan out the first time?

Daryl’s other line, to Hilltop chief Gregory (who I thought Maggie was ousting?) is almost as bad. “What the hell man?” he says, all gritty and tough as nails. “You’re either with us or ya ain’t. You’re sitting over there talking out both sides of your mouth!”

But this doesn’t even make sense. Gregory is pretty consistent here: He wants nothing to do with Rick’s group or their plans to take out Negan. So he’s not with you, Daryl. He’s said as much. This isn’t a good retort to such a clear position. A swift kick in the teeth would be, but nobody bothers with the obvious.

To be fair, Gregory continues to be almost unbelievably obnoxious. When denying the survivors military support for their campaign against Negan, he asks “Who would train all this canon fodder?” to which some of the survivors reply “I will.” Gregory then says “Rhetorical!” in his best impression of a valley girl. Like, gag me with a spoon, Rosita. It was like totally rhetorical!

I understand that Gregory is supposed to be annoying, but how could anyone follow this sniveling coward? How does he not only become leader but then hold onto that perch? And how are none of Hilltop’s people fighters? How did they survive without fighting? Sorghum farmers don’t survive the zombie invasion without some fighting skills. That’s the same nonsense they tried to tell us about the Alexandrians. I don’t buy it.

The downward spiral.

It gets worse, of course. Rebuffed by Gregory, our group leaves with tails tucked between their legs, fully cowed by the Hilltop boss. That’s when Enid saves the day! Because of course she does. It’s Enid, the one person on the show whose name spells “Dine” backwards. She’s talked to the people of Hilltop rather than Gregory because, wow, I guess Enid has brain cells and nobody else in the group does.

And yet…why does Enid even need to be here at all? Why not have Maggie inspire the Hilltop community, undermining Gregory and beefing up her leadership cred all at once? Why does this all take place off-screen? Instead of an inspiring scene of Maggie’s leadership, we have a bunch of extras asking her if they could really win. It’s just…flat. These same Hilltop folk say that Maggie has saved all their lives a whole bunch of times, but I can only assume they’re referring to the one time when the Saviors let in some zombies as retribution against Maggie and her people. She owed them that. They don’t owe her anything.

Then Jesus takes them to the Kingdom. He’s known about this place the entire time you see. He’s known about all those potential allies, weapons, and resources the entire time and simply hasn’t told Rick and company.

Really? Really???

That’s pretty shady given that it was Jesus who introduced the group to Gregory, and Gregory who sent Rick to attack the Saviors in the first place. I can understand Gregory not doling out valuable information, but Jesus allowing Rick and company to go off to take on the saviors without giving them a proper lay of the land is kind of terrible.

I might be a little extra hard on Jesus right now simply because I feel like he’s been badly miscast. Either that, or something about his character—or the portrayal of his character—just really rubs me the wrong way. He doesn’t live up to his reputation. He comes across as too wooden. I see neither a puckish rogue nor a wise adviser in this version of Jesus.

King Rock

When Rick finally comes before Ezekiel, he tells the king that when they first fought the Saviors, they won. He actually believes this. Rick thinks that defeating one outpost and then being totally destroyed by the Saviors counts as “winning.”

He must have tiger blood.

“We didn’t know what we know now,” he admits, without quite ever realizing that the reason they didn’t know anything was that they never bothered to find out, either through scouting or even just asking people. Why Jesus didn’t know that it was just an outpost and not actually Negan’s stronghold is more puzzling.

Ezekiel asks Morgan for his opinion, and Morgan offers up the only sensible suggestion of the evening: Maybe they could just take out Negan (or capture him, as Morgan is still against killing whenever possible.) And why not? Why not just take out Negan? He’s always placing himself in vulnerable situations. This would be easier than all-out war and would result in fewer unnecessary casualties than Daryl’s plan to just blow stuff up.

When Rosita tells Morgan about Glenn and Abraham’s death and all the other horrible things that have happened thanks to Negan she sneers: “You still think you were right?”

That’s what the show seems to be saying also. It’s sneering at the pacifists who don’t want to fight. But Morgan didn’t want to go attack Negan’s people in the first place. If they’d listened to Morgan, Glenn and Abraham wouldn’t have been killed in retribution. That’s not to say that the Saviors wouldn’t have done other terrible things later, but if we’re to learn any lessons at all from this series of unfortunate events it’s that Morgan was right all along.

Rick also tells a story about a rock in the road that nobody removes, and it keeps causing all these problems, and finally a little girl digs it out and it’s actually a bag of gold. The king put it there on purpose because whoever had the decency to dig it up deserved a reward. It’s kind of a weird story. For one thing, the king ends up doing all this extra damage to his people for no reason just so he can give a reward out to some random person who takes the time to dig up the supposed rock. The king could have made better use of the gold by being more considerate. For another thing, it’s a weird story to use to convince Ezekiel to go to war.

I still like Ezekiel. As absurd as the scenes at the Kingdom are, at least they’re fun. It’s fun to see Ezekiel reading Martin Luther King speeches as bedtime stories. When Rick mentions the bag of gold, Jerry gets a big grin on his face and says “Alright!” It’s a bit of humanity and humor in a show that’s all bleak and grim. And young Benjamin makes a much better case for helping Rick than Rick did himself.

But Ezekiel doesn’t relent. He takes in Daryl, providing him sanctuary from Negan’s frontier justice. War, however, is not an option. Our heroes leave, once again rejected, but determined to get Ezekiel on their side. All I can think is how Rick and his merry band will almost certainly bring the Kingdom to ruin somehow.

Part Two

At this point the episode takes something of a turn. Leaving the Kingdom felt almost like the end of one episode. Finding the zombie barrier the Saviors created (which, as luck would have it, is rigged with explosions) almost feels like the beginning of a second one. There’s a big steel cable, and Rosita plays Captain Obvious by pointing out that a big cable across an entire road isn’t “just for one walker, it’s for a lot.”

Thank you Rosita for this gem of wisdom. Without it, your companions may have thought it was a single walker trap. We in the audience might have made the same mistake.

Occasionally Negan’s voice pops up on the walkie-talkie that Jesus gave them; oddly, nobody ever responds to Negan. It’s just Negan, speaking into the void.

So begins the episode’s most dramatic scene.

Will the heroes get the explosives off in time without blowing everybody up? “Not that one,” Rosita warns Tera about one batch of dynamite. “I don’t like the way it looks.” It’s not a batch of dynamite you’d want to go grab a beer with. She knows it in her gut.

Then Carl notices something in the distance. He even points to it. What could it be?

It’s a herd of walkers races toward them at breakneck speed! A snarling, vicious horde half a mile away leaping over cars, bounding toward our heroes…. Or, well, shambling rather slowly toward them actually. They’re really far off, so it’s not that scary, but we can forgive Carl because he only has one eye and thus no depth perception.

So the zombies shamble toward our band of heroes.

What will they do? At this point we are all seriously on the edge of our seats. Biting our nails at this impending doom we shout at the TV “Flee you fools!” But they don’t listen. They keep stocking up on explosives, ignoring almost certain death approaching, glacially.

What will Rick think of to get our plucky band of survivors out of this mess?

Well it turns out that whoever set up this barricade didn’t attach the steel line to the sturdy and immovable side-rails on the edge of the highway. Instead, they attached it to two cars perfectly lined up and, as chance would have it, facing the same direction with full tanks of gas.

How fortunate! What luck!

This serendipitous discovery allows Rick and Michonne to drive at the exact same speed into the thick of the herd, cutting it off at the knees quite literally as they plow through row after row of shambling dead. It’s a fun little action moment that’s a neat spectacle. All those walkers ripped in half, all of them still alive but now legless. It’s a cool action scene.

It’s also probably the dumbest moment of the episode and one of the dumbest in the show period.

It’s the kind of thing I’d enjoy in a movie like Zombieland but it doesn’t work here, both because it’s implausible (that the steel line would be attached to cars; that both cars would have gas; that they could then be driven at the same speed and with the same force through so many walkers; etc.) and because it’s too goofy for a show like this. I thought this was a gritty, realistic portrayal of the zombie apocalypse? Now we have tigers and silly spectacles like this one.

When the heroes return to Alexandria they arrive at the same time as Negan’s henchman, Simon. He’s looking for Daryl, naturally, and doesn’t believe Rick’s story that he’s not there. They trash the place a bit and discover that there’s nothing left in the pantry. When they leave, Rick and the rest of the returning survivors are informed of Father Gabriel’s apparent betrayal.

But he’s left a note: the word BOAT scrawled in a notebook. How would Gabriel have known about the boat?

Well he wouldn’t. This explains the boots we saw at the end of last season and the shape in Gabriel’s car at the opening of the episode. I’m glad we’ve come around to that moment because it was easily the best in the entire episode. Gabriel drives out of Alexandria at night, and as he leaves a second shadow appears in the car. Creepy and effective visual storytelling.

In any case, the group goes back out to find Gabriel. Aaron has a muted argument with his husband about it, but they don’t kiss or hug or touch one another or anything. It’s weird, honestly, because it’s been so long since Aaron and hubby even had a scene together I almost forgot they were an item. This show handles relationships so strangely.

So Rick and a handful of others go out to find Gabriel, tracking him through the woods to an abandoned rail yard where suddenly they’re surrounded by yet another community of people. This group is referred to only as Those People Who Only Wear Black And Maybe A Little Dark Grey And The Occasional Navy Blue, or TPWOWBMLDGON for short.

They come out of the woodwork, dozens of them, with axes and hatchets and guns and all manner of weaponry. Who are these new enemies? Or allies? Or goth hipsters with massive chips on their shoulders? We don’t know! We won’t know until next week!

But Rick just smiles. He’s like Man, this is ridiculous. For five seasons we barely ran into anyone else. We struggled against nature and against walkers and against the occasional group of wackos, but now hey, look, it turns out that most people actually survived the apocalypse after all and we just keep running into them again and again. I can’t even keep track of all the different groups at this point. This is just…this is just so dumb it’s funny. I bet these guys are real jerks, too.

You just took the words right out of my mouth, Rick.


What did you all think of the midseason premiere? Are we off to a good track for the back half of season 7 or what? I think tonight’s episode proves that Negan isn’t the only major problem with this season.

the seaside chicks had more guns. This new group of women have much fewer guns and more melee weapons. Plus, none of them seem to go after Tara.

In any event, more cannon fodder for Rick or breeding stock for Negan.

Thanks Sigmund. I can't argue with the critic from Forbes. I recorded it but found myself trimming my beard and toenails rather than making the time. That never used to be.

I wonder how many more seasons are planned.

quote:

Originally posted by bdylan:
I wonder how many more seasons are planned.

Too many but I will still watch.

A little slow, but I guess it set up the rest of the season. It would have been lame if everybody immediately said yes, and joined the fight like some sort of quest.

So, I guess we know where Father Gabriel went with the food and the "boots" from before. Hopefully, it was part of a deal to sign them up for the big fight. I'm a comics reader, and I'm blanking on this new group so I'm not sure who they are.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ravens1775,