I thought last night's episode was great. Much, much better than the prior episode.

The cast is getting rather large. They've added Tarra, Abraham and the two people he was with, and threw Carol back into things. Though they did subtract Hershel and the Governor from last season. They have no problem thinning the heard.

Didn't they walk by the smashed grapes?

I don't like how this show was mind numbingly straightforward the first 3 years and then it's become way more subtle out of nowhere the past year.

Who the hell is Amy?

The blonde singing chick. Her name might not be Amy tho. Lol.

Apologies. Her name is Beth. Lol

Funny....I think somebody else called her Amy in the thread. But everytime I see it I get who everybody is talking about because I keep forgetting her name as well. :)

BTW...is it wrong that I noticed she matured from last season? I assume the actress has to be 18(ish) by now right?

She's almost 30.

I started the whole Amy-misnaming thing I think.

My bad.

I hate that they brought back the baby. I guess it will be that much specialer when Rick and Kawowl are reconnected.

Anyone else notice how Maggie completely dumped her accent at one point last night? Between her and Rick they need to invest some more money in diction coaches. Rick and Jax Teller need to do a bad accent off contest.

I said that to my wife also. I thought she might be a different actress but they definitely are dressing her different and having her act different than when she was on the farm. Back then she acted like she was like a 12-year old girl.

Well to be fair she has a natural British accent. Any American accent is still some work for her. I'd still hit it.

I didn't, but I do know she acted the hell out of that scene on the bus.

She's 28 years old.

It was the scene before that coming out of a commercial break. I rewound it cause I was like, "who the F is this British chick? "

I usually barely pay attention to TWD and listen to the screen while I'm doing something else.

Woah....must have Macchioitis or something because I honestly thought she was a child last season.

I didnt notice Maggie slipping into British voice but I definitely noticed when she must have come back to her southern drawl because it was so much more over the top than anything she was saying before. But I give her a pass because well, I'm sexist like that.

On the other hand, I really want to like Rick but can't stop hoping he gets eatin by zombies that are on fire.

Yeah, Maggie's accent was WAY off. I was actually focusing more on "was her accent that clearly bad last season" moreso than the words she was saying.

I'm fairly certain I've ranted about this in others threads before but I have to say the whole "I'm was born and raised in London but I'm acting as a sheriff from the deep south USA" makes me crazy. Very few pull it off well.

(and don't get me wrong, the whole "I grew up in Pittsburgh but I'm playing a Brit" makes me just as crazy)

What happens is that I realize something is off and then I focus on that almost to the point of it being unhealthy and it kind of spoils things for me. I'm sure I'm in a minority here but please please Casting Directors... hire people with the proper accent so I'm not driven insane!

This came to a head with me when I watched Battlestar Galactica and right off the bat I noticed something odd with Jamie Bamber. His accent was pretty damn good but there were certain things that made my head tilt. Thanks to google I found out he is from London. BAM! Now, whenever he spoke all I frackin did was analyse his every word.

You can't tell me they couldn't find actors with genuine American Southeast accents to play these parts. I know it is super nit picky but it makes me crazy.

In this instance, on the whole, I think I'd have preferred they change the location to fit the actors instead of the other way around.

Honestly, I've seen very little about TWD that really requires it to be in any particular place (aside from the CDC reference early on)

I cannot stand that people die so easily after killing off a bunch of zombies.. they take a breather and one sneaks up on them and just miraculously gets a bite in.I would rather see them trip over a dead zombie and get bit that way than be snuck up on... they lived so long already, they're not gonna be an easy kill.

Also the Carol being in the woods and hearing a branch snap and be on alert and STILL be snuck up on. I know it makes it lame and boring when all the zombies die easily.

Good point and really in the comic books Rick is from Kentucky.

I think rural PA would have been a good compromise. Having a news caster accent up here isn't far fetched and they could have had Maggie as a cousin from England that moved here a few years ago. Rick, would be a problem but they could have found somebody else though Andrew Lincoln is a great Rick (accent aside). Could he have been another British ex-pat that became a sheriff of a small town middle Pennsylvania sheriff?

Could have actually made things more interesting.

You mean Beth right?

None of us can get her name right. We should just call her Herschel's youngest daughter.

trying to stay warm would have been a good theme as well. Set the show in the allegheny forest or something, there's a lot of small cities there surrounded by nothingness for miles.

The crossbow dude and Carol moment when he saved the day again

Carol is the short haired older woman who finds Tyrese and the kids.

The crossbow dude is with Beth.

You are correct! :)

Seems appropriate considering the recent discussion....

Okay, I feel like a complete idiot.

Until a few minutes ago it never crossed my mind that Rosita was Suzie Crabgrass.

That one dude at the house, Jeff Kober(mayor on Sons of Anarchy), seems like way too big of an actor to just play a one off type role. I wonder if we'll see the crew from the house again.

Yeah - was funny seeing him there. Wonder if maybe he's just a big fan of the show though?

That was something I had considered.

My exact thought. If this is a seed they plant that comes to fruition a long ways down the road I would be happy with that too. A bit of a change in story telling.

I don't know the typical turn around time but his IMDB page isn't updated with this appearance as of today.

Good episode in all.

I thought Rick in the house was pretty well done (other than the guy on the crapper not actually using the crapper).

I don't know the comic story (purposely) so the mullet genius seems kind of an odd storyline being merged but, I'm rolling with it. Liking the Abraham character already and the (I suspect) dynamics this might bring to the larger group story.

Nothing too much to nitpick honestly except maybe this.

Those guys were The Hunters from the comics, maybe? Due to them being all secretive of what his character is it would appear that maybe he plays Chris?

i assumed that the
and that's what caused the commotion.

Ah good call...did not occur to me.

Another pretty solid episode.

The scene with Rick in the house was incredibly tense. Yeah, walkers are dangerous and all, but things really ratchet up a few notches when other (heavily armed) people get involved.

And, yes, Rick choked the guy out in the bathroom and then purposefully opened the bathroom door just a bit, knowing that the guy would eventually "turn" and perhaps cause a distraction or something along those lines. Yes, the timing worked out perfectly, but it's TV. That's how it do.

It's very weird just how... comic booky Abraham, Rosita and smart guy look. I mean, they really look just like they do in the comic. It's a bit odd. Decent adds to the cast.


As for the guy on the porch, I knew he looked familiar. My first thought was that I had seen him on "Buffy" (never watched Sons of Anarchy) and I had. I could definitely see that group show up again at some point.

I enjoy the characters in last night's episode a lot more than the ones from last weeks (and from the preview next week's). I guess I'm just not big on little girls and baby in peril and while I enjoy Daryll I don't have any investment into the girl he is with and could care less if she dies. Seems like it would have been better to pair half of last nights with half of next week's and vice versa. Hopefully they don't continue doing this for much longer but I think one of you guys said it was a way to pay the actors less or something.

EDIT: Oh yeah and I almost forgot D'Angelo Barksdale and Maggie. Shows how much I care about that storyline. :)

This show is losing me fast. The characters are constantly re-written to be as dumb as they need to be to suit whatever situation the writers want to put them in, and so far Beth is just a non-starter as a leading character.

Daryl and Carol, they only genuinely interesting characters on the show, are again being given absolutely nothing to work with.

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

I agree with him on the Beth thing. Doesn't mean I hate the show but I have zero feelings about the Beth character. Kind of like how I felt about Andrea last season.

Beth has been pretty much a non-factor since she was introduced. She sings melancholy songs ever so often, took care of baby Judith and... Yeah. That's about it.

As for Andrea, by the end, I kind of wanted her to go. She had become pretty insufferable. I don't have that feeling for Beth, because, like you, I have zero feelings as opposed to negative feelings.

While I disagree with him strongly since I enjoy Rick's group and the Abraham group. I do have to agree from next week's previews that I won't enjoy an episode spent watching Daryll continually save Beth from a zombie attack. His character does seem like it is being wasted right now. I assume these groups will come together sooner than later but right now I find the Daryll/Beth (and Cutty/Carol) storylines pretty pointless and uninteresting.

I hope she gets eaten before she can sing again. Also random character singing in TV/movies is really bad. Even if the person has talent.

The Daryll/Beth stuff, so far, hasn't been great. But, then again, we've only seen a bit of it. This next episode seems to focus on them quite a bit, if not, entirely. So, we'll have to see.

I liked the Tyrese storyline. Tyrese was in need of some major character repair. He was kind of a crazy-man asshole for much last the first half of the season. He needs to be redeemed a bit and caring for Judith and the little girls is a decent way to handle that. I thought they did a good job of showing how difficult it is to try to survive and keep an infant alive. And the whole Tyrese/Carol relationship has the potential to get quite combustible if he ever learns that she was the one that killed his girlfriend. That hangs over that crew.

Ping any Ed Helms character! STFU!

As two-screen experiences go, Chandler Riggs' Twitter is probably my favorite.

ChandlerRiggs ‏@ChandlerRiggs 2m
Ummm. OK...No more moonshine for Mr. Dixon.

I'm going to guess there will be much bitching about this episode.
I'm fine with it.

For better or worse, characters have to be people to or else there's nothing to attach to.

I mentioned to my wife that this should have been done earlier in the series. Very hard to care about a character that has been around for several seasons with no identity and now we get the back stories. Think the main issue is changing writers and each having their own direction, just feels like the show is becoming forced.

I dunno, in some ways this felt like one of the most "natural" episodes yet. If we accept the notion that Daryl is basically breaking down/reverting then this probably has to either happen or they have to show him basically letting Beth die. It has to go somewhere, having known pale variations of Daryl my whole life this is as believable as anything else would have been. There wasn't a Waffle House handy for them to have that conversation in so we get it in a different venue.

On a more nitpicky note, either that country club was in ill repair prior to the outbreak or they overdid it's rundown condition outside. There hasn't been that much time pass yet.

Lol - I thought the exact same thing.

Another thing about this episode and an extended amount of time spent with Darryl. He's really one of the characters that the TV writers "own" the most, I wonder how much more of what they would like to do we see come out in him as opposed to the confines they work within for characters that belong to the graphic novels.

I don't have an answer for that, I do just sorta wonder.

Interesting Talking Dead note from one of those "behind the scenes" pop up video segments ... I'll spoiler it just for the west coast viewers I guess

I figure they probably spent all episode rehabbing Amy so it's all the more dramatic when they kill her.

God I hope not, probably a top 5 episode of the series. The stuff they're doing now should have been done in season 2 instead of watching Lori and Shane and Andrea be ridiculous at the farm for half a season.

This

Heh, heh, we have been over this, Stephen. Her name is BETH. :D

*i threw Amy in there just because. ;)

Was hoping Daryl would have hit that.

I thought the opening scene was fantastic with the two of them hiding in the trunk over night. Very tense and well shot.

Things kind of slid a bit from there.

We didn't really learn much new about Darryl. Merle was an asshole, but Darryl still loved him. Darryl's father was a drunk and asshole. Darryl was a redneck. Maybe these were new revelations for Beth, but I feel like it was all stuff we knew.

Despite spending more time with Beth, what did we really learn about her? That she never had a drink of alcohol before? That she misses her family?

Some of the survival stuff was interesting as was the whole "class warfare" at the country club.

I just feel like it could have been done in 20-30 minutes splitting the time with Cutty's group or D'Angelos group. It would have been like the Shield doing 60 minutes of Ronnie or the Wire doing 60 minutes of Carcetti. Doesn't mean it isn't usually a great show just a questionable use of an entire show on these two characters. And as far as it being one the top five shows the Walking Dead has done that would be like saying the fly epiosode was one of the top 5 Breaking Bad episodes. Like HB said... Daryll is a woodtick and the girl is sad that Hershal died. Not groundbreaking.

He will. They wouldnt have dedicated an entire episode on evolving her character into a more mature (or lets say "older") character than the 16 yr old high schooler most of us just assumed her to be. I expect her butt to have a permanent reservation for the back of Daryl's next motorcycle.

I think they wanted to show that while she is the sweet farmer's daughter...she can also be cold & badass when she needs to be (which I think we'll see more of the badass side in the coming weeks). Thats what the "love" interest of Daryl has to be...and something the show wants to do for their female demographic (which overwhelmingly loves Daryl).

bingo. exactly what I thought as well.

I didn't understand half of this. Cutty? D'Angelo?

Cutty = Tryese

D'Angelo = Bob

Both actors were in "The Wire" and those are their respective character's names from that show.

I don't think that they wanted to advance the plot much with the Oscar's also airing.

That must have been a wicked heard that came through when they were in the trunk.

Ah ha... well, that's why maybe we don't work in references to other shows that some of us might not have seen. Blah...

Now that I understand, I agree with panerd that I wanted checkins with the other groups (or the ones that weren't featured last week).

Maybe they could have accomplished the same in less time but I'm desperate for anything that isn't completely contrived to make me care about any of these characters. So when they do something like this, even if it isn't perfect, its immediately light years ahead of the average episode in my eyes.



Eh, the difference being that the average Walking Dead episode is generally fun to watch for an hour, but is completely forgettable. They struggle massively with meaningful character development, which makes it very hard for me to have any sort of emotional tie to any character or anything that happens. So anything that makes me feel any sort of emotional investment in anyone is vaulted near the top immediately.

I've raised this in the past, but I think one of the overall struggles that is inherent in this show is, to put it bluntly, the very nature of the "plot".

In the comic, Kirkman's designed goal was to write a post-apocalyptic zombie story that didn't end. He mentioned how pretty much all zombie movies or books typically deal with a discrete set of characters over a discrete time period. Some are much larger in scope and do sort of have beginning-middle-end of the entire zombie uprising event - like "World War Z" (the book) - but most don't.

So, what is the plot for the show? Is it the group wandering around, trying to find some place safe, finding that place, holding onto it for a while and dealing with issues that come up around that, things go bad, they have leave this place and then the group is wandering around, trying to find some place safe...

This has pretty much been the pattern of the show from the first season til now: You had Rick wandering around, finding the trailer park camp, them leaving that, wandering around, finding the farm, them leaving that, wandering around, finding the prison, them leaving that...

The comic is absolutely no different.

There are mini-plots and arcs that come up throughout both - rescuing Merle from the top of the building, looking for Sophie Anne, Woodbury/the Governor, the super flu, etc. - but there really isn't one over riding plot or arc that cries out to be advanced. It's pretty much about the characters and surviving the zombie apocalypse. Is survival alone enough of a plot?

Currently, the mini-plots would be: Does the group reunite (sub-plot, will Maggie and Glen find each other)? What is Terminal? Can Abraham get Eugene to D.C. to solve the infection?

It continues to seem that they are fascinated with showing these horrible zombie kills, how many times can we see a ridiculously fake head get bashed in. Lots of very stupid decisions just to show these moments as well. Daryll bashes 3 or 4 with a golf club, then takes his knife out to stab one on the head at close range and then goes back to the club just so we can see blood splatter over Beth's new outfit...

Thank you or as I've noticed. A particularly gruesome kill, showing spatter all over, and yet the person who did the deed looks as clean as ever. It's starting to look sloppy.

I still enjoy the zombie kills.

I know it is not really how the the writes have done things in the past, but it would have been cool to see how things went down at the country club instead of relying on a bit from Talking Dead.

That could prolong the plot and allow us to see a different side of things.

Didn't you learn anything this week? You aren't supposed to enjoy killing them!

I stopped watching this show after the second season, but I've always wondered (not even so much just for this show but all zombie shows and movies in general)...the zombies are essentially animated rotting corpses. So exactly how long will these walking bags of rotting flesh hold together? I mean, eventually, they'll get to the pointed where they've decomposed so much that they'll begin to lose limbs. Once both legs are gone, they'll have to rename the show, the Crawling, Creeping Dead.

I understand that they can't write the show more than 3-4 EPs ahead of time, but I feel like they would have had a rendezvous point and escape plan from the prison after sitting there for 6mo or more. I'm sure they'll all head towards terminus for next season. I like this season but I'm curious as to this show's long term plan

Once you accept the fact that some sort of virus or radiation or whatever the hell animates the dead, I think you can also accept the fact that the very same virus or radiation or whatever the hell animated the dead can also slow down, or perhaps even at some point, stop the decomposition process so that the animated corpse largely stays together.

Some corpses may rot more than others due to various environmental conditions or as a result of damage done to the body before being turned or the length of time from death to turning, but at some point the decomp stops and the corpses shamble on...

Like I said earlier, they make the characters as stupid as they need to be to satisfy whatever particular episode they are writing.

They had no semblance of a backup plan/rendezvous?

They show no absolutely no progression in terms of clearing out a building with any sense of tactics. How many times do they check one room or two, become fascinated by some object, then "surprise!" a zombie jumps out. You think they would learn a little quicker when their lives are constantly at stake.

You occasionally seem them smartly foraging in one scene, then the next 20 they ignore all kinds of items. I think it's safe to say Beth would have spent the 2 minutes needed to pick out an entirely new set of clothes while in the golf shop.

Let's burn down the moonshine house in the middle of the night. Seems like a great time to have to find shelter.

I think it was the beginning of season 3 where they were trying to set the tone that things were getting really tight in terms of scavenging (Rick wouldn't let them stoop to eating dog food), but they seem pretty much more wasteful than ever in recent episodes.

It's an insanely frustrating and uneven show. Usually right when i hit this point (Ready to stop watching) they rebound with a genuinely great episode. I'm hoping it's the case, because this half of the season has been very poor so far.

Seriously? Why not?

Essentially AMC is bankrolling the entire channel on WD and they piecemeal all of the basic tasks. It's why actors don't appear every week.

Eh, that's kinda stretching it a bit, at least in terms of what's paying the freight for the network.

At least as of last year (prior to them really starting to crank up the merchandising machinery) MadMen was actually producing more revenue, due to the phenomenal demographics of the much smaller audience. Higher salary cost for the cast, but better revenue stream.

What complainers.

I see AMC got bumped up to the third DTV tier from the most basic one. I believe this is relatively new ground. I usually drop packages from time to time. They must have got a really high carry rate on DTV for it to go up.

Thought that might have been one of the worst episodes ever, outside the car trunk scene at the beginning. Beth is the last character I want to "get to know better" and what we learned here didn't make her any more appealing to me. I fast forwarded towards the end in hopes they would show some of the other characters. Alas they did not.

I've never been a fan of gore on TWD and other shows, I usually just look away when I can tell they are coming. The scene in the pro shop might be an all-time low in that regards for me.

Towards the end of the show I texted "Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz" to a friend. Probably the worst episode i've seen of TWD to date. I know it is bad because the explanations they gave on The Talking Dead made a lot more sense. When I have to get the jist of the show from the wrap-up-show it was a bad episode.

The whole liquor thing could have been made interesting and instead it seemed forced and stupid. Daryl getting emotional could have had a huge impact and instead it almost made me laugh.

I have faith that they will continue to have great episodes but I think the writing is hit or miss at this point.

Thanks for common sense here.

Other than the odd "staying inside the trunk" thing to start this episode......


IT SUCKED>

One of the worst ones of the whole series. Not a fanboy who NEEDS to see zombie killing or action every week , but this was just mailed in.

As with more than half of the viewers I recorded this and just got around to it, will be deleting the TALKING dead version instantly. No reason to validate/comment on nothing. The absurd night time burning and flicking off in the MIDDLE OF A ZOMBIE APOCOLYPSE, was how I FELT about the whole episode. RE+DICK.

I hate the Talking Dead. I wish it would go away.

I've found this season to be pretty darned good, especially compared to some of the clusterfucks of the past.

It's become a 2-hour block for us now, the improvement (sometimes surprisingly) in the "superfans" has helped it a lot.

Curiously enough, while the Walking Dead audience was down about 3% with the heavy competition from the Oscars, the Talking Dead audience was actually up over last week, about 6%-7%.

It's having a pretty extraordinary run right now, narrowly missed beating out Duck Dynasty as the #2 show on cable this week.

They did one too many Marilyn Manson/Jason Mewes type panels for me. The cut in around minute 50 is the worst. Even when I watched it was heavily fast forward to the technical discussion montages.

Some of the previous TD guests have been truly awful, this year has been an improvement and it's changed it from a watch-til-I-can't-take-it-anymore to a darn-it's-over-already thing mostly.

Even some comic I'd never heard of before (this week's guest) was surprisingly on point, even if his style of delivering that point bordered on goofy, it sorta weirdly worked anyway.

just now caught up with the show and, therefore, this thread. and I have to say I'm surprised a bit. I personally think these last 4 episodes have been terrific. There have been some misses this year but overall I have found this season to be the most interesting since Season 1.

I agree. I was about to give up on the show and the move away from the prison and back out into zombieland has me back on track.

Different people obviously like different things about the show, there's nothing wrong with that.

I wanna see someone go in for the ridiculous close combat head stab and have the zombie do a head fake and bite them on the arm. Let's find/make some more swords people. Michonne is the only smart one in this world.

I didn't love the first episode, but I've felt that the others have been pretty good. This last one not as much as the prior two, but still not bad.

I try not to worry about the picayune stuff all that much.

me neither, especially since I don't know what picayune means

JB Smoove? I only know him as Leon Black, the hurricane Katrina transplant on Curb Your Enthusiasm, but his work on there is one of the great supporting comedy roles of the past 10 years.

Strange though it may be, that very word was discussed on my FB wall a couple of days ago.

pic·a·yune ˌpikiˈyo͞on/ adjective, informal adjective: picayune

1. petty; worthless.

Maybe there was some sort of contest & we just missed the memo or something.