If I'm remembering right, it was even better, like "No. Who else?"

Heh! I think that's right.

I have always liked Nicotero's directing style, but he amped it up a few notches in this one. Incredibly solid premiere.

Just watched tonight, great start. Even in her limited scenes in this one, Carol remains awesome. Morgan spotting her out right away was nice too.

Someone explain Morgan's importance? So he is the guy from season 1 that saved Rick and also from a later season that had gone insane. But outside of reading the comic books how am I supposed to know anymore about him than that?

Really, there's not much more to him in the graphic novels.

There really isn't. Though, like most of the characters, he's much more interesting and a better character on the show than in the comics.

I still think that scene where he tries, but can't, kill his wife in the first episode is one of the best in the entire show. Top five for sure.

OK. I just have just been reading here how it is going to come down to Rick vs. Morgan like he is the #2 most important guy on the show or something and I was wondering what I was missing.

Interesting. We loved the ending and the intro of the rock quarry (holy moley!). However, because of the layoff between seasons, I had a difficult time remember who was what, and where we left off. Left my wife and I wondering why it took so long to get to the climax of the first episode.

Also, I felt let down when I saw that "Better Call Saul" would be returning....in 2016.

Not sure if it's just my own feeling, but the fact that the seasons are broken up into two (for Walking Dead) with a layoff in between creates a greater disconnect for me.

I don think you're reading it wrong; you're just assuming it came from the comics. I think Morgan was such a great character that we all figured (and hoped) he would return and be a key player in the show.

I don't think the dichotomy of Rick versus Morgan actually showed up until the last couple episodes last season and the trailers for this season, where you see a lot more discord between Rick and Morgan's philosophies on things.

But since it seems likely to happen, that subject now has significant weight.

Just an FYI, season 1 premiered in February and the finale aired in April of this year.

Yeah, I guess the small amount of episodes got to me.

That was a great episode.

Love Carol and Morgan and how different they are.

Whats up with the JSS girl?

Arguably the best two-episode sequence thus far.


You've not spent a lot of time with teenage girls, have you? ;)
Actually, my guess has been for quite some time that

Man, what an awesome episode. So, so good.

Carol is fantastic. It's hard to imagine a more interesting and fascinating character for any character in TV than hers. Given the small, bit part she started with - the meek wife of an abusive husband - to where she's at now? Incredible. And the Melissa McBride just kills it.

Ron needs to go. He's horrible and I don't know why he is wearing that jacket and stupid hat inside when it's not even cold out. He's the worst.

Continuing the really solid start from last week. Very good episode, I love Carol.

This doesn't counter what you're saying, but what stood out to me was that when she was talking with Carl about defending the place, she said something like, "there are too many blind spots, that's how we got in."

The conversation moved on so quick, with no reaction from Carl, that I wondered if I heard it right.

Of course, like a dummy, I didn't just rewind it to be sure.

I heard the same thing CR. It was one of those things that slipped by, but I know I heard that right. Of course, stupid me, flagged it at the time, then dismissed it as a misstatement, like that would happen in a tv show.

I loved the episode.

I am following CR's and PilotMans thought process here and it's the one thing that I pointed out to the family as we watch it. (My GF, and the Brother and Sister in Law) was that Carol made a point for Carl to stay back and watch Judy. He turns his back, the girl is gone and they didn't focus on Judith and the monitor like they did when Carol with in the kitchen.

I am wondering, did the girl take off with Judith?

She said, "that's how we..."

And never finished the sentence. It could be "that's how we got out so easy," referencing that time she and Carl left the walls and went out on their own last season. Or it could be "that's how we got in," meaning she's one of the Wolves and her "just survive somehow" means that she's willing to do anything to survive, including joining the Wolves and betraying Alexandria.

She could be a mole... J'accuse betrayer!!!

from HuffPo of all places


I'll admit that the bit about "how we ..." blew threw my head without notice, but that's probably because I was pondering her use of the phrase about "just people" in the first place.

I assumed she was going to say "that's how we planed to get out." Meaning her and Ron.
Carl cut her off because he did not want to hear her say she was leaving.

Interesting how so many people think Carol is such a great character. I find most of it tiresome and the actress seems awkward in the physical scenes. Needs more practice. As much as they try, I don't buy the bad ass aura. I know they really want it to be an awesome broken battered woman to assassin transformation. Maybe it just appeals to a certain group. I don't totally hate the character, it just isn't smooth or believable.

I figured the JSS girl probably was with the wolves and performed a little lookout and intel. Somebody had found a bunch of pictures on one of the bodies. Who knows, we will see where it develops.

Yeah, I think she and her boyfriend are both working with the wolves.

I thought it was a great episode, and loved Carol's badassery.

I think a lot of the Carol love goes back to "look at the flowers". That's the Carol we know. She's the emotionally toughest character of the bunch at this point, quite possibly the wisest as well. Her occasional superpower ninja feats are, I think, just an extension of those. I mean, if she can be mentally & emotionally who she is maybe she's just kinda dragged the physical along with it.

The pictures were found by Aaron, the guy who has been going out on the recruiting trips with Darryl. They were photos Aaron himself took. He lost them along with his pack in last year's season finale, at the stockyard where the Wolves set the zombie trap with the big rigs.

Poor Glen. Hope those entrails were really the other guy that fell on him but still don't see how he gets away even if that was the case.

I would have been looking for a building with a roof that I could have climbed up on (and hid from sight).

Wow this episode, WTF!!

Great episode. Was the pan out at the end revealing the wolves hideout? What the hell was Darryl planning on doing?

re: hideout -- you must have spotted something I missed completely.

re: Darryl -- I thought he was rushing back to Alexandria but that doesn't quite seem to have been it given how he rejoined relatively quickly. That whole part of the arc almost felt like something got lost in the editing or something.

Was it merely to give us the false hope that he would be the cavalry for one imperiled sub-plot or the other?

edit to add: Had somebody roll back their DVR footage, I now know what you saw (I think).

My takes fwiw

Some reasons why he's not dead.

There's Evidence That 'Walking Dead' Character Isn't Actually Dead

Ugh. My initial reaction to that idea is pretty damn negative. I guess we'll see how they do it if that's the case.

My initial response was OMG as well as everyone else that I was watching with.

Then we rewound it and watched the scene again. We think it is Nicholas that is on top of him and he is in freak out mode.

I theorized that he is surrounded to what is equal to a shark feeding frenzy and he will be able to escape, because they are focused on the entrails. Everyone looked at me like I was crazy.

We will see...but we were still in shock after talking dead...even after Scott sent the message to the show.

Very cheap, if so.

Agree. If you want to do crap like that (which in my opinion takes away from the show) then at least have Glenn climb out from under the pile during the same episode. So you trick us cheaply for 30 minutes instead of a full week(s).

I am of the opinion that this is the internet creating "he isn't dead" and much like the internet discussions during major character deaths on The Wire, Homeland, and Sons of Anarchy we just like to have all sorts of theories in the end Glenn is just dead.

The house or whatever it is with the red roof would at least explain how they all came across the RV and also gives Rick a place to go to avoid being eaten by the mob of zombies. Seems odd to have it in the overhead shot if it means nothing.

I'd agree if not for the Talking Dead stuff mentioned in Edward64's link (I'm not watching Talking Dead currently so I didn't see it myself)

it definitely looked to me like it was a big fakeout.

As much as I don't want Glen dead, that would be pretty weak if he wasn't.

I finally watched the episode last night. It was fantastic. It was another episode that was tense from beginning to end. Really, really great.

I've read about all of the Glenn theories and pretty much agree with kingfc:


This is where I come out. I love the character and would love for him to still be around, but it would be very cheap if they pulled some stunt where it actually makes it out of that situation.

Yeah, he's gotta be dead.

Glen is not dead. Nicolas was on top of him, Glen crawled under the trash bin, it's just too obivious.

If he is alive, I'll be happy he's alive, but annoyed at the blatant manipulation of it all. I mean, it won't be enough for me to stop watching the show or anything, but an irritant.

Still, this season has been crazy enjoyable so far.

Thank you, Captain Obivious.

You are most welcome, resident alien.

I just wanted a chance to type "obivious".

We rewatched Glenn's scene last night. Zombies are pulling intestines out from what would be his upper chest. I'm going to say that people are right. That was the other guy's body on top of him.

I agree that looked weird from the beginning. But getting from "there's a body being eaten on top of you" to "getting out alive" is going to take a pretty enormous leap.

In the first season, the group covered themselves with "leftovers" and pretended to walk/act like the zombies to get out of a situation.

That's my guess how Glenn gets out.

Right, but that was "leftover" zombie bits. They covered themselves with zombie gore, because zombie gore smells like zombies and not fresh, human flesh and blood, and thus zombie's ignore them.

Covering himself with Nicholas' fresh gore and blood would be like tying a steak around his neck. A very bad idea.

Zombie girl to Zombie mom: "Mom... Do you douche?"

It worked in Shaun of the Dead too for a bit lol

I theorize that it's going to end up like a shark frenzy above glen as they are chomping on Nicholas' body and Glen gets out...

But here is my other thought...

Nicholas was hearing voices...what happens if he is dreaming some of this? And it didn't happen...

Pretty good episode, I really enjoyed it.

I predict increase enrollment for Akido and bo stick.

Loved the backstory on Morgan, they seriously do incredible work when they focus on that character. If I'm allowing myself to ignore the bullshit around Glen and how they're choosing to bundle this all together and present it, that is. Very compelling episode.

I liked it, and it didn't seem like a 90 minute episode. It went by quickly.

I was hesitant at first when I heard it was a complete 90 minute episode dedicated to Morgans back story, but how they tied it in, and where he is coming from now...changes my view on him. For me, this was needed.

It was definitely needed. But I hate that they place this stuff when they do, where we have these cliffhangers to deal with and now we have to wait additional weeks for some form of resolution.

They were particularly horrible with this on the road to Terminus after the prison was destroyed.

I thought the first half hour was the slowest 30 minutes in the history of the show tbh.

Overall I thought Andrew Lincoln's description of it as "an art film" (or did he say "arthouse"?) was pretty spot on. The acting was good, but I could have lived with 75 minutes instead of 90.

And after all that, we now know why Morgan is wrong & at this point downright dangerous ... but he's still dead wrong.

well , I disagree with Jimg, but that's cause I stopped watching Talking dead, completely. Asking to be KILLED is the lowest one can find themselves in this world, and this point was driven home. Slowest half hour of the show? I don't think so.

If a major character, like Morgan, is given a backdrop, then its worth settling into, especially if hes now come into the forefront.

But we essentially already knew he'd been to that place mentally/emotionally. That wasn't really a huge reveal for anyone.

Let me be clear about something here though. I'm not casting any aspersion on Lenny James' acting here, nor even the writing. Both actors carried a 90 min essentially two-man episode on their backs & acquitted themselves more than well.

I simply found the first 30 minutes to be too slowly paced for my liking (and that's even with me openly wishing prior to last night for a one-off to relieve the tension of the past three weeks). {shrug}

I almost fell asleep about 4 times in that first hour. Still enjoyed it, but struggled.

My wife fell asleep during the Morgan episode, and I now consider it my favorite. Loved it. The music pushed it over the top for me.

I was kinda bored by it. It was well done, sure, but too long. Guess I would have preferred that they moved the main story along some more.

That was pretty boring.

Glad Rick got his kiss. No Morgan, no Carol ....

Looks like next week we are back to the regular crew.

Lots of little small moments, building toward the inevietable explosive run to the end.

Definitely NOT a fan of the news that Into The Badlands will be pushing Talking Dead back an hour for the next three weeks. No matter how good it is (and it looks ot have at least some potential) it won't be as engaging or interesting as the simple TD.

This was definitely a slow episode compared to the first three.

I liked the Tara and the doctor stuff.

I liked the Maggie and Aaron stuff.

The little breakdown of their society, with the people trying to steal all the food, was a pretty nice touch.

I couldn't care less about the Carl/Enid/Other Kid love triangle thing.

I do feel they are laying on the whole "Rick's way is the right way!" stuff a bit thick. We get it.

Not wild about the "Rick escapes RV" off-camera, or putting the Glen stuff even further on back burner. Those absences weighed on me enjoying what they had in this episode.

Also Carol reveals herself to be the superhero that she is in town and we spend an entire episode in the town without seeing her, or without anyone in the town reacting to her actions at all.

I like the doctor chick b/c I absolutely love Merritt Wever, but I don't think they did nearly enough this episode to justify leaving all that other stuff out/behind for yet another week.

Also, I can usually overlook even fairly gaping plot holes, but "hey there's a grate to a sewer out of here" seems like pretty damn useful information when your town is surrounded, but you'll only tell Maggie so she can try to sneak out and find Glenn, but you won't tell Rick or anyone else so they can try to get out to draw the walkers away from your walls? I'm usually pretty quick to overlook these things and just enjoy the zombie action, or where they're moving the plot to, but this bugged me.

Last night's episode...

What's the deal with the army like group whose member lost an arm? (walk it off :) ) I found the encounter in the woods confusing like why they let the woodtick guy go and where they were coming from.

Were we supposed to get anything out of the non-Darryl storyline? My take was redhead had something crazy happen either in the army or at the beginning of the zombie apocalypse and then later in the episode he tried to sleep with Bob's sister. Was this storyline just filler or was I missing something important?

Glenn on the radio in the truck?

I actually waited for the preview of next weeks episode only to get a generic Rick/Carol montage that told me nothing. FU AMC.

What was the deal with the encased corpses who ate the diabetic girl? Why were they encased? Body bags?

Why didn't Darryl go ahead and kill those guys in the woods when he had a shot?

Didn't think about Glenn with the "help". Thought it was the group back in Alexandria. You're probably right.

Depends on how you define "important" I guess. Abraham's backstory was got a heavy callback with that stuff. Season 5, episode 5 basically.

Beats hell outta me. I thought it looked like death-by-suffocation rather than fire.


Too many

I think what happened is that the glass melted on those people from the big fire that happened, so they were in cased on metled glass.

I was pretty confused about all that was going on with that group and the firestarter people, too, but I think that's okay. There have to be all sorts of random, little groups fighting their own random little territorial battles all over the place. It makes sense that you could just wander into one.

Yup, that is what I thought too. At first it looked like plastic, but the way it broke when the dumb chick fell on them, it was definitely glass from the greenhouse-looking building around them.

For anyone that has read the comics, I am hearing that this last ep is a potential introduction to a major group from them. I haven't hit that group in the portion of the comics I have read, but the fact that they went to lengths to not show particular faces leads me to believe that this isn't the last we see of them.

But is the group we saw last night part of The New Big Bad ... or are they the, umm, let's call them "intermediate" group that's also part of that scenario? Given the conversation with the guy who Darryl encountered I wondered if they might be the latter.

Well, he's alive which is great.

Good episode with nice tension building up to the finale.

It seems as if Enid is a lone wolf. Carol and Morgan going at it. Carl and the kid, is something going to happen. The wall coming down. All good stuff.

Only slightly disappointed about Glenn - not that I wanted him to be dead, but oh well. Glad they did pussy-foot around with showing him alive right away, and a great episode. Next week looks nuts.

This is the most annoyed I've been at the way the show has handled anything in a really long time. I'm not sure why, since what happened is exactly what everyone predicted already, its just so unbelievably over the top cheap and stupid that I feel insulted that anyone involved with the show felt that this was a good way to create drama and to tell a story.

I won't stop watching, I've stuck with shows far worse than this for their entire run b/c its what I tend to do when I get involved with a show. But I think this might be the thing that keeps Walking Dead from being appointment television. This isn't worth re-arranging my Sunday or staying up late to make sure I watch so I can avoid spoilers anymore.

I am glad Glenn is alive, but the execution of it all was overly manipulative and unnecessary. I would be okay with it if they picked it up in the next episode, but drawing it out like they did was kind of lame.

Enid, and her stupid name, does nothing for me. She is just kind of annoying.

Jesse's older kid who wants to kill Carl is also stupid and annoying. He reminds me of a young Jay Cutler. I don't like him.

I did like the talk between Morgan, Rick, Carol, and Michonne.

I still really like the doctor lady.

Tara was good as was Eugene.

As this point, it seems the only two competent people in Alexandria are Aaron and the black guy with the dreds. The rest are all pretty useless or morons. Well, the doctor lady is okay. At least she's trying.

Next episode does look crazy. I am looking forward to it. And then I will be sad that there won't be any new episodes until Valentine's Day.

It's been a solid (half)season, I just can't say that I've exactly enjoyed it.

The whole foreshadowing of Glenn's eventual fate (they even alluded to his canonical impending doom on TD last night) has pretty much sapped that for me, a case where figuring I know what's coming has really hurt my ability to enjoy what's happening in the meantime. Spoilers of that sort usually don't have much impact on me, for whatever reason this one has. I've basically spent the whole season waiting for either Glenn to die or Darryl to be subbed into that storyline role.

One thing from last night, annoying twit move that it was, the line about losing his shoe felt totally in character for the stupid son after his stupid near death experience. Rick shoulda punched him in the face for it, but the line itself felt spot on for the character.

Coming off what was my favourite episode of the whole series, the Morgan episode, Glen has given me the fuel to finally quit this stupid show. The writing has always been bad, but that was some of the stupidest, most insulting stuff I've ever seen on TV.

Season 1 is still very good, it got bad quick and this is the last straw.

I think it's annoying and cheap that Glenn isn't dead, but it's still one of the best shows on TV.

No. The writing hasn't "always been bad". That's just not an accurate statement.

It's been uneven. Sometimes bad, sometimes great, lots of time in the middle.

Season 1 was great. The first half of season 2 was pretty bad. After that it's been up and down, with more ups than downs.

Well, if you have read the comics (I haven't, my GF has, she has them all and I will be cracking them open here this weekend) you know when Glen dies...everything has pretty much followed that timeline for most of it according to her. There were some scenes that they changed and deaths earlier/later than should have been.

I like it, what has increased my enjoyment is watching it with others. Living in Buffalo I was alone and couldn't get into it. We have a watching party at our house with family and dinner. It has made it enjoyable.

Stay strong, I'm in your corner

Nagging suspicion Glenn won't die so that the show runners can break further from the comics.

Much like the wolves say they do to the people they kill, I now feel free! Free from Walking Dead until February!

I fully expect them to come back strong, they tend to do openers and the first half of a season well. It's the landing that they just never quite seem to stick. Or, in this case, they're not even remotely close to the landing strip. Given what was supposed to be happening, to characters that I like (morgan, carol, deanna and the doctor the only two I care at all about from the new crowd... well and rick's new hot blonde)... it just felt boring. Zombies making gains on every front, severe weaknesses in every party, but... it was boring. Really, really slow and boring. Too bad.

Things will start well I'm sure in February, and I'll once again praise the show for a string of solid episodes, all while wondering how horribly they are going to fuck up yet another finale this year. Its just too bad, the potential is here for a REALLY GOOD show. They get close enough often enough that you see that they're capable. They they pull the shit that was the 2nd half of this season. Shrug.

I hope so. Because the show is much better than the comic and his death in the comic was lame.

Enjoyed the episode. I hate cliff hangers though.

1. "Pretend to be brave" kid is toast
2. Carol & Morgan fight was great and lots of tension (but premise was kinda lame)
3. Good to see the old "guts on bed sheet" trick again
4. Good to see Glen and Maggie somewhat reunited

Misc thoughts

5. Rick should have thought of a fallback location in the subdivision for this sort of eventuality

awful, awful msf. Deanna's acting was the only thing that worked for me.

That episode seemed to take forever to get pretty much nowhere...having read the comics, I assume I can see where it is going, but maybe that is the point - they don't want us to assume that and will take us in a different direction.

Until researching it specifically, I didn't realize how much of last night was lifted from the comics. Question now is whether they have the courage (and will ignore the heavy practical constraints) to have it end similarly for a number of characters.

The comic universe is, well, significantly maimed.

We can only hope.

I have to give credit to the young actor though, his tweet to the live Talking Dead last night was a pretty funny moment.

Agree with what Radii was saying...I was really bored watching it and nothing felt tense at all because I wasn't expecting anything major to happen. And it didn't.

More consistent season than they have delivered possibly ever, but that was a weak mid-season finale.

Yeah I agree with most of you here. A herd breaks through the wall, and it ends up being a slow paced, talking episode. No idea how that happens, especially for a mid season finale.

A new trailer

Walking Dead Mid-Season Premiere Trailer: Zombies Aren’t the Only Threat - Us Weekly

Pretty brutal first 30 min. Great episode so far.