Worf was okay but can't get over a Klingon with a hair "perm".

How or why Maggie would want to have a baby in this new brutal world is senseless.

i always knew it wasn't going to be Maggie. The series spent a lot of time on Hershel's farm, and Maggie is the last remaining person from *that* storyline. I have a feeling she's going to make it all the way to the end of the show.

Is there ever an end to this show? Looks like the series doesn't have an end goal - just people who are trying to survive for one more day. Getting a bit old and most of the people I know have given it up. I'm not there just yet but probably will be after this season. Think the cow will have been well-milked by that point.

No ending that's ever been stated. The whole concept of the comic book was the story about the zombie apocalypse that never ends...

It's been an issue that the show has had to deal with for a long time now. I've mentioned many, many times dating back as early as season 2 or so when folks complain about the show not moving the plot forward. This is the plot. These characters, the world they live in, how it changes them, how they try to live/survive in, that's the plot.

As for the notion that the show is shedding a ton of fans:

"“The Walking Dead” premiere drew a horde of 17 million Americans on Sunday night, and a massive 8.4 rating in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic. That’s a little shy of a record, which is still held by the Season 5 premiere (8.7 in the demo, 17.29 million viewers).

Compared to the Season 6 opener, that’s 2.37 million total viewers and an entire ratings point in the 18-49 demo higher, equal to about 1.28 million people in that age range. Presumably no one wanted to run the risk of being spoiled by social media. (The episode did draw a record-setting 8.7 rating in the 25-54 demographic — maybe some of the younger viewers aged up.)

It’s rare for a show in its seventh season to climb back up, much less for a show on a cable network to draw more than double the demo rating of a show like “Empire,” the current broadcast champ by that metric. Even Chris Hardwic’sk after-show “The Talking Dead” drew an absurd 3.7 demo rating and 7.6 million viewers over its 90-minute episode, in which the cast and crew of “The Walking Dead” worked through their grief in a rainsoaked cemetery in front of a large live audience. That’s bigger than every show on broadcast and cable as well."

The numbers don't support it. It's still massive (like my Johnson).

People have been claiming this show "jumped the shark", again, going all the way back to season 2 when they were at the farm - the zombie-in-the-well episode was a particular low point - but the show continues on and continues on strongly.

I still really enjoy it. I hated the season finale, and wasn't happy with a few episodes last season (most seasons), but, for me, the show still hits more than it misses and sometimes the hits are just amazing. The show has given me some of my favorite moments in television and I have watched a fair amount of quality TV.

It was a brutal episode, but hopefully it is setting a good season in motion. Carol to the rescue?

Well it's a show so rest assured it certainly has an "end". It's a different medium, not one that can go on forever as audiences want closure. Closure in this case is the characters either finding a cure or finding a permanent and safe new way of life. With that having been said, I think at least Maggie and Carl are the two most likely to be there in the "end", ie series finale. I would love to see Rick there in the end, that is, survives to live with Carl happily ever after since I'm a father too, but I have a feeling he's gonna die in the finale episode. Carol I believe is another who'll make it till the end.

Yeah, at some point the show will end. I just don't know if, at this point, anyone knows what that end will look like, so it's not like they are currently progressing down any one particular path.

I imagine, they will have plenty of warning as to when the show will end and then spend that last season or seasons creating an arc that builds towards some kind of ending.

I'll be happy to let the show end as soon as Carl gets a haircut.

At this point one zombie doesn't scare anyone. And also at this point a horde of zombies doesn't scare anyone either (tv character or audience). In the season premiere Rick took on a legion of zombies without a weapon. We're at the point, ever since the Governor seasons, where the human threats need to get more gruesome to keep the audience's attention. We went from the Governor to the ppl who ate other humans to now Negan. So while the theme of this season is "We're just getting started", I give the series another 3 yrs because plot-wise it's just going to start repeating itself (or turn into snuff porn). It's main draw - zombies - is not the main draw anymore.

Also, it's not going to keep going on only for this reason:

Ppl are invested in the original characters, which at this point consists of Rick, Carl, Darryl, Maggie and Carol. Yes the show can keep introducing other characters, but there has to be some continuity from the show's beginning to its ultimate end. It's "how do *these* characters survive", not "how does humanity survive". But if the show keeps going on it's going to get to the point where the original characters are never in any danger of actually dying, which takes away from the tension. And if it keeps going on that these original characters eventually die off before the series finale it's not going to have the same effect since it'll be a bunch of ppl from season 7 or 8 that have only been around for a couple seasons who make it to the end. So yeah, 3 seasons, tops.

The only characters from the beginning I would expect to see around for the eventual finale would be Rick & Carl.

Give or take, around half the cast members currently known to us are dead in the source material by the time the war with Negan finally ends.

A big part of the "how long does it last" might be influenced simply by how they handle affairs with Negan. You could pretty much do 1.5 to 2.0 seasons with this storyline alone. There's a lot of ground that could be covered here, though I suspect they'll rush it up a bit & wrap it up at the end of the next half season (basically one full year / two half-seasons).

I am really excited by this season. This episode is what basically dictates all the future events to come and I just hope they don't stray too far from the source material. Maybe just enough to get through the slow parts, but not enough to where it doesn't make sense like they did with Michonne and the Governor.

And Rick gets a shampoo and wash. How can his hair stay so greasy?

I really like this series and think its got a lot of life yet ... Fear of the Walking Dead on the other hand doesn't have the right dynamics for me.

Yeah, we gave up on that one very early in season 2.

Quit midway thru Season 2. I just didn't like any of the characters, which basically leaves you trying to be entertained by scenarios you've basically seen before.

The prob with Fear was (or is) it's best suited to like a 4 episode miniseries which should be shown the month before TWD, as a way to get ppl into TWD mode. Show it in September when ppl just can't wait for the October start of TWD and ppl will salivate over it. Showing it after TWD is anticlimactic.

And the characters were written very badly, so yeah.

Yep, especially that Johnny Depp wannabe

Fear was really hard this season, but I really feel like they finally did something with it I cared about by the very end. So I'm optimistic that next season they really find their flooring and it stands on its own.

Nice episode, much less intense than season premiere. Enjoyed seeing Carol and Morgan again.

I've been reading the comic books (and hate knowing what will happen) and will be glad when the show catches up and goes off on its own path.

I agree. I really liked the episode. The actor playing King Ezekiel is absolutely fantastic. He did amazing job with a character that could be really hard to pull off.

I like what they are doing with Morgan, since he had become pretty tiresome.

And I thought some of the minor characters they introduced - Jerry, Ben, the dude who got punched - were all decent.

I'm a non-comic reader, so this is all theory:

From what I've tried to avoid but have surmised, KE will die. It seems they have spent juuuuust a tiny bit more time on showcasing the minor character (the tough guy, KE's goofy bodyguard and the young guy that Morgan was training) that these will be the next characters to eventually join the main group, most likely in a "joining forces" sort of way. While Negan might have the numbers, and more battle ready troops, Rick's posse plus the "tough guys" from the Kingdom just might be what's needed to take Negan's group down. The Hillside group didn't really produce any memorable/meaningful characters, but the Kingdom has the "comic relief" guy and the replacement for Abraham along with a potential "leader" type guy to replace Glenn. The episode wouldn't have spent those extra bits it did showing personality if it didn't intend to showcase them more in the future.

You underestimate Paul (aka Jesus).

Nice episode, enjoyed learning more about Dwight (and Daryl's resolve).

Ready to move the plot along though.

A necessary episode for storytelling reasons (assuming they stick to the source material of events), not particularly thrilling TV though.

Also, it dragged more noticeably to me (knowing the basics of the graphic novel story) than episodes like this usually do. I spent a lot more time than I'm usually conscious of sitting here thinking"yeah, yeah, I got that,move along"

To be honest though, in storytelling you can't think that just by showing some backstory for evil characters you magically endear them to the audience. He's still someone many ppl would love to see dead. Myself included.

This episode was very slow. I don't think it's necessary to spend whole episodes on just one plot line. Last week at the Kingdom made sense because it was introducing new characters.

Yeah. I felt it dragged a bit, too. They could have told the same story a bit tighter.


I don't think the episode was meant to really endear Dwight to the audience. It was as much about Dwight as it was about Negan and how he rules. There will likely be some consequences at some time.

They did a good job of wanting me to see Daryl give in with that effin song.

From a survival perspective, there was no upside to Darryl not pretending to want to join Negan's group. I thought that was silly for Darryl to continue to be so defiant. It didn't make me like/respect him more. He clearly wanted to escape - your odds of escaping are better when you've been let off the leash.

Going further though, even if Darryl were to escape it would only spell doom for Rick and the group. Negan would assume Darryl made it back to home base and would probably punish ppl of Rick's group one at a time until Darryl turned himself in.

We're walking on Easy Street
And it feels so sweet ...

UGH!!!

I would disagree. Sounds like Dwight could easily have been a Darryl type character previously, but he was broken by Negan. Something that you could just as easily see happening to Darryl if he goes down the wrong path. It shows just how powerful that Negan is.

I thought it humanized Dwight a lot and while he is still a bad guy, shows how everybody has taken different paths to get to where they are right now.

But here's the thing. You can humanize Negan all you want but it's still never going to endear him to the audience. Same with Dwight. You can't just show some tender moments and all of a sudden the audience will sympathize with him. Did you sympathize with that group of cannibals when they showed some backstory about about them?

Yeah I don't think the Dwight backstory is to endear him at all. I'll spoil tag it in case anybody doesn't want to see speculation but its not based on the comics or info on teh internets. Just based on what I've seen on the show so far.

Regarding your speculation:

That actually makes a lot of sense.

I think so as well

Well yeah... They kind of hit us over the head (pun intended) with that foreshadowing. I actually thought it was overdone, although I really liked the episode.

A little painful watching the team go through that. Ready for a comeback and more action.

FWIW, I don't understand why they couldn't have taken out Negan and his chiefs in this episode (esp with that RPG/rocket launcher!). Daryl would have been a goner but for the greater good.

That's what makes this so unbelievable for me. Take out Negan and his whole group will disintegrate into little bands vying for control. And it's almost like Negan is begging for someone to take him out (silhouetted alone against the fence, handing Rick the bat, mocking an agitated, gun-toting Carl, etc).

C'mon, man ...

We kind of know that based on what we saw in last week's episode with Dwight/Darryl and all of that. There's no reason to think that Rick or anyone else knows it.

As for as they know, The Saviors are a massive group of people with a lot of resources and weapons and are, apparently, incredibly well organized.

I don't find the whole thing all that unbelievable, especially considering it's been less than a week since Abraham and Glenn were killed and the Alexandria folks don't have that many warriors left at the moment.

Sasha and Maggie are at Hilltop.

Darryl is captured.

Morgan and Carol are at the Kingdom.

That leaves you with Rick, Machionne, Rosita, Carl, Aaron, Eugene, Father Gabriel and the dregs of Alexandria. I don't fancy their odds of carrying off a successful ambush at the moment.

Jeffery Dean Morgan is simply killing it as Negan. He owns each and every scene he's in. It's been fantastic to watch.

Presumably The Saviors have taken everyone's guns - Alexandria, Hilltop and The Kingdom's. this puts everyone at a severe disadvantage as far as joining up and mounting a coup. All 3 factions combined might have the numbers but they just don't have the firepower now to attack.

Also, the show risks Negan being too "been there, done that." What allowed them to milk The Governor storyline for about 1-2 seasons was the gradual progression of showing his madness. It wasn't all craziness from the start. With Negan i can see it becoming (at least for me) "all right, I get it...he's the big bad guy). But Jeffrey dean Morgan is definitely killing it.

I don't think that's even presumed as far as Hilltop goes. IIRC we were told that outright last season when they were introduced. Remember Rick figuring out that they had severely limited firepower?

The Tara episode was a nice change of pace but kinda boring with a full episode of her. Hope this means Tara has a major part in the forthcoming showdown.

I have a feeling that trailer park cache of guns is going to play more of a role than Tara will. A four way alliance with Jesus, the Tiger guy, Rick's crew, and the trailer park women could be interesting.

Tara turned into a likeable character for me this episode. It'll be sad when she dies.

How much more boring can this get?

They don't always seem to have the pacing right with Negan. JDM is great but there's something ... off, at times. The scene with the harem tonight is an example.

I find myself saying the same thing while watching these episodes. And apparently we see characters who think the same way....Michonne, WTFisHerNameAgain, and Carl (who unfortunately reconsidered that stance when the situation actually arrived).

But then I have to suspend my disbelief by saying, at this point in the show's world, all we have left are people who value their own personal life more than anything else. More than their dignity, their values, and each other. We see Dwight, his wife, and most of Negan's crew....it does not appear that any of them genuinely "like" Negan. I mean, not even in a "oh he used to be a better guy but now he's crazy for our benefit" kind of way. Nope...he's somebody that has likely broken each and every one of them until they are left with the impression that the only way to continue existing is to serve Negan. And you get the impression that those inclined to revolt have already done so (and failed horribly).

I'm still not totally sold on the premise of having THAT many people serve you under such motivation. Nor for the amount of time it must have taken to get the Saviours to where they are now. But thats the best I have.

As a side point on last night's episode....I found the exchange where Carl (paraphrasing) tells Negan "if you were smart you'd kill us. But maybe you can't do it." And Negan's response "maybe you're right, maybe I can't." was possibly more telling than just about anything. As in, maybe the rules Negan talks about are preventing him from taking out a threat, which lets be honest, he should be focused on (perhaps because we know Rick's group so well).

I think flashbacks to Negan's pre-zombie and immediate post zombie life could be great tv if done right. It would great if he was a respected normal working guy or even a loser that nobody liked or listened to. I thought Michone's flashback added some depth to her character.

I didn't think the show would get me to care abut Dwight at all but I am actually becoming sympathetic and like others have said I don't find a lot of the Negan stuff particularly believable but the actor is really hitting a homerun with the character. He is 180 degrees different than the guy who played the governor.

I find it believable that everyone is scared stiff to form a coup and take him out. It's basically how someone like Hitler or Kim Jong Il have stayed in power. You know something is wrong, you know the guy is insane - but you have no one to voice these opinions to. Just by speaking badly you can be turned in and be punished. So you go along with the flow because you assume everyone else is going along with the flow.

Carl has caused more harm than good. I think it was his comments the previous time Negan collected from Alexandria that resulted in Negan confiscating their guns.

Theory - I think when Rick let it out that he knew the baby girl wasn't his and the fact that Negan took such a liking to her is gonna play some sort of role. The previews for next week's show where they show him crying made me wonder what exactly he could be crying about. Either that or Rosita dies after her failed attempt to kill Negan.

That coward guy with the mullet is annoying but accurate. It seems everyone in that universe turned into Rambo but in reality cowards are cowards and some things you can't switch off. Even the priest guy, he is/was annoying but his arc, evolving into semi reliable fighter is believable. He's not totally Rambo but he's stayed true to himself and has adapted.

One thing that doesn't make sense is how could there be so many Saviors and Rick's group encountered them so late into the game. I think in that universe only 3 yrs has elapsed if I'm not mistaken. Just isn't possible for that kind of "community" to come to fruition in such a short period of time.

Well, they've only been in Alexandria a relatively short time.

Walking Dead Wikia puts them meeting Aaron on day 537.
We're only around Day 632 now.

So all of this has happened within around 90 days of them arriving in the Alexandria area.

edit to add: I initially read your post as questioning more how it took Rick so long to meet Negan's group, rather than how long it took for Negan's group to form itself. To that point it seems that they formed right after the troubles began, so they're at a 2 year'ish point now.

I'm not sure exactly what you'd base this on.

2-3 years seems plenty long to form something like this.

As for the last episode...

Well, most of the Carl and Negan seemed unnecessary. I like what Jeffery Dean Morgan is doing with Negan just fine, but it's just a bit too much of him, I think and not enough variety maybe? I don't know. It's just a lot of menacing menace with the same delivery and all.

A lot of what Negan does doesn't make a lot of sense. If he really wants these groups to kneel to him and be so subservient, why keep someone like Rick alive?

The only good explanation that I've come up with is that he's bored. He's definitely a bit of a sadist and enjoys tormenting people, seeing them suffer, and seeing how far he can push them before breaking. So, he's probably getting off on all of that. And, what else is there to do in that world? Watch the same crummy re-runs of shows? There's no new music, TV, movies, sports, you have to entertain yourself some how, I guess.

I liked the Eugene/Rosita scenes and the Michonne scenes.

It feels like the show is spread a bit too thin at the moment. We've only had one episode with Carol and Morgan in the Kingdom.

The show has shed a lot of viewers this season. I think it was a combination of the crappy season finale that angered a lot of people - me included - and the overly brutal season premiere. Those two things drove a lot of people away.

This season hasn't been that strong. A lot of the tension that used to exist seems to have gone.

Ultimately he needs those groups to be useful & productive. At some point he has to have people who can lead the sub-groups in order to accomplish that (otherwise what's to keep them from just wandering off by 2s and 3s?).

Leaving Rick broken but in place as a "road boss" of sorts fits into what we've seen elsewhere with the Saviors and other groups. Each has a titular local leader to keep the rest of the community on task.


I'm ready for Rosita to eat her own bullet after her little outburst. And to borrow from Josh Homme on Talking Dead, Michonne's "plan" was as juvenile & poorly considered as Carl's. Left me entirely unimpressed with her.


THIS was my post-show conversation with my son. The cast for this half season is absurdly bloated, to the point of being unmanageable. I get why that's the case, and I get the reality of how that's likely to change dramatically over the next half season ... but the impact on this half season has been for it to be too scattered, too unfocused, to the point that I'm actually annoyed with the show for the choices they've made about how to allocate screen time. For one example of many possibilities, I'd have taken 10-15 minutes more of pretty much anything with the Kingdom over the drawn out harem scene last night.

Yes. Everyone seems to be hatching their own secret little "I'm gonna kill Negan" plan...

Sasha - Hers seems the best thought out right now. Have ninja Jesus scout them out and find out where they live.

Carl - Sneak into a truck, grab a gun, kill two guys out right, and then freeze up when you have the assault rifle pointed at Negan. Bad idea all around.

Rosita - Has gun and one bullet. Her plan is to get close enough and John Wilkes Booth him?

Michonne - Carjack a red headed woman, beat her up, have her take her Negan and then... Shoot him? Cut him with her sword? What's the end game here, Michonne?

And as a viewer that's familiar with at least the basics of the source material I'm almost ... hamstrung by having some notion of why this is all being done, what situation they're trying to set up for next week, etc.

Those who know only the TV show can at least try to suspend disbelief over the series of individually stupid actions (something we've kinda seen them do before IIRC) and let it play out. It's not as though we haven't seen piss poor strategy on a few previous occasions.

I don't know the comics at all, so I don't if Negan is supposed to be this way, but the TV version of Negan is too cartoonish & over the top to be believable to me. He reminds me of the little cartoon version of the "mobster" Mugsy...

There is seemingly no reason for anybody to follow this guy to the extent they do in the show...yet they do anyway.

IMHO, he could be charming & sinister....but that would mean some of his people would genuinely like him & believe in him as a leader. But his whole spiel of the "Saviors" doesn't seem to have anybody believing in him. They fear this charming & sinister man...enough to carry his bat without killing him with it.

He could be vicious & overbearingly aggressive with everybody around him (even in 1-on-1 situations)....but that would be hard to gain such a following without at least some key "backup" characters with inherent loyalty for him (like a brother, cousin, old friend, etc.)...or at least showing Negan to be a man so aggressive & insecure that he doesn't actually tolerate half of the looks he's gotten without clubbing people.

I dont know...maybe its just me. I really did enjoy Negan as a character in the s6 finale & s7 premier. But since then, he has turned into a caricature.

My point is in 2-3 years he amassed hundreds of troops in the same driving distance of where the main storyline has taken place and not once did Rick's group encounter them. That doesn't seem likely. Especially if Negan's strategy for survival is to enslave different communities to provide the Saviors with resources. If the Saviors are as huge as is alluded to in the show there would've been run-ins with them long ago.

And 2-3 yrs is definitely not a lot of time to amass a huge army like that, so large that you have outposts (at least one that we know of). It would have to start off small, probably Negan and a small team. Then perhaps it grew but not without some backlash (ppl fighting back and killing some Saviors). Then we know they have killed all men in that one hidden village, which is probably something that happened before. Not to mention all the times ppl from within the Savior community tried to fight back. To get ppl to the point where they decide there is no point in trying to overtake him, no assassination attempts (at least none too serious to disfigure him), and make them complacent all while growing your numbers - that takes time!

Negan wants Darryl as a soldier - look how much time he's put into trying to turn Darryl. How many other guys have been hard to break (and eventually did)? No way that all took place in about 2-3 years, all while being hidden from the main storyline.

I think they were driving to Washington D.C. and traveling large distances at a time. Once they got into the Virginia area they definitely encountered Negan quite often. I don't disagree with your questioning of the cult following Negan has but the fact they didn't run into him until last season seems pretty logical.

They're in Virginia now. They spent most of the first two years in the Atlanta area down in Georgia. They have only been up in the Alexandria area for three months real time by most reckonings (for the past 2-3 seasons or so, thanks to all the crap that has gone on).

Herschel's farm, the Governor, Terminus, that was all in Georgia.

Wait so all this is happening in Virginia? I thought everything was still happening in Georgia. I thought they scrapped the plan to go to DC once that coward guy admitted to lying and being a fraud.

There needs to be a map of TWD universe so you can see where things are taking place. If Game of Thrones which is 200% larger than TWD can have intricate maps then TWD should certainly make it completely clear what is happening in what locations.

Here you go. :D

"Alexandria" was supposed to be the tip-off I think.

One of the issues with definitive maps (the show has never released anything along these lines) is that the show uses a mix of real & fictional locations. For example, in the TV show the story begins in "King County, GA" ... which doesn't exist.

We're left to extrapolate locations based on guesstimates & the like, based on apparent walking/driving distances & such.

Also, being too specific about locations might lead to some uncomfortable questions. Such as, if "Alexandria" is indeed Alexandria, VA then why at no point has any single member of our merry band been at least morbidly curious enough to not venture the 8 miles or so to at least SEE the nation's capitol?

Fair play...I walked into that one hahaha

Heh!!!!

Classic, CR!

Budgetary concerns?

I can't believe for the past two or three seasons I thought these ppl were still in Georgia.

If that's the case why hasn't Rick and his crew simply left Virginia in the middle of the night and either went back to Georgia (recolonize The Governor's vacated community?) or somewhere else. They make it sound as if The Saviors are gonna hunt them down across the US. when I thought they were still in Georgia I thought they were "stuck" in their predicament because Georgia was all they knew. But there wasn't any Saviors in Georgia. It seems Saviors have Virginia locked down. So move.

from the ever popular Wiki

Ouch. There goes that idea.

They could go back to the prison and rebuild ... but there are other places than to stay in dodge and live under those conditions (Daryl would understand being left behind).

But if it was me, I would get arms from the other places (e.g. what is Carol up to nowadays?) and take out Negan next time he showed up. My bet is after a bloody fight with rest of his entourage, his group would fracture.

The prison walls were blown to hell that tank, weren't they? I think the property value of the prison is very, very low at this point.

Carol is living in some house just outside The Kingdom last we saw her, which was the only time we saw her all season thus far.

I reckon all of those guns at the lesbian forest compound will come into play at some point.

Too many people have had an opening to kill Negan and have passed it up to allow the Negan story to continue. But that happens a lot in shows and movies. Characters avoid doing things that would quickly end the story. In the end, I'm willing to overlook it if the story is entertaining.

Ok, I quit watching the show after the end of last season, but I've been quietly following along with the thread from time to time to see how it's going...


and that pulled me out of lurking... there's a lesbian forest compound? Details? :D

Well, the trees in the forest are straight (as far as we know).
The women living in the surrounding area, well ... with the complete absence of menfolk(killed off by Negan) there's a certain presumption that something has to pass the time.

Not like they can watch a lot of television or anything ;)

Both these hint at my age old question of why you wouldn't try to find an island or even a large ship anchored offshore to use as a base. But there's no cell phones in this universe, so maybe there's no oceans or all the fish in the oceans have died.

Umm ... I _think_ we saw ocean life in the companion series, so that's probably not it. Plus, isn't the women's camp fishing for sustenance?

I think there's going to be a growing amount of ppl in the "why didn't [insert name here] just kill Negan right there??!" category if those kinds of scenes become too frequent.

Right now Negan is by himself at Alexandria. The guy isn't Superman - if we're to believe Rick and his group are these ultra badasses this is probably the best chance they'll ever have.

Extrapolating this theory - I'm going to assume Rosita returns to Alexandria just in time to see Negan by himself. Fails in her one-bullet assassination attempt and is Lucille'd by Negan while Rick is forced to comply, hence that preview shot of him crying in next week's episode.

from the FTWD showrunner

from a different zombie universe (Day Z), it was noted that there are a lot of people thinking the same way about islands, meaning they're likely overrun with people (and zombies) anyway.

and geographically, for Rick's crew at least, the Georgia coastal islands are all pretty much connected to the mainland by bridges anyway. Not all that isolated.

It was during sweeps.

Woo hoo. Morgan and Carol are back!

Man, I must be in a different world. The only "killing it" I think Negan is doing is the show. He is purely 1 dimensional, acts the same all the time, says the same stupid stuff, and has monopolized about 50-75% of the entire season. I'm so tired of hearing him talk and act so stupid, and we get nothing about most of the other characters. We are 8 episodes in and have barely seen anything but him walking around 2 places babbling.

The other end is probably my son, who said "as long as they keep Negan around, not sure I care who else they kill off"

I'm not that far into it but I do think that JDM is head & shoulder ahead of any other actor they've had in the cast. (worth noting perhaps that I'd never seen him prior to his joining TWD)

The gang is back together. This season has been below par so looking forward to next.

(Once again, missed opportunities for someone brave enough to take out Negan)

FTR, my Facebook will show that I called Lucille being wounded during the commercial break.

Okay, I missed my guess for the aftermath (I figured we'd come back & the entire Alexandrian cast would be dead)

I really enjoyed that episode. I thought it was great. Negan finally did something beyond menace. Someone finally tried to take him out. All of the individual revenge plots came to an end. Darryl is free. Good stuff!

This half season hasn't been great.

There was far too much Negan menacing menacingly and a lot of dull nonsense.

Hopefully, it'll turn around when it comes back in February.

Does the walking Dead ever get back to fearing the zombie apocalypse? I always enjoy that storyline the best. Maybe they relinquished that to the idiots in LA... It's good but this past season was just depressing and for all the wrong reasons.

I think they basically covered every possible zombie situation in the past 5 seasons so now it's more about human vs human. Which I guess if you think about it after 3 years the people still alive probably don't have as much trouble with zombies as they did during the first year.

I'm not questioning the logic, that makes sense, its just not as interesting.

Dutch I think you're right in the sense they need more deaths by zombie. What we're seeing is "the strongest survive" aspect - there should be fewer and fewer deaths by zombie the longer they survive because the weak will get killed off but in the end they are living in a zombie world so that threat still needs to be felt from time to time.

The music they played during the reunion was spot on. It was perfect.

They really don't have much time to assemble the communities to fight. The Saviors are gonna quickly find out Darryl has escaped, they will come to Alexandria first looking for him. That probably leaves Rick's group 1 day to assemble the communities. It's also obvious the lesbian character is gonna have to break her promise to the lesbian forest women (how awesome and weird does that sound) by advising where guns can be had. Outside chance the lesbian forest women will be the fourth group to join the fray. I don't think they're going to give up their guns without breaking their "shoot strangers on site" rule.

This war will be for all the marbles. Eliminating the Saviors means peace between about 4 communities - basically an entire city of allies. This is huge - this is the start of rebuilding humanity and civilization.

Oh, pretty sure Eugene is a goner. When Negan comes back he's probably gonna bash his head in front of everyone. Oh well. In war there will be casualties.

I figured Negan will keep Eugene and set him to work creating more bullets.

He was keeping Daryl hostage to keep Rick's crew at bay. They had to play nice or else risk Darryl getting Lucille'd. Without Darryl Negan lost a major bargaining chip. He has Eugene now, and will probably drive right up to the gates, make Eugene kneel down and threaten to bash his head in (and will).

I think you are correct on what should happen if you correctly follow the show storyline but I think Kodos is correct on what will happen.

From a story perspective they have one character from each storyline over the seasons (save for the original Rick group from season one).

Maggie: the farm years
Lesbian: the Governor years
Sasha: from the group that went to the prison (the group who had the strong black guy who wore that hat all the time)
That runaway teenage girl (Carl's "GF"): last remaining major character from the Alexandria storyline
Jesus: only remaining major character from Hilltop once the current leader inevitably dies

They can kill Eugene because they'll have Rosita from the Abraham group.

There's no where else to go with Eugene as far as arc goes. He will always be a weak coward that it wouldn't be believable for him to be a badass. The Priest, while initially scared, still has kept his core intact even while adapting towards the middle away from an extremely pacifist personality. He's still the Priest, just a more believable character now that he's evolved and isn't so one-sided. Eugene will never evolve, which means there's no where to go with his character. The weak get weeded out in a zombie apocalypse.

Not the least of which has to be that it's one of the worst-acted shows I've ever seen.

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Kind of surprised there has been no discussion on the first episode Sunday. Nobody watching anymore?