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.