If you're not current with the series, SPOILERS ahead.

This season has been really uneven in direction and quality, which is disappointing.

Whomever it was that sent Greg Nicotero to Artistic Director School should be slapped. He directed some fantastic episodes before this season, but now he's gotten way too much "into his craft" with weird angles of faces transitioning to others without any sort of context. And he, and the writers, love to work on some sort of ADHD method of continuity. Here's Rick - now Daryl - now Rick - now Carol - now Negan - now Maggie - now Rick! Try to keep up, we're hopping like no tomorrow! Jump cuts FTW!

They've toned this down a bit with the last couple of episodes - and to be fair to Mr. Nicotero, Scott Gimple said he not only okay'd it, but liked the "artsy" direction and editing. Scott is gone as show runner, so maybe things will level out a bit.

Walkers are apparently a threat again, which is cool. I was beginning to wonder if they were still around or not.

I saw a little video that explained why walkers can sneak up on our heroes that made total sense - with all the shooting they do and all of the explosions, our band of survivors is pretty much going deaf. This also explains their amazing sneaking abilities, which include talking to each other in a normal tone and volume. They think they're whispering when they ain't. But that's okay, the bad guys are hard of hearing, too.

This last episode, The Lost and the Plunderers, was a better one, maybe the best of the season. The "Junkyard" girl not only being abandoned by our heroes (finally, finally, a correct call!), she kills her friends-turned-walkers with an improbable but very cool industrial grinder.

In the episode before we find out what happens when one says their last words....but doesn't die just yet. Poor Carl has to think up things to say as he lays there and goes with "love everyone" since he's already said all the things he really wanted to. I actually started chuckling at one point, as it would be my luck to be on my death bed, make my final pronouncements, and then not die. I think I'd go with awkward silence and then try to tell jokes or something than try to continue to be profound.

It would be like in Citizen Kane where he slumps, mutters "Rosebud," the snow globe falls to the floor - and then someone says "Hey! You still with us?" and he jerks, opens his eyes, and says "yeah, I was just thinking about my sled when I was a boy."

Anyhow, things are so uneven in quality that the wife now refers to it as "The Show I Love To Yell At."

More of the same BS to me. This entire storyline should’ve been ended last season. I wouldn’t even watch now if my wife wasn’t still interested. I could wait it out until they move on and then maybe check back. Seems to me the show is about played out, but they have no way to end it since no one even tries to figure out the virus anymore and they keep trying to live in the worst places!
The only semi-intelligent people are the women living by the water so they have a food source.

I agree that the last episode was an improvement over the last dozen or so. In those last dozen I could have edited the 45 minutes of show down to 20, this last episode I could only cut it to maybe 30 minutes at best.

But I'm worried about the direction they're headed in, if Negan is "rehabilitated" I think I'm done. The things he has done, he has to die. It isn't possible that Rick, Daryl, Maggie, Carol and Morgan could agree to let him live.

Well, in the comics he doesn't die. The improved jail cell they showed last season became his home.

I have been saying for some time now that following the comics so closely is one of the big problems with TWD. Some things that work in a comic just don't work in a live action series, IMO.

Wut? Didn't know that. I've been saying he's ruined the show. Now that he is gone, we will see. Of course it depends entirely on the person who replaces him. Who is that?

Saw a comment on TWD FB page that I found hilarious:


"Rick Grimes can hit anything that doesn’t wear a leather jacket. If all the saviors attack with leather jackets on, Rick will be stumped."

Stopped watching the show a few episodes after Glen died. This show is dead...and not walking anymore

it follows the comics really close now that Kirkman is in... they just changed few character's arcs and make the whole Negan episode a bit more interesting for the TV audience...
Still watching it even if they killed my favorite character (Glen) but his fate was also in the comics... Anyway, still love the whole concept of the crisis psychology behind it and
still stunned by some deaths of few major characters which change from the comics and waiting for some bastards to get a truly gory ending... Did I say Simon? ;-)

Really? He must be some kinda boring in the comics then.

I don’t watch the show but I’m still perplexed at how a zombie survival show can be stretched out to more than 5 seasons or so. No wonder the ratings have been dropping faster than bitcoins’ value!

The show is picking back up! Hurray!

Finally Rick showed some smarts when dealing with a pack of Savior idiots.

Panzer, the reason ratings have been dropping is because the scripts and directing have been weak. Direction went "artsy" and the scripts were sometimes nonsensical, as they had characters act in ways that were unnatural for them to act.

They also dialed back the gore too much after getting hammered for the Negan killings of Glenn and Abraham - no, we really don't need to see someone with a distended eyeball for a protracted amount of time, but we expect a bit of gore in a zombie show.

Oh, and the zombie threat is waning; it's the surviving people that are the real threat.

yep, last night's was one of the better episodes lately.

But still, there are so many eye rolling moments. One moment Negan is laying there, Jadis walks off, she comes back and he has a pistol, a lit flare and a pile of photos..... how did all that happen while he's still tied to the creeper?

But my biggest complaint about the last 30+ episodes is the dialogue.

Everyone speaks in half sentences, expressing half an idea:

"I gotta do it."

"I know."

"It's just..."

"I know."

"But if..."

"I know."

"But you said you would.."

"I know."


Well I DON"T know, what the F are ya'll talking about? Is it about the thing that happened two episodes ago or four episodes ago?

I had a somewhat similar problem with Lost, the series. In a flaccid attempt to generate drama out of nothing there were arbitrary requirements for any task, depending on whether that arbitrary requirement generated more drama than not.

Examples: (and really these two made up about 80% of the pseudo-drama)
About to embark on some nonsense task
"I can't do this alone"
Cue persuasion scenes and suspicious third parties etc....

About to embark on some other nonsense task
"I have to do this alone"
Cue suspicion and/or heroic/inadvised following etc.....

I liked the tiny home in the junkyard. LOL
Otherwise, yet another filler episode like so many others. It was 2 seasons ago when Neagan killed Glenn and Abraham. They still don’t kill him when they have him, the Saviors still “go to the hilltop”, they still have shootouts with no one of consequence dying, they still treat guns like nothing and just leave them laying around...just more of the same treadmill they’ve been on for over 2 seasons.
I hear ya on the terrible scripts and speaking in phrases. On the other hand, we have Simon who is set to MAXIMUM verbosity. It irritates me to no end just listening to him and Neagan doing their tough guy crap.
Worst of all, it’s starting to look like they might not kill Neagan. Again.

it was, too quick and too easy... About Negan, the guy plays important part in the next big development (the W....) so with Kirkman in, it is still possible he will outlive his war against Rick like in the comics.

Apparently Rick will die in the upcoming season, Andrew Lincoln has announced he is leaving the show.

This is super lazy shortcut writing, akin to when writers have the characters tell just the punchline of a joke that is quite opaque in what the joke itself is.

Of course the best use of this was when a protagonist was told "just do some of that acting," and, after a short stint in a makeup chair, successfully infiltrates a lair of terrorists, smoothly saying "Burka Burka Jihad Burka Burka."