Walking Dead Season 7 Discussion - Spoilers possible!

[Trekker4747]

Yeah, the flu spread like any other illness exacerbated by the contained, close quarters, environment and likely unsanitary living conditions and hygiene practices. Remember, everyone already has the "zombie virus" and you don't die from it on a bite. You die from pathogens and bacteria carried by a rotting corpse biting you. (though, presumably, a recently turned walker will turn you so there may be another element in play.)

As to the gun cache in Alexandria, while they may have a plentiful supply at this point it's likely they won't for very long. It's entirely possible The Saviors will "vet" Akexandria, find the weapons cache and relieve them of it. (It's hard to believe The Saviors would "allow" someone under their control to have such a supply and they already know Alexandria stole a lot of their weapons.)

So unless Rick and the Alexandrians manage to hide the weapons somewhere The Saviors won't find them they likely won't have them very long.

 

[FPAlpha]

And I bet Daryl is kicking himself in more ways than one. Do you know how secure they would have been if he climbed that tank and shot the people inside it instead of grenading it? That dude said it, "the end of the world don't mean squat when you got a tank."

Daryl being able to grenade it shows exactly why having a tank in Walking Dead is just a waste of effort.. a resting/non moving tank is easy to take out for Infantry, it needs tons of fuel to move, it needs maintenance and parts, it burns through ammo like hell once in a firefight and unless you happen to have access to an un-raided army depot you just have a huge piece of metal in your backyard.

I liked the episode even if it was all setup.. good to see that "King" Ezekiel knows he's a fake but he does it out of a good reason and he comes off as sincere, even Carol, hardass of the hardest asses by now, can't help but crack a smile at his charm.

The Saviours are on top for the moment but they are making a crucial mistake by being dicks to their "suppliers". Yes, they are not liked at all but once they establish dominance what's the point in further antagonizing the people other than to show your dick is bigger than theirs and it will be their downfall. Kick those who are down even more and sooner or later they will realize that it will be endless pain so best to put it all on the table and settle it one way or the other.

So we have 4 settlements now.. Hilltop, Alexandria, The Kingdom and the Saviours. Just judging from the two episodes aired i'd say Kingdom and Saviours are the most powerful, Alexandria is under shell shock for now and Hilltop is just the victim. Pooling the ressources of the 3 settlements once Alexandria has recovered should put them on fighting terms against the Saviours and once the Saviours are cut off from their easy to grab supplies unrest could settle in when it's not hunky dory anymore once your victims start to strike back.

Once that happens Negan is forced to tighten the reins on his own people which starts a vicious cycle of risining animosity against him and it always ends the same way when a dictator overdraws the bow so to speak.. his death.

Now i guess by season 7 or even season 8 finale if they take their time to build up Negan and the Saviours some more we will some all out war and it should be intense as hell.. anyway they set the stage brilliantly and i am really looking forward to this season.

 

[bbjeg]

Daryl being able to grenade it shows exactly why having a tank in Walking Dead is just a waste of effort.. a resting/non moving tank is easy to take out for Infantry, it needs tons of fuel to move, it needs maintenance and parts, it burns through ammo like hell once in a firefight and unless you happen to have access to an un-raided army depot you just have a huge piece of metal in your backyard.

Gas still works after almost a decade and they could write in that Eugene knows how to make tank shells (why not). The writers have the power to make a tank stay functional.

 

[sojourner]

almost a decade

A decade? I must have missed some seasons. In universe it's only been a few years.

 

[Trekker4747]

It's been at the absolute most 3 years. The age of Chandler Riggs (Carl) throws things off since he's aged faster than time has progressed but the one to look at is Judith. She was conceived by either Rick or Shane in the first season and is now a baby, probably barely able to walk meaning she's probably not even 2 yet, though it's possible she may be depending on where we are in the timeline now after this episode considering Carol and Morgan would have spent quite some time at The Kingdom for Carol to recover from her injuries, maybe a few weeks.

So giving the show the most benefit, three years have passed from the start of Season 1 to this point.

 

[FPAlpha]

Gas still works after almost a decade and they could write in that Eugene knows how to make tank shells (why not). The writers have the power to make a tank stay functional.

Sure but tanks are not well know for their fuel economy and i doubt anyone has access to heavy duty transporters to lug a tank around in case you need to fire a 120mm smoothbore cannon at a zombie The fuel they have is better suited to be used in normal cars, at best A Team them up by welding steel plating to the car and go all Mad Max on your enemy, should protect well enough against normal ammunition ((it worked for the A Team ).

It was a nice Oh Shit moment but if i were to encounter a tank and could activate it i'd use it as a heavy pillbox in a defensive role at a critical point and not joyride it around needlessly.

Promo for episode 3 looked very nice and the first fallout from the season opener.. Daryl looked really out of it and i wonder if he will blame himself for Glenn's death.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

And I bet Daryl is kicking himself in more ways than one. Do you know how secure they would have been if he climbed that tank and shot the people inside it instead of grenading it? That dude said it, "the end of the world don't mean squat when you got a tank."

If you're talking about Mitch's tank from the Governor's 2nd attack, what good would it have done? By the time it reached Daryl, the tank broke down a major piece of fencing, letting endless walkers in, and with that, most of the surviving residents scattered and did not look back. Now, if you go back to the initial stand off, if a couple of the heroes were snipers and targeted both the Governor and Mitch, that would have effectively cut the "head' off of the Governor's party, and perhaps ended the conflict before it started, as the rest of the enemy group were not hardened killer types (think Terminus or the Saviors).

Promo for episode 3 looked very nice and the first fallout from the season opener.. Daryl looked really out of it and i wonder if he will blame himself for Glenn's death.

Daryl might blame himself, and I would not be shocked to see Negan rub the sequence of events in Daryl's face--constantly making him a living reminder of the penalty of attacking him.

 

[Evil Twin]

The pigs eating walkers definitely goes against the Max Brooks school of thought that animals/parasites/microbes etc would actively avoid eating zombie flesh, which was the explanation for how they could remain intact for so long.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

The pigs eating walkers definitely goes against the Max Brooks school of thought that animals/parasites/microbes etc would actively avoid eating zombie flesh, which was the explanation for how they could remain intact for so long.

Didn't wee see dogs eating on walkers in downtown Atlanta?

 

[Evil Twin]

^ Yeah, I seem to recall that was in the season 2 premier opening montage.

 

[Awesome Possum]

Walker meat is probably no more dangerous than rotten meat. Rick's group has covered themselves in walker guts without issue before. A bite is most likely dangerous because a living human mouth is already full of bacteria, a dead one is probably worse. Especially since a rotten corpse is full of bacteria that's dangerous to humans.

 

[Trekker4747]

Yeah, they've covered themselves in walker guts plenty of times and given all of the close-quarters combat with walkers they've had they've certainly gotten some walker offal in their mouths which means a possibility of swallowing some. It seems the only dangerous way of getting "contaminated" by a walker is a direct bite. You could probably make it akin to rabies, you don't wory about an infected animal's saliva getting in you, or you ingesting some, but get bitten by a rabid dog and you're going for the prophylactic shots.

Remember, everyone is already infected so there's nothing to "catch" from the walkers. You die from the bacteria the walker gets into the wound, directly into your blood stream and massively into your flesh. Cooking meat will kill that bacteria no matter how resilient it may be to medicines or prompt treatment.

 

[Awesome Possum]

Plus pigs eat can eat some awful shit, including actual shit. But bacon still tastes good.

Just like the reality where Hitler cured cancer, don't think about it.

 

[theenglish]

Some of the 'off' tone may be that these were executions instead of just tragic deaths. We're used to losing people to zombies, or even occasionally (more now) in fights/battles with other people, accidents, etc. These guys knelt on the ground for the better part of an hour on screen and we watched a guy select one, then another, and beat them to death with a bat.

That's a hard watch.

I just caught up on this episode last night. For me, it was a very intense, well done, well paced installment. We knew somebody was going to die so the focus was on breaking Rick instead.

As for the executions, I found myself wondering what happens with people in real life who are captured by extremists. People in execution videos.

For all the violence of TWD, I still think that it is a stylized violence that pales in comparison to real world horrors that happen. For example, there is very little sexual violence or scenes of prolonged torture or forced starvation.

 

[EmoBorg]

I actually liked the scene where Carol imagines seeing the walkers as the people they were once were during the fight. It is easy to forget that each zombie was once a human.

 

[.:: TSN ::.]

I actually liked the scene where Carol imagines seeing the walkers as the people they were once were during the fight. It is easy to forget that each zombie was once a human.

Some information from Talking Dead, and else where, for those who dont watch it: They cast five sets of twins for those scenes. One twin played the normal human and other one the zombified version.

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/walking-dead-zombie-twins-season-7-2016-10

 

[Starkers]

I just caught up on this episode last night. For me, it was a very intense, well done, well paced installment. We knew somebody was going to die so the focus was on breaking Rick instead.

As for the executions, I found myself wondering what happens with people in real life who are captured by extremists. People in execution videos.

For all the violence of TWD, I still think that it is a stylized violence that pales in comparison to real world horrors that happen. For example, there is very little sexual violence or scenes of prolonged torture or forced starvation.

I just caught up on this episode last night. For me, it was a very intense, well done, well paced installment. We knew somebody was going to die so the focus was on breaking Rick instead.

As for the executions, I found myself wondering what happens with people in real life who are captured by extremists. People in execution videos.

For all the violence of TWD, I still think that it is a stylized violence that pales in comparison to real world horrors that happen. For example, there is very little sexual violence or scenes of prolonged torture or forced starvation.

Yeah that’s the true horror of it. In reality you could see the Saviours dragging the women off, hell and maybe Carl into the bargain, rather than the grungy biker guy. The show really has tiptoed around sexual violence. Sure it’s been threatened on occasion, and clearly something untoward was going on at the hospital, and the female Termites (before they went cannibal crazy) suffered horribly, being raped repeatedly, but on the whole it hasn’t been seen as a major threat.

You only have to look at the crap ISIS have been doing to know that however grim TWD is, reality is so much worse.

But enough about last week, let’s talk about episode 2. Thank god, a nice episode of TWD! I needed that. Love Ezekiel, and especially love Jerry. And Shiva’s wonderfully realised. At the moment the Kingdom seems to be a slightly more self-aware version of Alexandria, which I guess it what pissed Carol off so much. Even if they, Alexandria and Hilltop band together I’m not sure they have the numbers to take on the Saviours. It isn’t just about numbers or guns, the Saviours are hardened killers. I like the idea of a reverse siege, whereby the three communities cut the Saviours off, but not sure any of them could resist a full on assault.

Guessing the comics might go into more detail with this but is the relationship between the communities and the Saviours more symbiotic than it appears? Obviously at the moment it’s played pretty much as a feudal protection racket, but do the Saviours protect their meal tickets from external threats, or is it strictly a one way street?

Agree with what someone up thread said, making sure people know you’re in charge is one thing, but the Saviours are being total dicks about it. I wonder as well whether Morgan’s apprentice’s father perhaps got the Lucille treatment?

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Yeah that’s the true horror of it. In reality you could see the Saviours dragging the women off, hell and maybe Carl into the bargain, rather than the grungy biker guy. The show really has tiptoed around sexual violence. Sure it’s been threatened on occasion, and clearly something untoward was going on at the hospital, and the female Termites (before they went cannibal crazy) suffered horribly, being raped repeatedly, but on the whole it hasn’t been seen as a major threat.

I think its been referred to enough that the audience knows it exists without the need for on-screen examples. In fact, since season two, sexual assault or threats were referred to several times:

• S2: Randall's companions from the bar (Dave & Tony) revealed their attitude toward women with, "You got cooz? Ain't had a piece of ass in weeks." Later that season, Randall admitted (to Daryl) that his group raped a man's daughters.
• S3: The Governor tortured Maggie with the threat of rape. As a logical precaution, Rick's group did not want the prison inmates around the women for obvious reasons.
  
• S4: Joe promised his crew would rape Michonne & Carl, with the fat Claimer attempting it with Carl. As you noted, the Terminus cannibals were subjected to constant rape in their early months.
• S5: Officer Dawn Lerner supported the system of allowing officers to rape women to "keep things going" until rescue.

So far, the TV Saviors have not carried on that sick pattern, but we do know comic book Negan has several mistresses. Its almost a guarantee the TV version will involve one of the heroines.

I like the idea of a reverse siege, whereby the three communities cut the Saviours off, but not sure any of them could resist a full on assault.

I see a major housecleaning among the core group when that happens. I'm not sure Michonne has much plot armor left.

I wonder as well whether Morgan’s apprentice’s father perhaps got the Lucille treatment?

The way Benjamin was speaking, he was dropping the idea that something terrible happened, but was not quite ready to go into detail.

 

[Trekker4747]

I actually liked the scene where Carol imagines seeing the walkers as the people they were once were during the fight. It is easy to forget that each zombie was once a human.

Yeah, I really liked that too, it was a neat bit, props to Nicotero for that, and using twins to do it was an interesting thing to do too to expedite shooting and make it easier. But is Carol now stressing over killing the walkers? I mean, sure, they were once human but they're aren't (really) anymore so there's no reason to see them "as people."

On the front of sexual assault, it seemed implied the group Abraham and his family was with before sexually assaulted, or attempted to, his wife and kids prompting him to beat the attackers to death.

Guessing the comics might go into more detail with this the relationship between the communities and the Saviours more symbiotic than it appears? Obviously at the moment it’s played pretty much as a feudal protection racket, but do the Saviours protect their meal tickets from external threats, or is it strictly a one way street?

It seems to be a pure protection racket, the protection only being from the Saviors not from walkers/other groups.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

"The Cell"--

I understand anyone in Daryl's position would look for any opportunity to escape, but the writers have him uncharacteristically reckless. He knows he's in enemy territory with no sense of his whereabouts, no weapons, and outnumbered. His best bet was to pretend he's breaking / cooperating, and take Sherry (Dwight's wife) advice / warning.

Daryl is fearless--never flinching to Negan's Lucille threat (early on), and that's a reaction Negan should have anticipated, especially as he clocked him in the jaw after watching Abraham's gruesome murder. While Daryl cried after seeing Glenn's death Polaroid (and believe he caused it), he still resists, and tries to get into Dwight's head with the idea of helping others as the difference between the man and his master.

At this point, I would not be completely sold on the idea of Dwight betraying Negan. I would believe he would attempt to lure Daryl into thinking he's turned, only to sell Dixon out in order to earn more "points"--possibly the return of his wife..

Even after the abuse of his wife, torture and disrespect from Negan, and the "mercy killing" of Gordon (meaning his knows the man's words of nothing left ring true as Negan's slave), I cannot buy Dwight will turn. That's too easy.

"And we are totally cool."

Famous last words for someone else.

Sherry and Dwight telling each other that everything is fine is a classic example of forced compliance--almost as if they are testing each other out fear of either reporting to Negan.