Spoilers Walking Dead Season 8 discussion and spoilers.

[TREK_GOD_1]

This season just isn't working for me yet. If it doesn't end with Rick bashing Negan's head to pieces like a watermelon, I'll be very disappointed.

Negan will be captured, then escape--probably with an unresolved fate. I predict it will not g the way of every other adversary--in other words, killed off.

I'm sad that Ezekiel lost his tiger and most of his army, but those speeches of his were starting to get on my nerves.

Isn't that the series pattern? Rick was Mr. Take No Prisoners from 4B until the season 6 finale/season 7 opening. He had to be humbled by Negan. Ezekiel had played the "king" role to the hilt, with all of those speeches, but he too, had to face reality in the form of mass casualties before grasping reality. Negan is next, since he seems to believe he will always come out on top, and get to abuse various members of Rick's group along the way.

I got the impression they had a lot more people deployed in the field than what got ambushed at the outpost - split up on another objective, maybe.

A few were with the party that walked the prisoners to the Hilltop, and I would think Ezekel wouldn't leave the Kingdom completely unprotected when Negan's men--now knowing that the Kingdom is waging war against them--can roll up the gates at any time.

Carol rocks. Period. By far the smartest one in the whole show.

Sort of like Rick's observation that she's a force of nature. After all of the abuse/loss she's suffered, she is forever conditioned to find peace either through fighting or isolation, but either way, she's not be screwed with under any circumstances.

 

[Mojochi]

I ain't no zoological expert or nothing, but I'm pretty sure an equal number of healthy, able bodied, normal people couldn't take down a full size adult tiger, bare handed, let alone a bunch of mindless, mush-faced corpses on parade, & yeah, whoever said it on the last page... yup, these bullet blockade cars are overdoing it bigtime. Most cars these days are tons of fiberglass. They're acting like these things are military grade Humvees. Also... laying down a motorcycle sucks way more than that

I was actually let down by the FX altogether in this episode. The bullet strikes looked chintzy as shit. There's usually some kind of history for why a group of weird looking walkers look the way they do, but I'll be damned if I can figure why the tiger eating zombies looked all bleached & whatnot. Gotta say, they haven't been doing much for me with this show lately.

 

[137th Gebirg]

^^^ Agree with most of this.

The white bubbly walkers may be, for lack of a better term, "water walkers". They appear as dead bodies do that have spent a lot of time in the water - bleached, bloated and bubbly, like these. These walkers seem to have spending a lot of time, uninterrupted, walking up and down this creek, possibly leading to a larger body of water like the Potomac. This could explain their appearance, if I were to guess on it.

Re. Tiger: To be fair, since the walkers don't seem to feel pain in any measurable way, they can keep biting at the tiger while it's busy ripping limbs off and not even blink. They also sometimes appear to have equal-or-greater strength to normal humans considering the occasional struggling that we see when they get up-close and personal. There really is nothing to stop a walker onslaught once enough of them start swarming, even against the most vicious of animals.

 

[Mojochi]

^^^ Agree with most of this.

The white bubbly walkers may be, for lack of a better term, "water walkers". They appear as dead bodies do that have spent a lot of time in the water - bleached, bloated and bubbly, like these. These walkers seem to have spending a lot of time, uninterrupted, walking up and down this creek, possibly leading to a larger body of water like the Potomac. This could explain their appearance, if I were to guess on it.

Re. Tiger: To be fair, since the walkers don't seem to feel pain in any measurable way, they can keep biting at the tiger while it's busy ripping limbs off and not even blink. They also sometimes appear to have equal-or-greater strength to normal humans considering the occasional struggling that we see when they get up-close and personal. There really is nothing to stop a walker onslaught once enough of them start swarming, even against the most vicious of animals.

I dunno... That still seems to underestimate the raw force of a tiger. Tigers have survival instinct too. If it was in the midst of sustaining injury, it would most likely bolt like hell right through them, & mow them down like bowling pins. That animal is likely 300-400 lbs of solid muscle. It really doesn't work for me

You might be right about the white bubbly walkers though. There just didn't seem to be a whole lot of water around, so it baffled me

 

[137th Gebirg]

They are near the Potomac. Near Alexandria it's an extremely large body of water, close to a mile wide, and quite deep. Since it's been established that Walkers "don't do water" very well, I suspect they kind of dead-man-floated down from DC or northern MD and found some shallows upon which they could actually walk. They look like they were in the water for a long time.

Although having lived in the DC metro area for 40 years, I can, with great confidence, say that you cannot make rural Georgia look like suburban Alexandria, VA!

Re. Tiger, yeah, I'm on the fence with that one. I definitely see your point, but we've seen what can happen when large numbers of walkers can take down animals quickly. That one deer that Rick & Mishawn (sp?) saw get overcome should have been fast enough to escape, and they're certainly stronger than humans. One proper kick in the head from a deer under duress will strike any person stupid for life or kill them outright. But again, since the walkers don't feel pain and swarm quickly if numbers are available, they could quickly overcome most animals I would think.

 

[jbny67]

I guess you guys missed the shot of the barrels of toxic chemicals pouring into the water the walkers were in.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Oh yeah! Didn’t miss it, just forgot about it. This may also explain the relatively easy way Shiva was taken down. She was not only overwhelmed my superior numbers, but the toxins being introduced into her body by the walker bites may have weakened her quickly.

 

[Evil Twin]

Whew, it's a good thing for Ezekiel every zombie moved at the speed of plot in this episode.

Producers: "Yay, the tiger budget's freed up!"

So the Kingdom's fighting force it pretty much gone, but they've still got Carol, so that's worth what, 100 people right there?

 

[Mojochi]

I guess you guys missed the shot of the barrels of toxic chemicals pouring into the water the walkers were in.

I guess I did. It didn't seem all that important lol.

Re. Tiger, yeah, I'm on the fence with that one. I definitely see your point, but we've seen what can happen when large numbers of walkers can take down animals quickly. That one deer that Rick & Mishawn (sp?) saw get overcome should have been fast enough to escape, and they're certainly stronger than humans. One proper kick in the head from a deer under duress will strike any person stupid for life or kill them outright. But again, since the walkers don't feel pain and swarm quickly if numbers are available, they could quickly overcome most animals I would think.

I still don't see it. A 300-400 lbs tiger could rip through that crowd like a bag of jelly donuts in less time than it took to infect its bloodstream with whatever toxic creek that Ezekiel also stumbled through, with his open wound

That plus the bad bullet FX made this episode's realism downright cartoonish

 

[Push The Button]

At some point, you would think fungus, bacteria, sunlight, insects, and the weather would take their toll. How long are they supposed to remain intact and mobile after turning? Years? I mean .. seriously.. they're dead.

 

[Mojochi]

At some point, you would think fungus, bacteria, sunlight, insects, and the weather would take their toll. How long are they supposed to remain intact and mobile after turning? Years? I mean .. seriously.. they're dead.

I have long since accepted that there's a special zombie logic, that stretches the reality of longevity, durability & even strength. I'm willing to suspend some disbelief, but I do expect internal consistency or continuity, & nothing I've seen on the show would indicate that walkers have so much more strength than a living person, that a dozen or so of them could subdue a full sized tiger, bare handed. I mean we see them get knocked over like normal. That tiger would mow through them once it got penned in

I also tolerate a little bit of stretched logic for other tv aspects too. By this time, no gasoline left on the planet would still be usable. I have to put stabilizer into my bike's tank every winter so it doesn't turn to goo over 5 or 6 months of inactivity. Nobody is producing refined fuel for engines anymore. These people should all be on foot or horseback, & operating without generators, off of solar power or turbines or something. They should all probably be crafting their own ammo at this point too, etc... etc...

But I can forgive some of that. I watch Star Trek for God sake. However, if we're going to have hundreds of rounds of ammo tearing into mostly fiberglass car bodies, & people ducking behind it for 10 minutes like it's an iron rampart, or people are smashing into the ground at breakneck motorcycle speeds without a ding, & .50 Calibur guns are barely denting a jeep's hood, & full grown tigers are subdued by a dozen mushy corpses. It's just too much. I'm watching a cartoon now.

Max Fleisher said it best when talking about the difference between his Popeye cartoon, & his Superman cartoon. When your premise is ordinary, like a beat up old sailor & his girlfriend, then you want to tell it in as outlandish a way as possible to compensate, but when you have some superpowered alien from outerspace as your story, you tell it with as much realism as you can muster so the audience can buy into it

From what I've seen of TWD this week, they've lost sight of that & have counted on our suspension of logic too much, a bad mistake for a show that already relies heavily on that to begin with

 

[Morpheus 02]

I still think Ezekiel is a cool dude...I was fine with his speeches...I mean, he explained it in his first appearance why... it inspires people. They have been shielded for Negan for a while...but now that they now, they needed to be motivated. And that first victory helped.

Regarding Shiva... can't we explain it away like we do Trek continuity...in this case, maybe Shiva was already hurt from other battles, and was overwhelemed... again, since the Walkers are dead, they keep on attacking.. bite after bite will weakened her (and also assuming she hasn't eaten for a while and is exhausted). Since we barely got to know the Kingdom soldiers that died, Shiva was the "heart string" that needed to be pulled.

Oh, and how could you guys forget about Jerry? Yeah, Carol is worth a 100...but Jerry's at least a dozen, right? Loved his sudden & savage appearance... I hope he and Carol talk with each other about Ezekiel. Certainly Jerry loved the whole Kingdom thing... wonder how he will deal with the losses? Might he re-inspire Ezekiel?


Was Shiva's death that soon in the comics? And is there a Jerry in the comics?

 

[137th Gebirg]

Quite right - forgot about Jerry. A loyal and unshakable friend. I actually kind of feel bad that I didn't include him in my earlier post, now that I think about it. I suspect he was one of the first members in Ezekiel's original gaming group. I can SO picture those guys huddled around a table covered with paper, pencils and 20-sided dice.

 

[Ethros]

Was Shiva's death that soon in the comics?

Probably roughly, first appeared in 108 and died in 118.
http://walkingdead.wikia.com/wiki/Shiva_(Comic_Series)
She was only actually in six issues.

Can't see anything for Jerry in the comics, but I'm sure his look is based on one of Ezekial's soldiers, haven't read them for a while

 

[Borgminister]

Loved that cameo by Jim Carrey!

Decent episode, well directed and paced. RIP Shiva.

 

[Push The Button]

Loved that cameo by Jim Carrey!

Decent episode, well directed and paced. RIP Shiva.

That guy split in two like a log ... ouch.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

The white bubbly walkers may be, for lack of a better term, "water walkers". They appear as dead bodies do that have spent a lot of time in the water - bleached, bloated and bubbly, like these. These walkers seem to have spending a lot of time, uninterrupted, walking up and down this creek, possibly leading to a larger body of water like the Potomac. This could explain their appearance, if I were to guess on it.

Good guess. That and the toxins go far to explain their appearance.

Re. Tiger: To be fair, since the walkers don't seem to feel pain in any measurable way, they can keep biting at the tiger while it's busy ripping limbs off and not even blink. They also sometimes appear to have equal-or-greater strength to normal humans considering the occasional struggling that we see when they get up-close and personal. There really is nothing to stop a walker onslaught once enough of them start swarming, even against the most vicious of animals.

Agreed. Anything can be overwhelmed by numbers. Whether or not the walkers should be able to physically do what we see--that's another matter. Best answer is that we have employ the same suspension of disbelief that allows us to buy reanimated, cannibalistic corpses in the first place.

Loved that cameo by Jim Carrey!

Glad to see someone else noticed the resemblance!

 

[Mojochi]

That guy split in two like a log ... ouch.

But a woman's nipple? OBSENITY! We can literally watch people cleaved in half on TV now, but not a woman's areola... a harmless, nurturing piece of anatomy. What the actual F###?

 

[137th Gebirg]

100% agreed. All for equality of the sexes/genders - Free the nipples!

I'm actually being serious and not mocking, here, actually. I agree that there is a horrible double standard when it comes to violence vs sexuality. Unfortunately, it's the long-standing price to pay for a country founded by sanctimonious puritans.

 

[Big Data]

Well they pretty much killed my favorite character.