Walking Dead Recap: Too Far Gone

Related Post Roulette

21 Responses

  1. Pub Editor says:

    We didn’t see Judith’s body. We saw blood in the baby-carrier, but not the body.

    In the comic books, Whqvgu qvrf jvgu Ybev jura obgu ner fubg ol gur Tbireabe’f crbcyr qhevat gur nffnhyg ba gur cevfba. Ohg gur fubj frrzf gb or yrnivat gur cbffvovyvgl gung Whqvgu vf nyvir.Report

    • North in reply to Pub Editor says:

      Lrf vaqrrq, V nz vzcerffrq gung gurl unir tbar rira guvf sne. V unq plavpnyyl nffhzrq gung bar bs gur cevapvcny ernfbaf sbe Ybev qlvat gur jnl fur qvq jnf fb gung gur fubj pbhyq xrrc Whqvgu nyvir. Rira gur cbffvovyvgl gung gur fubj jbhyq npghnyyl yrg ure qvr vf vagrerfgvat. Gurl qba’g xvyy onovrf ba gryrivfvba zhpu ng nyy.Report

  2. j r says:

    I was generally pleased with the Brian’s group. Selling them on assailing the prison struck me as quite believable.

    I agree with this, but what I found not believable was how Brian just comes into the group, murders two of the group’s leaders without anyone knowing or suspecting, and then convinces his victim’s brother to go along with his coup. Basically, I liked what happened in this last episode, but I hate almost everything about the two preceding episodes. It feels like the writers had the Governor lead Woodberry to destruction and murder all of its people only to realize that they needed to get him some new people to assault the prison.

    There’s also this quasi-red shirt problem that the show has. It introduces characters. gives them just enough screen time to make them interesting, and then either kills them or does nothing with them. It’s a tremendous waste of interesting characters and good actors. It would have been better to start developing Woodberry characters last season and have them assault the prison with the Governor. It would have been tremendously gripping television to watch two groups of people you care about destroy each other because of that turd Governor.Report

    • Pub Editor in reply to j r says:

      Do we have a good sense of how much time elapsed between (1) Brian/Gov showing up at the new camp, and (2) the new assault on the prison? I’m a little fuzzy on the chronology.Report

      • North in reply to Pub Editor says:

        Well we know Farmer Rick had a stint of roughly a year and some change. So Brian could have been with the tank group for much of that length of time. Prior to finding the ladies we know he had himself a little crazy time but that could run anywhere from a few weeks to a few months.Report

    • Glyph in reply to j r says:

      Yep. Carol started to get interesting, they jettisoned her. Herschel has done some really strong work, he’s toast.

      I found the plot pretty unbelievable. Like you, I just can’t believe this dude with an eyepatch waltzes in, kills the group’s leaders, arouses no suspicion, co-opts one of the murdered men’s brother, convinces everyone else to join in a clearly-suicidal attack (as Rick points out, using the tank to breach the prison, negates the prison’s value to them).

      I can buy that the Governor would TRY such a thing (dude is BONKERS), but not that he’d get anyone to follow him.Report

      • North in reply to Glyph says:

        In defense of the show both Herschel and Carol have received enormously more character development than they had in the comic. Also I’m not yet convinced that Carol is gone for good.

        The base premise of Brian’s character is that he’s highly charismatic. Note also that we’re dealing with some time jumps that they pretty much didn’t talk about during Brian’s episodes. As I noted above we know from Farmer Rick that the initial Woodbury attack and the new one had somewhat in excess of a year of time between them. The Governor could have spent months with the tank group getting to know them. I would assume much of that time leap happened somewhere between him and Meghan getting hauled out of that hole and them suddenly having a trailer with the tank group. So Brian could have spent months proving himself capable and have their groups ostensible leader paying a lot of attention to him.

        That said, since I generally hate the Brian centered episodes I’m happy to add this gripe to the list.Report

      • Glyph in reply to Glyph says:

        Yeah, maybe it’s just a pacing issue. If the Gov. was with the other group longer than it seemed in screen time, it could have worked – as you say, he’s shown himself charismatic and politically savvy.

        If the timeline is murky, so that it seemed bang-bang-bang like it did, that’s still on the writers though.Report

      • Pub Editor in reply to Glyph says:

        Carol started to get interesting, they jettisoned her. Herschel has done some really strong work, he’s toast.

        As with Game of Thrones, a key premise of TWD is that no one is safe. That feature is crucial to the show’s tension and pathos, as well as its (for want of a better word) realism, at least compared to much of the past 60 years of television, where Kirk and Spock survive every away mission.

        I’m sorry to see Herschel go, but it would be unrealistic for no main character to die during Brian’s assault on the prison. (In fact, I found it slightly unbelievable that none of the other named protagonists, like Tyreese or Maggie or Glen, died during the battle.)

        I also don’t think Carol is out for good yet. It will be interesting to see which scattered group finds her first–Tyreese, or Darryl?Report

      • Glyph in reply to Glyph says:

        The problem is, on TWD characters only start to get interesting when the writers are planning to do them in. Not only does that mean you are stuck with tolerating all of the remaining boring survivors, it also provides a handy clue as to characters’ likely fate – the more boring they are, the longer they’ll live!

        On GoT, most everybody’s interesting, even the bad guys.

        Well, except Robb Stark maybe. But I am told he is nice to look at.Report

  3. Mike Dwyer says:

    “This confirms that large rivers would offer significant benefits as barriers and refuges. Not only do they keep the walkers out but they offer a transportation route for scavenging. If Georgia was closer to the Mississippi I’d suggest Rick and crew should be looking to scope out a river island to hole up on.”

    I don’t think this one is necessarily correct. Eventually they are going to slog their way across a body of water along the bottom. And even a river runs still in periods of drought. World War Z devotes considerable narrative to this and one of my favorite chapters is a description of the underwater battles between humans and zombies.Report

    • North in reply to Mike Dwyer says:

      I had considered that Mike. I think at this point it is safe to say that the zombies of TWD are considerably less fearsome than their world war Z counterparts.

      While slogging across a lake bottom has certain potential one forgets at their peril that the bottom of most bodies of water are quite uneven and precarious. The Atlantic Ocean, for instance, has a massive chasm running down the center of it. Even if all the water were removed the act of walking across the landscape of the ocean bottom would be extremely difficult even for a live human let alone a zombie.

      In the case of rivers, as we saw in this episode, it is not the depth of the water necessarily that offers an obstacle but rather the movement of water. Zombies are not swimmers, they’re sloggers, any decent quantity of moving water will sweep them off their feet and carry them off downstream. Coupled with a straight forward perimeter fence to ward off wayward washed up zombies; an island stronghold (in TWD world at least) should be a pretty good low maintenance refuge so long as it’s located in a body of moving water.Report

      • Mike Dwyer in reply to North says:

        I still think the threat is that eventually the water will run still. I’d also be concerned about attracting walkers towards your (likely) source of drinking water.

        In better news though I think I have found my post-apocolypse spot. There’s a bus compound located out in the county here that sits on a high bluff and it surrounded with a high fence. A stream flows nearby plus a flatland for farming, freeway close and about 200 buses available for creating a wall. There’s also an adjacent school that could be incorporated. Your all invited to join our community when the sh*t hits the fan…however I will only answer to Dread Overlord Z when you address me.Report

      • Chris in reply to North says:

        Then there’s the fact that in TWD, everyone’s infected, so if someone dies unexpectedly on a small island in the middle of a river, there can be trouble.Report

      • North in reply to North says:

        Unless you’re living in an automated fortress where each resident is monitored around the clock, Chris, that is a problem for any refuge and frankly is a problem no refuge could address.

        Yeah Mike, I was thinking really big rivers or coastal islands to dodge the danger of droughts. I agree that drinking water is dicey proposition but then again water becomes a dicey proposition in TWD world all on its own. Suffice to say boiling is probably mandatory for anything you drink (though if we’re in the south like TWD is set I’d assume some kind of solar evaporation/condensation system could be a possability).

        Your refuge sounds pretty nice. Does the fence surround everything or just the depot itself? The most terrifying part of TWD world (to me) is the long term hopelessness. Agriculture requires so much space and in TWD world keeping huge fields free of walkers seems utterly untenable. I, alas, am screwed. My mother lives in Nova Scotia so in the event of zombie apocalypse I would have to journey out to the northwest to rescue her. Maybe we could sail across the Bay of Fundy and hole up with the Doc or with Zic in Maine.Report

      • Patrick in reply to North says:

        that is a problem for any refuge and frankly is a problem no refuge could address.

        Except maybe a prison with lockable doors.Report

      • North in reply to North says:

        Patrick, if youcan train/socialize your population to close themselves into a prison cell each night before turning in you can train them to bungee cord themselves to the bed (or string a couple across the door) or heck, sleep with the bedroom door closed.

        The obstacle is human habit and norms, not the physical structure around you (with certain basic limits).Report

  4. Patrick says:

    Random thoughts:

    Bug:

    If you’re going to keep the Governor alive last season, and bring him back this season, and give him two episodes basically as the star character, it’s pretty odd to then turn around and just make him the deus ex reason why they need to leave the prison.

    Any random warlord would have sufficed.

    (Heck, you could have shown up with the Governor and a tank in the first episode where he showed up, three episodes ago, had most of the big fight, and done a focus on Rick, where he doesn’t see Michonne actually kill the Governor and he flees with Carl and then the next N episodes are time-scattered flashes of the aftermath and some of the Governor’s two episodes chopped in to explain who everybody was. That would have been an interesting editorial and writing angle)

    On the other hand:

    They actually had an exit plan from the prison, horray, they’re learning *something*. Now do they have a rally point? (I like North’s prognostication of Carol and Tyreese hooking up). Need I harp on the fact that they STILL DON’T HAVE RADIOS?

    Also:

    If you’re at parlay and somebody pulls a sword on a hostage, one would think that there’d be a crosshairs directly on his forehead (astonishing that nobody has a scope in our merry band). The minute he starts that backswing… pop, no more Governor. I was expecting Hershel to go this season early, because he’s just been the moral compass replacement for Dale, and Dale and Shane both needed to go because the moral compass problem is supposed to be Rick’s, and they’re obviously getting back to that.

    Psycho rat skinner: I don’t care. Seriously, I don’t care. It’s the polar bear from Lost, to me, at this point. No real plot thread there at all, more of a dangling participle.Report

    • North in reply to Patrick says:

      Yes they have had a very odd muddle on the electronic front. No radios, no walkie talkies, but yes they have ipods. No lights in the prison but yes they have flashlights. I mean it’s not like they have huge diesel generators that are proven to function… oh wait, they do have those.. and at the very least they have some (very clean) cars.

      In summary the TWD electronic situation is that they cannot have anything that’d improve communications because that’d improve communications and diminish tension which is not good for the lazy writers.Report

    • North in reply to Patrick says:

      Oh, and regarding scoped rifles I suspect this is being saved for later. In the comics at least scoped long range shooting was treated as a very advanced and difficult to master ability. Also because sniping the Governor and his pals would have diminished tension so it can’t happen because writing!Report

    • Fish in reply to Patrick says:

      Va gur pbzvp, gurer jrer jrer gur gjva oblf jub’f cneragf unq orra zrzoref bs gur tebhc ohg unq obgu qvrq. Bar bs gur gjvaf fgnegrq bhg orvat pehry gb fznyy navznyf naq raqrq hc qvffrpgvat uvf gjva (naq gung yrq gb gur pevzr naq chavfuzrag qvfphffvba gur fubj unaqyrq jvgu Pneby), juvpu yrq gb Pney gnxvat gur znggre vagb uvf bja unaqf naq fhzznevyl rkrphgvat gur obl va gur zvqqyr bs gur avtug. Jr’ir fgvyy tbg gur xvqf naq jr cerfhznoyl fgvyy unir gur qvffrpgvba raguhfvnfg, jub jr nffhzr vf gur fnzr tvey jub jnf srrqvatengf gb gur jnyxref. Vf fur tbvat gb raq hc qvffrpgvat bar bs gur bgure xvqf arkg frnfba?Report