11.14: The Walking Dead - The Rotten Core

[ctg]

Maggie, Lydia and Elijah help Aaron and Gabriel on a rescue mission; in the chaos, Negan finds himself watching over Hershel; Sebastian coerces Daryl and Rosita into pulling a heist.

 

[ctg]

I have to confess that I have a problem writing these pieces when I know that the end of coming nearer and nearer. It doesn't help me that I know four people are going to survive. Not the least when I still care for the other characters as they've come so long way already. And knowing that we are watching Kirkman's world, where even the heroes die, is just...

It also troubles me that some of the characters has switched sides to the enemy.

Cheering for them feels so foolish, even if they have somewhat decent lives inside the Commonwealth walls. When the pair was pull off their wall duty, I assumed that they were going to do a clean up instead having to face a horde, because Mayor's son cannot handle the life.

I honestly hated his scheme of getting the old world cash from , because mum had cut off the credit line. So I was clad when Daryl offered to cut his head off, for threatening the kids. But the thing is having a swarm gathered around some place usually also means that there's somebody alive at inside.

This time it as also true as the pair found a lonely survivor locked in the panic room. Seeing Daryl fixing the electrics in order to open the door, made to facepalm. Simple people have simple solutions, even if they cause hazardous situations.

The following up fight in the garage was beautiful, but for knowing that he survives and has a following up series just lifted the tension. There is nothing that come to him that makes him to die. A hundred thousand head strong horde could come to his way and he'd still survive, thanks to story shield.

However, when the alarm tripped off for our rough character trying to break into a safe with a crowbar, I felt so scared for Rosita. I shouted her to shoot the alarm, she did it with a helmet. But what amazed me more was Daryl being able to break into the safe and Mercer rode to rescue with Carol on tow.

"You didn't show up on the lunch so I got him." The bloody general of the Commonwealth army. So it was refreshing to see him in danger, and having to had to get his hands dirty to save the group. Yet, still when it came to the Governor's son, Mercer wanted to make the deal ... most probably because the governor is holding something dear as a hostage.

Negan has come a long way and I didn't expect his woman telling him to stay put, and the woman going to do the business instead. As masculine as he is, that is a serious castration, but it also remind me about the saying of behind every great man, stands a woman. In Negan's case, she really has found a foothold and she isn't giving up on that power.

Then he showed the ring and it all made a perfect sense. All that macho stuff had been cut away by the simplest thing, the union between a man and a woman. It wasn't a big reach to assume that he'd done because there was a baby on the way. Having the mum doing the cleaning business, made me giggle, because the great man had been figuratively speaking castrated and put on his place ... for not using a rubber.

Thing is I assume that Negan was himself and didn't even think about the consequences until it was obvious and then doing the shameless thing was too late. Although it makes me wonder who did he wanted it to happen, because he's a changed man with a dark past.

Annie had accepted him as he is, because she had gone through a hard life and all she had left was to try to live a better life, "just like him. What matters to me is what is now. He's someone who'll do whatever he can to protect your baby."

Bigger thing is that Negan confessed to mini Hershel for being a bad man and then accepting the fate, when Hershel pulled a gun on him. Karma came to pay him his due, but he walked away from it, because he had accepted who he was and what he could do to make things better. If Rick would have seen it, he would have been so proud for a criminal being able to change their life and turn it to something good.

In the aftermath I was glad that Aaron picked up the CIA man's Desert Eagle, put some big round rounds in him, which he somehow survived, as he did with the fall from the roof. But getting eaten by the zombies there was no save.

 

[Dave]

It also troubles me that some of the characters has switched sides to the enemy.

If you mean Daryl then I think he just plays it all ways, and every which way but loose! I've seen the next episode and you can see where his feelings still lie, even though he works for "the enemy." I find it much harder to believe that Negan has changed, but he seems to have genuinely been renewed, all with the love of a good woman.

I've no idea who the woman who really stole the weapons is (shown at the end.) I still don't know who she is after the end of the next episode. Am I meant to recognise her? Or is she a new character that only graphic novel readers will recognise? It is quite unbelievable now that there are any other people out there in that region that are not already known to at least one of the characters that we have already met. They have spent too long in the same places, and we have met too many different groups and communities, for some other individual to have survived but never come into contact with any of them.

 

[ctg]

I've no idea who the woman who really stole the weapons is (shown at the end.) I still don't know who she is after the end of the next episode. Am I meant to recognise her?

I thought she was Daryl's ex, until I remembered that Maggie gunned her down, ruthlessly. I don't think she's in the comic, as I haven't finished it, yet. And it's too hard to say what she's like when they showed fifteen seconds of her. Thing is Kirkman's world produces these ultimate characters, survivors of the endless struggle against the Dead and the Living.

Arms shipment outside the wall is also questionable. As in why would you do it? And where is Commonwealth producing all the ammo. I know the guns again showed more modern features than they should have, but I leave it at that. It's their interpretation.

 

[Dave]

Arms shipment outside the wall is also questionable. As in why would you do it? And where is Commonwealth producing all the ammo. I know the guns again showed more modern features than they should have, but I leave it at that. It's their interpretation.

I didn't think about where the arms shipment was going. That's a good call. Also, I don't want to keep referencing next week, but a few lines in that episode make it plain that ammunition is in short supply (though you would never believe that given the amount of ammo spent in previous weeks.)

 

[svalbard]

I thought she was Daryl's ex, until I remembered that Maggie gunned her down, ruthlessly. I don't think she's in the comic, as I haven't finished it, yet. And it's too hard to say what she's like when they showed fifteen seconds of her. Thing is Kirkman's world produces these ultimate characters, survivors of the endless struggle against the Dead and the Living.

Arms shipment outside the wall is also questionable. As in why would you do it? And where is Commonwealth producing all the ammo. I know the guns again showed more modern features than they should have, but I leave it at that. It's their interpretation.

It is Daryl's ex. She escaped when Maggie's execution. Daryl found her and let her go.

 

[Dave]

It is Daryl's ex. She escaped when Maggie's execution. Daryl found her and let her go.

She looks very different, but thanks, that makes sense, and is going to make it interesting when Daryl finds out.

 

[REBerg]

It looks like Maggie might finally be coming to terms with Glenn's murder.
She realizes that she also has the blood of many others on her hands, including the Reapers she shot in the backs as they walked away from their standoff. The only difference is Negan's horrifically brutal murder style.
Negan is increasingly being painted as a reformed bad guy -- good with kids and now, a married man with a child of his own on the way. Will he and little Herschel become fast friends in a few years, or will a teenage Herschel be saying, "I should have killed you when I had the chance"?
Leah must be building another "family" -- a heavily-armed family.

 

[svalbard]

Leah will play a part in the conclusion. She looks meaner and more deadly.

 

[Dave]

Negan... -- good with kids and now... with a child of his own on the way.

Even back when it was the Negan and Lucille show, his character was always shown to be kinder to kids. Negan told Daryl that you never harm a child no matter what. He developed a relationship with Carl, and went on to develop a close bond with Judith, then saved her from the blizzard. However, he is certainly very complicated.

 

[nixie]

Negan has always been good with the kids. LLydia isn't ready to forgive for leaving without a goodbye.
I'm not sure any of our people have changed sides. Daryl and Rosita done what they had to for the kids safety.
Hornsby may think he has got Carol onside, her face as she left tells a different story, wonder what manner of death she has in store for him?
Governor Milton, don't think she is aware of the evil within her community.
Mercer knows but thinks it's worth it to keep people safe, not really working is it?
Surprised it was Aaron who took out Carson. Didn't think he had that ruthless streak.

Leah, has the guns. Things are going to get interesting.

 

[ctg]

Hornsby may think he has got Carol onside, her face as she left tells a different story, wonder what manner of death she has in store for him?

Probably something vicious, but maybe something involving cookies. For a psycho she's interesting because her MO keeps changing.

 

[Jeffbert]

Good to see Negan in action, again! Despite his emotional attachment to Lucille, he must admit that the sheer mass of a crowbar makes for a better weapon. (x^x)

Given Mercer learning about

Spoiler

his own guys participating in the theft, and summarily executing both, I am almost expecting he will turn against the system.

As I recall, the guys running the place wanted to be sure that the new residents/guests were not bringing any money in to The Commonwealth, apparently, because it would cause a devaluation of the currency already there. Why then, was the #1 guy part of this?

 

[Dave]

You don't need a spoiler in an episode thread here, provided that you keep to information learnt in this episode or in earlier episodes. (So, nothing from later episodes, the graphic novels, The World Beyond. That would need a spoiler)

it would cause a devaluation of the currency already there.

Yes, it would. It is the equivalent of printing money, but he has the extra money himself, so he wouldn't care if a $1 note was now only worth 90¢ because he has thousands of dollar notes now, and before his mother had stopped his allowance.

 

[REBerg]

I was amazed that pre-apocalypse currency has any value at all in the Commonwealth.
I didn't realize what it meant at the time, but didn't one of the gang discover dumpsters filled with bills marked by big black X's? That would indicate that the amount of currency available in the community is being controlled by the government.
Burning it would seem like a better solution.

 

[ctg]

I was amazed that pre-apocalypse currency has any value at all in the Commonwealth.
I didn't realize what it meant at the time, but didn't one of the gang discover dumpsters filled with bills marked by big black X's? That would indicate that the amount of currency available in the community is being controlled by the government.
Burning it would seem like a better solution.

Good point. What if they'd hit the Federal Reserve, where they burn those old bills? Get a pallet, which 100 million and more than any of them can carry or say they burn some biofuel and end up with two cargo pallets? 200 mill must be more than any of them have in the colony. It'd also inflate whatever economy they have left. Is that what Mr Hornsby want?

 

[REBerg]

Good point. What if they'd hit the Federal Reserve, where they burn those old bills? Get a pallet, which 100 million and more than any of them can carry or say they burn some biofuel and end up with two cargo pallets? 200 mill must be more than any of them have in the colony. It'd also inflate whatever economy they have left. Is that what Mr Hornsby want?

In The Walking Dead world, currency is more useful as a fuel than as a medium of exchange.

 

[Jeffbert]

Talk about Money to burn! Picture the Monopoly guy lighting his cigar with a $100 bill.