8.13: The Walking Dead - Do NOT send us astray

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Rick, Daryl, Carol and Maggie (Photo by Gene Page/AMC)

Trouble arises when unexpected visitors arrive at the Hilltop and the community is thrust into action; heartbreaking discoveries are made.

 

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Good episode. Excellent, in fact. I think we have all been dreading for the day, when Saviors assault the Hilltop, because the amount of characters that might get killed. Luckily, most of the people that had concentrated over there were already battle veterans and had a plan that worked. I was quite surprised how effectively it went down, with a minimal casualties to the Ricknation and maximum damage to Negan's or should I say Simon's Saviors.

He certainly overestimated Rick's people and their will to live with their backs put against the wall. I know that I talked about the choice of taking the road again but I glad they stayed and showed for once which way the wind is blowing. It certainly isn't propelling Simon or any of the left over Savior soldier into a safe harbour or even close to the peace. I think killing went into Simon's head after he lost the chance to be the Negan at the beginning of this season.

I wonder what would have happened if Negan's people would have learned that Ricknation fought similar kind of situation against the Governor and won, even though they lost their home. Would it have changed anything? Would they had seen Rick, Maggie, Daryl and the rest as respectful opponents than losers they had got custom after the DC area was cleared from the opposition?

I have to say Simon was a good lieutenant but a bad leader. All that power went into his head. He simply couldn't hack that the anger was going to be his doom. Maybe Negan saw his ruthlessness as a tool to wield the power of the Saviors. I just don't see how they are going to come back when by my count 4/5ths of their soldiers are dead, wandering around as zombies or about to turn their coats and adopt the Ricknation as their home.

During the fight Sadiq was saved by luck. I'm also surprised that he isn't a fully qualified doctor, but one that was on training, when the world ending disaster struck. But, he strikes me as a man who knows how to handle the stuff even if there is full out war raging around him. It takes balls to be an unarmed medic in the battlefield and he certainly proved himself.

Although he couldn't see that Tobin was going to kick the bucket after he took an abdominal hit, Rick's people had no reason to take it easy. I have lost the count on how many battles they've been through to know that some people die on their wounds after. Carol of all people should have understood that and the same thing applies to Dana the nurse.

I don't know why they didn't had guard duty going on to prevent the necromorphosis from spreading around the survivors, when they didn't cap Simon or had done the same to Negan. So many people have died needlessly when there could have been peace. I wonder would the people over other side of the Atlantic Ocean behaved the same way?

 

[nixie]

Henry, some one needs to give that kid a good slap.

Not happy with using the infected blood as a weapon, people are constantly covered in the stuff. The Kingdom feed it to pigs ear marked for the saviours with no ill effect but suddenly it's a weapon.

 

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The Kingdom feed it to pigs ear marked for the saviours with no ill effect but suddenly it's a weapon.

It has always been a weapon. Until recently nobody used it as one.

 

[Glaysher]

Agree with @nixie it isn't internally consistent.

 

[ctg]

Agree with @nixie it isn't internally consistent.

When Rick got absolutely covered in the zombie muck at Alexandria's arrival party I was freaking out because I thought that was the case, but he survived almost miraculously. Now it worked here. But, it also makes me wonder how did the coat those bullets with the zombie goo? You cannot do that sort of thing and expect your gun to cycle normally. Saviors didn't seem to have any problems with their ammo. It is also strange that they showed Negan's people doing that to blades and blunt instruments, but not exactly at the ammo, yet people were turned.

I don't think Dwight did that treatment to his crossbow bolts, because Tara doesn't show same symptoms as all the other victims. Will they put her down anyway, or will they understand that Dwight is still playing in their team, as he had every opportunity to put that bolt in the place that would have taken Tara out all together instantly?

 

[ctg]

A lot of critics has been writing about the #zombieninja's. I didn't think they failed altogether with that plot line as people are often dead tired after huge adrenaline rushes that battles like that causes. The only problem is that they didn't had guards even though that duty should have been in the place, just because they have Savior prisoners in the compound.

I'm also sorry to see Tobin to go as he had a lot of construction experience that isn't readily available in the books. To be honest, their skillset to build the wonder from the Key is getting a bit thin. So, the question is did Georgie put all that info in the set as well?

 

[Judderman]

It was another good but not excellent episode. As is the way these days on WD there is plenty of stupidity. A good old zombie attack was a great thing. Gotta keep these things scary. Of course there would have been someone watching over the very sick when they are not locked somewhere. They didn't make this mistake years ago. I think the very harsh critic reviews are fair enough when you combine this with how no one is woken up by zombies around various rooms. We have to forget that many of this group would be aware to the possibilities of sick people turning in the night.

The battle was somewhat of a letdown in Simon's group just wandering towards the building in a clump to be shot at. But they escaped anyway. The 15 minutes after that was dull but at least the zombies wakened things up.
I'm a bit surprised that Dwight didn't kill or at least attack Simon. Daryl still seems set on killing Dwight. Dwight wants to wait to see if Negan is returning?

 

[Judderman]

Glad to see the main characters were not killed off, though you could have had one or two be put at risk. Carol had another upset. Morgan was lunatic again.

By the way was Rick's wound from car crash/being knocked over?

 

[Judderman]

. Saviors didn't seem to have any problems with their ammo. It is also strange that they showed Negan's people doing that to blades and blunt instruments, but not exactly at the ammo, yet people were turned.

I think it was just the crossbow bolts and blades. Some folks were deliberately wounded. While a few were killed directly from gunshots.

 

[ctg]

By the way was Rick's wound from car crash/being knocked over?

I think it's a combination of things. He hasn't had time to rest and heal all the other previous injuries.

 

[Judderman]

Oh yes. A review also reminded me there wasn't a single guard for the prisoners either
Maggie's leadership is a shambles.

 

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Maggie's leadership is a shambles.

Everyone make mistakes. It's humane thing. But in the Kirkman's world, the consequences can be potentially lethal.

 

[paranoid marvin]

The fact that now zombie flesh can infect goes against everything we've seen to this point; it's always been a bite, but now? I'm sure if we were to look back at various episodes throughout the series we will see instances were people SHOULD have been turned into zombies; times when a rotting zombie has been all over someone, but because they weren't bitten they were safe.

 

[BAYLOR]

Ive pretty much lost my enthusiasm for this show.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Ive pretty much lost my enthusiasm for this show.

Same here, it feels we're going round in circles. Stuff like this that pretty much rips up everything that's gone before won't help as it will only alienate those still trying to maintain their suspension of disbelief. There would have been far better ways for this new avenue to have been utilised (how about extracting zombie's saliva or something) , but maybe the show is more concerned with exciting set pieces than having any consistency or coherency.

The show will continue for as long as enough people continue to watch it.

 

[Culhwch]

We're slowly pushing through to the end of this season, but I really really hope that this show picks up again in quality next season. Every week, these people seem to get dumber and dumber, when it should be the opposite. They should be getting smarter, and the threats should be getting more challenging, but the writing just seems to be getting lazier and lazier.

I don't know if this has been a function of having introduced an antagonist like Negan, who'd been built up as this ultimate adversary, and the writers thought that it was enough just have him swagger about and they didn't need to put any more effort in. Basically at this stage the only reason that one side or the other hasn't won the war is that they're both equally inept. Negan should be dead five times over - he hasn't survived because he is superior in any way, just that whenever he's vulnerable the good guys have a convenient brain snap and let passion take over instead of coolly finishing the job.

The Saviours storyline should have been a season, tops. It's stretched on too long with too little narrative meat to sustain it.