9.01: The Walking Dead - A New Beginning

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Sir Jerry (Photo by Lee Davis/AMC)

Rick and his group make a risky run into Washington, D.C. to search for artifacts they will need to build the civilization he and Carl envisioned.

 

[REBerg]

Gregory made a better tire swing than a leader. Now, what about Negan?

 

[nixie]

You wouldn't have got me to walk across that glass floor.

Maggie's judgment on Gregory was the right decision, he was always going to be a problem, he should have been dealt with previously.

Negan should be given the same fate.

The saviours I don't think they should have been kept together, why not split them between the other communities. The factory could still be kept active by rotation the work between the groups.
Nice to see Carol may have the chance of happiness.
Did anyone else laugh at the sitting zombie in the suit with his tie still intact?

The spiders made me shudder.

 

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I have not felt such a peace since the Pilot episode aired in this series. I loved seeing 18-months of progress in the Alexandria, Hilltop, Sanctuary and Oceanside. Alexandria especially looks more like the counter-part they built in the comics, before the All Out War started. It is a perfect location for anyone locked in the Kirkman's world as it offers so much that should belong in the yesterday world, and not in the modern world.

I especially liked seeing the horses, murder of crows in the ryefield, the bio-oil production in the Sanctuary and then Aaron's beard. There are a lot of character, who suffered so much during the last three season that it is kind of unbelivable that they are still fully sane and not gone mad, even if it's easy to do so with all the dead walking around pretty freely.

The Washington DC finally feels like that area that has turned page, but there is nothing nobody can do to turn clock back and allow yesterday's world to flourish. Not with the numbers they have between four sites, even if in decade's time they could easily quadruple their numbers with an influx of babies. With greening capitol showing first time in the show, I feel hopeful for all of them, even if there are loads of dead still wandering the street, lurking in the buildings.

If you look closely the DC area looks much like the post-apocalyptic Austin. But one thing I cannot understand, who bombed the Congress? There is never an explanation, but it is like a fact, if you're going to show the Congress building, the dome is shattered in the post-apocalyptic scenes. There is blast craters. No military checkpoints. Not even scorched building, showing the burn damage that might have come after the military napalmed the streets. In other words it looks like the US capitol city was allowed to stay out from all those things that happened elsewhere.

I don't really understand why they felt the need to go into the National Museum other than for the seeds, because surely they could have found the blueprints for the caravan and the plough from the Library of Congress. Maggie of all people should have seen one in the Hershel's farm. So, I guess the carpenter and the blacksmith didn't had imagination, while Maggie or anyone else, born in the farms, couldn't remember how to make a plough, or a caravan.

The absolutely most easiest way would to make a caravan would be by taking a motor out from the school bus, and weld some stuff so that the horse can draw it as they do have access to electricity. With aluminium frame, I don't think it would have been much heavier than the wooden caravan that caused Kim's death at the end. For a moment I believed he was going to replace Carl in the series, but now we know there is no replacement, and everyone will die.

At least Gregory was gifted with words to say something in the funeral, even if called Kim as Ken. Maggie sure failed to save the boy, but it wasn't her fault as Kim went out and saved the horse without clearing the dead first. He even somehow had managed to save some single malt for the occasion. It didn't surprise me that he felt need to talk to the parents later on, trying to wangle them to take a revenge on Maggie.

Mutiny has always been punishable by death. Back in the days people used to wage mutineers loyalty by making them to execute their leaders. If you were one, no luck for surviving the occasion alive. But, even though I have said earlier that all lives matter, I cannot think anything useful for Gregory outside his gift for words. It's just that even with his gift, he got things so wrong.

After everything Maggie made a right choice and all I can say is Good Riddance. I'm not going to miss him.

 

[ctg]

Negan should be given the same fate.

Can't do that. They lose a star AMC paid a lot of money to be in the show. I bet he has a role to fulfil. Maybe as Sanctuary leader.

Did anyone else laugh at the sitting zombie in the suit with his tie still intact?

I didn't laugh. I smiled.

The spiders made me shudder.

Poor spiders. Lost their prey and their home. I wonder why the zombie wasn't sucked dry from all the juices by them?

 

[svalbard]

This was a srong opening episode. I am happy they dealt with the Gregory storyline swiftly. Previous seasons would have seen this dragged out.

Maggie is a strong, decisive leader. She has real power in this new world and is willing to use it. Her stance on The Sanctuary maybe at odds with Rick's and Michonne's vision however it is a realistic stance for a leader of a thriving community.

I do like the new/old Rick though. This is the Rick of the opening seasons. He is empathetic and likeable. The Famous Rick Grimes

 

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I made a simple search on the seed shops at Washington DC area.

It bugs me that if they are in the need for the seeds then surely a hydro store or seed shop would have been a better bet than trying to the Museum. Maybe the safer option would have been one of those big garden centres, or even better finding a seed bank.

But, I have to agree Daryl's assessment on the Sanctuary. The Factory grounds are most probably poisoned with whatever was made there, and it would be easier to move them out from there and into a new place, maybe even split them between the Kingdom, Alexandria, and the Hilltop, or even better, find a new farm and start building the village in there.

What is curious to me is if they are out from the seeds, then how the Hilltop has a supply of everything and they are able to continue production, while other locations suffer. When the Apocalypse started and dead arrived, nobody harvested the fields. It should be possible for them to find a field, collect what's in there and acquire seeds for whatever they need as long as they can keep the dead away.

And if they need plough blueprints, I also did search on them and there are things like this

You don't even have to be a master blacksmith to be able to conjure that out from the forge. So, instead of the actual items, they should focus on gathering the blueprints, books on tradecraft (how to build and fix things) and they should be golden.

 

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With Season Nine underway, reviews for The Walking Dead from fans and critics alike have been largely positive, returning the show to the days of glory with touches of nostalgia. Executive producer Greg Nicotero is particularly excited for the show's revamped direction under new showrunner Angela Kang.

"This season's all really been about going back to what made The Walking Dead great when we first started watching the show," Nicotero told ComicBook.com on the set of Episode 9x12. "I feel like it's very much back to the DNA that we love. The first episode, all of the scenes that I shot, it's like Daryl and Carol, and Daryl and Maggie. They're all isolated. There's nobody else in those frames. I wanted you to be leaning in and listening to everything that they're saying because they say more than two or three f---ing things! They have real conversations! Conversations that you give a s--- about! You're like, 'Oh, that's what Rick is feeling. That's what Daryl's feeling.' They're actually talking. It's the first time we've done that in a long time where there's not those little ellipses of dot, dot, dot and you leave it hanging out there."

A large part of the new structure for the series can be credited to Kang, who also wrote the script for Sunday's Episode 9x01 which Nicotero directed.

"Now we're getting the chance to see these people really interact with each other," Nicotero said. "They care about each other. I loved it. It reminded me of Season Two. Everybody always says, 'Oh, Season Two. It was really boring. Hershel's farm.' I'm like, 'F--- you guys! Season Two, that's when we fell in love with Daryl! That's when we fell in love with Carol because we took the time, and Hershel for God's sakes!' I really feel like we're at that time when we're really allowing those scenes."

In the Season Nine premiere, fans got merely a glimpse into Rick and Michonne's relationship as it will appear in the new episodes. Not only will the future episodes expand heavily on their time together as leaders (also, with the lights out) but it will explore Carol and Ezekiel's dynamic, Maggie and Daryl's alliance, and build new bonds which the show can rely on.

"The scene with Rick and Michonne in bed when they're talking, I love that f---ing scene," Nicotero said. "When I shot it, I put the cameras really far away, and I used the long lenses because I didn't want them to be in bed together, and there's a camera right there. So, I put the camera really, really far away, and I just let them talk and let them do their thing. [Andrew Lincoln] calls me every day we shoot an episode together. He'll call me in the car on the way home: 'It was a f---ing great day! This is gonna be the greatest episode ever! Oh my God, I love it!' He called me that night, and he went 'I love how you shot that scene.' He said, 'I love that you captured the intimacy, but you preserved the intimacy for the actors by putting the camera far away and letting us do what we're really good at.'"

Greg Nicotero is Excited for 'The Walking Dead' to be Great Again

 

[Judderman]

The first half of the episode was excellent with stuff like the devolution, the classic searching of dark corridors and the spiders in the walker (surprisingly not done before). The glass breaking was a bit too inevitable. But overall very good!