Month: October 2015

Walking Dead 6.3 Review: “Thank You”

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*Spoiler alert: If you haven’t watched the episode yet then please do so, or else we may all be dragons. I mean, you’ll be pissed at me for posting spoilers of this show.*

Hello again world of WordPress, Kevin here bringing you the opinions on my favorite television shows once again. First I would like to apologize for waiting two days to send out this review, life is hectic for a musician who also works a full time job. Also, many may have noticed I haven’t reviewed a lot of music this past year. The reason why is simply that I’ve grown tired of living in an age accelerated one hit wonders, and I want to switch mediums because I feel the most popular television shows right now offer way more creativity than the popular songs out today (your move, billboard 100). That being said, I still will do my annual yearly music awards blog this coming January. I will also continue to review local bands who reach out to me on Twitter (“@KevinJCard” is my Twitter handle). Now then, onto the show.

Walking Dead started off strong this season, but I get the impression they are really drawing out and milking this whole massive heard arc. I’m really pissed that a major character died in this week’s episode as well. Walking Dead is starting to rival Game of Thrones season five levels of frustration and sadness with who they’re killing off. Also, I’m starting to see what the comic book fans are referring too with their criticism on the show. In the comics, the walker heard just showed up and stormed Alexandria after hearing gun fire from a small group of thugs who were trying to invade Alexandria. This heard has been taking their sweet time to get back to Alexandria and were manipulated by The Wolves to wipe out Alexandria in a fashion that even survivalist and gun nut Burt Gummer from Tremors would call overkill.

What I liked: It was interesting to see how Rick’s group managed to stay ahead of the heard for most of the episode, I enjoyed seeing the minor characters bond with each other, and I enjoyed the scenes where Michonne and the other groups members were hiding out in the old pet store since it offered great dialogue in an otherwise action and tragedy themed episode. I did enjoy that the writers used the death of the minor character (the guy who wanted to say goodbye to his wife) as foreshadowing Glenn’s fate. I won’t say this episode was awful as tragic episodes are supposed to leave a bad taste in your mouth, but I don’t have many other positive things to say about this episode.

What I didn’t like:

I’ll answer that with a question, WHY DID THEY HAVE TO KILL OFF GLENN SO SOON?! Dammit, I don’t remember him dying at that point in the comics, and I feel like he deserved better than that. It seems like it’s up in the air still, so I’ll save any ranting about my favorite couple ending on The Walking Dead ending for next week if it’s confirmed that he died. With that in mind, I really don’t see how he could have escaped being cornered by that heard of walkers. It’s also tragic that Nick had to take his own life rather than try to work with Glenn to climb that pair of stairs in the background. Also, I’m not happy that Rick’s fate is left up in the air with him being trapped in that camper, and that Daryl accomplished nothing by taking that detour. We ultimately need to see where things go next week, I just figure the mid-season finale will be where the Walkers finally arrive at Alexandria.

Today’s song is Symphony in E minor, I mean, Dear Agony by Breaking Benjamin. This’s definitely the kind of episode that left a lot of fans in despair, and this particular song is an anthem for our shared pain this past week.

-KCard

Walking Dead 6.2 Review: “Just Survive Somehow”

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*Warning! This blog contains:

nl_images_fi_river_song_spoilers_10_12_2013

So says River Song from Doctor Who!

Now that the spoiler warning is out of the way, let me start off by saying that I met George Romero, Doug Bradley, and Howard Sherman at Rock and Shock (a Horror Film convention that happens every year in New England). I’ll post pics of my meeting at the end of the review. Now then, this episode was more intense than last years super bowl. I’m not normally a sports fan, but the air of this episode was so thick you could cut it with a knife, much like a big sports game where everything is on the line. I will say the pace of this episode was much smoother than last week’s episode with how they did the switching between flashbacks. There were some great and not so great things about this episode.

What I enjoyed:

I enjoyed how the first 10 minutes of the episode were completely peaceful and slow, but then things went from zero to shit hitting the fan in five seconds when The Wolves started attacking Alexandria. They had everything figured out when they scouted the place out and helped the writers by killing off all of the extra minor characters (just kidding, those characters were killed to move the story along). Such gore, much Wolves killing, wow. I loved seeing Morgan and Carol turn the tide on the assault of Alexandria against The Wolves, as well as the bit of Tension that occurs between Carol and Morgan where Morgan told Carol to not kill their attackers. Carol has once again proven to be a badass by disguising herself as one of the Wolves and taking them out almost single handed. I’m glad they answered the question about where that truck horn was coming from too, who’d have thought it was a zombie in the truck?! Lastly, I think it’s amusing how the writers are treating father Gabriel now with how awkward he’s been acting towards the other members in Rick’s group.

What I didn’t enjoy:

Where on Earth was Rick and the rest of the group this episode?! I get that it was meant to be a “this is what happened here” type of episode, but I’m bummed out that I have to wait for next week too see what happens with that massive heard of Walkers. Also, I know that Morgan acted in self defense against the guy with the black hair (the guy from the end of season 5), but it did feel a little cheap given that he was telling Carol to not kill the other members of The Wolves 30 minutes prior. Beyond that, I have no other real complaints given that this episode was pretty damn perfect by my expectations.

I look forward to next week’s episode and how the group will deal with the heard of Walkers coming towards Alexandria.

Now here are the pictures mentioned from earlier (with my Merle Dixon cosplay):

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Today’s song is called “Gift of Pain” by Metal Allegiance, which is exactly what the Wolves attacking Alexandria gave to it’s unsuspecting residents.

-KCard

Walking Dead 6.1 “First Time Again” Review

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*WARNING! WARNING! Spoilers of plot points along with stuff, and other general thangs imminent! Ye all have been warned, now excuse me while I stop talking like a pirate. Arr!*

Hello again folks of WordPress, I’m back in time to post my review of this season’s epic season premier. But first I just want to say I had intended to post reviews of Fear The Walking Dead, but I’ve been too caught up with life to keep on top of the episodes coming out. As soon as I see the last two episodes of FTWD On Demand I’ll post  a season recap review. Now onto the review!

This episode was paced a little oddly cycling between the current struggle with diverting the walker heard away from Alexandria, and the flashbacks with how things progressed up to that very moment. It was an interesting cinematic idea, but the pacing in the 90 minutes threw me off a little bit due to constant switching at random and climactic moments. It’s very interesting to see how Rick is slowly descending back into Rick-tatorship mode again like at the end of season two (except worse) with how he’s treating the folks of Alexandria and how he killed Carter. Lastly, I enjoyed that it was left a (simple) mystery who amassed the walker herd into that ravine. Now let’s get into the strengths and weaknesses of this episode.

What I enjoyed:

It’s interesting to see how power is slowly corrupting Rick into becoming a tyrant hell bent on doing the right thing, it’s been a long time since I’ve read the comics, but I can see that they’re going to go deeper into the Rick-tatorship in the show than they did in the comics with how he’s acting he owns Alexandria and how killed Carter to keep the plan intact. It was amazing seeing how many extras they had in the crowd of walkers, and funny to note they had some people wearing masks instead of makeup due to the sheer amount of extras in the crowd. It was epic seeing Abraham be the complete badass that he is single-handed take out that splinter group of walkers from the heard. I enjoyed seeing the tensions boil between Rick’s group and the members of Alexandria, and how Rick’s plan was built to divert the walker heard north. Lastly, it was both funny and annoyingly tragic when Glenn’s group opened the door only to find another metal door behind it.

What I didn’t enjoy:

Two words: cliff hangers! It’s such an annoying way to end an episode! Still, I’ll bet the ones ringing that truck horn are the Wolves that Morgan met last season, the same ones who set up the traps to capture that walker heard in the ravine. I’m also not happy about how they kept switching between flashbacks and present time scenes in such an odd way. It could be worse though, at least they didn’t use the flashbacks in the same way as they do in Naruto Shippuden: drawing out the episode longer to avoid adding canon source material. I don’t have many other complaints aside from the pacing since the acting, camera work, and writing were amazing. It’s not as action packed as the season five opener, but it still packs a great punch for people who’ve been waiting to see The Walking Dead since this past March.

Today’s music video is another Breaking Benjamin song, “Angels Fall” off of their album “Darkness Before Dawn”. It reminds me of the struggle many of the characters have too deal with in the zombie apocalypse. Their angels have fallen, but they refuse to give up or give in.

-KCard