The Walking Dead

Walking Dead Series 5 Finale Review: “Conquest”

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*Warnings of a spoiler: his name is Kevin Card and he’s generally kind of a douche-bag, especially when he writes about himself in a self-deprecating manner.*

Hello again folks, it’s my last Walking Dead review until this summer when the spin off series comes out. I just wanted to take the time to say thank you to my readers on WordPress and on my Facebook who comment regularly. Special shout out to bloggers edwinlives4ever and listentothebabe for their funny and interesting discussions on my WD posts. Also a special shout out to blogger Dominique for consistently liking all of my posts since he subscribed. You guys win my corner of the internet.

Well folks, it was almost 24 hours ago and I’m still taking in the whole experience of how epic this entire season was. It literally opened with a bang (the destruction of Terminus), followed by some annoying “cops are control freaks” filler in the middle, and closed out with many plot resolutions and the start of a new plot with Morgan coming back. The final episode to me was better than the season opener for how much suspense it created from a single “public forum” debate.

If my readers want a plot synopsis, here you go. Otherwise, I’ll just touch up on what I enjoyed and didn’t enjoy.

What I enjoyed: It was great seeing Pete get his full on comeuppances by having Rick shoot him in the head while being wrestled to the ground by Abraham, it was awesome to see Morgan again and finally figure out who the those Wolf freaks were. I also enjoyed seeing Glenn and Nicholas resolve their differences after almost nearly killing each other. It’s awesome to see how far Carol’s character development has come this season. Lastly, I love how they resolved every single plot point in season 5.2 in the last half hour at the forum. I’ll also credit the writers misleading us thinking that Rick was going down the same path as The Governor for a while, but they were actually foreshadowing the death of Reggie.

What I didn’t like: Seeing that Morgan didn’t finish off the Wolves when he had the chance, this is only going to come back and bite Morgan and all of Alexandrea in the ass next season (especially if you’re familiar with the comics). I didn’t feel it was necessary for father Gabriel to loose his sanity and have him bully Sasha, who’s also been loosing her grasp on reality. Though the scene between Father Gabriel and Sasha did create some better resolutions later on in the episode. Not much else to complain aside from seeing how quickly the red poncho guy got killed off (distant Star Trek reference?)

I was glad to be wrong about Daryl biting the dust, even though that scene in the van was a real tease for some people who were expecting him to die. Also, I feel really sorry for Deanna now since she’s basically lost the majority of her family. This will probably spell trouble down the road for Alexandrea.

As season 5 has closed, I bid farewell to what has been the best season of The Walking Dead to date. Many have said Walking Dead can’t measure up to other AMC fan favorite like Breaking Bad, but it doesn’t have too anymore. Walking Dead is simply in a separate league and genre of badassery than Breaking Bad was.

In honor of the new villains for next season, here’s an industrial metal song that I found while browsing Youtube earlier today.

-KCard

Walking Dead 5.15 Review: “Try”

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*Spoiler warning: remember, remember, the 5th of November. Because some major shit went down back then and last Sunday*

Also, be warned of PG-13 level foul language in my review.

So my review’s up late again, but who’s counting other than me? I blog on a voluntary basis and write for free because it grants me the freedom to write what’s on my mind. I often use my personal Facebook page to experiment on what topics I should cover, and so far I find there’s more malice among common friends than there is among strangers on WordPress. But that could just be because I haven’t written anything controversial since I blamed capitalism for ruining the lives of American musicians. Anyways, this week’s episode was slow in the first half and the episode suddenly erupted into huge amounts of awesome moments that just kept culminating into a sudden stop.

What I didn’t enjoy: Seeing how crazy Sasha has become boiling over into her hunting walkers thinking she could actually dent a swath into the sheer number of Walkers in the surrounding DC area. Sasha is a damn good shot, I just wish her sanity were as sharp as her aim. I’m also getting tired of Deanna’s character who seemed likable at first, but is quickly reminding me of a more mild version of Senator Michelle Bachman (who in my view only wants things her way and isn’t fully aware of the world around her). My apologies to Bachman supporters, but such is the way of opinions on politicians. Anyways, Deanna is morbidly pissed about her son dying and the bull shit that Nicholas fed her about Rick’s group members being the cause of Aiden’s death. I don’t blame Deanna for being mad, but that doesn’t mean I have to like where her character development is currently headed.

What I did enjoy: Not to contradict myself, but seeing Sasha kick zombie ass with a sniper rifle was pretty damn epic. She never wasted a single shot, unlike many other characters in zombie films. Seeing Pete get pushed through a window and seeing Rick enact some old western style karma on him was great, too. The whole last half hour of this episode just grabbed me by the entrails and wouldn’t let go, all culminating in that badass speech Rick made about how things should be done his way. Looks the Ricktatorship ego has made a comeback, or at least it did until Michonne clocked Rick out cold right before the credits flashed.

In honor of Rick’s ego(s) being knocked out, I hereby post the latest single of my all time favorite band: Breaking Benjmain!

PS, I’ll bet 10 figurative dollars that Daryl and Aaron are closing in on finding Morgan Jones at the camp fire site, who I wouldn’t put it past for carving stuff on the for-heads of the walkers given how crazy he acted in season 3.

-KCard

Walking Dead Review: Episode 5.14 “Betrayal and Redemption”

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*Spoiler warnings: I post them not to piss people off, and spoiler warnings are still more socially accepted by Republicans than Trigger Warnings*

For those who haven’t figured out yet, I’m a moderate Democrat who used to a be a self proclaimed mega liberal. Now that conservatives in congress are looking to make laws about which bathroom a trans person can only use, I’m about ready to loose faith in humanity and politics all together (and a zombie apocalypse suddenly becomes vastly more appealing to me than it was before). Anyways, I loved this weeks episode of The Walking Dead a lot since it was a roller coaster ride of “Holy shit” and “that’s so epic” moments that it’s ridiculous. I’m not going to bother with summaries anymore, as you can watch the episode or read about the plot on Wikipedia now a days anyways (hey, that rhymes!)

To keep this review nice and short I’m going to state what I enjoyed, what I didn’t like, and what I hope to see next time.

What I enjoyed: One name, one red haired dude who kicks ass in time for St. Patricks Day: Abraham! I loved seeing this dude kick zombie ass medieval style with that weighted hammer and mace like weapon and him coining the phrase “mother-dick”, that was just fucking brilliant. I also enjoyed how they tied in Carol interacting with Sam from last week to where we found another comic based plot point: that Jesse and Sam are being beaten by Pete. Lastly, I equally enjoyed seeing that armored walker blow up from the grenade explosion and seeing Eugene finally grow some back bone and step up to save Tara.

What I didn’t enjoy: It’s to be expected that there’s going to be a lot of gore in a zombie apocalypse, but seeing Noah die the way he did (and how quickly he got killed off) was too much for me. Not that I couldn’t stomach the gore, but that it seemed pretty forced to me in how it was executed (just like how the fight between The Mountain and Prince Oberyn went down in Game of Thrones last season). Also, I know I wanted Aiden to get his come-up-ins, but I didn’t think he deserved to get impaled from a grenade explosion, and then disemboweled by walkers old school Romero style. Lastly, I did feel that drunk scene between Pete and Rick was incredibly awkward and out of place with the rest of the episode. They could have used those two minutes more productively.

What I hope to see next time: 

Lots of ass kicking and resolution of the tensions that are high in Alexandria would be nice, but I’m pretty sure next week will cover that. Looking forward to seeing Rick confront Pete, and if father Gabriel will continue to influence Deanna in convincing her that Rick’s group is evil (“Satan has many servants”). As for everything else, I’d say that the season finale should be just as explosive as the season opening. We shall see where things go from here.

Speaking of the works of Satan, here is on of my favorite Avenged Sevenfold songs to close out this review:

-Kcard

Walking Dead Review: “Forget”

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*Emergency, emergency, spoilers are imminent. I repeat, spoilers are imminent Prepare to man your keyboards and be warned of butt-hurt comic fans*

I enjoyed this weeks episode simply for how many subplots they weaved together so quickly into just one hour. Before I go into my review, I want to touch up something that annoys me about the Fandom community: “source material loyalty” rants. For the record, I’ve read the first two compendiums of The Walking Dead comics and deeply enjoyed them. It’s fair to say that I like the show and the comics equally (but for different reasons). I get why many comic book fans say there’s too much filler in the show, but just because something is based off something else doesn’t mean it has to be 100% accurate to the source material. TWD show may deviate from the comics, but it’s probably the most loyal live action adaption of a zombie story in the history of zombie media; especially compared to the horrible Resident Evil film franchise and that god awful movie World War Z (which was basically a poor Max Brooks fan fiction).

As I step off my writer’s soapbox, I shall now step back onto my critiquing soapbox. As mentioned previously, this week’s episode had a lot going on in it. To summarize, the episode plays out showing how Rick’s group is adapting to life in Alexandria, and how most of the group is starting to enjoy life there. The exception that we’re seeing to this rule is Sasha who’s sharp shooting skills are sharp, but her grasp on reality is still dull. We see that Sasha is still haunted by all the recent deaths of her friends and loved ones, as she pointlessly shoots old photographs and gets royally pissed off at the people at the cocktail party later in the episode. Meanwhile Rick, Carol, and Daryl are letting Alexandria grow on them (but not without suspicion). Daryl has come out of shell and with help from Aaron to become another recruiter for Alexandria. Lastly, Carol scared the ever living Be-Jesus out of a child by making a speech that reminds me heavily of something Freddy Kreuger would say. Carol made this speech to hide the fact that she was stealing guns from the weapon storage building.

The only thing I didn’t really enjoy was seeing Buttons the horse become zombie food, and maybe how Sasha is becoming so emotional at this point (not that I blame her). Otherwise this episode was chocked full of awesome things such as getting to know Aaron’s back story, seeing the kiss between Aaron and his husband for how it pushed a boundary among the more politically conservative television audiences, and the kiss with Rick and Jessie for it’s shock value in how Rick has been cold and distant towards female characters for the last two seasons. Carol’s speech was also something that will go down in the history of this show as something that evokes fear into your soul (especially since the zombies have lost their shock factor by this point). Lastly, I enjoyed seeing Daryl warm up to the idea of helping Alexandria out by Aaron’s continued kindness towards him.

By the looks of things, some major stuff has yet to play out between all of these intersecting plot lines and the fact that we only have three episodes left in the season. Namely what’s going with Rick’s grasp on power, Sasha’s emotional state, and why the hell that Walker had a “W” on it’s forehead. Judging by the preview of next week’s episode, it would seem that another heard of walkers is making their way towards Alexandria, which we shall see how well the walls could withstand such an onslaught.

Speaking of forgetting and love story plots, here’s a badass song by Apolocayptica and Christina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil, “SOS (Anything but Love)” that reminds of the emotional struggles of characters on TWD:

-KCard