Rick Grimes

Walking Dead 7.4 Review

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

Warning:

Life’s a treat,

and it feels so sweet,

when you’re living on spoiler street.

Hello again world of WordPress, Kevin here bringing you my brief thoughts on Walking Dead episode 7.4, “Service”. I missed reviewing the last two episodes just because I’ve been busy with work and accepting the outcome of the Presidential Election last week. Here’s to hoping we can get “Negan Lucille” into office someday, candidates who will take care of the deficit by “shutting that shit down, no exceptions!” As for the two previous episodes, I know some people might have found them boring, but I’m rather enjoying how much dialogue and plot driven things are becoming in The Walking Dead again. These eipsodes were a breath of fresh air from the season premiere. It’s like the creators are trying to Make the Plot Great Again. Terrible political jokes aside, I rather enjoyed this episode as a whole.

What I enjoyed:

I rather like the direction they are taking with Rick’s character development since Negan is working to break Rick like a whipped dog. I don’t mean to say that Rick deserves to be treated this way, but I’m curious to see where things will go with how Negan is treating Rick. Such as if Rick ends up breaking completely, or just becomes a worse person than he was in the middle of season five. I enjoyed seeing the tense air between the members of Alexandria and the Saviors with how the actors played everything out. The scene where Carl confronts the Saviors and stands up to Negan was well made. Same goes for the scene where Dwight was creepily taunting Rosita.

Speaking of Dwight, if Negan is the big dog around the yard, Dwight is the simpering little hound dancing in his shadow for Negan’s approval. It seems that the writers are actually trying to make us hate Dwight more than Negan, and it’s working for me. I think Dwight is losing his humanity becuase of Negan’s actions, and Dwight sees parts of his old-self in Daryl that he now hates. IE, the scene where Dwight takes Daryl’s bike and then purposely taunts him over it saying, “You can have it back Daryl, just say the word!” Which I think was a reference to last week where Daryl refused to call himself “Negan”.

As for Negan himself, I am falling in love with how Jeffery Dean Morgan plays this psychopath. I find myself quoting Negan in my head all of the time with how he goes from being funny to dead serious in a heartbeat, he’s the kind of villain that’s “so bad he’s good.” I’m finally starting to catch up on the source material, so I will incorporate how the show version of Negan compares to the comic version of Negan in future reviews. Here’s to hoping the writers don’t screwover Negan like they screwed up the Governor’s story arc. With all of that said, I still had a few bones to pick with this episode.

What I didn’t enjoy:

Am I wrong for thinking that this episode didn’t have to be be 90 minutes long? I feel the episode itself became a lot worse once Negan left Alexandria. Negan was really the person who made this episode pop for me. With that said, I didn’t feel like Negan needed to take every single gun from Alexandria, as it decreases their chances of survival in the now zombie infested world they live. Negan said he didn’t want Rick’s group starving to death, but God forbid another Walker heard needs to stroll through Alexandria again. I know what these plot points stood for though, it was to demonstrate how much control Negan has over Rick now vs who Rick used to be, as Negan even mockingly pointed out to Rick with that scene where Negan was holding Deanna’s camcorder. Lastly, while I thank Father Gabriel for buying Maggie more time, I don’t like the idea of her being found out at the Hilltop colony later this season by Negan. This season will prove to be a bitter sweet symphony of writing if so.

I look forward to see where things will be going this season, while last season gave us a lot of action, I’m thinking this is going the season where Walking Dead comes back to plot over action, like a better and darker version of season two. I pretty much gave away my song for this review, so here’s your moment of zen:

-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

Walking Dead Season 5 Episode 3 “Four Walls and a Roof” Review

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*Spoiler Warning*

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Well it would seem that fried chicken I ate last Sunday slowed down my writing reaction time as well as my metabolism. Funny how meat can mess with the mind sometimes. Anyways, this week’s episode was vastly better than last week’s episode due to the dramatic tension, the many references to the comic, and the how much better the pacing was this week with how much detail they fit in under an hour of screen time.

To summarize, we pickup from last week with seeing the remaining Termites eating Bob’s leg. Bob tells them they’re eating tainted meat because he got bitten in the previous episode. After throwing up and having a melt down the Termites drop Bob back off at the church, and begin a game of psychological warfare with Rick and his group. We then find Rick confronting father Gabriel about his past and find that father Gabriel locked out members of his congregation to die when the outbreak first happened, and Gabriel is still haunted by his cowardice in the present. After Bob goes inside the church, Abraham wants to protect Eugene so they can get to Washington and demands that Rick and his group join him without waiting for Carol and Daryl.

Rick Refuses Abraham and an argument breaks out, with Glenn making both agree to compromise: Abraham agrees to give Rick 12 hours to follow Rick’s plan to wipe out the Termites in exchange for taking Glenn and Maggie to Washington with Eugene and Lolita. Rick’s group divides up and sets a trap where half the group leaves for where the Terminus members are hiding, and keeps the other half of the group to hide in the church. The Termites take Rick’s bate and go inside the church threatening to kill all of the members including Judith. The Termite leader Gareth even offered father Gabriel safe passage if he betrayed Rick’s group. Eventually we see two of the termites get gunned down by Rick’s returning group, Gareth gets some of his fingers shot off. Gareth tries to weasel his way out of death by promising to leave Rick’s group alone, but Rick tells him how he’s a danger to other people, and that he “had a promise to keep” right before he bashed Gareth’s head in with his machete (the same weapon Rick mentioned he would kill Gareth with in the start of episode 5:01). h.

The Termites are then shot to death. Father Gabriel remarks “Why did this happen? This is the Lord’s house!” to which Maggie rebuts him “No it’s not, it’s four walls and a roof”. As the episode closes we see the group split like they had agreed to do, and Michonne offers her advice to comfort father Gabriel, and Daryl comes back through the bushes saying “All right, come out!” The film fades to black right after.

Hah, I swear AMC loves using their cliff hanger endings. I have to say that this episode felt like it should have been a half way season closer, not just the third episode because of how many subplots got wrapped up all at once. That being said, it was a great episode and shows that that AMC is making this their biggest season of The Walking Dead to date. My favorite moments had to be with Bob screaming at the Termites, “tainted meat!” I also loved seeing Rick fulfill his promise to Gareth, and seeing how the dynamics between Abraham and Rick keep unfolding. My only complaint is that I’m wondering where the story line can go from here for the next couple of episodes. We will have to wait and see for next Sunday.

Until next Sunday comes around, I highly recommend you all browse the internet for Walking Dead memes. This one that my friend Sam found on Tumblr is pure gold!

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-Tatteybye

 

Walking Dead Season 5 Episode 2 “Strangers” Review

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*Warning: Spoilers Held Within*

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First things first, there is no real topping last week’s episode in terms of action and orgasmic moments of awesome (I never could have written those words for the local papers!) This episode was much calmer than last week’s for the most part, with some scare moments with walkers and a lot of dialogue between the characters. I did find the pacing to a bit slow at parts, but the ending of the episode more than made up for that.

We start off seeing the group has escaped Terminus and is wandering through the woods to scavenge for food.  They soon stumble upon Father Gabriel who is surrounded by Walkers on top of a rock. Rick’s group saves Gabriel, and the group takes up residence in Gabriel’s church. Later on after some dialogue about how Michonne misses Hershel and Andrea we find the group killing walkers in the flooded basement of a food donation center to gain safe access to the food stored inside.

Father Gabriel panics when he recognizes one of the walkers in the basement until Michonne saves him. We later see that Rick doesn’t trust Gabriel since Gabriel is apparently hiding something. Towards the end of the episode we see Abraham spurring the group to continue their trek towards Washington to try to stop the outbreak. We also see Bob leave the church and get captured, then wakes up to find himself face to face with members of Terminus explaining why they hunt people for food. Bob sees people eating his leg like it was cooked chicken.

My reaction to the ending can be summed up nicely by this classic Anchor Man meme:

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Along with the ending, highlights included: Michonne talking about Hershel and Andrea, the subplot with father Gabriel hiding something, seeing The Walkers in the basement die, and seeing the speech that Abraham told Rick and the others to spur them on towards Washington.

This entire episode was meant for the story to develop, so it’s natural that they would slow things down a bit from last week’s episode. On that note, I did find the episode a bit slow at parts, but I enjoyed it overall since the show is getting closer to mimicking the comics. This episode makes me sad that next Sunday is a week away. I’m also definitely craving some chicken right about now (not really, but I did have steak for dinner).

-Tatteybye

 

Walking Season 5 Premier “No Sanctuary” Review

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*Warning: Spoilers Held Within*

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Better late than never folks, especially since I’ve caught writers-rigor-mortis as of late (try saying that 10 times fast!) Anyways, I can sum up the episode in one word: BADASS!!!

We open up from where season 4 left off with Rick and most of the cast being imprisoned in Terminus with the hippie-cannibals of Terminus killing people by bashing them in the head and slitting their throats one by one. As to why they are doing so in such a manner is beyond me, but it definitely looks like something I’d see in Game of Thrones until we hear some type of a large explosion.

We find out that Carol lead a herd of Walkers to Terminus, and blew up the giant propane tank to destroy Terminus’s fence using an assault rifle and a firework (that Carol stole from a Terminus member she took captive). The remainder of the episode is how Terminus gets overrun and Rick and the crew escapes to reunite with Carol, Tyreese, and Rick’s baby daughter Judith.

Highlights include the explosion, the opening with the throat cutting, the subplot with Tyreese having to confront the Terminus captive to save Judith, when everyone got back together, and the big reveal at the end with Morgan following his way to Terminus (who we last saw in Season 3 in the episode “Clear”).

I have zero complaints about this episode, it was like a giant orgasm for my brain. Granted that the show is still different than the comic books, but the writing’s still very solid and they have referenced the source material enough for my tastes that the show is a respectable separate universe (unlike those God awful Resident Evil movies which suffer from poor writing and flip the bird to the games!!)

Many people don’t get the allure of Zombie media, others find The Walking Dead to be rather boring; I find this episode to be chocked full of excitement. As for the people who don’t “get it”, I’ll write another blog explaining why I love zombie media. I’ll also make sure to make this review a series on my blog.

-Tatteybye