walkingdead

Walking Dead 6.15 Review “East”

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*In the words of Chester A Bum from That Guy With The Glasses: “SPOILERS!!”*

Hello, I’m Kevin Card, you might remember from such show reviews as “The Walking Dead, why did the Governor come back for spaghetti Tuesday?” And, “Game of Thrones, does George RR Martin have a thing against family bonding moments?” And so we’re here again readers, another episode gone and the WTF moments are in full swing to help us prepare for the hammer to fall next week. There were some great things in this episode, and some not so great things. So let’s dive in and see the hand we’ve been dealt.

This episode started off light hearted with the most amount of sexual fan service we’ve seen since season three, including a shower scene with Glenn and Maggie and a post coitus apple between Rick and Michonne. Things quickly turned dark and tense though as characters went out trying to find Carol after she sneaked out of Alexandria. We see that even with Carol suffering from an internal crisis over never killing again, she’s still willing to kill if she has too (unlike Morgan) after she puts down that truck full of Saviors. We get some quality dialog and action scenes with Rick and Morgan, and finally we see that Daryl is trying to avenge Denise by trying to take out Dwight (only to be out smarted by Dwight and then get shot in the shoulder). There are things I really enjoyed, and things I could have done without.

Things I enjoyed:
I enjoyed a lot of the dialog in this episode, especially between Rick and Morgan about that Wolf prisoner and how things went down at the prison with Carol being exiled. The fact that they opened the episode with music from Johnny Cash was fantastic. I also enjoyed how Carol got the drop on those saviors by keeping an automatic weapon up her sleeve and just outsmarted them every step of the way. I loved the scene on the rail road tracks where Glenn, Michonne, and Rosita try and talk Daryl out of confronting Dwight. Lastly, I enjoyed knowing that Carol managed to get away from the surviving Savior (so far), but that stray surviving savior may have a chance to capture Rick or Morgan… which would definitely not be something I’d enjoy.

What I didn’t Enjoy:
That Dwight managed to outsmart Daryl is complete BS to me, Daryl should have known to check his surroundings. I think Michael Rooker was right when he said that being in Alexandria has made Daryl soft, and now Daryl has a gun shot wound to prove it. I also didn’t like how it looks like Maggie is going to have a miscarage of her child, which I don’t want to see a zombie baby (thank you, Dawn of The Dead remake). There’s been a lot of speculation if Glenn will die by Negan’s hand, but I can’t say anything for sure beyond that if Glenn dies it would make all that stuff we suffered for in season 6A meaningless. And if Glenn does die, at least let him die heroically and go out with meaning like Merle did in season three. Beyond that, I thought this was a great episode despite the “think fast” moment of the episode ending with Daryl getting shot.

It’s now confirmed that Negan will appear in next week’s 90 minute series finale which means two things to me: the hammer is about to fall for Rick’s group, and we may very well be entering Game of Thrones “Red Wedding” territory of character deaths. Let’s just hope that those characters dying serve actual meaning instead of just plain shock value. I’m praying that we all won’t lose our lunch when the barbed wire baseball bat comes into play next week.

I’ve referenced this song by Queen at least three times in this blog tonight, so it would be criminal to not post:

-KCard

Television Critique, Walking Dead

Walking Dead 6.14 Review: “An Eye for an Eye”

Link | Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*Spoiler warning: this blog is one part dry humor, one part spoilers, and no parts click bait. Seriously, I’d rather have a small happy audience of readers than a colossal audience of annoyed readers.* 

Hello again Word Press and friends, Kevin here bringing you my thoughts on the stuff and thangs of this episode. But before I get into that, I just wanted to say that I think I enjoyed last week’s episode better overall (despite not finishing my review on it) for all of the badass dialogue and action scenes that happened (Did Carol channel her inner Heisenberg after setting those dudes on fire??) Anyways, this episode started off much slower than the previous episode, but perhaps for good reason with how stuff escalated towards the end. We’ll discuss this more as I get into what I liked and didn’t like about this episode.

What I liked: I enjoyed the interactions between Abraham and Eugene as I feel they grew closer in their friendship, despite Eugene being an asshole towards Abraham for killing that metal chrome headed walker. I enjoyed seeing Daryl, Rosita, and Denise interact with each other over their quest for medicinal drugs (and orange soda). And I like how most of the episode switched focus so evenly between these two groups. The show down at the train tracks towards the end was pretty epic, and Eugene biting Dwight’s groin to create a distraction was a comedic highlight in an otherwise serious fight scene. There were still some glaring things I didn’t enjoy though.

What I didn’t like: Why the hell did they have to kill off Denise so damn soon?! Seriously, I feel like they just killed Denise to give Dwight a cool bad guy moment to introduce a fight scene (much like how they killed off Axle in season 3). I could have done without Eugene being all butt hurt by Abraham trying to help him by killing that walker. Lastly, I’m sad to see Carol is loosing her composure and the will to keep fighting. I also wonder if this no killing vow of Carol’s will effect her tense friendship with Morgan. I can only imagine how much trouble that Carol leaving the group will spell once the real Negan appears and reeks havoc on Rick’s group in the next few episodes.

I look forward to seeing the rest of this season unfold. Still wondering when Negan will show up though…

-KCard

-KCard

Walking Dead 6.12 Review “Not Tomorrow Yet”

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*SPOILER WARNING: Never leave mayonnaise out in the sun as it will spoil quickly. And in the words of Grandpa from Hey Arnold, never eat raspberries.*

Hello again Word Press, Kevin here bringing you the review of the latest episode of The Walking Dead. Before I start up on the review, I can’t make any more comparisons to the source material until I get a chance to catch up on the comics (or until they finally release the third compendium) . I’m a very busy individual these days between working full time and working with my band to record our demo (it’s why at best I only release one blog a week). I’ll look into the comics on my own time, just not while the show is going on.

Speaking of being busy, I didn’t get to release my review on last week’s episode because I only saw the full episode of 6.11 this past Sunday. Overall, 6.11 was a pretty darn good episode, especially with how Maggie handled the negotiating with Gregory and stood up for herself. I also liked how last week’s episode was like the calm before the storm. This week’s episode had much more action than last week, and more human on human fighting than we’ve seen since seasons three and four. The tension in the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife in this episode, and the second half of the episode played out like an awesome action movie. There are some things I enjoyed about the episode overall, and some things that really grinded my gears.

What I enjoyed:  It was great how well thought out and coordinated all of the fight scenes were in this episode as I loved seeing how many of the saviors were massacred later in the episode. It was great seeing Rick’s plan in action of faking Greg’s death, and then moving in to kill the saviors in their sleep. That was, until that one savior pulled the fire alarm right before Abraham and Sasha killed him (the shit officially hit the fan in the episode from that point onwards). I loved how Jesus managed to save Glenn and Heath after they were trapped in the armory and shot straight through the door to kill that group of Saviors. My favorite action scene was where Father Gabriel shot that Savior after saying a prayer for him out loud, and saying “Amen” after the deed was done (maybe Gabriel will finally start kicking ass for the lord?) Lastly, I enjoyed seeing Glenn and Heath struggle with the fact that they are now killers. This struggle showed how solid the acting chemistry was between Steven Yuen and Corey Hawkins (heath) can be even when the screen time runs quickly.

What I Didn’t Like: Abraham, why’d you have to go and be an asshole to Rosita? I don’t care if that’s “the way shit is” with you, you don’t just break up with a woman who’s been that good to you in a heartbeat. You don’t just tell her that you only dated her because she had tits. I mean, maybe it’s a better change of pace where in the comics Abraham cheated on Rosita, but it still leaves me feeling pissed off. I’m happy for Carole finding love again, but I’m sad it wasn’t with Daryl (like many had hoped it would be). Lastly, I shudder to think what may happen to Carole and Maggie being held hostage by who I presume to be one of Negan’s wives. Things could get ugly next week.

Overall, I felt like this was an awesome episode that was well written, acted, and paced. I look forward to seeing next week’s episode.

-KCard

 

 

Walking Dead 6.10 Review: “The Next World”

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*Spoiler warning courtesy of Buzz Lightyear*

c707b3dd79d013c2370de95c2b9734073d3fd8a8b45a2222d1f93a4f742e1c66.jpg

Hello again everyone, Kevin here bringing you the analysis on this week’s episode of The Walking Dead. I just wanted to let people know that the reason I always open up with a “filler” paragraph is so when I post these reviews to Facebook the text doesn’t bleed over and reveal any spoilers for those who didn’t want to see them. I like to consider it an extra insurance policy to prevent people from getting upset over spoilers.

Speaking of filler, I often hear comic book Gatekeeping fans get upset at the show every season due how slowly the story drags on. These people need to remember that these are two different mediums, and television shows need to reach syndication (100 or more episodes). It’s especially worth mentioning that lately The Walking Dead has returned to referencing the source material at a rate that I find to be appropriate. My main complaint about the show is that they add unnecessary story arcs that turn into filler arcs (source material aside) such as the corrupt police officers in the hospital from season 5A. Now then, onto the show.

This week’s episode really had no way of topping last week’s episode, so we can consider this the calm after the storm has settled. That being said, a lot of awesome things still happened in last night’s episode of The Walking Dead. For starters, we finally got to meet the comic book character Raul Rovia (nicknamed “Jesus”). We saw Spencer put down Dianna’s walker with help from Michonne, and we also saw that Carl has no idea how to talk to women with how rude he was being to Enid. Lastly, I’m happy to see that Rick and Michonne are together now as a couple as I’ve recently been “shipping Richonne” (as the kids on Tumblr are saying these days). There were some things that bothered me about the episode, but I rather enjoyed it overall.

What I enjoyed:
It was great seeing how the characters interacted in this episode, Michonne helping out Spencer with his personal task of putting Deanna out of her misery (after being reanimated) and helping Spencer find out he still has a family with the people of Alexandria. It was awesome seeing Jesus interact with Daryl and Rick throughout most of the episode, and how they kept Jesus true to his comic counterpart at how skilled at sneaking and hand to hand combat that he is. I also enjoyed a lot of the dialogue as this was definitely a story driven episode, not an action driven episode. Lastly, it was amazing to see Rick and Michonne together, and amusing to see them both draw their weapons on Jesus while naked at the end of the episode. Some fan service for Walking Dead fans? Hell, I’ll take it! Now onto the things that bothered me.

What I didn’t enjoy:
I really felt like the writers had Rick and Daryl acting out of character this whole episode, I’m pretty sure Rick and Daryl should have been smart enough to know that they should have just driven straight back to Alexandria with that supply truck before stopping anywhere else. Yes they found Jesus (not biblically), but they also lost all of the supplies in that truck because they kept messing around to try and locate soda for Denise, and kept struggling to deal with Jesus. The truck wouldn’t have fallen into the lake (which was painful to watch) if Rick and Daryl had just done the sensible thing and gone straight back (which Daryl is usually known for in this show). I feel like that whole part of the story focusing on Rick and Daryl was just wasted time where they stopped acting their normal selves. Other than that it was a satisfactory exposition episode (that was unfortunate enough to have to follow the act before it).

So I’m looking forward to seeing next week’s episode of The Walking Dead and how the whole story with Jesus will play out. I should also note this is just about the part of the comics that I stopped reading at so I will either need to play catch up with the source material (I own Walking Dead compendiums one and two), or just ask that people not spoil the major story arcs that are coming up in the future. I’m also super curious to see what they do in the show with Negan.

For today’s featured song I was tempted to leave “Jesus Take The Wheel” by Carrie Underwood in honor of Jesus stealing the food truck, but musically it doesn’t scream “Walking Dead” to me. Instead I will leave you all with the Johnny Cage song “When The Man Comes Around” as the appearance of Jesus (Raul) means that bad things are going to happen this season when Negan finally appears.

-KCard

Walking Dead 6.6: “Always Accountable”

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*A spoiler for you, a spoiler for me, a spoiler for us all! Be warned of spoilers there, lads and lasses (and non binary folx!)*

Before I say anything about today’s episode I just want to say I stand with France, and that all of the tragedies that befell us this past Friday require more than just prayer, it requires awareness of the world around us and action to stand with our fellow human beings in love and unity. Now that I’ve got that “peace stuff” out of the way, I also want to say that I might write a review for “Into The Badlands” later this week as that show’s absolutely badass so far. Now then, onto the show.

This week’s episode had many intense moments, a lot of new plot point hints for the start of next season, some moments that made you despise the new characters introduced, and maybe a slight clue of information on the whereabouts of Glenn. If not then I’m beginning to think that the writers are really going to milk this Glenn mystery for all it’s worth. I think this was a very entertaining episode, and had it’s fair share of strong moments overall. Here’s what I enjoyed and didn’t enjoy.

What I liked: What can I say other than the fact that Abraham is a beast? Seriously, that scene where he tries to wrestle with that impaled army soldier turned walker to catch it’s bazooka was just gold. I adored how suspenseful it was, and that at the end we see Abraham reclaim the rocket launcher from the fence after the walker falls.  I like that they might be hinting at a possible affair between Abraham and Sasha, which would be a nod to the comics if they proceed down that route. I enjoyed how much time was spent with Daryl and how he interacted with that new group of people (especially when he brought those supplies back to the diabetic girl). Could that mysterious person that the new people were opposing be Negan from the comics? I seriously hope so, for those who don’t know Negan is like The Governor on steroids (in terms of how evil he is). Lastly, there’s a chance the voice we heard over the radio was Glenn asking for help, not Rick. We’ll see where this mystery goes.

What I Didn’t Like:  I really wasn’t a fan of this new group of people just because of how annoying and selfish they were, plus they pretty much pre-destined to be hated by fans with how they screwed Daryl over, twice! First by tying him up, then by stealing his crossbow and motorcycle after Daryl saved their freaking lives. Weak selfish jerks… Other than that I think this was a pretty enjoyable episode with solid writing and acting.

For today’s music video we have an AMV tribute to Glenn featuring the song “Shattered” by Trading Yesterday. We hope you’re okay Glenn, most of us want you to still be with us.

-KCard

Walking Dead 6.5 Review: “Now”

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*And on that day, it did become obvious that there were spoilers, spoilers everywhere. And the annoyance of fans spread through social media like wild fire.*

Content warning: swearing.

There are days I wish I could just write spoilers without consequence, but it seems to be a cardinal sin to post spoilers for Walking Dead or Game of Thrones on social media (sans Twitter). Yet no one really complains when I posted Anime and Manga spoilers. I guess it’s only the shows that are popular to watch like TWD or GOT. On that note, in this episode Jon Snow showed up as a walker and ate Glenn, and they both reanimated to fight The White Walkers as regular Walkers. Obviously, I’m just being a smartass because I think there are better things in the world to be offended at than show spoilers (IE, rape jokes, 9/11 jokes, prejudiced slurs). Enough ranting from this SJW though, onto the show.

I won’t down right call this episode terrible because important things did happen, and that we weren’t bogged down with a 90 minute flashback like last week, but I’m starting to notice a pattern here for this season: varied placing of poor pacing. Could it be helped that we had to have a dialogue episode with bits of action mixed into it? I guess not, but I’m pretty sure they’re going to leave us high and dry on Glenn’s fate for the rest of season 6.1 (the first half of the season). Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if they either made Glenn the guy who somehow drives off the Walker heard from Alexandria. Or even if Greg Nicotero turns Glenn into the next Merle and teases us until the end of season 6 with Glenn’s fate. At least the heard has arrived at Alexandria though, and we found out that Rick managed to outrun the heard and survived that ordeal in the camper. Now I have some great things to say about this episode, and some not so great things to say about this episode. Here goes nothing…

What I enjoyed: This was an incredibly emotional episode, it’s clear from how many people have died in Alexandria and how the people are now clearly surrounded by walkers outside the walls that the Alexandrians are feeling the weight of reality in the apocalypse surround them (IE, Betsy killed herself after finding out her husband died in an earlier episode from the heard). It was great to see Jessie step up for the people of Alexandria by killing the reanimated Betsy, and become a more three dimensional character than her comic book counterpart when we saw her interact with her son. I enjoyed seeing Maggie and Aaron struggle to try and find Glenn, albeit to end up failing because Maggie couldn’t face the possibility that Glenn is dead because Maggie is pregnant now; it was a very powerful scene.

A less powerful but still enjoyable scene was the kiss between Tara and Denise after Denise managed to save her patient’s life. It was nice that this lesbian kissing scene was done for emotional impact of Denise thanking Tara instead of general sexual objectification. Another powerful scene was when people were raiding the pantry to be stopped by Spencer (Deanna’s son), only to have it followed by a later scene where Spencer raids the pantry on his own and verbally takes out his grief on Deanna by blaming her for all of Alexandria’s current problems (including the death of their family members). It’s clear from this episode we see that Spencer is kind of an asshole.

Speaking of Deanna, I’m glad she’s getting character development in the sense of being broken from the death of her husband and son, and then waking up again. We see Deanna grab a broken bottle and starts stabbing a walker in the chest who was trying to attack her, until Rick later came in and saved her life. “Was it all just pie in the sky?” Deanna asked Rick about her aspirations for Alexandria after the walker was dead. Rick said it wasn’t a pipe dream, to which Deanna said Rick should be the new leader. Deanna later began mapping plans for the future of Alexandria, which was a nice sentiment to an otherwise disheartening episode. Lastly, I’m happy Rick and Jessie showed their love for one another. Now onto what I didn’t like.

What I didn’t enjoy:  Ignoring the obvious fact that Glenn’s fate is still up in the air, I felt this episode was only of an average quality for The Walking Dead. I say this because last week’s episode was beautifully written and directed, this episode was more of a soap opera with zombies used as a plot device (which according to zombie genre god father George Romero is common for TWD). I get that they are showing us how humans struggle with death of their loved ones, but I would have liked there to be more action involved in this episode. I feel like there was too much talking, and not enough planning on how to get rid of the heard or the fate of the others like Abraham and Daryl. Speaking of Daryl’s group, looks next week’s focus will be on how Abraham and Sasha survive the coming heard chasing after them. There are times I see where the comic book fans are coming from, but other times I remember that television is a different medium than comics and that these shows need to reach syndication. It just annoys me that the pacing has been so inconsistent from each episode to the next in season six.

Here’s to hoping the pacing is faster next week, and that the next three episodes deliver on the hype they’ve been building all season. I really want to see what happens to Glenn, and if the show will mirror the comics in how they deal with this walker heard. On that note, today’s featured song is “End of Time” by Lacuna Coil because I think it embodies how the people of Alexandria feel about their current struggles.

-KCard

Walking Dead 6.4 Review: “Here’s Not Here”

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

*SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!

UNKNOWN FORCE OF IMPENDING EASILY OFFENDED FANS DETECTED*

Has anyone else ever noticed that Republicans and Libertarians call trigger warnings and content warnings an “affront to free speech”, but stay completely silent or get seriously bent out of shape over someone posting show spoilers on social media? It’s just me who sees the irony? Okay then, just remember no one is above criticism or being hypocritical in some way or another as it’s human nature. But enough “Lefty Socialist” ranting from this social justice blogger, onto the show.

This episode that has something that I like to call “Naruto Shippuden Syndrome” in that last week’s episode ended on a colossal cliff hanger. The writers of The Walking Dead made us wait one to week find out Glenn’s fate, only to make us wait another week (or two) with a filler flashback episode. Anime fans are fairly used to this technique of drawing out cannon material, but mainstream American audiences prefer instant gratification and hate waiting for such a huge reveal (especially in the age of social media). I’m right up there with the American audience in that I hate that I have to wait another week, even though I’m a huge fan of anime such as Naruto. That’s not to say this episode was terrible, it was a brilliantly written episode; it’s just that the timing for it couldn’t have been worse. This entire pattern of drawing stuff out from cannon material this season’s really starting to grind my gears. I’m starting to think that season six of The Walking Dead is the new season two of TWD; and the first half of season two was terrible. Frustrated ranting of this episode aside, here’s what I enjoyed and didn’t enjoy.

What I liked: It was great to finally know Morgan’s back story, that’s where this episode truly shined to help define where Morgan stopped being psychotic from his PTSD and started coming into his mantra of not killing people anymore. I enjoyed the acting chemistry between Lennie James (Morgan) and John Carrol Lynch (Eastman) in that both were fantastic at portraying their roles. I enjoyed seeing how Morgan came back to the light, and finding out Eastman’s back story of how his family died, and how he never felt whole with the revenge he received on making the convicted felon who killed his family starve to death. “I found my peace in never killing again”, said Eastman to Morgan after he was fatally bitten by a walker (one that Morgan killed earlier in the episode by strangling it while the walker was still a person). I also like how Morgan locked away the Wolf leader in the house as that will most certainly come back to bite Alexandria in the arse. Morgan’s struggle was the focal point of this episode, and I’m happy to see he overcame it. This was truly a well written and directed episode that made me like the show version of Morgan much better than the comic book version of Morgan. But punctuality matters when you build up a mystery, and the placement of this episode would have better after the midway season finale (which is something I would have liked much more).

What I didn’t like: How do I say “timing” without sounding like a broken record? Well, I’m sad the goat didn’t make it out alive. I’ve otherwise said my peace about the writers teasing us with Glenn’s fate, now I will just say that I find Morgan’s pacifism is problematic for the rest of Rick’s group (especially with the wolf leader still alive). As a pacifist myself I’m not saying that last sentence to insult Morgan, more like it’s a pro-war jab from the writers against my beliefs. But everyone has their own opinions, and in this type of a setting there’s a clear difference between war and self-defense. On that note, hopefully next week’s episode won’t leave us high and dry again with what’s happening. Otherwise, this walker heard story could take all season.

I tend to use this blog as a soapbox for a lot of my opinions, and if I offended you then I don’t apologize for what I’ve said, but I will apologize if I’ve said it like an A-hole. So for this blog post, I will be leaving Elle King’s “Song of Sorrow” to both offer my sentiments for upsetting some people, and help commend both Eastman and Morgan’s emotional struggles from their pasts.

-KCard