The Walking Dead Season 7! Sunday October 23rd 2016!

A different perspective from some of those reviews posted so far - this from a UK newspaper
The Walking Dead season 7 episode 1 review: Just too bleak to enjoy »

 

Man there's a lot of hand wringing going on in this thread. This episode showed with unblinking accuracy that if there were ever some sort of apocalyptic event that the thing to fear wouldn't be the cause of the event but our fellow humans. It's become a bleak show because it's a bleak world they live in.

 

Yes, this episode was bleak. But it was bleak for a reason. They wanted to spend one episode to A) Demonstrate how evil Negron is and B) Show Rick being broken. They succeeded.

Now it will be back to the new normal.

 

I didn't care for the Abraham killing at all. Having the victim on the right and the killer on the left? Really? Was this directed by some teenager? That's a mistake that wouldn't be allowed in filmmaking 101. I'm finished with this mess of a show.

 

I always think "enjoy" is a problematic term because it is too reductive. I said something upthread about viewing pleasures. Viewing pleasures are very varied and often perverse. "Enjoy" does not begin to cover it.

 

I thought for sure it would be Daryl getting Lucilled after he punched Negan.

Hats off to Andrew Lincoln for giving a great performance.

Maggie seems to be the new leader. She was the only one willing to step up after they left.

 

I don't think the whole "humans are who we should fear, not zombies" thing is a new idea on the show. If someone got to the seventh season of this show and didn't realize the living (which are, let's remember, infamously the titular "Walking Dead", not the zombies) are to be feared, then they weren't paying close attention.

I thought, as did another reviewer in a review posted a few pages back, that it was ridiculous for Negan to assume Rick hasn't already experienced a myriad of deaths and didn't already know that there was a strong possibility of not "growing old together." He's already lost his wife, his best friend (whom he and his son had to kill), numerous other people close to him, who have had to be killed sometimes at the hand of Rick himself.

Both viewers and the characters in the show would had to have been not paying any attention to not *already* know that "our fellow humans" are the ones to fear, having already run into dangerous people including:

Shane
The CDC guy (debatably)
The Governor
The two dudes in the bar after the barn walkers are killed
The Wolves
The Terminus people
The two girls Carol kills
The crazy version of Morgan
Various people within Alexandria
Gregory at the Hilltop
The 27 Negan-related groups they've already run across

And surely others.

 

I was growing tired of the show last season. I'm glad I missed this episode and watched Salvage Dawgs instead. Love that show.

 

I haven't seen much of any criticism of the episode that has mentioned "political correctness" as what's missing. I guess there has been some criticism of the violence, but I think a lot of folks don't like the plotting, writing, and things of that nature.

For instance, Negan breaking Rick down is fine. They just didn't need to CLEARLY pad the episode out by making it so long and drawn out. That's what they do on this show, and they do it purely to prolong the lifespan of the show and get more advertising dollars. The last two or three seasons could have been contained within a single season. I think some viewers (though not enough to make a difference of course) are tiring of things being dragged out, and often in retrospect seeming largely useless. They spend the whole first half of last season in Alexandria only to kill pretty much every newly-introduced character, some of which they had spent (aka "wasted") a lot of time building. All of that stuff with Rick's new girlfriend and her kids all to have them killed off in the mid-season premiere over the course of maybe one or two minutes.

 

So, were the killings of Abraham & Glenn more undeserved than the slayings of numerous members of the Saviors by Rick's crew at the factory?

Karma's a bitch, folks.

 

Interesting question. I thought that attack at the factory was the first very questionable attack by Team Rick. Basically, the Hilltop People (Team Jesus) asserted that the Factory People had reigned tyranny on their society, demanding their food, killing their people, etc. They promised Team Rick food if they would "take care" of the Factory People. If you take the Hilltop People at face value...MAYBE you have justification for carrying out the slaughter as what amounts to mercenaries. But Team Rick took their word pretty easily, I thought, as justification for a slaughter.

So then one has to ask: If they'd not done that, would Negron have left them alone, or would he have eventually have subjected them to the same brutal tyranny anyway?

 

High school gym teacher

Spoiler

with a wife named Lucille

 

The hypocrisy of the FCC and the American ratings system: Negan can graphically bash two people's skulls in, but he can't say the f-word, because think of the children!

 

The FCC has no say over any channel that is not 'over-the-air' so AMC could allow the f-word if it wanted to (they certainly say the s-word a lot). It doesn't though, probably due to the fear that they might loose advertisers.

 

I'm pretty sure that those of us that watch via streaming get the swear words along with the graphic violence.

 

I don't know what you mean. Would it have made a difference if the killer was on the right and the victim was on the left? Not saying you're wrong, I just don't know.

 

The special features on walking dead season 6 blu ray has the extended cut of the last episode with Negan. And it's uncensored word for word just like in the animated comic. Negan drops a dozen or so F bombs and listening to the uncensored version actually seems out of place on the show.

 

I find the discussions fascinating too. As bummed out as I was after watching it, I would never suggest that the writers/directors censor themselves for us "sensitive types". I think it's up to the individual to decide how far is too far.

But yes the discussions are fascinating and all over the map. Some love the show, some hate it now, some criticize the writing/directing and the acting; TWD creators will never be able to please everyone. Some have written impassioned treatises here and on other forums on what should happen and how the show woulda/coulda/shoulda developed, but I just come to it for entertainment. And as bleak as the season premier was, I also found it brave and riveting.

 

Many of the visuals in these scenes mirror the way they were illustrated in the comics, almost as if they were using the comics as a storyboard.

 

I don't get it. Is it some kind of rule that the killer has to be on the right?

 

Perhaps it's to do with lateral movement of good characters and bad, as in:

Left or Right? Why a Character's Lateral Movement On-Screen Matters in Film »

 

Or show a female nipple.

 

No I think Daryl is, he took the swing and never backed down- he will find a way to escape and get back to lead them all

 

I hope your right jwb!!!

I think Rick's main flaw in Season 6 was he became too overconfident and it bit him hard. He should have been saving some of Negans people to question them more w/o killing them immediately.