Fear The Walking Dead

[airtime143]

The zombies were covered in flammable oil, and they walked thru a wall of fire which was meant to light them on fire.... but most of the ones going after Madison were not on fire.

And even if we buy this... they were all covered in flammable tar of some kind.... why in the fuck would one flare cause the flammable tarred zombies to explode like that?

And even if we buy that.... why wouldn't all of them have exploded or most? Why didn't the fire wall cause any of them to explode?

Sorry, the flammable tar doesn't explain that ending explosion where Madison died.

Again this writing could have been fixed very fucking easily.... portable propane tank.... show Madison holding it.... she tucks the flare into the top of it ala Dawn of the Dead.... then she shoots the tank causing the explosion that kills her and many of the zombies.

It would have cost them like a 60$ propane tank prop.... they get their explosion, and it doesn't seem Special person.

Maybe their budget got messed up and they couldn't do this the way they wanted... but it doesn't excuse this kind of shit storytelling with gaping holes you could cover over pretty easily so the thing flows better.

My guess is that they had issues with the stunts... lighting one dude in a flame suit and and putting him out is easy... but 60 or 70..... everyone would die of asphyxiation when they ran to put them out.

I was really looking forward to seeing a flaming zombie wall... even a bad CGI one.


They should have cut their losses and gone a different route. what they wound up with was a confusing ass mess where you have to infer everything.
Especially if the scene is killing off a major character.


This season is garbage, and all over the place.
How did madison and company come to meet up after the dam explosion?
Where did they go?
What about the first year in the stadium?
How did madison find the place?

IMO, all of the above should have been told linear to start the season, and had Al, John, and Morgan be an unrelated story that meets nick and co after the mid season break.
Compress it and kill nick and madison in real time and flashback towards the end, and maybe leave john dorie as the cliffhanger.

With losing 2 main characters and all of the main villians half way through the season, they better have a compelling new storyline in real time when it picks back up. otherwise they have lost me.

 

[Houston]

I like the idea that there were no other exits in a baseball stadium for Madison to escape through.

 

[Ares]

My guess is that they had issues with the stunts... lighting one dude in a flame suit and and putting him out is easy... but 60 or 70..... everyone would die of asphyxiation when they ran to put them out.

I was really looking forward to seeing a flaming zombie wall... even a bad CGI one.


They should have cut their losses and gone a different route. what they wound up with was a confusing ass mess where you have to infer everything.
Especially if the scene is killing off a major character.


This season is garbage, and all over the place.
How did madison and company come to meet up after the dam explosion?
Where did they go?
What about the first year in the stadium?
How did madison find the place?

IMO, all of the above should have been told linear to start the season, and had Al, John, and Morgan be an unrelated story that meets nick and co after the mid season break.
Compress it and kill nick and madison in real time and flashback towards the end, and maybe leave john dorie as the cliffhanger.

With losing 2 main characters and all of the main villians half way through the season, they better have a compelling new storyline in real time when it picks back up. otherwise they have lost me.

The end of the mid-season break does leave you wondering.

I mean they resolved that arc, even if they did it kinda shitty.

So now you have Al/John/June/Morgan and Alicia/Luciana/Strand and then Charlie whom I assume will stick with Al wherever she goes.

Assuming that group remains together... they have no path set out.... no enemy to fight.... no place to journey to... just a bunch of people wondering what to do next.

Which leads me to believe they will, annoyingly.... jump ahead in time where they don't tell us how we got from the campfire to where things start in episode 9 and then they will continue this bullshit parallel timeline storytelling or they will just jump to the start or middle of a new story arc and not bother to tell us how we got there.

I could imagine Morgan starts leading them back East perhaps.... maybe this season ends and FTWD merges into TWD when they arrive.

 

[airtime143]

The end of the mid-season break does leave you wondering.

I mean they resolved that arc, even if they did it kinda shitty.

So now you have Al/John/June/Morgan and Alicia/Luciana/Strand and then Charlie whom I assume will stick with Al wherever she goes.

Assuming that group remains together... they have no path set out.... no enemy to fight.... no place to journey to... just a bunch of people wondering what to do next.

Which leads me to believe they will, annoyingly.... jump ahead in time where they don't tell us how we got from the campfire to where things start in episode 9 and then they will continue this bullshit parallel timeline storytelling or they will just jump to the start or middle of a new story arc and not bother to tell us how we got there.

I could imagine Morgan starts leading them back East perhaps.... maybe this season ends and FTWD merges into TWD when they arrive.

To the bolded... I suppose I could accept half a season of anthology style collection of stories... the whole group following Al's path... but it might get old quick.


You are right- the group starting from scratch is about the only way to go without a time jump. All there really is aside from that is them starting from scratch and filling in the gaps of the past half season that hold no suspense since we know the outcome.

The time jump angle does seem like a real possibility though... I would imagine they feel the need need to stay linear with TWD.

TWD is in a great spot for a time leap, so FTWD might be forced to.
I really have no interest in watching rick rebuild hilltop and alexandria.

 

[Ares]

I like the idea that there were no other exits in a baseball stadium for Madison to escape through.

None.... they offered themselves no emergency escapes at all.

 

[Ares]

To the bolded... I suppose I could accept half a season of anthology style collection of stories... the whole group following Al's path... but it might get old quick.


You are right- the group starting from scratch is about the only way to go without a time jump. All there really is aside from that is them starting from scratch and filling in the gaps of the past half season that hold no suspense since we know the outcome.

The time jump angle does seem like a real possibility though... I would imagine they feel the need need to stay linear with TWD.

TWD is in a great spot for a time leap, so FTWD might be forced to.
I really have no interest in watching rick rebuild hilltop and alexandria.

So we're clear when I say time jump.... I am thinking like a month or two maybe, not super long.

Enough where it jumps into the beginning or (sigh) middle of a new story arc and the writers get to just gloss over the in between.

 

[airtime143]

I watched the upcoming episode last night. It was absolute ass.

for the first half hour, it was just alicia talking to herself or silently doing her thing in a house during the storm. then charlie shows up... but doesnt talk for much of the show.
It was paced and patterned like a shitty knockoff of "Castaway"

The plotlines for both were so trite and predictable... not even gonna wrap this in spoiler tags.....
















Charlie is suicidal... yet somehow feels the need to seek out alicia and only attempt when she can be stopped.
the whole time, alicia is fighting not to kill charlie.
About as believable as a unicorn that shits cheeseburgers.
the climax in the basement is just weird, stupid, asinine, poorly written, poorly acted, and quite possibly the worst "deadly situation" I have ever seen two people caught in.... like the writers had to make imminent death come from some source other than a walker.
then....well...watch it if you want but the McGuffin that springs them from death and the "lesson" they presumably take away from it is just....the worst. the worst ever.


I would love to tell everyone to avoid watching it to save them some time... but you gotta see it to believe how bad it is and how far this show has fallen off.

It was so bad I think it gave me cancer.

 

[Houston]

Given that all but one of the main family is dead, plus the seemingly reduced budget, it doesn't even appear that the creators care about this show anymore.

 

[Ares]

Given that all but one of the main family is dead, plus the seemingly reduced budget, it doesn't even appear that the creators care about this show anymore.

I've been saying it since the season began.... they are going to just merge it into TWD.

I think they realize they squandered the chance to tell a new/different story in the TWD universe.

 

[airtime143]

the new episode last night was a decent enough effort to at least keep me slightly entertained... but there was a lot of nonsense.

Morgan slept in the back of a moving semi trailer for 400 miles... while the door was open and presumably banging open and closed the whole way?

Then, Morgan wimping out for whatever reason going back to his friends? Doesn't fit his character.

The pattern developing with this show is they have zero ability to carry out a sensible protracted story line, and zero ability to keep characters in character. None of the story lines have had complete resolution, and there are loose ends all over the damn place. They seem to run a story, get tired of it or not know where to go, blow the situation up and scatter the people to end it.

 

[Ares]

The new guy from last night's episode, Jim.... the one Morgan saved, who makes beer.

He was the lead on 12 Monkeys for like 5 years.

Makes me think he will become at least a recurring character when FTWD meets TWD.

 

[airtime143]

The new guy from last night's episode, Jim.... the one Morgan saved, who makes beer.

He was the lead on 12 Monkeys for like 5 years.

Makes me think he will become at least a recurring character when FTWD meets TWD.

It took me a few scenes to decide if it was him or not- that was a good show.
His buddy was the tank driver for the governor on TWD.

 

[Ares]

It took me a few scenes to decide if it was him or not- that was a good show.
His buddy was the tank driver for the governor on TWD.

Yep, that guy was also in Band of Brothers if you ever saw that, he played Joe Toye.

The episode last week was actually pretty good, I thought.

The storm.... an actual real world problem threatening their lives.

It was still thick with layered emotional bullshit, and it once again made the zombies seem nearly harmless, stacked up against the door/window, but it was an interesting episode nonetheless.

Hurricanes, blizzards, drought, flash flooding, wild fires, infrastructure crumbling, sink holes, building fires, building collapses, disease, famine, etc .... we struggle with alot of this shit without zombies, but somehow the show wants me to believe they aren't often a problem in this post-apocalypse world.

 

[airtime143]

Hurricanes, blizzards, drought, flash flooding, wild fires, infrastructure crumbling, sink holes, building fires, building collapses, disease, famine, etc .... we struggle with alot of this shit without zombies, but somehow the show wants me to believe they aren't often a problem in this post-apocalypse world.

I think TWD has done a decent enough job on some of that- it is fairly common for them to hit decayed buildings- Just off the top of my head, there was the rotted out food pantry that the priest took them to- basement full of water and floor collapsed.
Negan and rick fighting in the decaying building with the rotten stairs and collapsed floor.
Michonne and rick falling through the ceiling while looking for food, guns and ammo near the carnival.

As far as drought goes, It seems they suffered one when they were on the road before hitting alexandria- walking for days without a single water source. You would think they would have passed a stream or pond at some point.

Wildfires should have made an appearance... the only one I can think of is where Darryl meets dwight in the burned out forest, but I think that was started by a person... cannot remember who had mentioned it but I think they did mention it was an attempt to smoke them out.

There are burned out buildings almost everywhere.

As far as bad weather events... I always took the opinion that everyone is hunkering down during storms so there is no external conflict, therefore nothing to focus on, so it remains offscreen.



... one of the things that bugs me to no end however is the over saturation of disabled and crashed vehicles.... they are EVERYWHERE. It seems you cannot go a block without a disabled car in the roadway. Overturned vehicles every couple of miles.
Beyond that, there is a ridiculous amount of zombies trapped inside cars- which means people ran out of gas, sat in their car and died. repeatedly. everywhere.

I was thinking to myself that in the WD universe, 10 percent of the population is alive, 50 percent were killed by walkers, and the other 40 percent were traffic fatalities.
Dont know why the wrecked and abandoned car surplus bothers me so much, but it does. It is far beyond logical.

... and on the crashed note- I cannot recall seeing a deployed airbag on any of the cars. dont know why that stood out, but it does.

 

[Ares]

I think TWD has done a decent enough job on some of that- it is fairly common for them to hit decayed buildings- Just off the top of my head, there was the rotted out food pantry that the priest took them to- basement full of water and floor collapsed.
Negan and rick fighting in the decaying building with the rotten stairs and collapsed floor.
Michonne and rick falling through the ceiling while looking for food, guns and ammo near the carnival.

As far as drought goes, It seems they suffered one when they were on the road before hitting alexandria- walking for days without a single water source. You would think they would have passed a stream or pond at some point.

Wildfires should have made an appearance... the only one I can think of is where Darryl meets dwight in the burned out forest, but I think that was started by a person... cannot remember who had mentioned it but I think they did mention it was an attempt to smoke them out.

There are burned out buildings almost everywhere.

As far as bad weather events... I always took the opinion that everyone is hunkering down during storms so there is no external conflict, therefore nothing to focus on, so it remains offscreen.



... one of the things that bugs me to no end however is the over saturation of disabled and crashed vehicles.... they are EVERYWHERE. It seems you cannot go a block without a disabled car in the roadway. Overturned vehicles every couple of miles.
Beyond that, there is a ridiculous amount of zombies trapped inside cars- which means people ran out of gas, sat in their car and died. repeatedly. everywhere.

I was thinking to myself that in the WD universe, 10 percent of the population is alive, 50 percent were killed by walkers, and the other 40 percent were traffic fatalities.
Dont know why the wrecked and abandoned car surplus bothers me so much, but it does. It is far beyond logical.

... and on the crashed note- I cannot recall seeing a deployed airbag on any of the cars. dont know why that stood out, but it does.

Well it seems to be one or the other, right?

Either roads that are fully clear of vehicles or overgrowth..... or roads that are filled with wrecks, trees, etc.

I swear TWD wants us to believe road crews survived and do an immaculate job keeping roads clear of overgrowth the majority of the time.

And as we've discussed before, HOW IS ANY GAS STILL GOOD?

 

[airtime143]

Well it seems to be one or the other, right?

Either roads that are fully clear of vehicles or overgrowth..... or roads that are filled with wrecks, trees, etc.

I swear TWD wants us to believe road crews survived and do an immaculate job keeping roads clear of overgrowth the majority of the time.

And as we've discussed before, HOW IS ANY GAS STILL GOOD?

Any supplies are at the very edge of viability at this point, that is for sure.
They need to run in to the refining people from The Road Warrior.
Rick and Negan vs. the Humongous.

 

[Ares]

Any supplies are at the very edge of viability at this point, that is for sure.
They need to run in to the refining people from The Road Warrior.
Rick and Negan vs. the Humongous.

Even at the most conservative of estimates, TWD has been going for 3+ years.

Judith is like 2 and I find it hard to fit all the story/travel of 8 seasons into less than 3 years of timeline.

When gas sat in my gram's snowblower for a year it would become unusable.

So let's ignore Judith and imagine this story has only been only going on for 1 year, just one.... even then gas would become unusable.

Also I like how on the one hand zombies eat everything.... so there is little to no wildlife around... you never see packs of wild dogs or wolves.... rarely if ever see deer.... but somehow people find and raise livestock?

I mean livestock stuck in pens would be ripped apart by zombies far more than deer, or dogs, or wolves, or bears, or anything else that can run/fight.

 

[airtime143]

Even at the most conservative of estimates, TWD has been going for 3+ years.

Judith is like 2 and I find it hard to fit all the story/travel of 8 seasons into less than 3 years of timeline.

When gas sat in my gram's snowblower for a year it would become unusable.

So let's ignore Judith and imagine this story has only been only going on for 1 year, just one.... even then gas would become unusable.

Also I like how on the one hand zombies eat everything.... so there is little to no wildlife around... you never see packs of wild dogs or wolves.... rarely if ever see deer.... but somehow people find and raise livestock?

I mean livestock stuck in pens would be ripped apart by zombies far more than deer, or dogs, or wolves, or bears, or anything else that can run/fight.

The only time you see a deer if I remember, carl gets a gutshot.

Deer should be everywhere... no traffic, unlimited food...
Livestock in pens should be non-existent... but lets say a few zombies push down a fence surrounding cattle. I can imagine them surviving. going out through the gate, mowing the walkers down and living in rough terrain where they have the mobility advantage.

...Which leads to a funny idea for a scene- it would be pretty funny to run across a bull stampeding through a crowd of walkers.


....What about house cats? Those fuckers should be everywhere. I dont think I have seen a cat since the show started, and they would be virtually uncatchable by walkers.
Given the weather and the urban locations, they should be knee deep in cats.

 

[Ares]

The only time you see a deer if I remember, carl gets a gutshot.

Deer should be everywhere... no traffic, unlimited food...
Livestock in pens should be non-existent... but lets say a few zombies push down a fence surrounding cattle. I can imagine them surviving. going out through the gate, mowing the walkers down and living in rough terrain where they have the mobility advantage.

...Which leads to a funny idea for a scene- it would be pretty funny to run across a bull stampeding through a crowd of walkers.


....What about house cats? Those fuckers should be everywhere. I dont think I have seen a cat since the show started, and they would be virtually uncatchable by walkers.
Given the weather and the urban locations, they should be knee deep in cats.

Feral cats and dogs would be everywhere and dogs in particular would be a serious problem for people I would think.

A pack of feral dogs cornering you is even worse than zombies.

 

[airtime143]

It is funny to see all the massive things they are missing in the show- both the stuff that was pointed out that does not seem to exist, but more hilariously, the things they could use to improve their lives and chances of survival.

No windmills- an easy source of power, especially with the sheer amount of car batteries available. Hell, You could go the easy route, bolt blades on the wheel of an alternator, hook up a couple wires, and viola- power.
Hook that shit up to an inverter, and viola! AC!!

Water filtration systems.

...Was encouraged to see Morgan using a CB radio- glad someone figured that out rather than rechargable hand held radios.

Body armor to stop bites.

Construction equipment and endless supplies of building material to fortify walls. Digging trenches.

Lack of aerial transportation in settlements- zip lines or catwalks connecting buildings that lead to a weapons cache- in case of zombie overload climb a ladder and pick em off at your leisure from above.

Lack of the most simple vehicle modification- a cow catcher style front that allows a strong vehicle to plow through hundreds or thousands of walkers in a snap (for proof of concept, see the mythbusters episode where they plow a truck through a shit ton of cars with nary a slow down in speed)

Poor placement of villages- put it on a river where you have water, fish, and a water mill.


...so many obvious, simple fixes to their biggest problems.