There's a great moment in tonight's season finale of THE WALKING DEAD. When the rubbish-tip-dwelling Garbage People arrive at the Safe Zone ready to do battle with the Saviors, they're traveling in--what else?--a fleet of garbage trucks! It's a small moment, offered, as all good comedy should be, without undue note. Though the show up to it had been pretty rough going, it gave me a good laugh and for an instant--just an instant[1]--I even entertained the thought that maybe TWD would pull off something it has never managed: a good season ender. Alas, it wasn't to be. "The First Day of the Rest of Your Life" ultimately belongs in the same pile as the rest of the series' lackluster finales.
Last week, Rosita brought Dwight back to the Safe Zone. He's distraught over the loss of his wife and wants to kill Negan. As one of the villain's inner circle, this would seem a simple matter but Dwight has ambitions; he wants to entirely overthrow the Saviors. Negan, he reveals, is bringing a bunch of soldiers to the Zone the next day. He pitches to Rick a plan whereby the Alexandrians and their allies can ambush and kill Negan and his men, appropriate their vehicles, return to the Sanctuary and wipe out the central Savior command-post. After that, it would just be a matter of taking out the outlying outposts one at a time.
Negan is coming to the Safe Zone on a punitive expedition after learning of Rick's scheming against him, which raises a rather significant question: How did Negan learn of this? Immediately, one must consider the possibility of a rat in the house (or one of the other houses). Solely because it would spoil the ep's big "plot twist" later, Rick never even asks. With a cooperative top Savior turncoat in his hands, he doesn't ask much of anything else either. How many Saviors are there? Where are they? Are there other communities they have under their thumb? Dwight could be a liar, of course, but Rick never asks any of this. He trusts Dwight enough to go with Dwight's plan and, being the Great Leader he's always been, never puts into motion any back-up plan of his own...
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Reply by tmdb53400018
on April 7, 2017 at 7:46 PM
^ This!
It is what it is. It seems reckless for Ezekiel to set the tiger loose in that situation. However, when the tiger intervened in what was to be Carl's murder, it was, for me at least, one of the most entertaining moments of the whole episode. And the tiger very well could have simply attacked Saviors only.
Do people even want to be entertained when they watch these shows, or do they want to prove what brainiacs they are by questioning them? For me, TWD is solid entertainment. Can I pick SERIOUS flaws from it? Hell yes. But why bother.
Reply by lennonforever
on April 7, 2017 at 8:14 PM
true
Reply by tmdb38541732
on April 7, 2017 at 8:36 PM
Because one day somebody is going to take this guy for a serious critic and aspiring filmmaker.
Reply by tmdb46215662
on April 10, 2017 at 3:53 PM
The writers of tv TWD find Eugene an almost impossible character to manage, as he's basically a comic-relief character on a show that, in general, shuns humor as if it was a plague. Something else TWD avoids is any real characterization. The soap melodrama model its creators adopted precludes this element, as the entire point of the writing is to wallow in exaggerated emotionalism as a means of producing emotional responses in the viewers. "Characterization" is whatever is believed to be required to meet that end and character growth or even consistency is never even a consideration. This is the opposite to character-driven drama, where the characters are strongly written and take events where they do because of who they are. With soap melodrama, momentary plot instead dictates characterization, so the characters are just arbitrarily changed over and over again to suit that plot. All of TWD's characters have been put through this arbitrary, often quite radical changes. Eugene's storyline through the course of season 6 was about him abandoning his formerly cowardly ways, stepping up and becoming very assertive, stronger, brave to the point of being a bit crazy-brave. This season, the writers decided they were taking the plot in another direction, so they just arbitrarily erased it as if it never happened, and Eugene is back to his old cowardly ways. His status as comic relief has now been given an ugly twist as well; in the service of the Saviors, it isn't so funny and it's hard not to read that as some sort of metatextual commentary by the creators on their attitude toward humor. Eugene, in his cowardly form, isn't even a character, even by the loose use of that word required by soap melodrama. He has no aspirations, attachments, loyalties, passions, independent agency. He's just this liquid thing that seeks the lowest level--the level at which he thinks he'll be protected--and is just there to be used by the writers for various ends.
Reply by tmdb46215662
on April 11, 2017 at 1:01 AM
To clarify, this particular critic and filmmaker didn't write a single word in his review about the tiger.