*** This review may contain spoilers ***
I want to take a second to make a note of something before I get into my take of this episode:
Remember when each episode had its own goal? It was in the earlier seasons, but mostly S1. One episode they rescued Merle, one episode they visited the CDC, another one reunited Rick and Lorry.. It had a pace, and each episode was a story. These days, not so much. It has taken 1.5-ish seasons to even begin to talk about knocking out Negan and we're still no closer to taking him down (another note: That is solely attributed to lazy writing, nothing else). Negan could've been killed quite a few times by now...
Okay, let's get into the episode:
If I have to sit through another hyper-annoying, 1600's, medieval dialect, get-you-going speech from the tiger-handler (what's his name again?), I'm going to go to Amazon and knock out some orders for some bulk gummy bears. Why? Because, you know.. just go read the reviews. That experience would be better than another Scott Gimple-rendition of Inception, in the key of The Walking Dead.
After that speech (or before that..), it cuts to tiger-handler crawling out of underneath his dead body guards (who, for whatever reason, prioritized a guy stuck in the 1600s rather than themselves). There's a rather neat scene where we get a stream of JPegs, then instantly cut back to tiger-handler (I know he has a name, just can't think of it) screaming. It was kinda neat, but came across as a budget shortage more-so than content-loaded cinematography. ***T-H (it's faster than typing tiger-handler and it's what I'll be going with.. but maybe writing this explanation has eaten up all my supposed time savings...) then shoots his way out of a mob of walkers with some suspenseful music and some overused near-miss scenes. ***
...want to hear a fun fact? I literally typed the bit in asterisks before it even happened. I promise you that. I will never promise you something else, it's just that predictable.
About halfway through, Carol is up against some bad guys. The magically bullet proof sheet metal of a car's body saves her life, but only after the bad guys' aim is restored. They (for whatever reason...) couldn't aim at her for the 10 or-so seconds she was running, right to left, about 20 feet away from them. They both had fully-automatic firearms and chose to shoot at the ground, mostly, and a little into the sky. Carol literally could've gone through entirety of the learning-curve of one of those hoverboard things to traverse that distance and she would have been totally A-OK. Maybe even better, actually, it it weren't for everyone having unlimited ammo.
Back to T-H... T-H literally slices the enemy's stomach with a knife and the guy doesn't retaliate, he just takes out a stick, puts it in T-H's face, cranks out some more crappy dialogue, and then someone (a T-H minion) comes along and kills T-H's captor with a sword (again, I typed up to the, "then someone comes along:" without it even happening. Sharknado 12 is less predictable than this).
Over again to Carol, she gets held up by those 3 (or more) guys with machine guns and she manages to escape. Yay, I guess. I'd probably care more if Gimple wasn't trying to force as many characters into the storyline as however many are allowed since Twitter's latest update..
With Carol and T-H after the commercial break... I thought T-H died, but maybe not. I genuinely can't tell if this is a flashback or not. I'll get back to you.
OK so it WAS a flashback. More weird dialogue, a conversation nobody would ever have. Seriously, how hard is it to get a normal conversation in this show? Everything is a get-you going speech, overly goofy comic relief, or some inspirational tidbit of dialogue between two characters. I genuinely can't remember a normal conversation in this show.
The episode cuts away from Carol and T-H, who obviously weren't cutting it. Now it's Rick and Darrel in a WW2 dogfight! Nope, it's actually him and Darrell following a Savior Humvee. Rick is in a Jeep, Darrell is on his motorcycle, and they're within 50 feet of the back of the Saviors' Humvee. Guess what, though! The Saviors have planned for this exact scene! The back of the Humvee tips down, lo-and-behold, there's a guy manning a heavy machine gun. Think: the type of thing you see soldiers in Afghanistan firing out of the side of a helicopter. The guy misses 100% of the shots. I was actually laughing during this scene (a rare event outside of select comedies). Rick and Darrell were literally within enough space that, had it not been for roaring engines, the group could've had a dainty conversation about the weather. This was the most poorly written scene I've scene in TWD, bar-none. It was the on-screen equivalent to the experience shortly after binge-eating a bulk-amount of gummy bears (go to Amazon, type in: "bulk gummy bears" and read the reviews. Hilarious!).
The episode ends with T-H, Carol, and T-H's minion walking into a horde of swamp- dwelling walkers and self-induced coups. T-H steps down from his throne and assumes the role of, "I'm just some guy". Note that shortly before this (in the flashback), he was talking to Carol. He told her that he'd accept leadership if it was given to him, but I guess that doesn't matter in nothing-matters-because-Gimple-can't-write-for-his-life Land. Also, the tiger died.
I want to take a second to make a note of something before I get into my take of this episode:
Remember when each episode had its own goal? It was in the earlier seasons, but mostly S1. One episode they rescued Merle, one episode they visited the CDC, another one reunited Rick and Lorry.. It had a pace, and each episode was a story. These days, not so much. It has taken 1.5-ish seasons to even begin to talk about knocking out Negan and we're still no closer to taking him down (another note: That is solely attributed to lazy writing, nothing else). Negan could've been killed quite a few times by now...
Okay, let's get into the episode:
If I have to sit through another hyper-annoying, 1600's, medieval dialect, get-you-going speech from the tiger-handler (what's his name again?), I'm going to go to Amazon and knock out some orders for some bulk gummy bears. Why? Because, you know.. just go read the reviews. That experience would be better than another Scott Gimple-rendition of Inception, in the key of The Walking Dead.
After that speech (or before that..), it cuts to tiger-handler crawling out of underneath his dead body guards (who, for whatever reason, prioritized a guy stuck in the 1600s rather than themselves). There's a rather neat scene where we get a stream of JPegs, then instantly cut back to tiger-handler (I know he has a name, just can't think of it) screaming. It was kinda neat, but came across as a budget shortage more-so than content-loaded cinematography. ***T-H (it's faster than typing tiger-handler and it's what I'll be going with.. but maybe writing this explanation has eaten up all my supposed time savings...) then shoots his way out of a mob of walkers with some suspenseful music and some overused near-miss scenes. ***
...want to hear a fun fact? I literally typed the bit in asterisks before it even happened. I promise you that. I will never promise you something else, it's just that predictable.
About halfway through, Carol is up against some bad guys. The magically bullet proof sheet metal of a car's body saves her life, but only after the bad guys' aim is restored. They (for whatever reason...) couldn't aim at her for the 10 or-so seconds she was running, right to left, about 20 feet away from them. They both had fully-automatic firearms and chose to shoot at the ground, mostly, and a little into the sky. Carol literally could've gone through entirety of the learning-curve of one of those hoverboard things to traverse that distance and she would have been totally A-OK. Maybe even better, actually, it it weren't for everyone having unlimited ammo.
Back to T-H... T-H literally slices the enemy's stomach with a knife and the guy doesn't retaliate, he just takes out a stick, puts it in T-H's face, cranks out some more crappy dialogue, and then someone (a T-H minion) comes along and kills T-H's captor with a sword (again, I typed up to the, "then someone comes along:" without it even happening. Sharknado 12 is less predictable than this).
Over again to Carol, she gets held up by those 3 (or more) guys with machine guns and she manages to escape. Yay, I guess. I'd probably care more if Gimple wasn't trying to force as many characters into the storyline as however many are allowed since Twitter's latest update..
With Carol and T-H after the commercial break... I thought T-H died, but maybe not. I genuinely can't tell if this is a flashback or not. I'll get back to you.
OK so it WAS a flashback. More weird dialogue, a conversation nobody would ever have. Seriously, how hard is it to get a normal conversation in this show? Everything is a get-you going speech, overly goofy comic relief, or some inspirational tidbit of dialogue between two characters. I genuinely can't remember a normal conversation in this show.
The episode cuts away from Carol and T-H, who obviously weren't cutting it. Now it's Rick and Darrel in a WW2 dogfight! Nope, it's actually him and Darrell following a Savior Humvee. Rick is in a Jeep, Darrell is on his motorcycle, and they're within 50 feet of the back of the Saviors' Humvee. Guess what, though! The Saviors have planned for this exact scene! The back of the Humvee tips down, lo-and-behold, there's a guy manning a heavy machine gun. Think: the type of thing you see soldiers in Afghanistan firing out of the side of a helicopter. The guy misses 100% of the shots. I was actually laughing during this scene (a rare event outside of select comedies). Rick and Darrell were literally within enough space that, had it not been for roaring engines, the group could've had a dainty conversation about the weather. This was the most poorly written scene I've scene in TWD, bar-none. It was the on-screen equivalent to the experience shortly after binge-eating a bulk-amount of gummy bears (go to Amazon, type in: "bulk gummy bears" and read the reviews. Hilarious!).
The episode ends with T-H, Carol, and T-H's minion walking into a horde of swamp- dwelling walkers and self-induced coups. T-H steps down from his throne and assumes the role of, "I'm just some guy". Note that shortly before this (in the flashback), he was talking to Carol. He told her that he'd accept leadership if it was given to him, but I guess that doesn't matter in nothing-matters-because-Gimple-can't-write-for-his-life Land. Also, the tiger died.
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