So The Ones Who Live is over and I think it's safe to say this is far and away the best spin-off they've done - and sits easily among the very best this franchise has ever offered. The writing and acting on display here from Danai Gurira and Andrew Lincoln is on par or better than what we saw from them in the original series, and as a result this spinoff did more to make me believe in their relationship in just a few episodes than the entire original series ever did. That said, the final episode definitely felt a bit rushed and kind of disappointing in that regard. However, all in all, I was quite pleased with this short little jaunt and I hope they can keep this level of quality up with the other spinoffs, though I'm doubtful they will.
Reviews
67 Reviews
After Midnight
(2024– )
An attempt was made.
19 January 2024
There are a lot of very funny, very talented people involved in this show and yet, somehow, it's still extremely bad. I really wanted to like this because many of the people involved (including Tomlinson) are quite funny. I was hoping this would be like some of the really great British panel shows (things like 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, Would I Lie To You? Etc) but it's genuinely difficult to sit through this painfully unfunny show. The jokes feel scripted, the laughter feels forced, nothing about this feels organic and fun - the way a good panel show *should* feel - and the whole thing just doesn't justify its existence at all. I cannot imagine this will last more than one season.
Echo
(2023–2024)
Not with a bang, but a whimper.
10 January 2024
Overall I really liked this show, but it suffers from some of the same problems we've seen time and again in most of the other Marvel shows. Namely, too short seasons, too short episodes, and a final episode that just doesn't land like it should.
As with most MCU content, the casting is spot on pretty much across the board. Alaqua Cox is perfect as Maya/Echo, Graham Greene is great as always, Chaske Spencer is believable as Henry and really shines in his scenes, and everyone already knows how great Vincent D'Onofrio is as Wilson Fisk/Kingpin. The only slightly weak character is "Biscuits" (that's got to be a nickname right?) who seems to be in there for charming comedic relief but he doesn't do the best job of fulfilling that role in my opinion - Graham Greene delivers significantly more laughs and oozes charm every time he smiles.
At first I was a little bit put off by the "magic powers" Maya discovers in herself, but as the show progressed I really came to appreciate the reinterpretation of her powers and character as opposed to the comics - where she is basically just Taskmaster but deaf. I think this power set they've given her is not only more interesting than her powers in the comics, but it smartly leans into her Choctaw heritage in a satisfying way that makes her power and ability set unique in a way that she just isn't in the comics. Frankly, this is just better for her character and ultimately can lead to more interesting storytelling than just the Taskmaster wannabe that she is in the comics.
The show starts off pretty strong, with the first episode being the best of the bunch and a recap of sorts to catch people up with Maya's introduction in the Hawkeye show if they didn't watch that. It also features easily the best action scenes of the show - and pretty much all the major action scenes showcased in the trailers leading up to release. Unfortunately, we really only get one more truly satisfying action scene (in episode 3) throughout the rest of the show. It's a shame, because the fight scenes we do get are almost on par with the Netflix Daredevil days - not as good, to be sure, but a clear step in the right direction and something I want to see more of out of these shows going forward. It gives me some hope for the upcoming Daredevil reboot (is it a reboot? Is the original DD show considered canon? From what I've seen Feige and Disney are playing coy on that).
The final episode is where things kind of take a significant downturn for me though. While I did come to appreciate the reimagining of Maya's powers in this show, I *really* didn't like how hokey the final confrontation with Fisk ended up being. They could have done something so much more interesting with her power set in that scene but they really cheesed it up and I just can't wrap my head around why they chose to go that route. It really made this show end on a disappointing sour note for me.
That all having been said though, I did ultimately enjoy the show and am looking forward to seeing more from Echo in the future.
As with most MCU content, the casting is spot on pretty much across the board. Alaqua Cox is perfect as Maya/Echo, Graham Greene is great as always, Chaske Spencer is believable as Henry and really shines in his scenes, and everyone already knows how great Vincent D'Onofrio is as Wilson Fisk/Kingpin. The only slightly weak character is "Biscuits" (that's got to be a nickname right?) who seems to be in there for charming comedic relief but he doesn't do the best job of fulfilling that role in my opinion - Graham Greene delivers significantly more laughs and oozes charm every time he smiles.
At first I was a little bit put off by the "magic powers" Maya discovers in herself, but as the show progressed I really came to appreciate the reinterpretation of her powers and character as opposed to the comics - where she is basically just Taskmaster but deaf. I think this power set they've given her is not only more interesting than her powers in the comics, but it smartly leans into her Choctaw heritage in a satisfying way that makes her power and ability set unique in a way that she just isn't in the comics. Frankly, this is just better for her character and ultimately can lead to more interesting storytelling than just the Taskmaster wannabe that she is in the comics.
The show starts off pretty strong, with the first episode being the best of the bunch and a recap of sorts to catch people up with Maya's introduction in the Hawkeye show if they didn't watch that. It also features easily the best action scenes of the show - and pretty much all the major action scenes showcased in the trailers leading up to release. Unfortunately, we really only get one more truly satisfying action scene (in episode 3) throughout the rest of the show. It's a shame, because the fight scenes we do get are almost on par with the Netflix Daredevil days - not as good, to be sure, but a clear step in the right direction and something I want to see more of out of these shows going forward. It gives me some hope for the upcoming Daredevil reboot (is it a reboot? Is the original DD show considered canon? From what I've seen Feige and Disney are playing coy on that).
The final episode is where things kind of take a significant downturn for me though. While I did come to appreciate the reimagining of Maya's powers in this show, I *really* didn't like how hokey the final confrontation with Fisk ended up being. They could have done something so much more interesting with her power set in that scene but they really cheesed it up and I just can't wrap my head around why they chose to go that route. It really made this show end on a disappointing sour note for me.
That all having been said though, I did ultimately enjoy the show and am looking forward to seeing more from Echo in the future.
A Haunting in Venice
(2023)
The worst of Branagh's Poirot movies - but still decent.
25 December 2023
This is easily the worst of Kenneth Branagh's Poirot movies. The story doesn't hold together quite as well as either Murder on the Orient Express or Death on the Nile - which were well crafted mysteries with tightly told narratives. This, by comparison, is somewhat of a mess of ideas that only barely manages to come together in the end.
Let me start by saying what I liked about this... the acting and directing are very well done - as is to be expected. The movie is a visual treat with lots of nice set design throughout. And in the end, it is a decent enough murder mystery that's sort of vaguely in the style of a proper Hercule Poirot story.
That last bit is kind of the issue though. At times, this is crafted such that it *really* feels like a proper Hercule Poirot story... but at other times it feels like a Scooby Doo episode. The movie leans too heavily toward the "haunting" aspect of the title - and while some of these "spooky / haunting" moments are explained away at the end, some of them simply *CANNOT* be explained away. Upon the conclusion of this movie I immediately researched to see if the original Agatha Christie novel featured this absurd ambiguity surrounding the "haunting" aspect of this film - only to find that there is no such Agatha Christie novel at all. This movie is only very loosely based on a totally different Agatha Christie novel that features no such ridiculous haunting aspects. While I can appreciate the desire to tell a story that goes in a different direction than Agatha Christie fans might expect - I feel like they pushed a little too far into Scooby Doo territory to be taken seriously.
That having been said though, I mostly enjoyed the movie despite some of these issues and I would absolutely recommend it for folks who liked the first two films. But if you're only going to watch one of them - then stick with either of the first two movies because they're both better than this one.
Let me start by saying what I liked about this... the acting and directing are very well done - as is to be expected. The movie is a visual treat with lots of nice set design throughout. And in the end, it is a decent enough murder mystery that's sort of vaguely in the style of a proper Hercule Poirot story.
That last bit is kind of the issue though. At times, this is crafted such that it *really* feels like a proper Hercule Poirot story... but at other times it feels like a Scooby Doo episode. The movie leans too heavily toward the "haunting" aspect of the title - and while some of these "spooky / haunting" moments are explained away at the end, some of them simply *CANNOT* be explained away. Upon the conclusion of this movie I immediately researched to see if the original Agatha Christie novel featured this absurd ambiguity surrounding the "haunting" aspect of this film - only to find that there is no such Agatha Christie novel at all. This movie is only very loosely based on a totally different Agatha Christie novel that features no such ridiculous haunting aspects. While I can appreciate the desire to tell a story that goes in a different direction than Agatha Christie fans might expect - I feel like they pushed a little too far into Scooby Doo territory to be taken seriously.
That having been said though, I mostly enjoyed the movie despite some of these issues and I would absolutely recommend it for folks who liked the first two films. But if you're only going to watch one of them - then stick with either of the first two movies because they're both better than this one.
The Creator
(2023)
Gorgeous sci-fi visuals and solid acting cannot save the train wreck of a script.
30 November 2023
I had heard a lot of buzz about The Creator pre-release and it looked exactly like the sort of sci-fi epic I would really enjoy, so I was pretty excited to watch this when I finally had the opportunity to do so. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't live up to expectations and it's just downright *bad* in some ways.
First, here's the good - the visuals are great. This is a visual treat from beginning to end with a lot of really creative sci-fi spectacle in nearly every single scene. The acting, directing, and cinematography is also on point throughout this film. These are all the reasons I gave this 5 stars, as it would be much, much lower without these strong aspects. Unfortunately, the main problems with this movie come down to the ridiculous script and absolutely absurd overall plot.
I don't want to spoil too much because I think this is a movie that can work for some people even though it did not really work for me...
However, I will say that the overall plot has a lot of problems - in particular with regards to the McGuffin, Alphie. Alphie is the young AI robot (android?) girl played by Madeleine Yuna Voyles (who, it should be noted, turns in an absolutely remarkable performance - especially considering this is her *only* acting credit to date. I suspect she has a long and lucrative career ahead of her should she choose to pursue it) who also happens to be a "weapon" designed by the AI with the special ability that allows her to shut off - and seemingly control to a limited degree - electronics, machines, and weapons within a certain distance of her. Something I just don't understand though is why exactly the AI designed their secret weapon as a little girl - or even a robot at all - and the movie never makes any effort to explain that. There is a short throwaway line about how she is capable of "growing" (how a robot can "grow" is one of many obvious questions the movie just completely dodges) and that her powers will increase as she grows.
This kind of begs the question though... why wouldn't the AI designers just build her "fully grown" so that she already had her maximum powers without having to age into them? The movie makes it abundantly clear that the AI are losing this war and need this secret weapon - Alphie - to save them, so the idea that they'd design a weapon that has to "grow" before it can be fully utilized is beyond ridiculous.
A few other things - again, without being too specific so as not to spoil too much... it tries to make some sort of statement about US military operations abroad, however this gets completely lost in the shuffle and is never clearly conveyed in any meaningful way - it felt like a bad attempt at being as meaningful as District 9. Why are all the AI robots humanoid and doing human tasks like working rice fields? Do the robots need to eat? Why was there a robot that looked like Maya on the NOMAD at the end? Joshua (John David Washington) was married to Maya (Gemma Chan) yet somehow had no idea she was Nirmata the whole time? He was literally sent in undercover in order to locate Nirmata and he was *MARRIED* to her?! Talk about being bad at your job.
Suffice to say, this is a really great example of the phrase "beauty is only skin deep" - the movie is eye candy for sure, but beyond that, there's just no real depth here.
I really, really wish I could say it was better than this.
First, here's the good - the visuals are great. This is a visual treat from beginning to end with a lot of really creative sci-fi spectacle in nearly every single scene. The acting, directing, and cinematography is also on point throughout this film. These are all the reasons I gave this 5 stars, as it would be much, much lower without these strong aspects. Unfortunately, the main problems with this movie come down to the ridiculous script and absolutely absurd overall plot.
I don't want to spoil too much because I think this is a movie that can work for some people even though it did not really work for me...
However, I will say that the overall plot has a lot of problems - in particular with regards to the McGuffin, Alphie. Alphie is the young AI robot (android?) girl played by Madeleine Yuna Voyles (who, it should be noted, turns in an absolutely remarkable performance - especially considering this is her *only* acting credit to date. I suspect she has a long and lucrative career ahead of her should she choose to pursue it) who also happens to be a "weapon" designed by the AI with the special ability that allows her to shut off - and seemingly control to a limited degree - electronics, machines, and weapons within a certain distance of her. Something I just don't understand though is why exactly the AI designed their secret weapon as a little girl - or even a robot at all - and the movie never makes any effort to explain that. There is a short throwaway line about how she is capable of "growing" (how a robot can "grow" is one of many obvious questions the movie just completely dodges) and that her powers will increase as she grows.
This kind of begs the question though... why wouldn't the AI designers just build her "fully grown" so that she already had her maximum powers without having to age into them? The movie makes it abundantly clear that the AI are losing this war and need this secret weapon - Alphie - to save them, so the idea that they'd design a weapon that has to "grow" before it can be fully utilized is beyond ridiculous.
A few other things - again, without being too specific so as not to spoil too much... it tries to make some sort of statement about US military operations abroad, however this gets completely lost in the shuffle and is never clearly conveyed in any meaningful way - it felt like a bad attempt at being as meaningful as District 9. Why are all the AI robots humanoid and doing human tasks like working rice fields? Do the robots need to eat? Why was there a robot that looked like Maya on the NOMAD at the end? Joshua (John David Washington) was married to Maya (Gemma Chan) yet somehow had no idea she was Nirmata the whole time? He was literally sent in undercover in order to locate Nirmata and he was *MARRIED* to her?! Talk about being bad at your job.
Suffice to say, this is a really great example of the phrase "beauty is only skin deep" - the movie is eye candy for sure, but beyond that, there's just no real depth here.
I really, really wish I could say it was better than this.
Meow.
19 November 2023
Warning: Spoilers
This conclusion was better than I expected, but it was still a mess.
Troy's men finally attack PADRE. They unload a horde of walkers from a barge off shore, then they blow apart PADRE's walls using "grenade launchers" according to Russell - we'll just ignore the fact that grenade launchers would in no way be powerful enough to blow apart 10 foot thick walls.
Meanwhile Madison, Strand, Daniel, Luci, Tracy, and the three ladies from the Alicia cult are pinned down in an auto shop by a horde of walkers. They engage in a lot of overly dramatic dialog during which Madison learns that Alicia might actually be alive. Eventually this group splits up with Madison and Tracy set to go find Alicia.
Tracy decides she doesn't want anything to do with Madison though, and shoots her, leaving her for dead, before they leave the auto shop. She then wanders around until she finds and shoots Troy's walking corpse before burying him (she presumably dug the grave with her bare hands because she sure doesn't have a shovel or any other digging equipment).
Strand shows up and tells Tracy that Madison saved everyone in PADRE in basically the same way she did back at the stadium in season 4.
Tracy somehow finds Madison and they're both hanging out at the beach now. Tracy says she "dragged" Madison there on a stretcher. Once again, the children of Fear have incredible strength, being able to drag adults more than twice their size over large distances.
Tracy and Madison have a little heart to heart before, suddenly, Alicia shows up out of literally effing nowhere. She has a wooden arm now. Her reunion with Madison is hilariously unsatisfying and almost entirely devoid of any real emotion. I've seen people have more emotional reunions at airports before.
The three of them sit around in a tent on the beach and have the most boring conversation of all time.
Meow.
Skidmark, Daniel's cat from... season 5, I think? - is in Alicia's pack. She's been wandering around looking for Daniel so she can give him his cat back.
Seriously? AI really is writing this show, right? It has to be. This is beyond insane.
Almost as an afterthought it's revealed that Tracy isn't actually Alicia's daughter. Gee, who could have possibly guessed that? Besides, of course, literally everyone who knew Alicia wasn't pregnant the last time they saw her and, based on that fact alone, would know that Tracy is way too old to be Alicia's daughter.
We catch up with the rest of the group, splitting up, saying their goodbyes, etc.
Meow.
Skidmark shows up and reunites with Daniel. If they didn't literally show Alicia with Skidmark mere moments ago, I would assume Daniel ran out of his Yerba maté and was having a hallucination brought on by his advanced senility. I think that would have pleased me more.
Alicia, Madison, and Tracy decide to head off to LA. Fade to black. Finally this show is over.
Honestly, the most astonishing thing about this ending to me is that Alycia Debnam-Carey actually came back to the finale of this complete disaster of a show.
Troy's men finally attack PADRE. They unload a horde of walkers from a barge off shore, then they blow apart PADRE's walls using "grenade launchers" according to Russell - we'll just ignore the fact that grenade launchers would in no way be powerful enough to blow apart 10 foot thick walls.
Meanwhile Madison, Strand, Daniel, Luci, Tracy, and the three ladies from the Alicia cult are pinned down in an auto shop by a horde of walkers. They engage in a lot of overly dramatic dialog during which Madison learns that Alicia might actually be alive. Eventually this group splits up with Madison and Tracy set to go find Alicia.
Tracy decides she doesn't want anything to do with Madison though, and shoots her, leaving her for dead, before they leave the auto shop. She then wanders around until she finds and shoots Troy's walking corpse before burying him (she presumably dug the grave with her bare hands because she sure doesn't have a shovel or any other digging equipment).
Strand shows up and tells Tracy that Madison saved everyone in PADRE in basically the same way she did back at the stadium in season 4.
Tracy somehow finds Madison and they're both hanging out at the beach now. Tracy says she "dragged" Madison there on a stretcher. Once again, the children of Fear have incredible strength, being able to drag adults more than twice their size over large distances.
Tracy and Madison have a little heart to heart before, suddenly, Alicia shows up out of literally effing nowhere. She has a wooden arm now. Her reunion with Madison is hilariously unsatisfying and almost entirely devoid of any real emotion. I've seen people have more emotional reunions at airports before.
The three of them sit around in a tent on the beach and have the most boring conversation of all time.
Meow.
Skidmark, Daniel's cat from... season 5, I think? - is in Alicia's pack. She's been wandering around looking for Daniel so she can give him his cat back.
Seriously? AI really is writing this show, right? It has to be. This is beyond insane.
Almost as an afterthought it's revealed that Tracy isn't actually Alicia's daughter. Gee, who could have possibly guessed that? Besides, of course, literally everyone who knew Alicia wasn't pregnant the last time they saw her and, based on that fact alone, would know that Tracy is way too old to be Alicia's daughter.
We catch up with the rest of the group, splitting up, saying their goodbyes, etc.
Meow.
Skidmark shows up and reunites with Daniel. If they didn't literally show Alicia with Skidmark mere moments ago, I would assume Daniel ran out of his Yerba maté and was having a hallucination brought on by his advanced senility. I think that would have pleased me more.
Alicia, Madison, and Tracy decide to head off to LA. Fade to black. Finally this show is over.
Honestly, the most astonishing thing about this ending to me is that Alycia Debnam-Carey actually came back to the finale of this complete disaster of a show.
The penultimate disappointment.
19 November 2023
Warning: Spoilers
The episode opens with Troy's soldiers carrying tape players and, in an absolutely marvelous display of synchronicity, they're all playing the same cassette tape at the same time. I've previously criticized this show for trivializing how easy it would be to find things like batteries and fuel this far into the zombie apocalypse as even the other shows in the Walking Dead universe have mostly been using horses and other means of transportation for a while now, but somehow fuel scarcity doesn't affect those in the Fear universe. However, what I find almost as ridiculous is that these soldiers somehow managed to find 5 copies of an identical cassette tape - Mountain's Mississippi Queen - so they could play it together to lure the walkers toward PADRE.
Now, I dunno about any of you, but finding a cassette tape *TODAY* is not the easiest thing to do - I can't imagine finding 5 identical copies of the same cassette tape 15+ years into the zombie apocalypse. Never mind that all they really had to do was pop a single cassette into one of their vehicles and use the stereo in that instead of this ridiculous portable stereo setup they were doing. Anyway, that's a minor thing but just indicative of how little thought goes into making this show even remotely plausible.
In the next scene we have Troy and his daughter (Tracy) in a pickup truck driving slowly along the road, leading a large horde of walkers toward PADRE. At some point they drive over a boobytrap in the road which triggers a giant log that swings out from beside the road and smashes into the side of the pickup, sending it hurtling into the trees on the opposite side of the road. There are several issues with this scene but I'll focus only on the two big ones...
First of all, the log trap smashed directly into the passengers side of the pickup - it would have squished Tracy into a bloody paste - but somehow she escapes entirely unscathed. Presumably Tracy possesses some sort of teleportation power that allowed her to escape the vehicle at the moment it was struck by the trap, I can't think of any other way she could have possibly survived this. Marvel's X-Men mutants in the Walking Dead universe confirmed? Troy didn't fair as well though, as he is impaled by a tree branch and pinned to the drivers seat of the vehicle, unable to move.
Tracy is standing safely outside of the vehicle when Troy wakes up. She tells him that he's been "unconscious for hours" - here's where the second major problem with this scene comes into play... They were literally leading a horde of walkers mere feet from the back of their truck at the time that it was hit by this trap. If Troy had truly been unconscious "for hours" as Tracy said, he would have already been walker chow, as that entire horde would have surrounded the wreckage of their vehicle and ripped them both apart by now.
Troy tells Tracy she needs to go find Russell but she refuses to go to Russell because she doesn't want to leave her dad. Instead, she decides she'll go "find help" for Troy. This is just hilarious because, again, we're 15+ years into a zombie apocalypse. It's not like help is right around the corner when something like this happens. It's not like you can just run out into the road and stumble upon somebody to help you...
Oh, wait... that's exactly what happens. Madison, driving the MRAP, stops somewhere along the road and gets out to have a little chat with Strand. While she's talking to him, Tracy hops into the back of the MRAP to use the radio and call for help. Madison confronts her and gets her to say where Troy is - then Madison heads off to finally kill Troy.
How ridiculously contrived.
So Madison makes it to Troy, they have a little chat about Alicia, and Troy's wife, etc. Nothing much of consequence is really said here, it's just mellow dramatic nonsense for the sake of it. Eventually Troy tries to escape but falls into the most conveniently placed pit trap of all time. It's revealed that this pit trap was dug by Crane - of the OG PADRE crew - how exactly he knew that anyone would be running through the woods at this exact location, at this exact time, so he could be there to catch them in this trap - well... I guess we'll never know. If only Madison and Troy had Crane's father's binoculars they could have "seen what's coming" and avoided these absurd traps.
Crane takes Madison and Troy hostage and demands that they help him retake PADRE. There's some bad dialog and threats before Daniel and Luci show up. Some nonsense happens and then Crane chases Madison and Troy over an old rope bridge (that looks like it's from the cutting room floor of an Indiana Jones movie) suspended over a swamp full of walkers. Crane cuts the rope as Madison and Troy are crossing and they fall in. Crane stops to gloat a bit and then walkers appear out of nowhere and eat him. Yawn.
Blah blah blah. Stuff happens. The horde is broken up. Blah blah. More stuff happens. They debate whether they should give Troy a second chance. In the end though, Madison stabs him with Alicia's severed arm just before Troy reveals the most predictable "twist" of all time - Tracy is Alicia's daughter and Madison's granddaughter.
Wow. What a twist. It was so shocking I couldn't stop rolling my eyes and laughing. Truly amazing stuff here. There's just one problem... Tracy is too old to be Alicia's daughter and literally anyone who knew Alicia wasn't pregnant at the time they last saw her would know that immediately.
The AI that writes this show should be proud.
Now, I dunno about any of you, but finding a cassette tape *TODAY* is not the easiest thing to do - I can't imagine finding 5 identical copies of the same cassette tape 15+ years into the zombie apocalypse. Never mind that all they really had to do was pop a single cassette into one of their vehicles and use the stereo in that instead of this ridiculous portable stereo setup they were doing. Anyway, that's a minor thing but just indicative of how little thought goes into making this show even remotely plausible.
In the next scene we have Troy and his daughter (Tracy) in a pickup truck driving slowly along the road, leading a large horde of walkers toward PADRE. At some point they drive over a boobytrap in the road which triggers a giant log that swings out from beside the road and smashes into the side of the pickup, sending it hurtling into the trees on the opposite side of the road. There are several issues with this scene but I'll focus only on the two big ones...
First of all, the log trap smashed directly into the passengers side of the pickup - it would have squished Tracy into a bloody paste - but somehow she escapes entirely unscathed. Presumably Tracy possesses some sort of teleportation power that allowed her to escape the vehicle at the moment it was struck by the trap, I can't think of any other way she could have possibly survived this. Marvel's X-Men mutants in the Walking Dead universe confirmed? Troy didn't fair as well though, as he is impaled by a tree branch and pinned to the drivers seat of the vehicle, unable to move.
Tracy is standing safely outside of the vehicle when Troy wakes up. She tells him that he's been "unconscious for hours" - here's where the second major problem with this scene comes into play... They were literally leading a horde of walkers mere feet from the back of their truck at the time that it was hit by this trap. If Troy had truly been unconscious "for hours" as Tracy said, he would have already been walker chow, as that entire horde would have surrounded the wreckage of their vehicle and ripped them both apart by now.
Troy tells Tracy she needs to go find Russell but she refuses to go to Russell because she doesn't want to leave her dad. Instead, she decides she'll go "find help" for Troy. This is just hilarious because, again, we're 15+ years into a zombie apocalypse. It's not like help is right around the corner when something like this happens. It's not like you can just run out into the road and stumble upon somebody to help you...
Oh, wait... that's exactly what happens. Madison, driving the MRAP, stops somewhere along the road and gets out to have a little chat with Strand. While she's talking to him, Tracy hops into the back of the MRAP to use the radio and call for help. Madison confronts her and gets her to say where Troy is - then Madison heads off to finally kill Troy.
How ridiculously contrived.
So Madison makes it to Troy, they have a little chat about Alicia, and Troy's wife, etc. Nothing much of consequence is really said here, it's just mellow dramatic nonsense for the sake of it. Eventually Troy tries to escape but falls into the most conveniently placed pit trap of all time. It's revealed that this pit trap was dug by Crane - of the OG PADRE crew - how exactly he knew that anyone would be running through the woods at this exact location, at this exact time, so he could be there to catch them in this trap - well... I guess we'll never know. If only Madison and Troy had Crane's father's binoculars they could have "seen what's coming" and avoided these absurd traps.
Crane takes Madison and Troy hostage and demands that they help him retake PADRE. There's some bad dialog and threats before Daniel and Luci show up. Some nonsense happens and then Crane chases Madison and Troy over an old rope bridge (that looks like it's from the cutting room floor of an Indiana Jones movie) suspended over a swamp full of walkers. Crane cuts the rope as Madison and Troy are crossing and they fall in. Crane stops to gloat a bit and then walkers appear out of nowhere and eat him. Yawn.
Blah blah blah. Stuff happens. The horde is broken up. Blah blah. More stuff happens. They debate whether they should give Troy a second chance. In the end though, Madison stabs him with Alicia's severed arm just before Troy reveals the most predictable "twist" of all time - Tracy is Alicia's daughter and Madison's granddaughter.
Wow. What a twist. It was so shocking I couldn't stop rolling my eyes and laughing. Truly amazing stuff here. There's just one problem... Tracy is too old to be Alicia's daughter and literally anyone who knew Alicia wasn't pregnant at the time they last saw her would know that immediately.
The AI that writes this show should be proud.
I can almost see rock bottom.
13 November 2023
Warning: Spoilers
When Madison returned to the show I hoped it might get better, maybe even end on a high note - and for the briefest of moments it actually did. But if this episode is any indication, Fear will continue to disappoint over the final two episodes.
Here are just some of the absurd ideas, scenes, contrivances, and ridiculous coincidences in this episode...
Tracy dives into the water and somehow swims to shore while her hands are tied and she's wearing clothes and a jacket - this would be an astonishingly difficult swim for a child of her size and age even if her hands weren't tied.
Tracy just happens to be wearing the necklace that Strand gave to Alicia (and, if memory serves, Daniel gave to Strand). Gee. I can't wait to see the reveal as to why that is.
Only moments after being abandoned by Madison, Victor just happens to run into the MRAP - speaking of which, how on earth is that thing still functioning after 15+ years into the zombie apocalypse? It takes a *LOT* of maintenance to keep one of those things operational, fueled up, and fully loaded. Anyway, it's being driven by a handful of women who started an Alicia Clark cult. Uh... ok...? Also these women all look like they just picked up their clothes brand new off the shelves at Apocalypse R Us. Not to mention their perfectly styled hairdos. Did they stop at the Salon to get a perm and mani-pedi before fueling up the MRAP to go looking for Strand? I NEED ANSWERS!!
Sherry's *WHITE* jacket is spotless even though it was completely covered in blood and gore just one episode ago.
Madison spends her time rocking out to Motley Crue in the woods while slaughtering zombies with her sledge hammer. I'm sure this scene was meant to be "badass" but it was just ridiculous. First of all - where on earth is she finding batteries to power that tape player? Secondly, swinging a sledge around that much would completely exhaust her and would probably damage her back after a while. That she's using a sledge hammer as her primary weapon - instead of an improvised weapon of necessity - really just speaks to her extreme stupidity as there are countless better options that would allow her to fend off many more zombies without using up all of her energy. Michonne really needs to introduce Madison to a sword. Or even just a knife.
Also the main characters all distrust and betray each other, switching allegiances multiple times in this episode - this has been a running theme with this show since the earliest seasons but jeez oh man it feels like it's happening much more frequently in these final episodes.
A production error but the maps they're using are all modern maps - not from 15+ years ago. You can literally see the year the map was printed (2020) on one of them.
I could go on and on but meh. At this point if you're still watching this show it's either because you've got the same morbid curiosity I do or, for reasons probably best left unsaid, you actually like this garbage.
Two episodes to go. As much as I hate this show I will be sad when it ends.
Here are just some of the absurd ideas, scenes, contrivances, and ridiculous coincidences in this episode...
Tracy dives into the water and somehow swims to shore while her hands are tied and she's wearing clothes and a jacket - this would be an astonishingly difficult swim for a child of her size and age even if her hands weren't tied.
Tracy just happens to be wearing the necklace that Strand gave to Alicia (and, if memory serves, Daniel gave to Strand). Gee. I can't wait to see the reveal as to why that is.
Only moments after being abandoned by Madison, Victor just happens to run into the MRAP - speaking of which, how on earth is that thing still functioning after 15+ years into the zombie apocalypse? It takes a *LOT* of maintenance to keep one of those things operational, fueled up, and fully loaded. Anyway, it's being driven by a handful of women who started an Alicia Clark cult. Uh... ok...? Also these women all look like they just picked up their clothes brand new off the shelves at Apocalypse R Us. Not to mention their perfectly styled hairdos. Did they stop at the Salon to get a perm and mani-pedi before fueling up the MRAP to go looking for Strand? I NEED ANSWERS!!
Sherry's *WHITE* jacket is spotless even though it was completely covered in blood and gore just one episode ago.
Madison spends her time rocking out to Motley Crue in the woods while slaughtering zombies with her sledge hammer. I'm sure this scene was meant to be "badass" but it was just ridiculous. First of all - where on earth is she finding batteries to power that tape player? Secondly, swinging a sledge around that much would completely exhaust her and would probably damage her back after a while. That she's using a sledge hammer as her primary weapon - instead of an improvised weapon of necessity - really just speaks to her extreme stupidity as there are countless better options that would allow her to fend off many more zombies without using up all of her energy. Michonne really needs to introduce Madison to a sword. Or even just a knife.
Also the main characters all distrust and betray each other, switching allegiances multiple times in this episode - this has been a running theme with this show since the earliest seasons but jeez oh man it feels like it's happening much more frequently in these final episodes.
A production error but the maps they're using are all modern maps - not from 15+ years ago. You can literally see the year the map was printed (2020) on one of them.
I could go on and on but meh. At this point if you're still watching this show it's either because you've got the same morbid curiosity I do or, for reasons probably best left unsaid, you actually like this garbage.
Two episodes to go. As much as I hate this show I will be sad when it ends.
The Sh*tuary.
10 November 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Wow what a terrible episode. The best thing about this episode is that once in a while you can catch the actors cracking a smile and trying not to laugh at the absolute absurdity of everything going on. I kind of hope to get to see bloopers for this episode some day as I imagine they kept laughing while trying to deliver their ridiculous lines. The entire episode is nonsense from top to bottom...
First Dwight goes "home" - his pre-zombie apocalypse home, that is, which is *WAY* back in Virginia - more than 340 miles from Ossabaw Island (the location of PADRE). I can accept him making that lengthy trip, even though it seems a bit unlikely, but he's eventually joined by Sherry, June, and Dove who say they've come to get him because PADRE is about to be attacked by Troy and he's the only person all the kids will listen to so he needs to come back in order to be a general for their child army in this war. I'd love to know how they managed to find fuel for the truck they're driving as I know they'd have to fill that thing up a minimum of 2 or 3 times to make that round trip journey, but hey, this is Fear and they've been playing it fast and loose with distances between these locations for years now so I guess in the world of the Walking Dead the United States is only about 1/8th the size it is in real life. Gotta love it.
Anyway, before Sherry and the gang arrive, he encounters a guy that needs insulin - we're about 15 years into the apocalypse and we're supposed to believe that insulin dependent diabetics would still be alive? Let alone that insulin would still be around? I know they tried to explain this by having the guy say that someone in his group knew how to make it but... come on now. Insulin is not an easy thing to just make yourself - there's a reason people lose their minds over the cost of insulin today - that's not something that'd be an issue if just anyone could make it at home. But not only are we supposed to believe this insulin dependent diabetic is still alive and still has access to insulin, but that he just happened to know a guy that was able to manufacture it 15 years into a zombie apocalypse? Come on now. Anyway, that guy dies because of course he does and then Dwight begs Daryl, who isn't even around, to just kill him already.
The rest of the episode is a lot of saccharine, over-dramatic nonsense between Dwight, Sherry, June, and Dove - while a group of post-apocalyptic bandits try to murder them.
The sanctuary collapses and the heroes of the story ride it out by hiding inside a furnace. Miraculously, the entire horde of walkers is killed by the collapsing building but the furnace they hid inside of isn't even dented by any falling debris, nor is any debris blocking their one and only exit. It's clear they were protected by the spirit of their dead son or something though because at the end of it all they see a finch perched above them and that was his made up code name, remember?
Also, Dwight whittled a new finger for June out of a chess piece because Jenna Elfman is getting tired of having to tape her finger to her palm for every episode.
Finally, at the end, we see Che Guevara - sorry... I mean Victor Strand, setting up a bedroom for Troy's daughter that he had his German militia kidnap. He's no doubt going to do something cartoonishly evil in the next few episodes.
I will say, as much as I think this show is terrible, I kind of do appreciate that they've made these main core characters very unlikeable and borderline evil. They are not paragons of morality by any means - they're almost all very flawed individuals who do really awful things and are arguably even the bad guys much of the time. There's something interesting about that as a concept but the writers never really take it anywhere satisfying, which is a real shame.
Anyway, we're almost at the end now. Just a few episodes left...
First Dwight goes "home" - his pre-zombie apocalypse home, that is, which is *WAY* back in Virginia - more than 340 miles from Ossabaw Island (the location of PADRE). I can accept him making that lengthy trip, even though it seems a bit unlikely, but he's eventually joined by Sherry, June, and Dove who say they've come to get him because PADRE is about to be attacked by Troy and he's the only person all the kids will listen to so he needs to come back in order to be a general for their child army in this war. I'd love to know how they managed to find fuel for the truck they're driving as I know they'd have to fill that thing up a minimum of 2 or 3 times to make that round trip journey, but hey, this is Fear and they've been playing it fast and loose with distances between these locations for years now so I guess in the world of the Walking Dead the United States is only about 1/8th the size it is in real life. Gotta love it.
Anyway, before Sherry and the gang arrive, he encounters a guy that needs insulin - we're about 15 years into the apocalypse and we're supposed to believe that insulin dependent diabetics would still be alive? Let alone that insulin would still be around? I know they tried to explain this by having the guy say that someone in his group knew how to make it but... come on now. Insulin is not an easy thing to just make yourself - there's a reason people lose their minds over the cost of insulin today - that's not something that'd be an issue if just anyone could make it at home. But not only are we supposed to believe this insulin dependent diabetic is still alive and still has access to insulin, but that he just happened to know a guy that was able to manufacture it 15 years into a zombie apocalypse? Come on now. Anyway, that guy dies because of course he does and then Dwight begs Daryl, who isn't even around, to just kill him already.
The rest of the episode is a lot of saccharine, over-dramatic nonsense between Dwight, Sherry, June, and Dove - while a group of post-apocalyptic bandits try to murder them.
The sanctuary collapses and the heroes of the story ride it out by hiding inside a furnace. Miraculously, the entire horde of walkers is killed by the collapsing building but the furnace they hid inside of isn't even dented by any falling debris, nor is any debris blocking their one and only exit. It's clear they were protected by the spirit of their dead son or something though because at the end of it all they see a finch perched above them and that was his made up code name, remember?
Also, Dwight whittled a new finger for June out of a chess piece because Jenna Elfman is getting tired of having to tape her finger to her palm for every episode.
Finally, at the end, we see Che Guevara - sorry... I mean Victor Strand, setting up a bedroom for Troy's daughter that he had his German militia kidnap. He's no doubt going to do something cartoonishly evil in the next few episodes.
I will say, as much as I think this show is terrible, I kind of do appreciate that they've made these main core characters very unlikeable and borderline evil. They are not paragons of morality by any means - they're almost all very flawed individuals who do really awful things and are arguably even the bad guys much of the time. There's something interesting about that as a concept but the writers never really take it anywhere satisfying, which is a real shame.
Anyway, we're almost at the end now. Just a few episodes left...
Iron Tiger Review
30 October 2023
Warning: Spoilers
It's astonishing how much better this show is with Kim Dickens in the lead. I mean, it's still Fear, so it's not *great* - but this show never should have written her out back in season 4. Kim Dickens - Madison Clark - *IS* this entire show. She is what binds it all together and what drives the plot forward in a meaningful direction. I really wonder if this show might have eventually been good had she never been written out to begin with. What's wild is I don't even think Kim Dickens is a very good actor - Lennie James was a much better actor in my opinion - but her character and the stories they tell with her are just so much more interesting than anything they ever did with Morgan.
This show might actually end up going out on a high note. I never thought I'd say that.
This show might actually end up going out on a high note. I never thought I'd say that.
This show has been pretty decent until this episode.
2 October 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Thus far this show has been pretty decent for the most part, but this episode was not very good and it worryingly demonstrates some of the worst storytelling sins of past Walking Dead spin-offs - particularly Fear. Let's break down just a couple of those...
1) Laurent makes his way to the Eiffel Tower and is immediately surrounded by walkers that break through barriers below the tower. Anyone with even the slightest survival instinct would turn around and run away as soon as the walkers start to break through the barriers - but not Laurent, oh no. Laurent instead decides that the best idea is to hide under a piece of flimsy sheet metal while Daryl and Isabelle kill the walkers that have completely surrounded them. Meanwhile, a couple of guys sent by Laurent's dad show up to abduct Laurent and take him back to daddy. They were able to rush into the crowd of walkers and grab Laurent but, for some reason, Daryl and Isabelle weren't able to do that despite being there long before these two guys. Nothing about this scene made any sense at all.
2) Daryl and Isabelle capture one of the two men that abducted Laurent. They tie him up and start interrogating him to figure out how to get into the compound where Laurent was taken. While doing this, Daryl stabs the guy 5 times in the chest and belly with an old screwdriver while telling a story about "little Jimmy" and his piglet. It's actually a really effective scene and Norman Reedus plays it out exceptionally well. However, they immediately undermine the entire thing because Daryl decides that they're going to take this guy with them so he can show them how to get into the compound through a secret back entrance. This guy would have never been able to go with them to find this place because he would have bled to death - heck, he would have barely been able to even move after the wounds he suffered - but not only does he go with them, walking around just fine as if he wasn't just stabbed 5 times in the chest, but he even fights off Daryl at one point and sprints away (only to be immediately eaten by walkers). This is the sort of thing Fear kept doing as well where a character will suffer a severe life threatening injury in one scene, only to be moving around totally fine with no sign of being injured at all in the very next scene. It's a shame, because the actual interrogation scene was done so well but everything after it was trash.
I'm worried that kind of garbage is going to continue and get even more ridiculous as the show progresses. If it does, this show will eventually become just as absurd as Fear before it.
1) Laurent makes his way to the Eiffel Tower and is immediately surrounded by walkers that break through barriers below the tower. Anyone with even the slightest survival instinct would turn around and run away as soon as the walkers start to break through the barriers - but not Laurent, oh no. Laurent instead decides that the best idea is to hide under a piece of flimsy sheet metal while Daryl and Isabelle kill the walkers that have completely surrounded them. Meanwhile, a couple of guys sent by Laurent's dad show up to abduct Laurent and take him back to daddy. They were able to rush into the crowd of walkers and grab Laurent but, for some reason, Daryl and Isabelle weren't able to do that despite being there long before these two guys. Nothing about this scene made any sense at all.
2) Daryl and Isabelle capture one of the two men that abducted Laurent. They tie him up and start interrogating him to figure out how to get into the compound where Laurent was taken. While doing this, Daryl stabs the guy 5 times in the chest and belly with an old screwdriver while telling a story about "little Jimmy" and his piglet. It's actually a really effective scene and Norman Reedus plays it out exceptionally well. However, they immediately undermine the entire thing because Daryl decides that they're going to take this guy with them so he can show them how to get into the compound through a secret back entrance. This guy would have never been able to go with them to find this place because he would have bled to death - heck, he would have barely been able to even move after the wounds he suffered - but not only does he go with them, walking around just fine as if he wasn't just stabbed 5 times in the chest, but he even fights off Daryl at one point and sprints away (only to be immediately eaten by walkers). This is the sort of thing Fear kept doing as well where a character will suffer a severe life threatening injury in one scene, only to be moving around totally fine with no sign of being injured at all in the very next scene. It's a shame, because the actual interrogation scene was done so well but everything after it was trash.
I'm worried that kind of garbage is going to continue and get even more ridiculous as the show progresses. If it does, this show will eventually become just as absurd as Fear before it.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon
(2023– )
Off to a decent start but I'm not fully on board yet
11 September 2023
I have a love / hate relationship with The Walking Dead universe - mostly hate when it comes to the spinoffs though. Fear is easily one of the worst scripted television shows of all time (especially everything after season 4). World Beyond had some interesting ideas but didn't deliver on any of them, and many of the characters were absolutely insufferable. Tales was both good and bad, a nice break from the standard Walking Dead formula that wasn't afraid to play around with bold new ideas - some of those ideas were great while some were downright awful. And Dead City had it's moments, though ultimately I ended up not liking it that much.
Given all that, I expected the eponymous Daryl Dixon spinoff to be garbage - especially since Daryl is somewhat of a boring character on his own (sorry Daryl fans, but it's true). So far though, this is off to a much better start than I expected.
The premiere episode did a whole lot of work setting up this new environment and the characters within it, and it did most of it very well. There's some intrigue baked into this right from the start, with questions about how Daryl ended up all the way in France and how he's going to manage to get home (or even *if* he'll manage it). On top of that, the first episode does a good job laying down a clear outline of where this season intends to take us - giving clear goals and motivations for all of the characters. Daryl has fallen in with a couple of nuns who have tasked him with escorting a young man up to the north of France. Meanwhile he's being hunted by an angry Frenchman out for revenge for Daryl killing his brother, as well as a mysterious group of people who apparently have something to do with Daryl finding himself in France - and, interestingly, appear to be performing some kind of experiments with walkers.
The only criticisms I have are minor thus far. First of all, the initial fight Daryl gets into with the walkers seemed quite contrived. There's no way Daryl would have been so sloppy and stupid as he was in that fight. I understand they're eager to introduce these new walkers and they need to wound Daryl so he'll end up at the convent at some point to be healed - but still, it just wasn't believable for his character to have been so incredibly sloppy in that encounter. Secondly, I am somewhat concerned about the direction they're clearly going with this... a gruff older man begrudgingly accepts a task to escort a teenager on a cross country journey with the promise that this teenager is "special" and will "save the world" - this all sounds very much like the plot of The Last of Us - and while I can admit this was a good premiere episode, it doesn't even hold a candle to The Last of Us (and it also marks at *least* the second time a Walking Dead spinoff has directly ripped off details from The Last of Us - the first being the Rat King in Dead City).
Anyway, if nothing else, I am at least intrigued to see where this goes. I really hope it doesn't fall victim to the awful writing that destroyed Fear though.
Given all that, I expected the eponymous Daryl Dixon spinoff to be garbage - especially since Daryl is somewhat of a boring character on his own (sorry Daryl fans, but it's true). So far though, this is off to a much better start than I expected.
The premiere episode did a whole lot of work setting up this new environment and the characters within it, and it did most of it very well. There's some intrigue baked into this right from the start, with questions about how Daryl ended up all the way in France and how he's going to manage to get home (or even *if* he'll manage it). On top of that, the first episode does a good job laying down a clear outline of where this season intends to take us - giving clear goals and motivations for all of the characters. Daryl has fallen in with a couple of nuns who have tasked him with escorting a young man up to the north of France. Meanwhile he's being hunted by an angry Frenchman out for revenge for Daryl killing his brother, as well as a mysterious group of people who apparently have something to do with Daryl finding himself in France - and, interestingly, appear to be performing some kind of experiments with walkers.
The only criticisms I have are minor thus far. First of all, the initial fight Daryl gets into with the walkers seemed quite contrived. There's no way Daryl would have been so sloppy and stupid as he was in that fight. I understand they're eager to introduce these new walkers and they need to wound Daryl so he'll end up at the convent at some point to be healed - but still, it just wasn't believable for his character to have been so incredibly sloppy in that encounter. Secondly, I am somewhat concerned about the direction they're clearly going with this... a gruff older man begrudgingly accepts a task to escort a teenager on a cross country journey with the promise that this teenager is "special" and will "save the world" - this all sounds very much like the plot of The Last of Us - and while I can admit this was a good premiere episode, it doesn't even hold a candle to The Last of Us (and it also marks at *least* the second time a Walking Dead spinoff has directly ripped off details from The Last of Us - the first being the Rat King in Dead City).
Anyway, if nothing else, I am at least intrigued to see where this goes. I really hope it doesn't fall victim to the awful writing that destroyed Fear though.
Ahsoka
(2023– )
I wanted to like this but I just couldn't...
24 August 2023
I sincerely hoped to come away with a favorable opinion of this show and it's characters, but now that the season has run its course I can say that didn't happen.
As somebody who has never watched any of the animated Star Wars shows (aside from Visions - which I didn't much like), I came into this only vaguely familiar with the existence of Ahsoka and her friends. I knew only what tiny bits of information I've randomly picked up online over the years - and that's really not much, because I never sought it out. That said, I think the first episode did a pretty good job of introducing Ahsoka to newcomers like me - it made her seem like a competent, confident, and skilled Jedi - someone who speaks softly but carries a large (glowing) stick. Ahsoka is a Jedi the likes of which we haven't seen for some time - and that's nice. Unfortunately, the show didn't build upon any of that in subsequent episodes. Ahsoka doesn't really go through any kind of arc throughout this entire season - that's a problem, because the show is literally named after her.
I started off this season feeling like I really didn't know any of these characters - especially the villains - but it seemed like the show expected me to already be familiar with many of these people. Who is Admiral Thrawn and why is he supposed to be so scary? Why was he banished (and how, for that matter)? Who banished him? What about Ezra? Now, at the end of the season, I can say that I still don't really feel like I know these characters. I do not understand why Thrawn is so feared - he seemed like a fairly interesting villain but he has so little screen time and does so little through this season that I reached the end still not understanding why he has everyone on edge.
Baylan and Shin - both interesting antagonists - are basically cast aside in the final episodes and their entire storyline is left hanging, without any resolution at all.
I also don't understand why anyone cares about Ezra. In fact, it seems the actors playing Ezra's friends don't understand it either because not a single one of them seemed particularly thrilled upon seeing him again after so long - I've seen people have more emotional reunions in airports before.
Sabine Wren is the only character that does have an arc - it's pretty barebones, but it's there. She grows and is changed by this experience - she's in a different place by the end of the season. It's a shame the same can't be said of Ahsoka - or any of the other characters.
I imagine none of this is a problem for folks who watched the 200+ episodes of animated Star Wars shows featuring Ahsoka and her friends - but I'm not keen on doing that kind of homework to understand what's going on here and this show did a miserable job making people like me care.
Also, the show is guilty of a lot of contrived and ridiculous moments. For example, during episode 2 our heroes try to extract data from a droid's severed head, and in so doing they literally risk setting off what is basically a nuclear device in a hospital that is in the middle of a large city. There is *NO REASON* to take this kind of risk when there is a massive empty desert all around them that they could take this device to before attempting to do this. This kind of writing worries me because it not only makes the heroes look reckless, uncaring, and stupid - but it's also a lazy and cheap way to create tension by inflating the stakes in a scene that just doesn't need it. They could have easily kept the tension by simply saying there was a risk that they'd damage the data and lose it forever - the scene could have then played out almost identically without making the heroes look reckless and dumb. There are more examples of this kind of sloppy writing throughout the season and it's just really disappointing to see.
This show looks and feels like Star Wars in a way that much of the Disney content doesn't - that's definitely a good thing. It's also nice that they're expanding the universe in some way - star whales, the "night sisters" and their dark magik is an interesting counterpoint to the force, reanimating corpses, etc - these are all interesting ideas and they feel at home in the Star Wars universe - for that alone, this series gets some points, but it's not enough to save it in my mind.
Ultimately, I was very disappointed in this show and would not recommend it to anyone, like me, who hasn't seen the related cartoons.
As somebody who has never watched any of the animated Star Wars shows (aside from Visions - which I didn't much like), I came into this only vaguely familiar with the existence of Ahsoka and her friends. I knew only what tiny bits of information I've randomly picked up online over the years - and that's really not much, because I never sought it out. That said, I think the first episode did a pretty good job of introducing Ahsoka to newcomers like me - it made her seem like a competent, confident, and skilled Jedi - someone who speaks softly but carries a large (glowing) stick. Ahsoka is a Jedi the likes of which we haven't seen for some time - and that's nice. Unfortunately, the show didn't build upon any of that in subsequent episodes. Ahsoka doesn't really go through any kind of arc throughout this entire season - that's a problem, because the show is literally named after her.
I started off this season feeling like I really didn't know any of these characters - especially the villains - but it seemed like the show expected me to already be familiar with many of these people. Who is Admiral Thrawn and why is he supposed to be so scary? Why was he banished (and how, for that matter)? Who banished him? What about Ezra? Now, at the end of the season, I can say that I still don't really feel like I know these characters. I do not understand why Thrawn is so feared - he seemed like a fairly interesting villain but he has so little screen time and does so little through this season that I reached the end still not understanding why he has everyone on edge.
Baylan and Shin - both interesting antagonists - are basically cast aside in the final episodes and their entire storyline is left hanging, without any resolution at all.
I also don't understand why anyone cares about Ezra. In fact, it seems the actors playing Ezra's friends don't understand it either because not a single one of them seemed particularly thrilled upon seeing him again after so long - I've seen people have more emotional reunions in airports before.
Sabine Wren is the only character that does have an arc - it's pretty barebones, but it's there. She grows and is changed by this experience - she's in a different place by the end of the season. It's a shame the same can't be said of Ahsoka - or any of the other characters.
I imagine none of this is a problem for folks who watched the 200+ episodes of animated Star Wars shows featuring Ahsoka and her friends - but I'm not keen on doing that kind of homework to understand what's going on here and this show did a miserable job making people like me care.
Also, the show is guilty of a lot of contrived and ridiculous moments. For example, during episode 2 our heroes try to extract data from a droid's severed head, and in so doing they literally risk setting off what is basically a nuclear device in a hospital that is in the middle of a large city. There is *NO REASON* to take this kind of risk when there is a massive empty desert all around them that they could take this device to before attempting to do this. This kind of writing worries me because it not only makes the heroes look reckless, uncaring, and stupid - but it's also a lazy and cheap way to create tension by inflating the stakes in a scene that just doesn't need it. They could have easily kept the tension by simply saying there was a risk that they'd damage the data and lose it forever - the scene could have then played out almost identically without making the heroes look reckless and dumb. There are more examples of this kind of sloppy writing throughout the season and it's just really disappointing to see.
This show looks and feels like Star Wars in a way that much of the Disney content doesn't - that's definitely a good thing. It's also nice that they're expanding the universe in some way - star whales, the "night sisters" and their dark magik is an interesting counterpoint to the force, reanimating corpses, etc - these are all interesting ideas and they feel at home in the Star Wars universe - for that alone, this series gets some points, but it's not enough to save it in my mind.
Ultimately, I was very disappointed in this show and would not recommend it to anyone, like me, who hasn't seen the related cartoons.
Very good episode overall - but I do have concerns...
11 August 2023
I mostly really enjoyed this episode. I think it does "action trek" in pretty much the best way possible - and that's definitely a good thing. On top of the strong action sequences, there were some interesting moments between characters and some really cool sequences with the crew trying to think their way out of different situations. This is the sort of thing Trek has often done well and it's nice to see it working with SNW just as well as it has in past shows.
That said, as much as I enjoyed this episode - and I did enjoy it: 8/10 after all - I am a little bit worried about the future. It really seems like they're trying to position the Gorn as the Borg-like adversary of SNW - and I just don't think the Gorn are interesting enough to fill that role. They're little more than Xenomorphs at this point and I haven't seen any effort to make them anything more than that, so building them up as some kind of primary antagonist as this show appears to be doing just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I really hope they introduce a different sort of enemy that is actually interesting at some point because the Gorn, while fun for an episode here or there, just isn't interesting enough to be much more than that.
That said, as much as I enjoyed this episode - and I did enjoy it: 8/10 after all - I am a little bit worried about the future. It really seems like they're trying to position the Gorn as the Borg-like adversary of SNW - and I just don't think the Gorn are interesting enough to fill that role. They're little more than Xenomorphs at this point and I haven't seen any effort to make them anything more than that, so building them up as some kind of primary antagonist as this show appears to be doing just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I really hope they introduce a different sort of enemy that is actually interesting at some point because the Gorn, while fun for an episode here or there, just isn't interesting enough to be much more than that.
This whole thing felt like a bad parody.
4 August 2023
I really hope the actors at least had some fun with this, because I sure didn't.
This is easily the worst episode of Strange New Worlds thus far - and nothing else even comes close. I'd say it's one of the worst Trek episodes of all time - but then I remembered that the first two seasons of Picard exist. Anyway, there are just so many problems with this...
First of all, Strange New Worlds just isn't the right place for a musical episode. Musical episodes tend to work well in shows that lean heavily into comedy. Buffy the Vampire Slayer had what is probably the best musical episode of all time (in a show that was otherwise not a musical) with Once More With Feeling. Other notable examples include Lucifer, Scrubs, Futurama, Community, Psych, and Fringe - but all of these shows have something in common: they're either straight up comedies, or they have a very strong comedic side. Not only does Strange New Worlds not have a strong comedic side (outside of the absolutely brilliant cross over episode with Lower Decks - which would have been the perfect place to put a musical Trek episode), but this episode doesn't even really do anything to lean into the comedy. Instead, all of the songs are about people expressing their feelings with basically zero comedy at all until the brief few seconds we see the Klingons singing, which just wasn't funny enough to justify it.
Furthermore, none of these songs are particularly good. The lyrics are mundane and boring, with almost everyone singing about the same sorts of things (almost every song has something to do with one of the many personal relationships going on in the background) and the music/orchestration is bland pretty much across the board. What this means is every song is instantly forgettable immediately after it concludes. I haven't seen Once More With Feeling in more than 20 years and I can *STILL* remember some of those songs.
Also, if you're going to do a musical episode I think you should also include a lot of dancing, as that tends to be a pretty important aspect of musicals. This episode has some dancing but surprisingly little for a musical, and most of it is performed by background actors/dancers. Very few of the main cast do any dancing to speak of, and when they do it's mostly very simple things.
Finally, the lip synching is just awful. I was genuinely surprised at how well some of the actors were able to sing - Celia Rose Gooding (Uhura) has a particularly good voice - but the lip synching is very bad in almost every performance.
For all of these reasons and more, comparing SNW's attempt at a musical to any other show that has done a one-off musical episode just makes this attempt look amateurish at best.
This is easily the worst episode of Strange New Worlds thus far - and nothing else even comes close. I'd say it's one of the worst Trek episodes of all time - but then I remembered that the first two seasons of Picard exist. Anyway, there are just so many problems with this...
First of all, Strange New Worlds just isn't the right place for a musical episode. Musical episodes tend to work well in shows that lean heavily into comedy. Buffy the Vampire Slayer had what is probably the best musical episode of all time (in a show that was otherwise not a musical) with Once More With Feeling. Other notable examples include Lucifer, Scrubs, Futurama, Community, Psych, and Fringe - but all of these shows have something in common: they're either straight up comedies, or they have a very strong comedic side. Not only does Strange New Worlds not have a strong comedic side (outside of the absolutely brilliant cross over episode with Lower Decks - which would have been the perfect place to put a musical Trek episode), but this episode doesn't even really do anything to lean into the comedy. Instead, all of the songs are about people expressing their feelings with basically zero comedy at all until the brief few seconds we see the Klingons singing, which just wasn't funny enough to justify it.
Furthermore, none of these songs are particularly good. The lyrics are mundane and boring, with almost everyone singing about the same sorts of things (almost every song has something to do with one of the many personal relationships going on in the background) and the music/orchestration is bland pretty much across the board. What this means is every song is instantly forgettable immediately after it concludes. I haven't seen Once More With Feeling in more than 20 years and I can *STILL* remember some of those songs.
Also, if you're going to do a musical episode I think you should also include a lot of dancing, as that tends to be a pretty important aspect of musicals. This episode has some dancing but surprisingly little for a musical, and most of it is performed by background actors/dancers. Very few of the main cast do any dancing to speak of, and when they do it's mostly very simple things.
Finally, the lip synching is just awful. I was genuinely surprised at how well some of the actors were able to sing - Celia Rose Gooding (Uhura) has a particularly good voice - but the lip synching is very bad in almost every performance.
For all of these reasons and more, comparing SNW's attempt at a musical to any other show that has done a one-off musical episode just makes this attempt look amateurish at best.
This episode is pretty good but Eli Jorne is a liar.
17 July 2023
Warning: Spoilers
There are some bits here and there that I could really pick apart in this episode but I won't do that because overall it works. What I *will* do is call out Eli Jorne - the show runner - for being an absolute liar.
In the brief interview after the episode he describes the walker encounter at the end of the episode as "this like, terrifying, monstrous, creepy thing (he chuckles) made of walkers." He goes on to say: "It's something that I... I had thought of a few years before. What if, uh... what if a walker kind of stepped through one walker and then another walker stuck its head through that walker, and they got all like tangled in that way and they had to start to kind of move together? It was so fun to watch the Walker King come to life."
Uh... yeah. Sorry Eli, that wasn't your idea at all. You literally stole that idea - *INCLUDING THE NAME* - from The Last of Us Part 2. It's called a Rat King and it was first introduced in The Last of Us Part 2 back in 2020. You literally stole the idea and you *KNOW IT* that's why you chuckled when you were describing it as "your idea." Jeez man, at least be honest about your influences. It's just sad that you're trying to take credit for something creative that you had *NOTHING* to do with. What makes this worse is that when The Last of Us season 2 rolls around on HBO it'll probably showcase the Rat King and people who never played the games will think it's stealing the idea from you.
Absolutely shameless.
In the brief interview after the episode he describes the walker encounter at the end of the episode as "this like, terrifying, monstrous, creepy thing (he chuckles) made of walkers." He goes on to say: "It's something that I... I had thought of a few years before. What if, uh... what if a walker kind of stepped through one walker and then another walker stuck its head through that walker, and they got all like tangled in that way and they had to start to kind of move together? It was so fun to watch the Walker King come to life."
Uh... yeah. Sorry Eli, that wasn't your idea at all. You literally stole that idea - *INCLUDING THE NAME* - from The Last of Us Part 2. It's called a Rat King and it was first introduced in The Last of Us Part 2 back in 2020. You literally stole the idea and you *KNOW IT* that's why you chuckled when you were describing it as "your idea." Jeez man, at least be honest about your influences. It's just sad that you're trying to take credit for something creative that you had *NOTHING* to do with. What makes this worse is that when The Last of Us season 2 rolls around on HBO it'll probably showcase the Rat King and people who never played the games will think it's stealing the idea from you.
Absolutely shameless.
An all around bad episode.
17 July 2023
The 10 star reviews on this episode absolutely baffle me.
We already had a Freaky Friday episode with Spock and T'Pring last season - with almost identical gags. This entire episode is a lazy retread of an idea that wasn't that good to begin with. The humor almost entirely falls flat and almost nothing is done to push any of these characters forward in a meaningful way. The episode is terrible - maybe the worst episode of SNW yet - right up until the last few minutes when Spock directly addresses T'Pril. It is at this point that the episode slightly redeems itself. The final few minutes are the only reason I didn't rate this a 2/10.
I've really been liking SNW for the most part but I would never sit through this episode again. Absolute rubbish.
We already had a Freaky Friday episode with Spock and T'Pring last season - with almost identical gags. This entire episode is a lazy retread of an idea that wasn't that good to begin with. The humor almost entirely falls flat and almost nothing is done to push any of these characters forward in a meaningful way. The episode is terrible - maybe the worst episode of SNW yet - right up until the last few minutes when Spock directly addresses T'Pril. It is at this point that the episode slightly redeems itself. The final few minutes are the only reason I didn't rate this a 2/10.
I've really been liking SNW for the most part but I would never sit through this episode again. Absolute rubbish.
Halfway point...
29 June 2023
This show is, so far, much better than Fear - a low bar, but one this clears quite easily.
I like Maggie and Negan both more in this than I did in the later seasons of the OG Walking Dead. Their uneasy alliance is actually playing out quite nicely thus far. I like that Maggie still doesn't trust Negan and keeps him at arms length at all times, while Negan clearly is trying to find some kind of redemption for himself in her eyes.
They seem to be heavily foreshadowing Negan's eventual sacrifice to save Maggie and Hershel - with Maggie likely going on to adopt Ginny. I hope this isn't the direction it takes though because it would be extremely cliche and predictable.
Anyway, this episode is not without its problems. The issue here is that they just go too far trying to explain various things that don't need explaining - and everything just ends up being silly as a result.
1. The girl, Ginny, would have *never* been able to use an insulated camper cooler as a makeshift boat to row herself across the Hudson River to Manhattan. She would have probably immediately sunk, and if she somehow didn't then she would have easily capsized because her center of gravity would have been above the water line and the cooler itself wasn't wide enough to prevent capsizing. That's not even the most ridiculous part of her little journey though - the idea that she rode a dirt bike all the way to Manhattan, or that she was somehow able to stumble upon Negan's group in a city that size, that's crawling with walkers, is just absurd.
2. The Croat explains that he's generating power by capturing the methane released from the decomposing human bodies in the sewers and compressing it into a liquid form (which would take more energy to do than he would be able to extract - but let's not worry about that detail). This is comically ridiculous. Capturing that methane would be astoundingly difficult without proper equipment and facilities to do so - a sewer, which is not air tight and not even possible to make air tight - would not be the "perfect conditions" he describes in this episode. The show tries to explain that he could do this by showing all these vats with decomposing bodies in them - don't try to think about how he acquired all that equipment though or you'll get a headache - especially considering it's stated that he didn't even come to NYC until many years after the apocalypse. Did he just bring all that equipment with him?
3. Furthermore, even if you could capture that methane a decomposing body produces only a very small amount of methane (about 0.38 grams on average but we'll call it 0.5 grams to be generous and make the math easy here). Assuming you're able to capture 100% of that methane (no chance of that - but I'm being generous here) that's about 25 KJ of energy per decomposing human body. 25 KJ is about 0.007 kWh per decomposing human body. It takes 0.42 kWh to power a 60 watt light bulb for 1 hour - meaning it would take you 60 decomposing human bodies per 60 W lightbulb per hour. There are a whole lot of walkers in Manhattan but not enough to power even a fraction of what we see the Croat with. To make matters worse, methane is released over time as a body decomposes - but new methane is not produced - so all those walkers would be half-dead "batteries" at best when he finally tried to harvest them.
4. The maggots in the Croat's meat are still alive - even after being cooked. I could understand maggots being in the meat if it were rotten, but there's no way they would have survived the cooking process.
I like Maggie and Negan both more in this than I did in the later seasons of the OG Walking Dead. Their uneasy alliance is actually playing out quite nicely thus far. I like that Maggie still doesn't trust Negan and keeps him at arms length at all times, while Negan clearly is trying to find some kind of redemption for himself in her eyes.
They seem to be heavily foreshadowing Negan's eventual sacrifice to save Maggie and Hershel - with Maggie likely going on to adopt Ginny. I hope this isn't the direction it takes though because it would be extremely cliche and predictable.
Anyway, this episode is not without its problems. The issue here is that they just go too far trying to explain various things that don't need explaining - and everything just ends up being silly as a result.
1. The girl, Ginny, would have *never* been able to use an insulated camper cooler as a makeshift boat to row herself across the Hudson River to Manhattan. She would have probably immediately sunk, and if she somehow didn't then she would have easily capsized because her center of gravity would have been above the water line and the cooler itself wasn't wide enough to prevent capsizing. That's not even the most ridiculous part of her little journey though - the idea that she rode a dirt bike all the way to Manhattan, or that she was somehow able to stumble upon Negan's group in a city that size, that's crawling with walkers, is just absurd.
2. The Croat explains that he's generating power by capturing the methane released from the decomposing human bodies in the sewers and compressing it into a liquid form (which would take more energy to do than he would be able to extract - but let's not worry about that detail). This is comically ridiculous. Capturing that methane would be astoundingly difficult without proper equipment and facilities to do so - a sewer, which is not air tight and not even possible to make air tight - would not be the "perfect conditions" he describes in this episode. The show tries to explain that he could do this by showing all these vats with decomposing bodies in them - don't try to think about how he acquired all that equipment though or you'll get a headache - especially considering it's stated that he didn't even come to NYC until many years after the apocalypse. Did he just bring all that equipment with him?
3. Furthermore, even if you could capture that methane a decomposing body produces only a very small amount of methane (about 0.38 grams on average but we'll call it 0.5 grams to be generous and make the math easy here). Assuming you're able to capture 100% of that methane (no chance of that - but I'm being generous here) that's about 25 KJ of energy per decomposing human body. 25 KJ is about 0.007 kWh per decomposing human body. It takes 0.42 kWh to power a 60 watt light bulb for 1 hour - meaning it would take you 60 decomposing human bodies per 60 W lightbulb per hour. There are a whole lot of walkers in Manhattan but not enough to power even a fraction of what we see the Croat with. To make matters worse, methane is released over time as a body decomposes - but new methane is not produced - so all those walkers would be half-dead "batteries" at best when he finally tried to harvest them.
4. The maggots in the Croat's meat are still alive - even after being cooked. I could understand maggots being in the meat if it were rotten, but there's no way they would have survived the cooking process.
Now *THIS* is Star Trek
23 June 2023
I haven't been the biggest fan of Kurtzman-era Trek - most of it is only marginally entertaining garbage - but this episode is absolutely brilliant and is exactly the sort of thing I expect out of Star Trek.
Ad Astra Per Aspera does what good Trek should do - it holds a mirror to our present day society, reflecting each and every wart and blemish, and shows us a path forward. This is easily the best episode of Strange New Worlds thus far, and it will stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the greatest episodes of Star Trek as a whole.
This is what Trek is about. This is what Trek can be.
Now somebody just needs to keep Kurtzman away from the writers room so he doesn't ruin this show.
Ad Astra Per Aspera does what good Trek should do - it holds a mirror to our present day society, reflecting each and every wart and blemish, and shows us a path forward. This is easily the best episode of Strange New Worlds thus far, and it will stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the greatest episodes of Star Trek as a whole.
This is what Trek is about. This is what Trek can be.
Now somebody just needs to keep Kurtzman away from the writers room so he doesn't ruin this show.
All I see is ridiculous.
16 June 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Wow this was terrible.
So the episode opens with Morgan waking up on the railroad tracks surrounded by dead walkers after having killed them all with his axe. Madison had to knock him out because while he was killing the walkers he swung his axe at her. The next scene is in the train car while Madison and Morgan (I'll call the pair M&M from here on out) chat a bit about what's going on with Morgan. Apparently he's losing his mind again because of the traumatic events he's been through with his wife and son (Jenny and Duane) - and now again with Grace and Mo - and that's why he's writing crazy things on the wall with Grace's blood and why he swung his axe at Madison, because "all he sees is red" now. Or something like that.
Now, I'm just going to ignore how they're playing it fast and loose with the depiction of PTSD here and instead just recap the episode in all its absurd glory.
1. How did Morgan get out of the train car? He was literally locked inside last we saw him (and the episode recap made a point of replaying the scene where Shrike says "make sure he can't get out" - so... how did he get out exactly? This isn't the first time this season has just jumped forward in order to completely gloss over something like this because they're not sure how to write it. I'm sure it'll be the last time it ever happens though - it certainly won't happen again in this episode anyway. That would just be silly.
2. Morgan was supposedly slaughtering walkers left and right as well as writing crazy scribbles on the train car walls with Grace's blood and yet... he hasn't got a single drop of blood on him. Not his clothes, his face, his beard, nothing - well... almost nothing - at the end of the scene he holds up his hand and he's got some blood on his palm - but that's it. The complete lack of attention to detail is astonishing.
3. They're positioning Morgan to be a badass walker killer who can single-handedly take out a horde of walkers without even remembering it - and they established Madison as an absolute beast with her hammer a couple episodes ago. This is all clearly leading up to the inevitable scene where M&M take on wave after wave of walkers all by themselves in order to rescue Mo. I can't wait.
4. They arrive at the PADRE shipping containers and Morgan loses his mind again. Why Daniel hasn't offered him any of his dementia curing Yerba maté yet is beyond my comprehension. Maybe Daniel just thinks the whole thing is funny and has decided to keep all that sweet, sweet Yerba maté to himself.
5. They find out Mo is heading to the houseboat from the first episode of the season - you remember, it's the one in the swamp that almost sunk and killed them all. Mo is clearly a super smart leader to go back there. Not as smart as the writers though - that's for sure.
6. Anyway, they head out to try to find Mo, stopping along the way to argue with each other about who is going and who isn't (they all decide to go together - which is what they were doing in the first place, so it really makes you wonder what the point of that entire conversation was but whatever). Then they head out - directly into a horde of literally thousands of walkers. We've previously seen groups 2-3x this size get overrun by smaller groups of walkers - yet these lunatics are just walking right into them? What? How does this make sense? What is going on? Oooh boy! I can't wait to see how they get past that massive horde! This should be wild!
7. Never mind. They just cut back and forth between Mo, Shrike, and M&M, showing M&Ms group kill about half a dozen walkers, then Morgan flips out and it jump cuts ahead - conveniently after they *somehow* managed to get past the horde of literally thousands of walkers that were *RIGHT THERE* just a few moments ago. These freakout flash forward moments Morgan is having are doing a lot of favors for the hack writers on this show. I'm sure it won't happen again though. That would just be silly.
8. After a handful more freakout episodes Morgan finds himself at the houseboat (wow that was easy - he should keep having freakouts like this - it serves him well). He almost kills Mo because he's freaking out and thinks she's a walker. She stabs him to snap him out of it and then he passes out because he lost too much blood. It jump cuts again - surely it won't do so again, that would just be silly - and somehow we're supposed to believe that teeny tiny Mo, all by her little self, somehow dragged Morgan through the swamp and into the houseboat (where she zip tied his arm to the wall) all while avoiding the walkers on the way.
9. Also, Morgan isn't bleeding anymore from where Mo stabbed him. I just don't understand how that's possible unless Mo is a seasoned field medic and administered medical aid while dragging him through the swamp to the house boat - I suppose that's entirely reasonable to assume though, so never mind, forget I even mentioned it.
10. Morgan finds Madison's old oxygen tank from earlier in the season (speaking of which - why hasn't Madison needed that oxygen tank anymore? Hmm... Maybe Daniel has been sharing his Yerba maté with her) and gives it to Mo so she can swim out of the houseboat away from the walkers. It takes a lot of convincing - 5 minutes worth of dialog - but the walkers politely stand by doing nothing the whole time just to give the incredible drama time to play out.
11. Just as Morgan is about to be overrun by walkers and/or drown inside the houseboat he freaks out again and the scene jump cuts to Madison pulling him out of the swamp. This freakout jump cut power is something that Morgan really should have been utilizing since day one because it's doing wonders to get him out of tough scrapes. Maybe this is why Daniel isn't sharing his Yerba maté, because he doesn't want Morgan to lose this amazing super power. Anyway, I'm sure they won't do any more jump cuts in this episode. That would just be silly.
12. Shrike shows up and points a gun at Morgan. Morgan has another freakout but this time instead of a time jump, the freakout apparently conjures Shrike's father because he suddenly appears and starts crawling out of the swamp toward Shrike. Shrike can't bring herself to shoot him and so he munches on her a little bit. I wonder if Shrike tastes like chicken.
13. Somehow Daniel's entire group of disgruntled parents has been taken hostage by their own children. It's unclear how this happened, but it did. I'm not going to call this a jump cut because I said they wouldn't do another one of those in this episode. That would just be silly.
14. M&M convince the kids not to kill their parents and Mo decides she's going to leave PADRE and go with Morgan. June dragged Shrike back to the train car (there's been an awful lot of people dragged implausibly long distances in a short amount of time in this episode) and is about to kill her when Shrike's brother busts in (what's his name again? Chicken Little? No... that's not it). June leaves him to give his tearful goodbyes to Shrike while she exits the train car.
15. M&M are at the shoreline with Mo about to board a boat. Morgan says he has to leave the show to go find all his buddies from the original show who are now spinning off into their own shows, mini-series, and movies. He says that his time here on Fear was fun and all but the writing was too terrible for him to want to stick around for these last 5 or so episodes. Madison is just happy to finally have her show back, even if it's terrible now.
16. Dwight and Sherry bury Finch (oh, he's dead now - did I forget to mention that? Consider it mentioned). Sherry really needs some emotional support right now after burying her only son. Dwight's immediately breaks up with her because it's literally been 30 seconds and she's still upset about their dead son - women, amirite? Anyway Dwight's got his own thing going on and Sherry needs to come to terms with that. Secretly though, he's breaking up with her because he got a deal to appear in one of the spin-offs/movies and she didn't and he doesn't want things to get awkward.
17. The episode ends with a mysterious figure (their face is never revealed but it appears to be a woman) loading things into a duffel bag while listening to Madison on the radio saying they've overthrown PADRE and are looking to reunite parents with children. The last thing this person puts in the bag is Alicia's zombie arm. Common sense would dictate that this person can't actually be Alicia though because they had two arms. However, this is Fear the Walking Dead and somebody spontaneously growing back an arm wouldn't even crack into the top 10 dumbest things ever in this show.
Anyway, this episode is trash. This show is trash. We're almost done folks.
So the episode opens with Morgan waking up on the railroad tracks surrounded by dead walkers after having killed them all with his axe. Madison had to knock him out because while he was killing the walkers he swung his axe at her. The next scene is in the train car while Madison and Morgan (I'll call the pair M&M from here on out) chat a bit about what's going on with Morgan. Apparently he's losing his mind again because of the traumatic events he's been through with his wife and son (Jenny and Duane) - and now again with Grace and Mo - and that's why he's writing crazy things on the wall with Grace's blood and why he swung his axe at Madison, because "all he sees is red" now. Or something like that.
Now, I'm just going to ignore how they're playing it fast and loose with the depiction of PTSD here and instead just recap the episode in all its absurd glory.
1. How did Morgan get out of the train car? He was literally locked inside last we saw him (and the episode recap made a point of replaying the scene where Shrike says "make sure he can't get out" - so... how did he get out exactly? This isn't the first time this season has just jumped forward in order to completely gloss over something like this because they're not sure how to write it. I'm sure it'll be the last time it ever happens though - it certainly won't happen again in this episode anyway. That would just be silly.
2. Morgan was supposedly slaughtering walkers left and right as well as writing crazy scribbles on the train car walls with Grace's blood and yet... he hasn't got a single drop of blood on him. Not his clothes, his face, his beard, nothing - well... almost nothing - at the end of the scene he holds up his hand and he's got some blood on his palm - but that's it. The complete lack of attention to detail is astonishing.
3. They're positioning Morgan to be a badass walker killer who can single-handedly take out a horde of walkers without even remembering it - and they established Madison as an absolute beast with her hammer a couple episodes ago. This is all clearly leading up to the inevitable scene where M&M take on wave after wave of walkers all by themselves in order to rescue Mo. I can't wait.
4. They arrive at the PADRE shipping containers and Morgan loses his mind again. Why Daniel hasn't offered him any of his dementia curing Yerba maté yet is beyond my comprehension. Maybe Daniel just thinks the whole thing is funny and has decided to keep all that sweet, sweet Yerba maté to himself.
5. They find out Mo is heading to the houseboat from the first episode of the season - you remember, it's the one in the swamp that almost sunk and killed them all. Mo is clearly a super smart leader to go back there. Not as smart as the writers though - that's for sure.
6. Anyway, they head out to try to find Mo, stopping along the way to argue with each other about who is going and who isn't (they all decide to go together - which is what they were doing in the first place, so it really makes you wonder what the point of that entire conversation was but whatever). Then they head out - directly into a horde of literally thousands of walkers. We've previously seen groups 2-3x this size get overrun by smaller groups of walkers - yet these lunatics are just walking right into them? What? How does this make sense? What is going on? Oooh boy! I can't wait to see how they get past that massive horde! This should be wild!
7. Never mind. They just cut back and forth between Mo, Shrike, and M&M, showing M&Ms group kill about half a dozen walkers, then Morgan flips out and it jump cuts ahead - conveniently after they *somehow* managed to get past the horde of literally thousands of walkers that were *RIGHT THERE* just a few moments ago. These freakout flash forward moments Morgan is having are doing a lot of favors for the hack writers on this show. I'm sure it won't happen again though. That would just be silly.
8. After a handful more freakout episodes Morgan finds himself at the houseboat (wow that was easy - he should keep having freakouts like this - it serves him well). He almost kills Mo because he's freaking out and thinks she's a walker. She stabs him to snap him out of it and then he passes out because he lost too much blood. It jump cuts again - surely it won't do so again, that would just be silly - and somehow we're supposed to believe that teeny tiny Mo, all by her little self, somehow dragged Morgan through the swamp and into the houseboat (where she zip tied his arm to the wall) all while avoiding the walkers on the way.
9. Also, Morgan isn't bleeding anymore from where Mo stabbed him. I just don't understand how that's possible unless Mo is a seasoned field medic and administered medical aid while dragging him through the swamp to the house boat - I suppose that's entirely reasonable to assume though, so never mind, forget I even mentioned it.
10. Morgan finds Madison's old oxygen tank from earlier in the season (speaking of which - why hasn't Madison needed that oxygen tank anymore? Hmm... Maybe Daniel has been sharing his Yerba maté with her) and gives it to Mo so she can swim out of the houseboat away from the walkers. It takes a lot of convincing - 5 minutes worth of dialog - but the walkers politely stand by doing nothing the whole time just to give the incredible drama time to play out.
11. Just as Morgan is about to be overrun by walkers and/or drown inside the houseboat he freaks out again and the scene jump cuts to Madison pulling him out of the swamp. This freakout jump cut power is something that Morgan really should have been utilizing since day one because it's doing wonders to get him out of tough scrapes. Maybe this is why Daniel isn't sharing his Yerba maté, because he doesn't want Morgan to lose this amazing super power. Anyway, I'm sure they won't do any more jump cuts in this episode. That would just be silly.
12. Shrike shows up and points a gun at Morgan. Morgan has another freakout but this time instead of a time jump, the freakout apparently conjures Shrike's father because he suddenly appears and starts crawling out of the swamp toward Shrike. Shrike can't bring herself to shoot him and so he munches on her a little bit. I wonder if Shrike tastes like chicken.
13. Somehow Daniel's entire group of disgruntled parents has been taken hostage by their own children. It's unclear how this happened, but it did. I'm not going to call this a jump cut because I said they wouldn't do another one of those in this episode. That would just be silly.
14. M&M convince the kids not to kill their parents and Mo decides she's going to leave PADRE and go with Morgan. June dragged Shrike back to the train car (there's been an awful lot of people dragged implausibly long distances in a short amount of time in this episode) and is about to kill her when Shrike's brother busts in (what's his name again? Chicken Little? No... that's not it). June leaves him to give his tearful goodbyes to Shrike while she exits the train car.
15. M&M are at the shoreline with Mo about to board a boat. Morgan says he has to leave the show to go find all his buddies from the original show who are now spinning off into their own shows, mini-series, and movies. He says that his time here on Fear was fun and all but the writing was too terrible for him to want to stick around for these last 5 or so episodes. Madison is just happy to finally have her show back, even if it's terrible now.
16. Dwight and Sherry bury Finch (oh, he's dead now - did I forget to mention that? Consider it mentioned). Sherry really needs some emotional support right now after burying her only son. Dwight's immediately breaks up with her because it's literally been 30 seconds and she's still upset about their dead son - women, amirite? Anyway Dwight's got his own thing going on and Sherry needs to come to terms with that. Secretly though, he's breaking up with her because he got a deal to appear in one of the spin-offs/movies and she didn't and he doesn't want things to get awkward.
17. The episode ends with a mysterious figure (their face is never revealed but it appears to be a woman) loading things into a duffel bag while listening to Madison on the radio saying they've overthrown PADRE and are looking to reunite parents with children. The last thing this person puts in the bag is Alicia's zombie arm. Common sense would dictate that this person can't actually be Alicia though because they had two arms. However, this is Fear the Walking Dead and somebody spontaneously growing back an arm wouldn't even crack into the top 10 dumbest things ever in this show.
Anyway, this episode is trash. This show is trash. We're almost done folks.
And we're back to garbage.
12 June 2023
Warning: Spoilers
After last week's halfway decent (though still pretty bad) episode, this episode is a return to the absolute garbage I've come to expect from Fear.
There are three good things about this episode:
1. Lennie James once again demonstrating that he's a genuinely good actor even when he's working with *TERRIBLE* material.
2. Karen David also did a pretty good job here despite the awful material. I hope she at least got to have a little fun finally turning into a zombie. I think that'd be a highlight for me if I were forced to appear on this awful show.
3. The realization that June's "treatment" didn't actually work. I feel like they'll do something stupid by the end of the show and reveal it actually *did* (or will) somehow work - but for now, they're doing the right thing and saying that no, it's silly that a nurse who has been out of practice for more than a decade would have developed a zombie cure in a few days from the back of a train car.
Everything else is utter garbage. Zoey Merchant - Mo - cannot act. It's fine, she's a child actor and *most* child actors are usually pretty bad. They're still early in their careers and are obviously not seasoned actors so I can give her a bit of a pass here. The problem really isn't *her* though - it's the writers and the director who decided to put her front and center of everything going on knowing full well she's an inexperienced actress. Her longer scenes are just painful to watch. When Grace turned and attacked Mo I genuinely was hoping she would kill Mo and we'd get to see Morgan react to something so horrifying - it would have been a great opportunity to see more of Lennie James doing what he does best. But no - instead, we got what amounted to a slapstick comedy brawl not that far removed from something you'd see in an old Three Stooges skit. Whatever.
I could rip apart several scenes in this episode but it's really not worth it at this point - the show sucks. It's almost over. Thank god.
Also, where is Victor? Luciana? Charlie? Al? Sarah? Wendell? We're halfway through the final season and we haven't even seen or heard anything about half of the main characters (although to be honest, other than Victor and Al, I can't say that I miss any of them). Did the actors opt not to return to this dumpster fire of a show? I wouldn't blame them if that's the case.
There are three good things about this episode:
1. Lennie James once again demonstrating that he's a genuinely good actor even when he's working with *TERRIBLE* material.
2. Karen David also did a pretty good job here despite the awful material. I hope she at least got to have a little fun finally turning into a zombie. I think that'd be a highlight for me if I were forced to appear on this awful show.
3. The realization that June's "treatment" didn't actually work. I feel like they'll do something stupid by the end of the show and reveal it actually *did* (or will) somehow work - but for now, they're doing the right thing and saying that no, it's silly that a nurse who has been out of practice for more than a decade would have developed a zombie cure in a few days from the back of a train car.
Everything else is utter garbage. Zoey Merchant - Mo - cannot act. It's fine, she's a child actor and *most* child actors are usually pretty bad. They're still early in their careers and are obviously not seasoned actors so I can give her a bit of a pass here. The problem really isn't *her* though - it's the writers and the director who decided to put her front and center of everything going on knowing full well she's an inexperienced actress. Her longer scenes are just painful to watch. When Grace turned and attacked Mo I genuinely was hoping she would kill Mo and we'd get to see Morgan react to something so horrifying - it would have been a great opportunity to see more of Lennie James doing what he does best. But no - instead, we got what amounted to a slapstick comedy brawl not that far removed from something you'd see in an old Three Stooges skit. Whatever.
I could rip apart several scenes in this episode but it's really not worth it at this point - the show sucks. It's almost over. Thank god.
Also, where is Victor? Luciana? Charlie? Al? Sarah? Wendell? We're halfway through the final season and we haven't even seen or heard anything about half of the main characters (although to be honest, other than Victor and Al, I can't say that I miss any of them). Did the actors opt not to return to this dumpster fire of a show? I wouldn't blame them if that's the case.
Wow. This was actually a halfway decent episode.
2 June 2023
Warning: Spoilers
I'm genuinely shocked. This was actually a halfway decent episode - something Fear hasn't delivered since - well, gosh... I can't even remember when.
The episode starts with Morgan Jones (Lennie James) returning to his home of King County, Georgia. He was followed here by Grace and Mo, who stole a PADRE truck to find him. Morgan's reason for returning is to finally kill Duane (his son, who was bitten and turned many, many years before) and lay him to rest. Why he has only just now decided to do this isn't really explained but I think that's fine because the episode uses this situation as a way to not only tie up loose ends for his character, but it also further develops and moves this character along in a mostly satisfying way.
Lennie James carries this episode on his shoulders and does wonders to remind us all why we fell in love with Morgan Jones in the first place. He's a great actor who has been given such terrible material to work with for so long that I almost forgot how good he could be. It's refreshing to see him really own a scene in a dramatic way. Once you look past Lennie James though, this episode kind of falls apart for a myriad of different reasons.
It's previously been established that PADRE is near the coast of Louisiana - exactly where isn't known yet, but that's the ballpark area for sure, that much is been well established. The issue with this is that King County has been established to be at the southwest border of Georgia, near to Alabama. This puts Kings County a *MINIMUM* of 300 miles away from PADRE. That's quite a distance to travel on foot, which is apparently what Morgan did since we don't see him with a vehicle or a horse. Even if he didn't go on foot though, it's still quite a distance, representing at least a 5 hour drive in the best of conditions - likely much longer now that we're more than a decade into a zombie apocalypse, gasoline is extremely scarce, and roads and bridges haven't been maintained. The idea that he just took a little detour out here to take care of this situation is more than a little silly and there are some additional absurdities as the episode progresses...
Starting with Dwight and Sherry along with two unnamed PADRE folks (who I'll call Tweety Bird and Woodstock to keep with their naming scheme) showing up. The reason this is absurd is because Grace and Mo drove there in a truck - and as I said, that's about a 5 hour drive in the best of conditions - but Dwight, Sherry, Tweety Bird and Woodstock all got there on horseback. Now here's the thing... even an endurance trained horse is only going to travel about 100 miles per *DAY* and can only do that about two days in a row before needing 24-48 hours of recovery (your average trail horse will do about 50-60 miles per day, making this even more absurd to think about - so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and just assume they had endurance trained horses in tip-top shape). That means it would have taken Dwight and crew a *MINIMUM* of 4 days to reach King County. Morgan, Grace, and Mo would have been there and gone long before Dwight and crew ever showed up. This is not even anywhere within the realm of possibility as it's portrayed in the show.
Furthermore, it's explained that Dwight and Sherry were able to find Morgan because they heard a transmission that contained coordinates to Kings County. It was revealed that this transmission was sent by Mo, pretending to be Morgan, in order to convince Grace to go there to meet with Morgan... the problem with all this is that Mo had absolutely no idea where Morgan was going so she'd have had no way to send a message with accurate coordinates like this. They try to hand wave this away by calling back to some writing back at the boat house that mentioned Kings County in an earlier episode. The problem with that is that if you think about it for more than half a second you realize the entire thing is contrived nonsense. But, you know, whatever... this is Fear and it almost never makes sense, so let's just try to get past it and move on, shall we?
Things start to get even sillier though... Dwight and Sherry's son, Finch, is revealed to be doing just fine now despite having been bitten just a couple episodes ago - this is because June was able to engineer some kind of cure for walker bites. You see, in the Fear universe this makes total sense because June used to be an ICU nurse prior to the outbreak and as we all know ICU nurses are *great* virologists and vaccine researchers - especially in a post-apocalypse where resources and medical equipment are in extremely scarce supply. It's almost as if all the ICU nurses pre-outbreak weren't even *trying* to solve the problem seeing as a single woman who hasn't really practiced medicine in any meaningful way for 10+ years has been able to engineer a cure within a matter of days from the back of a train car. Makes you wonder how the walkers seemingly decimated the entire planet to begin with.
There some more contrived absurdities throughout the episode but those are the bigger ones. I'd keep going but I've written movie reviews shorter than this so it's time to wrap up.
Overall, this episode is realistically only maybe a 5/10 but I'm giving it a 6/10 because Lennie James delivers a good performance that reminds me why I liked him so much all those years ago. By Fear standards, that's an absolutely glowing rating as far as I'm concerned.
The episode starts with Morgan Jones (Lennie James) returning to his home of King County, Georgia. He was followed here by Grace and Mo, who stole a PADRE truck to find him. Morgan's reason for returning is to finally kill Duane (his son, who was bitten and turned many, many years before) and lay him to rest. Why he has only just now decided to do this isn't really explained but I think that's fine because the episode uses this situation as a way to not only tie up loose ends for his character, but it also further develops and moves this character along in a mostly satisfying way.
Lennie James carries this episode on his shoulders and does wonders to remind us all why we fell in love with Morgan Jones in the first place. He's a great actor who has been given such terrible material to work with for so long that I almost forgot how good he could be. It's refreshing to see him really own a scene in a dramatic way. Once you look past Lennie James though, this episode kind of falls apart for a myriad of different reasons.
It's previously been established that PADRE is near the coast of Louisiana - exactly where isn't known yet, but that's the ballpark area for sure, that much is been well established. The issue with this is that King County has been established to be at the southwest border of Georgia, near to Alabama. This puts Kings County a *MINIMUM* of 300 miles away from PADRE. That's quite a distance to travel on foot, which is apparently what Morgan did since we don't see him with a vehicle or a horse. Even if he didn't go on foot though, it's still quite a distance, representing at least a 5 hour drive in the best of conditions - likely much longer now that we're more than a decade into a zombie apocalypse, gasoline is extremely scarce, and roads and bridges haven't been maintained. The idea that he just took a little detour out here to take care of this situation is more than a little silly and there are some additional absurdities as the episode progresses...
Starting with Dwight and Sherry along with two unnamed PADRE folks (who I'll call Tweety Bird and Woodstock to keep with their naming scheme) showing up. The reason this is absurd is because Grace and Mo drove there in a truck - and as I said, that's about a 5 hour drive in the best of conditions - but Dwight, Sherry, Tweety Bird and Woodstock all got there on horseback. Now here's the thing... even an endurance trained horse is only going to travel about 100 miles per *DAY* and can only do that about two days in a row before needing 24-48 hours of recovery (your average trail horse will do about 50-60 miles per day, making this even more absurd to think about - so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and just assume they had endurance trained horses in tip-top shape). That means it would have taken Dwight and crew a *MINIMUM* of 4 days to reach King County. Morgan, Grace, and Mo would have been there and gone long before Dwight and crew ever showed up. This is not even anywhere within the realm of possibility as it's portrayed in the show.
Furthermore, it's explained that Dwight and Sherry were able to find Morgan because they heard a transmission that contained coordinates to Kings County. It was revealed that this transmission was sent by Mo, pretending to be Morgan, in order to convince Grace to go there to meet with Morgan... the problem with all this is that Mo had absolutely no idea where Morgan was going so she'd have had no way to send a message with accurate coordinates like this. They try to hand wave this away by calling back to some writing back at the boat house that mentioned Kings County in an earlier episode. The problem with that is that if you think about it for more than half a second you realize the entire thing is contrived nonsense. But, you know, whatever... this is Fear and it almost never makes sense, so let's just try to get past it and move on, shall we?
Things start to get even sillier though... Dwight and Sherry's son, Finch, is revealed to be doing just fine now despite having been bitten just a couple episodes ago - this is because June was able to engineer some kind of cure for walker bites. You see, in the Fear universe this makes total sense because June used to be an ICU nurse prior to the outbreak and as we all know ICU nurses are *great* virologists and vaccine researchers - especially in a post-apocalypse where resources and medical equipment are in extremely scarce supply. It's almost as if all the ICU nurses pre-outbreak weren't even *trying* to solve the problem seeing as a single woman who hasn't really practiced medicine in any meaningful way for 10+ years has been able to engineer a cure within a matter of days from the back of a train car. Makes you wonder how the walkers seemingly decimated the entire planet to begin with.
There some more contrived absurdities throughout the episode but those are the bigger ones. I'd keep going but I've written movie reviews shorter than this so it's time to wrap up.
Overall, this episode is realistically only maybe a 5/10 but I'm giving it a 6/10 because Lennie James delivers a good performance that reminds me why I liked him so much all those years ago. By Fear standards, that's an absolutely glowing rating as far as I'm concerned.
Astonishingly terrible.
26 May 2023
This show just gets worse and worse every single episode. I love to hate it.
The PADRE storyline is one of the worst storylines in any of the Walking Dead shows thus far - and that's really saying something because there have been some tremendous stinkers over the years. The dialog is so horribly written that almost none of the conversations even make sense. Each "shocking revelation" in this episode literally had me laughing out loud at how incredibly dumb it all was. Everything feels like it was written by AI.
At one point one of the new characters, Crane, freaks out because his dad left his binoculars on a boat. He grabs them and says "I've gotta take these to him!" His sister, Shrike, says "why?" - His response? "Because how will he see what's coming without them?" - This is just a taste of how bad the dialog in this show has become. I've got old stories I wrote when I was still in grade school that are better than this absolute dreck.
Last season Daniel was suffering from serious dementia - he could barely remember anything, could hardly function without Luciana tricking him into doing things, and was, at best, a burden on everyone around him if not a dangerous threat to them. This season he's the leader of a group of parents searching for the kids that were stolen from them by Madison (for PADRE). His dementia seems to have been completely cured. This is explained via a throwaway line - Daniel is slurping on a drink and he says "yerba-maté - it's good for mental focus." Wow. Just wow. I can't believe nobody ever tried using yerba-maté to literally *cure* dementia before. Absolutely brilliant writing.
It just keeps getting worse from there. The writers on this show should never be allowed to work again.
The PADRE storyline is one of the worst storylines in any of the Walking Dead shows thus far - and that's really saying something because there have been some tremendous stinkers over the years. The dialog is so horribly written that almost none of the conversations even make sense. Each "shocking revelation" in this episode literally had me laughing out loud at how incredibly dumb it all was. Everything feels like it was written by AI.
At one point one of the new characters, Crane, freaks out because his dad left his binoculars on a boat. He grabs them and says "I've gotta take these to him!" His sister, Shrike, says "why?" - His response? "Because how will he see what's coming without them?" - This is just a taste of how bad the dialog in this show has become. I've got old stories I wrote when I was still in grade school that are better than this absolute dreck.
Last season Daniel was suffering from serious dementia - he could barely remember anything, could hardly function without Luciana tricking him into doing things, and was, at best, a burden on everyone around him if not a dangerous threat to them. This season he's the leader of a group of parents searching for the kids that were stolen from them by Madison (for PADRE). His dementia seems to have been completely cured. This is explained via a throwaway line - Daniel is slurping on a drink and he says "yerba-maté - it's good for mental focus." Wow. Just wow. I can't believe nobody ever tried using yerba-maté to literally *cure* dementia before. Absolutely brilliant writing.
It just keeps getting worse from there. The writers on this show should never be allowed to work again.
Sisu
(2022)
Flirts with greatness, but never seals the deal.
20 May 2023
Sisu is an entertaining action romp from start to Finnish (heh, I couldn't resist). If that's all you're looking for then you'll probably have a good time. However, I can't help but feel like this movie could have been so much better than it was if it only fleshed out it's characters a bit and incorporated a real storyline. If it wasn't so beautifully shot and directed, I might judge it more harshly - but Sisu is a gorgeous film. Everything from the wide, sweeping camera shots, to the glorious practical effects in most of the action scenes - Sisu is a visceral, grimy, messy, bloody, sight to behold and that is what pushes it over the line from simply mediocre to genuinely good.
I really wish it had just a bit more going for it because it's so very close to being an absolutely legendary action film - in the end though, much like Aatami Korpi himself, it doesn't quite land the plane.
I really wish it had just a bit more going for it because it's so very close to being an absolutely legendary action film - in the end though, much like Aatami Korpi himself, it doesn't quite land the plane.
Astoundingly bad.
19 May 2023
This show is so incredibly terrible that it's crossed the metaphorical Rubicon to become entertaining again. Fear is so poorly written that I will not be surprised when, 10 years from now, they inevitably admit that everything after the 4th season was written by AI. The only thing this show has going for it is that they've somehow managed to convince a handful of good to very good actors to participate in this absolute travesty of television. Ruben Blades, Colman Domingo, Kim Dickens, Lennie James, Jenna Elfman, Maggie Grace, Austin Amelio, etc etc etc - there are a lot of good actors involved in this show. It's a shame the writing doesn't live up to their talent because they can really only do so much with what absolute trash they have to work with.
Nothing makes sense anymore - this season takes place 7 (or 8, or 9?) years after the end of season 7 and nobody appears to have aged more than a few months. Because apparently being immersed in a zombie apocalypse for most of your adult life is good for both body and soul. The show thus far appears to be setting up "the next generation" of zombie apocalypse survivors - with Mo, and now "Finch" being the focus of the first couple of episodes. It's too bad almost nothing about any of this makes any sense.
This show is terribly written, terribly paced, and even the special effects seem to have taken a dramatic hit this season, with the severed zombie heads looking *super* fake.
For a solid 4+ years now I've felt like this might be the very worst scripted show I have ever seen and yet I keep watching. Like the most horrific train wreck imaginable, I simply can't turn away. I'm drawn to it like a moth to a flame. This show is so awful that it's compelling me to watch. I'm so enthralled by that I feel it's almost making *me* a zombie, unable to resist watching.
I'm sad that this is, apparently, the final season. This show is so awful I hoped that it would never end.
Oh well. All good things...
Nothing makes sense anymore - this season takes place 7 (or 8, or 9?) years after the end of season 7 and nobody appears to have aged more than a few months. Because apparently being immersed in a zombie apocalypse for most of your adult life is good for both body and soul. The show thus far appears to be setting up "the next generation" of zombie apocalypse survivors - with Mo, and now "Finch" being the focus of the first couple of episodes. It's too bad almost nothing about any of this makes any sense.
This show is terribly written, terribly paced, and even the special effects seem to have taken a dramatic hit this season, with the severed zombie heads looking *super* fake.
For a solid 4+ years now I've felt like this might be the very worst scripted show I have ever seen and yet I keep watching. Like the most horrific train wreck imaginable, I simply can't turn away. I'm drawn to it like a moth to a flame. This show is so awful that it's compelling me to watch. I'm so enthralled by that I feel it's almost making *me* a zombie, unable to resist watching.
I'm sad that this is, apparently, the final season. This show is so awful I hoped that it would never end.
Oh well. All good things...
Tell Your Friends