Posted: Apr 04, 2017 11:47 pm
SPOILERS: DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED THE FULL SEASON.
Probably one of the show's weakest seasons if not the weakest season to date. It's disappointing because only 2 seasons ago we were seeing what, for me, ended up being its strongest one. I think the needlessly drawn out cliffhanger ending from last season, because of its really disastrous and despairing (and disappointing) low mood, meant that the period in between seasons carried that mood and lack of faith in the show's storytelling for a lot of fans. So many people were pissed off about that ending. My take: if you're gonna kill two people as the show did, why not kill one in the season finale and the other in the next season opener. That way the former season has a definitive ending and all the surprise of the second death is still there for the opener. Even better, the deaths are spaced out and the episodes can be about the individual deaths, rather than feeling like that were just put on top of each other for shock value. Voila! You keep your cred as storytellers intact!
And when the show came back, it wasn't explosive like Carol's entry in season 5, or long and considered like the opening plan episode in season 6. It was just a dread crawl. By the time the second episode came along and Carol and Morgan went to the Kingdom, a lot of people seemed to suddenly wake up, as if, "Oh, there's still some life in this show! We forgot about Carol." And then again in episode 6, when we find out whatever became of Tara, the mood picks up again and it looks like we've got some story left in this show. But it's not until the midway finale that the characters are really awake again.
The back half has plenty of problems, too. The glaring one for me was the second to last episode - they seemed to really mess with Tara's motivations for no reason and then let Rick's lead character status determine the show's morals. The finale was kind of a relief after that. I'll spoiler my reaction to the finale.
That said, I think they messed up the finale as well. The women of the show (particularly Maggie and Carol) have been the stayers on the main theme: how do we deal with the saviours? Maggie was the member of the group who'd kept up fighting when the rest had given up, and Carol was the member who'd gotten out before any of it happened and refused to be a part of things. They were integral to how the finale shaped up, but they just weren't utilised properly at the end. As much as I liked the entrance of the tiger, it put Carol in the background and she stayed there all the way through the end run. And Maggie's entrance should've meant much more to Negan's confusion, but it was too rushed over: he's been under the impression all season that she was dead - the fact that she wasn't should've been an epic middle-finger from the audience to the villain moment.The only thing that saved the finale for me was that Maggie got the end speech and brought it back to Glen and explained her reason for being steadfast when no one else was.
Long story short: Rick's still a shit lead character, and the writers don't seem to realise that they have some good (and, in Carol's case, great) characters in the background that they just don't seem to know how to use. But they scrape through. It's just not gonna be a good show again anytime soon.
Probably one of the show's weakest seasons if not the weakest season to date. It's disappointing because only 2 seasons ago we were seeing what, for me, ended up being its strongest one. I think the needlessly drawn out cliffhanger ending from last season, because of its really disastrous and despairing (and disappointing) low mood, meant that the period in between seasons carried that mood and lack of faith in the show's storytelling for a lot of fans. So many people were pissed off about that ending. My take: if you're gonna kill two people as the show did, why not kill one in the season finale and the other in the next season opener. That way the former season has a definitive ending and all the surprise of the second death is still there for the opener. Even better, the deaths are spaced out and the episodes can be about the individual deaths, rather than feeling like that were just put on top of each other for shock value. Voila! You keep your cred as storytellers intact!
And when the show came back, it wasn't explosive like Carol's entry in season 5, or long and considered like the opening plan episode in season 6. It was just a dread crawl. By the time the second episode came along and Carol and Morgan went to the Kingdom, a lot of people seemed to suddenly wake up, as if, "Oh, there's still some life in this show! We forgot about Carol." And then again in episode 6, when we find out whatever became of Tara, the mood picks up again and it looks like we've got some story left in this show. But it's not until the midway finale that the characters are really awake again.
The back half has plenty of problems, too. The glaring one for me was the second to last episode - they seemed to really mess with Tara's motivations for no reason and then let Rick's lead character status determine the show's morals. The finale was kind of a relief after that. I'll spoiler my reaction to the finale.
That said, I think they messed up the finale as well. The women of the show (particularly Maggie and Carol) have been the stayers on the main theme: how do we deal with the saviours? Maggie was the member of the group who'd kept up fighting when the rest had given up, and Carol was the member who'd gotten out before any of it happened and refused to be a part of things. They were integral to how the finale shaped up, but they just weren't utilised properly at the end. As much as I liked the entrance of the tiger, it put Carol in the background and she stayed there all the way through the end run. And Maggie's entrance should've meant much more to Negan's confusion, but it was too rushed over: he's been under the impression all season that she was dead - the fact that she wasn't should've been an epic middle-finger from the audience to the villain moment.The only thing that saved the finale for me was that Maggie got the end speech and brought it back to Glen and explained her reason for being steadfast when no one else was.
Long story short: Rick's still a shit lead character, and the writers don't seem to realise that they have some good (and, in Carol's case, great) characters in the background that they just don't seem to know how to use. But they scrape through. It's just not gonna be a good show again anytime soon.