For the first time since the series began, I'm actually looking forward to Sunday's FTWD episode. I figure it must be the fact that Travis and his lame ass sorry Son are gone. I'm still not happy with druggie boy, but with the new prepper's psychopath Son on the show, maybe I can root for druggie boy now as a counter to him. Druggie boy's Mom seems to be hardening up nicely, and is starting to turn me on in a creepy kind of way, so I think she's the key to whether this season is great or not.

Spoilers after FTWD Season 3, episode 4ish, I think! This feels weird to say given my pessimistic thoughts a year ago, but suddenly FTWD seems better than TWD. FTWD has had some great Season 3 episodes while TWD just had a very weak season and seems kind of repetitive in formula these past few years. FTWD got rid of the dead weight cast members and brought in Preppers this season, so of course it's improved. Bringing back the El Salvador dude, who was the strongest character previously, seems like a good move. I'm suddenly liking the show.....as weird as it feels to say at this point

That was a DAM good episode.

After all the good reviews I gave the show a second chance...I quit 3/4 through last season...it's getting better.

Daniel was the best actor and they brought him back!!!

L-O-L outlook not so good
But this was by far the best episode of the series. A little far fetched with Daniel surviving the fire and lightning striking the zombie, but hey they brought back the best actor/character. Before this episode, I was just thinking to myself how they don't have a bad ass to cheer on like we did with TWD, and now we do.

And the downhill slide is back. Let's look at the sub stories -

Druggie Boy knows his girl wants to leave so he sets up a house for her where two people just died. Huh wha? (and gun foreshadow)

Sister who grew up hating druggie boy's actions is suddenly party animal. Sleeps with guy and jumps off a cliff into a lake. Whatever.

Madison is earning the troops respect by getting a pickaxe stuck in a zombies head and almost killed.

Strand leads Salazar to the hotel where he knows Ophelia let and even he shouldn't go back. Why?

You know idiot husband is going to wind up alive and I just hope we don't find out Chris was actually left alive also. This show tends to bring back the dead a lot and unfortunately not as zombies.

There is more but I'll let other vent.

Hmmmm... for once the wife and I enjoyed the episode.

That story line is c r a p. The writing for the sister is so cliche...it's like a writer's workshop story. The rest was a fair bit of setup...though I don't care about the drug boy's girl or their house or if she runs off or anything really.

Indians!!

Better fix this "Native Faux Pas" before you get an SJW slamming . . .

Wasn't that a direct quote from one of the bedraggled camp guys..."Indians!?!?"

Have not looked at episode 5 yet, but the one with Daniel was good. Really good. The whole season 3 seems better. Same writers ?

I think show is getting better.....I'm certainly watching now since the return of Daniel. I will be really pissed if they kill him off....well, for good this time.

I think FTWD is finally figuring itself out. That scene where the guy has a brain injury and is just sitting out in the woods blabbing while a crow ate his brain was nicely disturbing. I like the way druggie boy's Mom is in full blown manipulation mode and has her claws into psycho boy as his confidante. She knows that they'll need his violence and aggressiveness in order to survive the coming battle(s). He's a bit like Shane from the original series in that regard.

And we got our obligatory PSA about condom use from "we still don't know her character after 3 seasons" girl.

You perfectly described her. Most characters are easily figured out, but not her. I never know where she's going to land on a given subject, nor is there any reason to care. She's just a pretty face without any passion or personality. Even druggie boy has more to offer lately. She better be careful clinging to the bottom rung of the original cast members ladder. They'll need to kill off another one at some point and sadly, right now druggie boy is more interesting.

I might have been overly optimistic in my previous post about FTWD improving significantly this season. I watched the mid-season finale and was stunned to see the unrealistic buffoonery of our ragtag survivors return to normal. They went back and forth to Walker's camp, back and forth, by foot, by motorcycle, and by truck, daylight and nighttime they traveled freely, and no one got shot. Then there's druggie boy's Sister who would have been dead if she'd sneaked up on me in that situation where she's trying to chase down psycho boy's older brother in the bushes. She gets herself held in a hostage trade with no apparent danger to her, to preserve the peace and what does her Mom decide to do? To hell with the peace, let's break her out tonight and let killer psycho boy lead the raid. Why not, apparently Walker doesn't guard his compound at night. Surely nothing bad could possibly come from sending him on the mission, right? Yep, he left dead people in Walker's camp while they're trying to negotiate peace. Then, they bite on Ophelia's fake beating and put her, an obvious spy from Walker's camp, into the kitchen where she could do the most damage imaginable. Yep, a bunch more dead people. So, druggie boy's Mom decides to retaliate by stealing Walker's trailer full of ancestor relics and bones, which was taken right out from under Walker's nose......because he doesn't guard his camp well enough. Then, with time ending a predictable attempt at a just ending. Druggie boy and Mom are now almost as murderous as pyscho boy. What a bunch of crap writing. I hope they all get killed painfully in the next episode and the show's only remaining cast members are Strand and the El Salvadoran guy.

+1, except Strand is an idiot too.

He's an interstellar idiot

Where was Daniel in the finale? He's the only consistently written character. Was he in the first half...maybe I have forgotten already.

He didn't appear at all in the finale that I can recall.

Lately he is for sure. But he was a cool cat in the first season. So there's potential with his character if the writers could get some imagination.

Interesting promo for the next season:

New season FTWD started last night...Meh...

Really? I didn't know it started again. Oh well.

Yeah, you didn't miss much.

Bit of a snoozer with huge plot leaps...It needs more Daniel

One very subtle thing I'd really like to see done in the walking dead to make the zombies/show creepier is add variety to the zombie vocals. Currently the only noises they make are growls and snarls... If you watch older zombie movies like Dawn of the Dead, they can often be heard wailing and such, which is far creepier. When they snarl they almost come across like an aggressive dog, not a creepy reanimated corpse. Thoughts?

Worst episode of the season...I tried stabbing my brain but realized contrary to what's seen on the show, you can't easily knife a fresh skull

What do you mean? This soft family from the suburbs constantly proving to be tougher that people who have grown up as survivalist? Even takes less oxygen for them to function.

I just can't believe how many plot points they try and steal from the original (and fail). Like the routing of a heard by a wall of campers.

I only half watch it these days. I just make believe I'm into it so the girlfriend goes off to bed and I get the TV for the last hour of the night instead of watching the ID channel.

When is the original back? October 22nd?

I kept saying something similar to my wifey. Man it was tough to watch all the way to the end...

I watch via DVR...I ff over entire scenes of dialogue. The girl impervious to carbon dioxide talking/singing(!!) with grandma--skip. Daniel's daughter stuck in a pipe connecting with militant native american--skip. The druggie kid was the highlight for crying out loud!!

Excellent points. I can't believe that I fell for this season's bait and switch from decent show back to normal. I must be a friggin' idiot!!!!!!!

The season started great and just got worse and worse. So, what do they do after finding a large safety net of preppers in a fairly secure area? Well, they kill half of them off by putting an obvious spy in the kitchen, then instead of killing the psychopath murderer in their midst, they exile him so that he can bring a horde to their camp. Then they pack into an airtight pantry with no airflow, just to kill everyone else off......except for the main characters of course. Finally, the few survivors take the psychopath responsible for killing nearly the entire camp with them as they break camp......and then they split up again? WTF? I hope they all get bitten by zombies and then get stuck in a tarpit forever.

Yes, I'm quoting myself from two years ago. Has FTWD improved at all? Just 20 days to wait for the real thing..

Well, there was *one* air vent, but no backup.

I also found this episode to be the worst of this season (which was not so bad so far IMO);
They had a good potential with these two communities forced to live together... and yet they decided to blow it away. Failed opportunity.

literally

“I think that we’ve finally gotten to a place with Fear the Walking Dead where it has its own identity where we can play with some things,” Kirkman said. “So what I’m going to say, and this is all I’m going to say, is that there are two Walking Dead shows. I’m not going to name them. But there are two. There’s one character that is going to go from one show that I will not name and appear in the other show, which I will not name.”

1DEAD (resized).jpg

Oh brother, I hope they don't let FTWD contaminate Walking Dead with one of their idiots. If they do mix, I sure hope it's not the writers of FTWD putting it together.

TWD back tonight & so is the original show discussion thread!!

Looking forward to it!

After FTWD it can only get better. Looking forward to this show.

And I won’t mention the comic this season. I promise I’ll be good.

this was like watching the keystone cops. never seen so many dodged bullets. just so friggin ridiculous.

I thought it was good...I might be elderly graybeard cane Rick for Halloween.

They had Neegan out in the open and well within range of anyone with an AR-15 and no one takes aim and shoots him in the head? One shot. Instead Rick sprays the balcony like he is hosing down a car without aiming? Who writes this stuff? They would all have had orders to take aim and take him down given a chance, no matter what the original plan was. Of course in real life he would not have even poked his head out the door to begin with.

They used to write for "The A Team" .

Ever see so many shots and no hits or blood ?

LTG : )

You hit the nail on the head!

I was yelling "Just shoot him!" at my TV over and over.

They want him dead so bad, yet no one pulls the trigger at the perfect time?!?

I love TWD, but it's just not the show it once was from a storytelling standpoint. You can almost feel the writers saying, "Ok...we're gonna show three Ricks from three different points in time. It'll be so cool and show how creative we are! Oh, and we'll have Negan use the 'shittin pants' line again."

And I sure hope they introduce another community living in the area that no one has managed to stumble on again this season.

Oh well...still better than the reality show crap my wife watches.

100% true.

I liked the show and you can make these arguments with every episode so you have to just suspend reality....they sniped every single lookout no problem but didn't have a sniper lined up to take him out?

Even the characters on the show knew killing Negan in episode 1 would've made the remainder of the season kind of boring just watching them plant crops and stuff.

I told my wife they shoot like storm troopers.