The “I can’t kill anymore/I have PTSD” plot has been done a thousand times by now and pretty much every character went through it. It’s just boring by now and the way they do it just gets worse/dumber. It’s the 6th season, we should be beyond this stuff now, people either should have adjusted or not. Maybe with an exception here or there but that’s not the case, the only way for the writers to create ~drama~ is still this crutch of a story device.
It’s especially egregious with a chracter like Carol’s because she did have actual character growth in the show which put her past that point but now she is back at it again only because the writers obviously had no idea where to go next so they once again recycle the same basic plot about a crisis of conscienceness (they did the same with Rick a couple of times, I’m just waiting for the moment that Morgan “turns” him once again so we can go in circles with Rick too…).
It’s all just so cheap by this point, doesn’t feel earned or gives any new insights into the characters or the world.
I’m not saying that’s an invalid choice for Morgan’s character, it’s just frustrating that no other character points out to Morgan the obvious reasons why his approach is dumb. A simple “Morgan, who is going to guard your prisoner when you are asleep?” would make me happy. At least that way Morgan would have to face the possibility that no one wants to have anything to do with something so stupid(keeping prisoners). As it stands, there’s no reason I can see for Morgan to think anything except that if he builds the jail, the town will be compelled to use it. Meaning people will be drafted as guards, people will have to bring the prisoner food, etc. It’s like he’s living in his own world and no one is snapping him out of it, even though he’s already put their lives in danger.
That’s another problem with the characters, there is just no middle ground. It’s either “MURDER, KILL, DEATH” or “PEACE, EVERYONE IS PRECIOUS, CAN’T HURT ANYBODY” and people jump between these extremes all the time. Like I said we had this already with Rick before as well as other characters and while you’d have cases like this it doesn’t make for better drama if everyone is stuck between one of just two possible modes.
There is just no subtlety and that’s why characters in this show behave “dumb”, they get no room for “real” decisions, their only purpose is to create more drama like Carol suddenly making two steps backwards as character and forcing everyone into more bad decisions for more cheap drama (same with Daryl’s sudden stupidity).
Carol literally fought him when she found out he had a Wolf prisoner. Both she and Rick have told him that not killing is not an option. In the last episode, when Morgan was rattling on about how that prisoner saved Carl, Rick’s WTF face told me he’s wondering how to handle Morgan now. I don’t think that was “Gosh, he may be right about this circle of karma,” so much as “Is it safe for this dumbass to be near my family?”
As for the jail cell, the fight over that is coming when (if) he tries to actually use it. Do you think Rick “I don’t take chances any more” will permit that?
I’ll come back to this: Morgan is wrong. We know it. He knows it. He stated that explicitly. It’s just the writers exploring how people cope with an irretrievably hostile world.
I think you read it wrong if you thought Rick was thinking that Morgan was a dumbass after the explanation of the Wolf/Denise/Carl. It’s clear Rick was conceding that matters can be more complex than he previously was asserting, and reconciling somewhat with Morgan.
Rick’s the leader of Alexandria. If Morgan is building a jail, and Rick does not put an immediate stop to it, Morgan and the rest of the town will see that as Rick endorsing the use of the jail. What else could it mean? It’s this kind of thing that encourages Morgan’s thinking and subverts the idea that Rick thinks Morgan is a dumbass. That also reduces the ability of people to challenge Morgan since everyone sees him as being favored by Rick.
Rick should be worried about the danger Morgan poses. Morgan isn’t just saying “I’m wrong”, he’s saying he’s willing to risk his and everyone else’s life rather than kill someone.
Daryl & Co. aside for a minute; what did become of Carol? And the lone survivor from the wreck who appears to have seen which way she went and shambled off after her - is that important? It occurred to me that Rick and Morgan might be following his blood and not hers. But yeah, I absolutely loathe Carol’s turn here. Boo fuckin’ hiss!
I may have the order of events wrong, but I thought the survivor shambled off after Rick and Morgan. However, now that I’m thinking about it, I probably missed an “earlier” notation because I don’t remember Rick and Morgan being in that big, wide field as he started shambling.
I’m pretty sure he hid in the trees right as Rick & Morgan got to the cars. And then after they followed the blood trail, he came out of the trees and went into the same fields himself.
Yeah, that’s the way I saw it too. I expect Rick will run across him as he heads back toward the car.
And Carol must be moving damned fast, and apparently didn’t run across a farm YOU COULD SEE FROM THE ROAD, which apparently had live people at it until very very recently (like 10 minutes before Rick and Morgan got there).
Ah, thanks Dan et. al. Good catch!
Take this spoiler with a large a grain of salt as you like, but
dead person walking
Norman Reedus
is on Talking Dead tonight. They’ve gone out their way to say that’s no longer a sign of a character’s death, but that could just be another attempt at misdirection.
Some leaked audio which may or may not be fake …
serious spoiler alert
… indicated that the comic book version of events will hold true. Google it if you really want to know. Of course, that says little about everybody else’s safety.
Why do people even look for this stuff? So if the script of the episode leaked, people would read it I guess, just to know what’s going to happen, rather than actually finding out while watching the show? It just boggles my mind that people are always looking for clues and ways of spoiling themselves and knowing this stuff in advance.
It is a little weird, but I think for some people it’s a meta-game where they get to be detectives and then “score” themselves in how close they are to the mark.
Edit - to clarify, people will have multiple reasons for doing this, but undoubtedly a common one would be to further disassociate the horror they expect to see from reality.
You guys are over-thinking this. I started comparing the comic book to the show after Glenn’s awful Dumpster Dive. Initially I was thinking that the show runners were brilliant to off such a popular character so casually. It really brought home how anything could happen in the post-ZA world. But then they brought him back and it really destroyed any illusion that I had seen. These were only actors playing out a scene, puppets etc.
I know what will have been about to come up (name that tense!) in the comic-book-world and honestly it doesn’t matter anymore. They over played their hand.
I’m going with “confusing” … or maybe present future past pluperfect progressive? (yeah, I know that doesn’t exist, but gosh darn it, it should!)
I watched the first episode after the mid-season hiatus, and am just accumulating the rest on the DVR for lazy summertime watching at some point (maybe). It’s just not “must view” stuff anymore like all the other big AMC shows have been (Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Hell on Wheels, Better Call Saul). It’s like Abiding Dude wrote, after the cheat that was Glenn’s escape under the dumpster (his feet would have been closest to the dumpster, not his head, and there’s no way it could have been otherwise, unless there had been another dumpster spaced just so behind the one the two guys were standing on), it just doesn’t seem worth the time investment.
For what it’s worth, Papageno, aside from that (and that’s a pretty big aside) the season has been pretty decent. There’s still plenty to criticize at any given point, but it’s been at the level of guilty pleasure for me long before Glenn’s Magical Dumpster Dive.
To the writers and producers of this show, I would like to give a hearty and heartfelt, “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUU.”