But he didn’t “recruit” Alexandria, he only made them give him stuff, it’s not like they are going to join his army in the next season which is why it doesn’t make sense. Someone like Negan would take out the fighters/leaders and then have them as “servants” but leaving Rick and everyone else alive just to get some stuff doesn’t seem reasonable at all, especially not after they already killed a lot of his people and thus proved to be very dangerous.
So let’s be real, Rick and co. are only allowed to live because the plot demands it without any reason or logic provided by what is going on.
In a situation where staying alive for longer than a few days on your own is unlikely, a protection racket might be something that is enticing to join simply for the sake of self preservation for various random schlubs.
I assume the Knights in Polycarbonate Armor will be key to extricating the gang from Negan’s clutches at the end of next season. Carol to the rescue again. And that’s good, at least. We know she will be back. If she’s grouped up with Lennie Bruce now, that would be a lot of talent to ignore.
Is that what that was? They looked like home-made Imperial Stormtrooper outfits to me. I thought it was just some random guys who got lost on the way to some Star Wars fan event.
And speaking of random people we’re expected to care about, I still don’t know who that was that Neegan’s guys beat and eventually hung. Was that someone we’re supposed to know? I thought at first it was Aaron’s boyfriend, but apparently I was wrong.
Someone on another forum said it’s actually motocross gear that semi-pro dirt bikers wear for protection when they race/jump/etc… Seems reasonable, and sure looked like a smart idea to help prevent these pesky “we just stopped to stand here and chat and a random walker jumped us” bites that prove so fatal to our gang. Maybe these guys are smarter than the average survivor, though those horses and lances won’t stand up too well to the Saviors’ monster trucks and automatic weapons.
That was confusing. Apparently the place where Carol and Morgan were holed up, where Morgan cut that hanging walker down, was a Library in a nearby small town. There was a small settlement of people there, living in the Library behind the iron fence, and they choose to fight back when they encountered the Saviors. That band of Saviors hung that guy Morgan cut down as their “example” to the others, and it didn’t sit well with the Library folks, so they started shooting. Random guy was the last one left alive, so they used him as their “example” to Rick’s group.
Well, he can’t incorporate them into his army right off. He’s got to own them and break their spirit. I imagine then he needs to decide which ones would make good recruits. The Alicia Witt character said something like “You don’t know what I’ve done to survive” I just figure this process is part of what she was talking about. At some point they probably get an offer to not be a slave to the Saviors anymore but be a soldier for them. It makes sense that the initiation for that would be Negan making them do something very brutal, something that would make them feel they’ve crossed a line and can never go back.
I don’t think Rick and his group have proven themselves dangerous to Negan. They never got close to the heart of whatever it is Negan has going on. Even now Rick’s group knows nothing about Negan, other than he’s got all those people there in that circle. Is that all of them? Don’t know. Where is their camp/HQ? Don’t know. Rick and his people are clueless, and really just an annoyance to Negan. So he incorporates them into his operation and turns them from a bother to a profit.
I don’t see why the show’s producers didn’t make Trevor as Neegan.
That would have been cool.
Instead, we get mustache-twirling, monologue-guy chewing the scenery during the only part of the show that wasn’t interrupted by commercials every 4 minutes.
My wife, who is much better at instantly picking apart TV shows than I am, was also wondering at the timing with Example Guy and the Rick Wagon Train.
Those are good ideas but it’s not the Walking Dead/what was shown to us and at this point in time I have zero hope that TWD will suddenly go into more sensible territory.
I don’t think Rick and his group have proven themselves dangerous to Negan. They never got close to the heart of whatever it is Negan has going on. Even now Rick’s group knows nothing about Negan, other than he’s got all those people there in that circle. Is that all of them? Don’t know. Where is their camp/HQ? Don’t know. Rick and his people are clueless, and really just an annoyance to Negan. So he incorporates them into his operation and turns them from a bother to a profit.
It’s a post-apocalyptic world and I’d imagine it’s not easy to find capable recruit. If killing like 50 people isn’t more than an annoyance then how big is Negan’s group supposed to be? Let’s not forget that to sustain such a predatory group you need a much bigger population or else your parasitism can’t work.
So are we now supposed to believe Negan has hundreds of soldiers and is feeding off thousands of “slaves” after Rick and co. barely encountered any larger groups?
There is just no consistency to all of it. It seems like suddenly there are survivors and other groups everywhere and it simply doesn’t fit with the setting that was established before. I mean I could suspend my disbelief just for that but then please, at least make an effort this season to show there is more to the outside world and give it all some depth instead of just using it to introduce the next super-villain.
I hated the ending to this season, in fact I think the second half of this season was the weakest to date in the entire show’s run, worse than the half season they spent on Hershel’s farm.
:(
Right, but don’t you find it conspicuous that this dastardly villain never uses the word die or kill? You’d think, in all that supposedly terrifying rambling on, he’d be explicit about killing someone. At least as explicit as his roving bands of day players. Instead, the only thing he threatens is to “beat the hell out of someone”. If I was running this show, I would make it clear that someone is going to die. I would not dance around the possible threat. I would make it an explicit promise. “Beat the hell out of” sure does, uh, soften the blow. So to speak.
Of course, the writing and plotting in this show has been wretched lately, so you might be right and it’s just an oversight in the dialogue. But as he was doing his oh-so-chilling eenie-meanie-miney-moe bit, I was wondering what the stakes were, because Jeffrey Dean Morgan certainly didn’t spell them out.
It just seems to me – based on the internal evidence, since I don’t watch the post-game show – that “nobody” is one of the options on the table.
-Tom
Huh. You’re an optimist. I like that. Somebody most assuredly died from a barrage to the head like that, don’t me wrong, but I still appreciate that you’re such an optimist.
Tom’s sunny disposition towards TWD has brought many a jaded viewer through even the worst episodes.
Your memory is fading. They spent like 95% of season two on the farm.
I always give season 2 a pass for being slow because of the barn reveal. At my age it’s really hard to shock me, but for some reason Carol’s daughter had completely dropped from my mind and when the camera panned up I was sitting in front of my TV late at night with both hands firmly locked over my mouth to keep from shrieking like a school girl and waking the wife and kids up.
Again, fuck this show. I don’t want to watch it anymore but I still might, as much as it pains me to say.
The first time the good guys hit the road block…why don’t they unload on them? There was a handful of guys blocking the road, half of them without fucking visible long guns just hanging out in a road? You have a crew of mostly proven vets, armed to the teeth. Why talk shit and back off? You have declared war on these guys but all of a sudden you are going to back off? The fuck? Makes no sense. There was a sense of urgency there with Maggie being in jeopardy and instead of pressing an obvious advantage you are just gonna back off? Why?
Also…did you leave your fucking new found RPGs at home? Why? Why would you do that? When road tripping in the zombie apocalypse I imagine you take your best hardware. How is an unarmed Trevor going to handle an RPG to the face? Not well.
That said, ok Rick decided to back off because Maggie is fragile at this point, I guess. But then the bad guys have literally every other choke point manned even more stoutly than the previous choke point? Ugh. That was the worst thing about the episode. The RV backing up, only to encounter a worse situation at every turn.
Going back to the previous episode, I find it absurd that Daryl got snuck up on. That is counter to everything we have seen in the show.
Lastly…the manufactured cliffhanger where someone is getting beaten to death and obviously the characters in the scene are witnessing it but the audience does not get to witness it…just bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. Fuck the guys in charge of this show. They are pissing on the fanbase.
WTF was that BS? I’ve spent the last 2 hours trying to watch this episode through cable’s internet option, but been subjected to endless ads. Finally, finally I get to end and then the show pulls this crap ! Are they pulling a bait and switch? Are they so worried about fan backlash that they don’t want to follow the graphic novel or is it they wanted to manufacture a cliffhanger just to have one?
Really pissed.
Cliffhangers need to stop being a thing. Mid-season cliffhanger “Is he dead?!?”, season finale cliffhanger “Is he dead?!?”. Come on, people are watching your show anyway. You don’t need a 1980’s season-finale trope to get people to tune in next season.
Grow up, be better writers and learn from the mistakes of the past instead of duplicating them (i.e. Lost)
A surprise cliffhanger is one thing. “Whoa, I didn’t see that last development coming, I wonder what it means going forward?!” But putting off resolution of what you’ve been building toward for a while is the dumb way TWD decided to handle it.
There’s absolutely no good reason to have this cliffhanger. They could have shown Neegan killing whoever it is, then have him stand up, compose himself, and say “Alright, now that that nasty business is over with, let’s talk.” Boom, cut to black, credits roll and all the viewers stew over what just happened for 4 months.
I agree, that would have been infinitely better.