The Walking Dead Season 7

[DarthJoe]

Season 7 premier tonight! I can't wait. It'll be interesting to see who they decide to kill off.

[DarthJoe]

Ugh...that episode was pretty disgusting. I think they went a little overboard with the gore.

[The Thing]

It was abit graphic.

[Belmont13]

Was it really that bad? The gore, I mean. I haven't seen the episode yet so I'm genuinely asking. I have seen a couple of people complaining that it was too graphic. Was it more graphic than usual?

[DarthJoe]

Was it really that bad? The gore, I mean. I haven't seen the episode yet so I'm genuinely asking. I have seen a couple of people complaining that it was too graphic. Was it more graphic than usual?

If you don't mind seeing people you care about getting hit over the head so hard with a baseball bat that their eye pops out of it's socket, and then seeing their head smashed into a bloody pulp with said baseball bat ...it's not real bad. Lol

 

There have probably been some other things on The Walking Dead that have been just as bad or possibly more graphic (Noah's death), but because it's happening to a character that the audience is so emotionally invested in, I think it makes it that much worse. That, combined with the fact that the brutality didn't really let up through the entire episode made it seem really over the top and really pushed the boundaries for a cable television show.

 

My wife got up and left the room at one point in the episode, and I've never seen her do that, even when we've watched messed up horror movies.

[Belmont13]

I understand, the reason I asked was because everywhere I go there's this divide/battle between fans of the show that thought they went too far and fans of the show who read the comics who feel that the gore was justified because it's comic accurate. I also read IGN's review and one of their reviewer's tore episode apart because of what they did and how they did it.

[ronriii]

My parents and I love watching gory horror films, and yet they still didn't like how it was handled at all (which is very rare for them since they watch a LOT of violent films with characters they give a damn about). I think it doesn't help that the episode was more or less supposed to be the finale of last season but using it as a premiere episode for the new season came across as manipulative. In this regard, diving right into the story months after the previous episode might leave some people disoriented, and by pumping unrelenting punishment to the main characters on the first episode there's a point when you start to ask "What am I even watching this for? Just to see my favorite characters get killed?". There's also a point to be made that the episode just lacked a dynamic tone, in that it just had this non-stop harrowing atmosphere throughout with no arcs in the narrative for us to actually go through. And we know they can do better than this, especially when you have episodes like "The Grove", "Clear" and "This Sorrowful Life" that shows just how good the writing can get. This is made even worse because where the episode's story would have worked fine as a finale that was built up through an entire season, using it as a premiere episode felt off where it almost seemed like it was misplaced in its sequencing of events.

 

I'm fine with gore and deaths for characters I like, but the whole setup of the episode with the preceding season cliffhanger felt very exploitative and made all for the sake of shock value. Combine that with the gory death scenes (one of which felt really manufactured in its use as a red herring and the following one being really gratuitous in its depiction that some have actually compared it to snuff material or real life public executions) I can see why it easily ruined people's mood. And by "ruined people's mood", I mean in a bad off-putting kind of way and not even the intended way of actually making you give a damn about their deaths.

 

There's also the argument that they're just adapting things from the source material hence why it's supposed to be "good". Which is strange because the comic was never heralded as some masterpiece of writing, with a lot of deaths and explicit scenes being regarded as trashy and some even juvenile. The fact is, just because it's adapted from the source material, it doesn't mean its exempt from criticism (both the adaption and the source material itself).

[NMX]

My understanding is the second death of the episode (dunno if I need to be at this point but I'm still being cautious of spoilers) was meant to be very comic-accurate.

It was, however, hard to watch, I agree.

I'm also of the opinion it was a very solid episode-- certain things needed to be established, like Negan's presence moving forward, Rick's unraveling, etc., and it certainly managed to do that. A large part of that, I think, is because they managed to make us care so much about the characters they took from us, as well as the characters now left in the aftermath.

 

I missed a lot of Season Six, so I ended up binge-watching those 16 episodes in the days leading up to Seven Seven.

Looking forward to tuning in at least a little more regularly now, though I still have to watch the second episode of this season (that'll be happening tonight most likely).

[ronriii]

In retrospect, I think what would have worked better is if they actually put in Abraham's death in the cliffhanger while putting Glenn's death in the premiere. Some people might have complained that they didn't go for the comic death but I think it works better from a storytelling point of view. That said, I agree about Negan and Rick's interaction and it was probably the highlight of the episode.

 

Admittedly my favorites would have to be Morgan and Carol at the moment, and how the show gave them their own spin compared to their disappointing counterparts in the comics. Here's hoping they keep doing what they're doing because I can't help but find that some of the strongest writing treatments they've done almost always involve those two.

[Belmont13]

Admittedly my favorites would have to be Morgan and Carol at the moment, and how the show gave them their own spin compared to their disappointing counterparts in the comics. Here's hoping they keep doing what they're doing because I can't help but find that some of the strongest writing treatments they've almost always involve those two.

 

I agree, Carol has a come long a way one of the better developed characters in the whole show a complete antithesis to her comics counterpart. I didn't care much for Morgan but that episode where they showed him training with the man in the cabin(easily one of the best episodes in the series) made me look at him in a different way. At this point both of them are the only characters that I really care about; the rest of the cast can die and I wouldn't really care.

[ronriii]

I agree, Carol has a come long a way one of the better developed characters in the whole show a complete antithesis to her comics counterpart. I didn't care much for Morgan but that episode where they showed him training with the man in the cabin(easily one of the best episodes in the series) made me look at him in a different way. At this point both of them are the only characters that I really care about; the rest of the cast can die and I wouldn't really care.

 

 

Agreed. It's just great to see how far she's come and I can't help but find that they've done such a great job with her.

 

I actually really liked Morgan in "Clear" so I was cautious when he finally joined Rick's group. I was worried because I happen to like a lot of characters that have a "no-kill" mantra and I know how writers can easily screw that up. That is, until we got that episode detailing how his thought process came to be during his stay at the cabin with that man (Eastman), which really convinced me of his plight as someone who's been tortured by so many deaths (be it from the loss of his loved ones or the innocents he terrorized in his delusion/paranoia).

 

It's funny in its own way, because I came to like Carol and Morgan independently and yet now their stories have basically intertwined, be it negatively (last season) or even positively (as with the case of the latest episode). It's something that I really miss in this show, the whole conflict of interest and how their beliefs come into play with their actions, especially considering how much everyone just follows Rick like a flock with very little disagreement.

[Citicetim]

Have watched all the seasons since then? Frankly speaking I didn't manage to do that - too boring...