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The long President’s Day weekend
was one of those weekends for yours truly. You know the type. On Saturday, the
pipes on one side of our house froze due to the extreme cold, thawed, and then
re-froze again by Sunday. As of press time, they are not currently frozen, but
who’s to say what the future will hold? Also on Saturday, my car slipped into a
coma from which it shall never emerge. When I dropped it off at the mechanic’s, I did the move where I tore open my
shirt and yelled “Take what you need! Just leave me enough to make it home!”
Everyone was very confused by this and I was ushered out quickly. Also, I
failed to win a spot in the Broad Street Run.
Things weren’t all bad, however. The wife and I spent a pleasant Valentine’s
evening at sea. Then, the writing team of “The Walking Dead” finally managed to
liberate me of my Sunday obligation to watch “The Walking Dead” by airing an
episode so terrible, that I’ve given up on the show. Never again shall I spend
a Sunday evening sighing loudly and arguing with characters on the TV while my
wife sighs quietly to herself in another room.
Long time blog readers will remember I once cribbed the format of a popular
wrestling blog and used that to write up a season and a half of “The Walking
Dead.” That stopped when I actively began to hate the show and all who dwelled
within it. My relationship with it has limped along since – until this most
recent episode, entitled “No Way Out.” Please, allow me to dust off my borrowed
format for reviewing episodic television shows one last time and explain what
has lead me to finally stop watching “The Walking Dead.” Warning: Spoilers
abound.
- Bad: The past few seasons were something, yeah? Well forget them! They’re all gone! “The Walking Dead” writing staff is basically a kid on Christmas morning, stomping all over old toys to get at the new stuff. There’s a new big bad on the horizon which means now is the time to throw out all of those pesky storylines that have been simmering for the last two half-seasons. In the span of barely two minutes, Blonde Lady and both of her kids were killed off. So much for all that time we spent building Carl’s tweeny rivalry, Rick’s love interest, and Carol’s bizarre, cookie-and-gun based rivalry with a child. All gone.
- Bad: Also, bye bye, Wolf Guy. He had a momentary face turn and was gunned down before anything could come of it. Got to get rid of him. New baddies coming.
- Bad: Rick & Crew hit their five moves of doom. Oh yeah, forget about that highly dangerous walker hoard we spent all of last half season talking about. Half of one of the largest hoard of walkers ever shown on “The Walking Dead” broke off and headed right for Rick and company’s door. Then, the Wolves let them in. This massive collection of walkers seemed destined to force Rick and everyone else to give up Alexandria and once again flee for their lives. HA-HA. JK. No, all it took to completely eradicate that threat was for Rick to get really, really mad. Carl gets shot and so Rick walks out into the swarm and just starts offing walkers. This inspires maybe 8-9 others – many of whom rank among the show’s “most likely to be eaten” contingent – to also wander out and start hacking at walkers. This motley crew, armed with renowned WMDs such as screwdrivers, the butt ends of rifles and hatchets, lay waste to the swarm. Our heroes suffer ZERO casualties. Basically, “The Walking Dead” writing staff just John Cena’d the show’s walkers. They completely torpedoed them as a threat by making them so easy to dispose of that Rick can show up with the D-Team and kill thousands upon thousands of them without breaking a sweat. The next character killed by a walker is going to look like the biggest, dumbest asshole ever. I just watched Eugene hold his own against an army of these things. I just watched Nameless Alexandria Victims 1-5 hold their own against them. I hope Negan is a good enough bad guy to last the rest of your series because the walkers just got AA’d into oblivion.
- Bad: On that note: Rick and company, holed up somewhere, repelling assaults from a much-hyped, mustache-twirling super villain. What a novel concept, “The Walking Dead.” Wow.
- Bad: OMG. He’s dead. PSYCH! I suppose “The Walking Dead” writing team is unfamiliar with the concept of the boy who cried wolf, wherein, if you trick people enough times, eventually they won’t listen or care when you come to them with the truth. We’ve now done two “Glenn is 100% dead, there’s no way he’s surviv… oh he survived it” gags in two half-seasons. Amazingly, this most recent example was even more brainless than the last. This episode also featured the second instance of “Carl is dead, no he’s not.” Hell, it opened with Sasha and Abe being on death’s door until, miraculously, they weren’t. Writers, you do realize that when you finally get around to killing any of these people, no one will care, right? You’re burning people out with this crap. Just kill them or stop pretending to kill them.
- Bad: Carol. Deranged Psycho. Murderer of reformed Wolves. Haunter of Children’s Psyches. At what point do the other characters need to have a talk about her? I mean, the plan has to be to attempt to rebuild a society eventually, correct? Carol, what with her constant need to proactively eliminate all threats (perceived/imagined) is no longer meant for society. She’s worse than Daryl was that one time he went full-feral. Sure, this iteration of Carol may seem helpful now, but what happens when she’s pulling knives on jaywalkers or giving mandatory detailed guest lectures at elementary schools on the horrifying realities of mortality?
Goodbye, “Walking Dead.” It’s been … frustrating.
