The Walking Dead finale
Because you can't do spoiler cuts on freakin' FaceBook. I'm just going to paste something I wrote to my brother earlier. He thought the Rick/Joe ending was unrealistic. So my response follows. Feel free to jump in and comment. And I hope I do this right. It's been years since I've done a cut.
You're not looking at it from the story perspective, baby bro. The set up was Carl asking Rick about Terminus: "Are we going to tell them?" Then he goes on to clarify (paraphrasing maybe) "Are we going to tell them what happened to us? What we did?" Then "Are we going to tell them who we are?" And then: "Who are we?" The big question is who are we now? What have we become? Rick and Carl have both been struggling with that this season, although not directly with each other. Have they become as monstrous as the monsters they've been fighting since the plague started? When Rick tore out Joe's jugular, he was answering yes, they had. But they had to in order to survive, and in the end he accepts that fully. He will do anything to protect his loved ones, no matter how monstrous.
I thought that whole sequence with Joe's gang was completely horrifying. I couldn't believe that the show was taking it that far, and for a moment or two I thought that Carl was actually going to be raped. But it really raised the stakes for the story and really, really provided the impetus for Rick to stop clinging to his illusions about creating a safe, separate reality.
Eugene (the nerd with the mullet) doesn't strike me as being any good in a fight, but you may be on to something about him coming up with some ad-hoc weapons. I think Rick knew they were outgunned pretty early on. I also think they didn't want to split up the group again, and that's why they didn't leave Daryl outside. Besides he's just one guy - what was he supposed to do?
I was thrown off for the last 10 minutes because I kept expecting a few of the group to die. Again, it was the hype that led so many of us to that conclusion, so we were all watching the clock and trying to figure out how all of that was all going down in the time that was left. It wasn't the fault of the script; the PR people screwed up. Still, I'm really glad that no one did die. Although for a few minutes I was convinced that Bob and Glenn and Maggie were dead when I saw the bad guys wearing their clothes. I was on Twitter with my friend Jenn in MA and we were going nuts. OMG those are Bob's pants! OMG they're all dead. OMGOMGOMG! Heh. Twitter is fun.
Anyway, I wish they would reshow the finale next week. I completely missed the point of the flashbacks. In fact, I didn't even get that they were flashbacks. In my mind, I was watching the hallucinations of a dying Rick, and Hershel was telling him to put down his guns because you don't need guns in heaven :) As I said - completely missed the point.
OK, back to you. Do you agree with any of this?
You're not looking at it from the story perspective, baby bro. The set up was Carl asking Rick about Terminus: "Are we going to tell them?" Then he goes on to clarify (paraphrasing maybe) "Are we going to tell them what happened to us? What we did?" Then "Are we going to tell them who we are?" And then: "Who are we?" The big question is who are we now? What have we become? Rick and Carl have both been struggling with that this season, although not directly with each other. Have they become as monstrous as the monsters they've been fighting since the plague started? When Rick tore out Joe's jugular, he was answering yes, they had. But they had to in order to survive, and in the end he accepts that fully. He will do anything to protect his loved ones, no matter how monstrous.
I thought that whole sequence with Joe's gang was completely horrifying. I couldn't believe that the show was taking it that far, and for a moment or two I thought that Carl was actually going to be raped. But it really raised the stakes for the story and really, really provided the impetus for Rick to stop clinging to his illusions about creating a safe, separate reality.
Eugene (the nerd with the mullet) doesn't strike me as being any good in a fight, but you may be on to something about him coming up with some ad-hoc weapons. I think Rick knew they were outgunned pretty early on. I also think they didn't want to split up the group again, and that's why they didn't leave Daryl outside. Besides he's just one guy - what was he supposed to do?
I was thrown off for the last 10 minutes because I kept expecting a few of the group to die. Again, it was the hype that led so many of us to that conclusion, so we were all watching the clock and trying to figure out how all of that was all going down in the time that was left. It wasn't the fault of the script; the PR people screwed up. Still, I'm really glad that no one did die. Although for a few minutes I was convinced that Bob and Glenn and Maggie were dead when I saw the bad guys wearing their clothes. I was on Twitter with my friend Jenn in MA and we were going nuts. OMG those are Bob's pants! OMG they're all dead. OMGOMGOMG! Heh. Twitter is fun.
Anyway, I wish they would reshow the finale next week. I completely missed the point of the flashbacks. In fact, I didn't even get that they were flashbacks. In my mind, I was watching the hallucinations of a dying Rick, and Hershel was telling him to put down his guns because you don't need guns in heaven :) As I said - completely missed the point.
OK, back to you. Do you agree with any of this?