This week, Simon leads the Saviors to the Hilltop and we have biological warfare. Tara, Tobin, and Kent are all attacked with varying results. Rick doesn’t want to do much talking. Henry is trying to be Carl Jr. and failing. All of this and more in this week’s blog. My name is Kent, and I ask 9 episode-specific questions, and 2 bonus questions, and that’s how we get the 9 Deuce. Any comments in BOLD are written by me. I hope you enjoy and if you or someone you know may want to do this blog, contact me, leave a comment, whatever. The contact info is at the bottom of this blog.
____________________________________________
The 9
- Was Tara’s arrow tainted with walker blood?
Bob: No. She was injured at the same time as the others and she isn’t sweating. It was Dwight who has made his decision to be against Negan. Against Negan. Not for Alexandrians per se. (Shouldn’t the pain alone be enough for her to be sweating? She’s no Rick Grimes.)
Chris: No. I imagine if it was she would have turned like the others. Dammit Dwight! You had one job! (Yeah, I may have to fire Dwight for F’n this one up.)
Kent: This is where I present the Sliders mindset. Back in the mid 90’s, FOX and later SyFy had a TV show called Sliders starring Jerry O’Connell, and it was about a group of 4 who could travel to various dimensions, and they would always end up in the same location, San Fransisco, but the society would always have different quirks, like USSA or they live by SHirley Jackson’s The Lottery rules, or they were still living like it was the Wild West or San Fran became a giant Jurassic Park. You get the idea. I want to use the sliding device to go to the dimension where Tara’s arrow was tainted. Now, fudge that. I want the dimension where Daryl didn’t become a pussy. Screw it, I want the dimension where Shane, Merle, Abe, Governor, Tyrese, T Dog, Martinez, Shumpert, Morales, Herschel, Otis, Gavin, and Gareth hung out with Carol, Rick, Negan, Simon, Eugene, bad ass Daryl, Dwight, Jerry, Tobin, Kent, Morgan, Ezekiel, Rosita, and they just went place to place taking over. That’s the show I want. You can give us Lizzie, Mika, Shiva, Enid, Aaron, Gregory, and Deanna as well. That’s the show I want to see. Oceanside would be done in 5 minutes.
- Did seeing her get hit by Dwight bring you any joy, either because she’s been awful to Dwight or just because you think she is simply awful?
Bob: Sure because it’s Tara.
Chris: Yeah. Not really because of how she’s been towards Dwight. I can understand it. I just can’t stand her character.
Kent: Ahhhhhh, I love to bash Tara. I guess we need to move on to serious topics now. Sigh. See, nobody likes her. End her!!!!
- Will you miss Tobin?
Bob: Who? ???? (Poor Tobin. He always wanted to be part of the big boy group.)
Chris: Not really. He needed more screen time in order for more people to be invested in him. Its like they killed him just so someone “important” died. (Yeah, they truly failed Tobin’s character. Him dying didn’t feel like it had much of any oomph behind it because he rarely had any scenes that furthered his character. He realized Abe was better than he was at his job in Alexandria. He wanted to nail Carol. That was his character development.)
Kent: I always hoped that they would give his character a bit to work with, but they never did. He feels like a missed opportunity. I wanted him to do something heroic before he died. I will miss him.
- Kent appears to be dying in bed. Do you really care?
Bob: See above. (Bob, words hurt!)
Kent: Ahhhh, Kent. One of the founding fathers of Alexandria, in my mind, along with Reg and Tobin. They helped fortify it and Kent was a businessman. He was rarely out on the front lines because he had bad asthma, but he could stay behind like a son of a bitch! When the show needed a background character to know his role and shut his mouth, Kent was second in line usually, and he did a damn fine job. Of course, he will be miss. I now kind of want to write his whole background story.
- What is Gavin (or his ghost/memory/vision) referring to or trying to get Morgan to realize?
Bob: You must go to Fear. (That’s a really good call. Fortunately, I don’t hate Fear. The thing is, the things that people bitch about TWD doing, or not doing, Fear is often trying to do, but it doesn’t get any love. It’s a shame really. Still mad at who they killed last season though, but that is part of the appeal. They will kill so many people that they just developed.)
Chris: He’s guilt-tripping Morgan for letting Henry kill him. With all the doctors they magically stumble upon, Morgan could really use a psychiatrist. (That makes me wonder, should we be surprised at the amount of doctors remaining in the ZA? While most groups initially made keeping doctors alive a priority, I’m sure, as groups have gotten smaller and split up or gotten wiped out, the doctors didn’t learn many combat skills early when it was the learning time. Still, I also feel like there are so many people in the medical field with other skills, think field medics in the military, why don’t we see more?)
Kent: I am just happy to have Gavin back on my screen. I hope that this leads to Morgan seeing visions of Benjamin, maybe Duane, or even Coral. The thing is, both Bob and Chris’ response are really solid and I can’t add anything intelligent to that because those are seemingly the 2 best theories.
- Where is Henry?
Bob: Hunting his brother’s killer. (Probably hunting down Jared. I think there is at least a 40% chance that he thinks it is Jared just by hearing him talk.)
Kent: I am secretly hoping that he is hanging out with Gregory. I really want more Gregory scenes and him working with Henry on screen could prove hilarious.
- Will Henry make it out of this season alive?
Bob: Yes.
Chris: I think so. If he doesn’t Morgan might just lose it and go to a different show….. (WHAT? A new show? That’s crazy talk. You’re crazy. That can’t happen.)
Kent: Huh, I thought everybody would say no. You gents have made me look foolish. Henry’s death could be that final thing that pushes Morgan to a point called “too far gone”. I believe that was the episode title of Herschel and Governor’s death.
- Why isn’t there more concern about the cut on Rick?
Bob: He is always in the safe zone. No wounds are fatal. (At some point, somebody should come up to Rick and take a blood sample because he’s gotta be part of the cure at this point, right? Nothing really bothers him as far as wounds go. The worst he had it was after the prison.)
Chris: He is wearing too much plot armor. I actually have a theory that he might be immune. It’s a disease, there are bound to be people who are immune to it. Might as well be the main character. (Wow, okay, I read your response after I wrote my response to Bob. That is pretty funny. Yeah, i think there is something to that because he has had wounds that would have killed other people.)
Kent: I think Rick Grimes listened to a lot of gangsta rap while working with Shane. I bet there are like home videos of them rapping Nuthin’ But A G Thang or Gangsta’s Paradise. The secret isn’t that he is the cure. It’s that he believes in living the Thug Life. I believe in Rick Grimes. I think he also really liked Nelly.
- Do you feel that Simon’s attach (this was a typo and I meant to say attack) should be considered a success? Do you think that Negan will consider this a success or a waste of too many Savior’s lives?
Bob: At first I thought you had mistyped attache. It was successful. But he could have just went with the wounds. That caused the most casualties. (Which is what Negan wanted initially. Getting greedy cost SImon a lot of lives.)
Chris: It probably was a success. However, I’m pretty sure next time Negan sees Simon he won’t be in the congratulating mood. (Yeah, I have a feeling that Negan may be a little upset at how the current situation is. Poor Simon is gon get got.)
Kent: I would say that it was a failure. I feel that the Saviors lost more people than the other side. Not only that, but they lost how many of the prisoner’s allegiance? Negan is so going to be pissed off. I want to see Simon try to pull a Gregory and negotiate his way out of this.
Bonus Deuce
- If you were one of the Saviors locked in the cage, when given the opportunity to flee, what would you have done?
Bob: I would have stayed.
Chris: I would have stayed. They leave and they are most likely dead in a variety of ways. (I really wish I knew how close these communities were t o each other, because those escaping have no vehicles most likely.)
Kent: Clean sweep, we all would have stayed. I would have also had to consider this. Does Negan even want them back, based on what they heard Simon say? Even if they make it back to Sanctuary, they may get punished for getting caught. Not worth it.
- Did you like the vibe of this episode? It was all over the place as far as drama, war, horror, etc.
Bob: Good balance and it kept moving. (Yeah, I like the term balance. That seems very apropos for this particular episode in particular.)
Chris: I enjoyed it. Second half of this season has been awesome so far. (Yeah, and it’s funny because you could say this, and I guarantee you that some jackass would say: “Well the first half was all setting the stage for this great second half” and I would have to shut that shit down. They wasted sooooo much time in the first half. It wasn’t that the content wasn’t good, but there was at least 2 hours of screen time that was wasted on nonsense.)
Kent: Yeah, I am really digging the show at the moment, minus Tara being alive, of course.
Final Thoughts – Did you watch The Terror?
Bob: Yes. They got me.
Chris: …..yes. I liked it.
Kent: Some of it. I love seeing Mance Rayder from Game of Thrones back on my TV screen, as well as another GoT alum, Edmure Tully. I plan on watching more tonight or Monday. This is the type of show I can really enjoy.
All the pictures used in this blog are for review purposes. They are the property of:
- American Movie Classics (AMC) (presents)
- Circle of Confusion
- Valhalla Motion Pictures (as Valhalla Entertainment)
- Darkwoods Productions
- AMC Studios
- Idiot Box Productions
Please go find a copy and support the creators.