Walking Dead Episode Review 5.8 Coda

In musical terms, a Coda is a passage that ends a particular piece of music.  It is fitting that tonite’s midseason finale is given this name.

It begins on a brutal note with Rick running “Bob” over with a car and then shooting him in the head. While I love this scene because I am all for Cold-blooded Rick, it just adds to how pointless last week’s ending was since he didn’t even survive past the opening credits.

The good Father Gabriel gets a taste of his own medicine being trapped outside the church facing a swarm of Zombies.  Unlike those he actually left outside to die, he is rescued by Carl and Michone,.  He appears to be finally able to accept his role in the new undead world and to continue the circle, the Washington Gang came back in style actually saving the day.

Dawn stood up to a psycho cop who was berating one of the hospital survivors.  The two have a quick fight in a horribly shot sequence where you can’t really see what’s going on because it’s shot too close, much like the fight scenes in Batman Begins were.  I had to watch it a couple of times to see what happened!  Beth delivers the finishing blow, knocking the cop down the elevator shaft.

We’re about ¾ of the way through the episode before the trade begins. We get some tilted camera shots for some reason, I didn't realize I was watching Battlefield Earth.  The hostages get traded. Everything is good until Dawn tries to muck it up by wanting “Everybody Hates Chris” back. Noah agrees and then Beth goes up to Dawn.  Beth stabs Dawn with a pair of Scissors and gets shot in the head. 

Daryl kills Dawn and the standoff ends peacefully when the former hostage is able to say that is it over.  The Washington gang arrives at the hospital just in time to watch Daryl carry Beth out. Maggie flips out end of the episode.

Well not quite, we also get a coda featuring Morgan who arrived at the church and sees Abraham’s apology note where they’re going to Washington.

Remember when I had mentioned episode title, “Coda“at the top?  That was a serious tell for the outcome of this episode.  Beth sang on a few occasions primarily on her trek with Daryl in season four.  For those without a background in music, there was another more noticeable tell as the “whole let’s bring Maggie to go get her sister bit” was another tell.  Why make the effort to bring her back unless you’re going to do something with it.  There is only so much time the writers have to tell a story and every moment needs to have purpose.  It was rather obvious Beth was going to get it.

I had read an article where Norman Reedus (Daryl) had mentioned that the ending was going to be a tearjerker.  Well, I gotta say there were no tears here because I‘m as giddy a school girl because Beth is finally dead! 

I have been actively rooting for her demise for a season and a half now (You’re next Glenn!).  My venom got to the point where I was excited to see Emily Kinney’s character killed when she made a guest spot on “The Following.” Beth as a character, was a whiney-little-ice-princess who showed no remorse when her boyfriend was killed on a run, nearly got Daryl killed because she wanted to have a drink and had “dear diary” voice-over sequences that made fingernails scratching a chalk board sound more appealing.  She was by far the most irritating and useless character on the series.  Judith is more useful and she’s just a baby!

As James Bond once said: “The Bitch is dead.”

I realize I’m probably in the minority about this but boo hoo. If you want a real tearjerker watch How I Met Your Mother, where they spent nine seasons building up The Mother as an awesome character, then actually delivering when we finally do meet her, only to have her get incurable chick cancer in the series finale, just so that the writers can put Ted and Robin back together again.  The Mother’s was a senseless death, Beth’s was well deserved and I commend the writers of TWD for finally pulling the trigger. About bloody time!

See you in February!

Agree? Disagree? Post a comment below!

C.J. Foxx 

Author of Super-Hero Bowl VI
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Walking Dead Episode Review 5.7 - Crossed

The calm before the storm.

The Walking Dead has been historically sharp in these episodes.  Whether or not they succeed in next week’s mid-season finale is another matter. How did they do Tonite?

Tonite’s episode is defined by the two different approaches one civil and the other savage.  The efforts to rescue Beth and Carol are crossed between these two approaches. Rick lays out an extraction plan much like a Navy Seal team would and it would involve the deaths of the enemy after luring a couple of the “cops.” Tyreese still in his pacifist mode, wishes to accomplish this goal through a hostage trade. Daryl surprises Rick by agreeing to this strategy and Rick reluctantly goes along.  

This decision creates a tension between Daryl and Rick, two of the fan favorites. Rick has long since gone into Shane-Land and is fully-equipped to do whatever is necessary to rescue his comrades. I believe Daryl was swayed into this decision by Carol, as evidenced by the fact that he was ready to leave “Everybody Hates Chris” to die last week.  After Daryl gets ambushed by the psycho cop, Rick comes to the rescue and pulls his pistol on the cop. Rick has this look in his eyes that made me think he was going to kill that man, and in fact he should have pulled the trigger.  Instead, we get a bit of predictable and unnecessary drama to build to next week.

There was also the irony when the “cops” asked Rick if he was a cop.  I wonder if Rick even remembers that he was a cop before the cataclysm?

There were some really cool melted zombie effects in this one.  Reminds me of that guy from Robocop after getting the Toxic waste poured on him…

Daryl grabbing a zombie skull by his eyes and using the detached head as a weapon was sick.  Practical effects beat CGI 10 times out of 10.

We finally got back to the Abraham Eugene group.  Nothing really happened here outside of Tara getting on peoples nerves (and acknowledging it to everyone doesn’t excuse it.) Eugene survived his vicious beating and Abraham ended his self-imposed punishment by drinking his water.  Rosita showed a water filtration technique she learned from Eugene, proving that he isn’t worthless. I’m not exactly sure where this is heading going into next week since they are the “B” Plot line right now.  I’m going to say goodbye for now to them since I have little reason to believe they will even appear in mid season finale, See you in February.

Another interesting developing story line is that of character of Father Gabriel.  He’s guilt-ridden after barricading himself in the church and leaving everyone who sought shelter at the church to die outside. He’s essentially a child and I chuckled seeing the Child-Soldier Carl offering to teach Father Gabriel how to use weapons to defend himself.  Carl commenting about the skull structure of a zombie is a subtle touch by the writers.  Like a child, Father Gabriel runs away from the church and faces off with a Zombie. He’s successful in fending it off, but is unable to deliver the finishing blow. Could this be a possible way to bring Morgan back into the picture? He was teased at in the opening episode, so there has to be plans in the works to bring him in.

Back at the hospital, Beth attempts to save Carol only to have Dawn authorize them pulling the plug on her and then have the gall to blame Beth for it. Dawn is an interesting character, who has a look in her eyes that makes you just despise her instantly.  She talks about how people are weak or strong but she is the one who is actually weak.  It’s pretty apparent that she enrolled into the Ryan Leaf School of leadership.  I hope she gets one in the head by Rick, but for some reason I think she’s going to survive.  The writers have created her in a manner where I can see her fate going multiple ways.

Sasha is a complete moron and I know the actress portraying her must have rolled her eyes when she read the last few pages of the script.  Especially when the cop who duped her just happened to be named "Bob," the name of her recently deceased lover.  Weak, weak writing, guys. 

BTW I think I know what she was looking at through the sniper’s lense at the end…

What a gahhh-awful way to end the episode, I’d be ashamed if I wrote that finish. 

If you can overlook the ending it was a C+ episode.  See you next week for the Midseason Finale!

Agree? Disagree? Post a comment below!

C.J. Foxx 

Author of Super-Hero Bowl VI
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Walking Dead Episode Reviews 5.6

This will not be a Walking Dead love fest.  If that’s what you want, reach out to all of the other sycophants.  I’m just here to provide an unbiased opinion on what I think about this show, which is based off of the popular comic series of the same name.

I started watching this show at the behest of my lovely sister, one of the millions of fanatics out there. I caught up through Netflix and first observed  the show to bond with my sister.  Some siblings bond over shopping, others through sports, arts, or culture, we bond over zombies.  I had been viewing Zombie movies long before their most recent glory, but my preference still resides with the initial George A. Romero Trilogy and his initial assessment of this show being a soap Opera with Zombies in it.  There is no new territory ‘seen it all before’, just a extension of what has already been done in film.

So we can get caught up I’ll provide a brief recap of my thoughts of the first few seasons.

Season 1 was a solid start.  Introduced the characters developed two strong leaders in Rick and Shane and the tension between them and Rick’s wife Lori.  It was a bit short in episodes but a solid start.

Second season builds off of the first one, we meet some new characters at Hershel’s farm.  Carl, Rick’s son gets shot, Shane turns “evil”, yada yada yada if you’re reading this you probably don’t need a blow-by-blow on what happens in these early seasons.  Great finish, but the big reveal that everyone is infected and will become a zombie err walker regardless of how they die is rather meaningless and carries no weight.

They served time in the third season spending the bulk of it in the prison.  Daryl becomes the prominent number two to Rick and The Governor emerges as a viable antagonist. This was a strong season and superior to the other two except the season finale which was a total cocktease. They built to a climax where the Governor would fight rick and blood would be shed and more people will be shot in the head than in John Wick. But nope, we got the Governor going into an Empty prison, Andrea dying and the only interesting angle, Carl killing an unarmed person.  I nearly quit watching the series because the ending was such a waste.

Season four, much like season three, is a tale of two halves. The whole first half lead to the Governor leading a new group of folks against Rick after the prison gets the bubonic plague and everyone who they brought over from the Governor’s previous crew was killed off solely for plot convenience. The first half finalie was the ending the season three should have been. The second half was slow paced and meandered around while everyone got on the road to Terminus.  The revelations about Michone’s past were good, but she still is horrible at swinging a katana and there were far too many wasted moments and little direction.  That said, Lizzie’s story arc came to a gripping conclusion. 

The best part of this season is the introduction of Abraham and Rosita, two tough as nails soldiers who are safeguarding Eugene the man who could flip the switch and make things like they were. Awesome!  Finally we’re going to get somewhere.  Much like in Planes Trains and Automobiles there were detours. The ending united the groups at Terminus with a savage Rick. The only thing that was missing was, Beth and Glenn getting killed, but I’m still waiting on that…

Season five thus far has been the best of the entire series.  Even the Beth episode was good! Carol has become the female Snake Pliskin, a one woman wrecking crew that saved everyone and an even bigger bad ass than her partner in crime, Daryl. The cannibals were killed off a bit too quick for my liking.  I liked the character Gareth and wanted to see more of him. On the Road to Washington now, we end the last episode finding out that Eugene lied about being a scientist and that Eugene’s mission prevented Abraham from killing himself.

SO Now we come to tonite and what do we get, a Carol episode.  We are just left hanging after the nuclear bomb that got dropped last week. This is a sort of fill in the blank episode. We find out about what happened to Carol after her being exiled from Rick’s camp in the first half of season 4 and realize how much her character has evolved since the series began. She started off being a weak person worn down by years of abuse by her husband, then slowly evolved into a tough woman after enduring the death of her daughter Sophia. She killed and then burned two survivors who became infected with the plague.

But she’s still a vulnerable person underneath the new armor she has created for herself.  She is clearly still affected by having to put Lizzie down and being reunited with Rick’s crew.  She nearly ran once more before Daryl saw the White-Crossed-Car which has lead them back to Atlanta.  Everything keeps getting burned around her and the smoke is a constant motif for her character. Even her hair has a smoky hue!  My problem with tonite’s episode is that not that it told us a few new things about Carol, but the fact that we’ve already seen what happens to Daryl and Carol. It was a filler episode plain and simple.  I really wanted to see aftermath with Eugene but I can see why they didn’t from a writer’s perspective.  I can’t really complain when I’ve done the same thing!

During the “Beth” episode Carol, ends up at the hospital on a stretcher and in a earlier episode Daryl comes back with someone who we know now is Noah or the grown up version of the “Everybody hates Chris” kid.  It defeats the purpose to see what happens if we already know the ending. 

They wrote themselves into this corner by trying to out think the room.  This is a Zombie show and it should be told in a more linear fashion.  It’s starting to take plays from the Lost playbook (including the Virgin Mary in the van that takes a nose dive off the bridge) and that isn’t for the better. The show used to be straightforward. Once the prison was destroyed in Season 4 and the group got separated, the writers really started to explore the ideas of mixing timelines as they told what happened to the survivors afterwards. In that instance, it was a good move, because you didn’t know what happened to the survivors as they crossed paths.  It was also done subtly like with a pan down to see what shoes someone is wearing or a piece of a candy wrapper on the train tracks.  Now, though it has caused more problems.

It ruins the surprise that Carol got hit by a car at the when you see her already being dragged into the hospital on a stretcher with obvious injuries. Now if you didn’t see the earlier scene where Beth sees her being brought in, you’d actually be shocked seeing her get hit by a car.   It really comes down to what makes someone want to watch the next episode or read the next chapter.  Do they want us to have our theories about something that has already happened and then have those theories confirmed or denied after being filled? Or do they just want to tell a story where and surprises are lurking around every corner and we see them as they happen?

What do you think?

C.J. Foxx 

Author of Super-Hero Bowl VI
@CJFoxxAuthor on Twitter
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Mantra of the Foxx #2: Peter Parker's Silver Metal

Foxx's Log,

Entry Num 96 dash 7

If you are going about your day, and perhaps you let out a fart.  If then you say to yourself: “deep down, from the depths of Morodor…” then we need to exchange information.   After that you will be hunt down.  My theories are right; there’s a clone out there!  Made by the government, with telepathic powers and you steal my dreams, feeding them to dragons.  Tread lightly my friend, I’m on to you, and there is nowhere you can hide.

On to business; I trust you are doing fine.  I hope that your… Iron-Man has found his arc reactor, I hope your Superman finds a planet that doesn’t eventually blow up… and I hope your Peter-Parker finds your Mary Jane Watson.  If the last line went: I hope your Peter Parker finds your Gwen Stacy, it wouldn’t fit, or made of as much sense (…or even less sense, due to your perspective).  Mary Jane is pop culture’s most famous silver metal (a strong argument could be made for Ron Weasly).  Yeah, I said it.  Peter Parker wanted Gwen, he couldn’t have her (due to Mr. G. Goblin), he settled for Mary Jane.  For years after, Mary Jane was the numero uno comic book mistress.   The connection between fans and the “get em’ tiger” girl was legendary, only being cemented by the success of the Spider-Man movies and cartoons a decade and a half ago.  She became the beautiful, moderately famous actress (some may say a little self-absorbed…) girlfriend all comic book nerds dreamt of swooning. 

The story of an iconic hero losing his love to the arch nemesis, while still being tangled amidst one of the most iconic back story webs, would at first glance, make Ms. Stacy  an ideal poster girl for the “damsel-in-distress” role (a title owned solely and supremely by Ms. Lois Lane).  Until recently, (basically, the last pair of movies) the recognition of Gwen was at a somewhat minimum, it was like Marvel, in the beginning, handled the general fan with kid gloves.  They waited for them to get a little more familiar to the protagonist and when they were deemed “mature” enough, Marvel unveiled the truth.  This is what Peter really had to go through all those years ago.

Comic fans were used to Gwen for a long time.  Accustomed to her, she was the constant, steady girlfriend.   Years went by before the shock of her death.  All fans, no matter how dedicated, had to wait a long time to see those line of events to unfold on the big or silver screen.  Before that, in Spidey’s “back in the day” MJ was the quirky, cute friend you enjoyed the company of but never took seriously.  In no way are any of these observations complaints, I merely think it is interesting the turn of events that led us to this moment in the post-Gwen/ Mary Jane/ post-post-Gwen/ pre-Mary Jane era.  Gwen was cool, humble, down to Earth, a science major…   Simply put, a blonde beauty with a big brain; the full package, his one true love.  Which leads me to:

#3 (continued from last post) Collect and Respect

Bringing it all together, the full package, making many into one.  You’ve already jumped the hurdles and built your lead.  Just cross the finish line.   We gots to be able to graduate, show that you know how to complete things.  Turn your diary entries, your poems written on napkins, the back of a Rasta-bands handout flyer, the blogs, your dream journal, and so on.  Bring it all together, scan them all, cut and paste, make it something you can deliver to the masses.  This might be the most unsuspecting step in the creative process.  Just think of the track metaphor made earlier.  How many times have you watched a clip of a track runner tripping at the finish, or letting up too early, just to lose that giant, for-sure lead?  I myself must’ve seen more of those than of actual record breakers.  Every person ever has and is sitting on a pile of content every person ever would want to read about.  Get it?  It’s only a matter of having that extra commitment to excellence, going that extra mile to get it out there.

Stay tuned for the final chapter: Mantra 3: The Black Album, and remember, you cannot escape the sun!

C.J. Foxx 

Author of Super-Hero Bowl VI
@CJFoxxAuthor on Twitter
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