The Walking Dead...a mini-review on the last episode

[shadowkat]

Just finished watching the Season finale of The Walking Dead, which amongst other things had an incredibly similar attempted rape scene to Buffy S6, Seeing Red, albeit far more realistic. I actually preferred this one to that one. And felt it made a lot more sense. The one in Seeing Red - is jarring, for several reasons - one it makes no logical sense whatsoever that he enters her bathroom. Her house yes, but her bathroom, while she's clearly about to take a bath?? Two she's almost too weak in the scene, considering she only fought a vamp in a graveyard, and fell into a gravestone - this is nothing. And third, it's filmed in stark blacks and whites, then cut in the middle for a commercial, if someone had been flipping channels they'd think they were watching a completely different show. The rest of the episode is photographed/filmed in campy low-production Buffy style, except for that scene. It's like reading a comic book and they switch artists for one panel, then flip back again. While in The Walking Dead - it makes sense that Shane is in the room with Lorie, that he would enter the rec room, and Lori is clearly weaker than he is, yet, still able to stop him - by scratching him and the fact that much like Spike, he doesn't really intend to rape her. That scene was filmed correctly and effectively. The other one - not so much.

Will give the Walking Dead points for being gripping tv. That hour flew by. I was riveted. Also, favorite characters are Andrea and the old man, Sal (?). Was quite worried about them in this episode. Also Lincoln is rather compelling as Rick Grimes, the lead protagonist. It's a good survivalist horror tale, even if it's a tad on the sexist end of the fence, but then so are the Buffy and Spike comics, so I barely noticed. Beginning to think Helen Mirren is right - the vast majority of entertainment, tv, film or comic book (okay less in the tv department perhaps) seems to be targeted to 18-25 year old boys and their penis. Which are oddly quite small at least according to Mirren, I wouldn't know haven't done any measuring. ( of the penis not the boys) .

Comments

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

Did you see my post from Friday? I found the scene in TWD very similar to Seeing Red and I wondered if anyone else saw it that way. The scene in TWD is much more logical, likely because it wasn't there to serve an out of story purpose - to garner sympathy for Buffy or to show that the soul is necessary in spite of all the good Spike could do without one - I like to call that the Make Sure Angel Stays A Special Snowflake excuse, because prior to the AR, there was still a possibility of soulless redemption which would have diminished Angel's specialness in the verse and brought into question every idea about the soul he perpetuated. With TWD, there is only character narrative at work - it was short, logical, and efficient to get the point across that all is not well with Shane.

Andrea's my favorite, too - I have a kink for big sister/little sister stories, probably because I'm so close with my little sister, and the death of the younger sister Amy really hit hard for me. It was tragic and beautifully shot. The old guy's name is Dale, BTW.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

It was a pretty good season finale, though I'm still wondering what happened to the plot. Also... so two women decide to stay behind and burn. And they only even try to talk one of them (the white one, of course) out of it?

There's still a lot I like about the series, but I'd been hoping it would be more than just an action-focused survival show, and I'm not sure that's what they're going for.

[fangfaceandrea.livejournal.com]

I thought this was very similar to SR too and as you said, I found it more believable mostly cause we knew a confrontation about Rick was about to happen between those two where Spike's "excuse" for being in the house always felt forced to me.

meh

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

well I've now watched all of The Walking Dead, and on balance I don't think it was worth my time... even given that I haven't been doing much with my time. I have nothing against a depressing and violent story line (I loved 'Hunger Games') but I need wonderful layered interesting characters to be the pay off for all that darkness. BSG always delivered on those textured characters, but TWD? Not so much. At least for me. There are several characters I would have liked to gotten to know better, but not even one I felt that I knew well.
I imagine this is going to return at some point, but I'm not at all sure I care enough to watch any more of it.