notPsychosiz
I started this gangsta sh-
an article highlighting some of my sentiments and other gaping plot holes in last night's episode:
FEB 15, 2016 @ 11:27 AM 5,329 VIEWS
Last Night's Episode Of 'The Walking Dead' Was Riddled With Inconsistencies
1. The rocket launcher.
The opening moments of the episode were some of the best in the show. The entire scene with the biker gang—Negan’s goons—is a real nail-biter. But let’s think about how they got out of this scrape. Daryl is taken to the back of the tanker by one of the bikers to see what other goodies they have…in the back of a tanker? Where exactly are they supposed to keep stuff in the back of a tanker? It’s a tanker. There’s gasoline in it. It’s not the back of a flatbed. Did they have the rocket launcher strapped to the back with velcro? Where were they keeping it?
Furthermore, we’ve got the back of the tanker maybe ten feet beyond where Abraham and Sasha are standing. Only the one goon is talking. There’s a dozen other goons all sitting there doing two things: Pointing their guns and listening. But nobody hears Daryl and the biker fighting just a few feet away? The entire scene—which includes Daryl being stabbed—happens out of sight and noiselessly? And then the rocket launcher just appears out of nowhere? (It had to be in the truck, not at the back, but we’re just supposed to ignore this.)
2. The kid Sam was talking at the very end of the midseason finale, but was quiet in the midseason premiere.
This bothered me a lot when I watched the midseason premiere but I completely spaced putting it in my review. The end of the midseason finale (prior to the “hidden” scene) shows Rick and company leaving the house covered in zombie guts. As they depart the little boy, Sam, starts saying “Mom! Mom!” and we’re left hanging in truly one of the most awkward cliff-hangers I’ve ever seen on TV.
But in the midseason premiere we’re shown a completely different scene. They retconned the kid talking and now he’s doing just fine, quiet as you please until…well, until something snaps. What happened to him talking right at the beginning? We’re just supposed to pretend that didn’t happen?
Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC
3. Day turns suddenly to night.
Another thing I forgot to mention that irked me was the sudden time lapse in last night’s episode. It’s bright day when everything gets going, but by the time Sam freaks out it’s nighttime. Now, if I’m not mistaken the total inhabited area of Alexandria is actually quite small. Even moving at a Walker’s pace, they would be able to cross that distance pretty quickly. So why is it that it goes from sunny afternoon to total darkness so quickly? There’s not even a sunset.
It’s jarring. If they’d been moving across Atlanta, or through the woods, and we had a larger space to traverse I could buy it—but Alexandria is tiny.
4. Would you give your baby to Father Gabriel?
I liked that Gabriel and Eugene and the cowardly Alexandrians all found their courage together last night and finally stood up and fought back. Good for them!
But I wouldn’t let that wimpy, sniveling, conniving, dishonest priest take my baby. No way. At the very least I’d send Carl along with him. I’d send Sam and Ron, too.
Actually, if I were Rick or if Rick were being smart rather than just doing what the writers tell him to do, I’d have everyone go back to the church first together. Then I’d regroup and go out again with just the adults after making sure the kids were all safe. I mean, if Gabriel can get there so easily, why not have everyone go there? Why does Rick’s plan rely on taking children with them that can’t even drive to begin with?
It doesn’t make any sense! Rick wouldn’t do that, and he wouldn’t give Judith to Gabriel!
Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC
5. Don’t just do something, stand there!
In my review, I pointed out how Rick could have easily knocked the kid out when he started blowing their cover and simply carry him to safety. But even barring that drastic a solution, he could have done something. But nobody reacts, or they all react strangely, when the kid freaks out.
When he’s bitten, Jessie—his mother—simply stands there screaming. I don’t know about you, but if one of my kids got bitten by a zombie I’d probably react completely irrationally and dive in there, pull the horrible creature off with every ounce of my strength.
In other words, assuming the kid isn’t stopped, the scene still goes down really strange. Everyone just stands around. And sure, they’re trying not to blow their own cover, but I think at the very least once a woman starts screaming like that you’d figure your cover was blown. Rick could have grabbed her, slapped her or something, anything to snap her out of it—not just to save her, but to protect himself and his son and Michonne.
A more realistic scene would have shown Sam starting to wail, then getting pounced on by zombies, followed by Jessie diving into the fray—too far gone too quickly for Rick to do anything. He would have immediately had to go in and hack her hand off to save Carl. Nobody would have stood around looking ridiculous.
Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC
6. Maggie wasn’t actually in any danger.
One of the big things that bothered me last night was Glenn’s foolish rescue attempt for Maggie. He goes running into the zombie horde shooting off way more bullets than his gun would actually hold, drawing the zombies toward him. That’s all fine and good, but instead of drawing them further into town where he could find his own escape route, he draws them toward the fence, backing himself into a corner. Again, I get why he’s being a bit reckless to save Maggie, but it doesn’t make sense for a seasoned survivor like Glenn to make that big of a mistake in the process—not when other options were available.
But even worse is the fact that Maggie was actually pretty safe up there, and Glenn had plenty of time to formulate a better plan. Sure, the platform was rickety and might fall, but there was a perfectly serviceable walkway up on the fence itself that wasn’t rickety or in danger of falling at all. Enid walks along said walkway to get to Maggie’s platform.
Maggie could have simply walked out on that walkway to safety and waited. I’m not sure what Glenn’s plan was with using a rope, since going down from the platform would have meant going straight into the zombies. If they planned to climb down the other side (assuming no zombies were on the other side) then Maggie could have probably made the jump. Sure, it would hurt, but she could have made it without Glenn running to his death.
Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC
7. Abraham and Sasha probably would have killed Glenn, too.
That spray of bullets that saved Glenn’s life and mowed down all the zombies around him? There’s no way Glenn would have made it through that unscathed. They were shooting at zombies who were surrounding him, yet not one single stray bullet even so much as grazed Glenn. I don’t think that’s how it works. This wasn’t a series of precise shots, either (though we know Sasha is a great marksman.) It was literally spray-and-pray.
8. Daryl wasted a precious rocket to light the pond on fire.
A lighter, a match, anything would have sparked up that gas-covered-pond and lured the zombies in. But Daryl chose to go all Rambo and use up another of their precious few rockets instead. For no reason. When every bullet is precious, I have trouble believing Daryl would waste a rocket. I mean, it makes for some fun, dramatic TV but it’s seriously stupid behavior.
Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC
Anyways, there are probably more inconsistencies that I’ve missed or forgotten, but we’ll just leave it at this for now. Yes, I’m surprised nobody else died. No, I don’t think that the Wolf guy would change so quickly though I kind of liked how that played out and gave Carol pause. I can forgive some of these slight transgressions anyways.
But stuff like Sam talking in one episode and that not happening in the next, and the tanker scene are pretty huge gaps in believability. It’s something the show keeps doing over and over again. I almost said it’s something that The Walking Dead “struggles with” but that’s not quite true. I don’t get the impression that the producers wrestle with these questions at all, and simply go from one season to the next making the same mistakes over and over again.
Maybe they have no reason not to. Fans don’t seem all that bothered. Ratings don’t suffer. I just wish we had more situations that were created by believable character flaws, rather than characters acting in unbelievable ways to force the narrative.
Thoughts?
Almost all of that is spot on.
Especially the boy talking as the cliffhanger, then completely reshooting the scene for this episode. Absolutely terrible.
My guess as to why that is done... JUDITH.
In the comics Judith dies with Lori, so is not apart of this scene. As soon as they go outside the boy panics and wants to turn back. He starts saying mommy just like in the cliffhanger. Thats shot for shot how it happens.
The difference with the show, is they can't do a fight scene with Judith there cause she would start crying or be hurt. So they have to now add an extra scene to dismiss her character. So instead of it jumping off immmediately like its supposed to, that entire ridiculously out of place scene with them all standing still near a bush talking in a crowd full of zombies where Gabriel takes the baby is basically just there to write Judith out of the episode so they can get to the action.
Ideally it goes from them stepping off the porch right into him saying 'mommy' right into the jumpoff... which is what happens originally. All the extra lets stand near a bush and talk is there to try and wrap up tv plotholes.
scenes of the season