kane_silver1991 Reviews

The Walking Dead: Them (2015) Season 5, Episode 10

Different, but not necessarily bad.

[6/10 · 27 February 2015]

I will be honest, I started out hating this week's episode of The Walking Dead before it had even started. Last week was such a car crash I have been in a state melancholy for the last seven days. My rage only grew in the pre-credits scene as well. As we fade in we see Maggie sitting under a tree attempting to be deep and emotional with a zombie slowly advancing on her rear. I was honestly rooting for the zombies to finally get a win and take her out of the game… Alas this was not meant to be. Also Daryl ate a worm, no idea why, a packet of crisps does not even feel most people up, that worm was a waste for everyone… especially the viewer, I'd like those 30 seconds of my life back. There were also numerous dead frogs, I assumed they'd honoured a suicide pact because they thought 'I can't handle watching another episode' and left their bodies in plain view as a message to the director. I also liked the little 'how much longer have we got?' question that was banded about. I checked and there were 39 long, worm eating, frog murdering, soul killing minutes left, cheers for the reminder Maggie… Sheamus (the big pasty ginger fella who resembles the WWE wrestler) found some booze and drank it even though he, like everyone else, was suffering dehydration. Nice one pal, that will definitely help your rapidly declining health. The group ate some dogs, which was fairly amusing and they were almost certainly sent to the group for that purpose by the mystery man who creeps up on the ladies in the closing minutes. The dog meat made the vicar lose his faith and he threw his collar in the fire, which I assume was meant to be incredibly symbolic, but I just do not care enough about his character to find this turn of events evenly slightly interesting. Daryl is apparently a cheeky smoker, often searching for 'water' so he can have a quick nicotine fix. And I have a problem with that. Non-smokers smell the smoke on a smoker as soon as they are within arms length, how was no-one questioning him about this? And let's be honest, everyone in that group is a non-smoker now, I doubt Marlboro are still churning out their cancer sticks when humanity is basically in ruin. Daryl cried as well, but not tears of sadness, one of the show runners had just told him he was a fan favourite and he was incredibly touched, it's all in the Behind The scenes video... Honest. Rick also finally dropped the bomb 'We are the walking dead' and although it was cool to hear a character finally say it, we are in the midst of season 5 and the only people who had not realised The Walking Dead actually referred to the survivors, were also the same people who thought the doors in episode one said 'Don't Dead Open Inside'. And those people are idiots, so forget those guys. Not much really happened in this episode, it was all about the logistical problems of existing in a post-apocalyptic world, but strangely it was not that bad and despite the few issues I have with it, I quite enjoyed it. I think The Walking Dead works best when there is a main baddie who we all love to hate and these issues take the backdrop. Shane and The Guvnor are perfect examples, their bad deeds took the limelight and the inter-personal and survival issues of the group seemed much more intense because the whole situation could explode at any moment. The Terminus freaks would have been a brilliant addition to the bad guy rota, but their leader had his head smashed in with a red handled machete a bit prematurely. I appreciate AMC have been mixing with the formula of the show, but I have prayed they never do it again; the old formula worked incredibly well and made the show the success it is. I have a strong feeling the man who played out with the creepy music box at the end will be the next vindictive genius to create havoc amongst the group and give that whole 'everything is on a knife edge' feeling back to the show.

The Walking Dead: What Happened and What's Going On (2015) Season 5, Episode 9

Seriously.. what has happened and what is going in?!

[4/10 · 27 February 2015]

The Walking Dead is back, everyone poo your pants with excitement!!! And then stop pooing yourself, go to the bathroom, clean yourself up and sit down to watch the show and prepare to be completely and utterly under-thrilled by it. Then start unleashing your bowels again as a dirty protest because you have waited many long months for your favourite zombie show to return and AMC pull this mistake from their greasy bag of over-used clichés. The episode starts with what I assumed to be the funeral of Beth because she died last season. Turns out it wasn't her funeral, it was Tyrese's, because Noah killed him… When it started I thought 'Great, here comes some of Beth's whiny, high- pitched singing as a sad montage to really emphasise her death' but we didn't get any of her mousey tones, instead it cuts to Bearded Rick, Samurai Jack, Terry Crewes, Chinese Daryl and Noah, the man who will murder them all. They are all driving along in a van that they have apparently got from somewhere. They have travelled 500 miles and nothing of note has happened because everyone actually seems in better health then when we left them, which I find infuriating. This group can't travel anywhere without getting into some kind of mischief. I was also hoping that they would play The Proclaimers – 500 miles, just to inject a bit of humour into the show… but they didn't. I understand that the whole premise of the show is that other survivors and the struggle of day-to-day living is the actual enemy and the zombies are just there to tickle our apocalyptic fantasy, but please, ease up on the drama for just a minute or two… it's getting boring. Now onto my new favourite person to hate… Noah. The man who after a 500 mile journey has managed to maintain a really unconvincing limp due to his poorly leg. A poorly leg that, I'm assuming, is meant to add depth to the character and remind us of his epic fail of an escape last season. But it doesn't work as a sympathy device when he outruns Tyrese to get to his house, the house where Tyrese is all 'let me go first', the house where Tyrese gets bitten by a midget zombie. A midget zombie who is related to Noah, who after seeing the injured Tyrese stabs his little brother in the eye and then goes to get help, along the way getting cornered by zombies, which is no surprise because this new addition is utterly useless. If Rick's team were Poke'mon cards, I'm certain he would now want to destroy Noahmon. When rescued by the other, much better characters, the conversation goes down like this: 'Tyrese' 'Where is he?' 'My house!' HOW IS SAYING MY HOUSE GOING TO HELP ANYONE??!! The only person that knew which building his house was was Tyrese, who is in said house bleeding out. But they all run off anyway, leaving Noah to limp behind because he suddenly can't outrun the aged white man. Then when they're escaping Rick asks Noah 'Can you hold him up?', Noah says yes and then drops him instantly. So not only is he ultimately responsible for the death of Beth, he then causes death to Tyrese (who was incidentally one of the best characters on the show) drops Tyrese just to remind him who the new guy in town is and then doesn't seem to give a f**k. Oh and Beth still manages to sing when Tyrese is tripping out, which I actually didn't mind. Also the Governor makes an appearance which is nice because it reminded me of a time when this show was worth watching. My last burning issue with this episode is the lack of Hillbilly Superman. He appears in the last 3 minutes of the episode, hands some grieving wench a shovel and disappears again. Even the priest gets more airtime. Although if Daryl was in it more, he probably would have been killed by Noah, who I'm starting to believe might have been a resident of Woodbury and is slowly getting revenge for the Governor. There's so much wrong with this episode, it actually gives me a headache thinking about it. I am completely done with this show... until next week.