The Walking Dead (AMC) DONT OPEN SPOILERS INSIDE

The only remotely close cliffhanger I can think of is what the hell did the CDC guy whisper to Rick before they left?

And I'm not too worried about them letting the writing staff go. Darabont and Kurtzman or however you spell the comic guy's name will be able to find capable hands in free lancers.

There were times this seasson when the dialogue was laughably terrible. But the show was still badasss. If it's zombie I'll probably be there. Shit, I sat through most of Prison Break and Heroes til it went off air.

Something that bothered me, is one of the main things the people that have read the books always say is how "No one is safe. Don't get too attached to anyone!" Still I was sitting there, eyes-bulging, when it looked like they were going to kill off two major characters in the building. Instead they run out at the last minute and we just get a couple more fringe characters killed off.

Nope, they all got sacked.

Frank Darabont thought the Frank Darabont script was better.

This sucked. I may elaborate later.

the finale or the series in general?

Kind of both? I'ma elaborate: (SPOILERS)

I'm not going to do a comic vs. show thing because they're doing different things with the story, and what might work in one might not work in the other. So it's not a fair comparison, you can't just say LOL COMIC IS BETTER and leave it at that, but I think the tone of the story is completely different from the comic, which I'm going to reference for examples.

1. Redshirts ahoy: Oh no, not the black lady who wasn't integral to the plot and had like 5 lines. And they might not be dead and they might be setting up a future arc, but there's that family whose names I can't remember that go on to their face.

2. It doesn't seem like the main characters are in real danger: Glenn is streetwise, and the big tough black guy is a big tough black guy, and then they have the racist brothers who just flip out and kill things, but then they bring in other characters into this incredibly dangerous zombie infested city where they're going to die super-quick, but they don't. Remember in the pilot how Rick rides into Atlanta and sees like two zombies that he can easily avoid, and then he turns a corner and there's liek thousands of them? And he barely escapes with his life? And then in the 2nd episode the characters have to escape lots at great risk? That was hard to film. So the next time they go into a populated area there are a couple zombies zombieing but mostly they're able to walk around almost wherever. And then they get into a fight with other, armed survivors and they're shooting guns and getting beaten with pipes and stuff but they're ok. Merle is ok too despite chopping his own hand off and being stuck on top of a building all sunburned and dehydrated. And he has the wherewithal to find and steal the group's car, maybe! Plus when they go to the CDC, a big building that's probably around a bunch of zombies, there aren't that many zombies. Shane or Rick even says this, or something to this effect. So whenever people die it's side characters we don't get attached to.

3. If you can't trust the mad scientist, who can you trust? So, nobody voiced a concern that this scientist guy was up to no good? I mean you're the first non-zombies he's seen in a month or two, and he's had to deal with the deaths of all his co-workers, family, the collapse of civilization, the specter of human extinction and he's been slowly going mad, alone, for some time now. And all of a sudden he wants to draw your blood and then he starts giving you alcohol. And nobody's like, "Wait, what if this guy wants to do horrible zombie experiments on us?" BUT THEY DON'T. In the comic when Rick and co. run into another group of people both groups express this concern. Like, "these people seem nice, but are they really murderous cannibals?" And then later murderous cannibals actually show up making this line of thought totally valid.

4. That exploding building was retarded. Um, why? Why would you do this? I know the fire and the pressure would kill any living thing inside the building, like in Outbreak when they wanted to drop a fuel-air bomb on a town because of one escaped infected monkey, but the blast throws a bunch of shit outside the building. What if there's a big file cabinet full of anthrax that's blown free and infects an unifected area just because the power goes out for an extended period of time? The guy brings up a potential terrorist attack, but what about terror attacks that just damage the building, like the 93 WTC bombing, or 9/11 at the pentagon. If that knocks out the power AND the generator, there's another explosion, maybe with biohazard shrapnel. Oops. Plus there's already a thing to seal the building with heavy steel gates if everybody inside has the plague.

5. Shane has time to shave and or wax his chest while camping in the wilderness for a month. That's pretty much it

6. Carl doesn't shoot anybody. In the comic, this happens. It's a pretty major plot point, spells the end of the camp outside of Atlanta, and sends the group out to hopefully greener pastures with fewer zombie attacks. If you think about it, it's kind of heavy stuff. And it's not like AMC has never had a show where a little kid shoots somebody in the face, because they just did that this year. I can't wait for Shane to get moar angsty over things

7. T-Dog? Who is he. Why is he there except to be a black guy blackening up the cast. In the comic there's a guy called Tyrone who's an actual person who's leading a group consisting of what's left of his family through the wasteland until he teams up with Rick. He has an actual personality and motivations and he gets to talk and have opinions on things and is important to the story and it doesn't seem like he's just a black guy to have around. And it shouldn't even be a big deal because so far the story is set in the American Southeast, where the highest concentration of black people are. Morgan and his kid seem like actual people who happen to be black, and not some token minority to have around.

8. Why does Dale have an upside-down American flag in his trailer? Nobody asks about this. And then he's surrounded by cops and auto mechanics and obvious racists who'd probably have reservations about this despite America technically not existing anymore. It's weird and distracting. Explain yourself TV

9. 3 minutes to 8 hours. So the doctor has figured out that people turn into zombies during this time frame. I know every zombie movie just does it when it's convenient to the plot and/or suspenseful, but I don't know why they give an actual time frame once you die. Lame

I dunno, there's probably more.

is T dog the one that's just there to be clumsy and black? knocking over toolbags and dropping keys down drains and whatnot? Jesus Christ I can't wait for them to kill him.

as for the other points, 1&2 were the biggest problems I had. that's going to end up being the tag line for the show. "No (redshirt) Is Safe, Anyone (that's a redshirt) can Die at Any Time!
When they had the old dude decide he was going to stay too, I was so pissed, I was yelling at the tv, but I would have rather seen them kill him and really drive home that Anyone can Die at anytime vibe, but nope, he jumps out the window at the last minute.

The explosion thing I'm guessing was done just for the sake of having an explosion in the show. The one lab room didn't explode when they torched it. why would the entire building? If anything it should have imploded on itself when the first sucked out all the pressure or something. But that doesn't look as good on film.

The good thing about it just being 6 episodes this year is that now they can see what all worked and what didn't and hopefully straiten it out some when they do a full season of it.

Comic and show spoilers ahead!!

This brings up Spike's point number 2. There was no suspense in that scene for me at all, because I know that both Dale and Andrea play large roles in the series. So, it was like, either they live, or I stop watching this show.

And as for the black lady, I was glad she was gonna die. I'd been waiting for them to get rid of more characters that weren't in the comic.

And where the hell are Donna and her husband(I forget his name) and their sons?

As for point number 6, this is something I was looking forward to all season. But instead of moving forward with a part of the story line that would have an actual impact, they went on a little bunny trail to the fucking CDC which really meant nothing. They are right back where they were, minus the black lady. It would have been a great season-ender to have Carl kill Shane. That was HUGE! It would have had people talking. But instead they went with a nonevent. I still expect this to happen because it has to happen.

http://io9.com/5707668/7-scenes-from-the-walking-dead-comic-that-should-...

smart guy is smart

oh yeah, those scenes would've been great. Maybe they're saving the estates for season 2. I was kinda pissed that Carl didn't shoot Shane, but maybe that's gonna be a slow burn and still end up happening.

Every dad has hope for his son, and since the dawn of time, we've taught them how to hunt or provide, so that they'll survive one day if we're gone.

Instead of bonding with his son, and teaching him how to survive in a world without him, they turned Karl into a side, side character.

And yeah, it might have left us with a holy shit moment to talk about until season 2.

But yeah, we get the lame CDC plot with the over explanations...

with the only mystery being...what the hell did the doctor whisper to Rick?

"You ever see Lost in Translation? That was a pretty great movie wasn't it?"

Can you put spoilers in the thread title? Because, Spoilers.

Honestly, Carl isn't really a big character until Lori dies. Before that the only things going on with him are carrying a gun and his interactions with Sophia. Right after Lori dies, Rick gets really sick and Carl is forced to face the possibility of surviving on his own. That's when he becomes a real character. And if the show continues at this rate, that won't happen till like fucking season 10.

So I read the first 12 issues of this last night and, aside from the first episode, which was actually better than the comic I thought, you do see this quick progression from great show to shit. Jim's whole story and death could've been the greatest thing from TV in the last 10 years. If they had bothered to invest any time into building a character.
I've also noticed in the letter pages, that they made a pretty specific point to never bother explaining the zombies, because it would give it this needless sci-fi bent if they did. So it's weird that the tv show would immediately leap into the CDC to start explaining zombies some.
Anyways, what's the comic up to now? 63 issues? Is it still going to end at 75? Hopefully I'll have them all caught up before the end of the weekend.

They are up to 79 now. I'm fairly sure.

If they needed some smart guy in authority to explain zombies to the audience, why not have him be alive in the CDC and studying zombies and slowly turning into a zombie after a freakish lab accident? And the group can't stay in the building because most of it is full of the zombies that the guy was studying, and they're held back by like a chair propped in front of a door or something that could easily be knocked over, releasing zombies. That way the scientician could explain zombies for a bit and then die real fast without the need for huge explosions, and they'd have a reason why the group can't live in the giant building with electricity and showers without the need for huge explosions.

I'm convinced now that it was because of it being the tv show. the big wigs wanted a damn big esplosion in the finale and they were damn well gonna have one!