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Thread: TWD 7x09 "Rock in the Road" episode discussion... **SPOILERS WITHIN*

  1. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by MinionZombie View Post
    Explosives are loud and extremely dangerous, and not particularly tactical. Would you want to hump around heavy, dangerous, and loud (when they go off) explosives as you struggle to survive in the zombie wilds, or would you rather have handguns, rifles, shotguns, assault rifles, sniper files (some of them silenced, perhaps)? They make noise, too, sure, but they're infinitely more practical to use, more flexible, and particularly in America there's more chance of people understanding how to use them (or being trained easily). The ammo situation would be infinitely more favourable, too - surely, even in America, any old chump can't just stockpile grenades, dynamite, and RPGs? The only use for explosives in the zombie apocalypse is like The Saviours set them up to be, or how Team Rick are likely planning to use them (to blow some serious shit up at a specific location as part of a war). Day to day in the zombie apocalypse? Fairly useless. Therefore, why would they have searched them out, let alone wasted time trying to learn about something they'd rarely be able to use when they've got more pressing matters at hand (day to day survival out in the wilds - e.g. pre-Prison, finding food and supplies, securing the fences at the prison etc)?

    Tara, pre-apoc, was - if IIRC - either a relatively new police patrolman, or attempted to get into the police academy but didn't make the cut. She had experience with handguns, but that was about it IIRC. Even if she was a full blown police officer, she wouldn't have been running around with RPGs and dynamite, nor grenades.

    Michonne - she was a mother and had an office job. She learned her skills on-the-job out there surviving, but those skills didn't include explosives.

    Eugene has started to learn how to shoot and use a machete - not explosives, nor was he there at the highway.

    The big explosion was specifically the 'bad dynamite' that Rosita didn't like the look of. She references that directly in her dialogue, and the explosion is in the centre of that ditch where she left the dynamite. The fuel tanks were, IIRC, nearer the cars on the tarmac.

    Interesting side note - that highway is the same highway from Season 2.
    It doesn't look like Morgan had any trouble stockpiling grenades, he had a crate full of them, and some of these ended up in Rick & company's arsenal. And neither does it look like the Saviors have had a similar problem with scavenging dynamite. What do you think will have happened to the millions of pounds of explosives that are used in the mining/quarrying industry alone every year? They certainly must be out there scattered around the country in storage sites, ready for the taking by any survivors who happen to locate and gain access to any of them. So explosives should not be difficult to find in such a world. There must in fact be a HUGE stockpile of them waiting for their potential new "owners" to pick them up.

    And more people actually die from guns than they do from explosives. Which might make you wonder which one is really more dangerous.

    As for noise: guns are also loud. That doesn't stop the survivors from using them.

    Eugene not only has learnt to handle weapons, he in fact even knows how to manufacture ammunition, which also involves knowing how to make propellants, a subject closely related to explosives.

    The point is that Tara and specially Rick and Michonne obviously must have seen and handled grenades and RPGs before, not from their pre-apocalypse daily lives, but because these weapons had already been part of their post-apocalypse group's arsenal before.

    The explosion we see occupies the entire side of the road, not just the ditch, and it is obviously also fueled by flammables, as seen by the large amount of flames and smoke even after the explosion. Some of the gas tanks were left in that area, they did not take all of them.

  2. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by JDP View Post
    It doesn't look like Morgan had any trouble stockpiling grenades, he had a crate full of them, and some of these ended up in Rick & company's arsenal. And neither does it look like the Saviors have had a similar problem with scavenging dynamite. What do you think will have happened to the millions of pounds of explosives that are used in the mining/quarrying industry alone every year? They certainly must be out there scattered around the country in storage sites, ready for the taking by any survivors who happen to locate and gain access to any of them. So explosives should not be difficult to find in such a world. There must in fact be a HUGE stockpile of them waiting for their potential new "owners" to pick them up.

    And more people actually die from guns than they do from explosives. Which might make you wonder which one is really more dangerous.

    As for noise: guns are also loud. That doesn't stop the survivors from using them.

    Eugene not only has learnt to handle weapons, he in fact even knows how to manufacture ammunition, which also involves knowing how to make propellants, a subject closely related to explosives.

    The point is that Tara and specially Rick and Michonne obviously must have seen and handled grenades and RPGs before, not from their pre-apocalypse daily lives, but because these weapons had already been part of their post-apocalypse group's arsenal before.

    The explosion we see occupies the entire side of the road, not just the ditch, and it is obviously also fueled by flammables, as seen by the large amount of flames and smoke even after the explosion. Some of the gas tanks were left in that area, they did not take all of them.
    Morgan was crazy, though - like batshit out-there crazy (he tried to murder Rick, remember?). He had no consideration for his own safety and just stockpiled everything like a crazed hermit. His level of safety was shown up in 6x04 - while bumbling around screaming at himself he knocks over an oil lamp, very close to his vast array of scavenged weapons, and hardly notices until everything's going up in flames and is beyond saving.

    I'm not denying there wouldn't be explosives available, but when surviving on the road what's more useful? A fistful of dynamite, or a Glock? Guns may be loud, but an RPG going off is a hell of a lot louder, and not especially practical. You can't sweep and clear a building with an RPG or stick of dynamite, you don't find silenced grenades on the market. 3x01 perfectly illustrated Team Rick's methods of on-the-road survival and which tools were suited to their purposes - explosives were not in that toolkit.

    My point is that Team Rick would have little real use for explosives. A few grenades is not the same as dynamite - and as I said before, when Tara puts the RPG in the car boot she doesn't put it down with kid gloves, she just puts it down. What do you want her to do? Toss it like a spear into the boot?

    Eugene has only recently learned how to handle a few weapons - handgun, assault rifle, and machete/axe/whatever. Again, learning how to make bullets from a book is quite different to being clued up on dynamite - not that Eugene was on that road, so Eugene's a moot point. More people will die from guns because of the wide proliferation of guns. If explosives were as common in the American home as guns then there'd be a shedload more deaths by explosives.

    I've never seen Tara or Rick handle an RPG before. I've seen Rick handle a grenade once or twice. None of them are the same as handling sticks of live dynamite all wired up to a complicated trap. Yes, the big explosion would have included the petrol in those left over tanks, but the catalyst was clear the walkers trampling on the dynamite sticks that Rosita carefully set aside because she - not Rick, or anyone else - and she alone didn't like the look of them. The fact that she had to give them all a quick lesson in handling the dynamite - and that only she took issue with that particular bundle of dynamite - proves that they've had no experience with, or cause to seek out, dynamite.

    The Saviours are of a different mentality altogether. We see why they want the dynamite - Team Rick stumble upon it and take it as a matter of random fortune, particularly so in their position of weapon-related poverty. There's a use for dynamite now, but they've not had the need for it ever before - so they wouldn't have bothered about it (or even considered it). Handguns, rifles, assault rifles, sniper rifles, normal and everyday types of ammunition - that (and food, medical supplies etc) have been their priority for the last two years.
    Last edited by MinionZombie; 16-Feb-2017 at 04:29 PM.

  3. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by MinionZombie View Post
    Morgan was crazy, though - like batshit out-there crazy (he tried to murder Rick, remember?). He had no consideration for his own safety and just stockpiled everything like a crazed hermit. His level of safety was shown up in 6x04 - while bumbling around screaming at himself he knocks over an oil lamp, very close to his vast array of scavenged weapons, and hardly notices until everything's going up in flames and is beyond saving.

    I'm not denying there wouldn't be explosives available, but when surviving on the road what's more useful? A fistful of dynamite, or a Glock? Guns may be loud, but an RPG going off is a hell of a lot louder, and not especially practical. You can't sweep and clear a building with an RPG or stick of dynamite, you don't find silenced grenades on the market. 3x01 perfectly illustrated Team Rick's methods of on-the-road survival and which tools were suited to their purposes - explosives were not in that toolkit.

    My point is that Team Rick would have little real use for explosives. A few grenades is not the same as dynamite - and as I said before, when Tara puts the RPG in the car boot she doesn't put it down with kid gloves, she just puts it down. What do you want her to do? Toss it like a spear into the boot?

    Eugene has only recently learned how to handle a few weapons - handgun, assault rifle, and machete/axe/whatever. Again, learning how to make bullets from a book is quite different to being clued up on dynamite - not that Eugene was on that road, so Eugene's a moot point. More people will die from guns because of the wide proliferation of guns. If explosives were as common in the American home as guns then there'd be a shedload more deaths by explosives.

    I've never seen Tara or Rick handle an RPG before. I've seen Rick handle a grenade once or twice. None of them are the same as handling sticks of live dynamite all wired up to a complicated trap. Yes, the big explosion would have included the petrol in those left over tanks, but the catalyst was clear the walkers trampling on the dynamite sticks that Rosita carefully set aside because she - not Rick, or anyone else - and she alone didn't like the look of them. The fact that she had to give them all a quick lesson in handling the dynamite - and that only she took issue with that particular bundle of dynamite - proves that they've had no experience with, or cause to seek out, dynamite.

    The Saviours are of a different mentality altogether. We see why they want the dynamite - Team Rick stumble upon it and take it as a matter of random fortune, particularly so in their position of weapon-related poverty. There's a use for dynamite now, but they've not had the need for it ever before - so they wouldn't have bothered about it (or even considered it). Handguns, rifles, assault rifles, sniper rifles, normal and everyday types of ammunition - that (and food, medical supplies etc) have been their priority for the last two years.
    Morgan's state of mind did not get him killed by stockpiling a load of grenades, did it? And none of Rick's group freaked out that he had a crate full of them. In fact, far from it, they actually took some of them back to the prison.

    Rick's group has never had to confront an enemy as numerous as the Saviors before, that's why now more than ever they are interested in explosives, but we have clearly seen them handle such weapons in the past, it is not a "new" thing to them. In fact, if it wasn't for explosives they could not have taken out the Governor's tank, so these people certainly must appreciate how useful these weapons can be and have no regrets in having them in their arsenal.

    Tara and Michonne were handling the RPGs as if they were just about ready to blow up in their faces if they just winked at them

    We have not been seeing every single day of these people's lives. But the fact that Abraham found an RPG launcher and ammo for it and brought it back home to Alexandria, combined with the fact that we have seen that these people are not shy to get acquainted with the use of any weapon that falls into their hands, pretty much makes it safe to assume that this new weapon in their arsenal must have caught their attention. If Tara, Michonne and Rick did not actually handle the RPGs to get acquainted with them, they at least must surely have seen others do it. By now it is obvious they must know well that these items are designed to withstand normal handling, you don't have to carry the rounds like if they were a new-born baby

    Eugene was brought up as an example of someone else in the group who must have some acquaintance with potentially explosive substances, since he can make ammo. Just more proof that, contrary to what was said earlier, other people in that group also have some experience with explosives.

    The explosives industry is in fact one of the safest ones, contrary to what one might think. More people die in other type of industrial accidents than from accidental explosions. Of course, if you give explosives to irresponsible or foolish people there would be more such accidents, as has happened to guns.

    We don't know whether they left any of the discarded sticks of dynamite "primed" with blasting caps, ready to go off. Some of those advancing zombies might have stomped on one of them and set off the dynamite and the gas tanks. But once you remove the detonators, making the dynamite explode is very difficult, and that was my point: there no longer is any need to be so extra careful once the detonators are out. Making the dynamite go off by itself is not easy. You can even bang it with a hammer and it won't go off. That's why it is so widely used in mining and quarrying. Otherwise a whole bunch more workers would have died from accidental explosions.

  4. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by MinionZombie View Post
    Wooooo!

    "Slice Capades" ... that is all. Damn that was an awesome scene - and I dug the bit with Rick in the car as they escape, out of breath and a bit shaken, feeling that he'd "pushed it". He's gotta get back into his groove, but it was nice to see a bit of humility there and a bit of fear as he returns to the saddle.
    Indeed! Fun scene!

    But I did feel putting themselves at such great risk just seemed needless IMHO. OK, so they leave a few sticks of dynamite behind, but at least they get away 1 minute sooner without risking a horde being literally ontop of them? Just seemed to much of a risk...
    Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. [click for more]
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    Quote Originally Posted by Neil View Post
    Indeed! Fun scene!

    But I did feel putting themselves at such great risk just seemed needless IMHO. OK, so they leave a few sticks of dynamite behind, but at least they get away 1 minute sooner without risking a horde being literally ontop of them? Just seemed to much of a risk...
    I think it was a case of them needing to hack back a big chunk of those approaching walkers as they were about to swarm the main vehicle on the slip road - because they were having to put all those cars back in their original places (so The Saviours wouldn't know they'd been moved in the first place) - so the slice capade was to buy the other vehicle time.

    Mind you, they moved the main vehicles for that awesome scene - so it's not exactly stealthy, is it?

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    Quote Originally Posted by MinionZombie View Post
    I think it was a case of them needing to hack back a big chunk of those approaching walkers as they were about to swarm the main vehicle on the slip road - because they were having to put all those cars back in their original places (so The Saviours wouldn't know they'd been moved in the first place) - so the slice capade was to buy the other vehicle time.

    Mind you, they moved the main vehicles for that awesome scene - so it's not exactly stealthy, is it?
    Yes, if they'd called it a day 2-3mins earlier then they wouldn't have been swarmed?

    And a mile long trail of zombies cut in half might look odd to the saviours


    Anyway, fun scene
    Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. [click for more]
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    The highway just reminded me how much I loved season 2.

  8. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Neil View Post
    Indeed! Fun scene!

    But I did feel putting themselves at such great risk just seemed needless IMHO. OK, so they leave a few sticks of dynamite behind, but at least they get away 1 minute sooner without risking a horde being literally ontop of them? Just seemed to much of a risk...
    That scene mirrored Rick's "Rock in the Road" story that he told Ezekiel.
    "That's the deal, right? The people who are living have it harder, right? … the whole world is haunted now and there's no getting out of that, not until we're dead."

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    Quote Originally Posted by Neil View Post
    Yes, if they'd called it a day 2-3mins earlier then they wouldn't have been swarmed?

    And a mile long trail of zombies cut in half might look odd to the saviours


    Anyway, fun scene
    That's one big plot-hole. They are trying to fool the Saviors into thinking no one has tampered with their anti-horde trap, but moving those two cars with the steel cable would be a total give-away that someone indeed has tampered with it, because obviously the zombies did not get into the cars and drove them further down the road.

  10. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by JDP View Post
    That's one big plot-hole. They are trying to fool the Saviors into thinking no one has tampered with their anti-horde trap, but moving those two cars with the steel cable would be a total give-away that someone indeed has tampered with it, because obviously the zombies did not get into the cars and drove them further down the road.
    Not really a plot hole. In the heat of the moment things aren't really gonna go exactly as planned all the time. Shit happens haha.
    "That's the deal, right? The people who are living have it harder, right? … the whole world is haunted now and there's no getting out of that, not until we're dead."

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    Quote Originally Posted by Moon Knight View Post
    Not really a plot hole. In the heat of the moment things aren't really gonna go exactly as planned all the time. Shit happens haha.
    OK, but if later on we see that the Saviors do not figure out what happened it will be a plot hole. It is just too blatant that someone tampered with the anti-horde trap.

  12. #27
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    “Rock In The Road” Episode: / *SPOILER WARNING!*

    I don't know how they do it, but they done did it!
    Fantastic. Optimistic. A couple silly things, like why wouldn't Negan just grab Rosita, Sasha & Michonne and add them to his harem? LOL! -Or why would Negan's men leave Michonne her sword...?
    The child seemed to convince the King, but the King didn't take his advice... Other than that... Just very enjoyable. -And what were all those Hill-top troops marching about for? Pretty obvious somethings goin' on...! An' ya gotta admit, they sure did not tone down the violence!

    -One other small thing... Aaron's Husband sure cleaned up fast after Negan's men tossed the, "whole-place". It was spotless! And all of Aaron's stuff was just folded up so nice and ready to go!
    Good thing Rick hid his gun before Negan's men showed up!

    The kill on the highway was the best! The production values keep getting better and better…

    Please view & comment on my living dead tribute, ”The Walker”! www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EIsv6QmEHk

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