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Thread: TWD 5x04 "Slabtown" episode discussion... **SPOILERS WITHIN*

  1. #16
    Twitching thxleo's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ProfessorChaos View Post
    totally agree. i really couldn't give any less of a shit about beth or who took her. now i wish that she was abducted and devoured by the terminus folks....this little side-tale about a hospital full of delusional power-tripping rapists was a total dud in my book. i was really hoping they'd wrap this detour from the main crew up in one episode, but it looks like we'll be seeing more of them in the coming weeks. i had a feeling that at some point this season would stumble a bit, it started off too good to sustain momentum and stay on course. i guess with 16-episode seasons you're gonna have some filler, but seriously, it seems like there has been about a dozen episodes wasted over the life of this show that have killed the pacing and could have been left out all together or edited into other episodes.
    Agree 100%, Professor - an absolutely godawful episode. I was hoping that maybe last season was just an anomaly and that this season would be an improvement. Episodes 501 and 503 were very good. 502 not so much. But this one tonight was a turd and I'm worried that Gimple is going to take this show down a similar path as last season. I can't stand the guy. If you have to go on Talking Dead, like he did a few weeks ago, and explain all sorts of minutiae about the episode, which he did, that just shows your story telling ability is lacking. IMHO

  2. #17
    Walking Dead kidgloves's Avatar
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    Terrible, terrible episode. The Beth ones are so uninteresting and half baked.
    Lots of navel gazing from me I'm afraid
    The body is the instrument on which imagination plays.

    MY HOME CINEMA

  3. #18
    Team Rick MinionZombie's Avatar
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    Not the best, but far from the worst.

    Interesting to see another group surviving in a city ... very creepy hierarchy there, not a lot of trust. I liked Beth's fighting spirit - no weapons, so she yanks her IV out and brandishes the needle ... the cop lady is kind of weird too, and potentially very dangerous, that whole "greater good" thing ... as soon as you're not useful you're dead. There's no trust in their group, everyone's a commodity, a scythe forever dangling over their heads in case they're deemed unnecessary.

    Carol's going undercover, I reckon. They'll stumble across Noah, hatch a plan, Carol goes in undercover while Daryl returns to Team Rick with Noah, and then they all go on a merry jaunt to get her ... that's what I'm assuming anyway.

    As a stand alone episode it wasn't as strong as when The Governor was re-introduced (and I wasn't a fan of the music in the early part of the episode). Beth, as a character, is probably stronger when in a group that we're familiar with.

    I would like to see our group reassemble properly sometime soon, but I'm not turned off by it either. It does mix things up a little bit and we get to mess with the time a bit, which shakes things up compared to say seasons two and three where the passage of time was not only very linear, but also very condensed.

    Facestabber: As for the timescale in this episode, only a matter of days have passed between Beth getting snatched away from Daryl and where we currently are, so I'd imagine the passage of time in this episode is somewhere under a week's worth.

  4. #19
    Just been bitten
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    Thought we were entering into a Day of the Dead scenario when the bitten girl was yelling about 'not being able to control them', sadly it was not to be. I hope we do get to a point where the Rick and the group enter in to a situation similar to the original script for Day of the Dead for a season or two.

    On another note, would the companion series be better received if it was given a format like American Horror Story, with each new season being a new story/scenario with different characters?

  5. #20
    Team Rick MinionZombie's Avatar
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    There was some pretty neat ideas in this one - Officer Dawn Lerner's "system", the whole "greater good" approach, the sacrifice of morals as well as trust, the paranoia that such a setup would create ... everyone fearful of becoming expendable etc.

    Glad that creepy sour apple lollipop rapist guy got smashed and munched, too.

    MMM - well, with the spin-off series, anything is possible I guess. They'd have to have that intention from the get-go though. It'll be interesting to see how that works out ... it'll absolutely need really compelling characters to pull viewers in week after week, particularly when TWD is so based around these characters and these actors, you know?

    I'm pretty sure the actress who plays Dawn (cop lady) was in "Hello Ladies" (that HBO show with Stephen Merchant ... she was the female bestie living in his guest house) ... *checks IMDb* ... yep, it's her, Christine Woods: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2147876/?ref_=tt_cl_t2

    I also enjoyed see the background details of how their little 'greater good' society functioned. The food and water collection on the roof, the car batteries, the static bicycled hooked up to batteries for charging etc.

    TWD 5x04 Memes:
    http://deadshed.blogspot.co.uk/2014/...x04-memes.html
     




















    Last edited by MinionZombie; 03-Nov-2014 at 04:28 PM.

  6. #21
    Just been bitten DayoftheZ's Avatar
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    I have to say I didn't connect with this episode at all, in fact for me personally I would say that it was the worse one across all five series.

    I have read people say that Beth is a weak character and I hadn't really seen it until she was given a solo episode she really is a weak character and could do with being walker food. As far as the other characters, I didn't find the Lolly Pop man too convincing although it was nice to see him go. The police lady was a bit "paint by numbers" especially after a solid bad guy in Gareth. The doctor and Noah were interesting but I hope they don't join the main group because to me they need to keep the numbers they have now. A traveling group of twenty plus just wouldn't work.

    I unlike a few here have loved nearly every episode of TWD from Days Gone By, with only minor niggles along the way. To me this was just poor and I found myself switching off a little when I am usually hooked.

    Other than that good episode.

  7. #22
    Just been bitten Buzzbomb's Avatar
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    After last week's cliff-hanger... the great leap sideways... and it was a bit of a let-down to get thrown back in time, although I'd guess with Noah's escape, Carol's arrival and the last weeks final scene, I'd hope/guess the loose ends will all get tied up next week.

    Thought the execution of the storyline was dealt with pretty well, the way the doctor & cops & patients played off each other... and how that was revealed to Beth & the audience, but felt more than a bit disheartened how in the TWD post-apocalyptic world, it seems again that only the nut-cases seem to have survived.

    Glad the lollipop pig got his 'just deserts'.

    PS: What were those frames on the roof?

  8. #23
    Walking Dead Legion2213's Avatar
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    Dawn reminds me of Admiral Cain from the rebooted BSG series, similar philosophy about survival, although she doesn't have half the control or ruthlessness of Cain.

    I enjoyed this episode and was pleased to see a "city based" community.

    #teambeth
    Last edited by Legion2213; 03-Nov-2014 at 11:03 PM. Reason: .
    Oblivion gallops closer, favoring the spur, sparing the rein - I think we will be gone soon

  9. #24
    Just Married AcesandEights's Avatar
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    Sometimes you don't get the episode you want, you get the episode you need.

    Now suck on that lollipop.



    "Men choose as their prophets those who tell them that their hopes are true." --Lord Dunsany

  10. #25
    Twitching
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    He's evil? but her gave her a wowipop!

  11. #26
    Dead Trencher's Avatar
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    #teambeth

    Never the less I feel that this episode had only half an episode of content. It was too slow. I think they went for a slow pace to give us the chills when we came to realize that the hospital was run by bastards. However them riding around in black cars with white crosses on them, all the people in charge where white with conservative hair cuts and wearing spotless police uniforms whit shiny badges prominently placed there never was any doubt that they were evil to the core.

    As a result I thought they were going to be more evil than they were. The hospitaliers would rape and give you a beating if you did not clean their shorts while the villains we met before would rape, torture, kill and eat you. (And some of them would probably eat your shorts afterward) It does not have the weight the writers thought it would have. The actors were great and it made the story bearable but in the end all that matters is if Beth escapes, these villains are just a bump in the road IT DOES NOT MATTER IF THE BOSS OF THE HOSPITAL UNDERSTANDS THAT HELP IS NOT COMING OR NOT! I understand that the writers wanted to contrast the noble Vatos to the evil cops but that is just a rich boy fantasy that belong to the old world. It does not work in reality and it would certainly not work in the zombie apocalypse.

    That said the actors were good and the story were allright just paced slow and the fans want to see what happens to Rick and company. Me personally dont hate skipping back and fourth as long as the stories are whole. No jumping back and fourth in episode please.

  12. #27
    Team Rick MinionZombie's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Buzzbomb View Post
    PS: What were those frames on the roof?
    Yeah, what were those things? That drove me nuts.

    Quote Originally Posted by Legion2213 View Post
    I enjoyed this episode and was pleased to see a "city based" community.

    #teambeth
    1) Indeed, we've always been out in the sticks or small towns and this is the first time we've been in the city since, what, season one? So it was cool to get a different visual texture here - and see a post-bombing Atlanta. Hopefully we'll be seeing more action in the built up areas over the next couple of episodes.

    2)

    Quote Originally Posted by AcesandEights View Post
    Sometimes you don't get the episode you want, you get the episode you need.


    Batman approves this message.

    ...

    We're also in a transitionary period, we're between big bad guys and between bases of operation, we're cast adrift ... we need to play with time and see events happening in different places at roughly the same time, otherwise it'd become very linear, the entire gang going from "A" to "wherever B ends up being, eventually" ... plus, splitting the group up, while a bit annoying on one hand, also affords the opportunity for individual or small teams of characters to really shine - the back half of season four did that so well (except for 4x12 "Still", which was generally a duff episode with nowhere near enough content to fill the running time ... although the car boot scene rocked).

    5x01 was hella good, and everyone got a moment - but it was just a moment - that episode really belonged to Carol (as well as Rick, Tyreese and Gareth), with everyone else essentially getting not much to do, and there certainly wasn't time for any real dramatic meat beyond what was rightfully afforded to Carol. The group is very large at the moment, so this is an issue they'll have to work out soon, we can't have them all split up all the time, they need to be a unit, but splitting into groups some of the time also works very well to hold up certain characters to let them shine on their own away from the crowd ... perhaps that'll work better once they have a new base of operations to work from.

    I think Beth got to evolve some more in this episode. Traditionally she's been supported by others, but after the prison she was out there with just Daryl - which is quite handy - but she learned a few things in that time. In this week's episode she was about to kill the Doctor and only stopped because she saw Carol getting wheeled in. Likewise Beth taught that rapist what for and used an impending walker to her advantage. She's also ruddy good with a gun now, so she can fend for herself.

    Every character shouldn't be a hard case, we need a range of outlooks in this world ... Beth is a softer soul, but when backed into a corner she now knows how to fight her way out effectively ... even though, generally, this episode needed a bit of work.

    Two thumbs fresh for Beth!

  13. #28
    Just Married AcesandEights's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MinionZombie View Post

    Two thumbs fresh for Beth!
    Yeah, I completely fail to see the problem with this week's episode, aside from the fact that it was a break in pace (and sorry, that has to happen sometime). The set up was very telegraphed, but that's hard to avoid when a character is forcibly taken and the very series itself thrives on conflict.

    Other than that, it offered a nice change of pace and setting. There was still plenty of action and the hospital besieged by the undead was pretty menacing. The scene where Beth and Doctor Edwards go down to that first floor entrance was waaaaay creepy, to me anyway.

    "Men choose as their prophets those who tell them that their hopes are true." --Lord Dunsany

  14. #29
    Walking Dead kidgloves's Avatar
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    One thing I am really looking forward to is Rick showing these fools how law enforcement should be acting in an apocalyptic scenario
    The body is the instrument on which imagination plays.

    MY HOME CINEMA

  15. #30
    Twitching sandrock74's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Trencher View Post
    ...all the people in charge where white with conservative hair cuts...never was any doubt that they were evil to the core.
    Pardon me? Seems like a rather out of place racist comment. Only non-white people with crazy hair can be good?

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