TWD 9x01 "A New Beginning" episode discussion... **SPOILERS**

[Moon Knight]

Makes perfect sense to me. Gregory had to build up his trust with his people again if he was gonna have them do anything he wanted. A snake is patient. The narrative works.

[MinionZombie]

There is not much comparison with WW2. Britain got the heck bombed out of it day & night, plus it also had to send large numbers of troops to fight overseas in a bunch of places, and the whole world was strongly affected by the same war. Easy to see why it took years to recover. The only thing similar in this smaller scale war was the bombing of Alexandria. But they certainly had enough man-power left to fix the place after the war in quite less than a year and half, since the majority of the Alexandrians in fact escaped the bombing. The Kingdom lost many men, but they did not suffer any significant damages. They did not have to make much of an effort to rebuild anything. You mean aside from all the comparisons to WW2? Rebuilding isn't just about property damage, though. It's also about the mental toll it takes on everyone. Plus the aforementioned screed of tasks that they've all been carrying out since then (e.g. figuring out how to ferment corn to produce fuel and actually achieving that goal). The 18 months also includes some time spent regaining a sense of normality and finding some new comfort (e.g. Ezekiel and Carol have got into a serious relationship). They're all at different stages in dealing with the fallout, and Sanctuary is very much like Germany/Berlin in the wake of war - demilitarised and carved up amongst the allies who have a shared responsibility to not only support the remaining people, but incorporate them back into the wider society. Makes perfect sense to me. Gregory had to build up his trust with his people again if he was gonna have them do anything he wanted. A snake is patient. The narrative works. Exactly. Plus, with the Ken, it wasn't just about him - it was about his parents, too. The mother explicity states that she voted for Maggie - but now Maggie has let her down by taking her son along on this supply run and he's ended up dead. A potent symbol of 'failure' in Maggie's leadership that Gregory can exploit craftily. The parents still being there allowed Gregory to manipulate them - they are susceptible people because of their grief (hence getting the sober father drunk and convincing him to carry out the assassination attempt Gregory didn't have to get his hands dirty and could plead plausible deniability).

[JDP]

You mean aside from all the comparisons to WW2? Rebuilding isn't just about property damage, though. It's also about the mental toll it takes on everyone. Plus the aforementioned screed of tasks that they've all been carrying out since then (e.g. figuring out how to ferment corn to produce fuel and actually achieving that goal). The 18 months also includes some time spent regaining a sense of normality and finding some new comfort (e.g. Ezekiel and Carol have got into a serious relationship). They're all at different stages in dealing with the fallout, and Sanctuary is very much like Germany/Berlin in the wake of war - demilitarised and carved up amongst the allies who have a shared responsibility to not only support the remaining people, but incorporate them back into the wider society. How does any of this prevent them from already being able to construct their own plows & carts? These are not too complicated tasks for them to take a year and half to look into. They should already have dealt with such basic things. We are talking about being able to keep up the food supply here, one of the most essential things for survival. And yes, it's more than just property damages, but they STILL have not dealt with them either! Maggie and Daryl still haven't confronted Rick. Gregory takes unusually long to try to get back control of his community. In a year and a half of time there would have been plenty of opportunities for such things to already have happened.

[shootemindehead]

A year and a half isn't that long and you're talking about people that have no practical knowledge about such things. I'd wager that there's nobody on here or even that I know in real life that could "construct their own plow", without a detail step by step guide.

[JDP]

A year and a half isn't that long and you're talking about people that have no practical knowledge about such things. I'd wager that there's nobody on here or even that I know in real life that could "construct their own plow", without a detail step by step guide. That information and more is presumably already conveniently gathered in the "manual" that lady gave Maggie in exchange for some things. So they already got most of the research done for them. A year and half is plenty of time to already have gotten to such basic stuff as building plows and carts. They need these basic tools for larger scale food production and transportation. These are not "luxury" items but necessary for the survival of the communities.

[Moon Knight]

JDP just likes to make arguements. Lol don’t even bother.

[JDP]

JDP just likes to make arguements. Lol don’t even bother. All of them are valid arguments and observations.

[Moon Knight]

All of them are valid arguments and observations. You just watch stuff just to complain about it. Weird.

[shootemindehead]

That information and more is presumably already conveniently gathered in the "manual" that lady gave Maggie in exchange for some things. So they already got most of the research done for them. A year and half is plenty of time to already have gotten to such basic stuff as building plows and carts. They need these basic tools for larger scale food production and transportation. These are not "luxury" items but necessary for the survival of the communities. Is it? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ In any case, theoretical writings and whatnot are no substitute for practical application and it takes time - a lot of time - to realise those applications. Rome wasn't built in a day, as the saying goes, and as I said a year and a half isn't a long time. If we were talking about 5 years, you'd have a better point. But we're not. It's about 16 to 18 months. It 70 odd weeks, or so. That's not that long a stretch, especially in the face of everything such a world as the one in TWD presents. Plus, we don't really know what's been going on in the world of TWD in that year and a half. But, more than likely, a lot of that time at the beginning of this new phase was probably spent trying to get everyone in line. When we left Rick an Co in the last series, he was simply telling everyone to go home. That doesn't mean that they all woke up the next morning and started talking about building plows. Nobody in that show knows how to do that. Why would they? They all 21st century people, thrust into a society where all of a sudden such a thing is of import. You may say it's "basic". But is it? Such things may seem basic to us, because we live in a world where those items are largely antiquated. But, building such things is another matter entirely. Also, you need to be able to draw those items too. You need a motor, ie a horse, and such things are also in short supply. They also require care in the form form of hostlers and farriers etc, who are in even shorter supply. The bottom line is, without the skills required to manufacture, make and maintain such "basic" items, everything becomes an obstacle, which requires a length of time to negotiate. In addition, you keep mentioning carts, but they have carts. So the argument about building them is null and void. They went to Washington on horse and cart made from various bits and pieces.

[JDP]

Is it? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The lady said that information about everything necessary to rebuild society was there. Old technology for a new world. Plows and carts/wagons are presumably there. Very old and necessary tools. In any case, theoretical writings and whatnot are no substitute for practical application and it takes time - a lot of time - to realise those applications. Rome wasn't built in a day, as the saying goes, and as I said a year and a half isn't a long time. If we were talking about 5 years, you'd have a better point. But we're not. It's about 16 to 18 months. It 70 odd weeks, or so. That's not that long a stretch, especially in the face of everything such a world as the one in TWD presents. But it is precisely because this is the world of TWD that one year and half is quite a long time: these people have nothing else to do but survive and try to rebuild society! These people don't have the time for going to the movies or critiquing TV shows in Internet forums, like we do. We have plenty of spare time in our hands because we live in fully functional societies and can afford to spend some of our time doing trivial entertaining things. They can't. In their minds there is nothing else but "survive" and "rebuild society". So, what have they been doing for a year and a half then??? You would think that learning how to build basic tools to increase food supply and transport it would have been a priority. But they are just beginning to look into this. Plus, we don't really know what's been going on in the world of TWD in that year and a half. But, more than likely, a lot of that time at the beginning of this new phase was probably spent trying to get everyone in line. When we left Rick an Co in the last series, he was simply telling everyone to go home. That doesn't mean that they all woke up the next morning and started talking about building plows. Nobody in that show knows how to do that. Why would they? They all 21st century people, thrust into a society where all of a sudden such a thing is of import. Not quite. The Hilltoppers are basically a community of farmers and they have been making their own tools and weapons for quite a while. They already have experience in reproducing some old technology. Plus Alexandria has a "whiz kid", Eugene, who even came up with ways to make ammunition from what's available. The guy has a natural talent for this kind of "MacGyver" improvising stuff. It should not be so difficult to make plows and carts/wagons for these people. Certainly not a year and half! But again, this is not the biggest issue. The fact is that they are actually just now beginning to look into this... after a year and half! Even if we could argue lack of experience on their part for not having been able to reproduce such items, the problem is that they did not already look into this much sooner. We are not talking about something trivial here, but something that will allow them to increase the food production, a priority for the survival and expansion of these communities. They should already have dealt with such basics of society-building a long time ago. You may say it's "basic". But is it? Such things may seem basic to us, because we live in a world where those items are largely antiquated. But, building such things is another matter entirely. Also, you need to be able to draw those items too. You need a motor, ie a horse, and such things are also in short supply. They also require care in the form form of hostlers and farriers etc, who are in even shorter supply. The Kingdom has horses. It is their main way of transportation. Now the communities want to employ them to draw plows and carts/wagons to increase food production & transport. Makes perfect sense... but they should have thought of this way sooner, not a year and a half later! They have been talking about rebuilding society for quite a time in this show, it's not something "new" to these characters. The bottom line is, without the skills required to manufacture, make and maintain such "basic" items, everything becomes an obstacle, which requires a length of time to negotiate. In addition, you keep mentioning carts, but they have carts. So the argument about building them is null and void. They went to Washington on horse and cart made from various bits and pieces. Didn't you notice all the trouble they went through to get the old cart/wagon from the museum? They want to learn how to make them from scratch.

[MinionZombie]

There's another thing to consider as well - this is a scripted drama - there is such a thing as creative license. If you had incredibly important, dramatic events happening off screen between episodes you'd be missing important, dramatic chunks in your story telling. You'd have to fill them with flashbacks (which can get confusing or clunky when overused) or screeds of exposition. Writers manipulate the drama to create a story, you have to arrange events, craft through-lines, cut certain corners, combine details etc etc etc. It's why adaptations of true stories contain composite characters, compressed/re-arranged timelines of events and so on (because events in real life take a long time to unfold and tend to do so in a manner that grinds against the grain of narrative composition). Didn't you notice all the trouble they went through to get the old cart/wagon from the museum? They want to learn how to make them from scratch. Getting the cart is much like boosting a car, but horse-drawn carts aren't going to be littered around all over the place as pre-ZA they had long since been rendered archaic generally speaking. The practical carts (i.e. not some dinky little pony show jobby) will most likely be in museums (where they've been protected from the elements, wood rot etc).

[shootemindehead]

The lady said that information about everything necessary to rebuild society was there. Old technology for a new world. Plows and carts/wagons are presumably there. Very old and necessary tools. That's just assumption. We don't know this. Anyway, whatever, I'm not going to get into a long back and forth over this.

[facestabber]

At least this episode sparked conversation. If the ZA hits I will seek out JDP and inquire when my old school farm equipment will be ready. Hahahahahaha. Just joking around.

[Moon Knight]

The Walkers were so top notch this episode. The way each one was highlighted was a work of art. I heard GN was going for a Day of the Dead vibe.

[facestabber]

The Walkers were so top notch this episode. The way each one was highlighted was a work of art. I heard GN was going for a Day of the Dead vibe. The work GN has done on this show has set the bar higher than ever.