Due to life, media storage snafus, and temporary tweaker burnout, www.barfullawalkers.com will be posting insanely awesome music playlists on this blogsite to honor TWD Season 6 until further notice.
Check us out on social media, where the TWD Season 6 conversation is just beginning:
(All images used in this post are screen caps from AMC’s The Walking Dead unless otherwise specified.)
Well, dear readers, once again, the joke’s on me…as I was frantically plugging away to get this epic post finished, my bare-bones, bottom-of-the-line WordPress blog theme finally buckled, and cannot hold any more images until my broke ass can afford an upgrade.
It’s something I have been wanting, and needing, to do for a while, and it will happen, loves, but not right away.
I was going to end this post with a thoughtfully crafted message to you all, letting you know that, out of necessity, I was going to have to dial way back on the level of posting I have been doing, which we can probably all agree is pretty insane. We do love it, no one more than me, but it’s become pretty hard to justify, time-and-energy-wise, and almost impossible to sustain.
I had hinted at this inner quandry in my TWDSeason 6 prepost, “The Night Before The Walking Dead Season 6 Premiere.” The reality of these times is that my family, my world needs my full, focused attention right now. Making these posts happen takes a lot of time, energy, and attention, and while I am already blown away by TWD Season6, and am inspired on so many levels, I need to simplify things, give myself, my family my full time, love, and attention right now.
Honestly, people, I’m a little fried, and I am needing to “relax the posting standards,ease into civilian life”for a while, as Abraham Ford would say. It’s time to find a new balance.
When I am able to upgrade my blogsite, I will start loading pictures, text again, at some point, along with playlists, which I will still post, weekly, on this site. The playlists are on Spotify, and I think they are easily accessible to all, even if you are on a free plan and have to deal with ads. It’s worth it. The playlists have been really fun and inspiring for me to create, with each week’s new episode in my mind, and in my heart. I stand by each and every one.
I have written 47 posts over the span of two years on www.barnfullawalkers.com, covering The Walking Dead episodes through the entirety of Seasons 4 and 5. I have left a sizable body of work for peeps to read, enjoy, and I certainly plan on posting more actively on my social media accounts. I will provide links to these accounts, along with my email address.
I would consider it the most amazing job in the world if I could do what I do here for a living, celebrating, promoting pop culture, sharing thoughts and feelings, and turning peeps on to great music. In the moment, I am but a working stiff who tries to squeeze out the droplets of time to do this…this latest obstacle seems like a sign for me to honor what I need to do, open my mind, and my perspective, and get creative with how to work around all this.
There is much fun to be had on barnfullawalkers social media accounts, so check me out, show the love, double-tap, give a follow at:
I am sorry if this sounds lame, or is disappointing. It’s just the way life happens. I have been working hard on this project for two years, a fairly solitary endeavor on one hand, but it connects me to TWD fans, and readers, all over the world. This crazy blog is far from over, dear ones, and while I get my shit together, and tend to my nearest and dearest, there is so much fun buzz, art, and conversation about this already amazing sixth season of TWD.
Much love, dear readers, and enjoy this humble, almost-complete homage to The Walking Dead’s Season 6 premiere episode, “First Time Again.”
“Rick?”
“I know this sounds insane…this is an insane world.We have to come for them, before they come for us…it’s that simple.”
“You see that!?”
“It’s open! We gotta do this now! We’re doing this NOW!”
(Dude, already, the hotness…the Rick Grimes hotness…it’s all-consuming. I love it so.) ❤
Rick-In-Charge delegating, peeps scrambling…getting it done, son.
Carter looks like he’s about to cry. “Rick, we’re not ready!” Too bad, so sad, Carter. Fucking get ready, do this shit, and you can cry about it later. (Even though Carter is a weenie, the actor who plays him, Ethan Embry, is completely awesome, total TWD fan who auditioned for various roles on the show 5 or 6 times before getting cast as Carter. He had to keep this news a secret from the group of friends he gets together with to watch TWD. How cute is that? They must have been totally shitting when they found out he was going to be on it!)
Rick bellows, “Abraham, Sasha!” “Damn straight,” replies Abraham, “We’re doing this live!”
Nicholas: “I’m here, let me help.” Glenn: “No.” Nicholas: “I’m HERE!”
Glenn: “Do everything I say.” Nicholas: “I will.”
Daryl yells, “They’re coming!”
At Rick’s command, “Get ready to hit the flares!”one, two, three flares go up, diverting the walker horde’s attention towards them…
…and here come the Plan B Walkers.
As the walker gets shoved through the narrow opening between the trucks, we see how its skin and soft tissues tear away easily from the bones. Greg Nicotero, you beautiful madman!
Taken down by Daryl’s arrow. ❤
As one of the trucks pulls away, according to plan, the Plan B Walkers spill out of the opening.
“You were wrong.”
Wordlessly, Gabriel nods.
Abraham takes a drink…
…and then pours one…
…for the dead. RIP Reg. 😦 ❤
Meanwhile…
As he gets up and rushes off, Jessie calls after her eldest son, “Ron!” (Watching this, I turned to my WD buddy. “Ron??” I asked her. Not Rowan, like I had always thought?“Ron,” she agreed, nodding. I turned back to the tv, thinking, ‘Damn, I really do need to get my hearing checked!’)
This poor family has been through such hell.
Glenn and Nicholas come stumbling in…this was right after Nicholas shot Glenn, they fought, Glenn almost killed-then-forgave Nicholas scene in the woods.
“You guys look like shit,” Tara jokes, weakly.
Glenn sees Tara, beams at her.
Maggie comes rushing in, sees Tara awake, then Glenn. As she tends to him, Glenn puts his injuries off on “walkers,” calling Maggie’s attention back to as she turns and glares at Nicholas.
Eugene comes in, then, and his face breaks into the sweetest little smile when he sees Tara awake, sitting up, “Holy shit!” he exclaims, running over to her.
Tara blinks up at Eugene. “Thank God, nothing happened to your hair,” she deadpans.
As Eugene keeps looking down, smiling at her, Tara says, “Ok, Eugene…”
She turns to the others. “Eugene’s freaking me out. Somebody needs to send Noah in here to save me.”
(Oooo, Nicholas, you are in so much trouble…)
This is the worst night in Ron’s young life, and that’s saying something, considering the poor guy is growing up in the zombie apocaplypse.
“You were right,” Morgan says to Rick. “It wasn’t over.”
“We should talk tomorrow,” Rick says, in a polite, veiled manner. He then walks over to Morgan, leans in towards the seated man.
“Listen…I don’t take chances, anymore,” Rick tells him.
Daryl pauses eating, watching the exchange, Morgan looks down, registering Rick’s meaning. He looks back up at Rick. “And you shouldn’t,” he agrees, easily.
We see the Newbies running, pacing themselves but looking scared as shit while Rick-In-Charge’s voice instructs over the radio, “You all have your assignments…you know where to rendevous.” (I’d be all like, “Yessir, General Smash! I know where to rendevous, Sir!” Good thing the Newbies were regulars at Aaron’s cardio kickboxing class, back in the day in ol’ Alexandria.)
Two other Newbies fire flares up into the air to keep the walkers coming towards their lead as Rick-In-Charge reviews the plan, “Daryl leads them out…Sasha and Abraham join him at the bottom of the hill.”
“Glenn,” Rick’s voice continues over the radio…
“You hit us when you take care of the walkers at the tractor place. That’s the one thing we gotta get ahead of…”
“Everybody, keep your heads. Just keep up.“
(Yessir, General Smash!Keeping up, Sir!) Rick stops, looks back to check on…
…Daryl, who coasts slowly on his motorcycle, coming up over the hill. We do not see the massive horde of walkers just a few feet behind him, yet, but we hear their savage cacophony grow louder and louder as Daryl rolls closer. Always putting himself at the greatest risk for the good of all.How we love thee, Daryl Dixon! ❤
Daryl does not look up as he asks Rick, “So, was he ok with it?”
“It was pretty much his idea,…he gets it.”
“It’s got a bed and a bath, but it’s still a cage, you know?” Daryl replies, quietly.
Rick looks down at Daryl. “He gets it,” he says, again. Rick then tells Daryl that Morgan told him what happened at the cannery, how Morgan found and rescued Daryl and Aaron.
“Did he tell you about those guys he met?” Daryl motions to his forehead. “W’s?”
Rick nods. “Like that walker we saw…yeah.“
“We need more watch points,” Rick continues, “and I’m gonna tell Deanna…”
“…we don’t need to go looking for people any more.”
Daryl takes this in, silently, before giving a nod, turning away. Rick can see this doesn’t sit easy with Daryl.
“You feel different about it?” Rick asks him.
Daryl turns back, looks at Rick, nods. “Yeah…I do,” he says. ❤
“People out there, they need to take care of themselves, just like we do,” Rick asserts.
Daryl says nothing, but his look seems to say: But we were people out there, not that long ago, and we’d still be out there if Aaron and Eric hadn’t found us. Rick tells Daryl that he will let Morgan out soon, that they shouldn’t keep him “in there” any longer than they have to, and turns, walks away, leaving Daryl to process all this.
As the car speeds down the road, Abraham looks out the window, asks Sasha, casually, “You good?”
Keeping her eyes on the road, Sasha nods. “Yeah,” and she does sound like she might actually mean it.
“I’m trying,” Sasha amends. Abraham suggests something about “Because if you were gonna go buckwild,”implying that maybe Sasha was still hellbent on her deathwish.
Sasha, annoyed, retorts, “If you were so worried, why did you get in the car with me?”
“Listen,” Sasha says, “Doing something as big as this, that’s living.”
Sasha sees the marker. “There it is,” she says, pulling up and stopping at the red helium balloons tied at a tree. “We’re at red,” she radios in, “Bottom of the hill.”“Alright,” Rick radios back, “Here comes the parade.”
“Where’d you learn that?” “Friend,”Morgan replies.
“Before, or after?” asks Rick. Morgan looks up and regards the man in front of him.
And says nothing.
This makes Rick snarky. “I ask, you answer, it’s common courtesy…right” Rick smiles tightly, and Morgan gives a little laugh, looks down, remembering. (Now, darlings, I know that Snarky Rick is not the hottest incarnation of our man, Rick Grimes, but remember, it’s been a rough couple of days, and thankfully, this snarky period does not last too much longer…we seem to be moving through it pretty well by the end of Episode 601, when many, many more pressing matters present themselves in front of Alexandria’s hallowed steel walls…but,more on that, later!)
“After…it was after, everything.”(Ok, I cannot wait to see that backstory episode, but if I have to watch little Dwayne get chomped by his undead mom, Jenny Walker, I may lose it…just saying.)
This softens Rick a bit, and his hotness meter immediately starts to climb as he apologizes, “Look, I’m sorry for this, for having to do this,” and he gestures around the detention mansion that Morgan has been detained in. “That’s alright,” Morgan says, quickly, then adds:
“The way I look at it, sometimes you’re safer when there’s no way out.” (Great line, and I find myself hoping this is true, because I think there’s a bit of foreshadowing happening with this statement…like, Alexandria’s going to be surrounded by thousands of walkers, and there will be no way out…)
“Gotta get to know each other again,” Morgan says, easily.
“For the first time, again.” (I really do love how Scott M. Gimple inserts the episodes’ titles into the dialogue, somewhere…a consistent favorite moment for me, in each episode!) ❤
Meanwhile, manning the gate, Eugene hears the sound of a vehicle pulling up, then a voice on the other side of the fence, “Hey, it’s us, you gonna let us in, or what?”
In response, Heath is greeted by a mulltastic stranger who replies, “I technically am not authorized, so I will not be doing so.”
“Who the hell are you?” “You first,”replies Eugene.
“I’m Heath. I live here. My team’s been on a run these past couple weeks.”
“I’m Eugene…I brought myself and my group directly within that window…
”
Heath cuts in, “Open the gate.”
“If I do, how do I know you will not attempt to kill me?”
Heath gives a little laugh at this. “Look, I’m not going to kill you…”
“…but the longer you make me wait, the more you’ll motivate me to want to beat your ass.”
Eugene looks at Heath a moment, then at Carter, and another woman, the driver, waiting behind Heath in the car…and after another brief moment, the gates roll open to allow Heath and his team inside. Eugene meets others, Scott and Holly, and as Heath closes the gates, he asks Eugene, “Anything big happen while we were gone?” Eugene thinks a moment. “We had a meetin’ last night…”
“Oh, yeah?” Heath asks. “About what?” Eugene pauses. “You might want to talk to Deanna, get it from the horse, her mouth, you know.” he replies. As Heath turns to go, presumably to find Deanna and find out what the hell’s going on, Eugene calls after him, “It’s nice to meet somebody like me…I fully respect the hair game.” This leaves Heath more confused than ever…was he just complimented, or insulted? Fully rattled, Heath turns and walks off…not realizing yet, of course, that he hasn’t heard the half of it.
In the next scene, we see Rick and Morgan, walking up to a section of the wall. Morgan asks who put it up, and Rick tells him that there was a man, Reg, an architect, who put up the wall early on. He explains to Morgan that the Alexandrians had food, energy, not many walkers…they had been just living, for much of this time, and haven’t really had to survive. Rick tells Morgan they figured this out, and found Rick and his gang, brought them in as ones who could show them, teach them.
Rick tells Morgan, “It still may be too late.”
“Too late, how?” Morgan asks. “For them to come around…we’ll see,” Rick replies. He begins to tell Morgan that he’ll have to talk to Deanna, the woman in charge…she was married to Reg. “Was?” asks Morgan. Rick is about to explain when he sees Gabriel’s head through the bushes, and walks ahead quickly to investigate.
Snarky Rick comes up on Gabriel and Tobin, digging the graves for Reg’s and Pete’s bodies…and of course, Snarky Rick ain’t having it. No murderers get to rest underground within the precious real estate within Alexandria’s walls.
Tobin diplomatically tells Rick that he understands how Rick feels, but says, “It’s not your decision.” Rick looks down at this with a little laugh…
…when Deanna Monroe walks up, just at that moment, and sides with Rick. “Tobin,” she says, “Rick’s right.” She looks down at Pete’s body. “Take it away.”
Poor young Ron looks on from behind the bushes as Deanna instructs, “Go west, down Branton Road a few miles.” (I do feel bad for Ron, but if he’s the one honking that damn horn in the end, I am going to want to get in the long, long line of peeps waiting to kick his angst-ridden little ass…just sayin’!)
As Ron looks on, Deanna continues, telling the men to take Pete’s body “past the bridge…we don’t go that way. Let the trees have him.” (Brrrr...that’s cold, Deanna Monroe!)
Later, as they load Pete’s body into the car trunk, Rick looks over at Morgan. “I shot him, because he killed Reg. That was it. We didn’t have a choice,” Rick explains. Morgan looks down at the body in the bag. “You do have a cell,” he says, mildly. “Not for killers,” replies Rick.
Morgan looks over at Rick. “I’m a killer, Rick. I am, and you are, too.” Rick gives Morgan a long look before shutting the car trunk.
In the next scene, we see Rick, Michonne, and Morgan running ahead of the dreaded walker parade. Rick radios Glenn, checks in. Glenn tells Rick that they’re almost at the tractor store, and will have a handle on things before “they” get there.. As Rick, Michonne, and Morgan regard the barricade they set up, before, RV and car parked in front of metal gates, Rick says, “It’ll hold.” Michonne replies that’s good, considering where they’re standing. It seems the barricade will soon be the only thing standing between them and the massive walker horde.
As they stand there, Michonne looks over at Morgan, as if waiting for him to say something, and he does. “Michonne?” he asks. “Yeah?” Morgan waits a moment before asking, “Back when you were in that place…where I lived…did you take one of my protein bars?”
Michonne looks over at Morgan, her face softening with inner mirth, and she answers quietly, with a smile in her voice, “No.”
Morgan processes this a moment. He doesn’t seem convinced. “See, I could have sworn that there was one more peanut butter left.”
Michonne shakes her head, says, comically, “That’s how it is, isn’t it…you always think there’s one more peanut butter left.” This sweet, comical moment stands a second more before the roar of walkers approaching begins to swell over the barricade.
In the next shot, time shifts back, again, and we see Ron, coming out from under a bridge, alone.
He looks up, and a moment later, the trusty old “Astoundingly Ugly Car” drives over the bridge.
Ron springs up, over the rocky hillside, after it.
As they step their way through the woods, Morgan leading the way, trusty staff in hand, RIck prompts, “Morgan…maybe we just leave him here.” If it were up to Rick Smash!, they would have heaved the body just off the road and taken off. Later, McBeaty. However, the Bear McCreary music in the background is all soft and dreamy, so we know that somebody is going to have a human moment in life and love coming to them, and Snarky Rick is def due for one of those…
And, here it comes…
Morgan smiles at Rick, taps the shovel in his right hand a few times into the ground, says, “That’s not who you are…I know.” Morgan turns and continues down the path. Rick follows quickly, catches up with Morgan. “Hey,” Rick says, and Morgan turns around to face him.
“You don’t,“ Rick says quietly.
Morgan looks at Rick a moment, says nothing, shrugs off his bag, and begins spearing the shovel into the ground. In the background, there is a quiet roar, the telltale noise of…
“You hear that?” Rick asks, listening.
The men approach the edge before a steep drop into a deep quarry, where thousands of walkers are, below, snarling and milling about, trapped in all sides by steep embankments, piles of rock, and serendipitously placed tractor trailers. It is a fearsome sight, with staggering implications.
The men are startled out of their shock by a noise from behind…
…of young Ron, running for his life from a band of…
…boythirsty Cougar Walkers!
The impetuous young dummy is speeding right for the cliff’s edge…
…before being tackled in pimp linebacker-style by his newdad, Rick Fucking Grimes.
And so the Cougar Walkers charge, one by one, over the cliff’s edge, as so often happens in the troll for tender young boyflesh…better luck next time, Cougar Walkers!
Watching this scene, I found myself wondering what Daryl would be thinking about, riding for all that time with thousands of walkers snarling on his tail, just a few yards behind him. I imagined that he would be thinking of Beth, either reliving those sweet, stolen moments with her, or perhaps creating a fantasy world inside his mind of the two of them, together, in his quiet moments, to help him escape the hellish world all around him.
Sasha and Abraham meet up with Daryl in the Astoundingly Ugly Car.
And, here comes the parade that nobody loves, the Parade of Walkers.
As Rick and Morgan look down at the steep quarry filled with walkers…
…Ron comes up quietly to stand beside them, looking down. Rick looks over at the boy. “What are you doing out here, Ron?” he asks gruffly.
Not looking at Rick, the teen answers, “I wanted to know where my dad was buried.”
“This is how…” Rick realizes aloud. “How what?” Morgan asks.
“This is how the community is still here,” Rick replies. “They’ve had walkers at their walls…”
“…but a lot of them, most of them, ended up here.”
Ron flexes his teen rebellion once again and turns to leave, only to be stopped by Rick. “You shouldn’t be out here,” Rick says, grabbing the boy by the arm.
“I don’t care what you think,”Ron says (of course). “It’s not what I think, it’s what I know,” Rick tells him.
Rick tells the young man that he has no idea how to protect himself out here, and while Rick can show him how, right now, as he is, if he comes out here, “You’re gonna die.” Rick lays it out for Ron…the death won’t be quick, and it won’t be over, because he’ll be “one of them.” So, basically, NewDad Rick gets the last word on young Ron, tells him he’s going to come back with him and Morgan, now. Rick looks at Ron significantly. “Don’t make it hard,” he tells the young man, before walking back over to Morgan.
My WD buddies and I were so happy, watching this scene, to see Rick step up and do the right thing. ❤
Glenn, Nicholas, and Heath have reached the tractor store, without a moment to spare. If they are too late, the noise of the tractor store walkers could distract the walker parade off the road. They must act fast.
Glenn comes up with a plan, for Nicholas to man the door, let out a couple of walkers from inside the store at a time, so Glenn and Heath can take them as they come out. Heath is unsure of this…what if Nicholas can’t shut the door, hold them off? Glenn tells him then, they take them on. “Take them on?” asks Heath, incredulously. Glenn tells him if too many come out at once, they lead them around the building, towards the woods.
Nicholas tells Heath, “You’ve been on runs this whole time…he knows what he’s doing.” (Nicholas was def scoring some redemption points with me at this point in the episode.) Nicholas looks at Heath, admits, “Me and Aiden…we didn’t.” Heath shakes his head at all of this. “This was supposed to be a dress rehearsal,” he gripes. Glenn shakes his head at Heath in disbelief. “I was supposed to be delivering pizzas, man,” he says. Ha! Zinger!
Glenn counts down, and Nicholas pulls the door open to reveal…metal security door! “Shit!” Glenn must improvise now, and quickly.
At the meeting, Heath clears up the mystery of the quarry walkers…he says early on, in some of the first scouting trips around the area, he and his “team” spotted the quarry…
It had once been a camp, and he surmised that the people down there must have tried to seal off the entrances into it with the trucks. It didn’t work, however, for all the reasons Rick and Morgan saw before, with the walkers sliding down the embankment, right into the lower levels.
Heath says that the last time he saw it, there were about 12 “roamers” down there. When Maggie asks him if anyone’s checked on it since, he replies that nothing on goods runs was in that direction, and that he didn’t exactly want to have a “picnic next to the camp that ate itself.”
Michonne, being brilliant as well as beautiful, and a badass, points out that the sound of the walkers draws more walkers, who fall in, making more sound, drawing more walkers…it’s like one, big, horrible equation of undead exponentiation!
As Rick begins to outline his plan, which, he admits, sounds “risky,” Carter stands there, looking like the poster child for the word “lugubrious.”
Rick points out that one of the trucks holding the walkers back could fall over the edge any day now, like after one more hard rain, and that would send the walkers east, right towards Alexandria.
“Marshall and Redding…we’ll force them west, here.” “How?” “Block it off, so they can only go one way, west, away from the community.”
“Block it off with what?” “Cars…we’ll use the RV, some of the bigger trucks, park ’em in the end.”(It’s actually a great plan. It should have worked, Rick Grimes…it almost did!)
Michonne reminds them that they’ll be drawing the walkers away, that the horde will keep moving.
Carter, however, is not convinced that the barricade will hold against the walkers, and questions the plan. What if the barricade doesn’t hold, and the walkers start slipping through the cracks, and that noise catches the other walkers’ attention…what then?
Heath looks over to Rick, tells him that “The man’s got a point.” Michonne shoots Carter a look like, “You really are a whiner, and kind of a pussy, you know that?”
A voice, bearing the familiar Texas drawl we love so well, speaks up from behind. “We got plates,” says Eugene, standing tall and bearing the mullet we love so well. “Big-ass metal ones from the construction site. We could use them to fortify the whipwall, disperse the force of impact and help direct the walkers clean…like a pool table, 8-ball, corner pocket.” (Yes, Eugene! I loved seeing him step up in this moment, as it really felt like Eugene was starting to find his role in this community: Professor Mullet.)
Carter objects, of course, but that’s just because he’s mad that Eugene is showing himself to be more of a man than Carter is, and everyone knows it.
Rick Grimes shuts down Carter’s whining by telling him that he, Carter, a.k.a. ConstructionDick, better help make sure that barrier holds against the walkers.
Morgan chimes in, “That wall, you built it. So, you’ve already done the impossible,” with incredible deadpan delivery, referring, of course, to Alexandria’s hallowed steel wall barrier (featuring Reg’s patented “outside-the-wall” supports which thoughtfully provide easy climbing access for any live enemy forces to invade, and defile, the VanillaDream…hey, now that I think of it, Carter, was that your idea? If so, thanks for nothing, asshole.)#letsblamecarter
The scene shifts, and we see it’s the moment of truth…Daryl is leading the horde to the corner pocket…will the barrier they built hold?
As the mass approaches, Rick, Morgan, and MIchonne begin firing well-timed, well-placed flares to distract the walkers’ attention from charging full-forward into the wall, and lead them around the bend.
The flares begin to capture some walkers’ attention…
Michonne fires a flare, then edges closer, bracing herself, peering through the corner…
More and more walkers notice, are drawn towards the flares…
Putty Face Walker is like, “Oooo, pretty!”
The indignity just doesn’t ever end for the Trampled Underfoot Walkers…they fall into a quarry, get stuck there for like a year, and when they finally get out, now this! They’re like, “Goddamn it!”
So far, the plan seems to be working…
Go West, Walkers!
Time shifts back again, and we see the beginning of the construction of the barrier.
Jessie looks up from her digging to see…
…Rick looking at her. He seems to be thinking, “Do they make a Hallmark card for ‘Sorry I Killed Your Husband (But He Was A Dick)’?”
Rick nods at Jessie, goes back to his task, when Daryl comes up, pushing a wheelbarrow. “What you said before, about us needing to take care of ourselves?” he begins, as he dumps the contents of the wheelbarrow…
“Going out, and finding more people, that is taking care of ourselves.”
Daryl finished dumping his load, and Rick looks up at him. “Your call, though,” Daryl says, turning and heading for another load.
Carol brings Rick a drink, and they confer quietly. Rick tells Carol she should stay back, get a feel for how the citizens are taking all this, how they feel now. “We still have a long way to go with them,” says Rick.
Carol looks over the assembled workers, all busy, sweating. “We’ll get there,” she says. “She’s in charge, but you’re in charge, now.” Carol walks away, leaving Rick to ponder this.
Time shifts again, and the tractor store walkers are banging against the glass in a fury to get out and chomp Glenn, Heath, and Nicholas, who stand outside in the parking lot.
“This is a bad idea,” moans Heath. “This is the only idea,” retorts Glenn. Nicholas peers in the window, estimates there to be about 12 walkers inside.
Glenn outlines the plan…they stand back, he and Heath standing at opposite ends, splitting up the walkers when they come out, taking them on.
Nicholas offers to help, cutting the walkers to four each, but Glenn is having none of it. He hands Nicholas the radio, instructs him to radio Rick if this goes south, and lead the tractor store walkers away.
Nicholas starts to protest, only to be shut down by Glenn, who orders him to stay back.
Time shifts back, to the barrier construction, as Glenn and NIcholas work, side by side.
Tara watches them, vibing Nicholas as says to Maggie, “He got Noah killed.”
“He did,” agrees Maggie, calmly, like her father would.
“He did more than that,” Maggie continues, telling a shellshocked Tara that Nicholas lured Glenn into the woods and tried to kill him. Maggie tells Tara that Glenn asked her not to tell anyone, as this would get Nicholas exiled, and surely killed, out in the feral open. Tara is angry, and pretty hellbent on blowing the horn on Nicholas.
“Glenn saves people, even people like that,” Maggie replies.
Watching Tara struggle with this information, Maggie tells her, “I couldn’t accept it either…but then, I thought about you.” Tara turns to look at Maggie. Maggie continues, “I thought about how we were on different sides of that fence, on the worst day of my life…and now, you’re one of the most important people in the world to me.”
Maggie tells Tara that things can get better, that they can make them better…she tells Tara it’s her decision, whatever she wants to do, now that Tara knows the truth.
“I’m just gonna follow your lead,” Tara tells Maggie.
The girls hug, and Tara seems to be thinking, “But I am gonna trip his ass when nobody’s looking.”
“…but since you’re doing this thing, anyway…” Glenn points his gun, readies himself.
Back in time, back at the construction site, Carol offers Morgan a cup of water, which he accepts with a thanks.
As she turns away, Morgan looks at her. “It’s Carol, right?”
Carol beams a sunny Junior League smile at Morgan. “Yeah,” she replies. Just lil ol’ me, the water girl. Carol tries, once again, to turn away, and Morgan asks, “You been with Rick long?”
Carol turns back to Morgan, her forced smile even bigger. “Since Atlanta,” she says, brightly.
Morgan regards Carol. “Were you a cop, too?”
Carol, nonplussed, plays dumb, asks, “Why would you say that?”
“You’re always watching…”
“You always, ah, seem ready.”
JL Carol wrinkles her nose. “For what?” she asks.
Morgan looks Carol over with a deferential nod, looks away, “To handle things.”
Carol, unsettled, tries to mask this, fixes Morgan with one more coquettish smile. “Aren’t you sweet,” she says, before walking off. Ha! #Corgan
Back to the present, in the Astoundingly Ugly Car, some of the the Rearview Walkers seem to be wandering off the beaten path, and into the woods.
“We got some looky-loos taking a constitutional off the shoulder,” Abraham reports.
Abraham cranes his neck around for a better look. “They’re starting a walkout.” “Should we get Daryl to circle back?” Sasha asks.
“Naw,” Abraham says, opening the door and jumping out. He tells Sasha to keep moving, he’ll catch up…and proceeds to run in front of the wayward walkers, yelling and grabbing a shiny piece of plastic hanging from a tree branch (probably the thing thatdistracted them in the first place), waving it around, recapturing their undead attention.
“Idiot,” Sasha mutters, in the car, watching.
Abraham jumps back in the car, checks his appearance in the rearview mirror, chuckles. “Look at me,” he remarks.
He then says, conversationally, that Sasha “Didn’t see Reg…that was a mess…and Pete…his face blowing up like Pompeii.” It seems even a seasoned soldier like Abraham is having a hard time shaking the horrible images from that fateful night.
“Right when we were cheek to cheek,” Abraham continues, then laughs it off, jokes, “I still feel like I got some of his brains in my ear.”(That’s right, Abraham was the one who wrestled Pete down after he slit Reg’s throat…he was right there when Rick blew Pete’s brains out. Totally gnarly.)
Abraham checks the rearview, notes with a satisfied smile that the walkers are back on track. “Everything is aces again,” he announces. Sasha is looking majorly disturbed by this lowgrade wack-attack. “What the hell are you doing?” she asks him. “I’m just grabbin’ the bull by the nut sac…I’m living, darling, just like you.” he replies, in inimitable Abraham-style, before laughing at some private joke.
Back in time, at the construction site, Rick tells Deanna, “I’m sorry I haven’t had the chance to say it yet, but I’m sorry about Reg. He was smart, and kind.” Deanna nods silently.
“He was a good man,” Rick says.
Rick gestures to the crew, setting the walls and barriers, commends Deanna on going with the plan to lead the walkers away from the quarry, and route them away from Alexandria. “We need this,” Rick tells her. Deanna is astute, and she asks Rick what else he needs to say to her. Rick looks at her.
“People need to be armed inside the walls,” Rick tells her. “They need to be trained…everyone.“
And, case in point, the Perfect Timing Walkers make their appearance through the woods, coming towards Carter and others.
Rick tells them to use their shovels, that guns will draw too much attention from other nearby walkers. “You can do this,” he coaches. “You need to.”
Carter, I think, puts down his shovel (dude, seriously…you’re killing me, here…didn’t you go onruns, before?Like, WTF?) as another Alexandrian shoves a walker away.
The newbies are basically useless, cringing, stumbling backwards, and crapping their pants. Amateurs!
It quickly becomes apparent that these Alexandrians don’t know shit about killing walkers.
Rick calls Morgan and Daryl in, and soon, the seasoned gang is making quick work of the walkers.
Ow, My Head Hurts Walker takes an arrow to the mulligan. Soon, all the walkers are rekilled, no thanks to any Alexandrian.
Morgan looks at Rick, rebukes sharply, “You said you don’t take chances anymore.” Rick looks at him, at Carter, nods. It was risky, and Rick probably doesn’t feel great about his call, but it does make a clear point to Carter, Deanna, and all the other Alexandrians: Time to get battle-ready, chumps.
Well, apparently, Carter had a different take on the earlier day’s events, because as Eugene stocks up in the commissary, he overhears the hushed whispers and scheming of Carter and others…
…shit-talking Rick and basically planning on overthrowing the Ricktatorship, killing Rick. Ungrateful assholes.
“Plain and simple,” Carter is saying, “we kill him, before he kills us.”
Poor Eugene is so shocked, he drops one of the cans in his armload, and it crashes to the floor, loudly.
Et tu, Tobin?Olivia?Spencer?Francine?? Tsk, tsk, tsk…
Eugene is so scared now, he falls back, sending an entire shelving unit crashing down. Carter comes around and gapes at the poor mulleted man on the floor.
In true Josh McDermitt comedic timing and delivery, Eugene looks up at Carter, says, “Hello…”
Carter says slowly, “He heard.”
And as the others protest, try to dissuade him, Carter raises his pistol and points it at Eugene.
Just then, the door opens, and there stands Rick Grimes, flanked by Daryl and Morgan.
Ooooo, Carter, you are so busted, son.
“What the hell’s going on?”Rick Grimes asks softly, dangerously, and Carter’s bowels look like they are about to unleash into his, well, his Carters…
“What are you doing?” Rick Smash! growls, and Carter manages to reply, “I’m taking this place back from you.”
Rick Smash! looks over at Tobin and the others. “That’s what you were talking about in here?” Spencer is quick to reply, “That’s what he was talking about.”
Rick Smash!nods, taking this in. “Shit, I would have set up some lookouts…”
“…that would have been the smart thing, if I had -…” and then Rick Smash! lunges at Carter, disarming him in one swift, pimp deputy manuever. Whew, the hotness…!
“You really think you’re going to take this community from us?” Rick Smash!grinds out, holding the gun at Carter’s head.
Carter says, in a shaking voice, “It was just me…just me. Just kill me.”
Daryl looks up at Rick. “Rick,” he says softly, holding out his hand for the gun.
Rick looks up at Daryl. “I’m good,”he says, and his voice, manner, are very calm, clear.
Rick looks down at Carter, who seems like he can’t believe he’s still alive. “You can try to work with us,” Rick tells the shaken man. “You can try to survive.Will you do that?”
The scene shifts back to the present, with the grisly walker parade shuffling down the road, led by Daryl, Sasha, and Abraham.
As they hide behind the trees, surveying the walkers, Carter says, “It’s working.” He turns to Rick. “You were right.”
Carter holds out a hand, and Rick takes it. The men shake, making peace.
Rick then turns to the others, tells them that “we need to finish this.” Basically, they need to flank the horde on both sides of the road, monitoring the “parade’s” progress, firing shots if it seems like the horde is wandering off the path, and directing their flow back along the road.
Carter says he’ll take the front, and Rick goes after him, after making sure everyone knows their places, one after the other. The team splits up.
Unfortunately for Carter, who leads the way to the front, alone, some bad luck is hiding behind a tree…
Oh, shit, Carter!
I was def obsessed with this tree walker, couldn’t stop taking pictures of him…so scary!
Nicotero, you crazy beautiful genius, you’ve outdone yourself once again with this episode!
Poor Carter gets face-chomped so hardcore, it’s like you can feel it when you watch this scene. Ouch!
Damn!
So gnarly! (On a funnier note, Greg Nicotero said later on Talking Dead that the effects crew guy in charge of pumping the blood from actor Ethan Embry’s fake facial wound had to stomp on the pedal pump to try to dislodge a clog in the line, sending a spray of fake blood gushing out full-on horizontal, like a fake blood super-soaker…this sight-gag take was sent around, to much hilarity, among the TWD cast and crew.)
Ethan Embry did such a great job as Carter, who started out as major tool, and a whiner, but who finally started coming around, and then got face-chomped just as he was becoming tolerable. That really sucks, dude. Sorry about that. I would like to award Ethan Embry, the TWD fan who finally landed a role on the show, with a very special Deadie: The Red Shirt Guy Deadie, for a standout single-episode performance, and for being so fun, and funny, and for being such a good sport. Kudos, bud. You’re awesome!
Carter, of course, cannot stop screaming, and honestly, I cannot blame the poor guy. I mean, Jesus.
The horde of walkers begins to follow the sound of the screams…
Rick can see the walkers are veering off from the road, but doesn’t yet know why…he radios Tobin, then rushes to see what is happening…
This scene shifts to the past, where Morgan sits outside on Rick’s porch, polishing his staff.
Rick comes out, carrying Judith, and he and Morgan remark about the lovely evening.
Morgan apologizes for invading Rick’s porch, but says he wanted to enjoy the evening, and his place doesn’t have a porch, so…
Rick reaches in his pocket, tosses Morgan a key, tells Morgan he should go get his stuff. “You should stay with us,” Rick offers.
Michonne comes forward, overhears this conversation. Morgan asks Rick if they have room, and Rick tells him they’ll make room. He gestures to Morgan’s quarters across the street, “We don’t need to do that anymore,” i.e. keeping Morgan separated, confined.
“I know you, Morgan,” Rick says, “even if this is the first time.”
Morgan looks at Rick, pleased. He then looks at Judith, which Rick notices. “Do you want to hold her?” Rick asks him.
Morgan laughs, looks down, shyly, then accepts the offer.
It’s so sweet to watch.
I sent my WD buddy this pic from my phone, texted her, This is the stuff. ❤ ❤
Morgan turns to Rick and tells him that when he saw Rick with that man, Carter, in the armory, “That’s you. You’re still the same man I met in King County, the one who told me it wasn’t over.”
Morgan looks at Rick, nods. “That was you, same you that’s right in front of me, right now.”
Rick looks at Morgan a moment…
…then looks away.
“I wanted to kill him,” Rick confesses, “so it would be easier, so I wouldn’t have to worry about how he would screw up, what stupid thing he would do next, because that’s who he is…”
“Somebody who shouldn’t be alive, now…I wanted to kill him….it hit me, I realized I didn’t have to do it… “
“He doesn’t get it.”
“Somebody like that…they’re gonna die, no matter what.”
Rick reaches poor Carter, and manages to pry him off the tree walker.
It’s horrifying to see a big piece of Carter’s flesh in the walker’s mouth as Rick throws the suffering man off the undead ghoul.
With thousands of walkers just feet away, and Carter screaming in his shock, pain, and anguish…
…Rick quickly dispatches the tree walker with his knife.;
By this time, I was really feeling pretty awful for poor Carter.
Rick tries to shush the screaming man…
…looking up towards where the walkers will surely be coming, soon.
Carter’s eyes are wild, and he keeps screaming in his panic and agony…
To his credit, Rick Grimes tries to calm him, but to no avail, of course.
Honestly, by the time Rick put the knife into the base of Carter’s skull, I was relieved. He made it quick, humane.
Rick Grimes, once again, doing what must be done, tireless against these grim, horrible, unrelenting times. I love that man so hard, sometimes I tear up with emotion when I think about him. I really do. Rick Fucking Grimes, for fucking ever and ever, Amen. ❤
Once again, Rick looks up from killing a man, to see Morgan there, looking all judgy and horrified. It’s like, What? He was fucking bitten, and he was fucking screaming, and there are like a million fucking walkers out there. Sue me.
Tobin, as instructed by Rick, peppers the silence with faraway gunfire, drawing the wave of walkers away once again, redirecting them onto the road course.
Michonne comes up, sees Carter’s dead, bloodied body on the ground…like seriously, just five minutes ago, they were all standing around, daring to think, “Hey, this might actually work!” And five minutes later, this guy is dead. Shit’s crazy.
Rick radios Tobin, tells him he got them, the walkers are heading back out to the road. Tobin copies, then asks what that screaming was. Rick, crouched over Carter’s dead form, matter-of-factly tells Tobin that Carter got bit, right in the face, and he, Rick, stopped him.
Rick comes to Morgan, and it’s basically back to business, because it has to be. They need to make sure those walkers make it to the point where Daryl, Sasha, and Abraham continue on with the herd, draw them out 20 miles. Rick tells Morgan to go and tell the others, that they need to know about Carter. Morgan tries to tell Rick something, but Rick shuts it down. He doesn’t want to talk about feelings right now.
Rick asks Morgan if he can do as he asks, and Morgan quietly agrees. Rick leaves, onto the next. There’s a walker ambling through the woods, and he needs to go kill it before moving on to the next order of business.
Michonne steps forward. They look down at the dead young man who lay at their feet. “I know it’s how it is,” Morgan says. “I do.”
And this, dear readers, is where the media storage buckled under the sheer weight of my tweakerness, and we are currently on media blackout. Before I turn you over to the music, Deadies to Scott M. Gimple, for leading us deeper and deeper into the beautiful, crazy world where television and comic series meet; Greg Nicotero, who thinks and directs 3-dimensionally; and the entire TWD cast and crew, for another outstanding job.
The trucks fell into the quarry in my world, loves, the walkers are out, and we’re doing this live. Let’s see what happens, and it’s all good. Check out the playlists, posted here, and follow barnfullawalkers’ social media sites. We’ll keep this party going, people.
Cheers, to you, dearest ones. One love, peace, respect. ❤
And, enjoy the playlist! Many more to come.
Playlist:
Jane’s Addiction, “Mountain Song”
Death Cab For Cutie, “The Ghosts Of Beverly Drive”
Ladies and gentlemen, Jack Flacco has done it again.
It is a tall achievement for any writer to complete, and publish, a first novel, especially when said breakout novel,Ranger Martin And The Zombie Apocalypse, delivers a thrilling, action-packed tale of already-iconic characters navigating love, life, and loss while fighting for their lives, their sanity, and their humanity in the throes and fury of a zombie-apocalypse.
It is even more amazing for said writer to follow up this breakout novel with a stellar sequel, Ranger Martin And The Alien Invasion. an eloquent second-act which takes readers by our shaking, green blood-spattered hands, and leads us deeper into both the story, and the psyches, of truck-driver-turned-apocalyptic-hero, Ranger Martin, and his ragtag, lovable band of young survivor sidekicks as they win some, lose some, and inadvertently stumble upon the actual cause of the zombie apocalypse in their travels, and travails.
(No spoilers here, but let’s just say said cause does involve aliens, military conspiracies, laughter, tears, and more in-literary-technicolor zombie-kill scenes than we post-apoc junkies can shake a machete at!)
After all this sheer awesomeness, it is nothing short of epic to cap it all off with a third novelin grand, full-trilogy style.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is just what author Jack Flacco has done with his third installment of the Ranger Martin series, Ranger Martin And The Search For Paradise.which comes out next week, October 20th, on www.amazon.com.
In Ranger Martin And The Search For Paradise, the master of mayhem has served up yet another tasty morsel to feed our insatiable hunger for the undead while bringing the readers, and our core group of now-beloved characters, Ranger, Randy, Matty, and Jon, another thrilling adventure, guaranteed to keep readers turning the pages long past bedtime.
In the span of said Ranger Martin trilogy, the makeshift soul-family of fourhave seared themselves into readers’ hearts and imaginations. As a writer with a real flair for character development, and a keen ear for dialogue, Jack Flacco has breathed a real life and depth into the characters of Ranger, Randy, Matty, and Jon to such a degree that it feels as if we, the readers, have witnessed firsthand the evolution of these four characters, as they morph from scrappy survivors into seasoned warriors, bearing the physical and emotional scars of veteran soldiers, fighting the good fight in a world gone mad while searching for a safe place to call home.
We, the readers, have walked the lonely miles with Ranger and his tribe of plucky youngsters… we have grown to love them as we listen to their stories, laugh at their jokes, feet their pain, and fight alongside them as they, time and time again, must tirelessly battle both undead and living foes alike in their constant struggle for survival.
We have celebrated each victory with these characters, the big ones, and the small ones…another battle won, another day alive, a lucky meal or a place to sleep for the night, and we have cried, grieved alongside them as they must struggle through another loss…the loss of another friend, another family member, another ally, another dream.
It is a testament to Flacco’s skill as a writer that he manages to create two parallel journeys for our gang of main characters in the Ranger Martin series to embark upon, each one as harrowing as the other. On one hand, we have the journey of Ranger and the kids through the hellish, apocalyptic world around them, a world filled with death, horror, and unspeakable evil.
On the other hand, we have the equally fraught, terrifying emotional world within each character, as he or she must grapple with the terror of allowing others in, to risk opening their hearts, and feeling love for another, when the reality of the times poses a constant danger that any of them, at any time, could be killed at a moment’s notice.
It is a choice that each character in the Ranger Martin must make, and this wrenching issue is at the emotional heart of each book of the Ranger Martin trilogy:
Is it worth the pain of opening up, of loving another, if that person could be yet another loved one that is taken, cruelly, away by the savagery of this new world order?
There is no safety, any more…or, is there?
With the air of one who has done it many times before, Jack Flacco ups the ante on himself once again. As the plot unfolds in Ranger Martin And The Search For Paradise, Ranger and his tribe’s journey west to reestablish their home base in Arizona transforms into a much bigger quest upon discovery of a legend, and a map, pointing the way to a place called “Paradise,” a safe, peaceful, non-militaristic haven nestled inside a fortress located in the San Francisco Bay area.
Through an exacting attention to detail, and an ability to craft scene after scene of dizzying plot twists and epic battles with the “sons of rot” and the “deranged draggers”, Flacco weaves another rich, riveting tale as we, the readers, ride shotgun along with Ranger and his crew, as they decide their next course of action.
Is Paradise real, or just a dream? Or, is it another trap? Is the chance of finding a safe haven from the hordes of flesh-eaters worth taking the risk, when it could cost them their very lives?
Ranger Martin And The Search For Paradise is a wild ride, a tour-de-force that will stay with a reader long after he/she reads the final sentence of the final chapter.
In Jack Flacco’s blog site, www.jackflacco.com, Jack’s Warrior Wednesday posts honor a different man, woman, or child each week who isn’t afraid kick butt, take names, and make the world a better place in general.
If I may, I’d like to nominate this man, writer Jack Flacco, to be today’s WednesdayWarrior (in addition to his pick for today, Bryan Mills, played by Liam Neeson in Taken).
Author Jack Flacco
In addition, I would like to raise a glass, and a cheers, to Jack Flacco, on an epic trilogy, and on behalf of barnfullawalkers, I would like award him a Deadie, a twisted trophy of highest honor in this realm of the world.
Kudos, and congratulations, Jack Flacco. Once again, you are an inspiration to writers everywhere.
Do yourself a huge favor and check out Ranger Martin And The Search For Paradise, available at www.amazon.com on October 20th!
In the meantime, enjoy the playlist. 🙂
In Search of Paradise Playlist:
Kurt Vile, “Pretty Pimpin”
The Offspring, “Gotta Get Away”
Potty Mouth, “Cherry Picking”
The Dead Weather, “I Feel Love (Every Million Miles)”
Tonight. 9 p.m. Eastern. Season 6 is finally here.
What can I say, at this point, that hasn’t already been said?
I, like you all, am feeling the love, the anxiety, the excitement. I am so nervous about what dangers are coming, and I am so worried for our gang. I love them all so much, and I don’t want to lose a single one of them…but I know that’s not really how this all works.
I know it’s not real, people, but I still obsess. It’s how I do. And if you have found this blog, and actually read my tweaker posts, then I guess that’s how you do, too!
Welcome aboard the Crazy Train.
I have come to refer to this time, when the TWD television series is about to resume, and kick all our asses, as “blog season.” Ever since the fall of 2013, when TWD’sSeason 4 began, I have been writing about each new episode of The Walking Dead television series, and aside from some questionable font choices, and typos (which I still find), I can pretty much say that I stand by my crazy product.
I have read, and reread, each post I have written so many times by now that I cannot even face them…this phase will pass, and I will return to them, one day, and reread, and do some much-needed editing.
One day, when I have time…
Time.Time is something that I am constantly negotiating, on many levels, in my life. As a mom, a wife, and a grown-up who works two jobs for my paycheck (unfortunately, this writing gig is not one of those jobs that pay…yet.). But, I am hopeful. Momentum is building. I am pleased.
This blog is something I started doing`for myself, something soley for myself, that had nothing to do with anybody else. This was my joint. While I had dabbled in writing, before, and had some aptitude for it, I had never fully committed myself to writing any kind of cohesive project, writing for long hours at a time, until the self-consciousness and inner constraints fell away from sheer exhaustion, and a strong voice I didn’t even know I had began pouring out, and glimmers of inspired magic began to appear on the screen.
The concept of this blog started forming itself in my head, and in my heart, years ago, when I, an exhausted, nursing mom, would read over the hilarious text exchanges between myself and my WD buddy as we watched The Walking Dead tv series together, in our separate homes, after our kids went to bed. I really have no idea where exactly this idea came from, but once it took root, it was like a, “Build it, and they will come” kind of thing.
So, I lined up a trade with a technical wizard friend, and he helped me set up a WordPress account, helped me load in my artwork for the banner, and showed me how to insert playlist widget embeds into my posts. And so, when TWDSeason 4 began, I began writing.
My writing style asserted itself from the beginning as a kind of “live blogging” style, letting my personal responses to what I was watching lead the narrative. I wanted what I wrote to have the same organic, conversational feel as my text exchanges with my friend.
When I first started writing my posts, I was not on any kind of social media at all. Not even Facebook. Truly. In the beginning days of www.barnfullawalkers.com, I would send a mass text to my circle of friends every time I completed a post.
Now, two years later, I am a big social media ho(or as much of one as I could, or should,be,being a mom and someone who is old enough to know better). I try to keep my usage of social media as a fun, creative way to promote my blog and explore whatever element of pop culture I am obsessed with in the moment. While I do, at times, get political on my social media accounts, being a “citizen of the world” and all, I usually try to keep it light, tight, and deliciously superficial.
Speaking of keeping it tight, I have been thinking about the evolution of my writing style, and what I want for myself, the blog, and my readers as TWD Season 6 unfolds.
Look, I know that nobody asked me to basically write a 10,000+ word dissertation on every new episode of The Walking Dead. The highly-detailed synopsis-parody-deconstruction style I offer is self-imposed, tweakeresque, and inexplicable, really. I really have no idea what exactly I am trying to achieve with any of this.
After each episode’s breezy 400-word recaps have come and gone, there I am, long after everyone else has moved on, wading around the fake blood, guts, and gore in my mucking boots, pulling key items of interest out of the mire and holding them up for others to see, “Hey, guys, look what I found!”
I’m like a TWD episode archeologist or some shit, and the funny thing is, I think it’s filling a need out there, because my readership is growing at unprecedented rate. I’m still small-time, for sure, but just to give you some specifics: Last year, over Thanksgiving weekend, barnfullawalkers hit a milestone of 3,000 total views. At the time of this writing, not even a year later, barnfullawalkers is fast approaching 10,000 views, from different countries, all over the world.
That’s a 200% increase in less than a year’s time, if I’m doing the math right.
At the very least, my detailed synopses and my crazy rantings seem to be adding something to the conversation surrounding the TWD phenomenon, and that makes me smile. I am pleased. I know many readers started tuning in with my Season 5 posts, with all the fun screenshots, crazy captions, and epic playlists.
I love what I achieved with my Season 5 postings…it was such an incredible season, and I am proud of have honored it in the way I did. But, it cost me. It left a mark.
To post in that high-media style, taking, loading, naming, and uploading all those pictures, takes a lot of time and energy. I committed myself to it, then, but for someone in my position, who is raising children, working, running a household, and trying to stay married, it is not sustainable to devote that much time to a recreational endeavor that does not bring in a paycheck.
When you are a parent, you begin to think of things in a “needs before wants”framework. You have to. The needs must be met before the wants can be considered. In my Season 5 posting style, I was able to achieve a lot of great things, stylistically, and I feel like the blog grew, and evolved, in a way I never thought possible. But, personally, it was a constant struggle to try to make it happen.
You can’t create time where there is none, and so, time-wise, I robbed Peter to pay Paul, as the saying goes. I pulled all-nighters, worked all day on weekends to make those posts happen. There were fights, there were tears. It was kind of crazy, and by the end of it, I was completely fried. I still don’t know if I’ve completely recovered, honestly. Probably never will, and that’s why man discovered how to make alcohol.
If I could get a paying job doing what I do with my blog, with my social media accounts, I would consider it the best job in the world. And I think I would totally kick ass at it. When I look at what I can achieve doing it on the side, I think, “Imagine what I could do if someone actually paid me to do this!”
I personally think I would be a great social media marketer…Robert Kirkman, drop me a line if you think you could use me. For instance, I feel like I could singlehandedly raise the hype on your new spinoff series, Fear The Walking Dead, which I was posting about before I was beset by technical difficulties. I got what your new show was trying to do, and I felt like the shots I got, the moments I highlighted really captured the feel, the nuances of that show. Plus, amazing L.A. based playlists!
Think about it, Robert Kirkman. I would work my ass off for you!
Anyhow, shameless self-promoting aside, while my Season 5 style contained lots of glitz and glamour, I did miss my grassroots Season 4 writing style, where I paddled out, until I caught a wave, and rode the swells and breaks of prose. Some of my personal favorite posts are from that time: “The Grove,” “Claimed,”“Still,” “Alone,” “Us,” are all from that period, TWD Season 4.
Is it weird of me to kind of think of them as “classics” in my crazy world of barnfullawalkers?
To me, the feel of the writing is more organic in the Season 4 posts, and when I read back on them, I can see how the direction of the writing took its shape and form. I really found myself missing the purity and innocence of that time, that style, and while the Season 5 posts shine in their own high-media glam style, I am gravitating towards combining my Season 4 and Season 5 writing styles for my upcoming postings on TWD Season 6.
I’m going to open it up, dear readers, and not hold myself chained to any one style, or set of self-imposed expectations. There may be fewer pictures, less blow-by-blow in some posts, while, in other posts, we may hearken back to the Instagram-style postings for TWD Season 5’s “Forget,” and my brief posting foray into Fear The Walking Dead, a show which I really loved, by the way. (Had an epic post in the works for FTWD finale episode, “The Good Man,” with amazing sweet 16 song L.A. playlist, in the works, but I ran out of time, so I had to abandon it…it’s saved, so one day, I will try to put it out there. If I find the time.🙂 )
So, don’t worry darlings. It all gets better and better. I wanted to keep you up on what is really happening, and while there will be a shift in how I do things this season, I imagine it will still be chock full of all the fun and crazy you have grown to know and love with www.barnfullawalkers.com !
I promise. In many ways, dear readers, I feel like things are just getting started. And I am pleased. 🙂 ❤
I predict TWD Season 6 will be about evolution…Rick and his gang must evolve, Morgan must evolve, as do Deanna and the Alexandrians (um, band name alert!), and we must all learn to evolve alongside them.
We may gain some, we may lose some, but one thing will always be true: We are family. #TWDfamily XO
Much love, dear readers, and raise a glass with me tonight, when the first strains of the iconic Bear McCreary opening title sequence begin to play, and let us toast to Rick and the gang.
To Rick Grimes, and to our sweet gang, and to you all, dear readers.Cheers! ❤
Enjoy the playlist, which features some sweet selections from my epic L.A. FTWD finale playlist.
Hello, loves…it was my intention to post for each FTWD episode, but alas, our trusty little family laptop is having some issues. Many of the keys are not working, including the space key.
I don’t know yet if this is a small issue, requiring a simple cleaning/servicing, or a larger issue, yet. Until this issue is resolved, my usual tweakeresque-style of posting will be suspended.
I apologize for this, but I will resume posting when all operations are fully functional.
(P.S. I am typing this post from my phone.)
A couple of thoughts before I save this text, then run to my embattled laptop and insert the bomb-ass playlist I created into the post.
I really am loving these L.A. playlists…they feel so silky on the skin!
First off, I am officially an FTWD fan. This show, in my opinion, is doing a righteous job in telling the story that we, the viewers, missed in The Walking Dead storyline.
This story takes time to tell…civilization does not unravel overnight. Be patient. Perhaps you can think of FTWD as an appetizer for the main course, TWDSeason 6. Relax. Enjoy. Savor the sweetness of anticipation, and enjoy what’s in front of you, now.
As today is my birthday, I would like to share a realization I have come to over the years, especially with my journey as a blogger/aspiring writer and artist:
Be aware of the impulse to over-criticize, over-judge our own creative endeavors as well as the creative efforts of others.
It is a tendency we all have, as humans, and while having high standards and a discerning approach can drive each of us to strive for greatness, it can also be very damaging to our own creativity, and the creative expression of others, to heap judgement, criticism, and cruel comments on someone’s work.
Many of us crush our own creative process with self-criticism, self-condemnation. This unkindness to ourselves does not allow for the necessary learning and growth process.
My advice to each of you is, tell that critical voice inside your head to shut the hell up and to get the fuck in the back seat. You, dear readers, are the ones driving this car. Speak your truth, and let your voice be heard. Shine on, you crazy diamonds. ❤️
Second, I have a small birthday wish. I know there are peeps all around the world reading this blog. I don’t know who you are, many of you, but I know you are out there, reading. And thanks for that. I do hope you are enjoying my crazy, humble offering to TWD family & fandom. Much love. ❤️
What I ask us that, if you read this blog, reach out a little and show me the love, either by clicking on “Leave a Reply” on the bottom of any post and leaving me a comment, or by finding barnfullawalkers on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter and giving me a follow. Links to my email and accounts are listed below.
(While I am too much of a grownup to actively troll for followers, or pay some service, I would love to hear from you all a little more. You can even find me and follow me on Spotify.)
And for those of you who are brilliant enough to have sleuthed me and found my personal FB page and sent a friend request, thank you. I keep my personal accounts private, but am happy to have my world family on my public accounts.
(All images used in this post are screen caps from AMC’sFear The Walking Deadunless otherwise specified.)
From inside a barbershop in downtown L.A. …
Chris watches…
…as a responding L.A.P.D. squad car gets pushed over by rioters, who erupt into cheers and jeers as the squad car flips upside down with a creak, and crunch, of metal.
As the upside-down squad car’s lights flash helplessly, a figure approaches, faces Chris…
“Chris…” “Dad!”“What did you see out there?”
“Some guy…his…it’s messed up.”
Meanwhile, back in the hood, inside the Clarks’ home…
Alicia peers out through the slats of the blinds across the street…
“What did Mr. Dawson do to the Cruzes?”
Madison: “He’s gone.” “Yeah, but what the hell did he do?” “I don’t know…we’re safe inside.”
As she walks out of the room, Madison whispers to herself (and Travis), “Come back.”
Back inside the barbershop, the sounds of the riot outside grow louder, more violent…
Chris: “We gonna go back to Madison’s after this?” Travis: “Yeah.” Chris: “Why don’t we just leave? Just us?” Liza (admonishing): “Chris!”
(sounds of breaking glass from next door)
“They’re breaking in! They’re breaking in next door!”
“What happens if what’s out there gets in here?”
“Dad…Dad! The wall’s getting hot.”
“We gotta go.”
BTW, Daniel Salazar is a total badass. #RubenBlades
This scene is cray AF.
Officer B. Infected
I’ve wondered many times, “How could the armed police, military not have been able to suppress the undead in the beginning of the turn?” This scene, to me, shows the strength and fury of the reanimated, as this killed-turned-cop attacks this other officer in full riot gear, pushing him down, holding him down, pushing back his face shield like a wild animal, savage, relentless…one bite isall it takes, and a moment later, we see a glimpse of the walker literally dragging the struggling cop along the ground, like a predator would drag a felled prey, before resuming feasting, as the rioters frolic around them, seemingly oblivious. Terrifying. Like, really, the naysayers can dog this show if they feel the need to, but my dreams have been weird as shit since I’ve started watching it. Beginning of the turn dreams = scary business.
Chris looks down at the grisly scene, unbelieving. “Dad? Dad?“ Travis and Liza look down, horrified, for a shocked moment, before pulling their son away.
“We need a doctor, Trav!”
Alicia: “How long are we going to wait?” Madison: “We can go to sleep soon.”
Alicia: “I can’t sleep when I’m waiting for someone to come home…”
“…I’m having a major case of deja vu right now.”
Meanwhile, approaching the hospital…
(radio):“The governors of 11 states are declaring a state of emergency right now, and request the assistance of the National Guard to quell riots and protests…”
“What the hell’s going on?”
(megaphone): “Stop! Or we’ll shoot!”
(gunfire, blasts)
Sisters of Mercy Hospital has become a war zone.
And as they watch…
…the lights of L.A. begin to go out, section by section.
Until the city is covered in darkness.
Back at the Clarks…
(noise outside)“It’s happening again…”
“Is it Mr. Dawson?” “Shhh…”
“I don’t see anything.”
Nick, closing blinds: “Ok…we need to get away from the windows.”
Nick, whispering: “You need to tell Alicia what’s happening.” Madison: “She hasn’t seen anything yet…she might not have to.” (To Alicia, brightly) “Alicia, come on down here.”
From outside, there continues to be a soft scraping noise…
…followed by a louder scratching sound against the sliding glass doors.
“Nick…”“Shhh!” “Nick! Don’t open that!”
“It’s the dog…it’s just the dog!”
As Nick tries to comfort the whimpering dog, Madison notices blood on the dog’s legs… “What is that?”
“Is that…is he..hur-?” Nick looks at his hands. “I don’t think that’s his blood,” he says, slowly, realizing. The dog startles, begins barking as it runs to the front door. The dog stands at the door, guarding, barking. Something is outside.
Nick silently motions his mother, sister back and moves quietly towards the front door as the dog continues to bark. Nick peers through the slats of the vertical blinds and sees…
The bloody caller that nobody wants to see on their front lawn…Dawson B. Infected. The zombie stands a moment, then begins shuffling towards the Clarks’ front door.
Holy fuck. Nick must think fast.
Nick turns and limps quickly towards the women. “Ok, the Chans have a gun…a shotgun. I tried to steal it once.” Nick limps quickly past Madison and Alicia, towards the back door. Madison bids Alicia to come, stay close, don’t fall behind.
Nick, Madison and Alicia slip out the open back door and begin to climb the fence to their neighbor’s home as the dog continues to bark frantically inside the house.
Nick and the women climb the fence into the Chans’ back yard and make their way quickly through a labyrinth framework leading towards the house.
Nick finds the spare key under the mat and lets himself in through the back door. “Nick!” Madison protests in a whisper, then she and Alicia quickly follow him into the home.
“Susan? Patrick?” No answer from inside the home.
As they begin to make their way through the kitchen, the lights flicker back on in the home. “Susan?” Madison calls. No answer, so Nick and Madison head towards the bedroom while Alicia follows slowly behind, looking at framed pictures on the wall. A moment later, the lights go out, once again shrouding the house in darkness.
After some digging around in a closet, Nick finds what he is looking for, holding up the shotgun in its storage casing. Madison searches for, and finds, a box of shotgun shells on the top shelf of the closet. She takes the gun and begins loading the shells into it.
From outside, the dog begins barking again, and Alicia pulls aside the curtain and peers out the window…
Dawson B. Infected is in the house…along with the poor dog. 😦
Alicia calls for her mom. “Mom, someone’s inside our house!” Madison comes to the window, Nick following close behind, “Mom! Here, load it…load it!“ Madison begins to load the shells into the shotgun with shaking hands as they watch as the poor dog and Dawson B. Infected square off with one another…
…and a moment later, the poor dog’s barks become whimpers, then pained yelps, then one last horrible noise, deep and guttural, like a first chomp…then,nothing. 😦 😦 😦 😦
Alicia looks over towards her mom fearfully, asks, voice shaking,“Mom?”“We just stay here,” Madison replies, still looking out towards the open back door of their home, in shock. “We’ll just stay here.”
But then, the lights of Travis’s truck pull up. “Oh, no,no, no, no no!” Madison exclaims softly. “It’s Travis!” Madison tries to call Travis’s phone. “It might not be him,” offers Nick. But Madison knows her boyfriend’s old Ford truck, the sound of the engine, the way the headlights look.
“It’s him,” Madison replies.
After a brief moment, Madison turns to Nick “Here, take this,” she says, handing Nick the shotgun and taking the flashlight from him.
Leading the way, Madison shines the flashlight as she, Nick, and Alicia file out of the Chans’ home and run towards the labyrinth, back towards their home.
“Travis!”
Meanwhile, inside the Clarks’ house, Travis looks around the dark and quiet. “Maddy?” he calls, softly.
Travis hears a noise, turns to see Liza and Chris have followed him inside. “I thought I told you to wait in the car!” Travis admonishes. “We’re staying with you,” Liza replies, firmly. (I must say, I am really liking how these characters have each others’ backs, despite their histories together, and their differences…it is really endearing to me, and makes me root for them. As a mom, I am also liking the strong family bonds demonstrated in this show…they take care of each other, and the kids, while being rebellious teens, really do look to their parents for guidance and leadership when the shit goes down. Thumbs up, FTWD!)
Chris looks around the darkened home and is quick to point out, “It looks like there’s no one here, Dad.” Travis, undaunted, replies that the car is still in the driveway, that they must be home…Travis continues towards the back of the house, Liza and Chris following close behind.
Meanwhile, Maddy, Nick, and Alicia run through the labyrinth, Nick calling out directions to guide them through the maze. Bamboo windchimes tinkle as the trio rush past them. “Travis, Travis!“ Maddy calls frantically as they run towards their home.
Meanwhile, Travis steps into the back room and beholds an unspeakable sight…
…the reanimated corpse of his former neighbor feasting on the Cruz’s poor dog.
“Dad,” Chris begins. Travis raises a hand to stay his son, without looking away from the walker, which is intent on its grisly feast, and not yet aware of them. “Get back,” Travis says softly.
As Travis walks slowly, quietly up on Dawson B. Infected’s grisly feast, the sounds coming from it are so horrible. Wet, snuffling, tearing, chewing sounds. It was shocking to me, watching this, that Travis did not grab something to arm himself at this point…
…as well as the fact that he would even walk closer towards this scene. But, upon some more reflection, after rewatching this episode, I came to the opinion that the character of Travis is one who needs to see something for himself, as close up as possible, for him to feel like he has a grasp of what is going on with a situation. He demonstrated this trait when he went to the junkie church in the pilot episode, and so, in my opinion, it’s consistent with his character to be doing this, now. I also feel like Travis is giving the slightchance that Dawson is merely sick and delusional, deranged, even (um, obviously), and that exploring that chance is worth one final effort. But, dude, seriously, grab a poker or some shit…just in case you need it! (Which you totally do…do peeps usually have fireplaces in L.A.?)
“Travis!” Liza whispers. (Look, gang, I know we’re all jaded TWD fans and shit, but really, could you imagine walking up on this scene? After the crazy day they just went through? Just a day or two before, their lives were normal…and now, this is happening. Peter Dawson’s chomping the Cruz’s dog in the living room, face down in that poor baby’s belly, feasting away, tearing flesh with his teeth, getting jiggy with it, face all covered with blood, like a wild fucking animal...andhave I mentioned that my dreams have been weird as shit since I started watching this show?)
Dawson B. Infected be all like chewing and chomping and grunting and shit…ugh. This scene was really a rough one.
Suddenly, the lights flicker back on…
I just totally had to do a wine shot for this poor baby during the writing process...we never even got to know his name, did we?
Travis, looking majorly freaked, turns to Liza and tells her quickly to take Chris and get back to the car, now.
That gets Dawson B. Infected’s attention, and the zombie looks up from its feasting.
“Get out of here,”Travis urges Liza and Chris, who look on, frozen with shock, as Dawson B. Infected raises itself from the disembowled remains of the dog and turns towards them.
…who backs away, tries to talk to the walker, “Peter? Hey, you’re sick…Peter? It’s Travis.”
Dawson B. Infected rushes Travis, trying to bite at him, as Liza and Chris scream and Travis tries to push him back…
Liza and Chris cry out as Travis falls back onto the floor, with Dawson B. on top of him, gnashing and snapping at Travis’s face.
Madison hears the screams from inside her home, scrambles over the fence, calling for Travis.
“Travis! Travis!“
Madison turns to Nick. “Gimme the gun,” she commands him. Nick hands her the gun and Madison rushes towards the house.
Nick stops a moment as he climbs over the fence. “The shells,” he realizes. He turns back to Alicia, “The shells…where are the shells?” Alicia gapes at him. They left them back at the Chans’ home. Nick turns back to climb over the fence. “All right, leave it, leave it, leave it, let’s go.” He jumps the fence and runs for the house. Alicia does not follow, turns back, jumps back down into the labyrinth to get the shells from inside the Chans’ home.
Meanwhile, things are getting pretty hairy for Travis as he tries to hold off Dawson B…
…who’s bringing the attack full-on.
Chris has rushed forward and managed to drag his dad back towards the steps, and Travis is able to bend his knees up and press his feet against Dawson B.’s belly…
…shoving the walker off him, hard, and sending Dawson B. backwards a few steps, buying Travis enough time to get up to standing.
As Alicia emerges from the winding labyrinth and runs towards the Chans’…
…Travis shoves Dawson B. Infected up against the wall.
And as Dawson B. surges forward with renewed fury, trying to chomp Travis…
…Alicia makes her way through the Chans’ kitchen, towards the spot where the shells were left in the dining room.
Alicia sees the box of shells on the floor, under the dining room table. She quickly gathers up the shells, scooping them back into the box.
And as she rises to leave, she sees a disturbing sight on the table in front of her…an empty bottle of prescription pills, next to an elegant tea cup and saucer.
The implication here, I think, is that Mrs. Chan took what appears to be an intentional overdose of pills…and we know what that means.
It means what Alicia is just beginning to realize, especially as she looks up to see Mrs. Chan’s feet under the saloon-style doors at the end of the hallway. Alicia instinctively knows better than to call out to Mrs. Chan…
Alicia does not make a sound as she watches a moment more…
…because there is definitely something very wrong with Mrs. Chan. Alicia hears the creak of the doors as whomever, or whatever, begins to push them open.
The quick-thinking young girl darts down the hall towards the figure on the other side, ducking out the side doorway towards the kitchen and out of the house.
As Travis struggles to hold off Dawson B.’s savage attack…
…the shine of a flashlight on the other side of the sliding glass door appears.
Madison runs in, gun in hand, but Travis, still holding off Dawson B., tells her not to shoot…seems like he’s really clinging to the delusion that Dawson’s just got a touch of the rabies or some shit.
Madison holds the gun, her look like, “Um, sweetie? No offense, but, fuck that…I’m thinking, ‘Shoot.'”
Just in time, Daniel Salazar appears, takes the gun from Madison, and orders Travis to stand back.
Daniel raises the gun at Dawson B. Infected…
…and fires, catching the zombie in the side of the face.
Madison recoils at the shot, but turns back in horror as she watches…
…what Daniel and the others are witnessing, with their own eyes…
…as Dawson B. Infected, who should have been felled, if not killed, by this shot to his face, remains standing, slowly turning his blown-up face towards the man who just shot him, like, “Is that all you got, bitch?”
Undaunted, Daniel Salazar raises the shotgun once again.
He marches toward the monster until the end of the shotgun is a mere inch or two from its face…
…and pulls the trigger once more.
Supremely gnarly.
Have I mentioned that Daniel Salazar is a total badass?
Daniel turns, walks over to Madison, and hands the shotgun back to her before walking out of the room. Madison Clark, meet Daniel Salazar.
Travis then turns to Madison and asks (I think), “What have you done?” which seemed like kind of a weird question to ask her. It’s like, “Um, what I’ve done is just helped save your ass, buddy!”
As Liza tries to process all this without going spontaneously insane, right then and there, Chris rushes outside to go hurl…and I can’t say I blame him.
Meanwhile, Alicia runs through the winding turns of the labyrinth, trying to get back to her house…
The young woman stops, looks around, seemingly lost in the maze. As she looks around, trying to get her bearings, the perspective shifts, as if someone, or something, is eyeing her from a nearby vantage point.
As Alicia rushes past, something grabs her long hair and pulls her hard against the framework wall of the labyrinth…
…and a moment later, we see it’s none other than Susan B. Infected, the reanimated neighbor, savagely pulling at the young woman’s hair, trying to chomp her.
Alicia manages to break free of Susan B. Infected’s grasp and sprints to the fence, trying to scramble up and over it as Susan B. Infected claws at the young woman, who kicks frantically at the clawing she-walker.
Chris rushes up, calling for Alicia, and grabs a hold of her, trying to pull her across the fence. Alicia, terrified, continues to kick at the clawing dead woman, screaming, until she is finally free of those frenzied, grabbing hands.
Chris and Alicia topple to the ground, Chris underneath Alicia. To his credit, he is trying to talk to her, tell her who he is, that he’s trying to help her…
…but Alicia, in her panic, can’t seem to register this fact, and delivers a hard, fast elbow into Chris’s nose. No good deed goes unpunished,…
As Alicia gets up and rushes over to her mom, Chris jumps up, facing Alicia angrily. His nose is bleeding. “I was trying to save you, Alicia!” he yells at her.
Travis tries to placate his son, telling him to calm down. Chris shoves his father angrily. “You calm down, dad!” he yells, before stalking off.
Nick looks around at the retreating figure of the angry young man, like, “Teenagers these days!”
Susan B. Infected presses her face against an opening in the fence, and reaches her arm out towards the living flesh on the other side, just out of reach. It is easy to imagine that she and the Clarks used this opening in the fence to greet each other, chat, in the days before the turn.
“What’s wrong with Su Su?” Alicia asks her mother, shaken. Madison looks at the reanimated woman’s face pressed against the opening with dismay. “Oh my God, Susan!”
Madison watches Su Su B. hiss and reach towards them. “She’s sick,” Madison says. “Has she been bitten?” Travis asks, as he peers closer at Su Su. “I can’t tell,” Liza replies. Nick’s voice comes from behind them, “She’s not sick…”
“…she’s dead.”
Travis looks at Nick. “Why would you say that?”he asks.
Nick looks at Travis. “Cuz it’s the truth,” he says, matter-of-factly, like a child would.
As Alicia sobs in her mother’s arms, insisting that Matt “isn’t like that,” like Su Su, the others stand, processing all of this, in the yard, as Su Su B. Infected hisses and paws helplessly at them through the fence.
“C’mon, let me help.”
Travis walks Chris to the bedroom, asks Liza how Griselda is doing. Liza asks if they have anything for Mrs. Salazar’s pain…
…and Travis replies they have nothing stronger than an aspirin.
Liza shoots Nick a look at his, and Nick shifts uncomfortably against the doorframe he is leaning on, but says nothing, offers nothing. Liza then fixes Travis an irritated, knowing look as she walks past him.
Travis then ups the awkwardness meter in the room by turning to Daniel and telling him, there’s a phone in the kitchen if, you know, he wants to make that phone call…
Daniel Salazar is a proud man, and would not want to be beholden to anybody, especially a man who is basically telling him to get packing, no offense, but they’re kind of on a deadline to get the hell outta town…
Daniel replies stiffly that he did already make the call, and his cousin is coming to pick them up in the morning. Ofelia looks up at her father, knowing that even if he isn’t lying to save face, that their best chances for survival lie with staying here, with Travis and his people.
Griselda lays a calming hand on her daughter’s shoulder, and gives Ofelia a knowing, motherly look. Now is not the time to challenge Daniel on this, but another time will present itself, soon enough. Travis awkwardly tells Ofelia that they will set her mother up in the other bedroom for the night, and Ofelia thanks him.
Madison, however, is no longer clinging to social niceties, and asks Travis, “Are we leaving?” meaning, aren’t we leaving right now? Travis wants to do the right thing by the Salazars, and he replies yes, first thing in the morning… Madison says unreservedly that they are packed, ready to go tonight, that they were just waiting on him to return, and they are ready to leave, now.Awkward!
Travis is in a difficult position. Daniel Salazar took him, and Liza and Chris into his barbershop during the riot, most likely saving their lives in doing so. Travis asks Maddy if they can talk about this in the kitchen. Madison stands and faces Travis, tells him no, this thing is getting worse, not better, and they want to leave, now. Liza tries to interject on Travis’s behalf, but Madison snuffs that shit real quick, basically tells Liza it’s not her her business, and not her place. Oh, snap! Alicia then jumps up, echoing her mother’s sentiment, and before he knows it, Travis has two Clark women giving him the biz as the others watch. Double awkward!
Madison relents, but on the condition that if they’re staying the night at the house, then he needs to be the one to “take care of Peter.” Madison then turns on her heel and stalks out of the room. Oh, double snap!
Travis processes this, then looks around at everyone before leaving the room, himself. Liza returns to tending Griselda’s foot, which is looking pretty messed up.
“You can get gas from the truck.” Travis looks up to see Daniel Salazar standing there, watching him. “For what?” Travis asks, genuinely puzzled.
“Burn him,” Daniel replies, matter-of-factly. “If you burn him, the sickness will not spread.” But Travis refuses. “We don’t know how this spreads,” he replies, huffing as he tries to move Peter Dawson’s body, rolled up in a length of old carpet.
“I understand. You knew this man,” says Daniel, with a nod and a knowing smile. Travis looks up from dragging the body. “Yeah, I did,” he says. He looks at Daniel. “He didn’t deserve this.” Daniel looks at Travis, says nothing, turns and walks back into the house, leaving Travis to drag Peter Dawson’s body towards the makeshift grave spot the back yard.
When Travis is finished, he comes into the kitchen, where Liza is scrubbing at the sink. She turns to Travis.
“It’s true, what you said…they don’t die. They keep coming back.”
Travis comes over to the sink, washes his hands, then stops, looks at Liza.
“What?” Liza asks. Travis tells her it’s good what she’s doing, taking care of Griselda. Liza replies that she isn’t doing much, and Travis tells her she is, to give herself a break. Liza replies that she gave herself a long break, before, and then realized that she could be doing a lot more.
Travis tells Liza that he always knew that about her. Liza looks up at him with a small smile, corrects him, “No, you always said that.”
Travis does not reply, turns back to the sink, and Liza reports on Griselda’s foot…it is crushed, and the tissue has already started to die…untreated, infection will set in, poison Griselda’s blood, leading to organ failure. Travis turns to Liza, tells her it’s not going to come to that.
“Oh yeah?” Liza asks him. She looks up at him with a sad, knowing smile. Once again, it’s Travis to the rescue. She teases, gently, “Who’s gonna stop it?You? You can’t fix everything, Travis.” Travis dries his hands, turns to walk out of the kitchen, turns back for a moment. “You know, I’m relieved…I thought it was gonna be awkward, having two wives in the house.”Ha!
Meanwhile, in Alicia’s room, Ofelia does her best to make Griselda comfortable. When Daniel walks in, Ofelia tries to talk some sense into her father. “We should go with them tomorrow, then.” Daniel closes the blinds. “No,” he refuses, flatly.
“We don’t know what this is,” Ofelia says. “We can’t handle this on our own.”
“I can handle it,” Daniel replies.
When Ofelia protests, Daniel walks over and closes the door. He turns back to his wife and daughter. “This is the wrong time to be in someone else’s debt,” he says, with emphasis. “They are not family.”
Ofelia then calls Daniel out on his lie about the cousin picking them up, adding that Daniel told her that all their family is buried in El Salvador. Daniel insists that this house is good for Griselda to rest, and Ofelia asks him what happens when the others leave tomorrow.
Daniel tells his daughter to calm down, that he knows where to go. Ofelia insists that they should go with Travis and his people. Griselda speaks up, tells Ofelia to trust her father, that he’s always looked out for them. Ofelia, torn between her love and loyalty to her parents, and what she knows is their best chance, walks out of the room, upset. Daniel and Griselda share a gentle joke between each other before Daniel turns back to his post at the window, peering through the blinds.
Madison looks out the window at Su Su B. Infected, still snarling and pawing through the opening in the fence.
Travis comes in, and the two share a cuddle as he tells her he had to bring the Salazars. “They took us in, Maddy.” Travis then apologizes to Maddy for what Daniel did, i.e. blowing Dawson B.’s head off in her house.
“He had to,” Maddy replies, and then hugs Travis, hard. “I thought I lost you,” she says.
“No,” Travis tells her. “You won’t lose me. You’re never gonna lose me. I won’t leave you again.”
Later, Liza goes to get a drink, and finds Madison in the kitchen. When her attempt at small-talk fails, Liza tells Madison that she doesn’t want to cause problems…
“Madison, I know we’re not friends. I’m saying this to you as a mother. We should support each other, you and me. The kids need it. They need reassurance right now, and…”
Madison cuts in, looks at Liza. “I need something from you.”
Madison turns to look back out the window, towards her undead neighbor, Su Su. “That woman outside? That’s Susan.”
“She watched my kids while I went to work…took care of me after my husband died.” Liza says softly, “Sounds like a good friend.” “She was,” Madison replies.
Madison turns and looks at Liza. “And if ever I end up like her, I need you to take care of it. Don’t make Travis do it. It would break him.” (Besides marveling at what a badass Madison is in this scene, I was left with the sinking feeling that she may be foretelling her own death, and future events to follow, at some point as the FTWD storyline unfolds…and I would really hate that, because she is becoming one of my fave characters in this show.) ❤
Liza looks at Madison a long moment, nods her head, slightly, before turning and walking out of the room, leaving Madison alone with her drink, watching Su Su B.Infected snarl and reach out towards her home, and all the living people inside it.
The next morning, Travis begins the thankless job of digging Peter Dawson’s grave.
The sounds of Travis’s shovel spearing the earth get Su Su B.’s undead attention, and she comes to the opening in the fence…surely, she has been wandering the labyrinth all night, if not peering and reaching through the fence towards the house of the living.
Travis turns to look at her.
“Good morning, Susan,” Travis says sadly, drily, before turning back to his digging.
After taking out the garbage, and sharing a mutual vibing session with a biker-looking live neighbor doing the same, Travis returns to find Daniel showing Chris the workings and parts of the shotgun he used to rekill Peter Dawson’s reanimated corpse just the night before.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“The more the boy knows, the safer he’ll be,” Daniel Salazar asserts. Madison, who had been watching, interjects that she didn’t see the harm… “You know how I feel about guns,” Travis says to her, as they turn to pack the car and leave for the desert.
But before they leave, there is something that Maddy must do…
“Susan,” whispers Maddy.
But Travis stops Maddy before she can bludgeon her friend Susan out of her undead misery.
Daniel, watching this through the window, shakes his head, pronounces Travis, “Weak.”
“I need a couple more.”
“They’re leaving,” Ofelia says. “Good,” replies Daniel. “This is insane, Papa, we have to go with them,” insists Ofelia. “Tell me what you’re afraid of.”“Nothing,” replies Daniel, smiling at his wife.
“You are being stubborn, paranoid…we need the nurse. These are good people, Papa.” Daniel turns to his daughter. “Good people are the first ones to die,” he says.
As military helicopters fly overhead…
…Madison, Travis, and their families load into the car, truck and pull out of the driveway.
The pass the sad remains of the Cruz’s bloodied bounce house.
As they prepare to turn out of the neighborhood, Madison sees, with no small amount of horror…
…Patrick Chan returning home, pulling his suitcase from his car, and heading towards his house, where his reanimated wife, Su Su, wanders the back yard labyrinth
Travis looks back to see that Madison has turned and driving towards Patrick, having called out his name, to no avail.
“Susan? Susan! I’m home…the airport’s shut down, I drove all the way…I tried to call you!”
Poor Patrick Chan stops short when he sees his wife…
…rather, what used to be his wife. (So sad, especially when I think that if this zombie apocalypse wasn’t all going down, poor Patrick Chan would have come home to a dead wife, an empty bottle of pills, and a suicide note…either way sucks so bad for this nice-seeming man who just wanted to get back home to his wife!) 😦
Stricken, Patrick Chan does not hear Madison behind him, trying to warn him not to touch her, that she isn’t his wife any more…he leans in as Su Su B. Infected reaches up for him, as if for a hug…
…and as Su Su B. goes in for the chomp, a shot rings out from behind Patrick…
The military rushes in and grabs Madison and the others, leading them away as they surround poor sobbing Patrick Chan and his rekilled wife.
In the next shot, we see military in full-protective clothing carrying off the sad remains of the Cruzes.
“How many in the household?” “Nine…Travis Manawa, Chris Manawa, Liza Manawa, Madison Clark, Alicia Clark, Nick Clark…Daniel Salazar, Griselda Salazar, Ofelia Salazar.” “Big family.”
Madison walks to the back and asks the soldiers what they did with her neighbor, Patrick Chan.
The soldier replies that he was covered in “the infected’s blood.” Madison asks if blood is how it’s transmitted, and the soldier does not answer, asks her instead if anybody in her household has been exposed…Madison lies, says no.
The soldier turns and asks, “What’s that?” as he gestures towards the freshly buried mounds in the yard.
“Our dog died.”
Meanwhile, Nick’s junkie ass gets stone-cold busted as he tries to break into a neighbor’s home, trolling for meds…
Travis stands in the front yard, watching the military trucks and personnel swarming the neighborhood. Madison walks up beside him. As they stand together, watching, Travis says, “The calvary has arrived…”
“…it’s going to get better now.”
Well, gang, I said I was only going to post a few pictures and a playlist each post for FTWD, but if there’s one thing we can all be sure of, by now…don’t believe anything I say! As soon as I say I’m going to do one thing, I turn around and do the total opposite.
Tweaker is as tweaker do, I guess!
Enjoy the playlist…it’s 99% L.A., and 100% awsome!
Now onto this week’s episode post…coming asap to a screen near you!xoxo
(All images used in this post are screen caps from AMC’s “Fear The Walking Dead” unless otherwise specified.)
“Matt?”
“Matt?”
(sound of wheezing, gasping from floor)
“Oh my god…”
(squeal of wheels)
“Travis!“
(truck horn blares)
“Sorry!”
<Screech!>
“Chris…it’s an emergency, man!Call me right back!”
“Baby, call me back…call me back right away.”
Travis: “Try the home phone.” (crackle of the radio as Nick fiddles with stations, listens)
“Nick!”
“No one’s talking about this…no one’s saying anything.”
“We need to get away from this city…we need to get away from people…”
“…just grab Alicia, Eliza, Chris and just go, until we know what this thing is.”
“The desert?”
“Yeah! We’ll be ok there…it’ll be safe.”
(Madison’s phone rings)
“Alicia! Where the hell are you?” “Mom…” ” “Listen, we got Nick, we’re coming to get you…I need you to pack some things for us, load up some groceries, ok?” “No, I can’t…”
“We’re going out of town.” “What? No, I can’t!” “Why? What’s wrong?”
“He’s sick…he’s really sick.” “Who? Who’s sick?”
“Matt…his fever’s like 103...I tried to get him in the bath, but it hurts when I touch him…”
“Don’t…”
“…don’t touch him! I need you to call 911.“
“I tried…it’s busy. His parents are in Vegas…they’re not picking up.“
“Ok, we’re coming to get you...just stay away from Matt until we get there, ok?“
(crackle of phone losing connection)“Mom?”
“Alicia…Alicia!” Travis: “We’re 10 minutes away.”
“Alicia…move away from him.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“People have been getting sick...it could be contagious.”
“If he has it, I have it.”
Travis: “Alicia, can I talk to him?”
“Alicia…would you?”
“C’mon…c’mon!“
“Is that a bite?“ Matt: “Yeah…” (nods weakly)
(to Travis) “Is that how it happens?”
“I don’t know…I mean, Calvin was shot…it wasn’t…it wasn’t like this…”
“Get Alicia.”
Alicia: “What are you talking about?”
Madison (walking towards Alicia and guiding her back away from the room): “I’m gonna call 911 from outside.” Alicia: “Fine, I’ll wait for them here…” Madison: “Get outside.” Alicia: “Mom…!”
Madison: “Don’t do this…don’t…don’t dothis.“ Alicia: “What the hell are you doing? Are you psychotic? He’s sick!”
Matt: “Alicia.”
Alicia (softly): “Hey…you want some water?”
Matt winces, shakes his head, looks away, sadly.
He looks back at Alicia.
“Listen to me…”
“…my parents’ll be home soon, and I’ll be fine.” Matt keeps his voice casual, manages a smile at Alicia. “You know that.”
Alicia:“I’m not leaving you…”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too…”
“…that’s why you gotta go…”
“…ok?”
“You gotta go.”
Matt looks at Alicia, says, more forcefully, “Go.”
Madison whispers, “Thank you,” to Matt before gently pulling Alicia away, and leading her out of the room.
As Matt watches Alicia leave, he seems to know that it will be the last time he will ever see her.
We will probably never know the details of Matt’s attack, how or where he was bitten, but actor Maestro Harrellplays this scene beautifully, as Matt seems to know that he is both gravely ill and potentially a real danger to Alicia if she stays with him.
Poor Matt coughs, gags, exhausted, lying back heavily on the pillow…
…and as Travis looks once more towards Matt, before following the others, we see that he is beginning to realize, on some level, that this poor, brave young man most likely will die an agonizing death in that bed, alone, before becoming…something else…some kind of monster. 😦 ❤
“Cops shot some homeless dude…shot him like 20 times!”
And back at the homestead…
“Alicia!”
“Hey, Travis! Gladys is nine, can you believe it? So scary...”
“You should come by…we have a ton of food…we’re getting a bunch of cancels because of that bug that’s going around, so…“
“…we’ll see you.”
“Looks like Peter’s got the right idea.”
Looks like Peter’s got something else, too…
“Mom, are you going to tell her? Mrs. Cruz?” Tell her what?” “What’s happening.” “Nick, we don’t know what’s happening.”
“We know more than she does!” “Ok, I’ll talk to her…I’ll tell her what’s happening.”
“It’s like, no one is paying attention…it’s like. it’s not real.“
Madison: “It is…it’s real.”
“You saved us.”
“You had no other choice.”
Nick looks at his mom. “I’m about to step into a world of shit…“
“…you know that, right?“
“Yeah.”
“Travis, go…go get them, now…call me if you’re going to be longer.”
“If I’m longer, go without me…“
“…I’ll catch up.” Madison:“No.”
“Alicia…Alicia! I need the bucket! Alicia!“
“Dr. Han, hi, it’s Maddy Clark, again…listen, uh, Nick’s really hurting right now, and I just need you to call in the prescription, so I can pick it up, but I’m really worried about him, and I think he really, really needs it.”
“The longer we leave him, the worse it’ll get…he won’t be able to travel. Mom, what are you going to do?” “I don’t know…Dr. Han’s not calling me back, and now I can’t even reach Travis.”
“Do you have anything stashed? Vicodin? From my wisdom teeth?” “No, I flushed it.” “It’s dangerous for him to go cold turkey like this.” “I know…”
(Madison thinks, has idea): “Watch him! Don’t leave the house!”
“Alicia! Promise me!” “I’ll look after him!”
Not a good sign…
Madison hears someone behind her, whirls around with a cry of surprise…and fear…
…and sees Tobiasstanding there.
“Can I have my knife back?”
Meanwhile…
“Yo, this is wrong, man…”
“…wrong, wrong, WRONG.” “Back away, sir, get on with your business.”
“This is his business!”
“That man never hurt a fly! That man was unarmed!”
“L.A.P.D.’s out of control!”
Officer: “Hey, kid, put the camera down.“
“Naw, naw naw naw naw, homie, keep that camera up, I’m gonna give Officer Jackpool here a civics lesson.” “You wanna go to jail, son?”
“What for? He ain’t breakin’ any laws!” (Cop turns and calls for backup, to renewed taunts from the crowd of spectators.)
Back at the school, Madison hands Tobias his knife, tells him, “Be careful.”
And back at the Clark’s home, Nick is kicking, hard…Alicia brings him soup, which he refuses, offers water… “Water’s not what I need!” Nick laments.
“We know what you need, Nick…Mom’s working on it.”
(Outside, the sound of little Gladys crying over her ruined birthday party.) “It’s her party, and she’ll cry if she wants to,”Alicia quips, gazing out the window at the sad spectacle across the street.
As Nick continues to hurl into the bucket…
Alicia seems to come to a decision.
Nick sees Alicia grab her backpack and a thermos of soup and head towards the door.
“No, Alicia! You can’t go back there! You promised Mom!” Alicia whirls on her brother, “You make promises all the time! Nick, LIE DOWN!”
Nick puts a hand up to placate his sister’s fury as he backs down towards the floor. “I’m an asshole, I’m an asshole,” he agrees hurriedly. “But, listen, Alicia, please, if you leave…”
“…you won’t come back.”
“Matt…Matt’s not safe. You don’t know what it makes people do, you don’t know what I had to do,Alicia, you don’t know!“
As Alicia walks out and away from the house, she can hear Nick yelling at her from inside, “Matt willhurt you, he will kill you, Alicia!”and then, she hears the crash of Nick collapsing inside the house.
“No, no, no, not now, not now! Don’t you do this…don’t you do this to me,you stupid son of a bitch!“
“Shhh…”
(At the protest, Chris hears his phone inside his pocket, looks, answers it.)“Mom? Mom?!” “Where the hell are you?” “Dad?What are you doing with Mom’s phone?”
“I’m with your mother; we’re coming to get you. Tell us where you are.” “I’m at a protest…the cops, they shot this homeless man, Dad…he wasn’t even doing anything. The people, they are taking action…this is important, Dad! I gotta go. I’m part of it, ok? I gotta go, Dad.” (Click) “Chris!”
“I know where he is!”
Meanwhile, back at the high school, Tobias is talking apocalypse…and as he and Madison push through the doors of the school cafeteria, Tobias throws out what my friend Mona said, later, as we talked over the fence of the dog park in our neighborhood, what seems like a possible theory of the walker apocalypse…watch it again if you didn’t catch it, and listen carefully…Tobias talks fast, so even after repeated playbacks, I still can’t quite get it…something like about “virus/ survive a nuclear attack”and it “expires in like the year 3,000.”
And then, after dropping what may be a major Easter Egg compliments of Kirkman & Erickson, Esq., Tobias asks Madison, “What did you come back for?” and the conversation then turns to Nick, and away from what Tobias just said…
I don’t know if if means anything, dear readers, but wouldn’t it be soSo Classic Kirkman to casually throw the real cause of the zombie apocalypse in a rushed, hushed exchange between a geeky teen and a guidance counselor in a high school cafeteria as they hurry to stock up on canned goods?
Watch it, listen, and write to me, people! I still have no earthly idea what Tobias said…all I know is it may expire in the year 3,000…and that’s hopeful, right?
A mere millennium away.
As they hoist themselves over the cafeteria counters, Tobias schools Madison on the way of the new order: “The looters hit the pharmacies first, then the gun shops, then the liquor stores…the less you go out, the less chance you get exposed.”
As he helps Madison across, Tobias asks her, “Hey Miss C, have you seen any of them yet? I…I’ve only seen them online.”
Madison regards the boy for a brief moment before lying, “No. Let’s hurry this up.”
They open the doors to the cafeteria’s pantry, to reveal a stocked larder of canned goods. “Motherload,” smiles Tobias.
As Tobias stocks up, Madison remarks, “Wow, you’re stocking up for a while.” “It’s gonna be a while,” replies Tobias as he loads up the cans. “You should stock up too, Miss C.”
Madison looks away, peers around the cafeteria. “No, we have food,” she replies.
Meanwhile…
Nick awakes to the sound of his sister scrubbing his vomit off the floor. “I’m sorry,” he says softly.
“She should have been back by now,” Alicia replies, not looking at Nick. “Somebody should have called…by now.”
Nick looks up at his sister, says humbly, “Thank you.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.” And as Nick settles back into the couch to sleep some more, the lights flicker out, leaving Alicia kneeling on the floor, in the darkness, with the wail of nearby sirens screaming in the background.
As they wind through the empty hallways of the school school, Madison and Tobias’s conversation is not much more uplifting. As he pushes a cart stocked with his haul of canned goods, Tobias continues his grim tutorial of the new world order they are facing:
“The desert will be safer, because things fall apart now. No satellites, no internet, no cell phones. Communications will fail, because no one’s there to manage the servers…the electrical grid will collapse, for the same reason…it’s all gonna go to hell…
And that’s what they don’t get…when civilization ends, it ends fast.“
Madison looks up at Tobias. “They are going to contain it,” she asserts quietly.
Tobias regards Madison. “The same “they” that’s supposed to warn us?”
Madison gives the young man a mock “smart-aleck” face and touches his shoulder gently as she strides by him, to lead him out of the office. “Come on,” she says softly, and then…
…then, there’s a noise. An unholy, inhuman noise, like the vocalization of a wild animal…
…coming through on Artie’s schoolwide audio surveillance monitor.
Madison and Tobias stand a moment, listening to the savage noise. “It’s one of them,” Tobias realizes aloud. Then they hear the alert of the door alarm, the metal scanner that the students must pass through into school each day.
Madison looks with alarm towards the sound, knowing whoever, or whatever tripped the scanner is close. She urges Tobias out of the office and they begin to run, pushing the cart through the hallways…
Tobias runs back for a lost can, and Madison urges him, “Leave it! Tobias! Leave it!“
As they push through the set of double doors leading to the school entrance/exit, Madison sees…
“Artie?”
No answer from what looks like Artie’s back walking slowly through the doors, so Madison steps closer, calls again, “Artie?”
This time, she gets a response…
Upon seeing this, Tobias begins to back away, “We-we-we gotta go, we gotta go!” He grabs the cart and wheels it around to flee, frantically trying the knob of a locked door, then turning towards the double doors behind him, which are also locked.
Madison watches…
…as something that was once her dear friend, and colleague, lurches through the doors, towards her.
“Artie? Can you hear me?” “He can’t hear you, you know he can’t!“ Tobias cries to Madison as he frantically tries all the doors, to no avail.
As Artie Walker menaces towards her, Madison tries one more time to hold onto hope, “Artie? We’ll get you help, Artie.”
The monster that was once a fine man, and a dedicated principal, continues to lurch towards Madison…
…and begins to bare its teeth.
Tobias grabs for his knife.
“Artie, stop…“
“…we’ll get you help, ok? We’ll get you…help,” and with that, Artie Walker lunges towards Madison with a snarl.
With a cry, Tobias rushes forward and plunges his knife into Artie Walker’s chest.
But, of course, the walker keeps coming.
Tobias goes for the head, next…
But Artie keeps coming for him.
Tobias and the walker tumble down the stairs…
The walker presses forward, pinning Tobias down, in its undead singular purpose…
…to eat the flesh of the living.
Tobias screams for help as Madison quickly looks around, then opens the fire extinguisher cabinet, pulls out the fire extinguisher, and brains Artie Walkeracross the head as hard as she can…
…the walker, however, keeps getting up and going back for Tobias, still on the floor…it is relentless, savage, and Madison must keep hitting it, finally bringing the canister down hard and heavy on Artie Walker’s head, with all her might.
It’s Madison’s first walker kill.
As Madison and Tobias walk away from the school, dazed, towards her car…
…we see Madison stop a moment, take one last look at the empty school, the buses. Madison knows now that everything will be different, from now on…
…nothing will ever be the same as it was.
Meanwhile, downtown, the protest continues to escalate as Travis and Liza search for Chris, winding through the angry mob, calling for him.
They find him, and as Travis tries to talk his resistant son into leaving, now, and coming with them…
…Liza makes her way to the front of the crowd and crouches down to get a good look through the bars of the barricade.
We see the body of the homeless man who police shot, a bullet hole through one eye, and what looks like a gored-open wound in the front of the dead man’s neck…it is easy to surmise that the homeless man fell prey to a walker attack, reanimated, and was put down by police.
Liza sees the EMT’s file out of the ambulance with head-to-toe hazmat suits to collect the body.
We see a lone female officer standing at her post, with a figure emerging from behind, shuffling towards the officer…
…and as Travis, Chris, and Liza try to run in one direction, they stop at the sight of police officers, clad in full riot gear, marching towards the unruly crowd of protestors.
We see the pale figure shuffling towards the female officer is the reanimated corpse of a young woman…the officer raises her gun, calls to the young woman to stop…
…to no avail. of course. The officer raises her hand in the universal “halt” position, orders the shuffling figure to stop, then fires upon the walker.
The first shot pierces the body of the young woman in the chest, which of course does not stop the walker. The officer fires again…
…this time, nailing the walker in the eye. The reanimated young woman slumps to the ground amidst screams from onlookers.
To the protesting onlookers, it appears that yet another officer shot down an unarmed young woman, and this incites a fresh wave of fear and terror among the crowd. The protest begins to escalate into a full-fledged riot.
Liza, Chris, and Travis break into a full run for their safety as everything around them begins to unravel and devolve deeper into violence and chaos.
As the streets begin to erupt into violence, Travis, Liza and Chris have nowhere to run.
Travis sees a barber pulling down the metal door over his storefront, and quickly asks the man if they can take refuge inside his shop.
At first, the barber refuses, but then hears a voice behind him…
…as his wife commands him to let them inside, and close the door.
After a moment’s hesitation, and a stray rioter bowing up on Chris, the barber concedes to his wife’s wishes and lets Travis and his family inside the shop.
And not a moment too soon, for as soon as the barber pulls the metal door down and barricades his door, rioters launch themselves at the metal door, pushing and kicking at it as they run past.
Travis asks if there is a back exit they can use…
…and the barber replies, no, the front entrance is the only entrance. Travis begins to stride towards the back of the shop in search of a way up to the roof…at Liza’s admonishment at his lack of manners, Travis maintains that a vantage point from the roof would allow them to see what was happening more clearly.
The barber tells Travis that they will be plenty safe in the front room.
Just then, the barber and his wife’s young daughter, Ofelia, comes out from the back room, takes note of the situation, and politely asks Travis, “Who are you?”
Travis awkwardly introduces himself, Chris and Liza, and explains that he and his family needed a safe place to ride out the mayhem happening outside.
Travis turns and thanks the barber and his family for taking them in, and that they would not stay any longer than needed.
The barber, his wife, and his daughter hold a quiet family conference, check in with each other as Travis and his family go to the front room to wait out the riot outside.
Meanwhile…
“L.A. county health officials recommend that Angelinos stay inside…if you don’t need to travel, don’t. If you must leave your house, take precautions…local neighborhood watch programs are being established in many neighborhoods throughout the city.”
“You can stay with us, Tobias, until this is over.”
“This doesn’t end.”
“There’s room, it’s safe,” Madison offers. “You’ve got to take care of your son,” replies Tobias.
“I’ll be ok…you?“
“Yeah.”
Travis: “Thank you.”
“Thank my wife.”
Chris (looking through the spaces in the window barricade): “This is insane.” Travis: “Chris, get away from the window…you don’t want to see anything out there.”
Liza looks at Travis as he surveys the situation outside, asks softly, “What do you know? What have you seen?“
“I’ve seen what people do…and what they don’t do…”
“…it doesn’t make sense. They don’t die…they come back.“
“We’ve gotta get far away from what’s outside…”
“…all of us.”
Alicia: “What took you so long?” Madison: “Shut the door.”
Madison: “How’s your brother?” Nick (waking up): “Never better.” Alicia: “He went grand mal on me.” Madison (softly, to Alicia): “I’m sorry.”
“Did Travis call?” “No.”
Madison looks down and sees specks of blood on her coat sleeve, which she turns down to hide.
“We ration those.”
“Oxy? Oxy’s good…how much?” “Enough to get us to the desert.” “Then what?”
At Madison’s look, Nick whispers, pointing towards Alicia,“Hey, she tried to leave…I stopped her.” Madison walks out of the room as Nick begins to crush up the pills.
She walks by Alicia, who is leaving Matt a voicemail to call her, let her know how he’s doing…Alicia closes the door to her room as her mother walks by.
Madison goes into the bathroom, where she stashes the rest of the oxycontin and begins to try to wash Artie’s blood off her sleeve…she dissolves into tears with the water running. Her phone ringing startles her back, and she rushes to answer it.
“Travis?”
“Maddy? Maddy…” “Baby, where are you?”
“We’re good…I found Chris, he’s safe. Are you ok?”
“Yeah, we’re ok…can you come home?”
“We’re stuck…we’re figuring it out…we’re waiting in a shop. How’s Nick?Is he ok? Did you find him the meds?” “I got him enough to wean him off, I mean, to take him to the desert and wean him off…”
(Loud explosion, flash of light from outside) “Travis? What was that? Tell me what that was!” “It’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok…I’m fine. Look, Maddy, I want you to go…”
“Go to the desert. Now. Don’t wait.”
“No. I’m going to wait for you.”
(Phone losing connection) “Travis?”“Maddy?”
Madison emerges from her bathroom to find Alicia sitting there. Alicia takes one look at her mother’s tear-stained, striken face and asks, “What the hell happened?”
“Mom? Are you ok? Mom?“
We see the sad image of Artie, lying dead in the school he loved so well…
…and we see in the next shot the image of Matt’s parents’ car in the driveway, trunk and doors still open, luggage in the driveway…seems nobody got a chance to finish the job of unpacking the car before they found an unspeakable horror waiting for them inside the home…
Outside the little barber shop, in downtown L.A., anarchy and violence continue to seethe in the streets…
…as Chris watches from inside.
As Nick sleeps, sedated for now…
…Alicia watches as Mrs. Cruz deflates her poor daughter’s bounce house…worst birthday ever, and it’s about to get worse…
Madison tries Travis again, to no avail…phone service is down again, the power is cutting out…
A scream from across the street…Alicia rushes to the window as Madison tries to pull her away, “Don’t look!” “Mr. Dawson’s attacking them!”Alicia exclaims, and tries to rush out the door to help…
…only to be blocked by her mother, who stands with her back to the door, immovable.
As poor Mrs. Cruz’s screams fill the air, Alicia cries out, “Mom!Mom!” Madison leans her head back against the door, does not let her daughter pass.
Scary, right? In my opinion, FTWD is doing an incredible job thus far. I know some people thought that a disproportionate number of black characters have been killed off in the span of two episodes, and while I can see where people may perceive a racist bent to the storyline, after watching and rewatching, I truly believe that it was merely coincidental, an oversight.
In my opinion, the major black characters have been portrayed as good, strong, loving people…Matt is a caring and selfless young man, and a talented artist; Artie was a dedicated principal who cared about his students and colleagues enough to patrol the school halls when the students had been evacuated from the premises…even Calvin was shown detailing his parents’ car for them, being concerned when his junkie customers’ mom came by looking for her son at his parents’ home.
It is important that viewers keep a show’s creative minds and producers honest, and social media enables viewers to communicate their views directly. Keep speaking your mind, but also keep in mind that sometimes insensitivity, or lack of awareness, happens, and it’s not all intentional. Sometimes we have to cut peeps a little slack, and forgive them when they mess up without meaning to.
__________________________________________
I dedicate this post to Aylan Kurdi,Galip Kurdi, and their mother, Rehen. Rehen Kurdi and her two young sons were Kurdish refugees who were trying to flee the horrors of their Syrian homeland. The mother and her boys drowned in their attempt to make the crossing from Turkey to Greece.
Thousands of Syrian refugees have died trying to make the journey to a safe haven, a better life for themselves and their families.
The image of Aylan’s lifeless body, washed up on the beach of a Turkish resort, has burned itself into the heart and soul of every person who has seen it. May this little boy’s life, and his tragic death, along with his mother’s, and brother’s, not be in vain…may it awaken global compassion and change, so other countries enact measures to help these refugees and welcome them onto their shores, to help innocent people get a chance for a new life, a new beginning, for themselves and their families.
Aylan Kurdi, left, and his brother, Galip. This photo was taken, and posted, by their aunt, Tima Kurdi, who petitioned for their safe passage to Canada. Abdullah Kurdi, husband and father, was waiting for his wife and sons’ safe arrival so he could be reunited with his family. Rest In Paradise, Aylan, Galip, and Rehen Kurdi. ❤ ❤ ❤
Playlist:
Jonwayne, “Beacon”
Bad Religion, “Infected”
Fear, “I Love Livin’ In The City”
Assholeparade, “Serve and Protect (Citizen’s Arrest)”
The Bags, “I Really Wanna Go”
Marine Girls, “Fever”
Leonard Cohen, “Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye”
Thoughts and notes on Fear The Walking Dead, Episode 1:
While rewatching this episode, I wondered about the technology featured in it, especially as the teachers/students watched the online leak of the reanimated traffic accident casualty on their computers and cell phones. The iPhone that Alicia’s classmate was holding as they watched did look like an iPhone 4s, which had not come out yet as of 2010, when The Walking Dead television series debuted. Online speculation about this element of FTWD puts the time of the zombie/walker apocalypse’s inception at Fall/Winter 2012. Cool time warping, compliments of Kirkman and Co., right?
I loved many things about this pilot episode, but I must mention the artful pacing of it first and foremost…it was a 90-minute premiere episode, so after the first gripping sequence of Nick waking up in the squatter church and finding his reanimated junkie girlfriend, Gloria, feasting on a second victim, this episode slowed down just long enough to explore the complexities of the relationships between a mixed family, Madison and Travis, Travis’s ex, Liza, and their children, Nick, Alicia, and Chris. Despite the discord, confusion, and circumstances around the members of these combined families, we got to see the deep love and connection between Madison and Travis, and how their love and unconditional support of their children translated into us, the viewing audience, growing to care for all of these individuals as the episode played out, and rooting for them by the episode’s end, which left us viewers dangling by a deliciously bloody thread of viscera, and suspense.
I was personally delighted by the strength of the writing and dialogue, as well as the acting by all the key actors of this series thus far, and was particularly blown away by Frank Dillane, who resembles the young Johnny Depp character of the What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? era, while managing to convey the dischordant, jerky movements and quirky walk of the Johnny Depp character, Captain Jack Sparrow, of the Pirates of the Carribean era. Deeply sensitive, intuitive physical acting style by one so young…the result being an already-iconic character, Nick Clark, who is sure to be a major game-changer as the series progresses.
I am loving the walkers/zombies we have met so far, Gloria and Cal Walker. Hot, fresh, and ready 2 rumble. Me likey. ❤ ❤
I am so stoked to create playlists centered around the poisoned paradise of L.A., and L.A. bands/music, as key themes, along with basic undead apocalyptic mayhem on the Western front. Hollah!
It’s young, it’s hip, and delightfully horrific. I give FTWD a resounding A+.
Well, loves, after watching the SDCC TWD Season 6 trailer a few weeks ago, I came away feeling shaken, unsettled, and sure of only one thing:
Shit’s blowing up inside and outside Alexandria’s steel walls in Season 6!
After TWD’sSeason 5 explosive finale episode, and the angsty SDCCSeason 6 promotional poster image, we TWD fans knew that our first glimpse of theSeason 6 trailer was going to be…unnerving, to say the least.
What we were met with when we sat down to watch said trailer left many of us TWD fans shocked, slack-mouthed, and gripping our half-empty tall boys for dear life in the throes of yet anotherTWD“WTF?” moment.
Like, seriously, people…WTF is going on in that trailer?
Did we just see…Tara…on her back, pinned by a horde of leering, hungry walkers, screaming as Bite The BoobWalker lunges towards her womanly assets to claim First Bite?
Nooooo!
When I first watched the trailer, I thought the poor woman being overrun, and most probably chomped, by the horde of walkers was Maggie, pinned, helpless, screaming on the sidewalk, with so many walkers clawing and crawling up her enviable curves. It was really hard to tell who it was…all I could tell was that the poor overrun, about-to-be-chompedwoman had dark hair, beautiful eyebrows, and that she was one of our key characters…a beloved member of our sweet gang who seemed about to be done for.
At first, I was like, “Nooo! Maggie!“ and then, with the help of repeated playbacks and some edifying Youtube comments, I realized it was Tara underneath the walkers.
Then, I was like,“Nooo! Tara!“
Ummmm, Kirkman? Gimple?Are you really going to do us TWD fans, and Tara, like that, and show it on the trailer, orare you two tricksters at it again, indulging in your favorite pastime, playing with our emotions?
At the SDCC 2015 TWD panel, Scott M. Gimple straight-up copped to“putting things in the trailers that don’t actually happen in the show.”
Oh, really, Smoke & MirrorsGimple?You don’t say…like when you guys put that Gareth line in the Season5trailer that threw me off the trail and led me to form the completely wrong Evil Terminal Twin Conspiracy Theory, the one which never actually happened?
Fool me once, Kirkman and Gimple…I am no longer the naive TWD fan of a year ago…I am onto you now, sirs!
(Speaking of Scott M. Gimple, I am liking the new wild, wooly, “Rick’s Beard-esque” look that he was rocking at the SDCC2015 TWD panel …)
Looking good, bud!Rugged. 🙂
The question simmers in our TWD obsessed hearts…what really awaits us TWD fans in Season 6?
Aside from Kirkman, Gimple, Nicotero, and the blood & guts cast/crew of TWD, nobody can say for sure…we can only speculate, ruminate, and of course, self-medicate to calm our frazzled hearts, minds, and spirits as we cast about wild theories on social media and in the IRL.
Some questions burning a hole in my heart include:
Is war coming to Alexandria…or has it already arrived? And if so, who’s on whose side? Who’s coming? Who’s going? Who’s gonna live? Who’s gonna die? Who’s gonna make up? Who’s gonna break up?
And, most importantly, who’s gonna hook up?
Will Season 6 bring us…
Invading walker armies?
Tasty new eligible bachelors?
Rick v Morgan?
Horrific deaths of beloved characters?
Hot bromances?Love triangles?Sexy swingles?
…and will Season 6 bring us…gulp…
Negan?
Ok, taking some deep breaths here…deep breaths….at this point in the writing, I needed to get up, reup, and take a few cleansing breaths, bring the heart rate back down. I cannot lie, dear readers… the prospect of Negan scares the crapout of me.
In the newest edition of Entertainment Weekly, the cover story features a “First Look at Season 6 of The Walking Dead,” and in the article, when asked about the possibility of Negan coming into the Season 6 story line, Scott M. Gimple answered the question in his usual enigmatic style:
“It’s absolutely a possibility. And when I say it’s a possibility, we have a plan in place, but there’s a couple variables for that plan that we’re deciding about. It really depends on a few factors as we move into setting up the last bit of the season, storywise.”
Gimple say what? That shit’s more confusing than a double-negative… it’s somewhere between a “yes,” a “maybe,”and a “not-no.”
As Sterling Archer would say:
“That is just so classicGimple.“
(I must say, I have been wondering lately what the “M” in Scott M. Gimple actually stands for…my initial guess was “Michael,” but lately, I have been wondering if it stands for something more like, “Maverick,”“Madman,” “Mentalist,” or maybe “Mephistopheles.”)
Now, I did read an article a few months back about how, apparently, Robert Kirkmanmentioned how great Jon Hammwould be in the role of Negan, and Jon Hamm, freshly sprung from the epic Mad Men tv series, laughed upon hearing this, and joked that Robert Kirkman should give him a call…
While Negan arriving on the scene would pretty much guarantee a new level of brutality, carnage, and certain heartache for us TWD tv seriesfans, Jon Hamm playing Neganwould be totally amazing… and it would make TWD even more of a one-stop-shop for some of my very favorite dudes.
Jon Hamm as Negan might make the pain, bloodshed, and tears that Negan is sure to bring actually worth it, in the end.
Sigh… Maybe. Maybe not.
All I can say, dear readers, is that it seems highly unlikely that Kirkman & Gimple, Inc. could resistbringing such an iconic, catalytic, deliciously evil villain from the comic series into the show…I mean really, how could they not?Not bringing Negan into the television series storyline would alienate the diehard fans, aka.The Comic Book Set.
I do feel, with some certainty, that Negan is coming to The Walking Deadtelevision series, probably within the realm of Season 6.
Remember the Law of Kirkman, darlings: Kirkman will do as Kirman wants, and Kirkman and Co. can (and will) play with our emotions.It’s nothing personal…it’s how he do!
We are all but puppets on Kirkman & Gimple’s strings, people, and we will are sure to get our asses kicked come October 11th, when the 90-minute The Walking Dead Season 6 premiere episode airs, and beyond, as we brave the harrowing journey that Kirkman,Gimple, Nicotero, Inc. have prepared for us.
To ease the exquisite torment as we await our collective fate, we TWD fans get a new and deliciously creepy spin-off show to look forward to, Fear the Walking Dead (which debuts August 23rd, just a little more than a week away, at the time of this writing).
FTWD takes the viewers across the country from Atlanta to Los Angeles, and back in time, to the first days of the turn, when the living start dropping like flies and the undead still look pretty fresh…and as some are even saying, sexy.
Hmmm…yep…def a strong contender for America’s NextReanimated Top Model.
Personally, I am really excited about the new spinoff series. I have wondered many times about the first days of the turn, and about what was happening in other parts of the country, and the world, as Rick and his people navigate their way through the walker apocalypse in the southeastern part of the United States.
While there have been many stories told, references made, and the occasional flashback to the beginning days of the turn in the TWD television series, we viewers have mainly experienced the walker apocalypse along with Deputy Rick Grimes, as he awakens from a coma, shuffles out of his hospital room, and enters the post-apocalyptic nightmare the world has become.
In Fear The Walking Dead, we get to see the beginning, as it’s happening, and judging from the promotional images and clips that are popping up, it looks…kind of terrifying.
That dang L.A. zombie’s fixin’ to eat dem chillens!
In addition to the FTWD promotional posters and images, Kirkman and Co. are dangling tantalizing teaser videos to whet our appetites for some undead epidemic mayhem on the western front:
And,thus, dear readers, amidst the lull of everyday life, a walker epidemic begins in the City of Angels…and for the viewers, so begins a new batch of zombie nightmares…and some serious day-spooks.
Thanks a lot, Kirkman. Really, dude…thanks for that.
Once again, thanks toKirkman and Co.,a whole world of freshly-mintedFTWD fans are all going to be going about our daily business obsessively looking over our shoulders, jumping and screaming at any little noise.
(Of course, despite my mock-protests, I am totally loving Kirkman &Co. once again slapping us up like the little bitches we are.) 😀
In addition to watching the TWDmarathon this weekend, ifyou are one of the many fans who are experiencing a little “walker withdrawal” and would like to get a preview of the “first days of the turn” spooks that FTWD is sure to serve up, I would highly recommend watching The Walking Deadwebisodes, if you haven’t already done so.
The webisodes are excellent, and super creepy, as they show harrowing glimpses of the first days of the turn, pre-Rick-waking-up-from-a-coma, in the suburban Atlanta area where the original TWD storyline is set.
(I do believe the webisodes are also where Greg Nicotero got his directing debut, and that’s super fun, too!) #padawandirector
I provided a link below to one of my favorite webisodes, “Torn Apart,” the first of a three-part-series which tells the backstory of Hanna, the bike walker that Rick Grimes encounters in the very first episode of The Walking Dead,“Days Gone Bye.”
God Bless Hanna Walker ❤
Click on the link below, close out the ad that pops up, and then you should be able to watch the webisode. )
Ok, people. Enough preamble. Let’s do this thing, shall we? Ladies, gentlemen, and everyone in between, may I present, for our collective reviewing pleasure:
barnfullawalkers v. The TWD Season 6 Trailer: The Breakdown
The TWD Season 6 trailer begins with a shot of Rick Grimes, running hard in the blazing sun, through simmering heat waves, down an empty road. Is he running for his life, or is he just doing some anger-management-interval-training, fartlek-style?
(I do not yet know, dear readers, but I do know that any chance I get to use the word fartlek, I take that shit and run with it, fartlek-style!) 😀
Our man Rick is clad in his civvies, his “off-constable duty” uniform of hotness: button down shirt, those skinny leg black jeans we love so well on him, with his black boots and a gun belt around his slim hips, with pistol, knife tucked in there somewhere…Rick’s wearing his arsenal, ready to mess up anyone, living or undead, who would dare to try.
The Entertainment Weekly article described how Andrew Lincoln, most probably during the filming of this scene, would sprint for 20 yards, then turn, and sprint 20 yards back, over and over again, for hours, in the blazing 95 degree Georgia heat, take after take, to keep it real, and believable, for the TWD viewing audience. “We’re suffering,” Lincoln said in the article. “And I think you can smell it. I think the audience can smell it when it’s not authentic, if I’m supposed to have run for two miles chased by walkers. You’ve got to be beat up.” Hear that, Emmy snubbers? Our man, Andrew Lincoln, is suffering for his art, keeping it real, time and time again, thus earning an unprecedented level of love and devotion from a whole world of TWD fans! #recognize
As he sprints, we hear a voice over, Rick’s voice, saying, “We both started out in the same place.”
We hear Rick’s voice, urging, “You can come back from this…I know you can.” In the background of the voice over, we hear Rick’s boots hitting the asphalt, his breath huffing as he runs…
We then hear Morgan’s soft, melodious voice reply, “Good people…they always die.”
We recognize this exchange between Rick and Morgan from Season 3’s heartbreaking episode, “Clear,” when Rick, Michonne, and Carl return to the Grimes’ hometown sheriff’s station in search of weapons, and find Morgan holed up with an arsenal of weaponry from the sheriff’s station, broken, alone, and teetering on the brink of madness from the loss of his son, Duane.
Try as Rick might, he cannot convince Morgan to come back with them, and the episode ends with Rick, Michonne and Carl leaving Morgan behind to continue his solitary work of methodically “clearing”the area of walkers, while Rick and the others, armed with a few more rifles and rounds, prepare to do battle with the Governor’s Woodbury army.
The Season 6 preview then shifts to a brief shot of Rick, face bloodied, in the moment before he pulls the trigger and puts a bullet McBeaty’s brains. We hear Morgan’s voice, “I’m a killer, Rick…and you are, too.” The gun blasts, and the screen goes black…
…and then…
…that horrible moment when Rick looks up from killing Pete and sees Aaron, Morgan, and Daryl standing there, shocked. Morgan looks up at Rick, stricken. “Rick?”
Oh, fuck…
…and so it begins.
Welcome to the aftermath.
As the Bear McCrearyscore hums like a shrill flatline, we see images of the fallen sign welcoming visitors to the eco-friendly, sustainable community of Alexandria…then we see:
Deanna Monroe’s bloodied hand, hanging limply, as the dying fire in the chiminea reflects in the large pool of Reg’s life’s blood.
With Gabriel standing in the background, we see Deanna’s face, dull with shock and grief, as she stares down at the pool of her beloved husband’s blood…
…from where he lay, just a short time before, bleeding out from a slash in his throat as his distraught wife held him, sobbing.
We then hear Rick’s voiceover, telling Morgan, “These people in here, they’ve been inside from the start…”
We see a shot of what looks like Deanna, standing within the relative safety of Reg’s steel wall, with a handmade sign commemorating Panel #1 of the wall, and signed Reg Monroe.
We then see what looks like a shot of Enid first approaching the walled community, dazed and wild-looking from her days of surviving alone in the outside, and we hear Rick’s voice continue:
“…they haven’t had to survive.“
We see a shot of the gates of Alexandria rolling open for Enid, as she stands, wide-eyed, clutching the straps of her backpack…her eyes show the shock and horror of all she has witnessed, all she has lost.
We hear Rick’s voice conclude softly, grimly, “They just don’t get it…they can’t.“
We see a shot of Rick’s bloodied hand gently touch the map to D.C. that Morgan has been following in hopes of meeting back up with Rick, with Abraham’s note lettered in the bottom right-hand corner…
“The new world’s gonna need Rick Grimes!” To the left of the map, we see Morgan’s lucky rabbit’s foot, and a paperback book bearing the title,The Art Of Peace.
In the next shot, we see Rick, face still bloody, tell Morgan, “I don’t take chances anymore.” This scene seems to be taking place immediately after McBeaty’s execution, and Morgan’s untimely arrival to Alexandria.
The shot pans over to Morgan, who replies:
“And you shouldn’t.”
(So far in the trailer, not seeing evidence of the Morgan v. Rick potential scenario…yet.)
We see a shot of Rick, patrolling the empty streets of Alexandria, and then we see a shot of him approaching the wall, looking up towards the sky…
We hear Rick’s voice tell someone, “Listen.” We see Rick point a gun toward the sky, firing a single shot in the air as we see a throng of many, many walkers pressing up against the walls of Alexandria. Holy shit!
I wondered about this, when I first watched this scene, wondering if the shot was meant to be a signal to someone else, someone outside the walls. Surely firing a shot, any loud noise, would agitate and inflame the walkers, and judging from the crushing numbers of them, pressing against the outside of Alexandria’s walls, it seems like that last thing anyone would want to do is to ignite their fury for flesh and blood any further.
Upon closer inspection, it looked to me like Rick may be firing one of the orange flare guns, which makes more sense, but the shot from the gun was not looking like the firey ball of a flare. It looked like the smoking shot of a gun. Whatever the type of gun, who is he trying to signal? It all made me extremely nervous, as it seems like a desperate, last-ditch maneuver on Rick’s part, as the horde presses against the walls en masse.
And as I watched this scene, I wondered to myself, “Why is Rick alone, when there are legions of walkers outside the walls, in unprecedented numbers? Why aren’t there snipers posted, at the ready, along the walls? Where the hell is everybody?“
Alexandria has an impressive arsenal within its walls, so it would make sense that there would be people posted around, ready to take action if need be, to protect their community. So, where the fuck are they? Where are all the Anti-Rick naysayers as this is happening? Gossiping and tankingmimosasat Sunday brunch after church?
(I suppose we shall see come October and beyond, but here I sit, darlings, SMH as I write this. Please write me, darlings, and share your thoughts…I am truly at a loss, here.)
Next, we see a shot of Michonne, looking very troubled, indeed…
…and we see Rick press back vainly as the wall starts to rock, and give way to the press of walkers…OMG! Those undead fuckers are coming through those walls, people!
In the next shot, we see Rick addressing a large group assembled in a home, presumably Deanna Monroe’s:
Among the faces in the group, we see familiar ones from our sweet gang, as well as Alexandrians we recognize, as well as ones we have yet to meet…many of those assembled are looking down, or at Rick, digesting whatever information, or plan, he is presenting to them.
“We’ll make this work,..keep this place safe…” Rick asserts. He is a man on a mission. But, who is with him…and who is against him?
Daryl looks like he’s on board with Rick’s plan…and is looking mighty fine, as usual…
Abraham’s in, of course.
We see a couple of shots which give us a preview of the Season 6 walkers, in their advanced stages of decomposition…
I have been thinking that Greg Nicotero must be using some extremely thin individuals to play some of these walkers…the makeup and styling here is just incredible.
We see this walker rush forward as a man, off camera, cries, “Help us!”
And as we see Michonne draw her katana, it appears that help is on the way…but is thistaking place inside the walls of Alexandria,or outside?
These shots look like they are taking place outside the walls…
…perhaps on a goods or arms run? We shall see in due time, I suppose.
Back to Rick, addressing the group…outlining his plan:
“..keep our families safe…” Anyone who knowsRick Grimes knows he has so much invested in doing just that, and that he is the best leader for the job…
But, not everyone seems to agree…
Ah, yes. Here we are. Carter. Played by EthanEmbry (the veteran actor who starred in the coming-of-age classic, Can’t Hardly Wait, and who has been killing it as the late-blooming, trying-to-stay-sober son on Netflix’s Grace & Frankie)Cartermakes his debut appearance in Season 6 as a character who appears to be on an anti-Rick crusade. (Um, Carter, looked like maybe it was your ass who was calling for help and getting rescued a scene or two back…so maybe you should quit naysaying and start taking some notes on how it’s done, son.)
In the next couple of scenes, we see what looks like either a goods run, or perhaps a “This is how you kill some walkers” training run, because God knows these Alexandrians have a lot to learn…
We see a sizeable group of walkers charge forward, teeth bared…
…and we see Glenn, flanked by Nicholas, standing his ground and firing a gun…hopefully, Nicholas and Glenn have set aside their differences and are working together these days.
Next, we see a shot of Rick stabbing a walker in the head, and then we see…
Morgan, squaring off with a walker, trusty wooden staff in hand. We see an outstretched hand cocking a pistol, ready to fire upon the walker, but Morgan’s like, “Save your bullets…I got this.”
Morgan is a #kungfupimp
Back at the meeting, Carter has the floor…and he seems to be addressing our man, Rick Grimes…
“So, we’re all just supposed to fall in line…”
“…behind you?“ (Um, yes, Carter, that is exactlywhat you’re supposed to do…especially if it was your ass getting rescued back there, in the woods, and especially if the Wolfboys are bringing their walker army to push down those steel walls out there…and it really seems like they are!)
In the next scene, we see a dark-haired young man or woman running hard from a small group of pursuing walkers…he/she is sprinting out of the woods, heading right for a steep cliff…
My guess is that this young person may be Rowan, maybe acting out, like, “Rick killed my dad, so I’m going to run blindly into the woods, even though I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing out here,” and maybe Rick is tailing him, keeping an eye on him…and, of course having to save his angry, young ass…
…by making like a hot linebacker and tackling his newson to the safety of just behind that big rock, just at the exact, perfect moment. (OMG, look at the fucking air he catches, and if it’s Andrew Lincoln doing this stunt, and really pulling off this burly tackle…
…then that shit is SO PIMP it takes my very breath away.)
In the next sequence, we see Rick-In-Charge bellowing orders from what looks like the top of a big rig…
The Ricktator bellows, “We’re doing this now!”
To which Carter(of course) doth protest:
“We’re not ready!”Waaa, waaa, whiny baby sez, “We’re not ready!” “Huh? What?” Yeah…that’s what I thought,Carter. You betta get your ass ready.
Not heeding any whiny protests from the crybaby contingent, Rick-In-Charge jumps down off the big rig, screams again, “Now!” and actually pumps his elbow down, curling his bicep and making a fist.Yes! (I am so loving that I have no earthy idea what the hell is happening in this scene…it’s all so intriging! All I know is that the Ricktator is bringing it hot and heavy…just the way we like it.)
We see a shot of Glenn, in the foreground, whirling around to face a horde of walkers, who look to be streaming out of a store, then a shot of one walker, slipping through an opening, rotting arm outstretched, and then Rick, teeth bared and charging, full speed ahead. And then we see…
No…oh, God..no…
No! Tara!
Not the boob, Bite The Boob Walker…for thelove of God,NOT THE BOOB!
This cannot be happening…Tara cannot go down like this…can she? Kirkman? Gimple?
I…cannot.So, I will not. Not now. And besides, it might not even be real…S&M Gimple said as much!
So, let’s forge ahead, into the placid, glassy waters of denial, and get the lingering image of the leaning in for the boob bite out of the forefront of our consciousness, shall we?
Moving right along, now…
We see an aerial view of Alexandria’s makeshift cemetery, with fresh graves being dug for two more bodies. Looks like Alexandria’s gonna need a bigger graveyard…
We hear, I think, Carter’s voice over as we see a series of images, “How many of us...
Carol looking fierce, and ever watchful, in the kitchen…
Walkers swarm around a metal dumpster, or container box…presumably someone has taken cover in there.
“…have to die…”
…as some poor man is pressed up against what looks like Alexandria’s gate, bleeding as so many walkers surround him and begin their ungodly feasting. Ugh, poor dude! (I hope it’s not Tobin, because I really kind of like that guy…he seems like one of the more tolerable, and useful, Alexandrians.)
Next, we see a mysterious, silhouetted shot of Michonne, with two other characters I did not recognize, emerging from the light and the trees…
It’s hard to know who this is, with Michonne..
…maybe a rescued couple, newcomers to Alexandria?
“…before we do something?”
As the Carter voice-over finishes, we see Abraham heft a shrouded body to the ground for burial, It seems Carter’s voice is echoing the murmur of dissent that is catching fire in Alexandria regarding the Ricktatorship.
Whatever, haters. Let’s see how you all change your tunes when you and your families are cowering your eco-friendly closets while the Wolves and their walker army are swarming the streets of Alexandria, having toppled Reg’s hallowed steel walls…
I bet your asses will be crying for Rick Grimes and his people to save you, then: “Oh, Rick!Help us! Help us keep our families safe!”
Mmmm hmmm...and when that shit is happening, I am going to pour myself a nice big glass ofI Told You So and toast the screen, “How’s that zombie apocalypse working out for you, Alexandria?”
There is one dissenter, however, who does have a legitimate beef with the Bloody Constable…
Rowan ain’t feeling it with his newdad, Rick. We see him, sqaring off in the kitchen with his mom, Jessie. “Rick is dangerous!“ he yells at her.
Jessie’s all like, “Yeah, but, sweetie, he’s so hot!”
Amen to that, and besides, Rick Grimes knows how to survive in this new savage world, and so do his people…in the next couple of scenes, we see what looks like the new trend in Alexandrian fitness classes, Walker Boot Camp:
“Welcome to Walker Boot Camp. I am one of your instructors, Morgan Jones. Today, we will learn how to kill us some walkers.”
We hear Rick’s voice over these scenes: “These people…they’ve gotta take care of themselves.”
Deanna Monroewould be the first one to sign up for Walker Boot Camp, I am imagining, after seeing how easily her community, and Alexandria’s walls and gates, can be breached, dismantled…destroyed. Any weakness in this new world can be exploited, putting her people in danger. I feel Deanna Monroe will be a new convert to the Rick Grimes Method. Welcometo the fold,Mrs. Sister! (And, p.s., I read that Tovah Feldshuh is a hardcore workout buff who does pushups in between takes…awesome!)
It seems Rick may have been addressing his last statement to Daryl, because in the next clip, Rick and Daryl are facing each other in the street:
Rick asks Daryl, point-blank, “You feel different about it?”
To which Daryl replies:
“Yeah, I do.” As usual, Daryl’s voice is soft, and his words are few, but his message carries weight, and meaning, and Rick Grimes knows this.
One of Rick’s greatest strengths as a leader is that he really listens to his people, even when their viewpoint differs from, or outright opposes, his own. Let us hope that this is the case in this scene…
In the next series of clips, it seems that Morgan is either pacifying the the Doubting Alexandrians, or he really is buying into the Rick Grimes Smear Campaign…
“I know Rick,” Morgan’s voice says…
“I can stop him,” Morgan continues.
We see a shot of Deanna, who seems to be listening intently to Morgan’s words.
“We have to,“ Morgan concludes. (Well, this ought to be interesting.)
Especially as we see, in the next shot, a huge horde of walkers, spanning the length of the road, making their way down Redding Rd…next stop, Alexandria?
We see Glenn, leaning in towards Maggie, saying softly, “People are scared…”
Glenn continues, “You should keep an eye on her.” Maggie looks up at…who? Is Glenn talking about…
… Carol?
The beginning strains of Hozier’s“Arsonist’s Lullabye” begin to play as we watch the next sequence…
Not to be deterred, clad in her button-down uniform of conformity, Junior League Carol smiles in the next clip, demurs, “She’s in charge…” She is most likely referring to Deanna Monroe, but we know, deep down, New Caroldoesn’t believe that for a moment…
The shot pans to Rick Grimes…
…and then the shot pans over to Morgan, as JL Carol’s voice continues, “But, you’re in chargenow.” Ah, New Carol, what are you up to now, sister? I cannot wait to find out! 🙂
We see a shot of Rick surveying the world beyond the walls from Alexandria’s lookout…
…as Rosita and Spencer, armed with rifles, patrol the ground level…
We see Morgan, looking down at Deanna, laying some hard truth on her…
“The world isn’t what you thought it was,” Morgan tells Deanna Monroe.
(No, it really isn’t, Deanna. It’s so much worse than you ever imagined.)
We see a shot of Aaron, wide-eyed and spooked…
Poor Aaron must really be getting a hard, fast lesson on the harsh reality of the world outside...and he’s actually one who’s been out there.
and then we see Carl, walking slowly, looking over at…
…Enid, hugging Rowan, who seems distraught over his shitty father’s death at the hands of Rick Grimes. As Enid hugs Rowan, her eyes meet Carl’s over Rowan’s shoulder.
“You don’t know where you are, anymore,” Morgan’s voice over tells Deanna.
“But,” Morgan concludes, looking at Deanna significantly, “you still know your way.”Deanna closes her eyes as she listens to Morgan’s words. Surely, she is reeling from losing her youngest son, then her husband…and so much in her world is changing, so fast, with so much at stake these days.
Because, ready or not, the walkers are coming…
…and the shit’s about to go down in a big way.
In the next clip, see Jessie whirl around, address a small group of fellow Alexandrians who appear to be gathered near her front stoop…see what happens when there’s no tv or internet any more? Neighbors get all up in each other’s biz…
“This is what life looks like now!” Jessie tells the gaggle of nosy, naysaying neighbors.
Nosy neighbors be bingewatching Jessie TV.
We see a shot of poor Enid, probably from the days before, when she was surviving, alone, in the feral open…
…huddled behind the meager refuge of a felled wooden sign.
We see a close-up shot of Daryl, with Sasha in the background…it looks like they are at some kind of quarry, perhaps, or construction site.
We hear Jessie’s voice over continue, as she tells her Alexandrian viewing audience:
“We have to fight it, because if we don’t, we die.” (Later, they were all like, “Didn’t you just love that one when she was all like, ‘We have to fight, or we die?’ OMG, so epic...that was like, totally one of my favorite episodes!”)
Next, we see a shot of Michonne’s face as she peers through the slats of some sort of barricade…we see the shadowy movements of many figures through the slats…
…as Michonne whispers, “They’re coming.”
And“they”, akathe walkers, certainly seem to have found their way into the sustainable town of Alexandria, or at least one of them has…
Remember Sam’s closet, the one that Jessie installed a lock on, on the inside door, for Sam to hide in when McBeaty went on one of his drunken abuser sprees?
It appears that Jessie and Sam are crouched, hiding in that closet, with Jessie clutching a handgun…
…as something lurking outside utters a guttural, inhuman growl.
We next see a shot of Deanna Monroe, saying:
“He’s been out there…”
“…he’s faced it…”
“We are going to trust him,” Deanna continues, addressing her fellow citizens, regarding (ostensibly) her questionable constable, Rick Grimes.
And the shot pans to Morgan as Deanna adds, looking pointedly at Morgan, “All. Of. Us.”
Or…is Deanna looking at…Daryl?
Daryl? Buddy? Why are you in that room, amongst the Rick-Haters?
In the next series of clips…
…walkers be crashing through the window and shit…
Glenn, and Heath, I think, are on it…target practice day at Walker Boot Camp.
As the walkers crash through the storefront window and lurch towards them, Glenn blows a walker’s brains away…perfect aim.
We see a shot of Morgan, who seems to be giving someone the biz…
“If you’ve chosen this life, you will die,” Morgan tells…who? And who really “chose” this life, any of this?
Is Morgan talking to Rick?Deanna?
We see Nicholas, going hand-to-hand with a walker, something he didn’t know how to do, before…
We see a shot of a figure running through the woods, who looks a bit like Carol, and then we see a shot of Rick, running though the woods, barking orders into a walkie…
“We gotta keep moving!”
We see a group of what looks like Alexandrians, running through the woods, and then we see a shot of Nicholas, in the woods, holding a pistol ready, looking pale and spooked:
And then we see…
Carol, crouched behind a bush, watching…
…what? What the hell…is happening?
And,who…who the fuck…and, why? And is that happening inside the walls of Alexandria? Just what the shit is going on, here? Talk to me, people! (Read note below, when you get there, and you’ll know that I have an idea now what this is all about…)
We see two peeps, shining flashlights and walking through a darkened pipe or sewer system…and then we see, and hear, this clip of Morgan:
Morgan lays it down, “You get the hell outta here and you don’t ever come back.”
Um, say what?You’re not talking to Rick Grimes like that, are you, Morgan?
Because Rick Smash! does not take kindly to threats…or ultimatums.
I really didn’t know what the hell was happening in these next clips, but I was wondering if all these Walker Boot Camp killing classes were perhaps unleashing some pent up anger and aggression in the once-complacent citizens of Alexandria…now I know that there are many out there in our TWD fanosphere who believe that some living members of the Wolves have broken into the Alexandrian borders in the dark of night, using, no doubt, Reg’s helpful support bracings placed thoughtfully on the outside of the walls to scramble up and over the walls…poor guy didn’t really think that one through.
Perhaps street vigilante justice will now reign in Alexandria… “Those dirty bitches never took their trashcans in after garbage collection day…ever! And they never fucking recycled!” (Joking aside, upon further investigation upon my intuition, I believe now, as do many others, that the above picture shows Cape Carol blowing away two live members of the Wolves who have broken into Alexandria and are killing hapless citizens, looting…you know, just doing their Wolf-thing. Cape Carol sez, “Not on my watch, punk-ass bitches!“)
TWDfan theorists also echoed my suspicions that this individual who Morgan is smacking the fuck down looks more like a live person than a walker…a live member of the Wolves, perhaps. It is also being suggested that Morgan’s“Get outta town”scene is being spoken to a member of the Wolves, not Rick. <whew!>
All I know is, peeps in Alexandria seem pretty on edge, these days…
And then, the now-iconic moment of the trailer…as we hear the menacing voice of RickSmash!grind out:
“You really think you’re going to take this community from us?”
“From Daryl?”
“From Michonne?”
“From Glenn?”
It looks like Glenn and Nicholas are holding the line, together, against a huge rush of walkers…inside Alexandria! <gulp!>
“From ME??”
(See, I told you that Rick Smash! doesn’t like threats, or ultimatums!)
We see a shot of Rick, looking all crazy, driving what I think is the R.V….
And now, three orange balloons, tied to the R.V. What is the deal with all this balloon symbolism?
And here come the walkers…
We see a shot of Abraham, leaning out a shotgun side car windown, bellowing, “Don’t do it, man!” as our man, Daryl Dixon, speeds ahead on his motorcycle…charging something…or, someone, it seems.
We see yet another horrible image of a walker feasting on some poor somebody…
…probably someone from Enid’s family, while the poor girl must watch from the safety of a locked car or truck. Looks like we’ll be seeing some backstory on Enid…
We hear a man’s voice bellow, “They’re coming!” as Spencer takes aim…
It seems pretty certain that the walkers are coming to Alexandria, people…sooner than later!
But, praise Baby Jesus, Rick Smash! is already here…and nobody, I mean nobody, puts RickSmash! in the corner, or outside the walls of Alexandria, or anywhere he doesn’t want to be!
We hear Rick Smash!’s voice grind out:
“Do you have any idea…
“…who you’re…”
“…talking to?”
(Mmmm hmmmm…I don’t know who he’s talking to, but, by golly, I like the manliness, the menace… J’adore, Rick Smash!) ❤ ❤
We see a shot of Rick, offing a walker in the woods, in his beautiful berzerker-style, then we see…
…another shot of Rosita and Spencer, on lookout at the wall, which is surrounded by walkers…is this a becoming a thing,Rosita and Spencer? Because that would be weird…
These Wall Walkers are really hurting Alexandria’s buzz…
We see a shot of Aaron and Maggie, shining flashlights in the water or sewage pipes…maybe some rotting walkers have gotten in the water supply…we see a close call of Aaron slipping as a rotted walker claws towards him in the piping. Yikes!
Cobwebby Walker is metal as fuck and I love him. ❤
This sequence is followed by a shot of what looks like Alexandria’s infirmary, with Aaron and others holding some poor person who looks like they may have been gored by a walker attack, or a live Wolf attack…
OMG, if this is Eric, Aaron’s cute bf, I am going to freak the fuck out…
Looks like shit’s getting cray in Alexandria…we all betta get ready…
Is that someone on fire getting pitched over the Alexandrian walls, from the inside?
And are all these walkers swarming…
…inside the walls of Alexandria?
I guess we’ll find out, come October and beyond…but for many #TWD fans, not soon enough! ❤
And now, who the fuck is this guy? And why is he pointing a gun at our man, Daryl Dixon?
“Here’s the deal…you don’t say shit, and I don’t kill you…”
Daryl, who is tied up, lying against a tree, tells the man, “I ain’t who you think I am.” The man responds by pulling the safety on the gun and holding it closer to Daryl’s head…
A nightmarish series of images ensues, showing Daryl alone, in the woods, walkers, characters we don’t yet know running for their lives…
What the hell is going on with Daryl, and why is he alone? Stay strong, Daryl Dixon! <3<3
Well, loves, I am knee-sliding it under the wire…Fear The Walking Dead premieres tonight, and my WD buddy just texted me that Talking Dead’sSeason 6 premiere episode airs at 8pm…and the kids aren’t in bed yet! I gotta get moving to make this all happen, so here goes:
This post’s Deadie goes to Scott “Maestro” Gimple, of course…for kicking our asses, time and time again. Bravo, Maestro!
I will be posting pictures and playlists for #FTWD, darlings…much love, and enjoy!
And, as there is a war of the ideologies happening, The Old Wayv.The New Way, I thought that this playlist should feature some old-school classics vthe new sound the kids are putting out these days…it’s all beautiful music, just a friendly rivalry, a spirited wrassle around the floor…a few heirlooms may get smashed to pieces, but it’s all good, my #TWD obsessed darlings. Much love! ❤
Old School v. New Skool Playlist:
Notorious B.I.G,“Mo Money, Mo Problems”
v.
Modest Mouse, “The Ground Walks, With Time In A Box”
Hello again, and much love, dear readers.We atbarnfullawalkers hope that you all are having a lovely summer, full of fun, frolic, naps, and shenanigans. May there be lots and lots of shenanigans.
Speaking of shenanigans, if you are among the lucky folk who are en route to San Diego, as I write this, for this week’s #SDCC2015, congratulations! A few years back, I was able to go to the SDCC, and it was the funnest, ever. As soon as I walked into the San Diego Convention Center, I felt like I had finally found my natural habitat, and immediately got to the business of having one of the best long weekends of my life (thus far).
Memories include: riding in an elevator with Gene Simmons (my friend said he checked me out); seeing Mix Master Mike spin at a club on the beach (and skinny-dipping in the Pacific ocean, afterwards); going to the “Marvel Party”with a friend who had done artwork for a few issues of different Marvel comics;walking behind David Cross and a girl that I think was Amber Tamblyn (not sure if they were together yet) and eavesdropping on their adorable fake-argument-debate; setting off on foot across the city in search of the Buffalo Exchange with my adventurous friend, Amy…we had only a vague idea of where we were going, and we shared stories along the way, browsed in stores, stopped at coffee shops and cafes, climbed trees and meandered for many hours (and about 80+ blocks) until we found the store we were looking for. After an epic shopping spree, we treated ourselves to a bus ride back to the convention center (which took all of about 25 minutes) as the fellow passengers, upon learning of our day’s journey, exclaimed over us for being crazy enough to actually walk that far, anywhere.
I also tried my first, and last, Bikramyoga class on that trip, after a night of hard partying…an ill-advised move, dear readers. I do not recommend anyone doing that, ever, unless one is both a seasoned partier and a seasoned Bikram yogi.
While, sadly, I will not be in attendance at the SDCC this year, I will bask in the memories, and I will be there in spirit. For those who are going, have a blast, be safe, and blow a kiss to the TWD and the FTWDpanels for me. ❤ ❤
One day, SDCC, I’ll be back, and the adventures will be many, and epic, indeed.
While I do entertain fantasies of being on a plane bound for San Diego, I am, in reality, exactly where I belong…at home, with the kids finally asleep, sitting in front of the laptop, drinking wine, simultaneously texting my WD buddy some mad gossip and getting ready to hash it with you all about just what the hell is going on with Rick, Morgan, our gang and the Alexandrians in this first image of TWD Season 6, the #TheWalkingDeadSDCCSeason 6 promotional poster.
Like, seriously, people…we need to talk about what is going on in this picture.
Let us begin our discussion with our two favorite frenemies in the forefront, locked in a terse moment of exquisite manly tension…Rickand Morgan.
When we last left Rick and Morgan, in the final moments of the TWD Season 5 finale episode, “Conquer,” Morgan’s journey to find Rick Grimes ended in a most unexpected fashion, when, in yet another classic TWD moment, the brains-and-blood-spray hit the proverbial fan…
Rick Smash! was all, like, BANG! and McBeaty’s face, head, and brains were all like, SPLAT! all over Deanna Monroe’s fancy courtyard.
And then,Bloody Rick looked up, and saw his old friend, Morgan,standing there, and Morgan was all, like, …
“Rick?!”
And, stone-cold busted, Rick was all, like, ….
<D’oh!>
The way I imagine it, later that night, Daryl set out in search of a missing Rick, and found him drunk, in Alexandria’s soundproofed recreation center, taking long pulls from a handle of bourbon, stumbling around, and singing karaoke to:
I mean, right? Honestly, people, watching that ending scene just reinforced for me the inescapable, irrefutable truth that timing is everything. It really is. Sometimes, timing works out, and it’s all like, “Oh, what perfect timing!” and shit’s all beautiful, and everything just seems to fall into place. Those are good, good times.
Savor those moments, people, because other times, timing is not your friend. Other times, timing will kick your ass, hard.
The “Bloody Rick looks up from blowing McBeaty’s brains into the bricks, and sees Morgan standing there, looking horrified” moment would, in my humble estimation, fall into the latter category.
Now, the way I see it, Morgan has been out there, in the feral open, for quite some time, and has most certainly seen some shit go down these past two years since the inception of the walker apocalypse. (I am, of course, hoping that Season 6 will give us TWD fans some Morgan backstory, a la Season 4’s “Live Bait,” which caught us up with the Governor’s whereabouts, and gave us one of our most beloved TWD characters, Tara.)
So, I have a couple of questions, here:We haveMorgan, flanked by Daryl and Aaron, coming up on a scenario where he sees, on one end, a man bleeding out from a gash in his throat, dying, as his sobbing wife holds him…over on the other end, Morgan sees Rick, who is dressed in a cop’s uniform (and yes, is covered in blood, I know, but it’s walker blood, and these are some crazy times, so you never really know what you are going to see when you turn a corner) standing over another man who has been wrestled to the ground…then, Morgan sees Rick shoot said man, wrestled to the ground,in the head…and, while it’s all a bit startling, I ask you, dear readers, is it really that shocking, in these times, to come up on a scene like that?
And, upon taking in the whole scene, is it really that hard for Morgan to put the pieces together and realize what events may have transpired to lead up to McBeaty’sbrains being splattered all over Deanna’s nice courtyard?
Seems pretty simple to me: Domestic abuser goes all crazy, slashes an innocent man’s throat, has to get put down like a rabid dog…seems to me that that shit goes into the “crazy fucker had it coming”category.
All I’m saying is, while this strange reunion may lead to some awkward moments when Rick and Morgan run into each other at the commissary, is this fateful first encounter, with its clash of idealogies, really going to be a friendship dealbreaker for Rick and Morgan?
I certainly hope not, especially since we know what’s coming for Alexandria…the Wolfboys, flanked by their Walker Army!
They found Aaron’s man-purse, they’ve seen the pictures, and they are coming, people.
As we study this first #TWDSDCC promotional poster image, we see Rick, standing close to Morgan, looking intensely at him, as if imparting crucial information to Morgan, or awaiting Morgan’s response to said information. We see Morgan’s gaze is fixed outward, towards the horizon, as if he is studying the walls surrounding Alexandria, and considering the threat that is coming from the outside.
(Um, yeah, Morgan, about that…remember those wacky, weirdo wolfboys sporting W’s on their foreheads? The ones that tried to kill you? The ones that basically told you, straight up, that they find and kill innocent people they come across, or they trap them, or they run through their camps and communities, massacring the innocents, turning them into walkers, and bringing them back, somewhere, in their new, “not exactly alive” state? Remember those guys, the ones you didn’t kill? That mean, nasty shit they do, and bragged to you about, is like their fucked-up hobby, their life’s purpose.
And after those wolfboys woke up from their kung-fu coma nap in the back seat of that abandoned car you so kindly tucked them away in, they found their way back to the trap you rescued Daryl and Aaron from, “walkerized” some poor dude in a red poncho, fashioning themselves another member for their undead army, and then, they found Aaron’s man purse, pulled out pictures of your new community, and now, they are coming to your new home, Morgan. They are coming, with their walker army, to kill people and fuck shit up, and I ask you, my friend…do you think that maybe, in retrospect, that some lives are a little more precious than others?
Sorry for the diatribe, but that shit needed to be said, and btw, I am also saying. right here, right now, that I just know that Kirkman, Gimple, and Nicotero are going to have a scene where we (and most likely, Daryl and Aaron) see that red poncho guy, who will now be Red Poncho Walker, sporting a W on his decomposing forehead, snapping and slavering amongst his fellow troops in the undead infantry…mark my words, dear readers. That shit is coming, to a walled community near you.)
Anyway, back to the poster…Morgan really does seem to be listening, thinking, processing what Rick is trying to tell him, which, judging from the grim expressions on both men’s faces, seems to be a matter of great importance.
Life, death, walker army…that kind of shit.
We see the others behind Rick and Morgan, divided, which is interesting, but not really so surprising, you know? A lot of shit has gone down in a short time in Alexandria, and everyone’s still trying to get their bearings. Everyone’s expressions are so serious, grim. (Which really did bum me out, when I first saw this poster. I was like, “Wait, what about the fun playdates at the Grimes’ house? What about Friday Night Dance Troupe?” Tragic, all this unrealized potential for fun, flirting, and frolic. Such a waste of hot, sexy talent. As we have said before in this blog, Damn you back to the hell that spawned you, cruel, cockblocking walker apocalypse!)
In the poster image, we see Rick’s gang, with Daryl and Michonne in the forefront, lined up behind Rick, standing at the ready, as if anticipating battle. Behind Morgan, the key members of the Alexandrian community stand together, including Deanna Monroe, and her surviving son,Spencer (who I think got cut off at the edge there in my reproduction for this post..sorry about that…was impossible to get a full-sized screenshot of the entire poster image). We seeAaron looking worried, behind Deanna, and, lurking in the background, looking tragic as usual, we see Father Gabriel.
Jessie, while on the side of the Alexandrians, has gaze turned towards Rick, while her body is turned halfway between Rick and his people, and her fellow Alexandrian citizens. I feel that Jessie’s placement, and posturing, in this image suggests that she is caught somewhere in the middle, between the two camps, Team Rick, and Team Alexandria.
I feel that we TWD viewers will see the a fuller scope of Jessie’s strength and character as Season 6 unfolds,as she negotiates the complex and vital role as translator/mediator between Rick’s group, Morgan, and Deanna’s group. She would be able to be more objective, and see the strengths of each side’s approach on how to navigate both survival in this new world, while trying to retain some of the humanitarian and moral codes of the world left behind.
The way I see it, Rick, Morgan, Deanna, and the others have enough challenges to face in the season ahead, as they try to come to some sort of accord, and find a way to coexist, flourish, and explore the rare opportunity to actually live a life worth living, however brief it may be, within the relative safety behind Alexandria’s walls. It is a tall order, especially with the ever-present threat that looms just beyond (and, sometimes, inside)the steel walls of Alexandria…the predatory world of both undead, and living, foes alike want nothing better than to breach those walls and prey upon those living within them.
War is coming to Alexandria, people, and as we study this poster, it is easy to surmise that each and every individual in this picture knows it. Daryl, Michonne, and the rest of the righteous gang look poised and ready, their battle faces on. Deanna’s face looks grim, and stormy, and her people, who are not so battle-savvy (yet) look worried.
Nobody’s fucking around, least of all Kirkman, Gimple, and Nicotero. And our man, Rick Grimes, ain’t playing. But, never fear, darlings. The TWD panel will convene at #SDCC this Friday at noon Pacific, and they will debut the Season 6 trailer, and it will all be good, I promise. And, of course, with that trailer, another tweaker blog post from barnfullawalkers will be forthcoming, and once again, all will be right in the world.
Until then, enjoy the playlist, darlings. With all this strife and discord in the air of Alexandria, I figured we needed a “rudey, ‘tudey, crass and crudey” punk rock playlist, with a triple scoop of Transplants, to help sort it all out. To Rick and the gang, and to TWD, and to the San Diego Comic Con…cheers to all!
Playlist:
Elvis Costello, “(What’s So Funny Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?”
Transplants, “Something’s Different”
Dead Kennedys, “Holiday In Cambodia”
Fugazi,“Sieve Fisted Find”
Balkans, “I Can’t Compete”
Billy Bragg, “To Have And To Have Not”
Bad Brains, “I And I Survive”
Transplants,“Diamonds And Guns”
FIDLAR, “No Ass” (Seriously, everyone in Alexandria needs to just settle down with all this internal fighting, seize the day, and get them some serious loving before the Wolfboys and their walker army come knocking…just sayin’!)
Liam Lynch, “United States of Whatever”
Transplants,“Tall Cans In The Air” (Tall cans in the air for Rick Grimes and our gang of hot, sexy, battle-savvy transplants. Alexandria hasn’t been this exciting since, well…ever!)
barnfullawalkers 