My The Walking Dead Rant

I'm starting to write this 24 hours after watching Season 7 Episode 1 of The Walking Dead: The Day Will Come When You Won't Be. So major spoilers ahead, but you should read anyway, because it's not that important! There will also be swearing and words, lots of words, don't be offended by words.

SPOILERS incoming

The Verge (see link above) is obviously done and I might be just as well. Having invested 6 years or so, it's a bit said, but again I might watch the whole season because Jeffrey Dean Morgan is awesome and if it continues to get good ratings for the majority of the episodes (from my friends and some websites). Let's start this off at the lightest note, with a scene about that episode from one of my favourite movies ever (of course it was the most watched episode!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxrvzMxkp1s Yes, I agree the episode was good in parts, but fuck them! It was a bit of a love and hate relationship with The Walking Dead since the ending of season 1: it's unbalanced, it's great at times usually at the beginning of seasons, has some great character development (Carol), some really, really great characters: Shane, Negan, Abe (and Eugene and their chemistry) and Rick (great actor too!). I did not read the comics and don't like the style too much. I knew Glenn died in the comics and that this was pretty accurate. But here is what was wrong with the episode: It revealed 'the big secret' (of who died - woah! - how edgy) 20 minutes into an episode after months and months of waiting. This is not the worst thing nor my biggest grasp with that episode. It is that this is a cheap trick and the second death was probably the most brutal thing I have ever seen in my life and it was pointless. Look, I can watch violence, I am okay with showing violence in fiction, but this is a show that doesn't show tits, butts, penises, vaginas, explicit sex scenes or swearing. Fuck! So it seems to be okay to show a beloved character for what felt like 5 minutes with his head smashed in, an eye hanging out, blood all over, gargling, mumbling, suffering with the camera lingering on him, his pregnant girlfriend whining, sobbing, crying in the back but, oh dear, glad they don't say fuck or tits or tight butthole  or whatever. There was no point in showing that scene like that. There was no point to the violence. Just from Glenn dying (in a faster cut scene or a different cut scene all together) and everything else happening it would have been clear what an adviser is and why Rick's group had all that coming. When the Mountain killed the Viper in Game of Thrones that was brutal. It was also fast, it was gory too, but it was interesting, it fit the tone of the whole show up until that point. Compared to the scene in TWD where this was the most brutal person on person violence in that show up to this point. Let me introduce you to a shocking movie Martyrs (can't believe this has been remade): Martyrs is a french horror movie that is absolutely gross. It's ultra violent, it's gut wrenching, but if you stick through with it, there is a reason for this violence (not the smartest one, but it made me think) and it makes sense in context. It's not A Serbian Film that is super stylized and a movie that for the smart viewer is always self-aware and clearly fiction and is meant to critique what is going on in Serbia and similar can be said for Martyrs. That dragged out 'big reveal' of who dies was dumb. Cliffhangers can be dumb! And I felt insulted waiting for this, this could have been the last episode of the last season or they could have ended with Abe dying and then start of with the second death, again, anything would have been better. The show does not trust it's own writing. Remember when Jon Snow died? He got killed. At the end of a season. You know what the views wondered about? How will this go on from here? The Walking Dead did not have the guts to do that. They went with: who dies? The dude from the comics? Maybe? We keep you assholes guessing and throw you red herrings left and right until your brain rots, but we are sure you tune in and find out. We even show you everyone dying with mini-flashbacks that somehow are all equally important to Rick (for a second they got me with that and damn that would have been ballsy, but that is a different writing team in a parallel universe where that happened). Instead we got this and people now have to wonder what they should have wondered for months if the writing would have been consistently good: where do they go from here? How do they cope with the new reality? Fuck them! The Day Will Come When You Won't Be (a good title by the way) was more Hostel (the first one, which I despise) for the lack of self-awareness and the missing assumption of a brain of the viewer. Glenn could and would die and that I accept. It could even have been brutal, but not in the way it was shown, that was torture porn. Hostel 2 by the way is self-aware and I would even say, just because of that 'fun'. Not linking to those movies, they are not really worth watching or the time. Maybe I pick up The Strain again (2 seasons still to watch) but until then I enjoy Westworld and the third season of Black Mirror. They are dark, violent and shocking too, but they don't take me for an idiot.