Margaux and I take a look back at The Walking Dead‘s incredibly uneven sixth season and try to make sense of the whole thing. (Warning: profanity. Like, all the profanity.)
Trevor: What a weird, weird season of The Walking Dead. Honestly, probably the worst season since the show’s second. Which is strange! Season 6 got off to such a good start! I liked the artful black and white, the cutting between “then” and “now,” the huge swarm of walkers at the quarry…I’d love to read an oral history of just this season – not the whole show – to find out exactly what the writers were thinking.
Margaux: It was a surprisingly good start to the season, exploring somewhat new territory with the time jumps is hard to do when you’ve been on the air for as long as this show has. But that should have been the tip off that the fuck ups were imminent because even though The Walking Dead has been on the air for six years, they still cannot figure out the pacing for the (undead) life of them. Which makes this all the more maddening! There was just something outright insulting about the way the season finale went down, especially after the Glenn fiasco and the thoroughly fuckin’ stupid way they chose to divide up the mid-season finale – they should get rid of that concept all together. I think when this show has too much time on its hands, it has no choice but to drag out plots that didn’t need it, or give us infuriating 90 minute bottle episodes. I think what it ultimately comes down to is that Gimple is a shitty showrunner. Plain and fuckin’ simple.
Trevor: The season bugged me as a whole, but what really upset me was after that middle finger of a cliffhanger, Gimple went on Talking Dead to say that season six – the entirety of season six – was setup for the next few seasons. Regular readers of my/our reviews will know that I use the term “place-setting episode” a lot, because I’m a fucking hack. It refers to a (usually slow) episode wherein all the characters are moved from point A to point B. They’re a necessary evil. But who the fuckin’ fuck thought we wanted a whole season of that? Such a weird mindset.
What bugged you the most? For me it was Glenn’s “death.” What a shitty way to treat the fans, which the show went ahead and did again (arguably) by shooting Daryl. The Walking Dead doesn’t need cliffhangers; it’s consistently one of the most-watched shows on TV. It’s a cynical, mercenary mindset that is doing the show no favors.
Margaux: Here’s my biggest problem with the finale, and possibly the show as whole, what happened in the finale was NOT a cliffhanger by any stretch of the imagination. That was a fuck you to the audience. And it blows my mind that this show has zero understanding of what A. constitutes a satisfying ending and B. what its audience’s expectations and wants are. I’m not saying you should always cater to your audience’s every whim, that’s dumb as all hell, but what I am saying is that you’re tackling a very well known and beloved part of the comic, a part of the comics that did have some instant gratification, i.e. knowing who in the fuck was on the receiving end of Lucille. Because the cliffhanger isn’t who gets their brains smashed in, it almost doesn’t matter now because if The Walking Dead cannot even bring itself to care, why the fuck should I? The cliffhanger is: what in holy hell will Ricktatorship Rick do now that he’s met someone who’s better than him and seemingly unbeatable (no pun intended). Not mention how they completely ruined Carol as a character and took away all her agency and you could sense that it was the writers literally putting her there instead of coming from her well established character.
Trevor: That’s what I keep coming back to: does the show care? Realistically, Gimple doesn’t know who was on the business end of Lucille, which would explain why it wasn’t shown. But come on – instead of spending the next six or seven months mourning a character and fearing Negan, we will now spend it avoiding websites that post set pictures clearly showing who is and who isn’t alive. The show fucked up its season-six finale so hard that it fucked up its season-seven premiere.
Also, I’m calling it right now: when season seven starts, we’re not going to know right away who Negan killed. The show will pussyfoot around it until the last possible second, possibly while cutting in scenes of a funeral. The damage is done, though. I don’t care anymore.
Margaux: You’re so totally right. It will be three episodes of Governor-esque backstory on Negan and zero resolution to the one thing they actually did set up at the end of season six. How long will Enid be stuck in that closet is the only thing I mildly care about now. When they do trust their audience thought, we get great, subtle moments like when Morgan discovers Carol at the library. You can do the mental math that they guy who’s being tortured, and eventually hanged by The Saviors as a terrifying message to Rick’s group trouncing around in the woods with a semi-dead Maggie, that The Saviors are the ones who turned all those walkers into what they are. And no one had to have a big long conversation about it or literally point it out, it was just there. That was the only bit of storytelling in the finale – it amounted to about 3 minutes but told a whole fuckin’ story. And to circle back to your point about season six being basically pure set up for future seasons is the shittiest cop-out of all time. Why don’t you just focus on not fucking up the story week to week and keep characters consistent, and see what comes of that.
Trevor: I like what you said about Morgan discovering the Library. That was a nice bit of world-building that felt natural (as opposed to, say, the shoehorned-in presence of men from the Kingdom). Maybe we can switch gears and talk – briefly, I’m sure – about what worked?
I’ll go first: the villains. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is fantastic, and managed to elevate even his unnecessarily long monologue. I also liked Alicia Witt as Paula, who of course the show didn’t keep around. Not a fan of Dwight – he seems like a knock-off Ben Foster – but the Saviors are still well-represented, and make for a bigger threat than the Wolves or Gareth’s band of cranky cannibals.
Margaux: Jeffrey Dean Morgan is the only reason to have stuck around until the end of this season, but for some reason, his too tight pants really distracted me during his monologue – not to mention how you could’ve shaved off 5 minutes or more of his villainous pontificating, it gets less scary the more you ramble. But I’ve been a JDM fan of his since Weeds, he does menacingly charming to a tee – anyone who’s seen Watchmen (a garbage can of a movie -Zack Snyder, ladies and gents! – but he is a definite highlight) can attest to that skill being in his acting wheelhouse. But I have to say, in retrospect, I enjoyed Morgan’s bottle episode a lot more now looking back on season six as whole, still shouldn’t of been 90 minutes, but that should be a rule thumb for this show on the whole. There were moments when Morgan was chasing down Carol in the finale and I shouted: “Just give that bitch a goat, teach her Aikido, and call it a fuckin’ day!”
I liked that they finally gave Eugene something to do and some place to grow a little, he bit Dwight’s dick so he gets a lot of points for that. And I thought the Wolf attack was one of the more heart pounding and intense plots of the season. I know I’ve yelled at/about the finale a lot, but I have to admit that the roadblocks The Saviors set up, with their increasing numbers of people and stakes, and in turn, an increasingly less confident Rick were actually really well done and very very nerve racking. It’s just a shame they shit the bed in the end and made me wish it we were at Terminus because at least we saw a leg roast and some throat slitting.
Trevor: And the raid on the Saviors’ compound in “Not Tomorrow Yet” was pretty thrilling. I went through all our reviews, and season six scored an average score of 3.1875. Which isn’t terrible, I guess, but it should be mentioned that a numerical score is a pretty bad metric by which to judge how something made you feel. And that’s probably my biggest complaint now. This season made me feel differently about the show. The show lost its teeth (pun very much intended) and seems to be openly contemptuous of its fans. While, at the same time, paying fan service? It’s a weird balance.
Margaux: “Not Tomorrow Yet” was the best episode of the back half of the season, one of those Walking Dead episodes that lure you into a false sense of security that make you feel stupid when all the dust settles. And sure, the score isn’t the worst, it’s better than what the Tomatometer on BvS is, but that ain’t saying much at all. Especially when The Walking Dead isn’t the only game in town, they should respect their fans a bit more and not treat them like salivating morons if they would like to continue to pretend they are the only drama on TV that is suspenseful and explores difficult themes because they are not and audiences are fleeting with a short attention span. All that being said, it’s almost like daring fucko Gimple and the rest of the writers to mess up season seven so you can finally throw your arms up and go, FUCK IT – DON’T CARE, and simply rage quit – sort of like how I feel now. Look, I’ve got Daredevil to catch up on, I don’t need this shit in my life. And I really don’t want to spend the next six months avoiding spoilers or even fueling the fire of speculation, which seems to be the only reason you’d cut to black like the dickless, hack writers they employ want you to do.
Trevor: I don’t understand why The Walking Dead would rely so heavily on cliffhangers and time jumps this season. Not only is the show not very good at it, but they were largely unnecessary. If you’re going to stick with the midseason finale (which should be done away with), that’s arguably the place for a cliffhanger. But they shit the bed there too. They had a time jump between episodes after the midseason premiere. The fuck kind of sense does that make? I’m (almost) as confused as I am angry.
Margaux: Exactly! The timeline was confusing at best and at worse, was there to cover their ass, but fucked up the pacing and character development any which way you slice it regardless of intent. It totally and completely undermined Rick and Michonne getting together, or at least for me, and sort of erased it for me even though I ship the fuck out of it because they ruined so many other things it’s hard to remember the three random moments you did over the course of 6B. If the time jump had happened within a reasonably expected progression of episodes, maybe Carol’s change of heart would’ve landed a little more smoothly instead of popping up out of nowhere. And maybe with a little finesse, could’ve been used as a platform to discuss the effects of PTSD, which is topic this show loves to flirt with, but never does anything with this very serious issue other than as a crappy and poorly plot device.
Trevor: No, the last time TWD handled PTSD Sasha ended up taking a nap on a pile of walkers. Which would be a cool image if it meant anything.
Margaux: Oh my God and we can just ever so briefly touch on Abraham and Sasha going from guarded friends to WANTING TO HAVE A BABY?!?! Not only did the timing feel off in every sense of the word from the jump of their budding relationship, but why in the fuck are they discussing babymaking after you’ve had several foreboding encounters (on the same day no less) with a group of people who want to ostensibly murder you? I…I CANNOT EVEN WITH THEIR ROMANCE. Didn’t she just barely let him inside her house an episode or two ago? How did we get here and can we please go back because this barely makes sense for them, and let’s ignore the fact that while they talk about having a kid (or kids, who knows! YOLO and whatever) Maggie is practically dying because of complications from her pregnancy. Um, are they just dumb or optimistic or both?
TRevor: The first one. One thing I’ve noticed is how dumb this group has gotten. The drop in intelligence from “Not Tomorrow Yet” to “Twice As Far” or “East” is remarkable. I think they have someone in the writer’s room who really hates The Walking Dead. I’m on board with Abe and Sasha, in theory, but like everything else about season six it was rushed and underdeveloped.
Margaux: Lord are you right about the significant IQ drop over the course of this season, which we know is less the characters fault and more whomever is tasked with hacking…I mean, writing the episode. Don’t understand why you’d go through the pains of establishing the group as utter badasses who never get the drop on them and will always raise to the top no matter the insurmountable task, to Daryl getting snuck up on and shot by a guy who had his penis bitten severely, if not entirely bitten off. Like, how? Or how the town’s only doctor somehow was allowed to come on a pointless excursion for soda and naturopathic herbs. Everyone must be taking stupid pills provided to them by The Hilltop, who are also either stupid or purposefully lied to the group about The Saviors.
Trevor: It is exhausting trying to unpack this season, I have to be honest. There were parts I liked, but for the most part this season played like they gave the reins to a bad fan fiction writer. I mean, Daryl fired a rocket launcher. I…I don’t know what else to say about that. I’m going to watch the next season, and so is every single person who took to Twitter or Tumblr to swear that they were done with the show, but it’s officially crossed over into obligation territory.
Margaux: At this point I think Walking Dead fan fiction is not only better written than most episodes this season, but is also more interesting. It takes a lot to fuck up the SOURCE MATERIAL OF WHICH IT IS BASED UPON like this, even Ryan Murphy must be impressed. But yes, I will be unfortunately and most likely hate watching the first half of season seven, but I reserve the right to quit after the mid-season finale because it sucks to be a loyal fan only be treated like Wayne’s stalker girlfriend in Wayne’s World. All I have to say is, at least The Walking Dead wasn’t as God awfully painful to sit through the way Fear The Walking Dead is/was, but that’s not saying much because I quit that aforementioned shit and it felt goooood.
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