Oh, I am sure Richard Simmons has functioned as a "Drill" Sgt many, many many, times.

(Sorry, that was too easy and I couldn't resist)

 

Madison didn't start out as a sheriff in a rural setting, and Rick did. But Madison has both a moral compass and some inner coldness to her, and I could definitely see her character going through a (much needed and, if done right, believable) transformation into badassery.

On another note, I don't understand how it's so wrong for an actress to want her character to be a badass?

 

I don't see anything wrong with Madison walking the room and marking her territory. #1) Women are wired differently than men and the way they interact and deal with each other is an art and a science. So they tend to do similar stuff in real life. #2) At that point, something was really off about Celia and Madison - a bear of a mother and a children's counselor - picked up on the cues.

And let's be honest: Nick is fragile. Let's not forget that he was a 19-20 year old homeless, unemployed heroin addict who probably still would've been an heroin addict if it had it not been for the zombie apocalypse.

Kim Dickens is right and wrong about this. Yes, the character Madison's role in the show is built and being developed similarly to the character of Rick Grimes. But, Madison is the Madison of the show. If FTWD had a Rick Grimes, then the show would just be the original Walking Dead except with Mediterranean climates

 

make her beef up a little, scars all over her face.. burns on her body/arms/hands... crazed look in her eye messy hair...she can be a sort of Rick... have some small brained ogre type guy under her control at all times who is good with weapons that she can sic onto people

 

At the risk of starting controversy - I would hardly call Rick a powerful, inspiring, or even a good leader. Realistically speaking, if I had the misfortune of hooking with that group I would have fragged him long ago. The guy screws up everything he touches and everyone who comes into contact with him dies. I think Rick is an example of what NOT to do. I love the original show, but am really surprised that nobody has wised up and put a bullet in Rick's ear yet. He has been killing people with his poor judgement, bad decision making, and refusal to recognize the talents of others and to delegate responsibility since he left the hospital.

For example - had Rick stayed with Morgan and went to Atlanta together - Morgan wouldn't have lost his son, gone nuts, and killed an indeterminate number of innocent people during his crazy stage, and the Cheese Man would probably still be alive. If Rick had a brain he would have realized that if everyone from his little town to Atlanta is zombies, then Atlanta will have even more zombies, and he would have noticed the city was vacant burned bombed out ruins? Look at the skyline - if THAT didn't tell you the silence on your police radio should? If Rick hadn't left a prisoner in the custody of a civilian with butterfingers Merle wouldn't have been left on the roof, they wouldn't have had Glenn captured by the Vatos, they wouldn't have had the quarry camp over run while most of the best manpower was out on the rescue mission, and we wouldn't have had Merle fall in with the governor to capture and torture Glenn and Maggie, etc... If Rick acted like a person in authority instead of a beggar with his hat in his hand he would have known the fuel situation at the CDC and averted the self destruction. "Dr Jenner Rick Grimes from the sheriff's office. What is your status? Do you have immediate needs? Is there anything necessary to facilitate your research?" You know - they could have gone topside and got diesel out of the tanks and humvees if Rick had thought to ask before the countdown started? Jenner may have found a cure had he been able to continue his research. If rick would have sent say a two man team on motorcycles to scout a route they wouldn't have ended up in the traffic jam and met the herd where they almost lost Andrea , T-Dog, and did lose Sophia. Why would he leave a terrified twelve year old girl in the woods alone? Why would he let his son try to touch a deer? Realistically - how do we know that deer are unaffected? That could have been a rabid / zombie deer - it is certainly unusual behavior for a whitetail deer to stand there to be petted. Would you let your kid pet a raccoon standing there in broad daylight? If he had said "Carl get away from that strangely behaving wild animal" carl wouldn't have been shot and Otis wouldn't have been killed getting medical supplies. That whole "can we stay thing" with Herschel. Im sorry - your a cop. No doubt a state of emergency / martial law has been declared. You don't beg, you don't ask, you TELL. "Dr Green, Deputy Walsh and I are exercising our emergency powers as sworn law enforcement officers to commandeer this property, and everything and everyone on it, for the duration of this emergency. This farm is hereafter to be known as "Refugee Center Alpha 1", now if you'll excuse me we need to go clear the zombies out of the triage center, formerly known as your barn...." Remember as a cop - Rick and Shane have a DUTY to gather survivors, provide order, etc. (Which SHANE did hence the Atlanta Survivors Camp) It bears mention that it was the gun shot to put shane down that turned the herd to the farm and resulted in the farm being over run. At the prison Ricks failure to make sure andrew was thoroughly dead resulted in the deaths of T-Dog and Laurie. After the sniper attack that killed Axel, and the first woodbury assault rick STILL didn't think to burn back that tree line or to mine / plant IED's in the area- despite there being a 100% off help yourself sale on heavy equipment and explosives. Wouldn't the governor and his new friends have been in for a shock if there had been claymores in the trees and the tank was parked on top of a buried 55 gallon drum of ANFO??? Why didn't they grab an excavator from somewhere and build some pits / trenches you know so people couldn't drive vehicles through the fence? It only happened TWICE before....That would have also kept walkers away from the fences ending lizzie's buffet before it started. It goes on and on and on one bad Rick decision after another all due to his stupidity. Jumping ahead to the current "Negan" situation. Who in the hell accepts a mercenary contract and launches an assault on an enemy of unknown strength without doing any recon or gathering any intel? Why does RICK make these kinds of tactical decisions anyway? Abraham is an Army Ranger NCO. Why does Rick involve himself at all in that type of thing? He's a small town deputy - his expertise is breaking up bar fights, ticketing kids for fishing with bleach, and combatting domestic violence in the trailer park. Last I knew - Kings County Sheriff's Dept isn't part of Special Operations Command, but the 75th Ranger Regiment is - so why is RICK planning the battles, and handling security of the camp while the Army Ranger is literally the red headed stepchild?

Rick is more deadly than that flu which hit the prison.... Which I might add was a swine flu from HIS pigs....

 

Thank you. I was afraid Rick might be somewhat of a sacred cow... I really just don't understand him - I've been waiting six seasons for him to do something right. LOL Like the giant herd from the quarry.... Why not pick up a couple of bricks of .22 LR ammo, and some baby bottle nipples and have target practice on them? There should be a brick (500 rounds) of 22 in like every other house in Virginia, and a baby bottle nipple will act as a silencer for a .22... He could have "cleaned house" while turning the Alexandrians into some well trained shooters. Or ya know, maybe have Abraham - who as a Ranger is trained in demolitions - drop 10,000 tons of rock on them and forever block that exit road... All that would take is some fertilizer and fuel oil - diesel, kerosene, Jet-A, anything will do. If you lowered a trash can full of fertilizer / fuel oil mix to the quarry floor you would have been able to "energetically disassemble hundreds of them, and bring the rock wall down on countless others. But nope - lets take the zombies on a road trip instead. Because sending a few thousand walkers down the road will set up good relations with your neighbors... LOL

 

Oh man... thank you for the laugh of the day! :zombies_lol:

 

Yeah.. a zombie moat around the fences, I also wondered why they didn't do that?

Also why didn't they turn some of their cars into road warrior cars/trucks with V shaped snow plows on them so that they could drive through a herd if they had to. In Alexandria, Morgan showed that he cold weld.

 

Oops, I forgot the title of this thread.

Sure Maddie could be the hard core leader of the group. The writers, write the scripts, they could write, such that anyone could step up and take command. She had Strand back down, and she and Celia are still to go at it, but I believe that it is coming.

 

Not surprisingly I am ridiculously prepared for the apocalypse. To the point where I even learned to fly helicopters - in case. If ya'll knew all I've done to prep, you would want me to get help. LOL Hell I even have a drone to recon the situation before I get into it... (Though before you think I'm completely nuts - I do live in a hurricane / flood / tornado prone area. It doesn't take zombies to create an apocalypse at least one that lasts a week or two. It is handy to send the drone to check if the roads in my subdivision are passable or flooded before I try to go to Sonic for my Chicago hot dogs and tater tots.)

 

ZombieKaaner: Your recap is awesome. You didn't miss much, but here are a couple I would add to your list: Why should Rick bother with real lookouts at the prison, or later at Alexandria (although at the prison I guess you could blame this on Hershel and the do-nothing council as well)? At the prison, their lookouts were Glenn and Maggie playing house in the watchtower, oblivious to Lizzie out there with a flashlight night after night feeding rats to walkers. When they all saw them them all piled up against the fence in one area, Rick didn't do anything it about it. When they got to Grady Memorial, Rick murdered one of the cops out of anger. Then, he directed everybody to go upstairs instead of demanding that Beth and Carol be delivered downstairs while he held the other police hostage. When he got to Terminus, he didn't real reconnaissance -- he let Michonne and Carl stand around and B.S. and what he and Darryl did that constituted reconnaissance wasn't clear and clearly wasn't adequate. When they went into Shirewilt, Tyrese died because he, Michonne and Glenn were b.s.'ing instead of setting up a proper reconnaissance team. After that , when Aaron was rescuing the nearly-dead group from the Virginia drought, Rick ordered Aaron to direct them through the road back to Alexandria that Aaron told him was not cleared of walkers. Rick not only took it but took it at night with his baby daughter in the car. When he got to Alexandria, he administered on the spot capital punishment to the town's only physician who -- alcoholic, wife & child beater that he was -- had been described as a talented surgeon (seemingly more out of lust for Pete's wife than out of the need for an immediate execution. ) On the flip side of that, I have to say, Rick also has a long, long list of credits for incredibly brave, kind, and fearless acts. I could make a very list of those as well and -- in those -- resides the appeal of this incredibly flawed leader.

Getting back to Madison: She's grown on me because on me because of some of her fearless actions, even though some of the other things she did (like tolerate Daniel torturing the soldier for information on the quarantine center and letting 2000 zombies out of the lockdown in the stadium to destroy and kill everyone in the quarantine center) were despicable. Her standing up to Celia was one of them. Stabbing the brother who was high-jacking the boat was another one. Putting his zombie body in a black hood and tricking the gang leader into letting Travis go, while rescuing Alicia was another. Standing up to Celia to save Nick from Celia's death cult was another one

I just wish Madison had more than one facial expression. Is this dead-pan look on her face the look of a mother whose emotional expressiveness is worn out by years of trying to save a heroin addict son? That I can understand. I've heard Kim Dickins is a good actress but unless that is the explanation, you've got to wonder on. That's a pretty subtle character trait to expect most viewers to detect or understand.


It seems like Strand is turning out to be more of a leader. I don't know that Madison can be trusted to be a leader because she is always going to put Nick first -- as we saw with her disregard for Chris' problems or Travis' predicament about them as his father. So far, Strand -- whatever his pre-ZA con-artist ways -- seems to be pretty reliable to the. people he allowed to tag along