Wow, that's a pretty damn bold statement. I don't know, I started out liking Madison in season 1, but as the show is moving on I'm liking her character less and less.

I think I could say that about basically every character on the show at this point aside from Nick, and possibly Alicia though.

 

I just can't like that woman. Nick makes me sick. The only two I like are Daniel and Tobias and Tobias isn't there any more. lol

 

It's all back to the poor writing, with characterization.

Maddison could be a strong character, so could her husband so could ..............
But the writing seems to omit consistent behaviour or thought with both the plot and the reality of normal behaviour.

I thought off that in the kitchen scene when she walks in on a normal conversation and is a total bitch to the woman who has just taken in her family to a safe environment.

The writers must feel the need to destroy characters so that you have no use for them.

I agree with the above poster that Daniel and his daughter are pretty much the only non irritating characters in the show. I have great faith however that they two will do and say stupid things in the future, act irrationally and/or fail to tell relevant information to the group so that some dramatic moment will happen


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my thoughts exactly!

 

I like Kim Dickens, but her character (and pretty much all of them) are kinda just thrown at us and we're expected to just care about them. Madison could be a good character, but it's been a season and a half and pretty much all we know is that she's a mother, a wife, used to be a guidance councillor, and wants to protect her family. Those are pretty much all her traits.

Like most of the cast, she's severely under-developed, yet written to be someone we can sympathise and root for. How does one root for someone we know nothing about? How can we be expected to be invested in character arcs that are one dimensional and offer little to be invested in?

 

Rick was a natural leader before the ZA and so when he wakes up in the hospital he is already a figher inside and we go along with him for the ride and he builds and gets better and better.

These characters in FTWD are people who have no starting point, not a single one of them has that fire in them and unless they stumble across some guy (or girl) in the future, who already has that fire in them then we aren't even going to see or care about any remotely close to Rick-like characters.

We don't care about these people because nothing too crazy has really happened to them in the grand scheme of things. we've already been let in on what is happening, we have seen zombies and all that crap already so for us, the viewer, it just isn't all that interesting to watch, it is like my nan rehashing old stories to my kids or something - the kids might want to hear it but i've heard it all before and I'd like to hear something new. I'm not hearing anything new in FTWD.

 

I've gotta agree with the comments that these characters are not consistent. Their behavior seems to be very erratic and completely dependent on fitting their personalities to the plot of a given episode...where in TWD they fit the plot to the characters personalities and behavior. Madison has been a really inconsistent character. I liked her in season one, and now in season two I basically just see her as a bitch. She walked in when Nick and Celia were talking and was just a complete bitch to her. I get that she might not agree...but come on, this person just offered you sanctuary and a place to potentially build a new life. Give her the benefit of the doubt before talking about how your son is so fragile and needs to be coddled and needs to be told what to do by mommy.

Madison is trying to be the leader of this group, and she's way too emotional to handle it.

 

I know right? " He's fragile"

sooo not true... if anything this world agrees with her son more.

and the other step-son is having issues... I just kinda hope she dies, I really hate how she is exerting motherlyness in this apocalypse setting, Do as I say cause I know best, even though I don't attitude.

far as I am concerned she is like Lori but much bitchier and way less hot.

 

I really like Madison's character, I just think the writers have given her the role as more of a maternal figure than leader which is disappointing. Give it time, maybe she will show herself in another light.

 

I'd love to see a real kick-ass female character, like Ripley, Sarah Connor, etc.

If I'm ever in the ZA I want one of those chicks beside me, not the Emo-fretting versions everyone else seems to be stuck with on all levels of FTWD. Lol

P.S. I'm not sexist I just hate seeing people fret their way through dangerous situations. And honestly if we want to be just, the husband is actually written as upppy-downy (new word courtesy of Goggles) as his wife, daughter and son.


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Hmmm...Alex?

And I agree there is no fire, passion or whatever it is that holds an audience. Other than hope. Boring..

 

I think she Kim Dickens possibly flits between these two ^ and doesn't quite know where her character fits yet ?

 

Pretty much this. Well said.

 

I don't consider her reaction at all unusual. First of all lets not forget that Celia is not "the lady of the house" she is the hired help and she knows it as Strand's house, which he shares with his intimate partner Thomas. She didn't grant her sanctuary - Thomas and Strand did.

Secondly Madison was a guidance counselor in an LA school. As such am sure she is no stranger to "Santa Muerte" which is a cult / form of Mexican witchcraft that is quite popular among drug dealers, gang members, etc... Notice that as soon as Salazar saw that owl coin talisman - he threw it overboard and wanted no part of getting it to Louis's mother it even though it was the last request of a dying man? There is a lot more to the "Santa Muerte" thing than a person not familiar with Mexican culture may have picked up.

That stuff is "dark", VERY dark. Heavily focused on "revenge" and "punishing those who have wronged you" with the help of the dead. You even mention "The white lady" around devout Mexican Catholics and they will start doing the sign of the cross. It scares the hell out of them. It is anti-establishment, anti-police, anti-church...

I can see Madison, with her career, having familiarity with it and not wanting her son getting sucked into something so closely associated with gangs, cartel members, and narco-terrorists. If you were at a resort or something and you discovered that the maid was recruiting your child into a cult that is the religion of choice of the Zeta Cartel's assassins, you might not be polite to her either...

Frankly - I'm STUNNED that FTWD "went there". I live in Houston, and Im surprised I didn't hear a collective gasp of the Mexican population when they aired that. There was probably a huge run on Rosary beads and lighting sacramental candles in the hispanic neighborhoods today...

 

I think the show would be much more enjoyable if Madison were to step-up and be more Rick-like. For most of the show our two primary protagonists Madison and Travis have been annoying, naive, and too stubborn to acknowledge how the world has changed. If not for stumbling into people like Salazar and Strand, they'd have been Zombie-food a long time ago. And maybe that portrayal is realistic of 99% of people in a ZA. But the last couple of episodes have shown signs of Madison evolving to be more successful in this new reality. But I find Travis so consistently frustrating that I'm ready for him to be eaten.

 

That's why I don't like where her character is. Sarah Connor would have given 10 guns to Nick to defend himself. Rick was cool with giving a gun to Carl who was like 10 years old. If she wants to be the Rick of this show she has to be ENCOURAGING Nick to kick ass, not hide away. They are just embracing "females weak" tropes (which I dont like) by her stubborn attitude with her kids.

I could be wrong and she could be trending toward that direction but just needs time to get there. Hopefully that is the case.

 

You also have to consider the demographics. Rick is a rural southern cop - Kings County, Georgia Deputy Sheriff in the TV show or a Cynthianna Kentucky cop in the comic. Guns are normal to rural kids and their parents. I started deer hunting at age eight, and back in high school I used to take my guns to school - refinish the stock in wood shop, drill and tap my deer rifle for a scope in metal shop, go hunting with my buddies after school. (I might add that nobody ever got shot, and if you had a problem with another guy you kicked the crap out of him while one of the shop teachers, ag teachers, or coaches referred with Queensbury rules.) My school had a rifle team, with a shooting range in the basement of the elementary school. At Carl's age its surprising he doesn't already have a .22 or a 410 shotgun of his own that he got for Christmas. Its a whole other culture. I actually found the whole "Carl want to learn to shoot" thing a bit implausible because a rural Georgia kid should already be big game hunting by that age after already having several years of small game hunting under his belt.

By comparison Madison and Travis are part of the California education system - a guidance counselor and a teacher respectively. Thats puts them slightly to the left of Lenin. The NEA is not exactly an advocate of the 2nd Amendment or prone to support passing out the firearms. These are people who think firearms escape from the gun cabinet, load themselves, and chase you around shooting themselves at you with no human involvement.

I mean remember when Salazar was explaining the shotgun to Chris and Travis pulled the "You know how I feel about guns" thing. Hello - you just had a cannibal corpse break into your home, eat a german shepherd on your floor, and then try to snack on your face. That would be enough to turn even the most rabid anti gun folks into NRA members. Remember how he wouldn't shoot the Barrett 50 when the National Guard took him for a road trip? A "normal person" faced with a chance to fire a 50 BMG would be like "Oh Hell Yes! After I smoke this Zombie can we go find some looters and protesters?"

Expecting two California educators to hold the same gun views as a southern sheriff would be like expecting Richard Simmons to function as a Drill Sgt in the Army Rangers.

 

I think (hope) that they are building to that. Remember that in the grand scheme of things, we are just at the very beginning of the ZA. And you just know that if they make Madison more Rick-like too quickly people would bitch that it was unrealistic that this unassuming California guidance counselor would suddenly turn zombie killing bad-ass.