A lot of this episode was far fetched, but that's TV magic for you. It just depends how far your suspension of disbelief can stretch.

 

Eating fresh killed doggie sushi contaminated by walkers is something I don't even think Nick would do .

 

The Nick "wanting to join them" might had fresh-dog-sushi, might walk into bullets. I'm kinda sorry Nick survived any of those - the writers create such DUMB situations, and continuously. Getting rid of Nick would be forcing the writers to come up with perhaps better writing. Perhaps. BIG "P".

I'd mention the "build a fire inside a dwelling so it's lit up for all to see FROM THE OUTSIDE" and then sleep right next to it. DU-UH. Jiminy. Climb into a closet. Pull a Manson and slip under the kitchen sink. Behind a couch. And heavens, when battling someone with a bat, don't stay at Bat's Length! Well, "dumb writing" continues to be one of the legacies we're all forced to overcome.

One other impossibility I'd offer up: "Nick is selected by Luciana over a great distance thru binoculars." Uh. Yeah. Sure.

"Guys, let's go out onto road-cut peaks and stare at herds of zombies, seeing if we can detect fakes, OK?"

Yeah. Sure... let's do that... it's such great fun...

"Who's gonna bring the seaweed in case we get to have dog-sushi?"

 

Fake science.

 

I was ok with the woman beating up on him, she was awful wound up, it is quite possible.
And the outlaws, they were just stupid, I can handle that.

But I did struggle with him walking even more than 4-5 miles in that sun and the heat...
I also struggled with him walking among the dead when his 'camouflage' wore thin. I mean guts smell ok, but days later it was all dried and caked... And, I struggled with the tourniquet and the gangrene as well... The bullets, omg, he hardly flinched!

What kills me is his lack of concern, like he doesn't think he can get hurt.

For one thing a problem I saw in walking with the dead, is the living will shoot you!
As we remember from TWD you're really not 100% safe covered in guts, walking with the dead.
Michonne had it down pretty good, but she was always vigilant and there was a time or two she had to cut some down...
But again even if your camouflage is perfect you have another serious problem, the living think you're a walker!

 

Yeah this part bugged me too.

I don't know, with Nick I get this artistic feeling when they direct him. I feel like a lot of the way things go around him are more metaphors than reality. Maybe that sounds stupid since it's based in "reality" but my suspension of disbelief is stronger with him than anyone else in this show.

 

Lets not forget that the dogs were RABID. Foaming at the mouth. So he got bit by a rabid dog, then ate raw rabid dog meat.... Im assuming that the doc / pharmacist had a rabies vaccine... otherwise.....

The other thing is Gloria looks WAY too good to be a junkie who shoots up in some abandoned church. WAY too good. Even if you look that way starting out, by the time you've descended to "smack addict shooting up in abandoned buildings" you wont look like that anymore...

 

There were definitely some far fetched scenes here. I think some of this makes sense though. Him running from the woman swinging the bat seems reasonable enough. Personally I think I'd have put up a bit more of a fight, but I can buy that.

As far as walking miles and miles without water, and not dying from his injuries...well...that's TV magic.

 

Yes - the series has turned into wet garbage. The debate concerning the suspension of disbelief when the premise is of walking corpses is valid, but this is particularly dumb material.

 

I stopped watching after Season 1, but sometimes I read the threads just to see what's been going on.

Even with my low opinion of F TWD I find it incomprehensible that they'd make their mid season premiere a bottle episode. What a way to decrease audience interest.

This crosses over into the Walking Dead a bit because I think overall the creative talent, some of which is shared between both shows, has been spread too thin from working two series.

 

I was bored during this episode... I feel like there's room for episodes like that but as a mid-series or series opener? I wasn't sold. All I kept thinking was, Nick was mad at his mom and decided to go starving through the dessert dying of dehydration rather than join them. The stupid little gang of "bad guys" got killed by walkers - how the hell did that happen? And Nick got all of his shit taken by some yoked up little mom? No bueno in my book... This is purely a time filler for me and an excuse to eat burritos on Sunday nights (our walking dead food choice/tradition).

 

Suspension of belief only works if the show is reality based with the only exception being the fictional plot element. In this case the dead walking. What Nick pulled off was simply not believable. He would have died of heat stroke before he got halfway. And that's not even considering all the ridiculous nonsense that also happened. Like having his leg ripped open by a slavering dog. Like having him able to dodge speeding bullets without even having to move. Like the bad guys standing there until the walkers stroll up to them and start having brunch. And on and on and on.

Ironically the only part I didn't have a big problem with is Nick getting beaten off by the mother with the bat. Sure another man would probably have done better in that confrontation. But we are talking Nick here. It's in his character to give up and run more than it is to stay and fight.

But the rest. Asking way, way, way too much from the audience to accept this episode as anything but a farce. Sad.

 

I have to admit I was pretty bummed by this episode. I eagerly waited for the comeback and wasn't expecting a Nick wanders alone in the wilderness with almost no dialogue episode. Other the flash backs, and the occasional line from someone, there wasn't even any dialogue to speak of in this episode. It was like an hour of the post woodbury wanderings of The Governor, which the original show compressed into 2:39 with "The Last Pale Light In The West" playing over it. Imagine of they had stretched that scene into a whole episode of The Governor wandering silently until he collapsed in front of Lilly, Tara, and Megan's apartment...

Im suspecting that the rest of this back half is going to be bottle episodes. Next week we will probably get Chris and Travis, then the next week Strand, Ophelia, Alicia and Madison....

 

I just watched the episode again and I think I'm going to stop coming here to this forum. First the TWD section keeps throwing spoilers around because those who read the comics think they're so smart and then this section... All they do is bitch about how bad it is, anymore I find myself falling victim to it... Personally I found the re-run quite likable, some notable differences is this time around I watched it on Roku so it was in HD, no commercials, and I turned the captions on. That made a big difference, there's a lot of drama, this show is all about the drama, if you guys aren't seeing it that's just too bad but it's not the show's fault.

Helps as well, I watch my shows with headphones... Even then a lot of the dialogue can be hard to understand, so captions it is.

You have to stop expecting things to be a certain way, you have to stop thinking how it should be...
The show is going to behave the way the directors want it to, not the way the viewer wants it.

I don't know how else to say it.

 

Stay! For as many that don't like it, there are still those of us that defend it!

 

I understand how you feel about the bitching plague. It does become tiresome at best. At that point I just turn a blind eye to those particular threads if possible. If it is a thread that otherwise is enjoyable I just ignore the same ol same ol gripes. But as @PepperAnn stated for as many of those out there who go on and on about how bad this or that was there are those of us who still enjoy the show immensely and defend it. That is not to say that at times I am not a little disappointed (as with everything nothing will be without its flaws) and I will offer my personal criticism and thoughts. And there are a number of members who give great critiques be it positive or negative.

It is the poster who obviously has a high level of disdain for the show that confuses me, never has anything at all positive to add to the conversation. I honestly do not understand why some peeps continue to watch the show if they hate is so much.

So stay, there is strength in numbers

 

I completely understand but I think you should stay. The more diversity of opinions and perspectives this forum has, the better this forum will be.

FTWD is more artsier, has a heavy emphasis on slow burn and bears more similarities to straight horror movies than TWD. Some people don't get it and some people don't want to get it.

That said, this episode was not particularly strong in terms of action or drama. But it was a fascinating character study. I learned a very important lesson from this episode: healthy doses of fear will keep you alive and out of harms way.

And the similarities between Nick and walkers were powerful. Makes me interested to see how they portray the Whisperers in the TV show...if we get that far.

 

I agree with all of these but going to prove you wrong anyway because I got nothing better to do at the moment!

-Nick walks for miles and miles in the sun, with no hat, and doesn't get a hyperthermia
He used the walker blood as sunscreen

-Nick confronts a woman with a bat, and doesn't manage to overcome her. Even I could do that!
There were TWO women, not one, and they were both more jacked than Nick is

-Nick walks with no water for at least a day, in the sun, and doesn't pass out with dehydration.
He used the walker blood as sunscreen

-Nick puts a makeshift arterial tourniquet from a belt, and doesn't get a gangrene within two hours, like a real human would
Nick has a good immune system! After all he does use walker blood for everything (probably even lube)

-Nick manages to dodge bullets when the outlaws fire at the walkers' heads he is walking with.
There were lots of other walkers they were shooting at first, I guess he just got lucky

-Outlaws practically wait for the walkers to come and bite them, instead of retreating to the jeep and escape.

Those were some dumb outlaws! no amount of fake excuses in the world can explain that on away!

 

As I've said in other threads I dig the show. It's not good or bad really. FTWD is average for the zombie genre. I'm a hardcore zombie fan and there's some real shit out there in the genre and Fear doesn't come close. Try the film, not the show, Z Nation, The Dead Don't Die, Killing Birds, or any of the Return of the Living Dead films after the third one. They are all unwatchable and the list goes on and on. Like I said, on average anything zombie related and watchable is on the same level as Fear. People have just gotten spoiled because TWD is quality zombie story telling. You really can't find much that's better than TWD.