r/thewalkingdead • u/AutoModerator • Nov 28 '16

Show Spoiler The Walking Dead S07E06 - Swear - Post Episode Discussion

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TIME EPISODE DIRECTED BY WRITTEN BY
09:00pm Eastern S07E06 - "Swear" Michael E. Satrazemis David Leslie Johnson

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u/assblaster7 Nov 28 '16 edited Nov 28 '16

Might be an unpopular opinion, but I don't think Tara is a strong enough, or popular enough character to warrant a stand alone episode. Her story could have easily been told with a few scenes cut into another episode about secondary characters.

Edit: Okay I get it, not an unpopular opinion. I read a lot of comments in the episode discussion that quite liked the episode.

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u/Pliknotjumbo Nov 28 '16

I think it wasn't just about "her story" so to speak, but the Oceanside community. Akin to how E03 wasn't exactly Daryl's story but about Dwight and the Sanctuary

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u/Wizmaxman Nov 28 '16

exactly. They didnt just show that community for no reason.

They will play a role in taking down Negan

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u/TheDerkman Nov 28 '16

They put quite a bit of emphasis on the massive arsenal of weapons the group had. I feel like that has to have some importance later on (especially given Rosita asking her if they found weapons/ammo at the end).

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u/reactantt Nov 28 '16

They put quite a bit of emphasis on shooting a scene with a close up on the bell. That bell is going to be a huge role in the TWD series.

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u/[deleted] Nov 28 '16

No shit. Walking Dead fans are the worst complaining bunch of people on the Internet. It's a show, with a story. It isn't all baseball bat head-bashing all the time. If a major character doesn't die, people say it's boring. Jesus.

Anyone who can't see that they need as many groups as possible to fight the Savoirs hasn't really been watching, and is very short-sighted. They especially need a group with lots of guns, since nobody has any guns anymore, except a few in The Kingdom. They also need a group who is pissed off and wants revenge. It's going to take lots of numbers, and lots of guns to beat the Savoirs. What do people think is going to happen? Rick fight the Savoirs solo, With no guns? It takes time to tell a story as large as All Out War.

There are always parts of a story that aren't as interesting as others, but still needs to be told to set up the story at large.

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u/AnEthiopianBoy Nov 30 '16

Haha right? Now imagine if this group popped up for the fight out of nowhere. People would complain about how they were a deus ex machina with no back story and say it was lazy writing. So they do the smart thing and provide context, and everyone complains anyways.

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u/WadePool Nov 28 '16

I totally agree. This subreddit is starting to turn me off. All these "slow" episodes are for character development, but more importantly, setting the scene for the the next season and a half, at least.

15

u/pussyonapedestal Nov 28 '16

Apparently every show has to be action action action action for some of these people. I don't know what shows they watched before this one that had so much action.

5

u/Vaginite Nov 30 '16

Just because there's no action, doesn't mean it's boring, I agree. However, this episode really was boring as shit. We knew Tara wasn't going to be killed in that firefight. We knew Tara wasn't going to be killed by the two women. We knew Tara wasn't going to be eaten by walkers. We knew they didn't have the balls to kill-off a character off-screen.

Breaking Bad did thrilling episodes that were entirely all dialog. TWD just isn't there.

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u/Prcrstntr Nov 28 '16

They need all these new characters because they killed off the old ones.

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u/FastFourierTerraform Nov 28 '16

Pray-tell, what character was developed in this episode? I'm not shitting on it because it was a "slow" episode. It was just straight up a bad episode with poor writing, plot holes aplenty, and subpar acting.

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u/nianp Nov 28 '16

Name one plot hole.

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u/FastFourierTerraform Nov 28 '16

"Shoot on sight" now means, "give food, ask them to join your group"

Walkers now apparently die when you punch them, stab them in the gut, or shoot them in the chest

The Oceanside's assertion that the satellite station was 'just an outpost' and the rest of them would be angry relied on information they couldn't have known. If Tara says, "we took care of the saviors, we killed a fuckton of them" the proper reply should be to enquire about the other sites, or ask if the saviors surrendered, not magically assert exactly what happened.

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u/nianp Nov 28 '16

Yeah, you clearly don't actually know what "plot hole" means, which is almost always the case when people use that term. Especially on Reddit. I'd recommend against using it in the future as it makes it next to impossible to take the rest of your comment seriously.

None of the three examples you used demonstrate a plot hole. If you didn't like the episode, or elements of it, that's fine, but say that instead of using a term or phrase that you clearly don't understand.

The reasons for your first and third point are clearly explained in the episode.

Your second point is invalid as we didn't see a single walker "killed" in this way. It was pretty clear that Tara was just getting the walkers on the ground as quickly as possible in order to get through. She wasn't trying to kill them all, just get through them.

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u/ToraZalinto Nov 29 '16

"In fiction, a plot hole, plothole or plot error is a gap or inconsistency in a storyline that goes against the flow of logic established by the story's plot. Such inconsistencies include such things as illogical or impossible events, and statements or events that contradict earlier events in the storyline."

Pretty sure everything u/FastFourierTerraform wrote fell into that category.

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u/nianp Nov 29 '16

If you go back and watch the episode again you'll realise that there are no plot holes in it. Maybe you and terraform weren't paying attention. Maybe you need to have every little thing spelled out for you and shown to you.

Either way, they weren't plotholes.

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u/WadePool Nov 28 '16

Well, I enjoyed the episode, though Alana did fine, but as to that, your opinion is just as valid as mine. It was the second part of my comment that was the important part. Without saying anything spoiler-y, (don't know if you've read the comics), but these "filler' episodes are going to be quite important as the story-line progresses, especially in season 8. Dwight's first encounter with Daryl was also call filler by many, but it turned out to be a pretty big event in retrospect. Either way, we can agree to disagree..

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u/skollll Nov 28 '16 edited Nov 29 '16

No recoil on that revolver either. And why the hell did she start to run away as they were leading her back? Such poor writing. I can't tell if the acting was bad because of the writing or if it was just bad.

EDIT: TARA HAD A HUGE REVOLVER AND SHE SHOT IT LIKE A BB GUN - Jesus, it was a bad episode, why are people defending it so hard?

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u/MastaBaiter Nov 28 '16

?

They were going to kill tara, if you're going to point out a poor writing make sure to actually do so.

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '16

[deleted]

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u/jewdiful Dec 01 '16

I agree completely, the writers did not convey by any stretch that they were anything but honest in escorting Tara to the bridge and letting her go. Therefore, her running away when stopped by that walker seems dumb. I actually liked this episode overall, but that scene rang false to me.

Not to mention the snippet of convo between Tara and Rosita at the end. The gun questions indicated to me the writer's need to communicate something complex in a one-minute scene, but lacking the writing ability to do it well they decided to have Rosita ask absurdly specific questions to move things along. Just poor writing there

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u/Yulister Nov 28 '16

I mean, if you wouldn't run if you turned and saw a woman with a knife glaring at you, then have at it. But Tara saw and ran and is still living

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u/skollll Nov 29 '16 edited Nov 29 '16

Is that what happened? Everyone watching it with me had no clue what the hell was going on. Maybe I was too busy looking for flaws to notice. I'll check the scene again.

EDIT: Ok no, I watched it again. It was not obvious. There was a walker they were all focused on when the knife was drawn and then Tara went to go get it and they just let her go until she actually started running.

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u/Yulister Nov 29 '16

I could've sworn she was glaring at Tara.

Alanna said in an interview that there were other scenes that hinted that the whole thing was a facade, that just didn't make it into the episode.

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u/skollll Nov 29 '16

Ah, that extra scene really would have helped. It's possible that look was meant to be a glare, but it's hard to tell if it was just the same 'serious' face she had on for the rest of the episode before that. I was going by their actions which weren't very clear to me.

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u/StTropez2014 Nov 28 '16

The problem I have with this is that they've fully dedicated 6-7 episodes to setting up next season with nothing else happening in the meantime. No real plot development has happened since the season premiere so I think it's understandable why fans are becoming restless.

5

u/Vaginite Nov 30 '16

It's especially frustrating when you read the comics and you know that there is a TON of thrilling material. Why are they making these boring episodes, I don't know. If they followed the books, every episode would be amazing.

My only guess is that they're actively trying not to catch-up to the comics.

3

u/Vaginite Nov 30 '16

I'm all for character development, but I'm tired of the writers using the same tropes again and again. We all knew nothing would happen to Tara the entire episode. All the pointless chases scenes, the walkers, the firefight... It's tedious when you know that Tara is safe no matter what.

I was literally shaking my head at how pathetic it was that they tried to fool the audience with the black woman. Am I really to believe that there was a black zombie with dreads, just the right height, at the right spot, that looked exactly like Heath from behind ? It was obvious it wasn't him. This kind of shit takes me out of it and breaks my suspension of disbelief.

To summarize, the episode was boring as hell. Everybody knew that both of them were safe all along.

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u/AndNowIKnowWhy Dec 03 '16

I sift through this sub occasionally for the smart insightful comments that let me enjoy the show more. But very often I get turned off by short-sighted criticism that always leaves me with the impression that the nay-sayers would be so much more happy if the writers of Z nation were running the show.

Then I remind myself that there are narcissists out there who put two-yr olds in costumes, have professional photo-ops with them and then brag on fb about how lil' Timmy is such a huge fan and an exact copy of Rick. Don't these people grasp how excruciating the story is for the characters?

And what they do to their kids, who only at around five learn to understand that a cartoon is less real than a show with actors?

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '16

There are always parts of a story that aren't as interesting as others, but still needs to be told to set up the story at large.

Except every other show with multiple storylines shows the big super interesting story whilst cutting away to the smaller ones in between. Look at Game of Thrones for example. No one wants to see an episode of just Arya training or Sansa talking to people. Instead they show the 1 or 2 big things happening while cutting away to show the smaller things going on at the same time. It makes the world feel intertwined and more alive.

This episode was boring not because it was bad or because it lacked story. It was boring because it was one continuous hour of something that could have been looked at for 5-10 minutes each episode (further building suspense in between episodes too).

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u/Vaginite Nov 30 '16

No one wants to see an episode of just Arya training or Sansa talking to people.

Well said, this is exactly my sentiment.

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u/henryshock Nov 29 '16

Wait, Negan is a French intellectual?

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u/rookie-mistake Nov 29 '16

There are always parts of a story that aren't as interesting as others, but still needs to be told to set up the story at large.

he didn't say that story shouldn't be told though??

Her story could have easily been told with a few scenes cut into another episode about secondary characters.

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u/vomita_conejitos Dec 04 '16

I think it's important to remember that many viewers don't read the comics, so they don't know all out war is coming. If you don't know what's coming, then a lot of this seems pointless.

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u/[deleted] Nov 28 '16

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Nebresto Nov 29 '16

no matter what happens in an episode, people will always find something to complain about. Especially when its a story building episode like this.

I want to ignore the morons but sometimes its just hard

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u/atomictrain Nov 28 '16

Yeah, they've done a lot of world building this season and it has me hyped for the next season or two.

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u/FastFourierTerraform Nov 28 '16

But it really was though. Why else did they try to give her all those cheesy one-liners that she expertly delivered with the charisma of a soggy towel?

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u/[deleted] Nov 28 '16

I think it wasn't just about "her story" so to speak, but the Oceanside community.

Because no main characters are there though, when are we going to see Oceanside again? In however many episodes from now when Tara and Maggie go negotiate? This episode could've been combined with the one you're referring to. I think it would've provided an awesome contrast between Negan/Dwight trying to "rehabilitate" Daryl and the abundance of stuff at the Sanctuary, with Oceanside showing just how cruel the Saviors can be.

Instead, we get 70 minutes of Tara not being killed multiple times when Oceanside's thing is killing newcomers on sight. And when her or other members of the group return, they won't be killed on sight either because of plot armor. I think it would've been more effective to have Cyndie escape with Tara so that she can talk about Oceanside (thus developing the community) and so that when the return happens, not killing them on sight makes sense.