u/JonBB8

So I finished my first time watch through of TWD (adored it) and now its spinoff time. Spinoff! Is there any word more thrilling to the human soul?

Loved TWOL and reeeeaaally love Dead City S1. Daryl S1 really cinematic and cool if a bit slow and ponderous.

But Dead City S1 I binged it like the early TWD seasons. Its so good. Not just the descent into the Manhattan setting which it uses so well, but its structured like an escape or heist movie where theyre trying to rescue Hershel. Really gave it a different feel and pace to all the faction wars of TWD main show. Lots of good action horror setpieces too, its kinda what the Yeon Sang-Ho movie Peninsula was trying to be. Also shout out Army of the Dead if you like this kinda zombie heist stuff.

Few eps into S2 though and… we’re just back to faction wars. And neither faction is as interesting as say, the Saviors, or the Whisperers, or even the lil group Maggie and Negan hung out with last season. The uptight gobby leaders of New Babylon are painful to watch. I kinda like the Croat, but the Dama is so thinly written even if the use of art and architecture is kind of nice. (In general these spinoffs are much nicer visually than the main show which looked quite drab by the end).

There’s also too many dweeb kids in this season. Hershel is best used as a mcguffin, hes too annoying to have more than a couple lines of dialogue. He didn’t learn to fire a weapon growing up in the apocalypse? Violin dweeb was really grating but at least bought the farm pretty quickly. History dweeb seems like a weird choice to bring on a military expedition.

And JDM, the best thing about this spinoff, has very little to do! He just hangs around looking glum. I think stranding him in Manhattan was a bad move and I wish they’d found a way to keep this as more of an action/ thriller focused on the characters rather than going back to communities battling each other. I feel like it’s lost the thing that made Dead City different and cool.

Anyway im up to ep4 so hoping they correct it!

Still enjoying the show, am up to the bonus episodes for S10 now.

The mainline S10 felt less eventful than previous ones, and a bit less visually interesting? Especially after the late eps for S9 which had a lot of really cool imagery and were quite dense with incident. Beta punching his way out of a grave and going full Michael Myers in Alexandria is an all time gnarly sequence for the show though. Love that whole bit.

With Rick gone its more of an ensemble show than ever. Daryl is great but no single character drives the story like Rick did, other than Alpha as the season’s big bad. But yeah a lot of wonderful Daryl moments here. The not-quite reconciliation with Carol in the finale is really emotional. Melissa McBride and Norman Reedus crushing those scenes. Daryl and Connie adorable.

Hilarious that even in the apocalypse, Eugene finds a girlfriend on the closest thing to what is basically “online” lol. I think this season has some of his funniest dialogue too. Aaron is a badass. I miss Jesus. The ultimate solid bro. Wish we still had him around instead of Alden tbh.

Weird final ep for Michonne, like a strange choice for it to be away from the rest of the main cast. The what-if stuff where she joins Negan is good though. In fact Negan generally becoming a fav character, I liked his arc with the Whisperers. Him and Alpha are my favourite antagonists in the show, so watching them interact was pretty great. Samantha Morton was such a brilliant piece of casting for this character.

Anyone else think the incidental music is great in this season? Lots of acoustic instruments and it gives dark folk and medieval vibes, fitting for the society and level of technology they use now. It’s like what would play while Im roaming around in The Witcher 3 or Elden Ring.

(Some spoilers through S9, none after that pls!)

So I am watching TWD in its entirety for the first time and know some people lose steam during the Negan arc or after Rick is written out.

After going through S9 though I have to say I’m still really on board with the show. Sure it isn’t the same show it is at the start, but I enjoy this quasi-rebooted post-Rick stuff so far and wanted to big it up a little for those on the fence about continuing after Officer Friendly takes his final bow (at least for the main series).

The main reason is that once the Whisperers turn up, the show remembers how to be scary again. I enjoyed the two seasons of All Out War with the Saviours as I’m all in on the cast and characters, but while that stuff is still grim and brutal it doesn’t feel like as much like a horror series.

The set pieces here like Connie in the corn fields, the frozen zoms in the snow and ice… textbook horror and gothic imagery, great spooky vibes, even a return to the atmospheric, nomadic mood of the early seasons in the brilliant finale. Looking forward to the last two (super sized) seasons.