u/xsolarion

So I watched all of TWD and FTWD wondering what that mysterious organization with the 3-circle Venn diagram as their logo, and the helicopters and all that high tech shit, was. Well, here we are, I finally watched The Ones Who Live, and at long last I finally got to find out. Whew, that took a while lol

…And it was underwhelming honestly. This felt like the classic “giving the character who had an ambiguous ending in the main show a typical happy ending just for the sake of it” - for all intents and purposes, it’s pretty much TWD’s equivalent of what El Camino is to Breaking Bad. (I will say, though, this WAS still much better than that imo… I really hated El Camino)

• The first few episodes were actually really good. Getting to see where Rick has been this whole time, how Michonne finally found him, the deal with Okafor… it was all set up pretty damn well. I personally love the show’s intro, even, it was really tasteful. The theme music is so peaceful/soothing-turned-dramatic it gave me chills my first time watching it. Perfectly conveys the sweet, undying love between Rick and Michonne, and simultaneously the massive dangers they have to face to keep it alive.

• My main issue with the show, though, as I said in the title: the last few episodes. The CRM is supposed to be MASSIVE, and the sheer weight and scale of what they do is conveyed so well through their infamously mysterious identity in both TWD and FTWD (with the latter providing some information about them with Isabelle, but not much.) It made sense that Rick and Michonne got away from them… but they took down the leader (Biel) and the entire new base on a whim in the span of just a few hours?? And furthermore, after that, everything is just magically okay and fixed??????? They don’t have to get through anyone else to get the truth out about the Portland plan?? Idk, the ending just seemed very rushed and sudden to me.

• This leads to my next point: They had set up a good storyline for something longer and more impactful, maybe, but I guess 6 episodes just wasn’t enough. There was SO much potential with both the CRM front, and bringing back Rick and Michonne; unfortunately, however, the way things unfolded did not live up to that, the struggle to take over such a massive organization should’ve been harder than just taking out 1 leader and destroying a base, even if telling the public about their misdeeds made most of the difference. There surely must’ve been some other leaders they had to get through, some other ordeal they had to face. It just doesn’t feel realistic at all considering the scale of the organization they are up against, even if the point is supposed to be that “they can do anything.” Sure you can do anything, but it’s still just 2 humans fighting, potentially, thousands of other soldiers and military personnel. I am happy Rick finally got to meet his kids in the end though… even if it was a very cookie-cutter, shallow-feeling reunion scene.

Anyways, that’s my two cents on The Ones Who Live. Feel free to let me know what you guys thought of it in the replies, if you agree/disagree with me on anything, or anything else.

I did one of these posts where I write out my thoughts for FTWD in r/FearTheWalkingDead earlier today too, because I finished that right before watching this, so maybe in the near future I’ll write out my thoughts on the main series on this sub as well. That’ll be tougher to do considering how long it is, but hey why not. Thanks for reading if you made it this far!

So I started watching FTWD around 2 months ago, right after I finished TWD, and finally just finished it a few days ago. I’ve read some of this sub as well to see what people think, and I can say with confidence that I’m honestly not surprised the general sentiment seems to basically be “season 1-3 good, 4-8 bad.” In fact, I can safely say that, for the most part, I agree. I tried to avoid any discussion of the show until I finished it so that I could form my own thoughts, and truthfully I didn’t think it was that bad, but from s4 onwards, things started to get a lot less realistic, and that definitely took me out of it. Here’s some key takeaways I had:

• The show absolutely takes a hit in season 4. There’s so many things left unexplained. First off, it takes a whole two episodes for the original crew to even show up again, which isn’t the worst thing ever, but it left me with more questions than answers; first off, Luciana is just magically back with Nick, Alicia and Strand when they find Al, John and Morgan? Unless I missed something like her saying where she was going before she left Nick in S3, that was never explained. However, Al and John are great characters, which is what I personally believe to be the main redeeming quality of the later seasons, but especially in S4.

• Seasons 5 and 8 in particular are genuinely terrible. S5 I felt was the hardest to get through overall, mainly due to one detail that damn near took me out of it entirely; Morgan happening to show up with this cast of characters is one thing, yeah, but Dwight??? and Sherry too??????? Sherry just so happened to go to the exact part of Texas that Morgan did, and Dwight followed… yeah okay sure I guess. Also we never found out what happened to all those kids they brought home on the plane, after Ginny took over the oil fields. (Side note by the way - I found Sherry to be genuinely annoying as fuck in this show, I don’t know if that sentiment is shared here or not but holy hell.)

• As for S8, the ending itself was alright I guess, and the idea of Troy coming back as the final main villain was admittedly interesting and unexpected (I thought he was dead), but oh my god, the whole PADRE storyline was so fucking awful. Also way more plot holes than any other season before… like what the fuck is up with Victor and that German speaking hotel community??? They seemed to have it really well off, and appeared to have literally no issues until Troy’s crew showed up; you’re seriously telling me they were really willing to give it all up and go live at the island with Madison, who most of them have just met, at what is essentially the blink of an eye? Also don’t even get me started on that last Morgan episode where he goes insane like he did in TWD after Duane died, but magically becomes fine again not long after that.

• As far as seasons 6 and 7 go, those were more of a mixed bag than all bad. The first half of S6 was solid, I really enjoyed Morgan’s character arc with him swapping his stick for the axe and that representing his willingness to kill. The whole episode “In Dreams” with Grace was terrible though, along with everything after it; it was way too confusing, and I genuinely didn’t know whether most of what happened in it had also happened in the real world or not (like Al going to the city to find Isabelle). Also the fact that the baby “absorbed all the bad shit in her body”(the “bad shit” in question being radiation) made zero sense, especially considering she herself was okay and ended up living long after that. As for S7, I will say I thought it was interesting to see Strand become the main villain, but that’s about it; the circumstances in which it happened are beyond stupid.

Overall, honestly not as bad as I was expecting, but I think the main issue was the show dragged on for way too long and took way too many twists and turns for most of what happened to feel meaningful. I think if you’re going to continue an already-established universe like TWD, you need to make the events that happen feel naturally occurring, which is not at ALL the case in the later seasons.

Anyways I’m curious what the rest of you guys think about the show, particularly in terms of specific details like the ones I mentioned. Feel free to reply with any thoughts!

(oh yeah side note btw… why the hell is it specifically called “Fear” The Walking Dead?? That was never explained, and the element of “fear” was never particularly emphasized)