The Walking Dead: Go Getters

November 21, 2016 6:59 AM - Season 7, Episode 5

We check in on the gang at Hilltop.
posted by LizBoBiz (21 comments total)

This one was really bad. Had some people over who talked through most of the episode but I didn't really care.

I did laugh that Coral's missing all his darts to the left. Also he needs a haircut. Seriously.

I may have missed it, but why did that attack happen? Who opened the gates and started the fires and the music? Also, Maggie and Sasha were locked in their house from the outside. So was it the Hilltop people setting them up or was it someone else?

The leader of the Hilltop people, is he just being rude or are we supposed to take that as him losing his mind? He doesn't even recognize that Sasha isn't part of his colony. So is he just being rude and racist? I don't understand what's going on there.
posted by LizBoBiz at 7:05 AM on November 21, 2016

I may have missed it, but why did that attack happen? Who opened the gates and started the fires and the music?

The Saviors did that, to punish them. For... something.

The leader of the Hilltop people, is he just being rude or are we supposed to take that as him losing his mind?

He's bad at being a leader. Since the show can't portray what that looks like accurately without acknowledging that Rick is a fucking terrible leader, they do it by making Gregory comically craven and incompetent instead.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:39 AM on November 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

Now THIS was a normal WD episode. Don't know what happened with those first garbage episodes, but I'm hoping the series is back on track now.
posted by agregoli at 8:39 AM on November 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

The leader of the Hilltop people, is he just being rude or are we supposed to take that as him losing his mind?

I thought they established in the first Hilltop episode that Gregory's memory & attention were slipping, that Jesus kind of set that up before they met him.
posted by scalefree at 8:45 AM on November 21, 2016

My name is DOT and I have been clean from TWD for four weeks.

It feels really good to admit that I had a problem. I feel so much better now.

I am following the lead of other former TWD viewers on MeFi though and am continuing to read the FF threads and enjoy your hatewatching so that I don't have to anymore.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:17 AM on November 21, 2016 [9 favorites]

I liked the trash version of Negan. Negan really does just promote people like himself, but not so much as to be a threat. It made me think of a political maxim that's been getting a lot of mileage: first rate people hire first rate people; second rate people hire third rate people.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:03 AM on November 21, 2016 [7 favorites]

I find it really bizarre, actually, that people regularly post on these threads having not watched the show. No offense intended, but I come here for show discussion. No need to comment that you are over the show.
posted by agregoli at 10:38 AM on November 21, 2016 [5 favorites]

The Saviors did that, to punish them. For... something.

I believe it was implied to show how valuable their "services" are. They are after all a protection racket and with that comes the implied threat of "It should would be a shame if something bad should happen to your colony." What I didn't catch was, did the Saviors lock everyone in their buildings (e.g. the Maggie and Sasha's trailer was locked and Jesus slid down a pole from the second story)?

Jesus finding Carl on the Negan Truck was at least a surprising moment for me in an episode with tons of clunky dialog where it seemed like everyone kept repeating knowledge we already knew. Either they aren't trying at all with the writing or they have really low opinions of their audience.
posted by mmascolino at 11:06 AM on November 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

I was also confused about why Sasha and Maggie were locked in their building. Maggie driving the tractor was pretty funny although I kept thinking she shouldn't destroy that cool car. I loved the mesh on the car windows, I just thought that was a smart touch we haven't seen from the Alexandria crew.
I will take any episode I can get with Jesus being a ninja and pulling cool stunts. I kind of like the idea of Carl and Jesus raiding the Saviors compound together. Let's hope Carl doesn't blow it and get Jesus hurt!
WTF moments: it took Gregory a laughably long time to look out his window to see what was going on. Why would the saviors loot the hilltop and not look in Gregory's closet? How is Jesus such an awesome ninja but a really terrible strategist? Why did Enid appear to be so shocked by a zombie in the road?
posted by areaperson at 11:28 AM on November 21, 2016

How is Jesus such an awesome ninja but a really terrible strategist?

This much seems totally reasonable and unsurprising, at least. Those are very different skillsets. And I'm willing to bet that Jesus was a gutter punk pre-apocalypse, so he just adapted what he learned from train-hopping, dumpster-diving, and committing the occasional petty theft into the awesome ninja skills he has now over the past three(?) years of post-apocalyptia.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:48 AM on November 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yes, there was a throwaway line somewhere about how everyone was locked in their buildings. Poorly explained. But finally! An episode with stunts! And walkers! And dialogue between characters without Negan! I am happy.
posted by agregoli at 11:56 AM on November 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

Funny that y'all thought his stunts were cool and I was like "oh now you can just kick zombies in the head? wtf?"
posted by LizBoBiz at 12:20 PM on November 21, 2016

There's so much other stuff to be annoyed about that walkers being only as dangerous or hard to kill as the narrative requires is way down my list of things to complain about.

I find it really bizarre, actually, that people regularly post on these threads having not watched the show.

(As for this, I've mentioned it in previous threads, but my partner is still watching every week, even though she's just as mad at it as I am. I don't know why. But if I'm going to have to see it, even peripherally, I'm bloody well going to come in here and complain about it later.)
posted by tobascodagama at 12:35 PM on November 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

LizBoBiz, I can't say Jesus' skills make any sense, but I still like him. It's not logical!
posted by areaperson at 1:57 PM on November 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

Nah, liking that badass run-up-the-wall-kick-a-walker-in-the-head move is totally logical to me!
posted by agregoli at 7:18 PM on November 21, 2016 [3 favorites]

What was the duration of that episode minus the commercials?
posted by larrybob at 9:20 AM on November 22, 2016

Oof. I'm not sure if I like how we have all these different plot lines going on. I don't really have faith in the TWD writers to be able to tie things up...

And roller skates? Wouldn't those have been a terrible idea if they really had been chased by the walkers? You can't exactly go off road in those things....
posted by astapasta24 at 3:30 PM on November 22, 2016

Also he needs a haircut. Seriously.

It's even worse in the alternate universe/comics. Jebus, does Coral need a post-apocalypse zombie style consultant.

In the comics, it gets really gross (Carl's attitudes and his counterpart). But that's at least a- couple of- years, if not four, after the current events in the show.
posted by porpoise at 11:16 PM on November 22, 2016

I am following the lead of other former TWD viewers on MeFi though and am continuing to read the FF threads and enjoy your hatewatching so that I don't have to anymore.

Everybody who is saying Z-Nation is a lot of fun are right.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 3:38 AM on November 26, 2016

This might've been the best episode of the season for the simple fact that Negan wasn't anywhere to be seen.
posted by sixpack at 1:50 PM on December 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

OK, so I'm finally watching TWD (pandemic, can't stop but trying) and I just want to note for the record that it took until this point in the series for someone to be shown riding a bicycle (it's quiet! It doesn't require gas! This has been one of my ongoing questions in the series - why aren't you using bicycles?), and that it was then immediately run over by Carl.
posted by nubs at 8:07 AM on October 27, 2020