Plot twist: Glenn is saved in the next episode by Negan, and then the comic book stuff happens.

Their attempts to "mine drama from real conflict" unfortunately resulted in Season 2. I'm guessing ballsy and shocking is actually their safe zone, narratively speaking.

Kirsten Dunst keeps slaying me from episode to episode. I always thought she was kinda meh before this, but she's working her material soooo well, every scene with her is such a pleasure to watch.

Audition is definitely one of those mindfuck films that fully benefits when you go into it not knowing what to expect. Those people who are unwittingly introduced to the film by friends and are new to JHorror in general, are truly the lucky ones!

Exactly. I feel like people are making a false dichotomy between being a liability and being able to survive. Morgan is clearly both a survivor and a liability to others in the group. The last ep literally showed us (with the usual TWD subtlety) that his pacifism directly caused a Wolf to get away with a gun, which…

This. You can approach the show maybe as really dark humor, like "look at these fools, thinking they will eventually achieve normalcy!" I get the impression that it's pretty nihilistic though.

It definitely seemed to me more that Alfred is most interested in stability of the kingdom, and religion is basically a means to an end.

It would definitely be more helpful if they were consistent with their English accents, but I think the idea is that Uhtred and Brida are speaking with Scandinavian-inflected English (it reminds me a lot of the English accents on Vikings actually), whereas some of the Saxons are using accents that are almost verging…

By the end of season 2, I was definitely watching Vikings the way I watched Hannibal— less to be analyzed as a logical story and more to be experienced as a fairytale (and for the record I love that we have shows like that now). Magical realism, if you like.

But she submitted the form…

Exactly. I think because Morgan is set up to be the current moral center of the show, people think he should therefore be a logical character whose actions people identify with. But I think it's a far more interesting story to look at it as just another kind of insanity in the face of the apocalypse.

I was going to chide you for using the word nonplussed in that context, but then I looked it up and apparently Americans use it to mean 'unperturbed'? Huh, TIL.

He has a very good "affronted" face. I think it's the cheek lines and big eyes.

And we're back, folks!

To be fair, we're talking relatively interesting. Junkie Depp is practically Meryl Streep next to Slackjaw Manawa and Stock Teenaged Girl Character #71340.

It's so disappointing, because 'zombie outbreak in LA' should by all rights be a wonderful, chaotic feast for the eyes.

"It's not copying, it's an homage!" - the writers, probably

I can't quite understand why this episode got a B+ while the pilot got a B-. At least stuff happened during the premiere, and there was a semblance of forward motion.

I agree. The best TV happens when you thrust rational, interesting players into bad situations and see how they react, not to have the character be complete idiots who get themselves into bad situations for no logical reason.

To Robert Kirkman's credit, I felt that the idea of the passive zombie virus ('everyone is a zombie waiting to happen, you don't have to get bit') was a pretty fresh and intriguing take on the genre.