The Walking Dead-Season 8, Episodes 1-8

Let's talk it up!

Episode 8-1, 10-22-17

100th episode. Looking forward to the giving Negan the business.

It's sweet so far. Love it

10...9....8.... pow pow pow pow

Rick counts like me

And Gregory is a bigger dick-head than what we imagined.

MichaelWinicki said:

And Gregory is a bigger dick-head than what we imagined.

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Not really. He did nothing in this episode that is out of character. He is what he was.

Can someone explain why they didn’t shoot Negan and all of his henchmen when they walked out onto the balcony unarmed? Maybe I’m confused how that was set up.

cowboyeric8 said:

Can someone explain why they didn’t shoot Negan and all of his henchmen when they walked out onto the balcony unarmed? Maybe I’m confused how that was set up.

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On the surface it appeared that Rick was trying to give them a chance to surrender without bloodshed.

But maybe the bigger factor was influencing the people INSIDE. If they just see Rick & crew as a group who's going to murder any of Negan's folks on site... Well that's not going to create an atmosphere of cooperation when all is said and done.

I liked it, but I was fairly tipsy last night, need to watch it again. Good to see Negan not in control.

MichaelWinicki said:

On the surface it appeared that Rick was trying to give them a chance to surrender without bloodshed.

But maybe the bigger factor was influencing the people INSIDE. If they just see Rick & crew as a group who's going to murder any of Negan's folks on site... Well that's not going to create an atmosphere of cooperation when all is said and done.

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You take the head off the Snake in taking out Negan.
You get the other smaller snakes who claim to also be Negan and get them to surrender.
You get those that he feels has the warrior attitude and take them out (the "Lieutenants" they blew up).

You know have the top three layers of the people. Two layers out, the other layer surrendering.

You take care of those three layers, the rest will follow and especially when two of the middle layer (burnt guy and mullet guy) are already on your side.

You take the rest without bloodshed or ask the rest of they will surrender and many of them would because they don't like being under Negan anyways, many just did not want to die so they went along.

By doing that you also risk less of your own people getting killed and you don't go through as much ammo.

However when all is said and done...It might have been better if they just shot Negan from the start and talked after that.

Of course that cannot happen...They are just starting the war and this is the first episode of the season so they cannot kill Negan off that fast.

BrAinPaiNt said:

You take the head off the Snake in taking out Negan.
You get the other smaller snakes who claim to also be Negan and get them to surrender.
You get those that he feels has the warrior attitude and take them out (the "Lieutenants" they blew up).

You know have the top three layers of the people. Two layers out, the other layer surrendering.

You take care of those three layers, the rest will follow and especially when two of the middle layer (burnt guy and mullet guy) are already on your side.

You take the rest without bloodshed or ask the rest of they will surrender and many of them would because they don't like being under Negan anyways, many just did not want to die so they went along.

By doing that you also risk less of your own people getting killed and you don't go through as much ammo.

However when all is said and done...It might have been better if they just shot Negan from the start and talked after that.

Of course that cannot happen...They are just starting the war and this is the first episode of the season so they cannot kill Negan off that fast.

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This is how I felt. Of course they couldn't just take him out because they would run out of ideas for this season, haha, but it seemed very viable at the time.

Also I think all the common folk under Negan don't like him, they just stay there because it's safe and they are trying to survive just like everyone else. If there was a new leader they would follow them just the same.

Curious to what happens in the building with Negan and the priest. Also as soon as the priest hears someone in there you know he is firing off rounds like any one would. But again that doesn't make for good entertainment, ha.

Alexander/Hilltop/Kingdom are hitting Negan's outposts. That will subtract some of Negan's forces. AHK took out the car convoy. Scratch a few more bad guys. Add a couple more bad guys here and there (Rick allowing the walker to kill off the guy he had already disabled at one of the lookout points was a nice touch).

Rick's forces scratched the spotters on the roof while Dwight pretends to take a casual smoke break. Negan and his lieutenants (yeah we know who YOU are Eugene ) along with spineless Gregory make a stage appearance.

***The zombie herd overruns Negan's compound***

Okay.

Does anyone else suspect that Negan ordered most of his fighting force offsite--away from both his compound AND his outposts? Or is it just me? We saw how huge his forces were during last season's finale. He boasts about The Saviors numbers to Rick. Sure. Negan's a pathological mass murderer but he is not stupid. And he was OVERLY confident when Rick's forces showed up at his doorstep.

I know that (partly at least) the plan is to psychologically convince portions of Negan's forces into deserting him but AHK knows there will be war. Does AHK think they have pulled off a major victory over The Saviors thus far? I do not think they have.

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Best episode scene for me: "Can we have a time out?" (Negan bends his body around to look at the lieutenant who said it.)

DallasEast said:

Alexander/Hilltop/Kingdom are hitting Negan's outposts. That will subtract some of Negan's forces. AHK took out the car convoy. Scratch a few more bad guys. Add a couple more bad guys here and there (Rick allowing the walker to kill off the guy he had already disabled at one of the lookout points was a nice touch).

Rick's forces scratched the spotters on the roof while Dwight pretends to take a casual smoke break. Negan and his lieutenants (yeah we know who YOU are Eugene ) along with spineless Gregory make a stage appearance.

***The zombie herd overruns Negan's compound***

Okay.

Does anyone else suspect that Negan ordered most of his fighting force offsite--away from both his compound AND his outposts? Or is it just me? We saw how huge his forces were during last season's finale. He boasts about The Saviors numbers to Rick. Sure. Negan's a pathological mass murderer but he is not stupid. And he was OVERLY confident when Rick's forces showed up at his doorstep.

I know that (partly at least) the plan is to psychologically convince portions of Negan's forces into deserting him but AHK knows there will be war. Does AHK think they have pulled off a major victory over The Saviors thus far? I do not think they have.

*******************************

Best episode scene for me: "Can we have a time out?" (Negan bends his body around to look at the lieutenant who said it.)

Click to expand...

How'd you all take the pooping pants question at the end - was that just because they were trapped inside and the horde was gathering around the building, or was it more of - they have no idea what they've gotten into, and a trap was set - as you said - forces were outside the compound?

What I noticed from re-watching last season's finale was Negan is a classic bully. Acts all tough but down deep he is a coward. The way he screamed like a little girl when the tiger attacked and he saw Maggie.
Rick and company did have a major win last night, because they exposed even more cracks in Negan's following. We already know Dwight and Eugene are against him, the guy who collects from the Kingdom wavered. Gregory will do whatever it takes to save his own butt, and the garbage-pail kids can't be trusted. It is pretty much Negan and Simon vs everybody right now.

Doubt was created, Negan showed weakness, and he rules by fear...that spells trouble.

As always with anything I comment on you have to remember I've read the comic and so I see some of the things they do here as setting things up the way they went there so obviously potential spoilers here in how I think things could go.

DallasEast said:

Alexander/Hilltop/Kingdom are hitting Negan's outposts. That will subtract some of Negan's forces. AHK took out the car convoy. Scratch a few more bad guys. Add a couple more bad guys here and there (Rick allowing the walker to kill off the guy he had already disabled at one of the lookout points was a nice touch).

Rick's forces scratched the spotters on the roof while Dwight pretends to take a casual smoke break. Negan and his lieutenants (yeah we know who YOU are Eugene ) along with spineless Gregory make a stage appearance.

***The zombie herd overruns Negan's compound***

Okay.

Does anyone else suspect that Negan ordered most of his fighting force offsite--away from both his compound AND his outposts? Or is it just me? We saw how huge his forces were during last season's finale. He boasts about The Saviors numbers to Rick. Sure. Negan's a pathological mass murderer but he is not stupid. And he was OVERLY confident when Rick's forces showed up at his doorstep.

I know that (partly at least) the plan is to psychologically convince portions of Negan's forces into deserting him but AHK knows there will be war. Does AHK think they have pulled off a major victory over The Saviors thus far? I do not think they have.

*******************************

Best episode scene for me: "Can we have a time out?" (Negan bends his body around to look at the lieutenant who said it.)

Click to expand...

I wondered for a bit if they didn't have everyone there. I think it's still possible. It's hard to say for sure from the vantage point of just the TV show.

Now coming from the graphic novel perspective, which I've read all of so far, it's pretty much a given that they're inside. Preparing for war as Negan truly did not expect Rick to bring the fight to his place.

This is a little harder to believe in the show because Negan knows that Darryl is back with Rick, and he took Carl back without covering his head, so he knows that a couple of people at least know exactly where he is. In the comic Negan doesn't believe that Rick knows where he's at (Because to everyone else Rick doesn't. He had never been there. Only reason he did, in the comic, was because he had Jesus find out for him).

Anyway all that said I think you could possibly be right about some of them being off site. But a couple of reasons here that I don't think that will be the case.

#1) All of his Lts. were on site. I doubt very seriously he sent too many of his regular hands off without higher up supervision. I just don't see that happening.

#2) And possibly the most important to me is that Negan is overly confident, and arrogant, because he believes he holds the Ace here....Gregory. Much like in the Comic he believes that Gregory coming out and telling the Hilltop to stand down will take away a big portion of Rick's group and thus kill his numbers even further.

What Negan doesn't know here (Just like in the comic) is that the Hilltop has already decided to follow Maggie and they don't care at all about Gregory's now very empty threats. He's a former leader with absolutely zero stroke. In the comic this enrages Negan and he throws Gregory off the building (Where you believe him to be dead, until he just happens to be back in the Hilltop as a regular citizen now out of power), and in this one they had Simon pissed off that Gregory did not weld the stroke that they thought he would.

So this first win, and it is a win as they've now taken Negan's compound down. It's over run with walkers (As they did in the comic) so there is no home, at this point, for him to go back to.

They also realize that means that Negan has to come for them to finish this. This will set up the final two battles which will take place first at Alexandria (Cause obviously Negan has to take Rick's home, since Rick did it to him) before the final showdown happens when everyone battles at Hilltop.

That's how I believe this is going and I believe last nights stuff with Negan was simply the show giving the viewers, like the readers, the glimpse of just how overly confident and arrogant Negan often is. He's had it his way for so long that he just doesn't see anyone actually being able to oppose him.

numnuts23 said:

How'd you all take the pooping pants question at the end - was that just because they were trapped inside and the horde was gathering around the building, or was it more of - they have no idea what they've gotten into, and a trap was set - as you said - forces were outside the compound?

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I don't think there is a trap set, to be honest. I think it's simply Negan taking advantage of what he believes will now be a chip to use against Rick. He has Gabriel. Now he can use him, and his life, to try and gain access to Alexandria without having to fight to get in.

Within the story when you read it they do this with a woman, who runs a car into the compound in order to let the walkers in, during this attack we saw last night, and she is captured by Negan. Negan kills her, covers her head with a bag, and then 'releases' her to Rick and company as a bargaining chip. Only when they pull of the bag obviously she's surprisingly a walker, she bites someone, and mayhem ensues which leads to the attack on Alexandria.

I don't know if the show will follow this tactic with Gabriel though. It's possible that they will do that with him, although they teased this last season with Sasha in the coffin, except it backfired on Negan. So it's possible they use Gabriel here in the same fashion but he's around a lot longer in the comic. I don't know if they're going to off him in that fashion but I suppose it's possible.


It could be nothing more then Negan figures he has to be scared to death now cause he got left behind and he ran into Negan.

blindzebra said:

What I noticed from re-watching last season's finale was Negan is a classic bully. Acts all tough but down deep he is a coward. The way he screamed like a little girl when the tiger attacked and he saw Maggie.
Rick and company did have a major win last night, because they exposed even more cracks in Negan's following. We already know Dwight and Eugene are against him, the guy who collects from the Kingdom wavered. Gregory will do whatever it takes to save his own butt, and the garbage-pail kids can't be trusted. It is pretty much Negan and Simon vs everybody right now.

Doubt was created, Negan showed weakness, and he rules by fear...that spells trouble.

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This post is pretty spot on for me. Negan is exactly that in the comic. Classic bully. When he has the upper hand, and no problems, man he works that like no one else can.

But I don't know that he's a coward. Honestly I don't think he's a coward at all. He's not afraid to fight, or die. He just does things in the way that he believes works best.

When they don't go his way he's a survivor. He'll get out. Regroup.

blindzebra said:

What I noticed from re-watching last season's finale was Negan is a classic bully. Acts all tough but down deep he is a coward. The way he screamed like a little girl when the tiger attacked and he saw Maggie.
Rick and company did have a major win last night, because they exposed even more cracks in Negan's following. We already know Dwight and Eugene are against him, the guy who collects from the Kingdom wavered. Gregory will do whatever it takes to save his own butt, and the garbage-pail kids can't be trusted. It is pretty much Negan and Simon vs everybody right now.

Doubt was created, Negan showed weakness, and he rules by fear...that spells trouble.

Click to expand...

No spoiler harm done here...

Negan in the comic never struck me as being cowardly. There were moments of fear, but I never considered him a coward. I don't know if the TV version will be more of a coward or not. I don't consider his actions so far cowardly. More fearful. I'm not even sure if I classify Negan (either the TV version or the graphic novel version) as bullies. Control freak? Most certainly. He likes power? You bet. But he does things that seem to go against the bully-theme such as not allowing the rape of women and befriending Carl. I think between the zombie apocalypse and climbing up the ladder to power, Negan is what he is... Violent. Pushy. A dictator afraid of losing control. I'm just not getting the bully-vibe. Negan has great respect for Rick.

MichaelWinicki said:

No spoiler harm done here...

Negan in the comic never struck me as being cowardly. There were moments of fear, but I never considered him a coward. I don't know if the TV version will be more of a coward or not. I don't consider his actions so far cowardly. More fearful. I'm not even sure if I classify Negan (either the TV version or the graphic novel version) as bullies. Control freak? Most certainly. He likes power? You bet. But he does things that seem to go against the bully-theme such as not allowing the rape of women and befriending Carl. I think between the zombie apocalypse and climbing up the ladder to power, Negan is what he is... Violent. Pushy. A dictator afraid of losing control. I'm just not getting the bully-vibe. Negan has great respect for Rick.

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He is a mixed bag of stuff. He doesn't allow rape, but forces women to become his wife...not a huge distinction IMO. As for respecting Rick and befriending Carl...head games. He is a narcissist and Rick standing up to him amuses him. Winning over Carl would destroy Rick and that is why he was doing it. Frankly, Negan reminds me of someone we are not allowed to discuss on here.

The talky-talky was just too much for me. Negan would have been dead the second he popped his head out that door. And we all know it.

Now it's just stretching this "War" storyline out for all it's worth.

People still watch this show?

Here, CZ’ers, have a like for putting up with a show that was badly written, season 2 on, and should've ended after season 5 (with a pretend, well-written staff)

Shows like this go on for stupid amounts of seasons, while people barely watch shows like Rectify and The Americans.

Our world now.

MichaelWinicki said:

No spoiler harm done here...

Negan in the comic never struck me as being cowardly. There were moments of fear, but I never considered him a coward. I don't know if the TV version will be more of a coward or not. I don't consider his actions so far cowardly. More fearful. I'm not even sure if I classify Negan (either the TV version or the graphic novel version) as bullies. Control freak? Most certainly. He likes power? You bet. But he does things that seem to go against the bully-theme such as not allowing the rape of women and befriending Carl. I think between the zombie apocalypse and climbing up the ladder to power, Negan is what he is... Violent. Pushy. A dictator afraid of losing control. I'm just not getting the bully-vibe. Negan has great respect for Rick.

Click to expand...

I don't think he's a bully in the sense that he feels the need to bully or anything. I think he bullies because he believes it brings him respect and brings him the fear he needs to be in control.

When he finds people who are not afraid of him, or his tactics, yeah he respects that. That's why he likes Carl so much (In comic and show) and why he likes Darryl so much. They are not afraid of him.

With Rick he respects him because he knows, that deep down, Rick is a survivor who will get the job done when he needs to. It's why he went so far out of his way to break Rick the first meeting. He knew he didn't want Rick getting there mentally cause then he knew he wouldn't be able to control him.

He definitely respects Rick because I believe, in both versions, he sees and knows that he and Rick really aren't a lot different in what they want, and what they're trying to do, they just have vastly different ways of accomplishing it.