Saturday, December 10, 2011

The LA Kings are Such a Disappointment Right Now and so is 'The Walking Dead'



I seriously can't figure out why the LA Kings are having such a difficult time scoring goals.  It is so frustrating watching them game after game struggle to clearly enter the offensive zone, get quality scoring chances, and actually score goals.  They've been able to get a lot of shots on goal the past couple games, but quantity does not matter if they're not high quality chances.  Oh, and The Ethan Moreau Experiment is finally over.  Finally.  


(Harry How/Getty Images)
See ya, Moreau!
Good luck in the future!


I can think of two other players off the top of my head who need to get bounced waived as well.  Congrats to Andrei Loktionov and Slava Voynov for playing well enough to stay with the team and get a veteran player waived.  Did anyone else notice how well Loktionov absolutely dominated the play for several shifts in the third period against the Wild?  I'm looking forward to seeing more of that!  Oh, and some goals and wins too......

The LA Kings are just so disappointing right now.  But don't fret guys, because there are plenty of other things that are equally, if not more, disappointing.  Case in point: Season 2 of The Walking Dead.

I didn't start watching The Walking Dead until this year when I noticed people on Twitter talking about the Season 2 Premiere.  The general consensus seemed positive and since Breaking Bad was just about to wrap up, I wanted to have another show on Sunday night to watch.  My husband was a little surprised when I mentioned that I wanted to Netflix the first season of The Walking Dead.  He said something about the writers all getting canned either after the first season or right after the second season started, but I didn't care.  I just wanted to know what everyone on the Twitters was talking about!

Note: Spoiler Alert!  I'll be discussing both Seasons 1 and 2 of The Walking Dead.  

Season 1 of The Walking Dead was pretty good.  It was only 6 episodes so the writers had to reel in the audience with action, suspense, and a somewhat believable plotline.  There was one part that seemed unbelievable (I mean seriously, who would cut off his own hand instead of breaking off the handcuffs??? c'mon!!! and I wasn't buying the half-assed explanation they gave for this occurring) and the audience just had to assume that this character died since he has yet to appear (in real life).  I also think it's kinda ridiculous that the zombies are referred to as 'walkers' when in actuality they can pretty much run when they smell fresh blood.  And how is that in one second an area will be free and clear of the zombies and the next thing you know there's a whole mess of them surrounding the living?

Anyway, minor issues aside, I enjoyed the first season.  I like the actor who plays Rick and knew I had seen him from something.  Recently I finally came across a blog that mentioned he is the guy in Love Actually who was secretly in love with Keira Knightley's character.  Awwwwww, that's why I liked him immediately! And oh my god, his real last name is Clutterbuck!!! Hahahahah!!!  Any hockey fan should appreciate that!

I don't recall ever seeing the actor who plays Shane.  And every episode I struggle to determine if I think he's hot or not.  Ladies, help me out here.  What do you think of him?  

My issues with Season 2 include the following:
  • Not much action - my husband mentioned that the show was given the exact or similar budget for Season 2 as they had for Season 1, but they have twice as many episodes to produce this season.  Therefore, there is a lot of filler content and not as much action, which equates to many episodes that are super, ridiculously boring.
  • No character development - we have hardly learned anything about this group of people over 6 episodes (the first half of Season 2).  There's some weird father/daughter type of issue going on between the old man and Andrea.  The black man is apparently still alive, but do we know anything about him?  They should have just killed him off and the writers had the perfect opportunity to do it!  We don't know anything more about the battered wife other than she was sad that her daughter was missing for 99% of the second season.  Rick's wife is just too skinny and needs to start eating.  Rick's son needs to start acting more like a kid and stop acting like he's 25 years old.  We probably learned the most about the white trash guy (Daryl) during his adventures searching for Sophia.  Scratch that.  We probably learned the most about the veterinarian old man whose land they're staying on.  And why are we learning about him since the group shouldn't be staying on his land for the remainder of the series?  
  • Missing Girl - oh. my. goodness.  They spent almost the entire first half of the season searching for Sophia who went missing in the woods.  This story line should have been wrapped up in two episodes max.  
  • Advancing the story - Wasn't this group headed towards an Army base?  Didn't the assistant coach from the movie Miracle whisper something (presumably very important) to Rick before he went down in a huge ball of flames at the CDC at the end of Season 1?  I'm so glad Rick's kid got shot in the stomach AND DIDN'T DIE, which gave the writers an excuse to stall the story for 5 episodes!!  
  • Inconsistencies - I could have sworn in the first season, they explained that the only way the walkers can't identify you is when you have their blood or a dead person's blood on you (because this way the walkers think you're already dead).  But in this season, apparently as long as they can't see you, then you're safe!  I didn't buy for a second that by hiding underneath a car that walkers wouldn't be able to notice them as they walked inches from their faces!!  That was total B.S.  Also, what about the fact that walkers are attracted to noise.  They're talking up a storm and shooting guns at gun practice and not a single walker approached them.  And how is it that not a single walker approached that house they're staying at??  
So now that we know Sophia is dead (or was a zombie) I hope that early in the second half of this season either the group leaves for the Army Base or kills the man who owns the land so they can stay there without conforming to his idiotic rules.  Also, Shane is clearly crazy so he needs to go.  I think the group should split up.  Despite my disappointment with this season, of course I'm going to keep watching.  I have to know how this season will end! They better make it to the Army Base.  They better reveal what the CDC scientist/doctor said to Rick.  Rick's wife better stop being such a huge c**t.  They need to develop the Asian dude's story because I like him!  T-Dog, jeeeeesus did the writers really name the only black guy, T-Dog??, well, he needs to go because he's just dead weight.  And for the love of zombies everywhere, there needs to be more action!!  More zombie attacks!!!  I'm not giving up on the this show just yet. But if the show continues to be boring and filled with inconsistencies and the story doesn't advance, then I will call it quits after this season, that is if the show doesn't get canceled after this outing.

2 comments:

  1. GREAT post. I have a few specific thoughts-

    (1) I love Andrew Lincoln/Clutterbuck. Love him, love him, love him, ever since Love Actually.

    (2) Walking Dead and writers: I heard that Darabont would just re-write the episodes from Season 1 anyway, so I believe that they "restructured" the writing staff to lower the number of arguably superfluous writers.

    (3) The scene at the end with Sophia fucking destroyed me. I had to wonder though, since the farm people caught each walker, did they know that they'd caught Sophia or did they just think they'd caught some random person?

    (4) I think the CDC guy whispered to Rick that his wife was pregnant at the end of the last season. Were you similarly annoyed when the wife threw up the Plan B (what if someone else needs that?? Like Maggie aka Vivian Volkoff from Chuck? Or Andrea- we all know that Shane has good swimmers.)

    (5) I fucking love Glenn. So much. So glad he got laid. But he is the absolute worst at keeping secrets.

    (6) The whole target practice thing was ridiculous. Loud noises + wasting ammo? Stupid.

    (7) I wish Andrea would just die. She annoys the shit out of me. She and Shane are perfect for each other.

    (8) With respect to splitting the group, I subscribe to the age old D&D (I know, so nerdy) maxim of "never split the party." In one episode the group split up, at night, and half of them didn't have guns, and I was pretty sure they all deserved to die.

    I'll watch at least another 10 seasons of Walking Dead. I love that show. S1 was definitely better than S2. And the graphic novels (which I have not read) are supposed to be amazing.

    Uh, sorry for the super long comment!

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  2. I have to respond to all your comments!

    1. That actor is great! He needs to be in more movies.

    2. It's amazing how different a show can be with good or bad writers. L&O:SVU was atrocious last year, but this year it's so much better because they have new writers. Parks & Rec was ok the 1st season, but then the show got all the good writers from The Office (the good years) and now it's amazing! I hope this show gets better writers soon.

    3. At the very least, the farm people should have mentioned they caught a young girl. It definitely was heart breaking to see her walk out of the barn.

    4. Hmmm, that's a good possibility. I thought it was about a possible a cure or someone who could help them or something zombie related. I, too, thought it was pretty stupid that she took all those anti-baby pills and immediately threw them up.....really, NOW she's having second thoughts? As if she didn't have enough time to think it over before taking the pills.

    5. Glenn is really funny and very likable so I hope we get to know him better.

    6. Amen.

    7. Seriously. She annoys me more and more with every episode I watch.

    8. In my head I'm thinking only Shane and Andrea would split up so if they die, who cares!

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