Quicksand Fans

THOOOOOM

Best
Darryl
Opening
EVER

I Had forgotten about the damn RPG. Having Darryl use it was just perfect

A lot went on, which was expected but, holy shit
It resolved a lot of stuff, and made other things worse too. Carl getting shot in the face was unexpected. And all the Rick/Jessie shippers can relax now. That entire plot thread is closed out now. Sam - eaten; Jessie - eaten, and arm chopped off to free Carl as well Ronnie the bitch - dead via Katana through chest from back. Body eaten. Wolf boy -- they must have really hated this poor bastard, made to be semi-human (for a murdering kidnapper) who ends up saving the Doc, bitten in arm, tries to run with her to hospital where she can save him, ends up saving Doc again, then shot twice by Carol , takes one walker down falling, then eaten. Jesus, fellas, give the guy some break

The BBQ-pit idea for getting rid of the walkers I think we talked about before; that it was done by Abe, Sasha and Darryl is just an "of course" moment. Well done. Good kick off to second half of season

Some visuals

Since we've already delved deep into spoiler territory, I'm not going to hide the text in the spoilers below. So if you haven't read the comic books and would like to do so without comparisons to the show, stop reading now.

I was wondering if that was going to happen to Carl in the series (it happened in the books, though he was shot accidentally by Douglas, the Deanna character in the comic book, as he was being swarmed by roamers), and how they were going to pull off the makeup, since a huge chunk was torn out of Carl's face. Jessie and Ron (who was more like Sam...there was no older teenaged son) were killed in pretty much the same way, right down to Rick having to hack off Jessie's hand to save Carl. It's always interesting to see where the series diverges from the books, and then comes back again. Makes me nervous for some characters who I thought, in the show storyline, might be safe from fates they suffer in the books.

I'm really looking forward to Negan's appearance. The character in the books was both hilarious and terrifying. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is the perfect person to play him, having a track record of playing charismatic bad boys (and man, does he have charisma to spare).

I won't go into questions about what the US Army was doing with RPGs, and just what that RPG was loaded with to be able to blow up the entire squad of bikers like it did, but it was a well-played moment and a great start to the second half of the season.

Someone I know observed that every time they stick close to the story as written in the comic, it's WAY better. I dont know the comic chapter and verse, but they seem to be correct. How much of that is on-screen writer arrogance, well, YMMV. But they seem to have nailed it here, now the rest of the season will be a struggle to stay at this level. WAG is that they wont, all the time, simply since that's a pretty hard act to follow. Still a lot to work with though. They did go into the prosthetic makeup and how exactly the wound makes sense (sorta) On the Talking Dead after show. For TV show stuff, it pushes the envelope some.
The RPG only sorta bothers. Maybe they couldn't get a prop AT-4 or something Or borrow a Carl G. You can always hand-wavium the bike's gas tanks adding to the boom, or ammo stuff they carrying , something. It was a good scene, and it resolved that problem instantly, so all good

I now take the view on spoilers (after last season and watching some numbskulls on twitter and AMC's site whine) that if you don't want to be spoiled? You're an adult (or should be) Dont click on a link. It's the 21st Century. Information on ANYTHING is out there. Thats it. Deal with it

Well that escalated quickly........

RPG is basically a shaped charge that just explodes and blows molten metal everywhere right? Hot shrapnel + thin walled motorcycle tanks = boom.....? Maybe appropriated from some nut ball end of the world type.
Zombies are not made of tissue paper, they don't die instantly when they catch fire. If you light them on fire they're just hungry and on fire. Which is probably much worse then just hungry. For you.

Yeah
I think it's best to dont get into the treknology trap, since that looked like RPG-7 knockoff or like it, which have some antipersonnel effects (an AT-4 would be way more boom for that) but primarily for killing one tank at a time. Worked good for the scene though.

I'd be wiling to accept the fire drawing the walkers in like moths, and then using that to whack them all en masse off camera. We got this far without any science-y explanation for the virus, so ok

Good point, could've axed them a question later.
I still think fire is under used in the context of reality though.....would be fun to watch some moron hit a ghoul with a molotov, only to have it keep rampaging and spreading fiery goodness wherever it went for like the 10 minutes it would take for the brain to cook. Could use it for sort of a running gag for almost a whole episode.

The closest we came to that was back with the Gov when his minion torched the walker pit and some of the carbonized ones were still trying to shamble around, although way less effective when reduced to mostly a skeleton...

Definitely would have been black comedy at its finest

Yeah, the problem with setting a zombie on fire can best be expressed as "fire + zombie = flaming zombie."