Couple of things:
1. I actually very much enjoy zombie-based entertainment (movies, games, comics, and the first few seasons of this show). So this, much like the Walking Dead, isn't primarily about zombies.
2. Well... Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner are cartoons made for children, require no real emotional investment, last about 5 minutes, and, yes, eventually, it stopped being appointment television for me (probably around the time the Batman and X-Men cartoons came out). Did it not for you? Don't get me wrong, I love it, but there came a time when I had to say "ya know... I think I'd rather spend this time doing ____________". I think I actually reached that point with the Walking Dead a few times, but last night let me know it was time to move on.
Or were you making a larger analogy?
Perhaps that a peaceful existence (or at least the illusion of a normal life) is the Roadrunner. Always there, sometimes in sight, but mostly just a quick breeze that blows by just out of reach.
And the core group of characters is Wile E. Coyote. Forever in pursuit of the Roadrunner, coming so close so many times, but ultimately failing in his attempts to reach it and experiencing great pains in every one of those failures.
He builds walls around it and those walls crash down around him.
He gathers weapons and those weapons are almost always ultimately turned against him.
He sees it run through a cave or a town, but when he follows, it turns out to be another dead end made to look like his destination.
He tries to camouflage or disguise himself, but in the end, finds that he, himself, has become prey for another predator.
He brings in others to help him, and sometimes they contribute to the effort, but many times they end up as the very reason the Roadrunner escapes his grasp again.
He tries to lure it in with offers of subsistence and even when that appears to work, it's all just another wasted effort.
Every single time, no matter how clear the path to the Roadrunner, no matter how simple the Roadrunner appears to be to catch, no matter how many times it seems as though Wile E. Coyote could simply reach down and simply grab the Roadrunner, the Roadrunner ultimately proves himself too elusive and Wile E. Coyote experiences nothing but great pain in the process.
While those are all salient points, tcdog, my issue is that this would all be understandable to me, from a story standpoint, if Wile E. Coyote would simply learn from his mistakes, but he never does. If one of these painful experiences had some greater good that resulted from it, I could understand it.
But it never does. Wile E. Coyote blows himself up in attempt after attempt, but he never rethinks actually purchasing the bomb from ACME or engaging in safe handling techniques. How in the hell has he not put up a wall along that cliff? Why does he always look down when past history should tell him that this is when he falls?
Because it is a cartoon for children. Walking Dead is not.
I call it nihilism because the entire show now is just the core group wandering around in hell without any real point. There is no redemption here anymore.
The storyline with the two little girls, Judith, Tyrese. and Carol. Two children dead and what was the point? Of the three survivors of that experience, one is dead, one is a baby, and one (justifiably so) is a sociopath. Killing that little girl certainly didn't change Carol in any way. If it changed Tyrese, it wasn't noticeable and, really, it wouldn't have mattered if it did because there's no real legacy for him to pass those changes to.
The Beth storyline. It's not like Daryl hadn't ever killed anybody before. Beth was just being a dumbass for attacking the police captain, a character who nobody outside of Everybody Hates Chris even knew. Maggie believed her dead for months, then believed her alive for a half hour, then found out, no, sorry, she's dead. So Maggie is what? Mad? Sad? Does it even matter at this point because being mad and/or sad is all there is in their life now.
The show has gotten so desensitized to killing and torturing its own characters that, for me, at least, the central theme of this show has gone from being about survival to being about living a life in the middle sheer despair. What I mean by all this is... the first season was a lot more about the group surviving. Character deaths had at least some meaning. What happened to each character had an effect on the other characters and played some part in the storyline. Now, I feel like they're just introducing characters so they can kill them.
If you still find enjoyment in this show, then I'm happy for you, but I'm moving on.
1. I actually very much enjoy zombie-based entertainment (movies, games, comics, and the first few seasons of this show). So this, much like the Walking Dead, isn't primarily about zombies.
2. Well... Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner are cartoons made for children, require no real emotional investment, last about 5 minutes, and, yes, eventually, it stopped being appointment television for me (probably around the time the Batman and X-Men cartoons came out). Did it not for you? Don't get me wrong, I love it, but there came a time when I had to say "ya know... I think I'd rather spend this time doing ____________". I think I actually reached that point with the Walking Dead a few times, but last night let me know it was time to move on.
Or were you making a larger analogy?
Perhaps that a peaceful existence (or at least the illusion of a normal life) is the Roadrunner. Always there, sometimes in sight, but mostly just a quick breeze that blows by just out of reach.
And the core group of characters is Wile E. Coyote. Forever in pursuit of the Roadrunner, coming so close so many times, but ultimately failing in his attempts to reach it and experiencing great pains in every one of those failures.
He builds walls around it and those walls crash down around him.
He gathers weapons and those weapons are almost always ultimately turned against him.
He sees it run through a cave or a town, but when he follows, it turns out to be another dead end made to look like his destination.
He tries to camouflage or disguise himself, but in the end, finds that he, himself, has become prey for another predator.
He brings in others to help him, and sometimes they contribute to the effort, but many times they end up as the very reason the Roadrunner escapes his grasp again.
He tries to lure it in with offers of subsistence and even when that appears to work, it's all just another wasted effort.
Every single time, no matter how clear the path to the Roadrunner, no matter how simple the Roadrunner appears to be to catch, no matter how many times it seems as though Wile E. Coyote could simply reach down and simply grab the Roadrunner, the Roadrunner ultimately proves himself too elusive and Wile E. Coyote experiences nothing but great pain in the process.
While those are all salient points, tcdog, my issue is that this would all be understandable to me, from a story standpoint, if Wile E. Coyote would simply learn from his mistakes, but he never does. If one of these painful experiences had some greater good that resulted from it, I could understand it.
But it never does. Wile E. Coyote blows himself up in attempt after attempt, but he never rethinks actually purchasing the bomb from ACME or engaging in safe handling techniques. How in the hell has he not put up a wall along that cliff? Why does he always look down when past history should tell him that this is when he falls?
Because it is a cartoon for children. Walking Dead is not.
I call it nihilism because the entire show now is just the core group wandering around in hell without any real point. There is no redemption here anymore.
The storyline with the two little girls, Judith, Tyrese. and Carol. Two children dead and what was the point? Of the three survivors of that experience, one is dead, one is a baby, and one (justifiably so) is a sociopath. Killing that little girl certainly didn't change Carol in any way. If it changed Tyrese, it wasn't noticeable and, really, it wouldn't have mattered if it did because there's no real legacy for him to pass those changes to.
The Beth storyline. It's not like Daryl hadn't ever killed anybody before. Beth was just being a dumbass for attacking the police captain, a character who nobody outside of Everybody Hates Chris even knew. Maggie believed her dead for months, then believed her alive for a half hour, then found out, no, sorry, she's dead. So Maggie is what? Mad? Sad? Does it even matter at this point because being mad and/or sad is all there is in their life now.
The show has gotten so desensitized to killing and torturing its own characters that, for me, at least, the central theme of this show has gone from being about survival to being about living a life in the middle sheer despair. What I mean by all this is... the first season was a lot more about the group surviving. Character deaths had at least some meaning. What happened to each character had an effect on the other characters and played some part in the storyline. Now, I feel like they're just introducing characters so they can kill them.
If you still find enjoyment in this show, then I'm happy for you, but I'm moving on.
