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Sylas

Sylas

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i've seen bad takes but that takes the cake.

You think the plurbs are high school drama students who did it all for show? they were just butt hurt so they put on a huge emo production for literally no ones benefit, Carol was asleep when they left her, only the audience saw it.

You're saying the plurb are spoiled little children pitching a fit like this?

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Diatabe asked them to pretend make believe so they granted his request.

Carol almost killed zoshia/broke her with the truth serum and they decided, without any input or feedback from Carol at all, to abandon the city and keep their distance from her. They won't even answer the phone, they make her leave msgs on voice mail.

They abandoned the city. Of course that wouldn't actually work IRL. You like the show so you are making excuses for it, mental gymnastics to make up for bad writing. It's ok, everything isn't a fucking attack. I like the show too. my only point was I would like it better if they kept things more vague and stopped trying to explain shit poorly and introducing situations where you gotta do mental gymnastics to excuse the bad writing.

And that was only the minor quibble I had with the episode, my actual beef was what they were doing to Carol and Manousas character that episode, making her capable and competent, where loneliness was her downfall, and taking him from being stoic and competent and making him an imbecile.

I didn't consider your take on it though, that they were setting it up for Manousas to become the antagonist. it has merit I suppose. I think the point remains though, if things had stayed the same then he would have become the star of the show and it would have been about him fixing the world, so they had to do something to keep the show focused on her.
 
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Tuco

Tuco

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Sylas said:
i've seen bad takes but that takes the cake.

You think the plurbs are high school drama students who did it all for show?
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Yes.

Sort of.

I think they are consolidating massively across the globe as they are starving. Or something. And they have 13 little pockets of fake activity for the uninfected. Some pockets, like ABQ, are larger than others because the dumbass infected ask for the lights on. The fact that some of the Solyent Amber was left in the warehouse is explained by them mostly abandoning the city except for the Carol Life Support Crew (Worst job in the Pluribverse)
 
Tuco

Tuco

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Sylas said:
I'll once again point to the wolves from episode 2, 3? First week since the conversion and they were scavenging trash and trying to dig up helen's corpse for food. This was a narrative choice, not a realistic, logical outcome. Wolves avoid people, especially with an entire city of cats and doodles and newly released and no longer protected live stock to feast upon, there is no way that the wolves just happen to intentionally go and attack the only person in the city who still has their fucking lights on at their house. That scene made no logical sense, It was simply foreshadowing that the hive was scavenging the dead and eating people.

So the wolves aren't actually scavenging, you just have to pretend that scene didn't actually happen *in the world* , it was a dream, just setup for an episode cliffhanger + later reveal. Because otherwise, where are the wolves now? They spent an entire episode following Carol as she went about her life *completely alone* in ABQ, the weeds are growing in the golf courses because no one is maintaining the lawns, bunny rabbits are just out and about living their best life. Buffalo are free grazing by hole 9. No fear of humans (they haven't seen any in weeks, Carol is the only person in the city) No wolves, no predators of any kind it seems. Those wolves were just a narrative device, they weren't real, the same way this entire episode pretty much confirms it with their "nature is healing" and society is falling apart without the Hive motiff.
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Oh yeah, the wolves in retrospect make a littttle more sense given that the Plurbs are scavenging the entire planet at an industrial scale, literally one of the few mammal corpses in the city of ABQ not under Pluribus' possession might've been Carol's girlfriend.

It was still dumb because you'd need to have hordes of wolves and they'd have to be starving for there to be a good chance of encountering one in ABQ, there just aren't many wild wolves in the area. Maybe it was one of the wolves from Mexican Wolf Conservation Facility , lol.
 
Sylas

Sylas

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that little rant was more about showing that the writers will serve the narrative over ensuring logical consistency. There are many times where you just gotta hit that "i believe" button and not think about it.

Which is my point about them abandoning the city entirely. Every fiber of your being is telling you "wait that doesn't make any sense, surely there is a crew running around hiding in the bushes watching after her" and i'm telling you that no, there isn't. Not in the context of the narrative they are crafting. This whole several episode character arc was about Carol coming to grips with being utterly alone in complete isolation almost going crazy and begging for the hive to come back.

I had hoped that they would focus more on the "life after people" post apocalyptic urban decay with the city falling apart and her begging them to come fix it, because a: that's what would actually happen and b: I thought that was what the whole tag up with Manousas was leading to. As I watched the episode and saw more and more shit falling apart I thought the episode was going to end with manousas walking up and saying "hello my name is manousas I want to save the world" and she would look up half in a daze and be like "great, but first can you fix my plumbing? The water has been off for 2 weeks I've been drinking toilet water from random neighbors houses"

Instead they focused on her psychological well being and almost descent into madness/going stir crazy and begging for companionship. That is why they had to neuter Manousas, and I believe you are correct they are gonna build up to him being antagonistic towards her instead of becoming the lead in fixing shit.
 
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Skinner

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Shows getting boring for me fast. I want to get into it because I’m bored and theres really nothing else to watch currently but…I still don’t care about the survivors nor the hive mind. It was kinda cool when Carol pissed them off and made them flee but I’m tired of Carol being Carol. I can’t see them doing numerous seasons of this unless they introduce a big twist or new threat really soon.
 
Heriotze

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Sylas said:
i've seen bad takes but that takes the cake.

You think the plurbs are high school drama students who did it all for show? they were just butt hurt so they put on a huge emo production for literally no ones benefit, Carol was asleep when they left her, only the audience saw it.

...
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You assertion is the correct one based on Gilligan's past writing style applied to this show. The hive putting on a show for the audience either reveals something crazy about the nature of the show's world or it is terrible writing as everything has been legitimately, hamfistedly, diegetic up to this point. We learn as the characters do or just before. They exposition dumped everything that we learned without this specific group of characters to them either as a whole, to convey that everybody left has this knowledge, or specifically to an individual. We don't know any secrets that the characters do not so picking up and leaving as a ruse is the story knowing of our existence as it applies to itself and writing in a trick for the audience.

A non-diegetic exposition dump would betray the drip feed of information that adds in an element of humanism to the story. We can forgive us all not knowing something because Carol didn't or hasn't thought of it to ask yet. Anything done on camera is true in this story because we aren't characters that have to be deceived. We're the audience and they could be trying to trick Carol but they wouldn't be trying to trick us with information that she would never be privy to.
 
Chanur

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So I didn't know the name of the painting Carol stole but it's called Belladonna. Which is a poisonous plant. She also is wearing the blue and white of the painting at the end of the episode. Probably signaling she is going to be poisonous to the Hive.
 
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Gravel

Gravel

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Kajiimagi said:
Vince Gilligan does anti-hero really well. Could happen
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Which means obviously Manousos is Jesus and Carol is Judas.

The part I don't understand is why he chose the Darien Gap over sailing. Without governments that seems way faster and safer.

Also, alternative hypothesis is Gilligan watched The Leftovers and was super disappointed in the execution, so this is his version of the Rapture.
 
Sylas

Sylas

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He's from a landlocked country its entirely possible he has no experience with boats or being on the water, even hugging the coast could of been out of his reach.

I mean sure he crossed south America in a few minutes of a montage but he basically did alaska to the east coast by car just to get the Darien gap. A 2 day hike through the jungle is prolly better than risking the open ocean in something he could handle/afford (he would of least have left a note for the owner with cash or telling them he "borrowed" their boat and would leave it for them in Panama)

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Juvarisx

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Manousos is everything Carol wants to be. In limited screen time he is shown to be capable, smart, mentally sound to be alone, and understands the Hive as what they are.

Whether Carol has a plan or just eventually couldn't stand it anymore is to be seen, but if anyone has the capability to formulate a plan to save humanity its him. The interaction between the two will be fun, he is going to be incredibly disappointed in what he finds with her, and I hope as a pair they provide a good foil to what the Others large scale plans are.
 
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Bondurant

Bondurant

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Some of you guys hatewatch this so much it's obscene: if you're not interested about the genre, format or plot just say it so and move on. It's not like we're in shortage of TV shows to run in :D
 
Onoes

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He didn't sail because he doesn't own a boat and won't do anything he doesn't think is moral (like theft). He thinks the whole world is aliens or something and yet he's still leaving money every time he takes gas because its the right thing to do.

And yes, I 100% expect him to be fully disappointed when he finally meets her. If he had made it to her before she mentally broke it would have been one thing, but now she's literally embraced them.

Also, as much as I don't want to get in a retard fight with Sylas.... There was no reason to abandon the town entirely. They said they need space, and we witnessed lines of cars leaving. That doesn't mean everyone is gone. It would make sense that they would leave a couple thousand people there as support staff, not just for Carol, but to maintain anything that needs maintaining, keep on eye on food storage, stuff like that. You keep mentioning "Do you guys think they are hiding in the bushes watching her?" - No, they probably are mostly just doing work in various buildings around town, with only a small medical team close enough to respond quickly in case of emergency. It would be very easy to avoid her when you know her exact location at all times. As for the food, they would not have run out of food for her in 48 days - they already told us they are running at minimum calories and trying to survive on people juice and things that will spoil. They also stated that they will be saving all the best food for the uninfected, so you can assume Carol probably has years of steaks to look forward to if she doesn't mind a little frostbite. We are also still LARGLY in the dark about what is happening outside our window of view. They may have decided that it makes the most sense to just wipe out all of the very old and very young people, which will both make the current population food news go down, as well as providing an immediate influx in bodies.

There is just a ton of things we don't know really have any idea about currently, and it seems like you're stepping into every discussion in bad faith. You are saying that the writers have fucked this up because we are having to go "Logically they couldn't have all left, but they looked like they were all leaving, so this is bad writing", but I think a lot of us are assuming they just aren't hand feeding us every answer - we can just assume there are probably still people around her that can get her a Gatorade.

I do agree with your wolf take, that was stupid and the only time I feel like I've had to go "Is that possible? Sure, I guess. Is it very unlikely? Yeah."
 
Juvarisx

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Onoes said:
He didn't sail because he doesn't own a boat and won't do anything he doesn't think is moral (like theft). He thinks the whole world is aliens or something and yet he's still leaving money every time he takes gas because its the right thing to do.

And yes, I 100% expect him to be fully disappointed when he finally meets her. If he had made it to her before she mentally broke it would have been one thing, but now she's literally embraced them.

Also, as much as I don't want to get in a retard fight with Sylas.... There was no reason to abandon the town entirely. They said they need space, and we witnessed lines of cars leaving. That doesn't mean everyone is gone. It would make sense that they would leave a couple thousand people there as support staff, not just for Carol, but to maintain anything that needs maintaining, keep on eye on food storage, stuff like that. You keep mentioning "Do you guys think they are hiding in the bushes watching her?" - No, they probably are mostly just doing work in various buildings around town, with only a small medical team close enough to respond quickly in case of emergency. It would be very easy to avoid her when you know her exact location at all times. As for the food, they would not have run out of food for her in 48 days - they already told us they are running at minimum calories and trying to survive on people juice and things that will spoil. They also stated that they will be saving all the best food for the uninfected, so you can assume Carol probably has years of steaks to look forward to if she doesn't mind a little frostbite. We are also still LARGLY in the dark about what is happening outside our window of view. They may have decided that it makes the most sense to just wipe out all of the very old and very young people, which will both make the current population food news go down, as well as providing an immediate influx in bodies.

There is just a ton of things we don't know really have any idea about currently, and it seems like you're stepping into every discussion in bad faith. You are saying that the writers have fucked this up because we are having to go "Logically they couldn't have all left, but they looked like they were all leaving, so this is bad writing", but I think a lot of us are assuming they just aren't hand feeding us every answer - we can just assume there are probably still people around her that can get her a Gatorade.

I do agree with your wolf take, that was stupid and the only time I feel like I've had to go "Is that possible? Sure, I guess. Is it very unlikely? Yeah."
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I imagine the drones are flying in and out of Kirtland.

As for having some people there, I am taking the show at its word and they are gone. It would have maybe been possible before Carol sent away the Reaper that was watching her but after that there was no sense risking it, and it turned out to be more of a mind game to make her compliant then a defense mechanism. Theres noone watching, nothing on standby (she teased them that the "ice cold" Gatorade wasn't ice cold and risked sending it anyways), and it took almost a day for Zosia to show up when that decision would have been made in seconds so it was probably a satellite that picked it up. If its a biological imperative to turn the immune then "wasting" the resources left in Albuquerque would have been acceptable
 
Sylas

Sylas

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Onoes said:
as much as I don't want to get in a retard fight with Sylas....im gonna go ahead and post a bunch of retard shit
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Skimmed your post, didn't bother reading it since you clearly never read any of mine.

You are arguing that logically, they would need to have left people in the city to fly the drones and maintain the infrastructure.

That's great, no one is arguing against you. That's what logically would need to happen.

But it fucking isn't. The city is abandoned, Carol is the only one there. This is about the narrative and the story beats the writers want to convey, it has nothing to do with logic.

It's not necessarily bad writing per se, they have chosen, like they have many times before, that foreshadowing or atmosphere or suspense build up is more important than following logical reasoning.
 
Onoes

Onoes

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I believe there to be people there. Correct me if I am wrong but they simply say "They need some space" and she see's a large amount of people leaving town. That does not mean there are not still thousands of people remaining and just staying out of sight for fear of what Carol might do.

She wanted to go to a restaurant. Someone cleaned the place up, prepared the food, set the table. They didn't do that with drones. There are people there.

Look at Manusos, he trekked through the jungle all by himself. The second he fell down a helicopter swoops in. It looked like he was alone, but he wasn't. I'm inferring the same thing is happening with Carol.

Side note - I did think of one other thing that drives me crazy. Every single time she picks up the phone and leaves a message I expect her to say "Can you change the message so that it just says "Leave a message Carol" I don't want to listen to the whole thing every time. Every time she does not say that.
 
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Kiroy

Kiroy

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Onoes said:
Side note - I did think of one other thing that drives me crazy. Every single time she picks up the phone and leaves a message I expect her to say "Can you change the message so that it just says "Leave a message Carol" I don't want to listen to the whole thing every time. Every time she does not say that.
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My only problem with the show right now
 
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