The Walking Dead Season 6 Retrospective: The BEST Season of the Series

after all this time we arrived to a season with very mixed results a season notorious for fake out deaths controversial episodes and having one of the worst Cliffhangers ever put to screen but this is also the season that has the most episodes in the top 10 highest rated episodes list the final episode that holds the three-way tie for the best episode of the show and has two of the best plot lines in the show through all its faults I still believe that the Walking Dead Season 6 is the best season of the show but Thrifty with everything you just said about it and all of its mistakes how can this still be your favorite well that's really what I'm going to go over in this video I pointed out a fair few faults that the other Seasons had and I'm probably going to be pointing out more than ever before in this video but through a mix of the Season ties the story that it tells and personal preference I'll be pointing out why this is my favorite season of the show as well I'm sick by the way so sorry if I sound a bit different but anyways grab your FL players wonder who this Negan guy is and Lucille our way into the Walking Dead Season [Music] [Applause] [Music] 6 but starting off with episode one I really didn't like the whole black and white flashbacks aspect starting out real strong here calling this my favorite season and immediately going into what I don't like but especially because this isn't real black and white like they didn't shoot this in black and white film they just took the scenes and dropped the saturation down to zero like this you can tell this is what they did because the trailer has scenes from the season opener that are in color it just felt a little weird to me that the show didn't think its audience was smart enough to understand the difference between past and present a little hint towards how this season in particular would treat its audience throughout the whole season however the story presented is really solid we get to see the direct aftermath of reg's death and how this affects each character and more of the much anticipated reunion of Morgan and Rick there are some nice callback moments these two Shar in their dialogue but their reunion is a bit underwhelming this is something I went over more in my episode analysis which upon watching this again I actually think their reunion makes a lot of sense these are two very different men at different stages in their life and yeah they knew each other at the beginning but this doesn't necessarily mean that they owe each other anything in present day especially in this kind of world they don't turn into Fast Friends Daryl doesn't get replaced as right-hand man and for the most part Morgan and Rick are just kind of around each other for most of this season does it make sense actually yeah it does but it's still a bit disappointing and because they didn't form any sort of emotional connection with each other this spelled certain Doom for a plot line down the road but I'll get there well when I get there now the actual main plot with the Walkers that carries this entire first half of the season and an additional episode after that is one of the reasons why I love this season so much everybody always complains about how Walkers are never a threat in the later Seasons but here they were still presented as a major threat in fact this is the last time that they are treated as a major threat after this Walkers become obstacles in the road not something detrimental to their safety in the world even when walkers for some reason learn to climb and fight back this is still the last true time that the Walkers were seen as these horror monsters I love the actual start like the opening scene and the whole plan going Sideways from the walkthrough of the plan it proves that most of these people truly weren't ready for this Mission and now there's additional factors that they have to take care of and I think this is far more interesting for the story rather than everybody being completely ready and the plan just not working this way adds way more Stakes to the story while still treating our characters with respect and not just making it seem like they had a bad plan they had a great plan but with the mix of it being too early and some other outside factors beyond their control it forces them to improvise when the opening scene came on my girlfriend was like how did we get here did we somehow skip an episode because it definitely feels that way at first glance with this many time Jump and Morgan just being part of the group now but then of course it goes back into the black and white so that way we know that it takes place in the past the second episode jss shows us what happens back at home and this is one of my favorite episodes in the entire show while the boomerang style of Storytelling in seasons 4 5 and six get on some people's nerves myself included I think that this episode and this whole story line with the horde of Walkers actually gives a reason for it knowing that the a team is out there dealing with the Walkers and the B team is at home makes it the perfect time for the Wolves to strike not that they knew that the majority of the fighting force was elsewhere maybe they did but writing wise it's perfect timing we see how weak the alexandrians really are and how some of them have taken on Rick's philosophy but we also unleash the wolf in sheep's clothing named Carol some people don't like how Carol is able to just do all these amazing feats and while it does get ridiculous as the show goes on something like this is just because she's smarter than the enemy she's attacking she puts on the Wolves clothing and blends in to attack them she's not just going all John Wick on them this also sets up the dynamic that she has with Morgan that would go on for the next three Seasons this episode just has perfect writing and the circumstances around it are amazing in episode 3 we cut back to where we left our characters in the first episode the horn is blowing our characters are retreating and panicking trying to figure out what to do next and what's going on we also continue the trend of seeing the alexandrians not ready for a mission like this and our group having to simultaneously try and fix the plan while saving the others and Rick understands this he knows that the alexandrians aren't all going to make it back and he even tells that to Michonne and Glenn who don't really want to agree with them but as the episode goes on it proves that he was right the episode starts off with like an entire group of people until they all split up and a total of three people make it back to Alexandria they try and fix the plan but in that attempt the characters make rash and personal decisions and it doesn't end up fixing anything we also get the end to the Glenn and Nicholas story line a story line that I actually really like this whole plot line shows us who Glenn really is at his core he sees the good in people and that sort of mindset can ultimately lead to your own demise in this world or maybe not but this gave Glenn something to do in his time at the beginning of Alexandria his own plotline away from Maggie and they also kind of do this with Maggie working with Deanna but she also gets far less screen time than Glenn did I have a lot of thoughts on this Glenn fake out death but I'll get to that a little bit later the first three episodes of this season are what I believe to be the best three episode stretch in the entire show each episode just builds more suspense and the stakes just get higher and higher I love the Dynamics between the characters the differences between our group and the alexandrians and how everything just seems to go wrong no matter what if this had happened even just a month after Rick took over the place everybody might have been more ready everybody would be more in tune with the plan and all of this might have gone smoother even with the wolves attacking if the alexandrians were better prepared I think most if if not everybody walks out of this Mission alive so I was excited to see this momentum continue and see more of the stakes being raised but then episode 4 didn't do that here's not here is a fantastic episode of The Walking Dead we all wanted answers to the mysteries of Morgan's backstory and how he came to be the way that he is now and the answers we get are great Eastman is a fantastic character but the issue with this episode is where it was placed this episode is Standalone and entirely skippable I usually do skip it when I'm watching the first half of season 6 part of me wants to re-edit this first half of the Season into one long like 3 or 4 Hour movie keep the momentum going and not cut away from it take out Glenn's fake out death and maybe one day I'll do that I'm not sure if I could share it without AMC coming from my head but I feel like that would be a really fun project and yes that is my idea fun the fifth episode goes back to our primary storyline but definitely slows things down I do love Rick's arrival and his speech at the beginning of the episode they're going to be back they're going to be back but I can't imagine being somebody at Alexandria and having all these new people arrive and all these crazy terrible things start happening like a week ago they were living peacefully and had been for like what like 2 years and now a ton of their members are dead they're being forced to fight for their lives when they were seemingly fine until Rick Grimes showed up in this slowed down episode we get to see some minor character progress like the continuation of the feud between Carl and Ron it's either in this episode or an upcoming one that they fight it's truly one of the worst choreograph fights I've ever seen in my life we catch up with the rest of the Anderson family and if Jesse is a hair stylist why does she give her son the will buyer's haircut like what's the point of your mom being a stylist if you're still just going to rock with this cut there's a romance Brewing between Rosita and Spencer at the same time a romance is forming between Abraham and Sasha so I wonder if these two will have some sort of mutual understanding and breakup and honestly I actually think that Rosita and Spencer look like a nice couple and she could have actually changed him into becoming a better character but that didn't happen Abraham and Rosita don't mutually break up and this was the start of a trend with really all female characters in this show but Rosita especially where if a woman doesn't have a storyline just pair them up in a new relationship this is something I noticed watching the series this time around and it happens over and over and over again and the writer's treatment of Rosita is Far and Away the worst when it comes to this but that's a rant for a later video Everything setting up Rick and Michonne gets shoved way to the sideline in favor of Jesse which I can see why they did that I don't think their intention was to have this woman whose husband was just murdered in another love triangle with Rick and Michonne but their scenes are cut back by so much that it's really noticeable they had to like separate them to further explore the Rick and Jesse romance which might be a hot take here but I actually really like them maybe it's just because I'm a sucker for this reality TV style romance between them but I thought that they had good chemistry I liked the character of Jesse and who she was turning into and I felt like she was going to be the comic Andrea replacement which is probably exactly what they wanted us to think for a later bait and switch shocking moment episode 6 once again shows us the Scott gimple Boomerang storytelling at its finest but this episode isn't actually all that bad in retrospect we get character development for Sasha and Abraham we see the Daryl setup with Dwight Sherry and the entire savior Arc and I don't think that this episode gets enough credit for that but I remember first watching this episode I didn't care about any of this I just wanted to see if Glenn was alive or not and now that we're going on 3 weeks of this Cliffhanger with no answer I was starting to lose interest entirely I still thoroughly believe that a lot of these episodes could have been condensed or combined for greater effect but this episode also kind of brings a character Arc full circle for Daryl him wanting to go out and recruit people and when he tries to recruit these people they ultimately end up traying him but it does make me wonder what would have happened if Dwight just accepted this help in the first place the beginning of episode 7 we return to the scene that Glenn died in for some reason I don't know why they're making us relive this it was so hard the first time oh wait it was actually Nicholas on top of Glenn so Glenn's alive Glenn's alive everyone so um what was the point of this this fake out death actually doesn't do anything for the story other than maybe add some more Stakes but it's not like there weren't already sufficient amount of stakes to begin with tons of people have died on this Mission we find out that Maggie is pregnant I guess it's to make us think about how terrible it would have been for Maggie to have this child without Glenn and now that he's actually alive we don't have to worry about that anymore wait a minute episode 7 is all about trying to keep Alexander together literally but also all the cracks are starting to form and people are starting to turn on each other get angry with each other which is pretty symbolic for where this place is as a whole when the wall Falls episode 8 is probably the most underwhelming midseason finale in the entire show it doesn't have a shocking death for the sake of a shocking death so I guess that's a win Deanna's death is quite symbolic because the Alexandria she envisioned died this day right along with her so it's sort of a Captain goes down with its ship ordeal but a lot of the plot lines were still being set up so they couldn't get the payoffs needed to happen in this episode we didn't get the payoffs because we spent so many episodes covering only one storyline and not in the way that was needed like in jss but then we get the first official mention of this new villain guy named Negan it's a strange name but this is another reason why this is my favorite season of the show I think the whole buildup to Negan is excellent I remember for the whole time around this season airing and how much all the comic readers were hyping up Negan and all the different casting rumors for him I think that the saviors themselves and as they're presented in the back half are honestly really menacing they were such wild cards you never really knew what they were going to do or say and this unpredictability actually made them pretty scary in a way that was lost later on now on to the episode no way out the episode that should have been the midseason finale but they wanted to give people a reason to come back after the break so it wasn't this is the last of the three episodes that are tied for the highest rated of the series and the more I watch of this episode the more I start to feel like it's a little overrated the bulk of this episode is actually having to do with Denise and the Wolf a storyline that I feel is all right but I don't buy that the wolf was changing into a good person whatsoever it's the last 20 minutes or so that make this episode as highly rated as it is and I think all of this is done and incredibly well the alexandrians coming together to fight is really impressive and symbolic the fall of the Anderson family has done very well and is very tragic but I do think this episode is the worst of the highest rated episodes it's still a great episode I'm not saying it's bad in any way but just not as good as the other two also with this being the last episode that is this highly rated in some ways it makes the show all downhill from here at this point onwards which isn't that great considering we're only about half halfway done with the show the next world is a fun episode there's not a lot of high stakes and I think it's a good pallet cleanser from the previous episode and the whole previous storyline we also meet Jesus which sets up a whole new world and seeing more of the Rick and Daryl Dynamic is always welcome this is of course the first episode when Rick and Michonne first kiss and other stuff and after rewatching this seeing all the hints and clues leading up to it I think this is a very earned moment I remember when I first saw this I thought it came out of nowhere but I couldn't have been more wrong the hints are literally there like from their first meeting from an audience perspective we saw far less of the Rick and Michonne Dynamic this season but we did see that Rick has come far enough emotionally to be ready to see someone else in Nots untie with the amount of focus on Abraham it almost seemed like this was the episode he was going to die in and going back to what I was talking about earlier with The Walking Dead and its treatment of female characters let's talk about Sasha Sasha just went through a whole storyline about finding a new purpose in life she lost her last boyfriend and then her brother and wanted it all to end but she continued on so what can they do with her character now H uh let's just find her a new love interest with Abraham oh Abraham already has a love interest well let's forget about her and then eventually we'll just find her a new love interest too The Walking Dead didn't really know what to do with female characters other than make them love interests I always talk about how I don't like the character of Rosita very much and it's mainly because of this but that's kind of what it boils down to Maggie and Carol are honestly the only ones with a concrete storyline about something else other than being a love interest Maggie starts to become the leader of the hilltop and that changes everything Carol does become someone's love interest but it's not her primary storyline and the reality of everything she's done in this world just comes crashing down on her which makes for an interesting storyline I guess but even Michonne from this point forward kind of just gets designated to Rick's love interest anyways in this episode we hear more about this Negan guy and his group of people called the saviors Rick offers to take them out because they seem like an issue and our group has never really come across another group of people that they can't deal with so why not but they've also never really gone on the offensive before and this leads me to my absolute favorite episode in the series not tomorrow yet I've talked a lot about this episode in the past and this is an extremely controversial and polarizing episode a long time ago I made a video about how this is the episode when our group became the villains and some people agreed some people said it was hard to root for our characters after this episode and some people say that the ends justify the means and I absolutely love all the conversation and debates surrounding this episode but one thing is absolutely certain in this episode our group does something something that they've never done before attack another group first and no those bikers stopping Daryl Abraham and Sasha on the road doesn't count because that was also in self-defense and this episode changes the course of the entire rest of the show for better or worse I find it very interesting how Morgan is against this attack because he thinks that all life is precious and that no one is ever too far gone so he starts building a cell just an interesting decision not at all something I'm going to bring up later this whole whole episode has Stakes that feel very real and like this is building up to something big and that's because it is we see that while not everybody wants to go through with this they understand that it's the best course of action that they have to take and in a lot of ways they trust Rick and what he thinks is best so if he thinks that this is the best course of action they're going to take it this episode is brutal and in some ways pretty hard to watch even our characters hesitate before fully going through with this plan but as a firefight breaks out it proves that our group was right and they could take these people on with no casualties which is a little strange this whole buildup to these saviors and this is what happens just seems a little too easy the next episode the same boat shows us a different side of the saviors and also the toll that this life and this lifestyle has taken on Carol and Maggie this is a great episode shows us again how smart Carol and Maggie are and overall I don't really have anything bad to say about it twice as far is guilty of giving a character a spotlight just to kill them that character being Denise I've mentioned this a lot now but The Walking Dead became notorious for doing this around this time in the show but her death is incredibly shocking and all around tragic it also sets up a rivalry between Daryl and Dwight and this definitely continues on but this is also easily the most intense confrontation and the best scene they have and it seems to carry the most weight behind it it again makes the saviors a pretty menacing Force because of how many of them there still are now Carol leaving feels kind of strange and forced she didn't have any issues with killing or this life in general up until a few episodes ago and it very much feels like this was needed just for our characters to all leave and go search for her maybe people feel differently and this feels natural but this is also why the reason the episode East is so strange because I just don't buy into this version of Carol this episode also completely reinforces how disappointing the Rick and Morgan reunion was this season there was so much buildup throughout season 5 and it was super highly anticipated they marketed the whole season around these two and this is maybe the third or fourth scene that they're in together they're just two very different characters and they aren't really friends take out their history and Morgan's really just like Rosita or Eugene in terms of how close he is with Rick but this episode just gives you the feeling that something bad is coming and with everybody going out on on their own personal agendas it feels a little contrived but you're also on the edge of your seat cuz you're just like yelling at your screen telling everybody to just go home it's almost worse when you know what comes next and how easily it could have been avoided had Daryl and Carol just stayed at Alexandria last day on Earth is a strange episode it's super low-rated but the actual episode itself isn't bad at all this is actually one of the most successful episodes in the series in terms of what they were trying to do we start the episode with Rick's mindset here there's only a few saviors there might be a time in the future with to do some battle but they've got this oh actually there's quite a bit of them now maybe we'll just turn around and deal with this later wait a minute how many saviors are there we definitely can't take this on now the suspense and Dread that builds as the episode goes on is terrifying and it feels so isolating as it continues on and there just ends up being more and more saviors we know something bad is going to happen but we didn't know how bad it was going to be everything about the entire ending scene is utterly amazing well not everything but the scene itself seeing Rick absolutely terrified is insane to see and Andrew Lincoln's performance here is incredible I can remember watching this scene the first time when it aired knowing that one of these characters that I really cared for was about to die I remember my heart racing and having like nightmares about this scene afterwards this is honestly up there with one of the scariest scenes I can think of which sounds strange cuz it's not really that scary but it's how I felt and then we get the Cliffhanger otherwise known as the moment that The Walking Dead truly died this Cliffhanger encompassed everything that was wrong with the show the manufactured story beats disrespecting the audience's emotions and intelligence holding out answers all for the sake of ratings and after the very next episode I think most people felt that was the nail in the coffin and for all intents and purposes who Negan really killed was you but just as we had to wait to see who was killed next season I'm going to wait to explain my fa thoughts on the Cliffhanger in the next video so for those of you who still leave comments on the other video and say that it's a good Cliffhanger I'm going to tell you right now that you're wrong and I'm going to die on that Hill the season has some very high highs one of the highest rated episodes four of the top 10 best episodes two very solid story lines that are done really well but there are also far more negatives about the season than any other season that came before it the biggest downfall with this season comes down to one thing and that's how it treated its audience like we were stupid my girlfriend and I now have an inside joke whenever we watch something that's in black and white and we're like oh this must take place in the past since it's black and white and that stems from this season of the show they didn't trust that we were smart enough to know know the difference between the present day and what was in the past they killed off Glenn but didn't actually give us confirmation talked about him so much in the episodes afterwards they didn't have Steven Yun on Talking Dead which they always did with principal cast members that died it wasn't shocking that he was alive and the fact that they thought it would be tells me that they think I'm stupid they didn't want to wrap up the first half of the season with an episode like no way out because they didn't trust that I was going to want to see what happens after that so they gave me a [ __ ] episode like start to finish in which basically nothing of importance happens so that way I'd stick around for more afterwards and if you didn't like that tactic in the midseason finale guess what they did it again in the actual season finale too audiences are smart but when you treat us like we're dumb it doesn't really make me want to come back for more it's the sacrifice of Art and storytelling for the business end of things ratings and profits and this season emphasized that more than ever before kind of proves that what ultimately killed the show was its own popularity and how people behind the scenes wanted to capitalize on it so how can I possibly think this is the best season after that rant the season came out when I was a senior in high school at this point all of my friends were watching the show we'd have like Sunday night parties like it was the Super Bowl and I have very fond memories watching this season I also have a personal preference on the first half of the season with the herd of Walkers kind of reminds me of the back half of season 4 and that was another portion of the show that I really loved and I lik the buildup to Negan and how it really felt like something bad and big was coming the season hits all the right notes for me personally and Strikes all the right emotional chords whether that be because of the storyline itself or because it reminds me of who I was and where I was at that point in my life the season has far more problems than any of the others that have come before it I understand and recognize that but with my own bias added in this season is a 10 out of 10 it's the gold standard for me when I think about this season I don't think about all the bad things I mentioned I think about how much I liked both halves I think back on the memories I have watching it for the first time and how this was my favorite and most enjoyable time watching The Walking Dead and that Rings True to this very day what are your thoughts on season 6 am I crazy for giving it a 10 let me know your thoughts in the comments below special thanks to all my channel members you guys are the best I appreciate your support more than you know and if you guys enjoyed the video make sure to leave it a like And subscribe for more content like this I apologize for the lateness of this video I'm still getting over being sick so sorry if my voice was a bit off in this video but I'll be having season 7 out by the end of this month too so subscribe and make sure you don't miss it and I'll see you all in the next one hopefully my voice will be better than it is now

Channel: The Thrifty Typewriter

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Length: 26min 52sec (1612 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 06 2024