It still was the number one cable show. Plus many people don't watch live any more. So we need to wait four weeks or so to see what the ratings are with delayed viewing. And of course it's a sign of the times. Since ratings have been lower for most TV content for years now.

The current season was/is still filmed mostly in Georgia.

Was it just me that was thinking it wasn't a walker but a whisperer?

Or at least putting an arrow into her

If it was a whisperer it wouldn't of attacked her like a walker, they carry weapons and attack humans when they get close, they don't attack like a walker.

That would seem to make the most sense, since we've never seen loads of fresh red blood pour out of the countless Walkers they have stabbed and cut over the years ...
However, it really "seemed" to be a walker, in all respects right up to the end .. and even Carol didn't look like she acknowledged in any way she was killing a human ....

Walker or Whisperer, it was really an incredibly bad ass scene ..

Fixed it for you.

C'mon now .. that scene along with the slo-mo of Michonne slicing Walker heads in half .. ?? Some of the best Human / Walker action we've had in a while ..

Back in the day of Rick Grimes, the gang would periodically don Walker "blood", maybe skin (I can't remember) .. so the idea behind the Whisper Clan is not really breaking any new ground .. yawn

Now I did like the head-slicing! You know the vfx department was pretty pleased with themselves after that one. By this time, it must be terribly challenging to come up with new ways of dispatching walkers in a nifty-cool way.

I sort of always assumed the walkers had blood to a certain degree, depending on how "open" their skin was. But it was kind of coagulated or congealed. Perhaps the consistency of pudding! I rather like pudding.

But spurting and flowing means it is liquid-under-pressure. Just can't see that. I have to ground this stuff in some kind of "reality" (work with me here), just to make it through an episode with my eyes still facing forward.

I finally got around to binge watching the back half of season 9 (8 episodes)…I binged it through Netflix and while the 1080p picture quality is improved over AMC it still looks pretty bad (too much intentional grain and softness)...

The Good: 1) Samantha Morton is excellent as Alpha...she nails the Southern accent as well which is impressive considering she's British...The Whisperers are the best villain group the show has ever done...Beta is also really cool...the actor playing him, Ryan Hurst, is an imposing figure at 6'4" tall and the trench coat and creepy mask look great on him...2) even though it was only for one episode I loved that they finally showed us a different season other then summer...we finally got to see winter and snow (even though the snow looked really fake)...3) Greg Nicotero is still at the top of his game with the zombie/walker prosthetics

The Bad: the episodes still follow the exact same pattern of previous years...big bad group invades, the good guys get beaten, some of the group gets killed, they lose hope and by the end they re-group and decide to fight again...the episodes when watched on a week-to-week basis would be really boring...binge watching it improves the flow and you can overlook the pacing issues and boring episodes...the best episode of S9 was the heads on a pike one and even that was sort of silly because no major character gets killed, it's mostly dispensable C and D level people (at least in the comics 2 somewhat major characters died)...but they did a good job adapting that major moment from the comics

The Ugly: Judith is annoying as hell...she doesn't talk like any normal 10 year old and they make her seem way too much like an adult...Henry was also annoying...constantly making stupid mistakes...luckily he was one of the heads on the pike so we don't have to deal with him anymore

overall Angela Kang has improved the show over Scott Gimple but a lot of the same issues remain...luckily The Whisperers are worth watching...with Michonne's upcoming exit this season can Daryl and Carol really carry this show?

It was blood, the walkers wearing the skin is the “new” part. Helps them hide within the pack/horde.

The big unknown, though... how much ammunition was used up during the initial days and months of the outbreak? We see a little taste of it in one small location in the first season of "Fear the..." but the main Walking Dead series jumps from Rick's pre-apocalypse being shot to his waking from a coma with the world already gone to hell. Who knows how much ammo was ran through during that time. There might not be a lot left... and even if there is, it is likely spread out all over the place... so even if there is a big stockpile in a few places, you'd have to go there and find it.

Pretty good episode ' all whispers. The lady who tried to get under the car from the walkers was pretty intense ' the bite on the leg was just nasty looking then tearing her apart was worst than most attacks. Alpha was excellent also.

Also, the Whisperers aren't just walking between the dead to hide. They're actively directing the zombies and using herds as a controlled weapon.

Thought this episode was a snooze fest and the reveal on the start of the Whisperers was just lame and anti-climatic. I find nothing about the Whisperers scary or threatening. Easily able to be gunned down in mass at any time and walking so slow with real walkers just makes them even less of a threat.

if you think about the logistics of The Whisperers too much it starts to fall apart...I'll just go with the illusion...

Yeah, you could be right. They never seem to show much scavenging going on, though. Given the scarcity of resources, I would be clearing every abandoned house (which seems to be most of them) and finding/taking everything of value. Canned goods, ammo, firearms, liquor, maps, whatever.

The recent episode was ok. Nothing to write home about.

Is it just me, or have they stepped up the gore a notch this season?

Wow, no comments on the episode aired 10/20?

I liked it ok. The Negan and what's-his-name now with metal arm guy scenes were pretty good. I have a hard time taking Alpha as frightening, but maybe that's just me. The actress's performances are certainly well done.

With Michonne on the outs, I would have thought that the Writers would be grooming somebody to take over as the new Leader ..

For me, Alpha just does not stack up as the new Big Bad .. sadly, I feel I'm just at the point of watching the show out of habit as much as anything else .. a good sign of that is if I overshoot on FF with commercials, I don't even bother to backtrack anymore ..

the fact that AMC already renewed the show for Season 11 shows that they don't care about rapidly falling viewership and declining ratings...AMC is now stuck because they committed to making these silly Rick Grimes movies so now they feel they have to keep the show going at least until the movies hit...

Yeah, me too. I'm still watching more out of habit than any lingering love for the show. It's not exactly hate-watching. More like "I've come this far, dammit" and feel like I've got too much time invested now to quit. What if it gets good again? What if they actually, really shift gears and start actively looking for a cure and, say, meet some scientists who are on the verge or something? That's really the only thing that could re-engage me at this point.

Which is silly, my rational mind tells me. No reason to doubt Kirkland when he says he's never going there, but he has "closed the book" now. So maybe AMC and the other executive producers might want to take things in a new direction...? Ratings are falling and they might feel the need to inject some new life in the franchise...?

Nah. Never happening. But nevertheless, I persist. I really wish they would just wrap it up so I can wrap it up.

Ratings are down compared to previous seasons but TWD is still the highest rated show on cable. I'm sure AMC is concerned with the trend but they aren't stuck with a failed show.

This is the rationale many use .. IMO, it just means there are quite a lot of us still watching out of habit and years of commitment ..

HBO could have kept Game of Thrones on the air for another 5 seasons...same with a lot of other popular shows...but there's something to be said for knowing when to end it...leave them wanting more versus people getting sick of it...as a showrunner or writer the best thing you can do is create a story and let it have a beginning, middle and end...shows like Walking Dead are stuck in a continuous middle loop

me personally I can no longer watch Walking Dead on a week-to-week basis...I need to build up the episodes and binge watch...I only recently watched the back half of Season 9...the show is too slow to watch weekly...binging it I can somewhat enjoy it more and overlook the flaws in terms of pacing and story

Neither the network nor the advertisers care why you watch a show. They only care that you do watch it.

Who would have thunk it .. ??

First episode in some I wound consider good, hope they keep it up.

I thought the first half was pretty good, the second half not so much. Just kill her already, problem solved. So many opportunities wasted. She isn't scary, she isn't a big bad villain like Neegan was, she is boring and her whole group/concept is actually boring.


Best parts of the episode was Neegan, he cracked me up with his lines and delivery. We need more of him.