There Are Spoilers In Our The Walking Dead: Worth Review – Episode Discussion
So the 15th episode of the 8th season of The Walking Dead just aired and in this one we see the return of Negan to The Saviours, which might be a surprise for Simon and Dwight. Meanwhile, both Rosita and Daryl go on a quest to scope out Eugene and his bullet making efforts.
I’ll first go into what’s going on with Eugene. The character as we know is basically just focused on his own survival and he seems to be motivated mostly by that, rather than the survival of the ‘group’ that he happens to be in at the time. In this episode we see him working on the bullets for Negan and seems to be a little worried about his fate under Simon’s leadership as I think he doesn’t really know what direction Simon might take as he’s been away from most of the Saviours for some time now.
Eugene’s story in this episode plays into both Rosita’s and Daryl’s plot line, as both Rosita and Daryl kidnap Eugene and start leading him away from his factory. While Daryl is mostly quiet in this episode, there is some tension from him and quite a lot from Rosita towards Eugene. Eugene joining The Saviours and working for them all this time has hurt many in those from Rick’s group who see Eugene as a bit of a traitor and his decision to leave with Negan all those episodes ago was just the start of his betrayal. But things were made worse with his former group when Eugene was credited for the heroic escape route he thought up when Rick’s group had everyone boxed in with all those walkers during the mid-season finale.
We see things get quite tense between Eugene, especially from Rosita who talks down to him the whole walk back. So much so that I think this scares Eugene and after a short distraction is made by a bunch of Walkers that distract Daryl, Eugene vomits on Rosita and runs away. Strangely enough, he gets away by hiding in some ash on the ground. Now I don’t think Eugene is exactly a model character and in this episode I guess he comes across as a bit of a pig, even the treatment of his own workers in his factory is quite bad. But the attack from Daryl and Rosita seems to have riled him up and when he returns back to work, he even starts making bullets himself. Whether or not Negan is going to have good working bullets I don’t know, or if he’ll have enough bullets I just don’t know. But Eugene is a curious key to the war between Rick and Negan and what he does here as the main supplier could change its course.
On Negan’s side of the episode, this is where things were most interesting. We saw Negan return to The Saviours last week, although his return was kept secret. The episode sees us start with a conversation between Simon and Gregory. Gregory is basically begging for his life and we see quite a bit of determination from the character to stay alive. Simon does spare Gregory in the end, which is a strange moment of mercy from the character that’s been mostly savage throughout the show. But for some reason and it might have been Gregory’s speech, but Simon likes Gregory.
Negan’s return is slow, but he eventually reveals himself to Dwight first, then later in a meeting Simon and everyone sees Negan back. Negan first seems like he’s going to take care of Simon right away with Lucille and we learn a little from Negan’s speech about Simon’s past with Negan and how he helped him to take the place they currently lead. It’s revealed that Simon was particularly savage during this time in their past and this was a concern of Negan’s, but I guess he hasn’t had to worry about it until now, when it returned. It wasn’t entirely because of his mutiny attempt, but it had a lot to do with the slaughtering of the people at the dump. This meant that Simon was still the same person he always was and I guess Negan needed to take care of him.
But surprisingly, Negan actually spares Simon at first and lets him go free and things return as they are, he’s forgiven by Negan. But it’s not long before Simon resumes with his mutiny and tries to get Dwight in on it. Negan is a step ahead though and Dwight keeps him in the loop about the mutiny and it’s all over for Simon yet again. But even this was not the end of Simon it seems, Negan instead of just killing him, challenges him to a fight for leadership. A public brawl takes place and the two fight each other in one of the most brutal moments of the series, with Negan ending up as the winner. This means that Simon’s character is no more and he was ended in a humiliating type of way, in front of everyone in his group in a one on one fight.
I for one don’t know about Simon. I enjoyed him as a villain and am going to miss him in the show. I always thought that Steven Ogg as an actor did very well as the character and his performance was scary at times. I’d like to commend Steven Ogg on the great work with the character, I enjoyed all of his moments in the show. In recent episodes Simon became very interesting and his rise and eventual downfall as well as the bad things that he did to the people at the dump left us with quite a lot to discuss. I certainly will miss him in the show.
This episode had one final twist in it, in that Dwight who we’ve known as traitor of The Saviours for some time now gets discovered. We saw a few episodes ago that a woman had escaped during the time he was with Rick and his people and she was a witness to Dwight helping them out and even killing his own people. A thing in itself which is actually pretty bad to do. We know he wants to kill Negan, but all he mostly did in that moment was get a lot of his own people killed. The episode ends with the discovery of Dwight, although it seems Negan has a plan for the character in the future, what it will be though I just don’t know.
Overall this was a solid episode of the show. The most interesting developments were on the side of The Saviours and it seems that Negan has deviated away from his “saving” people ideas of the last few weeks and after the killing of Simon and finding out about Dwight and even after hearing Carl’s letter, it seems Negan is focused on killing everyone at The Hilltop and is back in villain mode again. That leaves me wondering what Rick’s going to get up to next week and if he is at all going to find a way to solve this crisis, the war and also save people in the process? Can’t wait to see next week’s episode, it’s sure to be another great one!
The Walking Dead airs express from the US on Mondays from at 1.30pm and 7:30pm on Showcase on Foxtel
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is a film which comes written and directed by Quentin Tarantino who some may know for films such as The Hateful Eight (2015) or Pulp Fiction (1994). The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Dakota Fanning and Al Pacino. Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is about a fading Hollywood actor and his stunt double who are striving to achieve success in the final years of the Hollywood golden age.
Before going into this film, I must admit I was quite excited about it. This is the 9th film from Quentin Tarantino, who is one of my favourite directors of all time and the cast is filled with so many great actors there’s no reason to not want to see this one. Even though my expectations for this film were set very high, I came out of the cinema incredibly happy, very entertained and extremely impressed with what I just saw. Quentin Tarantino has truly delivered something very special this year and I highly recommend going to see it.
The way the story is told is very interesting. The audience follows the career of Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) who is trying to maintain his stardom and Hollywood status in a time when things are changing. The actor is trying to transition from being a major TV star to a Hollywood actor, but it’s very difficult. On top of this, Rick Dalton is ageing and he is no longer in his prime, he’s sort of becoming obsolete. Cliff (Brad Pitt) is sharing a similar fate with his career tied to the success or failure of Rick’s. In contrast to these two, Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) is a character who is everything good about Hollywood in 1969, her personality is welcoming, she helps people and she’s friendly. Quentin Tarantino’s Sharon Tate is the ideal Hollywood star of the time.
Quentin Tarantino with this film captured the spirit and essence of Hollywood in 1969. I felt like I was watching real people going through real things. The attention to detail on each of the characters and also watching them develop as the film progresses was very well done. This film also one has of the best endings and is maybe the best film that I’ve seen in 2019.
The actors were all great, I really enjoyed watching Leonardo DiCaprio in this film. The actor has a very wide range of things he could do as his character Rick Dalton is going through quite a lot and there are a lot of different emotional elements. On top of this, as a character who is an actor, Rick is seen acting in other films within this film as different characters he is playing. There are some very good performances within this film from Rick Dalton and in some ways, I wish I could watch the films that he was making within this film. Brad Pitt does very well and so too does Margot Robbie. Dakota Fanning surprised me a lot in this film as I didn’t even recognise her as Squeaky Fromme, she was only in the film for a bit, but for that time she was, she was very impactful.
Overall, I have no further comments to make about this film without having to go into major spoilers discussing all the different elements of it. It’s hard to write a long review for a film when everything was awesome in it. The directing, acting, writing, music and everything else about Once Upon A Time In Hollywood was awesome and Quentin Tarantino exceeded my expectations for this film. It may just be one of his best ones yet. I highly recommend going to see it at the cinema this week or as soon as you can. I am already wanting to see it a second time and probably will re-watch it on Blu-Ray when it’s released.
Crawl is a film which comes directed by Alexendre Aja who some may know as the director of The Hills Have Eyes (2006). The film stars Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper.
Crawl is a film about a young woman named Haley (Kaya Scodelario) who attempts to save her father (Barry Pepper) who is trapped in his house during a category 5 hurricane. Tremendous damage has occurred to the home and the surrounding area during the storm, with the streets slowly flooding But that’s not the only danger to be wary of, the flood waters have paved the way for dozens of alligators to come into town and they’re ready to feast on anyone still around. Will poor Haley and her father survive though?
Going into this film. I was actually quite excited. I do enjoy these action films where there’s some creature out there and it’s preying on whatever character the film is about. This film is a little similar to The Meg, but it most reminded me of Anacondas (2004). All of these films and Crawl included wouldn’t be ones I’d say were legendary films, but gosh, I definitely have fun watching them!
Crawl as a story is about survival. There are themes all throughout it related to man vs nature and also the idea of the apex predator is scattered all throughout it. Both characters in the film are constantly challenged and struggle to survive in the a town getting torn apart by the storm.
The main reason most people would go to see Crawl at the cinema would be for the action and that’s the same reason I wanted to go along and see this one. I wanted to see what the alligators could do and I wanted to see some people get eaten up. Did I get that? I certainly did! Did I need much more out of this? Probably not.
As for Crawl being scary. I’m not too sure, I find it all quite fun. But there are people who this would probably frighten a little. Much of the film is cgi and for what it is and for the type of movie this is I think it was just the right quality. They didn’t try to go too big like in The Meg where the cgi seemed to struggle in certain areas. Although the limitations of the cgi are visible in Crawl, it’s not too bad in the end.
The acting in Crawl isn’t too bad. Kaya Scodelario is who you’ll be watching for basically the entire film and she delivers a pleasant performance. Some may recognise this actress from her appearance in The Maze Runner (2014) where she played Teresa. Hopefully there is more to come from her in future films.
The tone of the film, while at times can be a little intense with all the danger out there did actually feel a little light. Alexandre Aja seemed to keep the tone not too serious and embraced the silliness of it all in certain areas to keep it light and fun. But it was also tense and scary when it needed to be.
Overall I had a good time with Crawl at the cinema last week. This isn’t a film that is going to blow anyone away with how good it is, but it’s something to see for a bit of fun over the weekend. You get to watch two characters try to survive a massive hurricane and not get eaten by alligators. Crawl was 1 hour and 27 minutes of fun!
Sea Of Solitude is a game which was developed by Jo-Mei Games and was published by Electronic Arts. It is available on PS4, Xbox One and PC via Origin. It is a single player third person adventure game. The game has the player control a character named Kay who explores an abandoned and flooded city.
This was a game which caught my eye only very recently when I first heard about its release. After watching the trailer, I thought the art style, strong colours and animations looked very interesting. Also as a person who went mad one day and subscribed to EA’s Origin Premiere late last year so that I could play some games I had missed out on over the years, I was pleased to see something new added to the store that wasn’t a typical Electronic Arts style major franchise game. Knowing I could get this one for free was enough to give it a go. But if you’re not part of that program to get it for free, I’d say that the $26.95 asking price for this digital title is certainly worth it.
The game isn’t too long, most hardened gamers will probably be able to finish this one in a single session, which I actually managed to do yesterday morning. I didn’t time myself, but I’d say to expect about 3 or so hours out of it, a bit more if you look around for collectables.
Sea Of Solitude Review
On the surface, Sea Of Solitude is about a young girl named Kay, who is searching through a city, which is for some reason flooded. You start the game all alone on a tiny boat, way out at sea on the water. You make your way to the city, where you find a monster clad in darkness is blocking your path. Through exploration and activating certain things, Kay brings light to an otherwise dark city.
Underneath the main plot though, is a game with strong messages and themes related to loneliness and relationships. Kay as a character is someone who has become lonely, isolated and quite depressed after issues with her family and her boyfriend. The game sends the player on a journey to free Kay and other characters from suffering from the effects of loneliness and related themes. What I didn’t expect this weekend, was to play a game which seemed to have the objective of tackling these mental health issues in this way and I never expected to play something this weekend from the gaming genre with such deep meaning to it.
In many ways, Sea Of Solitude reminded me of my experience with Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice which was also a game that focused on mental health issues and is still a game I hold in very high regard. Both of these games were experiences that I could not put down once I started playing as I just had to find out what was going to happen with my character. Games tackling these mental health themes and the issues involved are quite rare in this medium, so when an experience like this does come along, it’s very unique and interesting. The difference between Sea Of Solitude and Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is that Sea of Solitude is a little lighter in tone and not the intense gruelling experience that Senua’s was. This makes a player’s time with Sea Of Solitude one that is peaceful to experience.
Sea Of Solitude Review
The art style in Sea Of Solitude is something I enjoyed looking at. The animations are very rounded, colours stand out on the screen and the use of blacks in contrast with visibly bright blues, whites and orange was what I loved the most. The music and also the voice acting, was soft and did fit in well with the tone of the game’s themes and art style. All together, visuals and audios seemed to be just right.
The gameplay in Sea Of Solitude is something I’d say is probably a little simple. It’s essentially a platforming game where you will jump, swim, drive a boat and shoot flares onto enemies. There aren’t any button combinations to learn or any level up systems. The game is accessible to people of most ages and even to people new to gaming could easily pick this one up and get through it.
Overall coming out of playing Sea Of Solitude, I was filled with positivity and happiness. The story is quite heavy when playing through it, but very warm in the end. The art style and animations are nice to see and the sound and voice acting was just right. I do like to see that the games industry can use the medium to tackle such heavy topics and release games like this which show how well this medium can tell a story and provide its audience with something of great meaning. I’m happy to recommend Sea Of Solitude for your gaming collection.
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