Serafili Rose

The acting is uneven, but the real richness in this series is in the flashbacks. FtWD was supposed to show us the collapse of society, but the flashbacks sprinkled throughout the episodes showed us far more of that than FtWD or even the flashbacks in OG series ever did. Pros: glints of world building, like security gates for people with terminal illnesses (and possibly just old age?) Glimpses of the World Before, and puzzling over the relics left behind. I liked their ingenuity and problem-solving. I know others called them ‘soft,’ and were disgusted by it, but they weren’t all that different from the Alexandrians at their start. Since this is a limited series, I appreciated the focus on a small cast, as opposed to the ever-sprawling “that guy hasn’t had a line in three episodes, info dump and kill ‘im off,” practice that’s become so common on the first shows. While certainly less gritty than either series, I found the storyline just plausible enough for a settlement that genuinely believed they’d gotten past the daily slaughter. Cons: The actors were ridiculously clean and well-dressed. The female characters *never*tie their hair back, and so,ehow, ten years later, there are still edible canned goods and beverages. Several characters get injuries that put them in dire peril of blood poisoning, but they’re just covered with plain gauze. Some gaping plot holes. It’s almost like the writer of some later episodes was pulled to write without knowing about the previous script reveals, Sadly, there’s nothing new here, a great many echoes of character types and situations seen in the first two series. The CRM was set up as the big bad boogeyman, and we got a poorly thought out, poorly blocked cliffhanger. Will I watch Season 2? Probably. I haven’t enjoyed the near torture pr0n of recent seasons. Maybe it’s the pandemic, but I prefer this series’ focus on skullduggery and living. If you want buckets of gore and splatter, or a comics purist, this series isn’t for you.