If anyone's wondering why some scenes are completely blurred out, this video was recently age-restricted for graphic violence. And for those of you who don't know, an 18+ age-restriction on RUclips is essentially a death sentence for any video. So, I ultimately chose to blur out these images for the preservation of this video. It's not ideal, but it's really the only choice I had. For future videos, I will be incorporating more *creative* ways to censor graphic content. But yeah, thanks for watching...I'm out!
to be fair, the villian gotta die but im sure Walter died as happy man Walter got the best death for himself by the situation he secured the money for his childrens saved Jesse so he could get a new life his talent is finally recognized got the attention he deserved in a way satisfied his Ego and vengeance spent his last breath with his beloved cooking tools and what killed him wasnt the cancer that been slowly killing him rotten but a bullet
@@RandomRothbardian im saying that Walter choose to die that way yes he couldve survive that shot if he treated himself but he choose to let the wound bleed out
I don’t know if this was intentional or not, but BB taking up such a small segment of the video compared to TWD feels like a reflection of both shows uses of time
That’s because Vince Gilligan is infinitely better at writing a show than Robert Kirkman. Kirkman had a plethora of great actors and resources to work with, but it was either lazy writing or something else that kept TWD from reaching its full potential. Luckily I hear good things about Dead City , so we’ll see how that turns out I guess.
@@MrPatPatriot223How can you possibly blame Kirkman when he did the least amount of work when it came to the show. He made the comics and the story, yeah, but the comics are widely accepted as amazing, unlike later seasons of the show. You can blame none other than Scott Gimple for the massive drop in quality post season 7
@@MrPatPatriot223 Kirkman literally didn't have much to do with the show at all (he was more like a counselor that gave advice sometimes),if you want someone,blame Scott Gimple and AMC. Saying Kirkman was the responsible of the dip in quality of TWD just shows your lack of understanding of the whole situation
@@baggybones yeah, I guess you’re right. I have heard a lot about Scott Gimple and what he did, but that’s exactly what I don’t understand. What did he do?
Man I wanna see the alternate timeline where frank darabont was never fired and he stayed the showrunner of TWD through all of it. I feel like his vision of TWD was SO MUCH better than what we got
Somewhat agree I think the "turns when dies" twist explanation could have been done way better (and has been done better even in TWD"s own franchise) than blowing up a whole ass CDC building in the middle of a city and preceding on like they didn't just witness a whole ass landmark get destroyed in the most action movie bs way it ended up being Feels too much, TWD is meant to be more down to earth and I kind of wonder if Darabont would have created bigger hollywood ass set-pieces as the series went on
@@binterwinterboyii1095 Kirkman didn't like that scene either that's why they didn't explore the origins of the virus or variants until the very end. He thought the CDC arc was a mistake.
I always thought a great ending for The Walking Dead as a show would be S5E11 when the group reaches Alexandria and Rick can hear children playing behind the wall.
I actually agree but the irony of that is Kirkman set out to write a zombie story where they rebuild society. He wanted to answer the question, "Yeah, but what happens after the zombie movie ends?" It's my humble opinion even the comic fell off after Negan showed up and completely fell off a cliff after they put him in the cell. Which is weird to say since I really liked Negan as a character. I just feel like the comic could have ended perfectly after they locked him up and showed they didn't have to kill anymore.
I’m currently on s7 and I agree season 5 is absolutely what I think the end would be, sadly they keep going and ruining and rehashing the same stuff they keep doing over and over
I agree. I know most people point to Glen dying as when TWD essentially died, but you can see the show slowly loose it’s footing after season 5. Ending during S5 would have been great, the show would have concluded naturally.
@josephmatthews7698 I sort of agree but idk the whisper war was pretty good too. I would've hated to miss out on that if it just ended when they locked up negan
Something that blew my mind was the title of the last episode. "Felina" is not only an anagram of the word "Finale" but it also spells out different chemical elements. Fe is iron, Li is lithium, and Na is sodium. And all these chemicals can be found in blood, sweat, and tears.
I've felt post show depression twice and they were from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul and believe it or not I felt it worse with BCS and I'm not ready to feel it a third time when It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia ends 😅
The fact that Raymond Cruz left Breaking Bad because he disliked the mental strain it took to play Tuco yet still reprises his role for Better Call Saul shows how much he appreciates the fans and that cant go underappreciated
You could tell in BCS his character was a lot more tame (except for maybe that one scene with Mike). Maybe it’s a story thing but I think Gilligan toned him down for Cruz.
@@jackpackage4278 the in story reason is that tuco didn’t have a horrendous meth addiction yet They definitely put that in to help Cruz but it’s a reason
@@Neolith_from what I’ve read the actor knew people in real life who acted like Tuco, hence where he got the inspiration on how to act, and that was affecting his mental state while acting because it reminded him of those things (again, this is what I’ve read, not sure where the interview is)
I stopped watching TWD around season 4-5 because I'd realized that the show basically repeated itself constantly. 1. The survivors reach a place of safety. 2. Everything settles into a peaceful routine. 3. Rick screws it up somehow. 4. Everything burns down. 5. Everyone gets separated and spends a few episodes wandering around until they all miraculously wind up back together. It happened with Hershall's farm. It happened with the prison. It happened with Alexandria. By the end of the Alexandria story arc, I was just done. I realized that Rick was actually the antagonist of the series, and he was the reason bad things kept happening. I didn't really care to see where the show went from there.
@@thecommonloon And how many times did Rick decide that they had to kill people because "they might be a threat", or try to take control of the situation from someone else and wind up getting a lot of people killed, or make obviously bad decisions that put his people in jeopardy for no good reason?
What i like about breaking bad is, at the end you realize that's the only way it could end, and from the beginning it's just a natural progression with a natural ending.
Agreed it was the perfect ending for all the characters, Walter died on his own terms and never saw the inside of a jail cell and Jesse manages to get away free after all the torment he went through
It's a perfect tragedy, in the mode of Sophocles or Shakespeare. The ending isn't inevitable, and is actually avoidable at several key inflection points, but the character traits and flaws of the protagonist make it seem inevitable, because those flaws shape their choices
It showed the writing and production too. They didn't have a series goal really, they would theorize situations that seemed plausible, reference it with some research to see if it was viable, and then work the elements of the dialogue and such to fit. It made it "feel more real," than 99% of "reality tv"
so u expect me to believe that over the course of 2 years (which the show takes place), a high school drop out who can only say things like "yeah science bitch" and smoked meth, could teach a group of cartel hired scientists how to do a complete, perfect cook? its natural that person who is supposed to be like 18, and weighs like 150lbs at the start of the show, looks like hes 40 and weighs like 200 lbs after being trapped in a pit as a hostage? gtfoh
Breaking Bad is one of the only shows that didn't leave me feeling empty after it ended. The Walking Dead did but I still loved the entire show just as much as breaking bad.
I totally agree. After I finished TWD I felt so empty I went back and rewatched season 1, then I felt better. Breaking Bad never had that issue for me.
Yeah, Breaking Bad went out with a bang and it didn't feel like there needed to be more, as good as it was. The finale just left you reflecting on the whole show and seeing the progression of all the characters from the first episode to the last in your head. It was a full circle moment and it was satisfying. TWD's finale on the other hand was a finale to a carcass of a show. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it until the end and I don't think the finale was bad. It was definitely well written and wrapped up a lot of the character's story. However, knowing Rick is still out there, the character that we closely followed for 8 seasons and a half, it doesn't feel fulfilling ending the show without that main character and obviously knowing that there is going to be spinoffs too. In my eyes, the show practically hasn't ended yet and it hasn't really. It's yet to have that full circle moment.
Also in on of the interviews Frank Darabont said that Breaking Bad is the greatest show on television. But I still wonder how good The Walking Dead could have been if he stayed as showrunner. I mean imagine firing a guy that directed The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile.
SPOILERS: The only other show I've seen that truly stuck the landing as well as BB was Avatar: The Last Airbender. The finale had everything: the big final battle of the world between Aang and Ozai, the personal battle of the soul between Zuko and Azula, the Zuko/Iroh reunion, the cliffhanger about Zuko's mom, Aang and Katara finally being together. It was the best payoff and a happy ending, which we never seem to get anymore. I know it's a kid's show, but as an adult who watched it for the first time, I couldn't help but think that if the writers of Game of Thrones had just watched AtLA, the show would have ended extremely differently (and better)
If you haven't seen it I highly recommend Better Call Saul I think they stuck the landing on that show as well as they did with BB but I know other people don't hold that opinion as strongly as they do with BB
@jolopolo4761 Game of Thrones, past season 5, really suffered from similar (dragged out) albeit different (stemmed from lack of source material) issues that the Walking Dead did
Vince Gilligan and the rest of the team absolutely smashed it with breaking bad, but I personally think better call saul is even better. As you mentioned the team hit their stride in season 5, and that same team carried on with BCS. It's absolutely incredible. It also nails the landing with the ending too. I'm very much looking forward to seeing what they achieve next.
I loved BB , but thought BCS bested it as the main is just an all-star. That being said, the last season BCS was lackluster and was a letdown IMO. Oden's movie was also god awful.
@@nextleveltravelphwdym?? The bus fight scene in "Nobody" is one of the best fight scenes in recent cinema. There's a ton of analysis and YT videos explaining why it's so well done.
I wish I liked BCS as much as everyone else. There are countless moments from BB I can go back to and point out and discuss at length - there's almost zero of those for BCS for me.
@@ErinJeanette BCS is a smarter and more low-key show. It doesn't have as many explosive and violent episodes but it's overall deeper and more consistent. With BB you can tell in the first couple seasons they didn't quite know what they had yet and were experimenting a bit. That makes the first couple seasons very fun, but they do stick out a bit, especially the horrible awkward moments like Skylar jacking Walt off for like 10 minutes in the first episode. BCS from the very first frame was apparent it was the work of some master filmmakers who had been steadily improving their craft throughout the entire runtime of Breaking Bad and it only gets better as it goes on. I think Breaking Bad is colored by everyone's memory a bit.
@@EldritchAugur for sure. I just wish I liked it as much, perhaps I need to watch it again. I need to give it another chance and then I bet it'll sink in.
I just want to say good work. I see a lot of creators at this kind of size having a lot of struggle in finding their voice in their video essays, but you really nailed it. You have a great intro, thesis, and the way you break down both shows serves that thesis well. Your transitions from each point also work really well. I like this a lot and I hope your channel keeps growing.
@@madgavin7568 I am talking about overly exaggerated, unbelievable scenes and arcs, in particular the Mike's shot at the car in the desert and Lalo's Germany arc. To me, they were more akin to a late Season of Sons of Anarchy, since they were all spectacles without any basis in reality. The worst BB ever committed were chemistry related scenes, which are only an issue if one knows chemistry.
@@MrBell-iq3sm Mike's shot at the car in the desert isn't unbelievable in the slightest, the man is a trained sniper after all. Lalo in Germany might seem a little far-fetched but considering how resourceful, intelligent and skilled Lalo is, its not implausible. The Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul series fall more into the 'plausible' than 'realistic'. If you want to watch a realistic TV show, watch The Wire or Homicide: Life on the Street.
@@madgavin7568 It's not about his ability to hit a moving target, it's the fact that the car exploded into a million pieces. Mike didn't use an RPG. Far-fetched is, unfortunately, an understatement, since it couldn't have worked on multiple levels (if you want I can list some of its problems or ask you some questions to see if you find an explanation), but even if it could, Lalo should have known that the Germans could not have the proof he needed.
The Walking Dead having so many episodes was inevitable. The Walking Dead follows source material that lasted for 16 years. Breaking Bad is a completely original story. Although I do believe if The Walking Dead started years later then it'd be a lot more comic-accurate and they'd actually know when the story would end
@@hadessdlt8720 Not even close, tbh. The earlier seasons do a great job of keeping what worked from the early comic arcs and improving it with new material, save for completely ruining Andrea, arguably the best character from the comics. Seasons 4 and 5 introduced too many cliches and made the pacing too predictable by starting the "1, 8, 9, 16" pattern, and everything after Season 6 was hammered dogshit.
Carl's death was what finally put me off The Walking Dead, it was just the ultimate statement of the writers not understanding the comic they were adapting, and that they had long ago traded quality story and writing for buying into their own hype. Literally the next story arc after The Saivours follows an older Carl, after a timeskip, going from a boy to a man and becoming the next Rick Grimes, and it was one of the main driving forces behind The Whisperer story that was just completely absent in the TV show. I think a really ballsy move, that could have been very well recieved if done right, would have been for the creators of TWD to end the show before they had fully adapted the comic, and end it on a high note instead of fading away
I think they did it for the wrong reason. They didn't kill Carl for any reason other than shock value. If I had to pick one major flaw TWD fell to is it became more interested in being shocking rather than interesting
I remember seeing an interview where the writers said the show was actually about Carl and what a kid would be like who grew up in this kind of world. Really shit the bed there lol.
The fun (or sad) thing is that Kirkman specified in the last comic that he felt the comic needed to end at this point, even if he didn't want to, because he felt there was nothing else to say that would improve the story. Instead, the TV series (that was alredy an extremely watered down version of the comic) decided to keep going with 3/4 different spin offs.
@MASTEROFEVIL now I'm crying again. I bawled like a little baby when I watched it as an adult, and in my daddy's heads pace. He was in WW2 AND Korea. I wish I had understood what he saw and felt before he died. And now I'm crying like a baby.
I've noticed that when the Walking dead started to fall off in the popcultural zeitgeist it also ended up killing the Zombie fad that was going on with it Meanwhile here we are nearly a decade later after breaking bad ended and a year after better call saul ended and they're still being talked about and memes and theory and essay videos ect are being made about it and its world and its characters to this day
I think the reason why breaking bad was so good because in the first season they made the viewer know that the show had to have an end and that the main character had to die and the entire show is made to build up to the end, they didn’t make the show then add the end, the entire show was the end
Knowing exactly where the show has to go and always working towards that goal definitely helps, yeah. You can stray from it here and there, trying to postpone it, but if you *know* what the fate of your character is and how they should act in the end, you've got a good idea of what to work towards. Definitely explains how the Walking Dead ended up so aimless. They had the comics for ideas, but from Season 1 they never adhered strictly to it, so it wasn't essential that they follow in its footsteps.
Ozymandias and Granite State, man, those episodes were unreal. The ending scene of Granite State was the most badass, perfect and beautifully crafted TV moment I've ever watched.
Im glad TWD comics knew when to end. Kirkman originally wanted to push for 300 issues, but he didn't have any ideas to go that far. Then, he tried to push for 200. But, then he again realized that he was starting to run thin on ideas for issues. So, he did the one thing any creator is too afraid to do, end their series. Hell, i was writing stories all throughout high school, and i never wanted them to end. But then i realized that i was beginning to run out of ideas, so i had to end my series of short stories. Kirkman ended his on a melancholic yet hopeful note. Ending Ricks story as Carls truly began. Im glad we got to see Carl become a father and to see the world healing after the apocalypse. Unfortunately, TWD show became a bloated corpse that was roaming, trying to find itself. Just like a walker. Instead of ending on a good note, the series finale left me utterly disappointed. Im glad Kirkman knew when to end the original comic, so that it wouldn't become a mess like the TV show
What Comes After was the perfect exit for Rick Grimes, was just out of place. They didn't have anything to work on without Rick, had they not killed Carl I think the exit would've been perfectly fine.
25:10 I don’t think Daryl saying “we ain’t the walking dead” in S11 contradicts anything. In the SAME scene where Rick says “we are the walking dead” Daryl immediately disagrees, saying “we ain’t them” Rick then concedes and agrees that they aren’t. If anything, I think the scene in S11 shows consistency and serves as a callback to the first time Daryl really disagreed with Rick and showed his own form of leadership.
Also Rick says the exact same things in the comics. It shows they've evolved, and that there is still hope for humanity in the midst of the apocalypse. The comics ended perfectly, and the show simply had trouble adapting it, but did so decently imo. Honestly, the ending in the comics is better than the breaking bad ending to me, but that's probably just my personal opinion speaking.
I remember watching the walking dead for the first time, and being so amazed by the idea of a world taken over by zombies and I remember the zombies were actually a threat. Now it just feels like a bug you step on and carry on with your day
A friend of mine wrote a kinda essay titled “The Importance of The End”. It’s pretty much about why a story should end and never overstay its welcome. His take was about how fresh and exciting something can be for us but the longer we stay with it, the more familiar we become with it and how easy it is to lose that spark. If you can end your story without overstaying your welcome, you have earned a place in people’s memory for doing so.
I think red vs blue is another example of both of these. With different writers having written different seasons, and with season 13 supposed to be the end of the show, it was a fitting end. However with another writer taking over, the show resumed with the same fade away as TWD
RvB is a whole can of worms almost 20 years old. the final episode was supposed to be the end of the show, then season 8, finally season 13 was the ""hard conclusion"". RT has been going through a lot of huge changes, so while i'm hype for Burnie and Matt to come back, it's hard to predict the quality
I kinda wonder what it would be like to compare them to Star Trek, because that franchise refuses to die. I also know what Mike and Rich say about the 80's/90's era of the series, but they also ended and no one talks about how they end, just their favorite or worst episodes. Also I found this podcast that reviews a TNG episode a week and for season 5 the guy who got introduced to the show for the podcast went "so when does this show get good?" So I suspect some rose tinted glasses are afoot.
I think another interesting comparison is how the viewer roots for the protagnoist, especially during rewatches. In BB, you start by rooting for the protagonist, but the story makes it hard when WW changes. In rewatches, you can view it from a different perspective, knowing that Walt ends up being the bad guy. On the other hand, TWD made it hard to root for the protagonists, by essentailly killing them all, and during rewatches, you know not to get attached to a character because you know they'll die or leave.
If you kept rooting for Walter past Season 1 Episode 5, then you've already missed the point, and was being willfully deluded for the rest of the show. That episode revealed that he didn't "end up being the bad guy" somewhere down the road - he STARTED being the bad guy. All his problems were his doing, he could've ended them at any point up to that moment, and after that moment. Hell, I don't think there was ever a point in the entire run on the show, where going to G&E and asking for help (genuinly asking, not that disgusting display he pulled off in the final episode) was completely off the table.
First time watching i was a super WW fanboy, then i rewatched it... realizing what a MONSTER WW and otheres have been and that Skyler White, was resaonable, YO!
I haven’t even finished the walking dead yet, (I’m on the last season), but I stopped there to re-watch the first two seasons of TWD. the first two seasons are THE best seasons in the show in my opinion, when it still had Frank darabont as an executive producer. Long episodes, but meaningful, and when Shane was still in the show.
Probably a pretty simple reason why one is clearly better than the other, one of them had a mostly fully fleshed out concept and script with a solid timeline of it taking 5 seasons to tell their story and when it turned out to be a smash hit and the studio came to them during the series peak wanting to extend it to more seasons, the writers said "NO! thank you", that it would only hurt the story they wanted to tell in order to extend the life of breaking bad past what they had envisioned.
Man, I love the walking dead so much even with its mistakes I love its characters and developments, I can't forget Rick grimes and his last episode so emotional, and see him come back in the last episode , even though it's an ending that yells at you that it's not over yet, it has something that makes me like it a lot, the soundtrack, Rick and Michonne's words, I don't know,It makes me look back on everything they've been through and ending those dialogues is something that wins me over.
Good,Huh? I`ve seen seasons1-7 a Thousand times,and as yet to watch the rest,But tuned into Dead City so far,as Maggie and NEGAN are 2 of THE best,Actually,Negan is now my Top Character,so i Hope it`ll even out when i see Rick Back wi Michonne?!! Truly a Masterpiece of Adaptation from the graphic novels.😁👍
I still love The Walking Dead. I’ll agree that Seasons 7-8 were the weakest but Season 9 was a renaissance of The Walking Dead, it might be my favorite season. I strongly believe that had it not been for the 6 COVID-19 additional episodes of Season 10 that Season 10 would be looked back more fondly because I absolutely LOVE that season.
Season 4 - 5 and 9 are all equal for the top 3 for me, yet season 10 and 11 do have some of my favourite episodes in still, season 10 especially is way overlooked because the whisperers were built up and concluded nicely tbh. will say some notable episodes in 10 and 11 include ep 2 of s10 "we are the end of the world", "what we become" ep 13 of s10 and the "here's negan" ep are among some of the best walking dead eps for me
As someone who has read all of the comics for TWD I understand why they continued the show for as long as they did because the plots and villains later were amazing but what they didn't understand is how much they had changed the show from the comics to where they didn't understand that everything they needed was already gone. For instance Andrea in the comic was one of my favorite characters because she was a pivotal character who held weight especially to rick but they killed her off way before they should have and totally wrecked her character anyway. And again one of the biggest mistakes was killing off Carl because the ending of the comics specifically followed carl through the world that his father and everyone who was lost along the way help build this world but now the show was just a mess because it didn't follow one specific character through the commonwealth or whatever they called it, it was just a bunch of skewed storylines with no connection.
they did andrea so dirty it still pisses me off thinking about it, easily one of the best comic characters and then in the show she just acts dumb and gets herself killed for no reason
I fucking CHEERED when Andrea died on the show, she was so annoying! But then I hear fans of the comic say she was so different, so much better in the comic and I wonder what could have been. She might have been my favourite.
Couldnt have said it better myself even with 15 pages. Thanks for the video! me and my brother always talk about both shows but comparing them has never been a thought. This is gonna be fun to rewatch with him
I began watching The Walking Dead last year December, and in like April of this year I got to season 8, I thought it was finished but was surprised when I saw that there where 11 seasons. I watched it all because I loved the show, but was disappointed on how it finally ended, I hated the boomerang story telling. I did like that part where Rick hallucinates seeing Shane, really dives down into his mental state. But all seasons except the last three, I LOVED this show. Great video by the way🙂
Beautifully put. The downfall of The Walking Dead is truly one of the saddest things I’ve had to witness in television or media in general. It really did have such a strong foundation for the first 6 seasons. You said it perfectly that even though Darabont was gone, the crew was able to carry the torch for several years after and maintained a level of quality that was absolutely acceptable. The season 4 finale is still my favorite episode by far. The Rick and Carl dynamic was what carried the show for years and after Carl was poorly written out of the show that was the moment the franchise lost any chance of redeeming itself. If they were able to get to the comic ending without losing Andy or Chandler the show would have had a much more enjoyable conclusion even after the terrible negan arc if Carl was still around the show could have ended on a good note.
With the walker thing, they were around the walkers for years. It was obvious they were gonna end up being able to handle them and not be as scared of them at some point
By the end of the time jump, I think it was like 13 years later. Of course dealing with walkers would be like second nature. The only threats are herds and the variants. Variants being a result of people complaining that the walkers weren’t a big enough threat or scary anymore.
@@BoogSReviews They should've introduced the variant walkers way sooner, so that the walkers would be a threat again. Now, they JUST introduced them and the show ended, would've been cool to see the group adapt to the new walkers
@@Hamza.Han38they did. In season 1 Morgan’s wife tries to open a door, in episode 2 or 3 a Walker bashes the door open with a rock, in season 2 that one Walker shreds dale like he’s made of paper, and that one green blooded sludge Walker from season 8. I’m sure there are more examples, but the variants have always been there. There was also a variant in fear the walking dead season 3 that literally rips a guy into 3 pieces.
@@BoogSReviewsnone of that is intentional whatsoever, but go ahead and cope in whatever way you need to convince yourself that TWD was a great show beyond the first handful of seasons. Lol
I personally think that The Walking Dead should have ended with season 3. After the camp, the CDC, and the farm had all been lost causes, the group had finally found a place to stay. Rick had finally come to terms with Laurie’s death, and the Governor’s forces had been dwindled down to 3 people. It was honestly the closest the show had ever gotten to a ‘happy ending’. Not to mention they ended off Andrea’s character arc perfectly. If they had stopped there, I think it would have been right up there with Breaking Bad, but of course, they kept on flying till their wings burnt up.
The walking dead could of ended where it did and been great, it could of stuck the landing so much better by tightening up its pacing, there were far too many episodes by the end run. Seasons 7 and 8 were so botched from this, it could of been amazing.
you know walking dead isnt a new show right? it comes from a comic, leaving it at the prison would have left us craving for more, 100%. its not that the show wasnt made for being that long, its just that the showrunners werent able to portray the greatness of the comic all the way to the end.
This video randomly came across my feed today. I'm a good bit older than you, from what I can tell, and I grew up on the great zombie and horror movies. I remember being a kid in the 80s and one of the very first movies I ever got for Christmas was a VHS copy of the original Night of the Living Dead. It scared me a little, but it totally captured my imagination. Over the years, I watched everything I could get in the genre. When the first commercial for The Walking Dead aired, months before it came out, I set reminders on everything I had. I'd never heard of the comic or the compilation books... but OMG this was gonna be good! I'd gotten into Lost, Dexter, and Breaking Bad, all around 2009, and I can remember setting up my entire Sunday night routine for nothing but watching those last 2 and TWD, plus The Talking Dead. Having said that, I wish you had done a 3-way comparison here with Dexter thrown in, too. Where Breaking Bad went out on its own terms, and The Walking Dead refused to die, Dexter just... **** the bed. I don't have to explain it; it's well-documented now. Because of my viewing habits from back then, though, those 3 shows will always be connected. I finished off Dexter, and I finished off Breaking Bad, but I've never finished TWD. I was out the episode after Rick left, and I never went back. I've seen clips and read the ending, but this show... Rick was the heart and soul, and when he left, the show died for me.
An aspect about breaking bads ending I love is how different the two endings were. Originally season 4 was planned to be the end with Walt now on top after killing Gus and leaving his future open to now dominating. And then for season 5 flipping the tables entirely and now taking everything away from Walt until the only good ending he can hope for is to set things right with Jessie and Skyler
Lets take a minute to appreciate the editing on this video, it's super clean and entertaining, and makes the video so easy to watch from start to finish
Just want to echo that my trajectory with The Wakling Dead is the exact same as yours. I dropped off around Season 7 or 8 basically due to lack of interest and I never bothered to go back. Watching those episodes felt more like a chore than an enjoyable piece of media, and you could tell the series no longer had anything to say and no plan for ending in sight.
I remember the exact moment I stopped watching TWD. Season 9 Episode 1. I think they’re looking for supplies and there’s like a diagram of human evolution on the wall and someone kills a walker and it dies leaning on something so it’s still propped up. Showing the evolution of humans all the way to walkers. I turned it off right after that, I was like yeah I’m good on this show. I watched every week up until that point.
I remember back in 2002 when the Shield came out on FX. It was a gritty amazing show. But they were smart and ended the show when it was the most popular show on tv. The Walking Dead just got too drawn out. Too many new characters introduced only to be killed off a few episodes later.
@@hadessdlt8720 I watched game of thrones in its entirety for the first time a while back and I didn’t hate the ending.. idk maybe because I saw it all in one viewing it didn’t bother me as much, but I can understand why people who have been watching since day 1 felt let down
The biggest issue with seasons 7-8 was the week wait between episodes when it aired. Rewatching them and being able binge multiple episodes at a time really improves them. Also to be fair to Dale, Lori, and Shanes death. Shane was already supposed to be dead at that point. Lori died around the time she did in the comics. So only Dale died early on
I'm glad Shane died when he did. He is my favorite character and he had a short and amazing story before it got boring and he became a side character. Dale will be missed he was cool. Lori sucked.
@ImGoat1995 I’ve been watching the Walking Dead recently myself, completely new to the series too so no nostalgia or anything. Season 7 wasn’t TOO bad when binge watched, purely because Negan and his merry men were still somewhat interesting, and watching Ricks group eat shit was a refreshing change. Season 8 though…holy shit, easily the worst piece of media I have ever watched. It was actually a chore to get through, even when binge watching. Only reason I even forced myself to watch it was purely because people reckoned that Season 9 was a lot better. A five year old could write a show better.
Loved both shows. Was a TWD comics fan and watched it weekly from day 1 so the show will always have a special place in my heart. The problem is that TWD ran into is that AMC was cheap and TWD switched show runners too many times. Because of this It lacked continuity and Consistency throughout the show. Leading to many many questionable writing decisions.
The end credits of Breaking Bad give you the exact same feeling as the end credits for Dark Souls. You get that wave of "oh, It all went by so fast". I feel like that's the feeling you have when your about to die, you remember everything that got you there for a split second, than everything is over in just the blink of an eye. It almost like you relived your entire journey for just a moment before you realize it's all over.
In many ways, we should be grateful that Breaking Bad never reached the same level of hype and fame as The Walking Dead during its prime. When a show becomes overwhelmingly popular and iconic, companies often prioritize its commercial value over its storytelling aspect. The Walking Dead, for instance, racked up billions in sales alone, with millions of viewers tuning in for every episode. AMC seized the opportunity to capitalize on The Walking Dead frenzy, creating a myriad of merchandise such as video games, custom shirts, action figures, collectibles, and more. The spin-offs alone amounted to a staggering seven shows, along with a dedicated daily show. On the other hand, Breaking Bad faced the risk of multiple cancellations throughout its runtime. Better Call Saul even faced the possibility of being scrapped if Bob Odenkirk's unfortunate heart attack resulted in his demise on set. Vince Gilligan's deliberate and gradual storytelling style attracts a niche audience willing to invest their patience. In contrast, Darabont's writing instantly captivated millions of viewers right from its first episode.
I love TWD always will it’s probably my favorite show but I can’t help but admit that overall it should have ended a long time ago. I wouldn’t even say season 11 was an ending because there are so many plots that have to be resolved with spin-offs.
The Ending was so bland, i think it would've been better if everyone died, or if they would've shown a timeskip or explanation about what happened to the settlements and characters.
Why should it have ended long ago when it still had so much story from the comics to be told? They couldn’t just end it without finishing the story arcs. I’m happy we’re getting these spin offs.
@@BoogSReviewsbut there are NO reasons to expand more and more that franchise expect for Rick Grimmes’s return. Aside from that , what is the point ??? Not even the others spin-offs such as « World Beyond » and « Fear the Walking Dead » didn’t fully convince the public.
Just watched this entire video and absolutely loved it! I'm shocked that you only have 2k subscribers when it felt like I was watching a video made by someone with a million. I love Breaking Bad and Walking Dead with all my heart and the points you bring up are very thought provoking. I agree, Walking Dead should have ended at season 8 and still continued the story using their already existing spinoffs like Fear the Walking Dead, World Beyond, etc. kind of like what Breaking Bad did with Better Call Saul. Great video man, subscribed.
What really killed The Walking Dead for me (and I started noticing it as early as season 3) was how formulaic each season became. Rather than exploring new ideas, it felt as though the writers kept regurgitating the same plot season after season just with a new villain and new location. On top of that, by season 7, everything in between the premiere and the finale just felt like irrelevant filler. I remember by that point, watching the show felt like a slog with an underwhelming payoff at the end.
26:00 got me thinking, a show where zombies just turned out to be a minor inconvenience in society might be interesting. Like, the zombie outbreak barely caused a dent on society. Then quickly society just treat being “zombiefied” as a kind of burial. With professional doctors who are able to maintain the health and structure of zombies, so that your loved one who turned into a zombie can still “live” healthily… in a zombie zoo or something.
The thing is that Vince Gilligan had zero clue how the show would end. He admits that he made it up as he went along, and elements like the machine gun introduced in the premiere of season 5 were finally decided when it came time to actually write the finale itself. Hell, Jesse was supposed to die in the Season 1 finale because of Tuco and the only reason he's alive is because of the writer's strike cutting Season 1's final two episodes.
This is not concrete! Discovery authors have a place in the literary storytelling world. Sometimes it’s just better to let the world ride on autopilot, for a little bit or perhaps on its own. Exactly what the replier above me said - Not even Vince had a clue where they were going half the time.
This my view on Breaking Bad and Walking Dead following your excellent analysis Breaking Bad - Incredible series from start to finish. The story is solid and so is every single character from main, to secondary to recurring or very minor roles all played an important aspect in one way or another. I got into this series about a week after finishing high school in late 2013, I bought the first season on DVD. Loved it and over time I would buy all the seasons and have had two rewatches so far. It continues to age like fine wine and they had the entire story mapped out for the seasons from start to finish. Although I think Better Call Saul is far superior, I still love Breaking Bad so much. The ending was perfect and went out on a high note Walking Dead - I got into this a lot earlier than Breaking Bad three years earlier when Walking Dead first aired. I wasn’t the biggest zombie fan but this sold it for me. The first five seasons were incredible and they still are actually. The story from the first five seasons were spot on, it was red hot. It was exciting. They didn’t just copy the comics, they adapted and changed things around which helped contribute to the success of the series But then came seasons 6 - 8 which I considered the dark ages, I lost a lot of interest over time as a fan and I grew to hate watching it. Why didn’t I stop? I probably should have back then. However, I had faith that things would turn around soon and that I was waiting for the Whisperers to arrive. So from seasons 6 - 8, my hope was decreasing with every episode. The quality was so bad and bland. Negan isn’t interesting and that’s not a dig at JDM. The whole Negan storyline and keeping him alive in this series like in the comics was horrible for me Then came season 9, and my interest in TWD was renewed. It felt like new life had entered the series making me a super hardcore fan again. Yes, The Whisperers were introduced but man the quality was so much better, the episodes and even the absence of Rick which shocked me. Season 10 killed everything for me and I stopped for good halfway through after the Whisperer War. The quality of the story, episodes and characters was so bad it was back to seasons 6 - 8 and that was the last straw. I didn’t watch TWD again until the final episode. I knew what the season was because I read all the comics. But bloody hell the ending to TWD was so awful, it was generic and safe I don't even care about all the TWD spinoffs and this stupid idea of having their universe brought up
Another show that ended at the right time was "The Good Place". They unraveled the core mystery at the heart of the series, gave closure to the characters, and still stayed funny and original. Another comedy you made reference to in the video was How I Met Your Mother. A show that was funny during most of its run, but stayed maybe three season too long. And the show runners insistence that they adhered to the story that was planned during the beginning, but by 9 seasons had veered WAY past that point, was the most damning. The series finale basically undoes the entire final season, even subverting the entire premise of the show ( Meeting the Mother) to shoehorn in the ending.
25:10 i think the contradiction was intentional. When Rick gave his speech, the group was demoralized by losing the prison, Beth and Tyreese and hope for a future was bleak. Also Darryl’s immediate reaction to rick saying that in season 5 was “We ain’t them”. I always thought the show was implying that Rick was wrong, and he is proven wrong when they get to alexandria and their quality of life improves alot. By the time season 11 rolls around, they don’t need to be savages to survive anymore, they have a network of communities who are trading resources with citizens following laws. While i agree that The Walking Dead had a major downfall, i think that line is good and consistent with Darryl’s character and for the theme of the show.
@@ryan-jamison it's about them switching from survival to thriving, completely intended. In the comic, where Daryl doesn't exist, Rick delivered both of these lines. He said that they are the walking dead during the prison ark, but by the end of the story when they were encountering the Commonwealth, he didn't believe that anymore.
I like to hear something different about the show. you put a great video together. As someone who is also trying to make longer videos myself, I have so much respect for everyone making these long videos. Keep up the great work buddy
The directing and camera work in breaking bad and better call saul is one of the main reasons I love these shows, it just has such a unique fun camera work
Btw the reason Season 2 of TWD is great and feels like a true continuation of Season 1 is because Darabont actually just got done writing most of Season 2 before he was fired. To me, I would still consider that to be a Darabont Season, and because of it, the first two seasons are the greatest in the show
I liked S2 because it gave us time to actually see the characters develop. Which is ironic, given that it only happens in a single place because their budget got slashed drastically. Especially Shane got to be an actual person, and I felt so bad for him when everyone turned on him for no real reason. He was innocent of everything Rick and Lori threw his way…
@@ArDeeMeeShane was a mess. He tried to rape Lori and murder Rick all cause he was horny for Lori. Shane was a loose canon who was not fit to b leader
Great video! I'm around your age and was introduced to both shows while growing up. And like you, I saw the steep contrast with how the shows were run. My Mom and I still watch TWD, partly to rag on it. TWD didn't end because of greed, plain and simple, and it was tragic to see its descent. The episodes post season 5 got very formulaic with pointless bottle episodes and with main story beats limited to the midseason and season finales. Many episodes ended in cheap cliffhangers that barely delivered. But what really killed the show for me was the loss of its central theme of mercy vs brutality. At its core, the show was about Rick balancing the two as he protected his people and taught his son how to be a good man. The show lost its heart when Carl and Rick left. The post-Rick era just isn't the same show and feels so empty without him. There is no main character but instead too MANY characters trying and failing to fill his role in the story. The worst part of it, imo, are the time skips. The time skips made the Rick era feel so irrelevant. The first 8 seasons were around 2-3 years in and now the show is 10 years in. So many members of the bloated cast never met Rick and Carl. When Michonne left, it was like Rick and Carl never existed or mattered. NONE of the current characters address the mercy vs brutality theme like Rick and Carl did. Most of the new characters say nothing about it. The old characters remaining (Daryl, Carol, and Maggie) are not confronted with the theme much in the later seasons. I guess Daryl was conflicted about killing Leah but he got over it pretty quickly. Like you said, the new villains were cartoonishly evil with very little nuance. There was no moral conflict and no need to have mercy or be a good person. I remember being 14 and watching Too Far Gone premiere. I was so anxious when Hershel, Rick's last voice of mercy, was on his knees while Rick desperately tried to reach out to the Governor. I actually trembled. I never felt like that while watching something before and probably never will again. I felt nothing when anyone in season 11 died. Didn't care about Lance, Leah, Sebastian, Luke (seriously who gave a shit about him? Why even bring him back, for real...), Rosita, whatever. There was no tension, no point, and no meaning behind the deaths in the newer seasons. The first seasons feel pointless, and that's such a shame because they were the only seasons with a core message behind them.
The Walking Dead doesn't even have an ending. They tried to turn it into a "franchise" by making spin-offs before they even finished it. So the technical "ending" of the main show meant absolutely nothing. Breaking Bad has spin-offs, but they were made after the series was finished and they're properly focused.
In my opinion when they killed off Carl the show was over.. as a father to me the story was essentially about him protecting his son.. when that was over.. so was the show.
I was so young when I watched BB on TV since the first season dropped. I didn't even realize what a masterpiece the series was until I finally revisited the show last year. Watching it through a couple episodes at a time was a wild ride at times and really shows how the characters really do change over the entire series.
I think it’s safe to say the center Walking Dead show really ended season 6 episode 9 the best episode in the whole show, after that it was never the same
6x16, 7x1, 7x8, 8x8, 8x9, 8x16, 9x5, 9x15, 10x13, 10x16, 10x22, 11x3, 11x16, 11x24. All amazing episodes, earlier seasons had more great ones but the show did not die.
@@Willingtomb Yh most people stopped watching after that episode...I guess everyone who stopped watching were Glenn fans more than the walking dead fans...And Andrew's acting in that episode was phenomenal:)It is what it is though..S06e16 and S07e01 are one of the best episodes of the series...
S1 of TWD took me a day, s2 took me a week, s3 took me a month and by the 4th season i dropped it. Especially with the perspective change in the narrative that left me intrigued about other story lines
i absolutely adored seasons 1-3 of the walking dead as a teenager, and i just finished watching breaking bad for the first time ever a few days ago. i never really had a lot of interest in watching it during its original run, but was suddenly compelled to give it a try after being hit with the realization that it ended 10 years ago and people _still_ talk about it like it's totally fresh. i feel like its ability to maintain relevancy for such a long time after ending (although im sure its resurgence was influenced by better call saul ending last year) is such a stark contrast to the fact that, if you were to tell someone about the final season of the walking dead, they'd almost definitely go "oh it ended? i didnt know it was still going". i also fell off the walking dead train around the time of glen's death, as i got more and more tired of the show's obsession with story beats that existed solely for shock value. breaking bad, however, never lost my attention for a second, and never made a story decision that i felt was unnecessary or lame. it's genuinely tragic how the walking dead petered on season after season, looooong after it had already exhausted every meaningful narrative upset it possibly could have, and instead opted for a montage of shock value death scenes and a monster-of-the-week cast of cartoon villains.
I was shocked to see this doesn't have more likes. This is such a refreshing video, I think the comparison is instantly interesting and you articulate your points succinctly. I love BRBA and all the content in its universe, but when it comes to talking about it, I find there's not much else to be said if someone isn't willing to explain their own interpretation/perception of the show, your personal anecdotes about both shows were so nice to hear. The editing was also awesome, the way you utilize clips feels more intentional as opposed to just compiling stuff to have playing in the background. Great work :-)
Great video! Breaking Bad is perfect. TWD has many, many flaws, but I will always, always give love and respect to the heart and soul of that show - Andrew Lincoln, one of the greatest and perhaps most underrated leading performances. I will never get tired of watching that man work.
I have been writing as a hobby for a few months now, just short stories and all, taking inspiration from games I've played and movies I've watched, ending the story has always been a problem for me, I get a good start, the content of the story is plentiful, but I just can't fit the ending anywhere, it always feels like there is more to add, writing is really the only time my imagination runs wild like that. Once I heard the quote you used in the beginning I have always tried to end the story, even if I have to cut out the a little bit of fat from it. This video is a masterpiece of an essay
Just a tiny thing that I would like to point out is: many shows that drag on too long remove character when the actors quit in was that feel unnatural. Breaking Bad never felt that way to me
Fun fact: I went to high school with Chandler Riggs. We were buddies. Another fun fact: Carl's death was not originally in the script. Chandler didn't know he was going to be killed off until they started filming the episode. For some reason I was never told, the producers decided Carl needed to be the next to die and for some other dumb reason, Chandler was the last to know about it. He had signed on for another full season but had it cut short. If you needed anymore proof that AMC genuinely had no idea what they were doing and making it up as they went along, there you go.
idk if it's true but i was always told it was because producers decided that he was "too old" for the role, they didnt want to have a teenager on set. Which is weird so idk if it's true
@@coolkiddo3110Nah. İ think i understood whole situation. İts all about the Money. He was turning 18 and that meant only one thing... The old contract expired and it was all about either resign the contract or just get rid off him. Bastards chose second option. Classic
I wish frank darabont could’ve been the walking dead’s Vince collagen. BrBa shows how having a consistent showrunner improves the quality of a story. Too bad the greedy higher ups muddled it up
If you want a tighter, concise show while watching the Walking Dead- stop watching after season 6 episode 9 "No Way Out". That episode works as a series finale, ties up almost all major ongoing storylines so much so that that the following episode starts with a time jump. That way, although you may experience the wheels starting to wobble, the train ultimately still makes it to the station if you get what I mean
If anyone's wondering why some scenes are completely blurred out, this video was recently age-restricted for graphic violence. And for those of you who don't know, an 18+ age-restriction on RUclips is essentially a death sentence for any video. So, I ultimately chose to blur out these images for the preservation of this video. It's not ideal, but it's really the only choice I had. For future videos, I will be incorporating more *creative* ways to censor graphic content. But yeah, thanks for watching...I'm out!
We got you my dude. Stupid RUclips and it's rules
@@Maske4I rather have RUclips then twitch they have to split they money with twitch 💀
Dude you kinda forgot about Better call the Saul! You should make video about it as continuation of this one. It also had good ending.
Also they made a spin off show with Rick and michone
Lol
I love how Walter said "we're done when I say we're done" and at the end the show ended when he finally decided to stay down
Walt kept his promise when he said "we're done when I say we're done". He died on his own terms.
to be fair, the villian gotta die but im sure Walter died as happy man
Walter got the best death for himself by the situation
he secured the money for his childrens
saved Jesse so he could get a new life
his talent is finally recognized got the attention he deserved in a way
satisfied his Ego and vengeance
spent his last breath with his beloved cooking tools
and what killed him wasnt the cancer that been slowly killing him rotten but a bullet
@@HieuMauand even the bullet was from his own weapon!
@@HieuMauit could be argued that he survived… the shot that is, he still probably died from the cancer
@@RandomRothbardian im saying that Walter choose to die that way
yes he couldve survive that shot if he treated himself but he choose to let the wound bleed out
I think this video can be summarized with one sentence: It's better to burn out than fade away
nah. id rather have the walking dead finish with the comics, which it did. wouldnt want it to be shorter
@@lewis0705most people didn't
@alvinanil6996 well then they should just stop watching it then and let us fans enjoy all the later seasons and spinoffs
@@alvinanil6996 idc about casual fans
@@alvinanil6996 Then just dont watch lol
I don’t know if this was intentional or not, but BB taking up such a small segment of the video compared to TWD feels like a reflection of both shows uses of time
That’s because Vince Gilligan is infinitely better at writing a show than Robert Kirkman. Kirkman had a plethora of great actors and resources to work with, but it was either lazy writing or something else that kept TWD from reaching its full potential. Luckily I hear good things about Dead City , so we’ll see how that turns out I guess.
@@MrPatPatriot223How can you possibly blame Kirkman when he did the least amount of work when it came to the show. He made the comics and the story, yeah, but the comics are widely accepted as amazing, unlike later seasons of the show. You can blame none other than Scott Gimple for the massive drop in quality post season 7
@@MrPatPatriot223 Kirkman literally didn't have much to do with the show at all (he was more like a counselor that gave advice sometimes),if you want someone,blame Scott Gimple and AMC. Saying Kirkman was the responsible of the dip in quality of TWD just shows your lack of understanding of the whole situation
@@baggybones yeah, I guess you’re right. I have heard a lot about Scott Gimple and what he did, but that’s exactly what I don’t understand. What did he do?
@@MrPatPatriot223 tbf, season 1-7x1 was really good television, after negan showed up it was alright but the whole war arc was stupid
My guy vince just did it twice, Better call saul's ending is also perfect.
BRAVO VINCE
@@3crzfl hell yea, don't forget to credit Gould too
The ending was ass
I loved the show but that ending was horrible to me. I don’t think that’s the original ending. It seemed forced and maybe even last minute.
It was literally the only way it could have ended. Jesse got away, Walt died, Saul went to prison. It was perfect.
"dude was just the walking plot hole" that's like the best quote ever loll
Man I wanna see the alternate timeline where frank darabont was never fired and he stayed the showrunner of TWD through all of it. I feel like his vision of TWD was SO MUCH better than what we got
agreed
Somewhat agree
I think the "turns when dies" twist explanation could have been done way better (and has been done better even in TWD"s own franchise) than blowing up a whole ass CDC building in the middle of a city and preceding on like they didn't just witness a whole ass landmark get destroyed in the most action movie bs way it ended up being
Feels too much, TWD is meant to be more down to earth and I kind of wonder if Darabont would have created bigger hollywood ass set-pieces as the series went on
@@binterwinterboyii1095For me personally the CDC arc is my favorite arc
@@binterwinterboyii1095 Kirkman didn't like that scene either that's why they didn't explore the origins of the virus or variants until the very end. He thought the CDC arc was a mistake.
The only issue I have is how smart walkers can b a bit too op and make it very unbelievable anyone can survive running and climbing zombies
I always thought a great ending for The Walking Dead as a show would be S5E11 when the group reaches Alexandria and Rick can hear children playing behind the wall.
I actually agree but the irony of that is Kirkman set out to write a zombie story where they rebuild society. He wanted to answer the question, "Yeah, but what happens after the zombie movie ends?"
It's my humble opinion even the comic fell off after Negan showed up and completely fell off a cliff after they put him in the cell. Which is weird to say since I really liked Negan as a character. I just feel like the comic could have ended perfectly after they locked him up and showed they didn't have to kill anymore.
I’m currently on s7 and I agree season 5 is absolutely what I think the end would be, sadly they keep going and ruining and rehashing the same stuff they keep doing over and over
I agree. I know most people point to Glen dying as when TWD essentially died, but you can see the show slowly loose it’s footing after season 5. Ending during S5 would have been great, the show would have concluded naturally.
@josephmatthews7698 I sort of agree but idk the whisper war was pretty good too. I would've hated to miss out on that if it just ended when they locked up negan
That's similar to one of Robert Kirkman's ideas for an ending.
I was hit with a violent wave of post-show depression after I finished ‘Felina’. I can’t describe the feelings I have for Breaking Bad
i can relate totally, I wasnt able to eat anything for 4 days
Something that blew my mind was the title of the last episode. "Felina" is not only an anagram of the word "Finale" but it also spells out different chemical elements.
Fe is iron, Li is lithium, and Na is sodium.
And all these chemicals can be found in blood, sweat, and tears.
@@chickencurry420Holy shit! Bravo Vince.
@@chickencurry420holy f$%& that is brilliant
I've felt post show depression twice and they were from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul and believe it or not I felt it worse with BCS and I'm not ready to feel it a third time when It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia ends 😅
Shane really was such a fantastic character.. my favorite part of this video is when he said "you can understand him and he's even right sometimes..."
He was right at one thing. Survival instic.
The fact that Raymond Cruz left Breaking Bad because he disliked the mental strain it took to play Tuco yet still reprises his role for Better Call Saul shows how much he appreciates the fans and that cant go underappreciated
You could tell in BCS his character was a lot more tame (except for maybe that one scene with Mike). Maybe it’s a story thing but I think Gilligan toned him down for Cruz.
@@jackpackage4278 the in story reason is that tuco didn’t have a horrendous meth addiction yet
They definitely put that in to help Cruz but it’s a reason
Reason for leaving was pathetic.
Reason for returning was money.
@@Neolith_ Valuing your own mental health is not "Pathetic".
@@Neolith_from what I’ve read the actor knew people in real life who acted like Tuco, hence where he got the inspiration on how to act, and that was affecting his mental state while acting because it reminded him of those things (again, this is what I’ve read, not sure where the interview is)
The Daryl storyline of being integrated into the enemies and then double crossing them happened like 5 times. It’s nuts
I stopped watching TWD around season 4-5 because I'd realized that the show basically repeated itself constantly.
1. The survivors reach a place of safety.
2. Everything settles into a peaceful routine.
3. Rick screws it up somehow.
4. Everything burns down.
5. Everyone gets separated and spends a few episodes wandering around until they all miraculously wind up back together.
It happened with Hershall's farm. It happened with the prison. It happened with Alexandria. By the end of the Alexandria story arc, I was just done. I realized that Rick was actually the antagonist of the series, and he was the reason bad things kept happening. I didn't really care to see where the show went from there.
@@Maria_Eriasyup, I recognized literally the same formula.
@@thecommonloon And how many times did Rick decide that they had to kill people because "they might be a threat", or try to take control of the situation from someone else and wind up getting a lot of people killed, or make obviously bad decisions that put his people in jeopardy for no good reason?
@@Maria_Eriashow did you watch twd😅damn you just don’t like the series and that’s fine
@@Maria_EriasYou forgot the part where the token black guy dies and gets replaced immediately after.
What i like about breaking bad is, at the end you realize that's the only way it could end, and from the beginning it's just a natural progression with a natural ending.
Agreed it was the perfect ending for all the characters, Walter died on his own terms and never saw the inside of a jail cell and Jesse manages to get away free after all the torment he went through
It's a perfect tragedy, in the mode of Sophocles or Shakespeare. The ending isn't inevitable, and is actually avoidable at several key inflection points, but the character traits and flaws of the protagonist make it seem inevitable, because those flaws shape their choices
It showed the writing and production too. They didn't have a series goal really, they would theorize situations that seemed plausible, reference it with some research to see if it was viable, and then work the elements of the dialogue and such to fit. It made it "feel more real," than 99% of "reality tv"
@@dustinlattimore7336I like the memes of how the whole show is entirely Walt's fault post not taking the massive money and job from Grey Matter lol
so u expect me to believe that over the course of 2 years (which the show takes place), a high school drop out who can only say things like "yeah science bitch" and smoked meth, could teach a group of cartel hired scientists how to do a complete, perfect cook?
its natural that person who is supposed to be like 18, and weighs like 150lbs at the start of the show, looks like hes 40 and weighs like 200 lbs after being trapped in a pit as a hostage?
gtfoh
Breaking Bad is one of the only shows that didn't leave me feeling empty after it ended. The Walking Dead did but I still loved the entire show just as much as breaking bad.
I totally agree. After I finished TWD I felt so empty I went back and rewatched season 1, then I felt better. Breaking Bad never had that issue for me.
@ryan-jamison I found walking dead's ending to be my favorite ending/TV Episode ever. That's just me though. 🤷♂️
@@CorsonDraxthat’s a crazy take. it’s mediocre at best
Yeah, Breaking Bad went out with a bang and it didn't feel like there needed to be more, as good as it was. The finale just left you reflecting on the whole show and seeing the progression of all the characters from the first episode to the last in your head. It was a full circle moment and it was satisfying. TWD's finale on the other hand was a finale to a carcass of a show. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it until the end and I don't think the finale was bad. It was definitely well written and wrapped up a lot of the character's story. However, knowing Rick is still out there, the character that we closely followed for 8 seasons and a half, it doesn't feel fulfilling ending the show without that main character and obviously knowing that there is going to be spinoffs too. In my eyes, the show practically hasn't ended yet and it hasn't really. It's yet to have that full circle moment.
@@ab_077 I've genuinely never enjoyed an episode more. Cried at almost every scene. Wish I watched it in a theatre.
Two of the rarest examples of two series that started good and ended great.
Yes, I'm talking about about Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.
Frank for the Walking dead was what Vince was for Breaking Bad. Imagine if Vince was pulled away after season 1 of Breaking Bad. Tragic.
Also in on of the interviews Frank Darabont said that Breaking Bad is the greatest show on television. But I still wonder how good The Walking Dead could have been if he stayed as showrunner. I mean imagine firing a guy that directed The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile.
AMC DID WHAT!?
@@MASTEROFEVILLMAO
Don't forget The Mist.
@@petemadrona2252 that was a good movie
@@MASTEROFEVILyeah, they really don’t know how to make good shows anymore
SPOILERS: The only other show I've seen that truly stuck the landing as well as BB was Avatar: The Last Airbender. The finale had everything: the big final battle of the world between Aang and Ozai, the personal battle of the soul between Zuko and Azula, the Zuko/Iroh reunion, the cliffhanger about Zuko's mom, Aang and Katara finally being together. It was the best payoff and a happy ending, which we never seem to get anymore. I know it's a kid's show, but as an adult who watched it for the first time, I couldn't help but think that if the writers of Game of Thrones had just watched AtLA, the show would have ended extremely differently (and better)
If you haven't seen it I highly recommend Better Call Saul I think they stuck the landing on that show as well as they did with BB but I know other people don't hold that opinion as strongly as they do with BB
What does Game of Thrones have to do with Avatar?
Shouts to Davw Filoni the mf goat
@jolopolo4761 Game of Thrones, past season 5, really suffered from similar (dragged out) albeit different (stemmed from lack of source material) issues that the Walking Dead did
YES I sometimes forget how great that show was and how amazing it's ending was/is
Vince Gilligan and the rest of the team absolutely smashed it with breaking bad, but I personally think better call saul is even better. As you mentioned the team hit their stride in season 5, and that same team carried on with BCS. It's absolutely incredible. It also nails the landing with the ending too. I'm very much looking forward to seeing what they achieve next.
I loved BB , but thought BCS bested it as the main is just an all-star. That being said, the last season BCS was lackluster and was a letdown IMO. Oden's movie was also god awful.
@@nextleveltravelphwdym?? The bus fight scene in "Nobody" is one of the best fight scenes in recent cinema. There's a ton of analysis and YT videos explaining why it's so well done.
I wish I liked BCS as much as everyone else. There are countless moments from BB I can go back to and point out and discuss at length - there's almost zero of those for BCS for me.
@@ErinJeanette BCS is a smarter and more low-key show. It doesn't have as many explosive and violent episodes but it's overall deeper and more consistent.
With BB you can tell in the first couple seasons they didn't quite know what they had yet and were experimenting a bit. That makes the first couple seasons very fun, but they do stick out a bit, especially the horrible awkward moments like Skylar jacking Walt off for like 10 minutes in the first episode.
BCS from the very first frame was apparent it was the work of some master filmmakers who had been steadily improving their craft throughout the entire runtime of Breaking Bad and it only gets better as it goes on. I think Breaking Bad is colored by everyone's memory a bit.
@@EldritchAugur for sure. I just wish I liked it as much, perhaps I need to watch it again. I need to give it another chance and then I bet it'll sink in.
I just want to say good work. I see a lot of creators at this kind of size having a lot of struggle in finding their voice in their video essays, but you really nailed it. You have a great intro, thesis, and the way you break down both shows serves that thesis well. Your transitions from each point also work really well. I like this a lot and I hope your channel keeps growing.
I actually appreciate that a lot. Thank you 🙏🏻
Breaking bad managed to avoid " jumping the shark" by ending at the perfect time.
Too bad that one half of Better Call Saul (the series always had the Saul/Kim and the Mike/Gus storyline) could not avoid this painful mistake.
@@MrBell-iq3sm What are you talking about? Better Call Saul was as good (if not better) than Breaking Bad and ended perfectly too.
@@madgavin7568 I am talking about overly exaggerated, unbelievable scenes and arcs, in particular the Mike's shot at the car in the desert and Lalo's Germany arc.
To me, they were more akin to a late Season of Sons of Anarchy, since they were all spectacles without any basis in reality.
The worst BB ever committed were chemistry related scenes, which are only an issue if one knows chemistry.
@@MrBell-iq3sm Mike's shot at the car in the desert isn't unbelievable in the slightest, the man is a trained sniper after all. Lalo in Germany might seem a little far-fetched but considering how resourceful, intelligent and skilled Lalo is, its not implausible.
The Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul series fall more into the 'plausible' than 'realistic'. If you want to watch a realistic TV show, watch The Wire or Homicide: Life on the Street.
@@madgavin7568 It's not about his ability to hit a moving target, it's the fact that the car exploded into a million pieces. Mike didn't use an RPG.
Far-fetched is, unfortunately, an understatement, since it couldn't have worked on multiple levels (if you want I can list some of its problems or ask you some questions to see if you find an explanation), but even if it could, Lalo should have known that the Germans could not have the proof he needed.
The Walking Dead having so many episodes was inevitable. The Walking Dead follows source material that lasted for 16 years. Breaking Bad is a completely original story. Although I do believe if The Walking Dead started years later then it'd be a lot more comic-accurate and they'd actually know when the story would end
@sr.m8641 The show is better than the comic tbh
I'm not saying the comics are bad (the story is pretty good) just that the show is a bit better
@@hadessdlt8720 Not even close, tbh. The earlier seasons do a great job of keeping what worked from the early comic arcs and improving it with new material, save for completely ruining Andrea, arguably the best character from the comics. Seasons 4 and 5 introduced too many cliches and made the pacing too predictable by starting the "1, 8, 9, 16" pattern, and everything after Season 6 was hammered dogshit.
@@LP-PADICIA "eveything after season 6 was hammered dogshit" ok then 😒
@@hadessdlt8720 It do be pretty tru tho frfr... Cliche and predictable, just became a Saturday morning cartoon.
@@LP-PADICIA Is just your opinion, i don't see anything saturday cartoon on people being eaten alive
Carl's death was what finally put me off The Walking Dead, it was just the ultimate statement of the writers not understanding the comic they were adapting, and that they had long ago traded quality story and writing for buying into their own hype. Literally the next story arc after The Saivours follows an older Carl, after a timeskip, going from a boy to a man and becoming the next Rick Grimes, and it was one of the main driving forces behind The Whisperer story that was just completely absent in the TV show. I think a really ballsy move, that could have been very well recieved if done right, would have been for the creators of TWD to end the show before they had fully adapted the comic, and end it on a high note instead of fading away
I think they did it for the wrong reason. They didn't kill Carl for any reason other than shock value. If I had to pick one major flaw TWD fell to is it became more interested in being shocking rather than interesting
Yea
I remember seeing an interview where the writers said the show was actually about Carl and what a kid would be like who grew up in this kind of world. Really shit the bed there lol.
The Rick Grimes spinoff is pretty good so far, Negan's spinoff is pretty good too but the show itself went about 5 seasons longer than it should've...
The show bounced back in quality in the latter seasons
The fun (or sad) thing is that Kirkman specified in the last comic that he felt the comic needed to end at this point, even if he didn't want to, because he felt there was nothing else to say that would improve the story. Instead, the TV series (that was alredy an extremely watered down version of the comic) decided to keep going with 3/4 different spin offs.
M*A*S*H had an absolutely amazing finale. Perfect in every way. It's too bad so many young people haven't seen it.
My dad would always have this show on I hated it,30 years later i enjoy it and I can go to sleep to it lol RIP Dad
@luvmibratt we never appreciate something till it's gone. My dad is gone now, too. I hope they're resting in peace watching M*A*S*H
"Goodbye" written in sandbags still gets me in the feels 😢
@MASTEROFEVIL now I'm crying again. I bawled like a little baby when I watched it as an adult, and in my daddy's heads pace. He was in WW2 AND Korea. I wish I had understood what he saw and felt before he died. And now I'm crying like a baby.
@@LozenColorado don't forget your pacifier
I've noticed that when the Walking dead started to fall off in the popcultural zeitgeist it also ended up killing the Zombie fad that was going on with it
Meanwhile here we are nearly a decade later after breaking bad ended and a year after better call saul ended and they're still being talked about and memes and theory and essay videos ect are being made about it and its world and its characters to this day
I think the reason why breaking bad was so good because in the first season they made the viewer know that the show had to have an end and that the main character had to die and the entire show is made to build up to the end, they didn’t make the show then add the end, the entire show was the end
Damn that's true
You’re god damn right
Knowing exactly where the show has to go and always working towards that goal definitely helps, yeah. You can stray from it here and there, trying to postpone it, but if you *know* what the fate of your character is and how they should act in the end, you've got a good idea of what to work towards.
Definitely explains how the Walking Dead ended up so aimless. They had the comics for ideas, but from Season 1 they never adhered strictly to it, so it wasn't essential that they follow in its footsteps.
In other words: the show had a very clear and concise structure.
Ozymandias and Granite State, man, those episodes were unreal. The ending scene of Granite State was the most badass, perfect and beautifully crafted TV moment I've ever watched.
Im glad TWD comics knew when to end. Kirkman originally wanted to push for 300 issues, but he didn't have any ideas to go that far. Then, he tried to push for 200. But, then he again realized that he was starting to run thin on ideas for issues. So, he did the one thing any creator is too afraid to do, end their series. Hell, i was writing stories all throughout high school, and i never wanted them to end. But then i realized that i was beginning to run out of ideas, so i had to end my series of short stories. Kirkman ended his on a melancholic yet hopeful note. Ending Ricks story as Carls truly began. Im glad we got to see Carl become a father and to see the world healing after the apocalypse. Unfortunately, TWD show became a bloated corpse that was roaming, trying to find itself. Just like a walker. Instead of ending on a good note, the series finale left me utterly disappointed. Im glad Kirkman knew when to end the original comic, so that it wouldn't become a mess like the TV show
Are u a writer
this man wrote a better youtube video script than I could ever have written an essay
tying the end of both shows (story) to how both shows ended (popularity) was a really great analogy. i loved this!
What Comes After was the perfect exit for Rick Grimes, was just out of place. They didn't have anything to work on without Rick, had they not killed Carl I think the exit would've been perfectly fine.
25:10 I don’t think Daryl saying “we ain’t the walking dead” in S11 contradicts anything. In the SAME scene where Rick says “we are the walking dead” Daryl immediately disagrees, saying “we ain’t them” Rick then concedes and agrees that they aren’t. If anything, I think the scene in S11 shows consistency and serves as a callback to the first time Daryl really disagreed with Rick and showed his own form of leadership.
We ain't AMC The Walking Dead Season 11 😔
Also Rick says the exact same things in the comics. It shows they've evolved, and that there is still hope for humanity in the midst of the apocalypse. The comics ended perfectly, and the show simply had trouble adapting it, but did so decently imo. Honestly, the ending in the comics is better than the breaking bad ending to me, but that's probably just my personal opinion speaking.
I remember watching the walking dead for the first time, and being so amazed by the idea of a world taken over by zombies and I remember the zombies were actually a threat. Now it just feels like a bug you step on and carry on with your day
And then people just get killed in the stupidest ways. Like Carl had lived in the apocalypse for so long and still got a piece taken out of him.
The problem I had with TWD is, there were too many episodes, and too little going on in those episodes.
A friend of mine wrote a kinda essay titled “The Importance of The End”. It’s pretty much about why a story should end and never overstay its welcome. His take was about how fresh and exciting something can be for us but the longer we stay with it, the more familiar we become with it and how easy it is to lose that spark. If you can end your story without overstaying your welcome, you have earned a place in people’s memory for doing so.
I think red vs blue is another example of both of these. With different writers having written different seasons, and with season 13 supposed to be the end of the show, it was a fitting end. However with another writer taking over, the show resumed with the same fade away as TWD
On the plus side, they retconned all the seasons after 13 and Bernie and Matt are coming back for a real final season
RvB is a whole can of worms almost 20 years old. the final episode was supposed to be the end of the show, then season 8, finally season 13 was the ""hard conclusion"". RT has been going through a lot of huge changes, so while i'm hype for Burnie and Matt to come back, it's hard to predict the quality
I kinda wonder what it would be like to compare them to Star Trek, because that franchise refuses to die.
I also know what Mike and Rich say about the 80's/90's era of the series, but they also ended and no one talks about how they end, just their favorite or worst episodes. Also I found this podcast that reviews a TNG episode a week and for season 5 the guy who got introduced to the show for the podcast went "so when does this show get good?" So I suspect some rose tinted glasses are afoot.
I stopped watching after season 4 ended. Is it worth it to continue it
I think another interesting comparison is how the viewer roots for the protagnoist, especially during rewatches. In BB, you start by rooting for the protagonist, but the story makes it hard when WW changes. In rewatches, you can view it from a different perspective, knowing that Walt ends up being the bad guy. On the other hand, TWD made it hard to root for the protagonists, by essentailly killing them all, and during rewatches, you know not to get attached to a character because you know they'll die or leave.
If you kept rooting for Walter past Season 1 Episode 5, then you've already missed the point, and was being willfully deluded for the rest of the show. That episode revealed that he didn't "end up being the bad guy" somewhere down the road - he STARTED being the bad guy. All his problems were his doing, he could've ended them at any point up to that moment, and after that moment. Hell, I don't think there was ever a point in the entire run on the show, where going to G&E and asking for help (genuinly asking, not that disgusting display he pulled off in the final episode) was completely off the table.
@@Alknix bro when the main character ends up being the bad guy in a show called Breaking Bad: 😲😨😰🤯
First time watching i was a super WW fanboy, then i rewatched it... realizing what a MONSTER WW and otheres have been and that Skyler White, was resaonable, YO!
I haven’t even finished the walking dead yet, (I’m on the last season), but I stopped there to re-watch the first two seasons of TWD. the first two seasons are THE best seasons in the show in my opinion, when it still had Frank darabont as an executive producer. Long episodes, but meaningful, and when Shane was still in the show.
Probably a pretty simple reason why one is clearly better than the other, one of them had a mostly fully fleshed out concept and script with a solid timeline of it taking 5 seasons to tell their story and when it turned out to be a smash hit and the studio came to them during the series peak wanting to extend it to more seasons, the writers said "NO! thank you", that it would only hurt the story they wanted to tell in order to extend the life of breaking bad past what they had envisioned.
The music for this video was amazing!! Thank you for introducing me to some of these projects, I'm super excited to check them all out in depth.
Man, I love the walking dead so much even with its mistakes I love its characters and developments, I can't forget Rick grimes and his last episode so emotional, and see him come back in the last episode , even though it's an ending that yells at you that it's not over yet, it has something that makes me like it a lot, the soundtrack, Rick and Michonne's words, I don't know,It makes me look back on everything they've been through and ending those dialogues is something that wins me over.
Good,Huh? I`ve seen seasons1-7 a Thousand times,and as yet to watch the rest,But tuned into Dead City so far,as Maggie and NEGAN are 2 of THE best,Actually,Negan is now my Top Character,so i Hope it`ll even out when i see Rick Back wi Michonne?!! Truly a Masterpiece of Adaptation from the graphic novels.😁👍
@@sherbetdab6066watch as season 8 and 9 and you will love him even more
If you loved the series read the comics it’s so worth it
@@sherbetdab6066 you're missing quite a bit by skipping from villain negan to dead city negan
I still love The Walking Dead. I’ll agree that Seasons 7-8 were the weakest but Season 9 was a renaissance of The Walking Dead, it might be my favorite season.
I strongly believe that had it not been for the 6 COVID-19 additional episodes of Season 10 that Season 10 would be looked back more fondly because I absolutely LOVE that season.
Yea it’s just all the hype for the finale and it being a let down cause i thought it was a average finale
Negan carried season 7 and 8 hard
Scott Gimple really was a bad showrunner, it's was so good to see him depart as a showrunner after season 8
season 7 and 8 are my favorites
Season 4 - 5 and 9 are all equal for the top 3 for me, yet season 10 and 11 do have some of my favourite episodes in still, season 10 especially is way overlooked because the whisperers were built up and concluded nicely tbh. will say some notable episodes in 10 and 11 include ep 2 of s10 "we are the end of the world", "what we become" ep 13 of s10 and the "here's negan" ep are among some of the best walking dead eps for me
As someone who has read all of the comics for TWD I understand why they continued the show for as long as they did because the plots and villains later were amazing but what they didn't understand is how much they had changed the show from the comics to where they didn't understand that everything they needed was already gone. For instance Andrea in the comic was one of my favorite characters because she was a pivotal character who held weight especially to rick but they killed her off way before they should have and totally wrecked her character anyway. And again one of the biggest mistakes was killing off Carl because the ending of the comics specifically followed carl through the world that his father and everyone who was lost along the way help build this world but now the show was just a mess because it didn't follow one specific character through the commonwealth or whatever they called it, it was just a bunch of skewed storylines with no connection.
At some point The Walking Dead basically turned into a writers fan fiction of itself
they did andrea so dirty it still pisses me off thinking about it, easily one of the best comic characters and then in the show she just acts dumb and gets herself killed for no reason
I fucking CHEERED when Andrea died on the show, she was so annoying! But then I hear fans of the comic say she was so different, so much better in the comic and I wonder what could have been. She might have been my favourite.
@@nerdygem8620 Andrea was awesome in the comics.
Andrea was the shit in the comic and she was absolutely insufferable in the show. Also wtf Carol lol
Couldnt have said it better myself even with 15 pages. Thanks for the video! me and my brother always talk about both shows but comparing them has never been a thought. This is gonna be fun to rewatch with him
I began watching The Walking Dead last year December, and in like April of this year I got to season 8, I thought it was finished but was surprised when I saw that there where 11 seasons. I watched it all because I loved the show, but was disappointed on how it finally ended, I hated the boomerang story telling. I did like that part where Rick hallucinates seeing Shane, really dives down into his mental state. But all seasons except the last three, I LOVED this show. Great video by the way🙂
Beautifully put. The downfall of The Walking Dead is truly one of the saddest things I’ve had to witness in television or media in general. It really did have such a strong foundation for the first 6 seasons.
You said it perfectly that even though Darabont was gone, the crew was able to carry the torch for several years after and maintained a level of quality that was absolutely acceptable. The season 4 finale is still my favorite episode by far.
The Rick and Carl dynamic was what carried the show for years and after Carl was poorly written out of the show that was the moment the franchise lost any chance of redeeming itself. If they were able to get to the comic ending without losing Andy or Chandler the show would have had a much more enjoyable conclusion even after the terrible negan arc if Carl was still around the show could have ended on a good note.
With the walker thing, they were around the walkers for years. It was obvious they were gonna end up being able to handle them and not be as scared of them at some point
By the end of the time jump, I think it was like 13 years later. Of course dealing with walkers would be like second nature. The only threats are herds and the variants. Variants being a result of people complaining that the walkers weren’t a big enough threat or scary anymore.
@@BoogSReviews exactly, thats the thing with any zombie show/movie. After so long they start to get easier and not as scary
@@BoogSReviews They should've introduced the variant walkers way sooner, so that the walkers would be a threat again. Now, they JUST introduced them and the show ended, would've been cool to see the group adapt to the new walkers
@@Hamza.Han38they did. In season 1 Morgan’s wife tries to open a door, in episode 2 or 3 a Walker bashes the door open with a rock, in season 2 that one Walker shreds dale like he’s made of paper, and that one green blooded sludge Walker from season 8. I’m sure there are more examples, but the variants have always been there. There was also a variant in fear the walking dead season 3 that literally rips a guy into 3 pieces.
@@BoogSReviewsnone of that is intentional whatsoever, but go ahead and cope in whatever way you need to convince yourself that TWD was a great show beyond the first handful of seasons. Lol
I personally think that The Walking Dead should have ended with season 3. After the camp, the CDC, and the farm had all been lost causes, the group had finally found a place to stay. Rick had finally come to terms with Laurie’s death, and the Governor’s forces had been dwindled down to 3 people. It was honestly the closest the show had ever gotten to a ‘happy ending’. Not to mention they ended off Andrea’s character arc perfectly. If they had stopped there, I think it would have been right up there with Breaking Bad, but of course, they kept on flying till their wings burnt up.
Moreso season 5 and after all the negan shit
You’d love Hell on Wheels man. People from both shows worked on it and it’s chefs kiss. Ends good never a Dull episode.
The walking dead could of ended where it did and been great, it could of stuck the landing so much better by tightening up its pacing, there were far too many episodes by the end run. Seasons 7 and 8 were so botched from this, it could of been amazing.
@@FaidedChainsawGuy I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for the recommendation!
you know walking dead isnt a new show right? it comes from a comic, leaving it at the prison would have left us craving for more, 100%. its not that the show wasnt made for being that long, its just that the showrunners werent able to portray the greatness of the comic all the way to the end.
The effort put into this video is tremendous. Thank you for such an amazing analysis.
This video randomly came across my feed today. I'm a good bit older than you, from what I can tell, and I grew up on the great zombie and horror movies. I remember being a kid in the 80s and one of the very first movies I ever got for Christmas was a VHS copy of the original Night of the Living Dead. It scared me a little, but it totally captured my imagination. Over the years, I watched everything I could get in the genre. When the first commercial for The Walking Dead aired, months before it came out, I set reminders on everything I had. I'd never heard of the comic or the compilation books... but OMG this was gonna be good! I'd gotten into Lost, Dexter, and Breaking Bad, all around 2009, and I can remember setting up my entire Sunday night routine for nothing but watching those last 2 and TWD, plus The Talking Dead.
Having said that, I wish you had done a 3-way comparison here with Dexter thrown in, too. Where Breaking Bad went out on its own terms, and The Walking Dead refused to die, Dexter just... **** the bed. I don't have to explain it; it's well-documented now. Because of my viewing habits from back then, though, those 3 shows will always be connected. I finished off Dexter, and I finished off Breaking Bad, but I've never finished TWD. I was out the episode after Rick left, and I never went back. I've seen clips and read the ending, but this show... Rick was the heart and soul, and when he left, the show died for me.
An aspect about breaking bads ending I love is how different the two endings were. Originally season 4 was planned to be the end with Walt now on top after killing Gus and leaving his future open to now dominating. And then for season 5 flipping the tables entirely and now taking everything away from Walt until the only good ending he can hope for is to set things right with Jessie and Skyler
Lets take a minute to appreciate the editing on this video, it's super clean and entertaining, and makes the video so easy to watch from start to finish
Just want to echo that my trajectory with The Wakling Dead is the exact same as yours. I dropped off around Season 7 or 8 basically due to lack of interest and I never bothered to go back. Watching those episodes felt more like a chore than an enjoyable piece of media, and you could tell the series no longer had anything to say and no plan for ending in sight.
I "watched" season 7 via Wikipedia summaries, then stopped caring completely
I remember the exact moment I stopped watching TWD. Season 9 Episode 1. I think they’re looking for supplies and there’s like a diagram of human evolution on the wall and someone kills a walker and it dies leaning on something so it’s still propped up. Showing the evolution of humans all the way to walkers. I turned it off right after that, I was like yeah I’m good on this show. I watched every week up until that point.
I remember watching the final episodes of Breaking Bad and then watch the final episodes of Dexter. The quality difference was hilarious.
I remember back in 2002 when the Shield came out on FX. It was a gritty amazing show. But they were smart and ended the show when it was the most popular show on tv. The Walking Dead just got too drawn out. Too many new characters introduced only to be killed off a few episodes later.
Exactly, The Shield has one of the best finales of all time.
I always thought these were 2 amazing examples of what to do and what not to do, glad someone made a video about it
Game of thrones?
@@hadessdlt8720 I watched game of thrones in its entirety for the first time a while back and I didn’t hate the ending.. idk maybe because I saw it all in one viewing it didn’t bother me as much, but I can understand why people who have been watching since day 1 felt let down
The biggest issue with seasons 7-8 was the week wait between episodes when it aired. Rewatching them and being able binge multiple episodes at a time really improves them.
Also to be fair to Dale, Lori, and Shanes death. Shane was already supposed to be dead at that point. Lori died around the time she did in the comics. So only Dale died early on
It might work for seasons 7-8, maybe, but it defi wouldn't work for Better call Saul, let alone Breaking Bad.
Right? I hate when people rag on characters dying when it literally happened in the comics.
I'm glad Shane died when he did. He is my favorite character and he had a short and amazing story before it got boring and he became a side character. Dale will be missed he was cool. Lori sucked.
@ImGoat1995
I’ve been watching the Walking Dead recently myself, completely new to the series too so no nostalgia or anything. Season 7 wasn’t TOO bad when binge watched, purely because Negan and his merry men were still somewhat interesting, and watching Ricks group eat shit was a refreshing change.
Season 8 though…holy shit, easily the worst piece of media I have ever watched. It was actually a chore to get through, even when binge watching. Only reason I even forced myself to watch it was purely because people reckoned that Season 9 was a lot better. A five year old could write a show better.
That's the thing, binging the walking dead makwa it far more tolerable than week to week.
Loved both shows. Was a TWD comics fan and watched it weekly from day 1 so the show will always have a special place in my heart. The problem is that TWD ran into is that AMC was cheap and TWD switched show runners too many times. Because of this It lacked continuity and Consistency throughout the show. Leading to many many questionable writing decisions.
The end credits of Breaking Bad give you the exact same feeling as the end credits for Dark Souls. You get that wave of "oh, It all went by so fast". I feel like that's the feeling you have when your about to die, you remember everything that got you there for a split second, than everything is over in just the blink of an eye. It almost like you relived your entire journey for just a moment before you realize it's all over.
Game of Thrones is the mirror image to Walking Dead, it ended to early for the narrative to end in a satisfying way.
In many ways, we should be grateful that Breaking Bad never reached the same level of hype and fame as The Walking Dead during its prime. When a show becomes overwhelmingly popular and iconic, companies often prioritize its commercial value over its storytelling aspect. The Walking Dead, for instance, racked up billions in sales alone, with millions of viewers tuning in for every episode. AMC seized the opportunity to capitalize on The Walking Dead frenzy, creating a myriad of merchandise such as video games, custom shirts, action figures, collectibles, and more. The spin-offs alone amounted to a staggering seven shows, along with a dedicated daily show.
On the other hand, Breaking Bad faced the risk of multiple cancellations throughout its runtime. Better Call Saul even faced the possibility of being scrapped if Bob Odenkirk's unfortunate heart attack resulted in his demise on set. Vince Gilligan's deliberate and gradual storytelling style attracts a niche audience willing to invest their patience. In contrast, Darabont's writing instantly captivated millions of viewers right from its first episode.
Why do you write like that
@@hata6290 ?
@@soupcangaming662 written like a true ai
@@hata6290it’s called being articulate and just a good, inflective writer in general. Please read a book one day if you don’t believe me
@@hata6290brother I know what AI looks like when written, this ain’t it
I love TWD always will it’s probably my favorite show but I can’t help but admit that overall it should have ended a long time ago. I wouldn’t even say season 11 was an ending because there are so many plots that have to be resolved with spin-offs.
The Ending was so bland, i think it would've been better if everyone died, or if they would've shown a timeskip or explanation about what happened to the settlements and characters.
@@ErkkiZeri They actually had a deleted ending that was all the kids (Judith, RJ, Hershel JR, etc) all grown up.
Why should it have ended long ago when it still had so much story from the comics to be told? They couldn’t just end it without finishing the story arcs. I’m happy we’re getting these spin offs.
@@BoogSReviews bro you've been shilling for them so much in these comments 🤡
@@BoogSReviewsbut there are NO reasons to expand more and more that franchise expect for Rick Grimmes’s return. Aside from that , what is the point ??? Not even the others spin-offs such as « World Beyond » and « Fear the Walking Dead » didn’t fully convince the public.
Just watched this entire video and absolutely loved it! I'm shocked that you only have 2k subscribers when it felt like I was watching a video made by someone with a million. I love Breaking Bad and Walking Dead with all my heart and the points you bring up are very thought provoking. I agree, Walking Dead should have ended at season 8 and still continued the story using their already existing spinoffs like Fear the Walking Dead, World Beyond, etc. kind of like what Breaking Bad did with Better Call Saul. Great video man, subscribed.
What really killed The Walking Dead for me (and I started noticing it as early as season 3) was how formulaic each season became. Rather than exploring new ideas, it felt as though the writers kept regurgitating the same plot season after season just with a new villain and new location. On top of that, by season 7, everything in between the premiere and the finale just felt like irrelevant filler. I remember by that point, watching the show felt like a slog with an underwhelming payoff at the end.
26:00 got me thinking, a show where zombies just turned out to be a minor inconvenience in society might be interesting.
Like, the zombie outbreak barely caused a dent on society. Then quickly society just treat being “zombiefied” as a kind of burial. With professional doctors who are able to maintain the health and structure of zombies, so that your loved one who turned into a zombie can still “live” healthily… in a zombie zoo or something.
*Breaking Bad is a lesson for anyone who wants to create good stories: always create characters, conflicts, twists, knowing where it will all lead.*
The thing is that Vince Gilligan had zero clue how the show would end. He admits that he made it up as he went along, and elements like the machine gun introduced in the premiere of season 5 were finally decided when it came time to actually write the finale itself. Hell, Jesse was supposed to die in the Season 1 finale because of Tuco and the only reason he's alive is because of the writer's strike cutting Season 1's final two episodes.
This is not concrete! Discovery authors have a place in the literary storytelling world. Sometimes it’s just better to let the world ride on autopilot, for a little bit or perhaps on its own. Exactly what the replier above me said - Not even Vince had a clue where they were going half the time.
That's just factually incorrect. Vince had no idea how the show would have ended.
This my view on Breaking Bad and Walking Dead following your excellent analysis
Breaking Bad - Incredible series from start to finish. The story is solid and so is every single character from main, to secondary to recurring or very minor roles all played an important aspect in one way or another. I got into this series about a week after finishing high school in late 2013, I bought the first season on DVD. Loved it and over time I would buy all the seasons and have had two rewatches so far. It continues to age like fine wine and they had the entire story mapped out for the seasons from start to finish. Although I think Better Call Saul is far superior, I still love Breaking Bad so much. The ending was perfect and went out on a high note
Walking Dead - I got into this a lot earlier than Breaking Bad three years earlier when Walking Dead first aired. I wasn’t the biggest zombie fan but this sold it for me. The first five seasons were incredible and they still are actually. The story from the first five seasons were spot on, it was red hot. It was exciting. They didn’t just copy the comics, they adapted and changed things around which helped contribute to the success of the series
But then came seasons 6 - 8 which I considered the dark ages, I lost a lot of interest over time as a fan and I grew to hate watching it. Why didn’t I stop? I probably should have back then. However, I had faith that things would turn around soon and that I was waiting for the Whisperers to arrive. So from seasons 6 - 8, my hope was decreasing with every episode. The quality was so bad and bland. Negan isn’t interesting and that’s not a dig at JDM. The whole Negan storyline and keeping him alive in this series like in the comics was horrible for me
Then came season 9, and my interest in TWD was renewed. It felt like new life had entered the series making me a super hardcore fan again. Yes, The Whisperers were introduced but man the quality was so much better, the episodes and even the absence of Rick which shocked me. Season 10 killed everything for me and I stopped for good halfway through after the Whisperer War. The quality of the story, episodes and characters was so bad it was back to seasons 6 - 8 and that was the last straw. I didn’t watch TWD again until the final episode. I knew what the season was because I read all the comics. But bloody hell the ending to TWD was so awful, it was generic and safe
I don't even care about all the TWD spinoffs and this stupid idea of having their universe brought up
This was one of the best video essays I've ever seen in my life, you should be proud and you definitely earned a new subscriber.
El Camino is absolutely necessary I could not live without it
Another show that ended at the right time was "The Good Place". They unraveled the core mystery at the heart of the series, gave closure to the characters, and still stayed funny and original.
Another comedy you made reference to in the video was How I Met Your Mother. A show that was funny during most of its run, but stayed maybe three season too long. And the show runners insistence that they adhered to the story that was planned during the beginning, but by 9 seasons had veered WAY past that point, was the most damning. The series finale basically undoes the entire final season, even subverting the entire premise of the show ( Meeting the Mother) to shoehorn in the ending.
25:10 i think the contradiction was intentional. When Rick gave his speech, the group was demoralized by losing the prison, Beth and Tyreese and hope for a future was bleak. Also Darryl’s immediate reaction to rick saying that in season 5 was “We ain’t them”. I always thought the show was implying that Rick was wrong, and he is proven wrong when they get to alexandria and their quality of life improves alot. By the time season 11 rolls around, they don’t need to be savages to survive anymore, they have a network of communities who are trading resources with citizens following laws.
While i agree that The Walking Dead had a major downfall, i think that line is good and consistent with Darryl’s character and for the theme of the show.
25:00 Rick says "We Are The Walking Dead" but then Daryl says "No, We ain't them" then Rick agrees
Oh yeah, you’re right. I forgot he says that. Okay, that part gets a pass.
@@ryan-jamison it's about them switching from survival to thriving, completely intended. In the comic, where Daryl doesn't exist, Rick delivered both of these lines. He said that they are the walking dead during the prison ark, but by the end of the story when they were encountering the Commonwealth, he didn't believe that anymore.
@@ryan-jamison Fix that part of the video at least
I like to hear something different about the show. you put a great video together.
As someone who is also trying to make longer videos myself, I have so much respect for everyone making these long videos. Keep up the great work buddy
Thank you! It took a lot of work but I’m proud of the result. And you already have some really solid stuff on your channel! Just keep at it, man 👏🏻
Lost is another great example of the writers being asked to drag the show on and the show suffers for it.
The directing and camera work in breaking bad and better call saul is one of the main reasons I love these shows, it just has such a unique fun camera work
Btw the reason Season 2 of TWD is great and feels like a true continuation of Season 1 is because Darabont actually just got done writing most of Season 2 before he was fired. To me, I would still consider that to be a Darabont Season, and because of it, the first two seasons are the greatest in the show
I liked S2 because it gave us time to actually see the characters develop. Which is ironic, given that it only happens in a single place because their budget got slashed drastically.
Especially Shane got to be an actual person, and I felt so bad for him when everyone turned on him for no real reason. He was innocent of everything Rick and Lori threw his way…
@@ArDeeMeeShane was a mess. He tried to rape Lori and murder Rick all cause he was horny for Lori. Shane was a loose canon who was not fit to b leader
Great video! I'm around your age and was introduced to both shows while growing up. And like you, I saw the steep contrast with how the shows were run. My Mom and I still watch TWD, partly to rag on it.
TWD didn't end because of greed, plain and simple, and it was tragic to see its descent. The episodes post season 5 got very formulaic with pointless bottle episodes and with main story beats limited to the midseason and season finales. Many episodes ended in cheap cliffhangers that barely delivered.
But what really killed the show for me was the loss of its central theme of mercy vs brutality. At its core, the show was about Rick balancing the two as he protected his people and taught his son how to be a good man. The show lost its heart when Carl and Rick left. The post-Rick era just isn't the same show and feels so empty without him. There is no main character but instead too MANY characters trying and failing to fill his role in the story.
The worst part of it, imo, are the time skips. The time skips made the Rick era feel so irrelevant. The first 8 seasons were around 2-3 years in and now the show is 10 years in. So many members of the bloated cast never met Rick and Carl. When Michonne left, it was like Rick and Carl never existed or mattered. NONE of the current characters address the mercy vs brutality theme like Rick and Carl did. Most of the new characters say nothing about it. The old characters remaining (Daryl, Carol, and Maggie) are not confronted with the theme much in the later seasons. I guess Daryl was conflicted about killing Leah but he got over it pretty quickly. Like you said, the new villains were cartoonishly evil with very little nuance. There was no moral conflict and no need to have mercy or be a good person.
I remember being 14 and watching Too Far Gone premiere. I was so anxious when Hershel, Rick's last voice of mercy, was on his knees while Rick desperately tried to reach out to the Governor. I actually trembled. I never felt like that while watching something before and probably never will again. I felt nothing when anyone in season 11 died. Didn't care about Lance, Leah, Sebastian, Luke (seriously who gave a shit about him? Why even bring him back, for real...), Rosita, whatever. There was no tension, no point, and no meaning behind the deaths in the newer seasons.
The first seasons feel pointless, and that's such a shame because they were the only seasons with a core message behind them.
The Walking Dead doesn't even have an ending. They tried to turn it into a "franchise" by making spin-offs before they even finished it. So the technical "ending" of the main show meant absolutely nothing.
Breaking Bad has spin-offs, but they were made after the series was finished and they're properly focused.
In my opinion when they killed off Carl the show was over.. as a father to me the story was essentially about him protecting his son.. when that was over.. so was the show.
I was so young when I watched BB on TV since the first season dropped. I didn't even realize what a masterpiece the series was until I finally revisited the show last year. Watching it through a couple episodes at a time was a wild ride at times and really shows how the characters really do change over the entire series.
I think it’s safe to say the center Walking Dead show really ended season 6 episode 9 the best episode in the whole show, after that it was never the same
6x16, 7x1, 7x8, 8x8, 8x9, 8x16, 9x5, 9x15, 10x13, 10x16, 10x22, 11x3, 11x16, 11x24. All amazing episodes, earlier seasons had more great ones but the show did not die.
@@slippinjimmy9787 agreed but that vibe twd always had in the early seasons ended w that episode tbh
Episode 1 season 7 is the end of the show for me
@@Willingtomb you and a lot of people unfortunately
@@Willingtomb Yh most people stopped watching after that episode...I guess everyone who stopped watching were Glenn fans more than the walking dead fans...And Andrew's acting in that episode was phenomenal:)It is what it is though..S06e16 and S07e01 are one of the best episodes of the series...
S1 of TWD took me a day, s2 took me a week, s3 took me a month and by the 4th season i dropped it. Especially with the perspective change in the narrative that left me intrigued about other story lines
i absolutely adored seasons 1-3 of the walking dead as a teenager, and i just finished watching breaking bad for the first time ever a few days ago. i never really had a lot of interest in watching it during its original run, but was suddenly compelled to give it a try after being hit with the realization that it ended 10 years ago and people _still_ talk about it like it's totally fresh. i feel like its ability to maintain relevancy for such a long time after ending (although im sure its resurgence was influenced by better call saul ending last year) is such a stark contrast to the fact that, if you were to tell someone about the final season of the walking dead, they'd almost definitely go "oh it ended? i didnt know it was still going". i also fell off the walking dead train around the time of glen's death, as i got more and more tired of the show's obsession with story beats that existed solely for shock value. breaking bad, however, never lost my attention for a second, and never made a story decision that i felt was unnecessary or lame. it's genuinely tragic how the walking dead petered on season after season, looooong after it had already exhausted every meaningful narrative upset it possibly could have, and instead opted for a montage of shock value death scenes and a monster-of-the-week cast of cartoon villains.
The Walking Dead: My Childhood
Breaking Bad: My Adulthood
Fun fact: in both shows, the main protagonist tries to off themselves in the pilot.
I was shocked to see this doesn't have more likes. This is such a refreshing video, I think the comparison is instantly interesting and you articulate your points succinctly. I love BRBA and all the content in its universe, but when it comes to talking about it, I find there's not much else to be said if someone isn't willing to explain their own interpretation/perception of the show, your personal anecdotes about both shows were so nice to hear. The editing was also awesome, the way you utilize clips feels more intentional as opposed to just compiling stuff to have playing in the background. Great work :-)
Thank you for noticing even the small details I put in there! I’m glad you enjoyed it 🙌🏻
Great video! Breaking Bad is perfect. TWD has many, many flaws, but I will always, always give love and respect to the heart and soul of that show - Andrew Lincoln, one of the greatest and perhaps most underrated leading performances. I will never get tired of watching that man work.
its crazy thinking how jessie was suposed to die 1st season but ended up being the last man standing...wow
I have been writing as a hobby for a few months now, just short stories and all, taking inspiration from games I've played and movies I've watched, ending the story has always been a problem for me, I get a good start, the content of the story is plentiful, but I just can't fit the ending anywhere, it always feels like there is more to add, writing is really the only time my imagination runs wild like that. Once I heard the quote you used in the beginning I have always tried to end the story, even if I have to cut out the a little bit of fat from it. This video is a masterpiece of an essay
Just a tiny thing that I would like to point out is: many shows that drag on too long remove character when the actors quit in was that feel unnatural. Breaking Bad never felt that way to me
Fun fact: I went to high school with Chandler Riggs. We were buddies.
Another fun fact: Carl's death was not originally in the script.
Chandler didn't know he was going to be killed off until they started filming the episode. For some reason I was never told, the producers decided Carl needed to be the next to die and for some other dumb reason, Chandler was the last to know about it. He had signed on for another full season but had it cut short.
If you needed anymore proof that AMC genuinely had no idea what they were doing and making it up as they went along, there you go.
idk if it's true but i was always told it was because producers decided that he was "too old" for the role, they didnt want to have a teenager on set. Which is weird so idk if it's true
@@coolkiddo3110Nah. İ think i understood whole situation. İts all about the Money. He was turning 18 and that meant only one thing... The old contract expired and it was all about either resign the contract or just get rid off him. Bastards chose second option. Classic
@@TCO365 that makes a lot more sense, so fucked
I think they read the comic, saw Andreas death scene and decided "Thats COOL! That would so work with Carl."
The show absolutely died with CORAL's death.
Ending a story is easy, ending it on a satisfying way is hard.
I wish frank darabont could’ve been the walking dead’s Vince collagen. BrBa shows how having a consistent showrunner improves the quality of a story. Too bad the greedy higher ups muddled it up
breaking bad is my definition of a perfect show. nothing even comes close.
Twd felt like a spinoff after Rick “died”
This video even had a better ending than TWD
Not fair
Lmao
Not that hard
SO underrated this perfectly capsulates my thoughts on the 2 series.I never finished TWD I don’t think i ever will.
You won’t be missing much tbh :/
@@ryan-jamisonhe will but keep thinking you are in the right
If you want a tighter, concise show while watching the Walking Dead- stop watching after season 6 episode 9 "No Way Out". That episode works as a series finale, ties up almost all major ongoing storylines so much so that that the following episode starts with a time jump. That way, although you may experience the wheels starting to wobble, the train ultimately still makes it to the station if you get what I mean
Man well done for sticking with TWD for that long, I was done after the disappointment of the terminus storyline 😂