*enters number*
Hello? Is that the production office of The Walking Dead? Yes? Can I speak to anyone to do with writing, please? Oh, hi! Yes...I was just wondering if you knew anything about characterisation. Cha-rac-ter-i... oh, you've heard the term before? Excellent. Do you plan on using the concept again any time soon? I mean, Jessie...she's confident and bright and all that in two episodes, not behaving like an abused woman at all, and then bam! Out come the tears and the nervous disposition. Now, I know Alexandra B can act, so that just makes me think this abuse thing was dropped on her. And that you did it to create ambiguity in the first instance without logically following it through. I mean, you could have had her as the abuser, Rick kills her hubby after Carol - an abused woman, you'll remember, so her sympathies and reading of the situation would automatically go one way - misreads the situation and feeds into his already barely-repressed desire, and that gets them exiled along with whoever else wants to leave, then in the finale they haul ass back and save the day as the bad guys attack. As it is, you had him fight a lurching drunk guy and almost come off second best, and that was BS. BS? You know, that stuff that...oh, you know that, too. Well, how about you cut the BS out and have a logical narrative progression again, yeah? Because you're just showing how wrong it was to get rid of Frank Darabont right now. 'K? Oh, and Glenn needed to kill that dude in last week's ep, because it's pretty obvious how that's going to go now.
*buzz of open line their end*
(And yeah, I know in reality the buzz would have happened a lot sooner, and from the other end. Nor am I completely dissing the writing: some of the fringe stuff is good - Sasha's going postal (which needs to be resolved), Michonne's internal conflict, Survivalism With Daryl And Aaron, etc. It's the main plot points they're missing the marks on. Shout out to (iirc) prufrock21, too: that little lad does do way more sneaking around than is good for him. A sticky end awaits, though for some reason he seems to see Carol as a protector now. Oh, and Carl was decked. Accidentally for sure, but decked. "I'm staying here, Dad...with Judith" ahoy.)
I think the kid's "Job" is to get to Carol. Everyone's weaknesses are being exploited. Rick's weakness is he's a man and he wants a piece of ass. He hasn't allowed himself to be a man in that sense as it is a weakness. He has Carl and judith to fight for and he has to stay focused. I do think it is some sort of plan because yeah, things spiraled a little too fast.