Walking Dead- Season Two (Probably will be spoilers)

[Syka]

Anyone else watching this?

Personally, I still find the quality astounding for a cable program and can't wait to see where it goes from this crazy opener...

I broke my cardinal rule to not watch a TV show/movie without first reading the source material, but I read a synopsis of the graphic novel. Those who have read the graphic novels, what are your thoughts on the deviations from that story line?


Also...zombie herd ftw.

[Kindablue]

Oh my gosh it was awesome. The deviations from the books don't bother me for the same reason that Kirkman gave in the after show (The Talking Dead, which was also pretty good), that the whole point of a horror/suspense series is to keep the audience from predicting what's coming next, and you can't do that when you let them read the script first. The last few episodes of season one were kind of disappointing, and this one really made up for that.

[Serpentine]

Wait... Season Two's out?! My Boy said it wasn't coming out 'til next year! D:

[Maelstrom]

I with you Syka -- I have not read the comics yet, either....but I can only find the French versions around here, and I hate reading translations. I'll have to wait until I visit the US (or maybe next trip over the Channel) to pick them up.

As for the TV series, it *is* fantastic. Just finished watching the season 2 premier...and the end was, well, a shocker... yikes.

[Anderlith]

I thought the new episode was so tragic! I hope that the deer is okay!:smallfrown:

[Mr.Bookworm]

I broke my cardinal rule to not watch a TV show/movie without first reading the source material, but I read a synopsis of the graphic novel. Those who have read the graphic novels, what are your thoughts on the deviations from that story line?

I think it's well done. I was actually surprised when (volume 1 spoiler) Shane survived. As long as they keep up the quality, it makes it a lot more interesting to watch, too.

Also, it looks like he's incorporating stuff from later on. The idea of zombie herds didn't come up until Volume 10-ish.


I thought the new episode was so tragic! I hope that the deer is okay!:smallfrown:

Um. That's a joke, right? Internet and lack of tone and all.

[Anderlith]

Um. That's a joke, right? Internet and lack of tone and all.

Yes, I believe it was.

[Kindablue]

I think it's well done. I was actually surprised when (volume 1 spoiler) Shane survived.
Volume 1 spoiler:
I'm convinced that he's going to live forever. Every time Shane and Rick go into the woods together, I feel like the writers are making fun of me. :smallbiggrin:

[Starbuck_II]

I thought The black guy was going to die when he cut himself on the car with the zombies coming.

I missed the last 30 minutes of the episode. Did I miss much?

[Maelstrom]

I thought The black guy was going to die when he cut himself on the car with the zombies coming.

I missed the last 30 minutes of the episode. Did I miss much?

Yeah, quite a bit...

[Mr.Bookworm]

I thought The black guy was going to die when he cut himself on the car with the zombies coming.

Oh, yeah, I actually said out loud black dude dies first! (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlackDudeDiesFirst)

I was pleasantly surprised when that turned out to not be the case.

Really, I think one of the things I like the most about the Walking Dead is that it's not really about a bunch of idiots who make terrible decisions and die from them.

In this episode, they come back from searching for Carol to rest up at night, drop under the cars instead of trying to fight it out, avoid using guns because they know it'll give them away, and a bunch of other little things that show a degree of common sense and intelligence that a lot of zombie story protagonists don't have.

Oh, yeah, and they follow proper gun safety (as far as I noticed), which is always a nice touch.


I missed the last 30 minutes of the episode. Did I miss much?

Yes.

Among other things, a huge cliffhanger that you will recognize if you've read the graphic novels.

[0Megabyte]

Man, my favorite change now is the

Shane thing. I guess it makes sense. Kirkman, iirc, has stated that he kinda regrets getting rid of Shane so soon in the comic. That dynamic wasn't nearly milked for all it was worth. It deserves a more extended treatment, and it looks like the show is going to do that. Have him be alive when the baby comes, for example? Oh man. Fun stuff.

Also, I kinda hope they pull Morgan back in more quickly. There's no plot-centered reason for them to hold off as long as in the comic, especially since Rick was using his messages to him as an awesome "captain's log" moment, as well as reminding us of him. I mean, since they have Shane back, why not bring Morgan in more quickly? I also notice they skipped meeting Tyreese and his family... though they can wait for awhile to add them, since they have the Hershell family coming up! This is going to be so much fun.

[Ricky S]

It was alright but no where near as good as the comic book was. The deviations are ok for the most part but some of them are pretty random. Like the CDC lab at the end of season 1. That didn't need to be in there.

[Anderlith]

It was alright but no where near as good as the comic book was. The deviations are ok for the most part but some of them are pretty random. Like the CDC lab at the end of season 1. That didn't need to be in there.

You sir have missed the point. The comic & show are different

[Syka]

The CDC lab did kind of need to be in there, too. It shows just how hopeless their situation has become in a pretty effective way. Even the organization that is supposed to be solving this problem has fallen apart.

[Lord Seth]

Well, the premiere got some very impressive ratings (http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/10/17/zombie-nation-the-walking-dead-season-premiere-delivers-record-ratings/107480/). It's also nice (http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/10/18/cable-top-25-monday-night-football-the-walking-dead-and-jersey-shore-top-weekly-cable-viewing/107575/) to (not counting sports) see something other than Jersey Shore get the #1 cable spot for once...

[thorgrim29]

Faith in humanity slightly restored!

Also, good episode, Laurie seems more reasonable then she was in season 1 about her affair with Shane, Daryl continues to be badass, Carl gets a character, all good. Not sure I like where Andrea's going tough.

[Ricky S]

You sir have missed the point. The comic & show are different

After reading the comic the show just seems really lacking. There hasnt been enough character development yet so I can't really sympathise with them. They are just like some randoms wandering around in a zombie land.

[Eruantion]

So, did anyone catch the new episode?

Personally, I think some cliffhangers (namely Sophia) shouldn't be drawn out like this. Maybe it's a short attention span, but it seems like everyone's still, "Oh, yeah... still need to wait for Sophia..."

[Gator]

Yeah, I'm not thrilled with the pacing. Reserving judgment until I see more, but if they're only doing thirteen episodes, they need to make each one count.

[Tyndmyr]

Anyone else watching this?

Personally, I still find the quality astounding for a cable program and can't wait to see where it goes from this crazy opener...

I broke my cardinal rule to not watch a TV show/movie without first reading the source material, but I read a synopsis of the graphic novel. Those who have read the graphic novels, what are your thoughts on the deviations from that story line?


Also...zombie herd ftw.

Comics are a LOT better. People in there behave rather less stupidly in general.

[Giggling Ghast]

Comics are a LOT better. People in there behave rather less stupidly in general.

You and I must have read different versions of the Walking Dead, then.

[Reverent-One]

Watching it, and enjoying it. The latest episode was a bit slow, but it had some nice character moments.


Comics are a LOT better. People in there behave rather less stupidly in general.

I'm not seeing a lot of stupidity in the show, a few of the character's aren't very smart, sure, but they're offset (and outnumbered) by the more capable characters.

[leafman]

I just started watching this on season 2 premier night (caught the 6 hour marathon of season one before the premier). Having not read the comics and not knowing what to expect I like it. Apparently in the Walking Dead-verse they don't know about zombies like we do, but they seem to make intelligent decisions anyway (for the most part).


Yeah, I'm not thrilled with the pacing. Reserving judgment until I see more, but if they're only doing thirteen episodes, they need to make each one count.

Just saw that AMC has renewed for a third season :smallbiggrin:

[psilontech]

Love me some walking dead, was reading the comics long before the show was announced.

I don't too terribly mind the changes made between the book and the series, I've quite enjoyed Shane sticking around, but
I hope it doesn't deviate too terribly far from the comic. The Prison arc was with little doubt my favorite. That ****ing mayor, man.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pXrYfLArYUQ/Tfqb2PpIhqI/AAAAAAAAAI0/Soj8A-lqdjw/s1600/the-walking-dead-the-governor.jpg


Also looking forward to the character changes that Rick is going to go through. From "We don't kill the living!" to "These *******s just ****ed with the wrong people!" while hefting a rifle.

[GenericGuy]

DAMMIT SHANE!!! I LIKED OTIS:smallfurious: AND FOR HIM TO DIE LIKE THAT!!!:smallfrown:. I know he was probably going to end up dead anyways, being kinda a minor character, but still Shane just crossed my moral event horizon

[Giggling Ghast]

That was cold, Shane.

Could have at least had the decency to shoot him in the head.

[Vonotar]

But then he wouldn't have been screaming and attracting attention, sadly.

Got to say I really did not see that coming, right up until the flashback I was expecting Otis to have pulled a save yourself moment.

[0Megabyte]

Man. The fat guy dies first, I guess. I was kinda feeling, before that point, "hey look, here's a fat guy pulling his weight in an action/horror series. Sure he made a terrible mistake, but he's risking his life to correct it, and is being useful about it!" And then the ****er Shane shoots him. I mean, yeah, I can see how, if Shane lived, other characters from the comic would die. But still, damn man. At least it wasn't like "oh look, the guy is expendable" it was "oh look, Shane's a complete bastard."

In any case, it shows a character who isn't angsting about "do I have the will to survive in this awful world blah blah blah?" Shane, at least, knows the answer to this question: "I'm gonna live. Screw the rest of you, if need be."

It's actually something useful they're doing with the character. It's great, in the sense that I was worried how he'd fit, since he was already dead at this point in the comic. He makes an interesting foil for Rick in this way.

[Fawkes]

I love the comic, and I love the series.

My thoughts on the changes: (spoilers, of course)
I just can't get over how much more I like the TV version of Shane. It's just so well fleshed-out, and the tension's building so much better. That said, I don't think he'll be making it out of season 2.

[thorgrim29]

Seeing as he just shot a guy who had just saved his life to survive (the need to save Carl is a mitigating factor tough) I think him leaving the group and/or dying is very possible, especially since Daryll is taking his place as Rick's second in command. BTW, am I the only one who thinks Daryll is the best redneck ever?

[Caesar]

just saw ep. 3, and all I can say is, man who ever is writing Shane is one cold hearted cynical bastard. I hope they keep it up.

[Laws of Chaos]

While I knew something bad had happened when Shane showed up alone, I didnt think he'd pull a stunt like that! They could have made it out together, he was just being a bastard about it. He hope they end him painfully lol.

[Caesar]

Thats the thing tho; they definitely would have died no doubt about it, if shane hadnt done it. It was necessary for survival. It was cold and hard, and beyond borderline f-ed up, but it was necessary. Like I said, the guy who wrote that is one cynical sob.

[Phase]

I didn't really see it as a given that they'd be overtaken. I mean, maybe I missed something, but going alone on a sprained ankle is gonna be a lot slower. Slow enough, perhaps, that the head start given by feeding the zombies would barely even break even. This was just a **** move.

I could see it as a viable option for someone to take, but like Jack said, he didn't even have the decency to shoot him in the head. No one who leaves another human being to be eaten alive by the undead has any equatable redeeming factors in that scenario. His comeuppance had better be painful.

[Giggling Ghast]

But then he wouldn't have been screaming and attracting attention, sadly.

The zombies are opportunists. Hell, they'll eat their own if they're helpless, as evidenced by that hanging zombie. (Dumbass.)

I don't think it would matter how much the meat was squirming, so long as it was fresh.

[Ricky S]

The directing was bad in that scene. Basically it should have been made obvious that they both couldnt get back alive. However the way it was filmed it looked like if shane hadnt killed otis they could have both made it back to the car with time to spare. The car wasnt far away and the zombies were too far back to be a problem. The fight scene where he was taking the backpack off took ages. Realistically the zombies should have made it too them both before he could get the back pack.

[ThreadKiller]

Dang...for a moment, I thought they were going to kill off Daryl. First, he gets impaled by his own cross bolt and has to pull it out while fighting off two zombies. I thought he was a goner when Andrea used a gun scope to aim at his head. I would have been pissed, since he's currently my favorite character.

...And the barn is full of zombies. I guess I should have seen it coming, since the there was that zombie in the water well. I don't condone normally violence, but I think it would be better to put those poor people out of their misery instead of letting them continue their existence as zombies. Anyway, it'll be interesting to hear Hershel's justification for keeping the zombies.

[Giggling Ghast]

If the series stays faithful to the comics on this plot point — and it seems like it's going to — Hershel has already given his justification for imprisoning the walkers.

He believes that a cure for the zombie virus will be found and is keeping those people "alive" so they can be saved.

Unfortunately, his good intentions are going to cost him dearly.

[Fawkes]

Dang...for a moment, I thought they were going to kill off Daryl. First, he gets impaled by his own cross bolt and has to pull it out while fighting off two zombies. I thought he was a goner when Andrea used a gun scope to aim at his head. I would have been pissed, since he's currently my favorite character.

I hear ya.
I thought it was kind of a cop-out to have that tense scene building up to him being shot in the head, only to come back after commercial with "Oh no, he's fine, you only grazed him", but on the other hand, Daryl is the best and I want him to live forever.

[Flickerdart]

I hear ya.
I thought it was kind of a cop-out to have that tense scene building up to him being shot in the head, only to come back after commercial with "Oh no, he's fine, you only grazed him", but on the other hand, Daryl is the best and I want him to live forever.
To be fair, it was quite unlikely that Andrea would have made that shot, it's not like she's had a lot of practice with this sort of thing.

[Krazzman]

Want the comics? google avaxhome.ws

I've got a problem with the comic...the prison arc... can't stand the rape thing...

[Tyndmyr]

Watching it, and enjoying it. The latest episode was a bit slow, but it had some nice character moments.

I'm not seeing a lot of stupidity in the show, a few of the character's aren't very smart, sure, but they're offset (and outnumbered) by the more capable characters.

Spoilers of stupidity below from season 2:

Oh look, a zombie in a well. Well, obviously, we'll just dangle one of our people on a rope down to him as "bait". We won't actually discuss our options, we'll just do that since it's so clearly brilliant. We won't even bother to discuss why we're baiting him, since he very clearly isn't going anywhere. Oh, we also won't bother to check the strength of ANYTHING we use for this plan, or consider how to actually get the zombie out.

Oh look, vehicles. We are going to comment on how it's clearly dangerous, then scatter like we're at the mall. No, nobody should go with the kids, they're clearly fine on their own in a dangerous situation in a zombie wasteland. Scouting is obviously a waste of time, even if you have things like a motorcycle.

Oh hey, everyone in the entire *censored* world has told me not to take the shot. My buddies went out to the target. They have lowered their guns and are talking with him. Looks like it's time to blast him!

Despite people dying from doing this all the damned time, we're going to keep wandering off in the woods by ourselves.

Also, children should always be part of scouting teams, etc. Especially if they beg you. Being eaten by zombies would probably make a good bonding experience.

The amount of time Shane spent killing Otis and getting his stuff, they both could have easily made it out. This kinda makes the whole thing pointless.

Also, sending the fat guy on a dangerous mission is probably not a great call.

Everyone acts like the asian kid, one of the few reliably competent people, doesn't exist at all until they need someone to loot for them. It's just...mind boggling. He doesn't even get mentioned in places where they're determining who does what.

Their new host doesn't bother to tell them to avoid the barn. He's quite cool with imposing rules, but doesn't bother to hide what is incessantly foreshadowed as his secret.


Back in first season:

Oh look, zombies follow noise! I'll use this very loud car to make them all follow me to get out of scrapes. Then, without disabling the noise, I'm going to gleefully drive back to our camp. EVERYONE will promptly forget that the zombies follow this exact source of noise.

Our camp will not bother with walls, guards for any time when drama is happening, lights, fences, or anything tougher than a nylon tent.

Oh look, zombies all around me. I'll just ignore them, and go further into the city. The city with a million frigging danger signs outside it indicating everyone is dead. Clearly, an ever increasing number of zombies does NOT mean I should go back. Or deal with them. No, ignoring them is clearly a win.

Nobody bothers to take even the slightest precautions to avoid infection. Even ignoring that they don't know the whole zombie thing(which should result in MORE paranoia and caution) for most of the season, any normal person interacting with dead bodies should normally attempt to avoid having blood say, all over his face. If it happens, at least make an effort to wipe it off. I'm not asking for gas masks and chem suits, just a little basic sanitation and hygiene.

Women are incompetent when facing zombies. All of them turn into gender stereotyped helpless wrecks. This grates on me, especially compared to the comics. I'd like the women to be at least equally rational with the men, as opposed to being controlled entirely by emotions.

Nobody ever thinks of, or even discusses, possible solutions to zombies. I don't require that these be good ideas...but it'd be nice to see them say, at least discuss the possibility of a fence, and shoot it down for lack of materials or something.

Also, they didn't learn the "Don't split the party" rule in the first season either. Note that MONTHS have elapsed, and they are still wandering off by themselves.

[Silverraptor]

Why are we spoilering everything? The warning of spoilers is in the title thread.:smallconfused:

But just because everyone else is putting in spoilers
It made no sense that none of the zombies would wander onto their property. My first thought was thats where they put all the zombies that did wander in.

[Reverent-One]

*Snip*

Not going to go into everything because that take to freaking long, but I'll hit some key points you're wrong about. First, Herschel does tell them to avoid the barn when Rick brings up them potentially moving in there. Second, Shane and Otis would not have gotten away, the walkers would have simply kept following them and eventually caught up, Shane and Otis were not gaining ground there. Killing Otis worked because it distracted them long enough for Shane to be nowhere nearby when they were done. As for your complaint about sending the fat guy, who should have gone with Shane? Herschel? No, he needed to stay. Rick? No, as Shane explained in that episode. Otis's wife or Herschel's daughter? They might have been able to help Shane find the stuff they need, and Herschel's daughter may even be a decent shot, but that's several maybes to deal with, and neither of them were volunteering out of guilt anyway. Third, this isn't the time for the kids to be useless, Carl's old enough to learn some responsibility and contribute. No they shouldn't try sending him off to scout solo like Daryl does, but he can at least go along with some of the others.

To go back to season one, they did in fact bring up the whole "car making a lot of noise" thing when Glenn brought it in and they do get the alarm shut off. And they do discuss solutions to the Walkers, it's just mainly getting to somewhere else that has resources and is safer.

@Silverraptor
They've got a fence around the property that seems to do a decent job of keeping the walkers out.

[Silverraptor]

@Silverraptor
They've got a fence around the property that seems to do a decent job of keeping the walkers out.

Is that how its keeping them out? To me, it sounded like the walkers convinetly "Missed" them since all the neighbors decided to get up and start walking too.

[Tyndmyr]

Not going to go into everything because that take to freaking long, but I'll hit some key points you're wrong about. First, Herschel does tell them to avoid the barn when Rick brings up them potentially moving in there.

He doesn't say to avoid the barn. He says he doesn't want them getting comfortable because he doesn't want it to be a permanent arrangement.


Second, Shane and Otis would not have gotten away, the walkers would have simply kept following them and eventually caught up, Shane and Otis were not gaining ground there. Killing Otis worked because it distracted them long enough for Shane to be nowhere nearby when they were done.

First off, they should have considered a plan to get away before, yknow, going in. It would have been understandable if the injury made the plan impossible, but not having a plan at all? Just plain foolish. And what, did they walk there from the farm? Vehicles and horses have been used for every other notable transit. There's no reason to expect they would have to walk all the way back.


As for your complaint about sending the fat guy, who should have gone with Shane? Herschel? No, he needed to stay. Rick? No, as Shane explained in that episode. Otis's wife or Herschel's daughter? They might have been able to help Shane find the stuff they need, and Herschel's daughter may even be a decent shot, but that's several maybes to deal with, and neither of them were volunteering out of guilt anyway.

Glenn, the guy that, again, always gets forgotten? He's actually competent at getting in and looting things, and routinely agrees to do it.


Third, this isn't the time for the kids to be useless, Carl's old enough to learn some responsibility and contribute. No they shouldn't try sending him off to scout solo like Daryl does, but he can at least go along with some of the others.

No, it's IS a time for the kids to be protected. Kids getting eaten is far, far worse than kids being useless. You have them do camp stuff. The idea of keeping the women protected back at camp, but taking the young kids out with you is silly.


To go back to season one, they did in fact bring up the whole "car making a lot of noise" thing when Glenn brought it in and they do get the alarm shut off. And they do discuss solutions to the Walkers, it's just mainly getting to somewhere else that has resources and is safer.

But despite the realization of all these things, they never put them together and realize that this is bringing walkers here, and they should do something about THAT. They certainly never bother to take any precautions to keep walkers out of their camp. That's a rather glaring oversight.


@Silverraptor
They've got a fence around the property that seems to do a decent job of keeping the walkers out.

Even so, the fence isn't that high. A person can get over it. The foreshadowing was pretty heavy on that. I admit I saw it coming mainly because of the comic(and actually, the whole "lock em in the barn in case of a cure" is a reasonable thing given the lack of knowledge about how it works), but it would be entirely reasonable for the main group to wonder about how zombies have been handled. Especially after the incident with one in the well demonstrated to them that the fences were not that effective after all.

[Reverent-One]

He doesn't say to avoid the barn. He says he doesn't want them getting comfortable because he doesn't want it to be a permanent arrangement.

Alright then, still, the fact that this made them set up away from the house and the barn accomplishes the same goal. Glenn has no problem sneaking around with Herschel's daughter, an explict statement about the barn wouldn't have deterred him (unless there was a threat of danger, which would just raise more questions about the barn).


First off, they should have considered a plan to get away before, yknow, going in. It would have been understandable if the injury made the plan impossible, but not having a plan at all? Just plain foolish. And what, did they walk there from the farm? Vehicles and horses have been used for every other notable transit. There's no reason to expect they would have to walk all the way back.

Seemed like their plan was to get in and out while the Walkers were distracted by the flare, they just couldn't move fast enough. They did drive from the farm, at the end they were trying to get far enough away to lose the Walkers and double back to the vehicle.


Glenn, the guy that, again, always gets forgotten? He's actually competent at getting in and looting things, and routinely agrees to do it.

And where was Glenn when Shane was heading out? He was out with the rest of the group and thus not available. It's also likely he wouldn't know any more about the equipment they were getting than Shane did.


No, it's IS a time for the kids to be protected. Kids getting eaten is far, far worse than kids being useless. You have them do camp stuff. The idea of keeping the women protected back at camp, but taking the young kids out with you is silly.

He's still old enough to go help, in the comics he's even learned to handle a gun by this point (and it seems like that'll be happening in the show soon).


But despite the realization of all these things, they never put them together and realize that this is bringing walkers here, and they should do something about THAT. They certainly never bother to take any precautions to keep walkers out of their camp. That's a rather glaring oversight.

There's little to indicate that the vehicles brought the Walkers to the camp, they only had them on when they arrive/leave. They did keep watch at the camp for the walkers.


Even so, the fence isn't that high. A person can get over it. The foreshadowing was pretty heavy on that. I admit I saw it coming mainly because of the comic(and actually, the whole "lock em in the barn in case of a cure" is a reasonable thing given the lack of knowledge about how it works), but it would be entirely reasonable for the main group to wonder about how zombies have been handled. Especially after the incident with one in the well demonstrated to them that the fences were not that effective after all.

Why would a walker try to get over it unless they're chasing someone? If/when a mass of walkers gets set on a path directly towards the fence, they're going to push over over it sure, but a random wandering walker should just hit the fence and try to go with the path of least resistence, around it.

[Tyndmyr]

Alright then, still, the fact that this made them set up away from the house and the barn accomplishes the same goal. Glenn has no problem sneaking around with Herschel's daughter, an explict statement about the barn wouldn't have deterred him (unless there was a threat of danger, which would just raise more questions about the barn).

How so? He isn't particularily drawn to danger, and the group has at least tried to obey the other rules Herschel laid down. I feel like "don't go in the barn, I have fragile stuff in there" or whatever would be taken with far less resistance than "no guns, I don't like em". And they went along with that.


Seemed like their plan was to get in and out while the Walkers were distracted by the flare, they just couldn't move fast enough. They did drive from the farm, at the end they were trying to get far enough away to lose the Walkers and double back to the vehicle.

Flares, plural. Which they used in advance, simultaneously, in the same area, while keeping none back? Clearly, even this implied plan is obviously sketchy.


And where was Glenn when Shane was heading out? He was out with the rest of the group and thus not available. It's also likely he wouldn't know any more about the equipment they were getting than Shane did.

It's not really addressed where he is. He doesn't seem to play any active part in the searching.

Speaking of the searching, I love that Rick goes off about how dammit, he needs to stay behind and search for the missing girl. Then, instead, he chills in the church and talks to the statue jesus instead. Good work there, buddy.


He's still old enough to go help, in the comics he's even learned to handle a gun by this point (and it seems like that'll be happening in the show soon).

It is not conventionally considered appropriate to have fairly young children on their own for extended periods of time. Addition of zombies and firearms to the situation does not make this assessment safer. Young children are also not noted for their capability in scouting or combat scenarios. This does not seem like an appropriate starting point for helping.

Note that the severe accident/death rate for kids in the group has managed to hit 100%, indicating that this logic is pretty sound.


There's little to indicate that the vehicles brought the Walkers to the camp, they only had them on when they arrive/leave. They did keep watch at the camp for the walkers.

Some of the time. With one guy at a time, who promptly stops paying attention whenever anything dramatic is happening. Also, people routinely wander off into the woods and such by themselves. Also, the woods are right next to camp, so it's not like the watcher can do that much good, especially at night. It's not like they lit it up or anything.

This all adds up to "essentially no defense against zombies, at your long term camp, in a zombie apocalypse" That's a sufficiently poor plan that nobody on this forum would come up with it even in a casual "what if" zombie discussion.


Why would a walker try to get over it unless they're chasing someone? If/when a mass of walkers gets set on a path directly towards the fence, they're going to push over over it sure, but a random wandering walker should just hit the fence and try to go with the path of least resistence, around it.

Or something. Animals exist too. The point is, a zombie DID get over the fence. At that point, you HAVE to realize that they can get over it, and should behave appropriately.

[Reverent-One]

How so? He isn't particularily drawn to danger, and the group has at least tried to obey the other rules Herschel laid down. I feel like "don't go in the barn, I have fragile stuff in there" or whatever would be taken with far less resistance than "no guns, I don't like em". And they went along with that.

Rick went along with that and forced the others to as well. I don't think Glenn would expect Rick to find out about his little tryst.


Flares, plural. Which they used in advance, simultaneously, in the same area, while keeping none back? Clearly, even this implied plan is obviously sketchy.

*Shrugs* They needed to make sure they made a big enough show to get and keep all the walkers' attention.


It's not really addressed where he is. He doesn't seem to play any active part in the searching.

Shane leaves before Herschel's daughter returns with Lori. Glenn is there when Herschel's daughter finds Lori. Thus, Glenn is not around to go with Shane, even if he would have been able to help.


Speaking of the searching, I love that Rick goes off about how dammit, he needs to stay behind and search for the missing girl. Then, instead, he chills in the church and talks to the statue jesus instead. Good work there, buddy.

So a character having a religious moment is being stupid and wasting time now. Great...:smallsigh:


It is not conventionally considered appropriate to have fairly young children on their own for extended periods of time. Addition of zombies and firearms to the situation does not make this assessment safer. Young children are also not noted for their capability in scouting or combat scenarios. This does not seem like an appropriate starting point for helping.

When was Carl searching for Sofia on his own? He was with Shane and Rick.


Some of the time. With one guy at a time, who promptly stops paying attention whenever anything dramatic is happening. Also, people routinely wander off into the woods and such by themselves. Also, the woods are right next to camp, so it's not like the watcher can do that much good, especially at night. It's not like they lit it up or anything.

Which is smart, because light would have just attracted walkers. Not a lot they could have done about that.


This all adds up to "essentially no defense against zombies, at your long term camp, in a zombie apocalypse" That's a sufficiently poor plan that nobody on this forum would come up with it even in a casual "what if" zombie discussion.

Again, not a lot they could do about it.


Or something. Animals exist too. The point is, a zombie DID get over the fence. At that point, you HAVE to realize that they can get over it, and should behave appropriately.

Like by keeping watch like they do?

[Tyndmyr]

Rick went along with that and forced the others to as well. I don't think Glenn would expect Rick to find out about his little tryst.

So, you agree the situations are different.


*Shrugs* They needed to make sure they made a big enough show to get and keep all the walkers' attention.

Clearly, they're going very light on the planning.


Shane leaves before Herschel's daughter returns with Lori. Glenn is there when Herschel's daughter finds Lori. Thus, Glenn is not around to go with Shane, even if he would have been able to help.

I don't recall Glenn being with Lori at all while they searched. In theory, he might be at the camper...but he manages to be terribly absent from all those scenes as well.

Even if so, why would you leave your quick, competent scout/looter back at base when you are scouting, and take your young kid instead?


So a character having a religious moment is being stupid and wasting time now. Great...:smallsigh:

Religious moments are fine and dandy. He has plenty in the comics. However, in the comics, he does this in downtime. Not when he just insisted they needed to split the group up because he really, really needed to do *something else*.


When was Carl searching for Sofia on his own? He was with Shane and Rick.

He was not sent off alone explicitly then. He has been alone numerous times throughout the series, and, for example, when they stopped at the roadblock, he's off happily looting corpses on his own. The danger is fairly obvious.


Which is smart, because light would have just attracted walkers. Not a lot they could have done about that.

The could have made a fence. Or not gone off into the woods solo when zombies are around.


Again, not a lot they could do about it.

But they KNOW zombies exist everywhere. They know the rules by this point. They damned well SHOULD be trying to avoid them, and/or harden wherever they are. It doesn't have to work, but there's a reason people in most zombie movies board up doors and windows and the like.

In fact, in the comic this show is based on, they DO take such basic precautions.


Like by keeping watch like they do?

Like by checking the area during daylight for wandering zombies in groups. That would be reasonable. Not wandering off alone into the darkness to take a pregnancy test would be reasonable. Checking the fence to see how he got in would be reasonable.

They do nothing. Nothing at all to address the "huh, it looks like zombies are getting in here." The irregular watch-keeping has been shown to be insufficient time and again by this point, but they do nothing different.

Additional discrepancies from the last episode. All before the credits stopped rolling.

They're hanging up dry clothes on the clothesline. This is ridiculous.

You watch a flashback of Atlanta being napalmed. Massive, billowing fire everywhere above the skyline. The chars call it out as being napalm, etc, so there is no possibility of a mistake. Apparently the authors just entirely forgot that they set most of the first season in Atlanta, which was NOT burned to the ground.

[Reverent-One]

So, you agree the situations are different.

Yes, in one Rick keeps them following Herschel's request, in the other, Rick wouldn't be able to, so an explict warning to stay out of the barn would do no good.


Clearly, they're going very light on the planning.

They have to make do with what they've got.


I don't recall Glenn being with Lori at all while they searched. In theory, he might be at the camper...but he manages to be terribly absent from all those scenes as well.

Then you remember wrong. He was quite impressed when Herschel's daughter rode in and smashed the walker attacking Andrea and even brought it up when they talked later.


Even if so, why would you leave your quick, competent scout/looter back at base when you are scouting, and take your young kid instead?

Easy answer, they didn't. Only T-dog and Dale stayed with the camper.


Religious moments are fine and dandy. He has plenty in the comics. However, in the comics, he does this in downtime. Not when he just insisted they needed to split the group up because he really, really needed to do *something else*.

He was at the church then, he wasn't going to be at the church later, so he just took a very short moment when the opportunity arose.


He was not sent off alone explicitly then. He has been alone numerous times throughout the series, and, for example, when they stopped at the roadblock, he's off happily looting corpses on his own. The danger is fairly obvious.

He's only been alone at times of relative safety, at the roadblock for example, there's no walkers in the immediate vicinity and several others are keeping watch and/or scouting.


The could have made a fence. Or not gone off into the woods solo when zombies are around.

You're assuming they had the tools and resources to make a fence, which I don't believe we saw other than the raw wood on trees nearby.


But they KNOW zombies exist everywhere. They know the rules by this point. They damned well SHOULD be trying to avoid them, and/or harden wherever they are. It doesn't have to work, but there's a reason people in most zombie movies board up doors and windows and the like.

In fact, in the comic this show is based on, they DO take such basic precautions.

They were trying to avoid them, the area they were camping in was remote and didn't have any walkers around until that one that they found eating a deer. At which point Rick and a few others went to get the guns so that they could move on with some defenses (at least I believe the plan was to move on once they got the guns, it's been a while since I saw the first season). What precautions do they take in the comic that they don't take here?


Like by checking the area during daylight for wandering zombies in groups. That would be reasonable. Not wandering off alone into the darkness to take a pregnancy test would be reasonable. Checking the fence to see how he got in would be reasonable.

Really? Lori steps a short distance away from the house for a minute in a relatively safe area to do something in secret and you're giving her crap for it? :smallsigh:


They do nothing. Nothing at all to address the "huh, it looks like zombies are getting in here." The irregular watch-keeping has been shown to be insufficient time and again by this point, but they do nothing different.

Actually, the people on watch regularly see danger prior to it getting there.


They're hanging up dry clothes on the clothesline. This is ridiculous.

Or the clothes are still damp.

[Tyndmyr]

Yes, in one Rick keeps them following Herschel's request, in the other, Rick wouldn't be able to, so an explict warning to stay out of the barn would do no good.

He follows explict requests, and tries to make sure his people do the same. Anything not made explicit, his people are really bad at.

Like, yknow, taking the guys horse without asking. That strikes me as kind of dumb.


They have to make do with what they've got.

Which, in brain cells, seems to be about three.


Then you remember wrong. He was quite impressed when Herschel's daughter rode in and smashed the walker attacking Andrea and even brought it up when they talked later.

Ah, right. Which reminds me, that scene is a bit at odds with the background of what Herschel's family is doing with the zombies.


He was at the church then, he wasn't going to be at the church later, so he just took a very short moment when the opportunity arose.

And they showed him doing a complete lack of searching.


He's only been alone at times of relative safety, at the roadblock for example, there's no walkers in the immediate vicinity and several others are keeping watch and/or scouting.

Nobody is keeping watch at the roadblock. It is not relative safety. It is a new area that's congested so you can't see what's going on, and can't get through. Oh, and everyone there is dead. The chars themselves comment that it is, in fact dangerous. Then everyone gets out of the vehicles and goes wandering off solo.


You're assuming they had the tools and resources to make a fence, which I don't believe we saw other than the raw wood on trees nearby.

The ratio of abandoned things to people shown thus far is ludicrously high. They could have made a giant wall out of abandoned vehicles if they wanted to go for that sort of look. I would have also accepted nailing boards to trees.


They were trying to avoid them, the area they were camping in was remote and didn't have any walkers around until that one that they found eating a deer. At which point Rick and a few others went to get the guns so that they could move on with some defenses (at least I believe the plan was to move on once they got the guns, it's been a while since I saw the first season). What precautions do they take in the comic that they don't take here?

It's next to Atlanta. It's not remote.

There was no reason to believe that the zombies could not get there. The sighting of a zombie nearby is only further indication that it is not safe.

In the comics, they routinely stay together, keep everyone armed, and stick to living in places with walls, instead of tents. It's a world with a dramatic lack of people. There is no shortage of houses.


Really? Lori steps a short distance away from the house for a minute in a relatively safe area to do something in secret and you're giving her crap for it? :smallsigh:

Yes. If I live in a world where zombies exist, wandering away alone into the darkness is not something I will do. Ever.

Her "secret" is something that any rational person should have already concluded is a reasonable possibility. Thus, there is no reason for her to keep it secret. And she already confided it in one person, so being alone is still not at all necessary even if she wants to do so.


Actually, the people on watch regularly see danger prior to it getting there.

They didn't notice the zombie what got into the well. Or earlier, back at Atlanta, they didn't notice the zombies until well after they were already in the camp, chomping people. That is certainly a bit late. After such a notable event, one would think more precautions would be taken.


Or the clothes are still damp.

They're quite clearly dry. Dry cloth behaves noticeably different than wet or damp cloth. Watch it.

[Reverent-One]

He follows explict requests, and tries to make sure his people do the same. Anything not made explicit, his people are really bad at.

Again, it wouldn't have made a difference.


Like, yknow, taking the guys horse without asking. That strikes me as kind of dumb.

Disrespectful, but not neccessarily dumb.


Ah, right. Which reminds me, that scene is a bit at odds with the background of what Herschel's family is doing with the zombies.

Which means that either the urgency overrode the general attitude or not all of Herschel's family fully share his beliefs.


And they showed him doing a complete lack of searching.

Because they show very little of the actual searching without some good reason (Carl getting shot, Shane and Rick debating, Daryl falling down and almost dying). Watching people wander in the woods not finding the girl does not make for good tv. He was however definitely out with the rest of the group that nothing plot relevant happened to.


Nobody is keeping watch at the roadblock.

Dale and Rick would disagree. How else do you think they noticed the incoming herd?


It is not relative safety. It is a new area that's congested so you can't see what's going on, and can't get through. Oh, and everyone there is dead. The chars themselves comment that it is, in fact dangerous. Then everyone gets out of the vehicles and goes wandering off solo.

They had needs they had to fill and don't have time to waste, they wanted to get moving right after the camper was fixed. Again, no walkers in the immediate vincity and they were keeping an eye out for any incoming. Not an ideal situation, but wasting time is dangerous as well.


The ratio of abandoned things to people shown thus far is ludicrously high. They could have made a giant wall out of abandoned vehicles if they wanted to go for that sort of look. I would have also accepted nailing boards to trees.

There was not that many vehicles around. And did they even have nails, at least enough to board up a large enough area? Or enough boards to cover the area?


It's next to Atlanta. It's not remote.

They were some distance away from Atlanta with nothing around.


There was no reason to believe that the zombies could not get there. The sighting of a zombie nearby is only further indication that it is not safe.

Which is why they were leaving.


In the comics, they routinely stay together, keep everyone armed, and stick to living in places with walls, instead of tents. It's a world with a dramatic lack of people. There is no shortage of houses.

How many places with walls have you seen so far on the show? Also, they were camping out in the first book much like they were season one. Note that the current goal is to get to a fort. They've also armed most of the people, with those with gun training getting guns, and talked about giving the others gun training but haven't had the time to do so yet.


Yes. If I live in a world where zombies exist, wandering away alone into the darkness is not something I will do. Ever.

Again, she's right outside the house in an area that hasn't been attacked by walkers for an extended period of time. It's not a particularly risky move.


Her "secret" is something that any rational person should have already concluded is a reasonable possibility. Thus, there is no reason for her to keep it secret. And she already confided it in one person, so being alone is still not at all necessary even if she wants to do so.

You mean like she concluded was a possibility? Hence why she's testing to see if it's a certainity. The one person she "confided" in only knows because she needed him to and didn't find out until after she took the test.


They didn't notice the zombie what got into the well.

How do you know it wasn't there before they got there?


Or earlier, back at Atlanta, they didn't notice the zombies until well after they were already in the camp, chomping people. That is certainly a bit late. After such a notable event, one would think more precautions would be taken.

That was also at night, when it's hard to keep watch without light, which they can't use because they don't want to attact walkers.

This season, they also saw the herd in time to get into hiding, and had Daryl really been a walker, they would have seen it as well.


They're quite clearly dry. Dry cloth behaves noticeably different than wet or damp cloth. Watch it.

This is likely the fault of the tv crew, perhaps they wanted the blowing in the wind look from dry clothes and didn't care about the inaccuracry (like say the shows/movies that have the sterotypical sound of a sword being drawn from a sheath even when it wouldn't really make that sound).

[Tyndmyr]

Again, it wouldn't have made a difference.

You don't know that.


Disrespectful, but not neccessarily dumb.

Being disrespectful is, in fact, dumb. Especially when you're in a survival situation, this guy's saving on of your people's lives, and his continued acceptance of your party is a good thing for you.


Which means that either the urgency overrode the general attitude or not all of Herschel's family fully share his beliefs.

The former explanation is still not consistent with their behavior and beliefs, and the latter is no consistent with her other reactions toward zombies.


Because they show very little of the actual searching without some good reason (Carl getting shot, Shane and Rick debating, Daryl falling down and almost dying). Watching people wander in the woods not finding the girl does not make for good tv. He was however definitely out with the rest of the group that nothing plot relevant happened to.

They have been showing people searching for five episodes now. Yes, I'm sure every word of shane and rick talking about their high school love life was critical to my understanding of the story.


Dale and Rick would disagree. How else do you think they noticed the incoming herd?

They did not notice until the zombies were right on top of them. That's why they were all hiding separate, and nobody could shout warnings. This is not an example of an effective lookout or advance warning.


They had needs they had to fill and don't have time to waste, they wanted to get moving right after the camper was fixed. Again, no walkers in the immediate vincity and they were keeping an eye out for any incoming. Not an ideal situation, but wasting time is dangerous as well.

They were stuck. The kids were not fixing the camper. So, wasting time is not a criteria. They had no idea that no zombies were around(note, zombies are not just walkers). You have kids digging through cars with dead bodies. How do you know none of those are zombies? You don't.


There was not that many vehicles around. And did they even have nails, at least enough to board up a large enough area? Or enough boards to cover the area?

They were there for months. The amount of abandoned vehicles and empty buildings depicted onscreen is nothing short of immense. Yes, they had raw materials.


They were some distance away from Atlanta with nothing around.

Nothing IMMEDIATELY around them. Atlanta, like basically all cities, has civilization all around it.


Which is why they were leaving.

No, it's not. It's because Rick thought the CDC might have a cure. This is also not brought up until the episode AFTER the camp is attacked.


How many places with walls have you seen so far on the show? Also, they were camping out in the first book much like they were season one. Note that the current goal is to get to a fort. They've also armed most of the people, with those with gun training getting guns, and talked about giving the others gun training but haven't had the time to do so yet.

The amount of camping in the books was minimal. In the books, Rick is actually a competent leader, instead of the clueless buffoon he's portrayed as in the series. Angela was also a great deal more competent.


Again, she's right outside the house in an area that hasn't been attacked by walkers for an extended period of time. It's not a particularly risky move.

It is risky. It's a notable risk of death. You are in an area that you know zombies have gotten into(found one earlier that day there, yay!). It doesn't need to be a mass attack if you're alone and unarmed.

They do this all the time. Peeing with an armed buddy is not unreasonable.


You mean like she concluded was a possibility? Hence why she's testing to see if it's a certainity. The one person she "confided" in only knows because she needed him to and didn't find out until after she took the test.

No, he got the test for her. He knows what she's up to. Presumably those who have had unprotected sex with her also, being adults, are aware that pregnancy happens this way, and would consider testing to be...prudent.

There's no reason to keep it a secret.


How do you know it wasn't there before they got there?

They don't know precisely when it got there, but somehow, it DID get over the fence. And Hershel thought the wells were fine, he had no idea. It doesn't matter when you think he got in, the important thing is that you now know "They can get in". That's the only thing that matters. You should react appropriately to that, either by not chilling casually where they can get in, or by trying to keep them out.

And most certainly not by lowering a human to one of them for funsies.


That was also at night, when it's hard to keep watch without light, which they can't use because they don't want to attact walkers.

Light was only one possible response I listed.


This season, they also saw the herd in time to get into hiding, and had Daryl really been a walker, they would have seen it as well.

Seeing the herd was incidental. Everyone just happened to see the herd because there were so many zombies together. That was luck, not caution.

They did see Daryl, yes. Granted, a whole bunch of them happened to be outside at that point, so luck is playing a part again. They reacted stupidly to that. Specifically, Andrea reacts stupidly. The others reacted entirely normally.


This is likely the fault of the tv crew, perhaps they wanted the blowing in the wind look from dry clothes and didn't care about the inaccuracry (like say the shows/movies that have the sterotypical sound of a sword being drawn from a sheath even when it wouldn't really make that sound).

Probably. The writers are probably to blame for the napalm discrepancy(a pretty notable one)

On another note, Maggie and Glen slipping each other notes...seriously. I realized at about age six that this was a form of communication that was not all that stealthy. Wow.

[Da'Shain]

I'd also like to point out that they're all normal people. Only Rick and Shane have any sort of comprehensive firearm training; only Daryl is an experienced hunter and woodsman. None of them have crazy survivalist experience, none of them have had to deal with making armed, secure camps before, and none of them are exactly Mensa level. The fact that they're making mistakes only a few months into the zombie apocalypse is perfectly reasonable, and that they haven't changed their habits enough to be optimized for extreme safety is to be expected.

Expecting Lori to immediately come out and say she's pregnant, for example, is silly. She and Rick still have problems, she doesn't know exactly who the father is and Shane could go even more nuts if he thinks he's having his own kid now, and just an episode or two ago she expressed sincere doubts as to whether this world is one in which she wants her child(ren) to live. Yes, logically it would be best to simply come out with it as people will find out eventually anyway (unless she gets it aborted somehow), but how many people do you know that behave logically all the time? How many people in survival situations are always thinking clearly?

The watches being ineffective is debatable; obviously we're not going to see every single night, especially if nothing interesting happens that night or whoever's on watch deals with a walker with no incident. We see the watch fail a few times, sure, but one person or even two cannot see everything.

On Shane and Otis being the ones to go: Glen was definitely elsewhere. There was no time to waste as Carl was near death. Otis had firsthand knowledge of both the school and the equipment they needed, and really, acquitted himself pretty well; just because he's fat doesn't mean he's not useful and should be immediately dismissed. I admit that the situation where Shane shot him was a bit unclear (to me at least), but actually I liked that about it. Shane clearly thinks he did what he had to do to survive, and Otis wasn't very hopeful about their chances either, but there's always some ambiguity in a choice like this. Shane could be right, and he took the option that led to one of them getting out of there and thus saving Carl; TBH I can't blame him for choosing himself to live, if that was the case. Or, Shane could be wrong, and his increasingly narrow focus is causing him to make bad decisions, not just morally questionable ones. I like that there's arguments for both sides.

Also, if Andrea doesn't lose gun privileges for this, they deserve to get shot. I was shocked that almost no one seemed truly angry with her; that was a massively boneheaded move, especially after all of her grandstanding about how she deserves a gun. She's almost becoming a straight liability at this point, which I'm surprised by; at this point in the comics, she's one of the more levelheaded hardass characters in the group, and the best shot by far. Her characterization is going farther afield than I expected.

[Tyndmyr]

I'd also like to point out that they're all normal people. Only Rick and Shane have any sort of comprehensive firearm training; only Daryl is an experienced hunter and woodsman. None of them have crazy survivalist experience, none of them have had to deal with making armed, secure camps before, and none of them are exactly Mensa level. The fact that they're making mistakes only a few months into the zombie apocalypse is perfectly reasonable, and that they haven't changed their habits enough to be optimized for extreme safety is to be expected.

I am not a crazy survivalist, nor do I claim to be a ridiculous genius.

I don't have to be to realize that if the dead are living and trying to eat my brains, I should probably not wander off into the darkness unarmed. I have the skill "Have watched a horror movie at some point in my life".

And Rick and Shane are cops. They should have at least a marginal spread of training.


Expecting Lori to immediately come out and say she's pregnant, for example, is silly. She and Rick still have problems, she doesn't know exactly who the father is and Shane could go even more nuts if he thinks he's having his own kid now, and just an episode or two ago she expressed sincere doubts as to whether this world is one in which she wants her child(ren) to live. Yes, logically it would be best to simply come out with it as people will find out eventually anyway (unless she gets it aborted somehow), but how many people do you know that behave logically all the time? How many people in survival situations are always thinking clearly?

She doesn't have to say she's pregnant. She merely has to say "Gee, it'd be nice if I could check, just in case. Also, we should probably use condoms."

And even if she does want to keep her secret...well, she confided in one person to get her the test. Why not have the guy keep watch?


The watches being ineffective is debatable; obviously we're not going to see every single night, especially if nothing interesting happens that night or whoever's on watch deals with a walker with no incident. We see the watch fail a few times, sure, but one person or even two cannot see everything.

They fail the majority of the time.


I admit that the situation where Shane shot him was a bit unclear (to me at least), but actually I liked that about it. Shane clearly thinks he did what he had to do to survive, and Otis wasn't very hopeful about their chances either, but there's always some ambiguity in a choice like this.

At a minimum, it makes Shane look like a much more evil, selfish SOB if it wasn't really, clearly necessary.


Also, if Andrea doesn't lose gun privileges for this, they deserve to get shot. I was shocked that almost no one seemed truly angry with her; that was a massively boneheaded move, especially after all of her grandstanding about how she deserves a gun. She's almost becoming a straight liability at this point, which I'm surprised by; at this point in the comics, she's one of the more levelheaded hardass characters in the group, and the best shot by far. Her characterization is going farther afield than I expected.[/spoiler]

Right. I'm very, very unhappy with her char in the movie. She's coming across less as competent, and more as emotionally unstable and dangerous.

The casualness with which they respond to rather severe mistakes seems...unreasonable. In a survival situation, I'd think people would react stronger to such dangerous mishaps, if anything. More tension, etc.


Edit: More things coming back to me as I think through the episodes.

Rick once justifies taking more people on the basis "so we can cover more ground". Cut to scene of them walking single file down a path.

Just once, I would like to see an episode that isn't "They do something stupid, and spent the entire episode trying to fix it. And also talk about their feelings."

[WalkingTarget]

I have the skill "Have watched a horror movie at some point in my life".

Point of order: I thought that it's fairly standard procedure that this type of horror story setting doesn't seem to include the kind of media it exemplifies (barring self-referential ones like Scream or Shaun of the Dead). I don't recall anybody in the show mentioning anything about zombie films or anything (although my memory could be failing me there).

The characters can't be genre savvy since the genre doesn't seem to exist.

It's like how the Star Wars franchise doesn't exist in the Darths & Droids universe.

Not to say that the Walking Dead characters don't fail simply by lacking common sense, but faulting survival horror characters for not knowing things about survival horror stories is a bit unfair.

[Reverent-One]

You don't know that.

He's sneaking off to have sex with Herschel's daughter, respecting an request like go into the barn is not something Glenn is likely to care about.


Being disrespectful is, in fact, dumb. Especially when you're in a survival situation, this guy's saving on of your people's lives, and his continued acceptance of your party is a good thing for you.

Taking the horse to look for a lost girl isn't likely to cause Herschel to break off all contact, so Daryl probably doesn't care if it makes a bit of friction since they're not planning to stay long.


The former explanation is still not consistent with their behavior and beliefs, and the latter is no consistent with her other reactions toward zombies.

How many other reactions toward walkers has she had?


They have been showing people searching for five episodes now. Yes, I'm sure every word of shane and rick talking about their high school love life was critical to my understanding of the story.

Right, because that wasn't just the opening of their converstation that lead to arguing about whether or not they should be searching at all or anything. They just talked about their high school love life and cut to another scene.


They did not notice until the zombies were right on top of them. That's why they were all hiding separate, and nobody could shout warnings. This is not an example of an effective lookout or advance warning.

Really? Because I saw them noticing the walkers when they were still far enough away for them to get to hiding. Which would be the goal of keeping watch.


They were stuck. The kids were not fixing the camper. So, wasting time is not a criteria. They had no idea that no zombies were around(note, zombies are not just walkers). You have kids digging through cars with dead bodies. How do you know none of those are zombies? You don't.

No they weren't just waiting, they were looking for things left over that they could use to survive.


They were there for months. The amount of abandoned vehicles and empty buildings depicted onscreen is nothing short of immense. Yes, they had raw materials.

Not nearby the camp. And I must say, the camp looked rather similar to the one from the comics.


Nothing IMMEDIATELY around them. Atlanta, like basically all cities, has civilization all around it.

Atlanta does, but the area they were camping out didn't have anything nearby.


No, it's not. It's because Rick thought the CDC might have a cure. This is also not brought up until the episode AFTER the camp is attacked.

I'll take your word for it then. They still weren't just sitting around for some extended period of time after seeing the first walker thinking they were perfectly safe, Rick leaves pretty much immediately to go get the guns and Merle.


The amount of camping in the books was minimal.

And since the amount of camping in show is similar, it's must also be minimal.


In the books, Rick is actually a competent leader, instead of the clueless buffoon he's portrayed as in the series. Angela was also a great deal more competent.

The books also cover a larger period of time than the show has, allowing for more character development. I've heard a number of people who have also read all the books theorizing that we're seeing the beginnings of Angela's development to what she is in the comic.


It is risky. It's a notable risk of death. You are in an area that you know zombies have gotten into(found one earlier that day there, yay!). It doesn't need to be a mass attack if you're alone and unarmed.

Not really notable, as Herschel and crew as still alive and well and she's still right nearby the house.


They do this all the time. Peeing with an armed buddy is not unreasonable.

No, he got the test for her. He knows what she's up to. Presumably those who have had unprotected sex with her also, being adults, are aware that pregnancy happens this way, and would consider testing to be...prudent.

There's no reason to keep it a secret.

*Facepalm* Right, she has no reason to not tell her husband she was sleeping with his best friend and is now pregnant. There's no potential drama there.
[/sarcasm]


They don't know precisely when it got there, but somehow, it DID get over the fence. And Hershel thought the wells were fine, he had no idea. It doesn't matter when you think he got in, the important thing is that you now know "They can get in". That's the only thing that matters. You should react appropriately to that, either by not chilling casually where they can get in, or by trying to keep them out.

So they should do things like they were doing, keeping watch for any more walkers.


And most certainly not by lowering a human to one of them for funsies.

Yes, trying to make sure the well doesn't get contaminated in case it isn't already is just doing it for funsies.


Light was only one possible response I listed.

You offered no other viable ones.


Seeing the herd was incidental. Everyone just happened to see the herd because there were so many zombies together. That was luck, not caution.

Rick saw the first one when it was alone, or with just a couple of others, so even if the herd had only been one or two walkers, they still would have been aware of them.


They did see Daryl, yes. Granted, a whole bunch of them happened to be outside at that point, so luck is playing a part again.

The person on watch saw Daryl, another example of them doing their job.


They reacted stupidly to that. Specifically, Andrea reacts stupidly. The others reacted entirely normally.

Meh, the only real reason for her not to shoot him in-character is because herschel doesn't like guns. Not particuarly stupid for her to ignore that. The rest of the group had just barely got to him and hadn't gotten into a real conversation, they had really just established that he was, in fact, Daryl. I can understand her missing that while focusing on lining up a difficult shot.


Probably. The writers are probably to blame for the napalm discrepancy(a pretty notable one)

Maybe, could just be they didn't go to the heavily napalmed parts of the city.


On another note, Maggie and Glen slipping each other notes...seriously. I realized at about age six that this was a form of communication that was not all that stealthy. Wow.

Darn those horny kids.

[Tyndmyr]

Point of order: I thought that it's fairly standard procedure that this type of horror story setting doesn't seem to include the kind of media it exemplifies (barring self-referential ones like Scream or Shaun of the Dead). I don't recall anybody in the show mentioning anything about zombie films or anything (although my memory could be failing me there).

The characters can't be genre savvy since the genre doesn't seem to exist.

It's like how the Star Wars franchise doesn't exist in the Darths & Droids universe.

Not to say that the Walking Dead characters don't fail simply by lacking common sense, but faulting survival horror characters for not knowing things about survival horror stories is a bit unfair.

They don't need to know advanced tropes or anything, they could honestly get by on "stop making the same mistakes we already made". People go wandering off alone tend to get eaten? We should stop doing that.

At the moment, the only competent party members are Glenn(though he looses points for agreeing to be inexplicably lowered to a zombie) and Daryl. Honestly, why Daryl hasn't decided he'd be a better leader is a bit beyond me.

[Da'Shain]

I am not a crazy survivalist, nor do I claim to be a ridiculous genius.
I don't have to be to realize that if the dead are living and trying to eat my brains, I should probably not wander off into the darkness unarmed. I have the skill "Have watched a horror movie at some point in my life".
And Rick and Shane are cops. They should have at least a marginal spread of training.In fairness, you have the more specific skill "has watched zombie movies", which by Word of God no one in the Walking Dead universe has. :smalltongue:

But really, like I said, every so often people feel they need space, or don't want to relieve themselves in front of others, or are simply not thinking. They're mostly civilians who have gotten lucky, and their personal habits and need for privacy haven't changed enough in the relatively small amount of time they've been on the run. Rick and Shane do have some training, which is why they're in charge and the group has stayed alive as long as it has, but being a small town cop does not immediately translate into running a group that has to stay on the move and alert at all times with no support whatsoever from the outside world.




She doesn't have to say she's pregnant. She merely has to say "Gee, it'd be nice if I could check, just in case. Also, we should probably use condoms."

And even if she does want to keep her secret...well, she confided in one person to get her the test. Why not have the guy keep watch?Asking specifically for a pregnancy test is going to give away her secret, however she phrases it. Condoms, less so; but, well, telling her husband they have to go back to using those is likely to rock the boat, which Lori is trying not to do. Not saying it's logical or optimal, but it's perfectly believable.

Also, while she did confide in Glen that she wanted it, asking him to take the watch for her while she checks is gettig pretty personal with this secret that she really wants nobody to know. She had to ask the one time, but she could get away without asking the other.

And really, this particular instance is not that dumb a move. She goes to check in the dark, true, but it's obviously bright enough to see by considering that she can see whether the test is positive or not, she didn't go out of earshot of the camp/house, and she did it essentially in the middle of a field where she could have seen any walkers coming a hundred yards away. It wasn't all that dangerous.


They fail the majority of the time.We'll just have to agree to disagree, there; it's been months since the outbreak, and we've seen only a small fraction of those nights. But again, they're civilians, and one or two people on watch can't see everything all the time.


At a minimum, it makes Shane look like a much more evil, selfish SOB if it wasn't really, clearly necessary.Shane is a selfish SOB in most ways already. I wasn't particularly surprised when he did that, and I like the ambiguity as to whether it was necessary or not. I do think, though, that Shane certainly believed it was clearly necessary.




Right. I'm very, very unhappy with her char in the movie. She's coming across less as competent, and more as emotionally unstable and dangerous.

The casualness with which they respond to rather severe mistakes seems...unreasonable. In a survival situation, I'd think people would react stronger to such dangerous mishaps, if anything. More tension, etc.Yeah, it's pretty annoying in this case. Andrea doesn't really seem competent at all so much as depressed and petulant, yet the most that happens is Rick being a little short with her. Hell, Dale might as well have encouraged her! After she shot a man in the head, disobeying everyone else's orders because she wants to be Annie Oakley all of a sudden. And hell, she could easily have hit any of the others who were only a couple yards away when she took that shot! Ugh, we'd better see her getting dressed down in the next episode.

EDIT:

Meh, the only real reason for her not to shoot him in-character is because herschel doesn't like guns. Not particuarly stupid for her to ignore that. The rest of the group had just barely got to him and hadn't gotten into a real conversation, they had really just established that he was, in fact, Daryl. I can understand her missing that while focusing on lining up a difficult shot. Or because gunshots draw zombies and waste their ammo store. or because she's new at using rifles and could easily have missed or hit someone else by accident. Or because she knew Daryl was still missing and shooting people without being able to make sure they're a zombie is a big no-no when you have the time. Or because, you know, everyone who actually knew what they were doing told her not to shoot.

I can understand her shooting. What I can't understand is why the group was not immensely angry with her for doing so and immediately took away her gun. Most of their mistakes make sense, but they were already worried that Andrea shouldn't have guns, she disobeyed a direct order, she nearly killed their best hunter and tracker, and for no better reason than trying to prove she's a hardass. It was still a completely boneheaded move, one which the rest of the group is inordinately calm in responding to.

[Silverraptor]

I'm just trying to figure out how the military failed. Because when they started dropping napalm in the streets, the military was pretty much shooting to kill at that point. And a bunch of my military friends say that their squads talk so much about zombie surviving tactics that enough squads should have known from the beginning to go for head shots and everything.

[Da'Shain]

I'm just trying to figure out how the military failed. Because when they started dropping napalm in the streets, the military was pretty much shooting to kill at that point. And a bunch of my military friends say that their squads talk so much about zombie surviving tactics that enough squads should have known from the beginning to go for head shots and everything.Zombie movies, or at least the explosion of popular zombie stories, do not exist in the Walking Dead universe. Hence why this particular military definitely did not talk about the situation beforehand.

Really, though, the military probably shouldn't have been overrun completely unless they were all idiots. But maybe they weren't, and Shane's right; heck, the military could possibly still be around even in the comics, and just haven't gotten to that part of Georgia yet.

[Reverent-One]

EDIT:
Or because gunshots draw zombies and waste their ammo store. or because she's new at using rifles and could easily have missed or hit someone else by accident. Or because she knew Daryl was still missing and shooting people without being able to make sure they're a zombie is a big no-no when you have the time. Or because, you know, everyone who actually knew what they were doing told her not to shoot.

I can understand her shooting. It was still a completely boneheaded move, one which the rest of the group is inordinately calm in responding to.

Daryl looked a lot like a walker there, even walking like one. He also left on a horse. Understandable mistake, and not one to blow out of proportion. Rick's the only one that told her not to shoot, and the only reason for that was because Herschel doesn't like guns, not because he knew something she didn't thanks to experience. She was confident in her abilties and rightfully so it seems, it was a good shot. Hindsight's 20/20 and all that, but she was trying to be useful, so I understand why they're not tar and feathering her or anything.


I'm just trying to figure out how the military failed. Because when they started dropping napalm in the streets, the military was pretty much shooting to kill at that point. And a bunch of my military friends say that their squads talk so much about zombie surviving tactics that enough squads should have known from the beginning to go for head shots and everything.

Really the military failing is a conceit that's pretty much required for zombie movies/shows. Otherwise you have no movie/show. Kinda like how faster-than-light travel is mostly required for Sci-fi.

[Tyndmyr]

He's sneaking off to have sex with Herschel's daughter, respecting an request like go into the barn is not something Glenn is likely to care about.

He's not really portrayed as much of a bad boy. If that had been one of the rules, he would have picked a different spot. It isn't a flagrant disregard for all rules, he's just the timid guy who wants a relationship.


Taking the horse to look for a lost girl isn't likely to cause Herschel to break off all contact, so Daryl probably doesn't care if it makes a bit of friction since they're not planning to stay long.

Swiping peoples stuff in a survival situation is a fairly bad move. Actually, taking peoples stuff without asking is a dumb move in general. Most people learn this quite early in life, and at least refrain from swiping major stuff from people they're living with.


How many other reactions toward walkers has she had?

You get an on-camera shot of her shocked reaction at the well zombie.


Right, because that wasn't just the opening of their converstation that lead to arguing about whether or not they should be searching at all or anything. They just talked about their high school love life and cut to another scene.

Time spent on each was about equal. There is a giant pile of talking about things that is probably supposed to be characterization, and might actually be so if the chars were ones we wanted to empathize with at all.


Really? Because I saw them noticing the walkers when they were still far enough away for them to get to hiding. Which would be the goal of keeping watch.

Too close to call out to each other or get to safety, resulting in people scattering, having to fight zombies, etc. No. This was not a success.


No they weren't just waiting, they were looking for things left over that they could use to survive.

The point is, you don't NEED to scatter to do that. You have LOTS of time. Nor do you need to have the kids scatter into this unknown, dangerous territory.

Oh, and when you found the drinking water, your first action should probably not be gleefully pouring it over you. If supplies are that critical, that seems like a poor call.

Note that they didn't learn from losing the girl, either. They've got the boy unattended looting stuff off a dead body immediately afterward. Had that been a zombie, he'd have been done.


Not nearby the camp. And I must say, the camp looked rather similar to the one from the comics.

The camp only existed briefly in the comics. All this mucking about with the winnebego breaking down, etc...there wasn't a single breakdown anywhere close to this point. They sleep in it cause it's hardwalled and safe. I'm sure if the vehicle was a giant pile of suck, they would have switched to another one.

There are literally thousands of other vehicles they could use. There is absolutely no reason not to have as many vehicles as you need for any purpose.


Atlanta does, but the area they were camping out didn't have anything nearby.

They are already aware that zombies wander. The fact that you aren't immediately in a city does not negate that you're near a very, very high population area. With LOTS of population all around it. It's not a rural mountaintop or anything, it's just a wooded area that doesn't happen to have apartment buildings right next to it.


I'll take your word for it then. They still weren't just sitting around for some extended period of time after seeing the first walker thinking they were perfectly safe, Rick leaves pretty much immediately to go get the guns and Merle.

They have a number of days. He goes at what, the beginning of episode three, and the camp gets swamped the end of episode 4? And in that time, no effort was made to secure the camp at all.

Now, again, I'd be perfectly ok with them trying to secure it and not having enough time. That would be reasonable, but it would still have them behaving in a rational fashion.


And since the amount of camping in show is similar, it's must also be minimal.

They were camping for 5/6 episodes in season 1. That's a ton. In book 1, everyone was already getting firearms and stuff. Something we're just now getting to in season 2. Competence is being displayed much later, if at all, in the show.


The books also cover a larger period of time than the show has, allowing for more character development. I've heard a number of people who have also read all the books theorizing that we're seeing the beginnings of Angela's development to what she is in the comic.

Angela was never at this level of stupid, though.


Not really notable, as Herschel and crew as still alive and well and she's still right nearby the house.

Without guns. It'll take some notable time to help her if something goes wrong.


*Facepalm* Right, she has no reason to not tell her husband she was sleeping with his best friend and is now pregnant. There's no potential drama there.
[/sarcasm]

When your only reason for including something is "for the drama", you end up with a hackneyed show. OBVIOUSLY, they're going for drama and tension. It does not excuse stupidity to get drama and tension.

Nor does she need to tell her husband she slept with Shane at all. They slept together. That's plenty of reason for a test right there.


So they should do things like they were doing, keeping watch for any more walkers.


Yes, trying to make sure the well doesn't get contaminated in case it isn't already is just doing it for funsies.

Please explain how lowering a person down to the zombies as bait(their words, not mine) will result in that.


You offered no other viable ones.

Not living next to woods that allow them to sneak up on you,

Living somewhere other than tents.

Walling somewhere off.


Rick saw the first one when it was alone, or with just a couple of others, so even if the herd had only been one or two walkers, they still would have been aware of them.


The person on watch saw Daryl, another example of them doing their job.

I don't know who saw Daryl first, and wiki doesn't say.


Meh, the only real reason for her not to shoot him in-character is because herschel doesn't like guns. Not particuarly stupid for her to ignore that. The rest of the group had just barely got to him and hadn't gotten into a real conversation, they had really just established that he was, in fact, Daryl. I can understand her missing that while focusing on lining up a difficult shot.

How about...everyone had told her specifically not to shoot, they clearly had the situation well in hand? How about the fact that it involves shooting through her own people? Seriously, they JUST had a firearms accident.


Maybe, could just be they didn't go to the heavily napalmed parts of the city.

You literally see flames billowing above the skyline all throughout the city as helicopters napalm it with missiles(yes, I'm aware that the previous sentence is ridiculous. Technological gripes should also be directed to AMC.) There is no plausible reason why the city was not burned to the ground with that level of fire. Even if they somehow missed a bit...fire tends to spread.

[Da'Shain]

Daryl looked a lot like a walker there, even walking like one. He also left on a horse. Understandable mistake, and not one to blow out of proportion. Rick's the only one that told her not to shoot, and the only reason for that was because Herschel doesn't like guns, not because he knew something she didn't thanks to experience. She was confident in her abilties and rightfully so it seems, it was a good shot. Hindsight's 20/20 and all that, but she was trying to be useful, so I understand why they're not tar and feathering her or anything.Unless I'm misremembering, at least Rick and Dale told her not to shoot, and I believe Shane did as well. Regardless, though, she was told not to shoot by at the least the acknowledged leader of the group. Also IIRC, Rick does not give a specific reason not to shoot, and I seriously doubt that it's only because of Hershel's aversion to guns. It's a waste of ammo, and it makes a very loud noise that could draw other walkers, AND Andrea is a new shooter trying for a fairly long distance shot. We have no indication that anyone else thinks or knows she's a good shot yet, nor much in the way of evidence that she is. If it had been a walker, she still would've wasted that bullet because that shot would not have killed it. It was a good shot at a human; at a walker, it was useless.

If she was only trying to be useful, she would've been satisfied with spotting the "walker" and letting the others deal with it when they said they would. She was trying to grandstand and prove something, which simply ended up proving that she should not have a gun.

[Silverraptor]

Zombie movies, or at least the explosion of popular zombie stories, do not exist in the Walking Dead universe. Hence why this particular military definitely did not talk about the situation beforehand.

Really, though, the military probably shouldn't have been overrun completely unless they were all idiots. But maybe they weren't, and Shane's right; heck, the military could possibly still be around even in the comics, and just haven't gotten to that part of Georgia yet.

This show is supposed to take place in a parallel universe right that is otherwise mostly the same as ours. How the heck does the people not know anything about zombies despite them being in lore and legends since forever?
And yes, I think some military platoons survived and set up somewhere. Atleast, if they want to break out of the "Military being completely useless in this type of scenario" sterotype.


Really the military failing is a conceit that's pretty much required for zombie movies/shows. Otherwise you have no movie/show. Kinda like how faster-than-light travel is mostly required for Sci-fi.

I know it's required that military fails. What I hate is that they never explain how they fail. One thing I liked about the zombie game "Left 4 Dead 2" and the movie "I am Legend" is that the virus is implied to be airborne, with the survivors being immune. This meant that containing a zombie outbreak is much harder since bullets don't help much there. Sure, there's gas masks, but it just means there are that many more zombies everywhere, making the zombie overwhelming option that much more believable.

I guess what I'm saying is I just hope they explain where the military failed in this. Because air support vs a non-airborne virus that can be stopped with bullets, I put my money on the air support.

[Reverent-One]

EDIT: You know what? This is going nowhere and has been all day, I'm just going to bow out now, save us both some time.


Unless I'm misremembering, at least Rick and Dale told her not to shoot, and I believe Shane did as well. Regardless, though, she was told not to shoot by at the least the acknowledged leader of the group. Also IIRC, Rick does not give a specific reason not to shoot, and I seriously doubt that it's only because of Hershel's aversion to guns. It's a waste of ammo, and it makes a very loud noise that could draw other walkers, AND Andrea is a new shooter trying for a fairly long distance shot. We have no indication that anyone else thinks or knows she's a good shot yet, nor much in the way of evidence that she is. If it had been a walker, she still would've wasted that bullet because that shot would not have killed it. It was a good shot at a human; at a walker, it was useless.

Angela asks why and Rick specifically says "Herschel says he wants to take care of walkers", that leaves the issue of why they're going to kill it with melee weapons then, but eh. And given the sun glare in the scope, it was a good shot regardless.


If she was only trying to be useful, she would've been satisfied with spotting the "walker" and letting the others deal with it when they said they would. She was trying to grandstand and prove something, which simply ended up proving that she should not have a gun.

So she can't be trying to prove to be useful?


I know it's required that military fails. What I hate is that they never explain how they fail. One thing I liked about the zombie game "Left 4 Dead 2" and the movie "I am Legend" is that the virus is implied to be airborne, with the survivors being immune. This meant that containing a zombie outbreak is much harder since bullets don't help much there. Sure, there's gas masks, but it just means there are that many more zombies everywhere, making the zombie overwhelming option that much more believable.

I guess what I'm saying is I just hope they explain where the military failed in this. Because air support vs a non-airborne virus that can be stopped with bullets, I put my money on the air support.

I doubt they will because I doubt there's a good reason why. Maybe they'll come up with some though.

[WalkingTarget]

They don't need to know advanced tropes or anything, they could honestly get by on "stop making the same mistakes we already made". People go wandering off alone tend to get eaten? We should stop doing that.

True, and this is why they fail the "common sense" test, as I mentioned. I was just pointing out that "has seen a horror movie" is an unfair comparison to make.


At the moment, the only competent party members are Glenn(though he looses points for agreeing to be inexplicably lowered to a zombie) and Daryl. Honestly, why Daryl hasn't decided he'd be a better leader is a bit beyond me.

I was about done with the show when Daryl got shot (until the reveal of only being grazed)- Rick may be better at getting people to follow his lead, but I'd be all for Daryl getting the job of actually running operations in the field.

Glen gets a lot of points for being willing to repeatably go out on dangerous missions, but he still agrees to some really dumb stuff.

Dale also tries to keep some sort of moral sensibilities going, which gets some points from me as a character, even if I wouldn't want him leading the group.

I think it's interesting that characters are allowed to be flawed. Glen is brave and knows what he's good at, but lacks the backbone to force discussion rather than just agreeing to whatever harebrained plan the others come up with. Daryl is really good at the whole woodsman thing, but can't lead the group because he lacks the interpersonal skills to get people to follow him other than by bullying them. Dale's heart is in the right place, but I have a feeling that his attempts to always do the right thing morally is seriously going to cause them problems later.

Now, if some of these things were more on the forefront rather than the more glaring common-sense problems, that'd make for a better show.

Edit to add:

This show is supposed to take place in a parallel universe right that is otherwise mostly the same as ours. How the heck does the people not know anything about zombies despite them being in lore and legends since forever?

I'd say that a single-point change in the universe (the lack of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead) would be a big enough change to keep zombies - at least zombies of the kind used in this show - out of people's awareness. Zombies of "lore and legends" have little in common with post-Romero versions as far as I know.

[Da'Shain]

Angela asks why and Rick specifically says "Herschel says he wants to take care of walkers", that leaves the issue of why they're going to kill it with melee weapons then, but eh. And given the sun glare in the scope, it was a good shot regardless.

So she can't be trying to prove to be useful?Either they were going to herd it to Hershel somehow or that was simply the excuse Rick hit upon to get Andrea not to fire. Whatever the reason, though (and the ones I brought up are good reasons not to fire even if they're not the specific ones used), she was told not to fire and the situation was well in hand. Yes, it was a good shot, but not good enough if the shot had actually been warranted, which it still wasn't.

She's been told not to fire. She can't actually see the face of the figure who's coming, although it IS clearly dragging something which walkers tend not to do. There is at least one person still missing from camp, and likely to have been missing for longer than was agreed on (all the other searchers seemed to be back). She is new to shooting rifles. The rest of the group is all only a couple yards away when she does finally fire. She fires.

This is not someone who is ready to be carrying a scoped rifle. She might have been trying to prove she was useful, yes -- she failed, because while she's a pretty good shot, she's unreliable and didn't even try to determine whether she should fire or not.

[Silverraptor]

I'd say that a single-point change in the universe (the lack of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead) would be a big enough change to keep zombies - at least zombies of the kind used in this show - out of people's awareness. Zombies of "lore and legends" have little in common with post-Romero versions as far as I know.

Eh. Good point. But depending on military awareness, I would think the moment one of them found out that headshots = lethal, the entire army would be doing just that once they broadcasted it to everyone.

And if not, I'd still like to point out my airsupport option. Headshotting is the simpler option. Dropping tons of bombs on them is another that gets the same results.

[Reverent-One]

Either they were going to herd it to Hershel somehow or that was simply the excuse Rick hit upon to get Andrea not to fire. Whatever the reason, though (and the ones I brought up are good reasons not to fire even if they're not the specific ones used), she was told not to fire and the situation was well in hand. Yes, it was a good shot, but not good enough if the shot had actually been warranted, which it still wasn't.

She's been told not to fire. She can't actually see the face of the figure who's coming, although it IS clearly dragging something which walkers tend not to do. There is at least one person still missing from camp, and likely to have been missing for longer than was agreed on (all the other searchers seemed to be back). She is new to shooting rifles. The rest of the group is all only a couple yards away when she does finally fire. She fires.

This is not someone who is ready to be carrying a scoped rifle. She might have been trying to prove she was useful, yes -- she failed, because while she's a pretty good shot, she's unreliable and didn't even try to determine whether she should fire or not.

Side note: Dragging something? The only thing he was dragging was his leg, like a walker would.

I'm not saying it's the optimal choice for her to make, because it wasn't, but it's an understandable one that doesn't require her to be incredibly stupid and why there's no big blow up made over it.

[Silverraptor]

Side note: Dragging something? The only thing he was dragging was his leg, like a walker would.

I'm not saying it's the optimal choice for her to make, because it wasn't, but it's an understandable one that doesn't require her to be incredibly stupid and why there's no big blow up made over it.

I actually also remember him dragging something along behind him when she was looking through the rifle scope. I was thinking, "Come on lady, he's dragging something behind him."

[Reverent-One]

*re-watches scene*

Ah, he did have his crossbow dragging. Which is a bit tough to make out and could easily be something caught on the walker. Also, Rick didn't even want Shane and T-dog going out with the melee weapons because Herschel wanted to handle the walkers, and only went out himself after they ignored him. So everyone who's name was not Dale wasn't listening to Rick at that moment. At that point, Rick took a pistol and was ready to shoot Daryl himself.

[Silverraptor]

*re-watches scene*

Ah, he did have his crossbow dragging. Which is a bit tough to make out and could easily be something caught on the walker. Also, Rick didn't even want Shane and T-dog going out with the melee weapons because Herschel wanted to handle the walkers, and only went out himself after they ignored him. So everyone who's name was not Dale wasn't listening to Rick at that moment. At that point, Rick took a pistol and was ready to shoot Daryl himself.

Well, the sun was in their eyes. Besides, melee weapons vs 1 walker are prefered since you don't want to waste ammo.

[Tyndmyr]

Really the military failing is a conceit that's pretty much required for zombie movies/shows. Otherwise you have no movie/show. Kinda like how faster-than-light travel is mostly required for Sci-fi.

I get the military failing conceit...but like all conceits, you should draw attention away from them, rather than to them, and try to make them sound plausible whenever you need to cover them. So, most start wars with FTL make at least a slight attempt to explain it away via wormholes or hyperspace or whatever. And most people not being physicists, that's good enough to get on with things.

When you see them air striking Atlanta, you're forced to go "hmm, that's quite practical. It should cut down on the zombies quite a lot." It explicitly points out that the military still is operating with notable power after the cities fell, and makes you wonder why that stopped being a thing.

L4D did approach this fairly well. If survivors are selected by random immunity to the zombie virus, well...military/ex military people are .8% of the population. Fairly few survivors will be military. Good, solid explanation.

Walking Dead can't use this one, though. Survivors are apparently survivors due to skill and/or luck and/or available weapons/etc. In such a scenario, the military is composed of people who are very plausible survivors, especially compared to our cast. The question of their absence is one I'd love to see addressed.


This is not someone who is ready to be carrying a scoped rifle. She might have been trying to prove she was useful, yes -- she failed, because while she's a pretty good shot, she's unreliable and didn't even try to determine whether she should fire or not.

And honestly, that last one is the single biggest determinant of if she should be holding a gun. It's the biggest single reason why Rick is nervous about giving untrained people weapons(it's a summary of all the subreasons given so far about possible worries they've expressed). Such a dramatic demonstration that she's not ready to have a gun should lead to taking it from her.

Disobeying orders and endangering others over a need to prove something is a wildly huge warning sign. The ability to hit your target is meaningless if you're engaging the wrong targets.

I mean, if I were in a bad scenario, and someone is exhibiting this wildly erratic behavior with a weapon, I'd be...concerned. I certainly wouldn't be arming her.


*re-watches scene*

Ah, he did have his crossbow dragging. Which is a bit tough to make out and could easily be something caught on the walker. Also, Rick didn't even want Shane and T-dog going out with the melee weapons because Herschel wanted to handle the walkers, and only went out himself after they ignored him. So everyone who's name was not Dale wasn't listening to Rick at that moment. At that point, Rick took a pistol and was ready to shoot Daryl himself.

Yes, as a leader, Rick is not doing great atm.

Regardless, there's no compelling reason why she needs to fire, and a number of fairly good ones why she shouldn't. Anyone exhibiting that kind of notably poor decision making should not be handed a gun.

If anything, I would imagine Daryl would be rather unhappy about being shot. I would hope her continuing to carry a firearm becomes an issue in the next episode.

I also hope they finally wrap up the missing kid thing. Unfortunately, I rather suspect it'll be a lot of arguing over the zombies in the barn, and probably a side order of failing to hide the pregnancy. Probably lots of talking, and very little interaction with actual zombies.

It's a shame. I love zombie stuff, and I really want this to be good(hence the continuing to watch), but I've only got the three chars I empathize with at all(the same three already listed by another poster, unsurprisingly enough), and it just keeps dragging and being so ridiculously dumb...

[Reverent-One]

Regardless, there's no compelling reason why she needs to fire, and a number of fairly good ones why she shouldn't. Anyone exhibiting that kind of notably poor decision making should not be handed a gun.

She had one reason not to fire, and that was because Herschel wanted to handle walkers. Whether or not that's a good reason is debatable.

[Tyndmyr]

She had one reason not to fire, and that was because Herschel wanted to handle walkers. Whether or not that's a good reason is debatable.

No. Also, she was told not to by multiple people. That's a good reason, if the party is indeed accepting Rick in the leader role. Herschel's opinion is not the only one that matters.

Also, there's the aforementioned noise issue. The chars themselves have repeatedly remarked that gunshots attract zombies. She HAS to know this.

Also, we have target identification problems. She didn't know what she was shooting at, exactly. Sun glare, etc. This is an obvious problem. Yeah, he kinda did look like a walker, but when you have people out scouting, you kind of want to make sure before pulling the trigger, if you have the chance.

Lastly, we have the obvious safety issue of her, a novice shooter, firing directly through her own people.

She had a serious list of reasons not to shoot, and the only reason to shoot(prove herself/ego) is a notably bad one. It was a terrible call.

[Reverent-One]

No. Also, she was told not to by multiple people. That's a good reason, if the party is indeed accepting Rick in the leader role. Herschel's opinion is not the only one that matters.

Rick told her not to only because Herschel wants to handle walkers. With Shane, T-dog, and eventually Rick going out to handle it anyway, either way they're not following Herschel's request.


Also, there's the aforementioned noise issue. The chars themselves have repeatedly remarked that gunshots attract zombies. She HAS to know this.

And yet Rick takes out a gun and is about to shoot Daryl. Either they're not concerned about the noise (probably because of the remote area) or everyone forgot about it in the heat of the moment.


Also, we have target identification problems. She didn't know what she was shooting at, exactly. Sun glare, etc. This is an obvious problem. Yeah, he kinda did look like a walker, but when you have people out scouting, you kind of want to make sure before pulling the trigger, if you have the chance.

It looked like a walker, walked like a walker, in those cases, it usually is a walker.


Lastly, we have the obvious safety issue of her, a novice shooter, firing directly through her own people.

Only an issue if there's a risk of her hitting her own people, she judged that there wasn't, and we have no evidence thus far that she was overconfident about that.



She had a serious list of reasons not to shoot, and the only reason to shoot(prove herself/ego) is a notably bad one. It was a terrible call.

A bad call in hindsight, but as they say, hindsight is 20/20.

[Flickerdart]

It's not a bad call in hindsight, it's a bad call in all sights. All the other characters told her so, even. She didn't need to figure it out for herself.

[Da'Shain]

Rick told her not to only because Herschel wants to handle walkers. With Shane, T-dog, and eventually Rick going out to handle it anyway, either way they're not following Herschel's request.They could easily have gone out to herd it towards where Herschel has asked them to, or just away from their camp. The reason behind it is irrelevant, though, to why we fault her for taking the shot: she was TOLD not to shoot, by the group's acknowledged leader. When you are both a beginning shooter and not entirely trusted with weapons by the rest of the group, disobeying a direct order is most definitely grounds for the others to take away her gun.


And yet Rick takes out a gun and is about to shoot Daryl. Either they're not concerned about the noise (probably because of the remote area) or everyone forgot about it in the heat of the moment.He's prepared to shoot Daryl should it become necessary. However, the people with him are both armed with quieter melee weapons. Rick was most likely just covering them in case of a screwup.


It looked like a walker, walked like a walker, in those cases, it usually is a walker.... really? You're telling me if someone looks like a zombie from 100 yards away but you cannot see their face, you don't think it's necessary to make sure before shooting them in the head? You shouldn't be given a gun either, I see ...


Only an issue if there's a risk of her hitting her own people, she judged that there wasn't, and we have no evidence thus far that she was overconfident about that.She's a beginning shooter with obvious depressive tendencies who is trying to prove that she should be allowed a gun. Her judgment is suspect at best. And we do have evidence that there is a risk of her hitting her own people. She missed. She could quite easily have missed by more.

Also, even trained marksmen do not shoot through a group of their allies unless it is an obvious matter of life and death. Because anyone can screw up. Which is why, if she were fit to carry a rifle, she wouldn't have shot in that situation.


A bad call in hindsight, but as they say, hindsight is 20/20.As was said, it's a bad call in any sight.

[thorgrim29]

Andrea is flaky as hell, and everyone knows that... Why they're giving her a gun at all, especially a long range rifle that she barely knows how to shoot, I have no idea.

[Reverent-One]

It's not a bad call in hindsight, it's a bad call in all sights. All the other characters told her so, even. She didn't need to figure it out for herself.

Rick told her not to because of Herschel, which became a pointless reason not to when Shane and t-dog went out anyway, Dale told her not to just because Rick said so, which was equally pointless, and Shane told her not to because he wanted to kill it. None of them had any good reason for her not doing it. You're reading the fact that we knew it was Daryl into their responses, which mistakenly makes them look like they knew what they were doing anymore than she did.


They could easily have gone out to herd it towards where Herschel has asked them to, or just away from their camp. The reason behind it is irrelevant, though, to why we fault her for taking the shot: she was TOLD not to shoot, by the group's acknowledged leader. When you are both a beginning shooter and not entirely trusted with weapons by the rest of the group, disobeying a direct order is most definitely grounds for the others to take away her gun.

No, Rick told Shane and T-dog to come back, they ignored him, and then he swore and went to get a gun, they weren't going to herd it back. Shane and T-dog also ignored Rick, and no one's making a big deal out of that.


He's prepared to shoot Daryl should it become necessary. However, the people with him are both armed with quieter melee weapons. Rick was most likely just covering them in case of a screwup.

Rick took the lead with the gun. Had Daryl been a walker, Rick would have most likely been the one to kill it.


... really? You're telling me if someone looks like a zombie from 100 yards away but you cannot see their face, you don't think it's necessary to make sure before shooting them in the head? You shouldn't be given a gun either, I see ...

He looked a heck of a lot like a walker up close too, even when you can see his face. Again, it's not just looks either, Daryl's movement was also a dead on impression of a walker.


She's a beginning shooter with obvious depressive tendencies who is trying to prove that she should be allowed a gun. Her judgment is suspect at best. And we do have evidence that there is a risk of her hitting her own people. She missed. She could quite easily have missed by more.

She grazed him, it's a leap to assume that missing by inches means she'd hit another person several feet away.


Also, even trained marksmen do not shoot through a group of their allies unless it is an obvious matter of life and death. Because anyone can screw up. Which is why, if she were fit to carry a rifle, she wouldn't have shot in that situation.

You're also assuming that she's shooting through them and not over them, which she very well could be given her position.


As was said, it's a bad call in any sight.

If that had actually been a walker, no one would have cared and we wouldn't be having this discussion. The fact that we knew it was Daryl is the only reason why it is.

[leafman]

It was a bad judgement call. (Jumping in because I just saw the replay on tv)
She was told several times not to shoot and she should have noticed something was wrong before she took the shot because Daryl stopped walking when they guys got to him. He was standing there for a good 15 seconds before she took the shot, a walker wouldn't do that.

[Gator]

Bad call, as has been pointed out (...several times). She's irresponsible and reckless, with no skill or experience to justify it. (Rick and Shane are cops, and Dale knows how to handle guns.) The only thing that can be said about her behavior is that at least it's consistent for her character: Self-centered and unbalanced. Her selfish desire to prove herself competent and useful despite everybody else's justified reservations about her ability to handle a weapon ended up nearly killing Daryl.

(Line-by-line refutation in 3...2...1...)

[Reverent-One]

Bad call, as has been pointed out (...several times). She's irresponsible and reckless, with no skill or experience to justify it. (Rick and Shane are cops, and Dale knows how to handle guns.) The only thing that can be said about her behavior is that at least it's consistent for her character: Self-centered and unbalanced. Her selfish desire to prove herself competent and useful despite everybody else's justified reservations about her ability to handle a weapon ended up nearly killing Daryl.

(Line-by-line refutation in 3...2...1...)

She obviously knows how to handle guns as well, not as well as Rick and Shane, but as the gun training scene showed, she still has skill of her own.

[Tyndmyr]

And yet Rick takes out a gun and is about to shoot Daryl. Either they're not concerned about the noise (probably because of the remote area) or everyone forgot about it in the heat of the moment.

Having a gun out is mere prudent caution. I am not criticizing her for having her gun out.

However, his prudence is pretty clear indication that he CAN take care of the situation himself if need be. It's one dude. Rick is a pretty great shot with that pistol. He's entirely fine.


Andrea is flaky as hell, and everyone knows that... Why they're giving her a gun at all, especially a long range rifle that she barely knows how to shoot, I have no idea.

I might have given her a gun...with training, of course, given the desperation of the situation. However, after such demonstrated inability to use it safely, it would certainly have been taken away again.


Rick told her not to because of Herschel, which became a pointless reason not to when Shane and t-dog went out anyway, Dale told her not to just because Rick said so, which was equally pointless, and Shane told her not to because he wanted to kill it. None of them had any good reason for her not doing it. You're reading the fact that we knew it was Daryl into their responses, which mistakenly makes them look like they knew what they were doing anymore than she did.

Not at all. Nobody's life was in danger. The people out there were armed and prepared, and it was 3 vs 1 walker. They had it pretty solidly under control. There was no indication of attack.

And that's not even including the fact that he stopped to chat with them. I'll excuse that based on range, but it was still just a terrible call.


You're also assuming that she's shooting through them and not over them, which she very well could be given her position.

Basic trigonometry indicates that if your range greatly exceeds your height, you are in fact shooting through friendlies. She was what, a whopping ten feet up, shooting from prone? That's firing through.

Haven't seen yesterdays episode yet(will hit it tonight), but if Daryl doesn't demand she stop having a weapon, I'll be pissed.

[Zen Monkey]

The infection rules seem to be getting pretty lenient.

1. A lot of people are screaming, while hacking apart a walker with copious blood spray in very close proximity. I suppose it's good luck that none of the drops went into someone's eyes, nose, mouth, etc. There were a lot more precautions ("Guts") in season 1.

2. We've seen that they're reusing arrows, and are never seen cleaning them, so the tip that has been through several walkers has now been through Daryl. Nobody seems concerned by him essentially sharing dirty needles with the diseased.

[Reverent-One]

Basic trigonometry indicates that if your range greatly exceeds your height, you are in fact shooting through friendlies. She was what, a whopping ten feet up, shooting from prone? That's firing through.

Perhaps, perhaps not.


Haven't seen yesterdays episode yet(will hit it tonight), but if Daryl doesn't demand she stop having a weapon, I'll be pissed.

Guess you're going to be pissed then.

[Tyndmyr]

The infection rules seem to be getting pretty lenient.

1. A lot of people are screaming, while hacking apart a walker with copious blood spray in very close proximity. I suppose it's good luck that none of the drops went into someone's eyes, nose, mouth, etc. There were a lot more precautions ("Guts") in season 1.

2. We've seen that they're reusing arrows, and are never seen cleaning them, so the tip that has been through several walkers has now been through Daryl. Nobody seems concerned by him essentially sharing dirty needles with the diseased.

He did reuse bolts for a while...then inexplicably stopped doing so(probably because the writers realized that a crossbow that doesn't run out of bolts is an answer to a LOT of problems). He hasn't been reusing them for a couple of episodes, and it's clearly intentional. See his "waste of a bolt" comment for when he shoots the hanging zombie.

And yes, it definitely was a waste.

[Joxer t' Mighty]

Hadn't seen this thread yet. Awesome.

Especially cuz I have a Lorrie rant.
You petted little sow. Twice now you've considered killing your children simply so they won't have to grow up in a world where they have to hide and hunt. Boo hoo. Until the last century that was the NORM.

Go back even five hundred years and most people in the world still huddled around camp fires. OMG, they won't have modern conveniences. WHAT KIND OF LIFE IS THAT?! Waaaaah! *sob*

So the best thing to do is just let everyone die? There is nowhere in the world to be safe or to find happiness, nothing to love or care about? You have got to be kidding me. If mankind had your soppy little attitude then we'd have gone extinct long ago. Man found happiness amongst that. We didn't all just die from depression.

How about you raise back up a generation to make up for all the loss. Bring life into the world instead of continuing the death. They, unlike your spoiled ass, will take the world as it is in stride, and find a reason for living. You have that baby and then go stick your head in a meat grinder if that'll make you happy. One less useless bag of bones in the world.

[Tyndmyr]

Appropriate. I find it odd that we get the most on-screen ranting from the characters who have lost the least. Rick is crying all the time...and he not only has his full family, he even has a buddy(though I find his choice in friends questionable).

On the other hand, Glenn seems pretty damned stable. Dale appears not to have any problems coping at all, and even Daryl is pretty solid, despite losing his brother. Well, mostly, anyway.

[Giggling Ghast]

He did reuse bolts for a while...then inexplicably stopped doing so(probably because the writers realized that a crossbow that doesn't run out of bolts is an answer to a LOT of problems). He hasn't been reusing them for a couple of episodes, and it's clearly intentional. See his "waste of a bolt" comment for when he shoots the hanging zombie.

I figured he couldn't retrieve the bolt because the zombie is hanging in the air.


Go back even five hundred years and most people in the world still huddled around camp fires. OMG, they won't have modern conveniences. WHAT KIND OF LIFE IS THAT?! Waaaaah! *sob*

Did you actually listen to her? It's not the lack of modern conveniences she's worried about, although that admittedly sucks. It's the hordes of hungry undead that will zero in on a baby's cries.

Forget having to feed and clothe that kid, or having to scavenge for medicine when it gets sick. Just imagine trying to sneak past a horde of walkers with a crying baby in your arms and you get a sense of Lori's dilemma.

And it's not like a baby can defend itself from the undead. There's a reason you don't see many kids during these zombie apocalypses.

It's a moot point, however, since morning-after bills cannot terminate a pregnancy.

[Mixt]

You are hiding from the undead.

The baby starts screaming, which gives away your position.

Everyone dies.

Thank you very much you blasted baby, it's your fault we all got killed.

And that is why babies are dangerous.

[Joxer t' Mighty]

Did you actually listen to her? It's not the lack of modern conveniences she's worried about, although that admittedly sucks. It's the hordes of hungry undead that will zero in on a baby's cries.

Forget having to feed and clothe that kid, or having to scavenge for medicine when it gets sick. Just imagine trying to sneak past a horde of walkers with a crying baby in your arms and you get a sense of Lori's dilemma.
Welcome to the 1500's. Replace zombies with wolves. Actually, wolves are more dangerous in some ways. They're quieter and faster and you won't notice them until they're upon you. They can hear the babies from much farther and track you by scent. They also use tactics to surround you, and can communicate over distances.

If you're THAT worried, go way out in the middle of nowhere with some supplies. Wait a couple years until the kid can walk and shut up when you tell it. It'll be inconvenient, but who gives a steaming pile. You'll let the kids die as a convenience?

Also, they spend most of their time on the road. With big roaring vehicles. But fine, say they wanna settle down, find a nice, cozy BASEMENT and don't let the kid see the light of day for a couple years. No zombie is gonna hear it down there.

[thompur]

Welcome to the 1500's. Replace zombies with wolves. Actually, wolves are more dangerous in some ways. They're quieter and faster and you won't notice them until they're upon you. They can hear the babies from much farther and track you by scent. They also use tactics to surround you, and can communicate over distances.

If you're THAT worried, go way out in the middle of nowhere with some supplies. Wait a couple years until the kid can walk and shut up when you tell it. It'll be inconvenient, but who gives a steaming pile. You'll let the kids die as a convenience?

Also, they spend most of their time on the road. With big roaring vehicles. But fine, say they wanna settle down, find a nice, cozy BASEMENT and don't let the kid see the light of day for a couple years. No zombie is gonna hear it down there.

Wolves don't generally attack people, they avoid them. There are very few confirmed cases of wolves attacking humans. Zombies on the other hand...:smalltongue:

[Giggling Ghast]

Are you kidding? Outside of fantasy literature, wolves rarely attack humans; you're more likely to get hit with a lightning bolt than get attacked by a wolf. The main reason they were feared during the Middle Ages was because they preyed on livestock, not people.

Zombies, unlike wolves, currently blanket the Earth in the Walking Dead series. They are everywhere. Staying out in the middle of nowhere has only reduced the number of walkers that Rick's group has encountered. And if they can't stay at Hershel's farm, then they'll be forced to go on the move again.

Unlike a wolf, a zombie's existence is dedicated to feasting upon the living. They never stop looking for living humans or animals to eat, and they never have to rest. If a zombie knows there are living people inside a building, it might stay outside of that building forever while looking for a way in.


But fine, say they wanna settle down, find a nice, cozy BASEMENT and don't let the kid see the light of day for a couple years. No zombie is gonna hear it down there.

They still have to come out of the basement to get food, water, etc.

[Joxer t' Mighty]

Are you kidding? Outside of fantasy literature, wolves rarely attack humans; you're more likely to get hit with a lightning bolt than get attacked by a wolf. The main reason they were feared during the Middle Ages was because they preyed on livestock, not people. Sure, I wouldn't leave a defenceless child around a hungry wolf, but it's not like they hang around your house biding their time until they jump through a window and snack on your toddler.
Modern wolves rarely attack. For one, there aren't as many. But let's say there are rare wolf attack. Humans never had to huddle against predators? If they did, use them instead. Insert them instead of wolves. Use coyotes instead if you like. I 'know' they attack from personal experience.



Zombies, unlike wolves, currently blanket the Earth in the Walking Dead series. They are everywhere. Staying out in the middle of nowhere has only reduced the number of walkers that Rick's group has encountered.
Rick's group is so far not even forty miles from one of the largest cities in the southeast. I happen to live exactly in the area to where the walking dead was filmed. There are thousands of people there. They are by no means out in the middle of nowhere.

In georgia alone there are places where no one lives for a hundred miles. Much less other locations in the U.S. that can be traveled to. They can't be 'everywhere'. They have to have been there first, or nearby. None of those zombies even more more than a slow walk on average. They actually tend to congregate around where they rose. Even if they decided to head on out, it'd take them years to move out of the cities.



And zombies are constantly on the hunt for human flesh. Unlike a wolf, they never have to rest; barring some accident, a zombie can keep walking forever while it hunts for tasty survivors to chew on.
Except they aren't actively hunting. They only move if they see light, hear noise, observe movement. So unless someone is leading them along with a flesh carrot they aren't going anywhere.

[Zen Monkey]

So unless someone is leading them along with a flesh carrot they aren't going anywhere.

That probably sounds naughtier than was intended.

[Giggling Ghast]

Humans never had to huddle against predators?

Compared to all the people killed by disease, natural disasters, starvation and the actions of other humans, I dare say the number of people killed by predators like bears and wolves throughout history is infinitesimal by comparison.

This image you have of European peasants huddled fearfully in decrepit hovels while packs of baby-eating wolves terrorize the countryside has no basis in reality.


In georgia alone there are places where no one lives for a hundred miles. Much less other locations in the U.S. that can be traveled to. They can't be 'everywhere'.

Do you think that humans would not flee to remote areas during a zombie apocalypse? Humans are everywhere and therefore zombies are everywhere.


Except they aren't actively hunting. They only move if they see light, hear noise, observe movement. So unless someone is leading them along with a flesh carrot they aren't going anywhere.

Remember that pack of walkers that was moving along the highway?

Zombies. Roam.

[Silverraptor]

How did the pharmacy zombie get in there?:smallamused: And how was it able to be quiet for so long when they were talking just for a chance to jump out at them? I was under the impression they go immediately for their victims and are incapable of planning or logical reasoning.

[Karoht]

Only watched first season. Read the graphic novel first. Absolutely love the deviations thus far.

Personally, I never have the expectation that a movie, book, or comic will have an adaptation which is word for word from the original. The only thing I've seen thus far that even came close was 300, which is unique for a variety of reasons I won't get into here.

But indeed, I very much like the Walking Dead show. AMC really seems to know what the heck they are doing. They pick some great projects to fund.

I personally liked the CDC episode. I rather enjoyed the real time footage of the disease taking effect. I also rather like the show's version of Shane. He was a great 'rock and a hard place' character in the comic, and the show builds on that just enough but without ruining the original concept.

[Giggling Ghast]

How did the pharmacy zombie get in there?And how was it able to be quiet for so long when they were talking just for a chance to jump out at them?

Even zombies obey horror movie tropes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeadlyLunge).

But the walkers are not as mindless as you think. We've seen them crawl, climb fences and even use rocks to smash doors and windows.

[Silverraptor]

Even zombies obey horror movie tropes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeadlyLunge).

But the walkers are not as mindless as you think. We've seen them crawl, climb fences and even use rocks to smash doors and windows.

Yeah, but I have trouble believing that Zombies are capable of setting up planned ambushes and not immediately going for food when the food makes noises.

[Giggling Ghast]

He wasn't necessarily lying in ambush. Maybe he wandered into the pharmacy through the back door, heard people talking and then shuffled up to the front. He was just smart enough to stay quiet until he got within close range.

[Silverraptor]

He wasn't necessarily lying in ambush. Maybe he wandered into the pharmacy through the back door, heard people talking and then shuffled up to the front. He was just smart enough to stay quiet until he got within close range.

You'd think they would've had the back door closed since the last time they were there. It seems like it would only be common sense for an area you may want to return to for supplies to close all its entrances until you come back to that area.

[Tyndmyr]

Guess you're going to be pissed then.

Oh yes. Everyone practically high fived her for shooting a party member. Also, she learned the superpower of self-confidence which turned her into a gun-ninja.



It's a moot point, however, since morning-after bills cannot terminate a pregnancy.

They can if you chug the whole bottle. That'll terminate just about anything. Not that this is in any respect a good idea. Realistically though, yeah...the window of opportunity is pretty obviously gone for using it as it's intended.


Rick's group is so far not even forty miles from one of the largest cities in the southeast. I happen to live exactly in the area to where the walking dead was filmed. There are thousands of people there. They are by no means out in the middle of nowhere.

Thank you! I've been saying for a while that the season 1 camp isn't all that far from civilization. I worked at Dobbins AFB for a while, and there's civilization all around Atlanta.


How did the pharmacy zombie get in there?:smallamused: And how was it able to be quiet for so long when they were talking just for a chance to jump out at them? I was under the impression they go immediately for their victims and are incapable of planning or logical reasoning.

I dunno dude...it seems to be running on Drama! instead of logic at this point, but I had two thoughts regarding it.

A. Just about decapitating someone with a board is...pretty hard. Either Glenn is pretty ridiculously strong, or the zombies are a lot squishier than people.
B. This provides further evidence for my case that they're portrayed as not taking basic anti-zombie steps, like looking around the building to make sure it's clean or securing the place so zombies can't get in. These are incredibly basic, and are shown in basically any zombie movie ever. Also, if the place is really that insecure, it was probably a really poor choice of places to have sex.

Also, Daryl clearly still has a bolt(quite clean and new looking) that he's playing with while he's healing. This is a bit odd, considering they earlier state that he's down to one, and he then uses it while wounded. I don't recall any depiction of him retrieving the bolt, and given the situation...it just seems odd.

I sort of wonder how these people survived ordinary, everyday life. And also why, if these folks can survive, everyone else has not. Does the zombie virus lower your IQ by 50 points?

[Karoht]

They can if you chug the whole bottle. That'll terminate just about anything. Not that this is in any respect a good idea. Realistically though, yeah...the window of opportunity is pretty obviously gone for using it as it's intended.Could also just cause a miscarriage, which, if the fetus is not removed, could kill the mother. Also, that many pills could have harmful side effects on the mom. As you said, "Not... a good idea."

In a D20 modern campaign we played, we did a zombie apocalypse setting, and we were all playing as our real life selves. So the DM being a clever person, through all manner of moral dilemas at us. We rescued a mom, turned out she had a baby and was pregnant with another already.

I'll be honest, the entire party saw an issue of bringing a baby with us, but darned if we could come up with a solution we were comfortable with. Thankfully, the decision was removed from us. We had a party member get attacked and incapacitated, and while this occured the mom got attacked. Party member broke free, looked at the mom and made the fort save to not throw up, and then ran after us with 8 fast zombies on his tail.

In a survival situation, Lori's dilemma's isn't really solveable without endangering herself (IE-Pills to abort child), but bringing the child to term would likely endanger her (medical complications) or the group (she slows them down because carrying a child will do that), and then keeping the baby brings on whole other issues.


This in my opinion is why the show seems to focus more on drama than on actual survival. The moral choices can really fill out a script for an hour long show rather quickly, the minutae of securing camp doesn't. Also, as much as it makes the characters look stupid (I have the same problem as you with some parts of the show), it also does convey a sense of panic and disarray, as not all flight-or-fight decisions necessarily make sense.



I sort of wonder how these people survived ordinary, everyday life. And also why, if these folks can survive, everyone else has not. Does the zombie virus lower your IQ by 50 points?Average people are stupid. No really, check wiki.
It's easy to watch the show and think to yourself "hey, if I was in that situation I would do this." Projecting one's self like this is easy. Sometimes such projection into the scenario rather than onto the characters is the way people begin to understand the characters or the scenario. But, sometimes it makes the audience bang their head against a desk in frustration and causes the inverse, the audience then no longer relates to the characters due to such frustration.

[Tyndmyr]

Could also just cause a miscarriage, which, if the fetus is not removed, could kill the mother. Also, that many pills could have harmful side effects on the mom. As you said, "Not... a good idea."

Spoiler from comics. Don't read unless you want the reveal/have read the comics.

Being that dead people automatically rise, bitten or not, in the walking dead world...what happens if you abort the baby? Does it chew it's way out?

Here's hoping we DONT find out.



In a D20 modern campaign we played, we did a zombie apocalypse setting, and we were all playing as our real life selves. So the DM being a clever person, through all manner of moral dilemas at us. We rescued a mom, turned out she had a baby and was pregnant with another already.

I'll be honest, the entire party saw an issue of bringing a baby with us, but darned if we could come up with a solution we were comfortable with. Thankfully, the decision was removed from us. We had a party member get attacked and incapacitated, and while this occured the mom got attacked. Party member broke free, looked at the mom and made the fort save to not throw up, and then ran after us with 8 fast zombies on his tail.

In a survival situation, Lori's dilemma's isn't really solveable without endangering herself (IE-Pills to abort child), but bringing the child to term would likely endanger her (medical complications) or the group (she slows them down because carrying a child will do that), and then keeping the baby brings on whole other issues.

It does. I'm not saying it doesn't suck as a situation...but they don't really focus on the moral dilemma. Rick doesn't even appear to accept that it's a problem, let alone come up with any thoughts for solving it.


This in my opinion is why the show seems to focus more on drama than on actual survival. The moral choices can really fill out a script for an hour long show rather quickly, the minutae of securing camp doesn't. Also, as much as it makes the characters look stupid (I have the same problem as you with some parts of the show), it also does convey a sense of panic and disarray, as not all flight-or-fight decisions necessarily make sense.

The comics have a pretty even split between practical problem solving and moral choices. Both are very strong themes. I feel like it strengthens the story quite a bit, and provides greater emphasis to both topics. After all, if everything is overly dramatic, then nothing stands out. Things that SHOULD be decent moral dilemmas and sources of conflict, like the decision to keep the walkers in the barn(not really all that unreasonable, given the info available), end up falling a little flat compared to what they should be.


Average people are stupid. No really, check wiki.
It's easy to watch the show and think to yourself "hey, if I was in that situation I would do this." Projecting one's self like this is easy. Sometimes such projection into the scenario rather than onto the characters is the way people begin to understand the characters or the scenario. But, sometimes it makes the audience bang their head against a desk in frustration and causes the inverse, the audience then no longer relates to the characters due to such frustration.

I've got exactly three chars I relate to at all at this point. Glenn, Daryl, and Dale. None of them are perfect people by any means, but they all have at least areas in which they are basically competent, and at least try to improve their situation somewhat.

Other chars...not so much. Ruled entirely by emotion, and/or have a distinct lack of competence at anything. Consider...the woman who lost the daughter(I can't even recall her name). She is basically a crying ball of uselesness all the time. She isn't a character, she's a problem for the characters to deal with.

One of those might be a good way to introduce ethical concerns, but a LOT of the cast is similarly hard to empathize with. Rick is basically a ball of feelings, and for some reason is the "leader" despite being very bad at actually leading. His only real skill is shooting things with a handgun. Lori is basically a liability. Andrea is even more of this. T-dawg could be solid, but he honestly never gets any face time, so his characterization is thin at best. Shane has character, but it's that of a terrible person, so he's not very sympathetic.

So, well over half the group, I'm hoping that zombies eat them.

[Mathis]

Ok, first off I just want to say that I actually really like this season. It has been interesting -because- of the drama that has been developing on the farm so far, in my opinion that is. It also pushes the story forward just enough to be interesting in every single episode. I see a lot of people have issues with this show that I had never given a second thought to however. There are several issues that have been brought up so far that are worthy of a reply, but I think other people will be happy to jump on them. I do want to comment on this however:

Other chars...not so much. Ruled entirely by emotion, and/or have a distinct lack of competence at anything. Consider...the woman who lost the daughter(I can't even recall her name). She is basically a crying ball of uselesness all the time. She isn't a character, she's a problem for the characters to deal with.

One of those might be a good way to introduce ethical concerns, but a LOT of the cast is similarly hard to empathize with. Rick is basically a ball of feelings, and for some reason is the "leader" despite being very bad at actually leading. His only real skill is shooting things with a handgun. Lori is basically a liability. Andrea is even more of this. T-dawg could be solid, but he honestly never gets any face time, so his characterization is thin at best. Shane has character, but it's that of a terrible person, so he's not very sympathetic.

So, well over half the group, I'm hoping that zombies eat them.

When it comes to Carol, Sophia's mother who you mention in the first paragraph I agree with you in that she doesn't have many useful skills to bring to the group. But I find that incredibly interesting. When something like this happens, you don't get to cherry pick your own group of survivors, and chances are you're going to have to be extremely lucky to find a group of people with skills useful to this type of scenario. This is why I actually like this character, she's a good addition to the group in that she's a gateway to problems, to story-hooks if you like. Or as you say, a good way to introduce ethical concerns. To say that she isn't a character though, is rather extreme. She doesn't have much character I'll agree with you, but she has a distinct personality and function in the show and so fills the role of a character just like any of the others.

Rick as a leader though, I always figured he just sort of fell into that role because he's a police officer. Just like Shane was before him. In real life you're not always going to get the most competent people in the right positions, and I think the show reflects this pretty well. That said, my favourite characters are like many others Dale, Daryl and Glen. But watching a show about three competent guys driving along and solving every problem thrown at them in a calm and collected, reasonable way would be incredibly boring.

[Tyndmyr]

You can have the issue of "what to do with someone who doesn't contribute anything to the group", sure. It's a valid issue.

But when it's most of the entire group, it goes beyond interesting issue and gets into "Why haven't they all died yet?" territory. Remember, you kind of need to explain why, of all the people in the world, these guys are the survivors. The more panic and stupidity you include, the harder that is to swallow.

[Mathis]

Why they have survived? From what we've seen so far? Pure chance and happenstance? I really don't find that hard to believe at all. You don't need to be a badass to survive something like this, you need to be lucky. And I hardly believe these are the only survivors in the whole world as you claim, I think we've been shown that much several times already? The show has also never claimed anything remotely close to that. This show just portrays the fates of one small group of survivors, that happened to come together and found a certain safety in numbers. There is no greater meaning behind it than that. The show really doesn't need to justify which characters it includes. Pardon me if I'm wrong, I might have misunderstood you, but that does sound like what you're looking for.

[Tyndmyr]

Sure it does. The show needs to justify why people do not die, when basically everyone else appears to be dead.

Luck can be a part of that, but luck on it's own is a really poor reason. This gets back to someone earlier asking why the military isn't alive and well, given that they were clearly powerful enough to launch air strikes post-evacuation of Atlanta. Luck is a very unsatisfying answer to that.

Edit: Explaining how your chars got to their current state in life is a pretty major part of...any story, really. If the answer for all of them is "good luck/bad luck", you basically just copped out of actually explaining it.

[Mathis]

Then we are going to have to disagree on what a show has to justify.

I'm sorry though, but has the story ended? Is the show over? I can't recall seeing the ending of the show and thinking "Wow, that show really never got around to explaining the backgrounds of the characters it involved". You really can't critize a show for not explaining something when the show isn't over yet. Wait until it ends, then we can talk about what they didn't explain. I also thought we were talking about the group here? I never mentioned the military or that whatever happened to it had anything to do with luck. I also really don't want to speculate much on that.

The show has already shown us the entire history of why Rick is still alive, and we now know that Lori, Carl, Shane, Carol and Sophia have all been together since the mass evacuations, as we saw in a flashback that they met on a road during the bombing of Atlanta.

But, I feel like I have to explain that I really don't care about what happened to the characters before the show started. I'm watching The Walking Dead because I want to see what happens to these people now that they have to survive and rely on each other. Not what happened up until this point in the story. Maybe we have different interests here.

[Tyndmyr]

Then we are going to have to disagree on what a show has to justify.

I'm sorry though, but has the story ended? Is the show over? I can't recall seeing the ending of the show and thinking "Wow, that show really never got around to explaining the backgrounds of the characters it involved". You really can't critize a show for not explaining something when the show isn't over yet. Wait until it ends, then we can talk about what they didn't explain. I also thought we were talking about the group here? I never mentioned the military or that whatever happened to it had anything to do with luck. I also really don't want to speculate much on that.

Well, there IS a "mid-season finale" for the next episode. Their words, not mine. I have no idea what that means.

But this idea that a show can't be defined as good or bad until it's over is nonsense. It's been a season and a half. There's no reason not to have fleshed out characters by then, and there's no reason why the depiction of their life until now in a SURVIVAL HORROR show should not include, yknow, how they survive.


The show has already shown us the entire history of why Rick is still alive, and we now know that Lori, Carl, Shane, Carol and Sophia have all been together since the mass evacuations, as we saw in a flashback that they met on a road during the bombing of Atlanta.

We know THAT they are alive. We know roughly where they were for the entire time. But we have no idea why. The characters even frequently hang a lampshade on this by stating that they don't know how they're alive(or other chars say that to them).


But, I feel like I have to explain that I really don't care about what happened to the characters before the show started. I'm watching The Walking Dead because I want to see what happens to these people now that they have to survive and rely on each other. Not what happened up until this point in the story. Maybe we have different interests here.

Pre-zombie, they don't need great detail. He's a cop, shanes a cop, etc, etc. That provides us with some background, and some justification for useful skills. But it's been months with zombies now. They need to have some sort of characterization. People need to have roles that fit them. Not everyone does.

[Karoht]

Spoiler from comics. Don't read unless you want the reveal/have read the comics.

Being that dead people automatically rise, bitten or not, in the walking dead world...what happens if you abort the baby? Does it chew it's way out?

Here's hoping we DONT find out.
Yeah, uh, lets not and say we did.



It does. I'm not saying it doesn't suck as a situation...but they don't really focus on the moral dilemma. Rick doesn't even appear to accept that it's a problem, let alone come up with any thoughts for solving it. Rick is basically a ball of feelings, and for some reason is the "leader" despite being very bad at actually leading. His only real skill is shooting things with a handgun.Rick always seems like he has an idea in mind but doesn't voice it. Tends to be for two reasons.
1-The panicky idiots immediately overreact rather than letting him finish a sentence.
AND/OR/May be related to #1
2-He keeps some ideas to himself for reasons of accountability. That being that if he phrases something in a half-assed casual hypothetical way, there is a good chance that one of the panicky idiots will bring it up in a negative context later. We've seen this happen, like when he said to at the end of the first season That it's obvious there really isn't any hope.
Now while he should likely still say his piece, I understand why he doesn't do this.
He's a cop. It's part of the training. He lets something slip, the crook can get off scot free or sue or something. While that doesn't apply in the context of zombie apocalypse, it does apply around panicky idiots who overreact often because they don't know how to deal with the zombie apocalypse. He tends to try and keep peace rather than taking charge like he should.
I think he needs to be a bit more brazen. If people don't want to listen, then he just picks up his guns and gets ready to go get the job done himself.

Thats actually why I like the drama, even if it drives me nuts. It's very easy for us to sit back and say what we (the genre savy) would do, but to watch the unprepared non-genre savy break down or screw up actually kind of helps the immersion somewhat.

Example:
First Season.
After the camp gets attacked, they don't really explore possibilities of what happened and why. My mind was trying to puzzle it out, but then as they were talking about leaving, my mind completely pushed all the logical possibilities (not really relevant) out of my head and thought "oh crap, what about tonight? They're in crappy shape, there's less of them, what if even more zombies show up?" and at that point I was fully behind them getting out of there right away. And the only reason why that worked?
After a while, the panicky idiot becomes part of the atmosphere and helps create that tension.
Though yes, it's over used. But in some spots it works. At least thats the vibe I'm getting.

[Mathis]

Well, there IS a "mid-season finale" for the next episode. Their words, not mine. I have no idea what that means.

But this idea that a show can't be defined as good or bad until it's over is nonsense. It's been a season and a half. There's no reason not to have fleshed out characters by then, and there's no reason why the depiction of their life until now in a SURVIVAL HORROR show should not include, yknow, how they survive.

I never said a show can't be defined as good or bad until it's over. If you read that into my post then I'm afraid you misunderstood or I communicated poorly. I'll explain. What I said was that you can't critize a show for not including something when it's not over. That means that what you feel is missing from the show, may appear at a later point in the story. You can feel free to call a show either good or bad as much as you want though, based on the things you think are missing from the show. However, it would be awkward if what you felt was missing suddenly came into the story, so your criticism wouldn't really be that valid in my humble opinion. About the last part of that quote, I think we're watching different shows because what I've seen so far has been a show about characters SURVIVING. See? I can capitalize RANDOM words TOO.


Pre-zombie, they don't need great detail. He's a cop, shanes a cop, etc, etc. That provides us with some background, and some justification for useful skills. But it's been months with zombies now. They need to have some sort of characterization. People need to have roles that fit them. Not everyone does.

I disagree, I feel like every character has a definite personality and role within the group so far, some less clear and defined than others yeah but a role still. I guess that's that.

[thorgrim29]

2 things I'd like to say about the discussions:

- Having a baby in a zombie apocalypse without a long-term settlement is a terrible idea. But taking a whole pack of morning after pills at least a month after the pregnancy started is even worse. I honestly don't know what they should do about that, given that Hershel isn't likely to be willing to abort the baby even if he knows how, what with the whole religion thing.

- The whole zombies in barn thing is beyond stupid. Sure at first I can understand thinking it's a disease and they can be cured, but when they start rotting and surviving things they have no business surviving, that's where any reasonable person should realize that these are walking corpses and nothing else.

I'm also concerned about Andrea, she seems like she's becoming an adrenalin junkie, and is therefore on her way to being an even worse person to trust with a gun even if she's inexplicably good with them.

Finally, did Rick say he already knew Lori had slept with Shane or did I hear that wrong?

[Tyndmyr]

Finally, did Rick say he already knew Lori had slept with Shane or did I hear that wrong?

No, that sounds exactly right. And that, at least, was something she made the right call on. It kind of sucks, and there's no doubt there will be tension there, but given the situation, it was kind of understandable.

Also, yeah...I do agree that the fact that people are rotting away is a bit of a clue. It indicates that even if you consider zombies to be possibly saveable(something Hershel would likely initially think, given the lack of genre awareness), it's highly problematic in the longer term. How do you restore someone who has literally been partially rotted away? The doctor in him has to know that's highly improbable. He's got to be familiar with Rabies and stuff, which is extremely similar, and in which, after a certain point, people can't be saved.


Mathis, people surviving is entirely expected as a subject. I said it was survival horror, no? So, sure, you've got people surviving, but why they're surviving is a very basic level of justification. I don't require justification of how the virus suddenly spread everywhere...but the topic of why these people are alive is a pretty basic one. The comics tends to cover that in pretty short order for every character introduced. The reasons need not be exactly the same as in the comic, but they shouldn't all be "lucky, I guess".

[Flickerdart]

What I'm wondering is - if they thing the zombies are people, and feed them that many chickens as often as a person needs to eat, how is it that they're not out of chickens yet?

[Tyndmyr]

I dunno, but they must have a LOT of chickens.

Or perhaps they don't feed them as often, I'm not sure if that's clear...but there were a lot of walkers in there. So, feeding them a sack of chickens even once per day is a lot of chickens.

[Flickerdart]

How fast do chickens breed? Then we can calculate how many chickens they need to have so that their supply can restore itself from the zombie feeding.

[Tyndmyr]

Killing zombie catgirls...I like it!

How many chickens were in the sack...four or five?

Well, a good rate of production is an egg a day. This is probably not sustainable constantly...so about an 80% daily ratio is probably about right. Of those, roughly half will be female, and thus, additional egg layers.

Egg laying will probably start at about the 18th week, and they'll likely stop laying in any real quantity after about two years of life.

Incubation period is about 21 days, and 10-20% losses can be expected under fairly good conditions.

So, disregarding replacement of the egg-layers, we can feed the zombies 5 chickens, once per day, with about 9 laying hens under fairly optimal conditions. Note that this would require artificial incubation as one hen only can incubate a few eggs at once, so natural incubation will boost that up to around 30 hens. In addition, a rooster or three will be needed as well, and there will be a LOT of growing birds.

[Karoht]

mr doctor would know that pretty much all his 'patients' in the barn would likely need major organ replacement prior to being 'fixed' or they would just wake up with failing organs and crash again.

I know a fellow who is an enbalmer. You'd be amazed how fast lungs, liver, valves in the heart, and kidney's decay after death.

Even if the zombie-ness is somehow keeping those organs working properly and rot free as a result, said organs still need to deal with a host of problems. Kidneys are going to be messed up by the sheer amounts of creatine caused by muscle death. Liver would be trashed due to necrotic tissue going through the blood stream. Immune system is likely shot because bone marrow is dead, so no immune system meaning one infection will kill someone. Lets not even mention the release/flood of adrenaline that occurs at death.

Yeah, I pity anyone that guy tries to fix if they come up with a cure that causes zombies to not be zombies anymore. Even if there is minimal to zero rot, the after effects would be brutal. In a perfect scenario (you died of the fever, started to revive as a zombie, then they hit you with the cure), odds are you'd wake up with major organ failures. You would basically need organ and tissue transplants for... everything. This is before we get into brain damage and other related issues.

At this point, I'd rather just figure that the attatchment is emotional and entirely illogical, but is representative of the power of the family bond. How that bond can and will cause people (including the survivors) to do similarly illogical things.

[Tyndmyr]

Right. Actually, thanks to the CDC episode, and the shutdown of most of the brain, we can quite easily assume that they are screwed. The doc may not know that much yet...but deep down, he's got to be aware that the odds are pretty long at best.

Judging from the surface damage, as well as the autopsy of the freshly killed walker, we can easily infer that preservation is less than 100% as well.

I'll buy the emotional reaction of "I can fix this", and so I'm not going to criticize him for keeping them in the barn...but his stance that killing a walker is murder is a bit harder to justify. I mean, he certainly acted as if Otis was dead, right?

[Karoht]

I just realized.
Blood clotting.
Oh man, you'd be so screwed if you were dead for more than a few hours.

[Joxer t' Mighty]

The guy is in complete denial. Even as a vet he knows what damage they must have taken. He knows they are gonners. I'm ready for him to go complete bat guano nuts soon.

And btw, about the walkers going in packs... you're absolutely right with that, had forgotten. They also contradict practically all behavior yet shown in the show. It was plot servicing drama like a copper piece harlot.

[thorgrim29]

Not necessarily, zombies are attracted by sound, so if one zombie for whatever reason starts moving around and makes enough noise, others are going to follow it, make more noise, attack more, etc....

[Anderlith]

Who hates Lori? I do! Seriously she needs to calm down & do something useful. The other mother is dealing with things a whole lot better, & her situation is worse. Also Andrea needs a stern talking to. Accidentally shooting Daryl because you feel like you can't be a survivor is stupid. She complains about not being allowed a gun but then goes & shoots Daryl in the head- real smart.

Yay for Glen though, & at least Daryl is a live & kicking a**

[GenericGuy]

Who hates Lori? I do! Seriously she needs to calm down & do something useful. The other mother is dealing with things a whole lot better, & her situation is worse. Also Andrea needs a stern talking to. Accidentally shooting Daryl because you feel like you can't be a survivor is stupid. She complains about not being allowed a gun but then goes & shoots Daryl in the head- real smart.

Yay for Glen though, & at least Daryl is a live & kicking a**

Yay for Glen?:smallconfused:

I know it's heaviley hinted that he lost his virginity to that girl, but she is obviously damged. First she loses interest in him after they do the deed, but after her dad tells her to "stay away from the asian boy" she passes him a note asking where he wants to hook up next. Now she goes from screaming at him to kissing him on a flip of a coin, and he is still grining like an idiot everytime she looks at him. It may be the apocalypse, but I think Glen could do better.

Also Andrea did need more of a dressing down after the shooting, at least another episode of everyone in the group being distant from her after doing such a bonehead thing.

[Anderlith]

Yay for Glen?:smallconfused:


Glen's situation is better than anyone else's except maybe T-Dog. Yes his love interest is a bit crazy but at least he's has a bit of happiness in the Apocalypse

[thorgrim29]

Wow... did not see that coming. Not sure if I'm with Shane or against him here, tough IRL I would probably be with him. I think the next episode (is that next week or after the holidays or something? Mid season breaks and the like confuse me) will feature either Shane and Andrea breaking away from the group or Rick hardening and Dale being the conscience of the group. They'll probably leave the farm for the sake of storytelling, but I don't know why yet, maybe Hershel'll kill himself and set the farm on fire?

[Joxer t' Mighty]

That episode did my heart good. Seriously, I think Shane is a pile of steaming whatsit, but I wanted to high-five him.

"Hey Hershell. Let me ask something. Would a living, breathing person walk away from this? *bang-bang-bang* Three rounds to the chest. Could someone alive just take this? *bang* Why is it still coming? *bang-bang* That's its heart. That's its lungs. Why is it still coming?!"

I mean, COME ON.

Half these things have their flesh rotting off their bones in a way no leper could survive. Self-delusion of that magnitude is insane. Especially when he is versed in anatomy like that.

I have to say the ending was absolutely heart rending though. I absolutely didn't expect it. Maybe was in denial myself. Still, I liked Rick coming to the fore to deal with it. Unlike Shane, he kills them out of compassion.

[Giggling Ghast]

Poor Sophia. That really bummed me out. :smallfrown:

[Fawkes]

I don't think anyone was shocked by the ending more than people who have read the comics.

Ho-lee crap.

[Da'Shain]

I keep on expecting Shane to die. No joke. Like three separate times in this episode. It's starting to bother me, haha. In a good way, though; I like that his character's still around, I just keep on expecting him to not be through some happenstance.

Damn this went differently from the comic. I feel like Rick is too much of a pushover; comic book Rick by this point knew what was what, and while he didn't go directly to "kill them all" like Shane did, he certainly wasn't going to be helping Hershel gather the dead up. Then again, part of the reason Rick got so tough was because Shane's betrayal made him realize just how bad the world was, and Rick in the show hasn't had that gigantic a shock yet.

I kind of assumed that Sophia had to be dead by this point. I won't say I thought of her being in the barn (I read speculation elsewhere to that effect), but I was not surprised. And now they have some more pretty good reasons to be pissed at Hershel. Damn, I can't wait til February.

[Joxer t' Mighty]

I don't know if anyone got the significance, but I really liked how Glen asked Maggie before joining. Was just a nice touch and sweet besides.

And HOLY YELLOW EYES, I didn't realize until a moment ago that Maggie is also Bela from Supernatural.

[Silverraptor]

I like how they put the bite wound on the shoulder of Sophia. Its hard to see, but it's there.

[Giggling Ghast]

And HOLY YELLOW EYES, I didn't realize until a moment ago that Maggie is also Bela from Supernatural.

Was that the girl who was the female love interest of one of the Winchesters that all the fans hated?

Oh wait. That covers every female character in Supernatural. :smalltongue:

[Joxer t' Mighty]

Was that the girl who was the female love interest of one of the Winchesters that all the fans hated?

Oh wait. That covers every female character in Supernatural. :smalltongue:
The obnoxious british tramp who keeps showing up to make their lives miserable. Stole the colt. Oh, wait, except the British part, it still covers every female character :P

[Parra]

One thing thats bugging me (in a niggling sorta way) about the show is the concept of distance and travel time.
At the begining of this series they had planned on traveling to Fort Somethingorother and said it was a trip of roughly 200 miles. Every now and then it gets mentioned again.
They seem to be painting it as some long arduious journey, but Im thinking it should take 3-4 hours tops.

Okay there might be obstructions like abandoned car jams that slow things down or that the RV doesnt go all too fast, but not to the point where it would take longer than a day to get there.
And would it not be prudent to send someone ahead while they hide out and see if the trip is worth making at all? They could leave in the morning and be back for supper with the answer on if its safe to go there or not.

[Tyndmyr]

This, the episode in which lots of people yell at each other, was a source of some consternation to my Walking Dead watching group. Early on, we are treated to long shots of them...eating food, with highly dramatic head nodding and shaking as the form of communication. Slightly later, the writers show off how hip they are with a portal reference. Congrats guys, it's only four years old, one sequel later, and used in reference to lowering you by a rope to a zombie. No, that isn't really related at all.

Also writers, the line "How's THAT for dramatic" is, at best, a rather tired comeback to someone accusing you of say, being a drama queen. When you just drop the line without that lead-in, it looks like your forgot your self-aggrandizing post-it on the finished lines and the director just added it in because hey, nothing else has made sense so far, why should this?

Glen further cements his role as the sane one, though Maggie is quickly diving into stereotypical rebellious territory. They're setting up the split of one of them from their group, of course...but given the situation for both, they might actually swap it around and have Maggie join the main group instead of vice versa.

Rick continues to not be a leader, with effectively nobody bothering to consult him first before taking action. Dale decides to just go nuts and wander off with all the weapons while he's supposed to be on watch(also, kudos to Glen for taking being on watch at least somewhat seriously). This is pretty much the worst possible solution Dale could have come up with. Shane goes full retard. The only debate in my group was if a warning for him to not open the barn would have been appropriate before shooting him dead. As the voice of moderation, I was the sole vote for one last chance before blowing him away. Anyone willing to obviously put the party at risk just to make a point is clearly out of control and a danger to everyone around him.

Also, I can't imagine a less effective way of ending up staying at the farm. It's like a DM enforcing critical fumble rules on diplomacy checks.

Shane's Player: I rolled a one, is that bad? I mean, I know I probably should have trained this, but it didn't seem necessary on a combat char.
DM: Oh, it's bad. You deliberately pee all over everything everyone loves.
Shane's Player: What? But I was just trying for an assist roll! Rick's doing the main diplomacy check, he's been doing all the talking!
DM: Also, you want to see everyone die.
Shane's Player: I don't like this game anymore.

This show wants to be BSG so hard you can taste it, but it's not like they're actually defining the chars. You could have seriously skipped the last several episodes and missed nothing of importance. With the exception of the Glen/Maggie romance, the chars are all the same, nobody of note has died, so as long as you cover finding the farm/leaving the farm...you're pretty much good. Shane would be a TON better if they could actually stick to giving him a bit more ambiguity between being pragmatic and a generally terrible person. The latter is just painted on far too strongly. I really just want to see him die. T-Dog is still basically a cut-out of a char, with no actual development.

Carol reprised her role as "The woman who cries", and accomplishes nothing else.

Carl frequently has lines that are...strangely adult given the cast. I know he's growing up fast given the crapsack world that it is, but it's a little weird when the young kid is more adult sounding than most of the party.

But at least we are finally done with the whole missing girl storyline. And at least we finally had an action filled ending. Hopefully we can get back to actually seeing and dealing with zombies instead of endless angsting over backstories.


I keep on expecting Shane to die. No joke. Like three separate times in this episode. It's starting to bother me, haha. In a good way, though; I like that his character's still around, I just keep on expecting him to not be through some happenstance.

Damn this went differently from the comic. I feel like Rick is too much of a pushover; comic book Rick by this point knew what was what, and while he didn't go directly to "kill them all" like Shane did, he certainly wasn't going to be helping Hershel gather the dead up. Then again, part of the reason Rick got so tough was because Shane's betrayal made him realize just how bad the world was, and Rick in the show hasn't had that gigantic a shock yet.

I kind of assumed that Sophia had to be dead by this point. I won't say I thought of her being in the barn (I read speculation elsewhere to that effect), but I was not surprised. And now they have some more pretty good reasons to be pissed at Hershel. Damn, I can't wait til February.

Yeah, those are a lot of my complaints. Seriously, Hershel, you knew they were looking for a missing girl the entire time, and the timely arrival of an undead little girl isn't suspicious? That seems like the kind of thing you'd want to check up on.

I'm not going to bag on Rick for at least attempting to be diplomatic. Given the situation, it was a fairly reasonable approach to things. I did think they most definitely overplayed the Rick referring to them as people, though. It seemed a bit over-dramatized.


One thing thats bugging me (in a niggling sorta way) about the show is the concept of distance and travel time.
At the begining of this series they had planned on traveling to Fort Somethingorother and said it was a trip of roughly 200 miles. Every now and then it gets mentioned again.
They seem to be painting it as some long arduious journey, but Im thinking it should take 3-4 hours tops.

Okay there might be obstructions like abandoned car jams that slow things down or that the RV doesnt go all too fast, but not to the point where it would take longer than a day to get there.
And would it not be prudent to send someone ahead while they hide out and see if the trip is worth making at all? They could leave in the morning and be back for supper with the answer on if its safe to go there or not.


One thing thats bugging me (in a niggling sorta way) about the show is the concept of distance and travel time.
At the begining of this series they had planned on traveling to Fort Somethingorother and said it was a trip of roughly 200 miles. Every now and then it gets mentioned again.
They seem to be painting it as some long arduious journey, but Im thinking it should take 3-4 hours tops.

Okay there might be obstructions like abandoned car jams that slow things down or that the RV doesnt go all too fast, but not to the point where it would take longer than a day to get there.
And would it not be prudent to send someone ahead while they hide out and see if the trip is worth making at all? They could leave in the morning and be back for supper with the answer on if its safe to go there or not.

I've also had this problem. I live near DC. I've driven to Atlanta. It took nine hours and change. And hell, there's no traffic in this world. I'll grant that the RV is kind of a pile of junk(seriously, they should have replaced it by now) and jams are likely near cities from people trying to escape, but it definitely doesn't seem nearly as long as they're making it out to be. And yeah, they have a motorcycle. Scouting with that seems really practical.

[Gamerlord]

So, I've been watching the show, and is it just me or they not having any trouble with running out of ammunition?

[Tyndmyr]

So, I've been watching the show, and is it just me or they not having any trouble with ammunition?

Well, they've gone through a fair amount thus far. Hell, they blew through a pretty notable amount clearing the barn(there were a LOT of body shots, especially given the situation). I would expect ammo to eventually become a problem, given their pretty free use of it.

[Parra]

Im not sure it will.
Alot of shows deal with issues like that early on, and despite it being a very finite resource they seem to consider that aspect of the story to have been told and dont want to repeat themselves.

I hope they will or at least find another cache of ammo to restock or something. But I doubt it.

[Flickerdart]

There's going to be plenty of ammunition in any urban centre, and with a guy like Glen they won't have much trouble getting to it. If ammo does run dry, it'll be years down the road.

[Tyndmyr]

There's going to be plenty of ammunition in any urban centre, and with a guy like Glen they won't have much trouble getting to it. If ammo does run dry, it'll be years down the road.

Judging from recent developments, I'd say there are even odds they will shortly not have "a guy like Glen".

They do not appear to be packing notable amounts of ammo. There's not ammo boxes strapped to the roof or anything. They're pretty shotgun heavy, and shotgun ammo is bulky. They've also done a lot of target practice, and notable ammo was apparently expended on the run on which Otis died. Notable ammo was again expended at the barn, and firing has happened on other occasions as well.

In short, given that they had a shortage of guns and ammo, they went back for the bag in season one, split that with another group...they can't really have all that much left at this point, even if we're being very optimistic on the supply they have.

[Brumski]

The infinite ammo thing is bothering me, they're using way to much. Plus you have the barn zombies pinned down and bottlenecked, how bout some melee please. And I don't mean those piddly little knives Carl found, a shovel/spade would be much better.



Seriously, Hershel, you knew they were looking for a missing girl the entire time, and the timely arrival of an undead little girl isn't suspicious? That seems like the kind of thing you'd want to check up on.


Right on

[Tyndmyr]

The infinite ammo thing is bothering me, they're using way to much. Plus you have the barn zombies pinned down and bottlenecked, how bout some melee please. And I don't mean those piddly little knives Carl found, a shovel/spade would be much better.

Well, if Shane hadn't been utterly ridiculous, a much more rational way to clear the barn would have been to use the way in that Glenn used. There, you could have safely plinked them off or whatever with no danger. The whole "tossing the doors open" thing was not practical in any sense of the word.

[Silverraptor]

Yeah, those are a lot of my complaints. Seriously, Hershel, you knew they were looking for a missing girl the entire time, and the timely arrival of an undead little girl isn't suspicious? That seems like the kind of thing you'd want to check up on.


Its implied that he did not know. He said that getting the walkers out of the quicksand was Otis's job, which proabably meant Otis found her in the quick sand and put her in the barn. Then of course Shane shot him before he could learn they were looking for a little girl and tell them kindly.

[Gator]

Its implied that he did not know. He said that getting the walkers out of the quicksand was Otis's job, which proabably meant Otis found her in the quick sand and put her in the barn. Then of course Shane shot him before he could learn they were looking for a little girl and tell them kindly.

In fact, that's exactly what Kirkman said in the aftershow. He even explicitly said that it's all Shane's fault!

[Gator]

Its implied that he did not know. He said that getting the walkers out of the quicksand was Otis's job, which proabably meant Otis found her in the quick sand and put her in the barn. Then of course Shane shot him before he could learn they were looking for a little girl and tell them kindly.

In fact, that's exactly what Kirkman said in the aftershow. He even explicitly said that it's all Shane's fault!

[Tyndmyr]

And during the feeding, during which she takes her time to look them over, she didn't notice then? I mean, Glenn might have been a bit shocked by the revelation in general, and not been looking too closely, but she didn't have that excuse.

[Fawkes]

If the preview on the website is any indication, they're actually going to discuss this next episode.

[Joxer t' Mighty]

Just saw the previews. Does that idiot STILL believe they are simply sick? Seriously? After Shane's brutal demonstration? Can he really be that completely insane?

If so, then yes, he IS dangerous.

Ok, let's say he came to terms with this fact. He would still keep them in there, letting them slowly rot? I would shoot any of my family and closest friends, because what their bodies are doing is a horrible thing and they deserve to be at peace. I would hope they'd do the same for me.

[Tyndmyr]

Just saw the previews. Does that idiot STILL believe they are simply sick? Seriously? After Shane's brutal demonstration? Can he really be that completely insane?

If so, then yes, he IS dangerous.

Ok, let's say he came to terms with this fact. He would still keep them in there, letting them slowly rot? I would shoot any of my family and closest friends, because what their bodies are doing is a horrible thing and they deserve to be at peace. I would hope they'd do the same for me.

Technically speaking, many people have taken several rounds to the chest before, and not died. Well, at least, not immediately. It's a bit unlikely, but the fact that Shane shot the zombie in the head rather quickly sort of ruined the demonstration.

Don't get me wrong, the rotting and stuff...there is a lot of denial going on. But it's a fairly predictable, understandable sort of denial, in which he's trying to justify the situation in the way that means his wife and kid aren't/weren't dead. Denial is a pretty common reaction to loss. It does not mean that he is dangerous overall. Shane's "solution" was not the best way to approach this.

[Karoht]

Wait a minute.
Doesn't the zombie smell keep the zombies from being interested in something?
Think back to the first season.

If so, keeping some zombies contained (safely?) in a nearby area could actually keep the herds away, depending on how the winds blow.

At the very least it might maybe mask the presence for a while. And the scent detecting capabilities are only human, not bloodhounds or anything.

Just speculating, not defending the possibly crazy person.

[Callos_DeTerran]

The 'walker' smell thing is more of a 'walkers don't eat walkers' thing where Rick, Glen, and company used the smell of walkers to hide their own scent/sight so the walkers would think they were one of the living dead too. Having a barn full of zombies wouldn't do anything to mask the scent of the household-and-then-some of living people living close by.

Is it wrong that I can't blame Hershel though? I really can't, as Rick's pointed out to him, Hershel really hasn't seen how bad everything is and, from his reaction to the news of the attack on his daughter, he's never been personally attacked by a walker either. With a lack of those two big factors, it's not hard to see an old man who studied his entire life to help animals (and then people) to want, no need, to believe the walkers were still people. Especially after his wife and son became one. Hershel has never had to kill a walker and likely refuses to believe that the walkers died in the first place. In such a situation, for all he knows, the CDC could come up with a cure and fix his wife and son.

Not to mention that...well...he wasn't just letting walkers roam around the farm, he treated them as dangers and kept them locked up in a well secured barn.

...Really starting to hate Shane though, I've seen the man do nothing redeemable in my eyes, besides bring equipment to save Carl which...required another man to die apparently. (I still think they both could have made it without either dying)

[Silverraptor]

...Really starting to hate Shane though, I've seen the man do nothing redeemable in my eyes, besides bring equipment to save Carl which...required another man to die apparently. (I still think they both could have made it without either dying)

Me too. Looking how long they were rolling around struggling with each other, the walkers caught up after about 15-20 seconds. That's quite a distance! And if they kept limp running, they were probably going the same speed as the walkers. Plenty of time to get in the car and run away.

[Karoht]

The 'walker' smell thing is more of a 'walkers don't eat walkers' thing where Rick, Glen, and company used the smell of walkers to hide their own scent/sight so the walkers would think they were one of the living dead too. Having a barn full of zombies wouldn't do anything to mask the scent of the household-and-then-some of living people living close by.When predators in the wild smell other predators, they stay out of the territory for two reasons. 1-Competition for food. Why go onto someone's turf and compete for food if you can go somewhere else. 2-Predatory creatures are aware that fighting another predator can kill them.

If zombies can smell other zombies in a given area, rather than investigate it for food, they might just move onward.
And since zombies smell bad, odds are they overpower the smell of food, namely people, especially if those people keep a low profile.
Remember, they only have to fool a human nose, one that is probably decayed pretty severely (sinuses and their nearby tissue go fast once rot sets in). A healthy human being likely can't smell another healthy human being when at the scene of a murder, I really doubt the zombies could pick out the scent of a non-zombie food source out of the smell of say, 12 other zombies.

Wind permitting of course. If the wind was blowing the scent away from the hypothetical wandering pack of zombies, then of course all bets are off.



Is it wrong that I can't blame Hershel though? I really can't, as Rick's pointed out to him, Hershel really hasn't seen how bad everything is and, from his reaction to the news of the attack on his daughter, he's never been personally attacked by a walker either. With a lack of those two big factors, it's not hard to see an old man who studied his entire life to help animals (and then people) to want, no need, to believe the walkers were still people. Especially after his wife and son became one. Hershel has never had to kill a walker and likely refuses to believe that the walkers died in the first place. In such a situation, for all he knows, the CDC could come up with a cure and fix his wife and son. My fiance is a vet. She has seen people who never give up on their pets, their animal family members. There was once a dog who came in, hit by a car, near enough torn clean in half, rib cage completely shattered, huge amounts of internal bleeding. There was once a lady who brought in this mastiff (really big dog) that had some 13 different tumor sites, one of which weighed over 3 pounds.
There was literally zero hope for their family members, their pets, they didn't give up until the very bitter bitter end.
Some disease? Those are cured all the time right?
I can sort of kind of empathize with Hershel, but only to a point.



Not to mention that...well...he wasn't just letting walkers roam around the farm, he treated them as dangers and kept them locked up in a well secured barn.Which shows that he was at least semi-rational in his thought process. He had to have thought very carefully how to get them in there, keeping them there, etc.

[Zen Monkey]

For about the last five minutes of the episode, I was on Team Shane. Some people needed to see the reality of the situation, and he made a very convincing argument. Sure, there was risk, but he did arm everyone right before the big event and people needed to be scared. The locals had become too accustomed to the monster next door, and were clinging to beliefs that made no sense.

[Karoht]

For about the last five minutes of the episode, I was on Team Shane. Some people needed to see the reality of the situation, and he made a very convincing argument. Sure, there was risk, but he did arm everyone right before the big event and people needed to be scared. The locals had become too accustomed to the monster next door, and were clinging to beliefs that made no sense.The comfort factor may be why they are clinging at all. Hope is comforting, hope that these people can be saved is more tangable hope that the world can be saved. The fact that Hershel and crew could go out to the barn and talk to these people if he/they wanted to is a comfort, even if they are horrible monsters rotting to death slowly.

It's incredibly bizarre, and yet this is honestly how some people do cope during crisis situations, which is why it is believeable, even if that belief is paper thin. However, the bizarreness is what makes this all rather difficult to believe or empathize with.


We're all genre savvy. We view this all as mistakes. I don't think many of us have been through any really terrible emergencies (though if anyone has, my respects). My grandmother lived through the bombing of London in WWII. The newsreels painted one picture, her stories and experiences painted a different one. She saw adults and children both, dealing with shell shock, dealing with catastrophic loss, dealing with horrifying injuries. She saw adults deal with the resulting poverty, the widespread difficulty of access to basic human needs. Lets just say that after seeing all this, some of the reactions in Walking Dead really wouldn't be too likely to surprise her.

[Tyndmyr]

When predators in the wild smell other predators, they stay out of the territory for two reasons. 1-Competition for food. Why go onto someone's turf and compete for food if you can go somewhere else. 2-Predatory creatures are aware that fighting another predator can kill them.

If zombies can smell other zombies in a given area, rather than investigate it for food, they might just move onward.
And since zombies smell bad, odds are they overpower the smell of food, namely people, especially if those people keep a low profile.
Remember, they only have to fool a human nose, one that is probably decayed pretty severely (sinuses and their nearby tissue go fast once rot sets in). A healthy human being likely can't smell another healthy human being when at the scene of a murder, I really doubt the zombies could pick out the scent of a non-zombie food source out of the smell of say, 12 other zombies.

Wind permitting of course. If the wind was blowing the scent away from the hypothetical wandering pack of zombies, then of course all bets are off.

Well, the zombies are not portrayed as intelligent*, nor do they avoid clustering up into packs, apparently. So, there's no real indication of this.

*Provided we ignore the season 1 zombies smart enough to use rocks on the window.


Which shows that he was at least semi-rational in his thought process. He had to have thought very carefully how to get them in there, keeping them there, etc.

Yes. He's definitely in denial about their humanity(or at least, their curability. If some part of them is still alive inside, screaming in horror, they may in fact still be at least partially human)

However, he is not in denial about how dangerous they are. He's responded accordingly to that, and that's whats really important. You being in a building with zombies locked outside or vice versa...the important thing is that you're keeping the zombies away from you. And any available ammo is better spent on the zombies NOT safely caged away.


For about the last five minutes of the episode, I was on Team Shane. Some people needed to see the reality of the situation, and he made a very convincing argument. Sure, there was risk, but he did arm everyone right before the big event and people needed to be scared. The locals had become too accustomed to the monster next door, and were clinging to beliefs that made no sense.

You do not threaten everyone's lives to win an argument. Ever. It doesn't matter how good an argument it makes, putting lives at risk to win is never acceptable.

Every single person I know that watches this show said they would have shot him before he got the barn open. I was the only one(out of what, eight?) who even said he should get a warning.

Perhaps the barn solution is not ideal. It is not something you need to deal with at that exact second by forcing people to do what you want. Shane was incredibly wrong, and what he did will only have negative consequences.

[Anderlith]

I would have shot him & threw him in the bog. Shane is more of a threat than the walkers

[Reverent-One]

Finally got back to my DVR and got to watch the latest episode. Totally worth the wait. Shane sure keeps things interesting around here, doesn't he? Though word of advice Shane, however good of a point you may have had, being that much of a jerk about it is not the best idea. A nice touch there that despite the fact that it was most of the rest of the group that was all gung ho and ready to take out the Walkers, Rick was the one who was able to shoot Sofia. Well done Walking Dead crew, well done.

[Callos_DeTerran]

When predators in the wild smell other predators, they stay out of the territory for two reasons. 1-Competition for food. Why go onto someone's turf and compete for food if you can go somewhere else. 2-Predatory creatures are aware that fighting another predator can kill them.

If zombies can smell other zombies in a given area, rather than investigate it for food, they might just move onward.
And since zombies smell bad, odds are they overpower the smell of food, namely people, especially if those people keep a low profile.
Remember, they only have to fool a human nose, one that is probably decayed pretty severely (sinuses and their nearby tissue go fast once rot sets in). A healthy human being likely can't smell another healthy human being when at the scene of a murder, I really doubt the zombies could pick out the scent of a non-zombie food source out of the smell of say, 12 other zombies.

Wind permitting of course. If the wind was blowing the scent away from the hypothetical wandering pack of zombies, then of course all bets are off.

It was already mentioned, but I'll chip in on it too. Your opinion is quite right, but only when it applies to an intelligent (or at least animal-intelligence) predator that needs the food that it's eating. They stay apart because that's survival for them.

Walkers aren't intelligent (rock and window incident aside, cause it's never been repeated), they don't seem to NEED the flesh they eat, and present the biggest danger when they ARE in a pack. I highly doubt the smell of walkers would keep other walkers away, considering their tendency to band together into 'herds', though I could see the argument that it might hide the scent of living people if enough walkers were there.

[Parra]

And dont forget in Season 1 with several characters coating themselves in (more)dead Walker guts to avoid detection, only to run into issue once it started to wash off.
If the walkers have that senestive a scent detection, it is probably better than ours. Or that the very least, they are better in tune with it.

[Zen Monkey]

You do not threaten everyone's lives to win an argument. Ever. It doesn't matter how good an argument it makes, putting lives at risk to win is never acceptable.

Every single person I know that watches this show said they would have shot him before he got the barn open. I was the only one(out of what, eight?) who even said he should get a warning.

Since the whole party was armed, and the walkers would all be coming through the same door, I'm not sure that everyone's lives were threatened. It put a good scare into some of them, but the farmstead was in serious denial that required a good shock since time and logic certainly weren't working. The threat unleashed by Shane was still controlled pretty well by his brief preparation and how he went about it. He certainly looked emotional and out of control, but handled a sweep of the barn in just about the best way possible. The only better way would have been to snipe at them through the walls or from the rafters, but then the farm folk could have maintained their delusions more easily.

[Mathis]

Since the whole party was armed, and the walkers would all be coming through the same door, I'm not sure that everyone's lives were threatened.

I completely agree. I don't think anyone's lives were at danger at all here. Shane had earlier inspected the doors and probably knew that the chain would keep any more than maybe two walkers coming out at a time. To claim that one would shoot and probably kill someone for being dramatic, one of the few people who know how to properly care for guns, and one of the better shots in the group is incredibly short sighted. Shane simply made the tough decision that Rick wasn't able to and acted on it. Unfortunately for Shane, Rick cemented his position as a leader when he stepped up to take care of Sophia, something Shane failed to. If he had I'm sure that he would have looked like more of a leader and perhaps achieved what he wanted to, to return as the leader of the group and just Rick's "second in command".

[Tyndmyr]

I completely agree. I don't think anyone's lives were at danger at all here. Shane had earlier inspected the doors and probably knew that the chain would keep any more than maybe two walkers coming out at a time.

Oh? If he was so confident in the security of the chained doors, why was it so urgent to shoot them all? However you slice it, he's being illogical.


To claim that one would shoot and probably kill someone for being dramatic, one of the few people who know how to properly care for guns, and one of the better shots in the group is incredibly short sighted. Shane simply made the tough decision that Rick wasn't able to and acted on it. Unfortunately for Shane, Rick cemented his position as a leader when he stepped up to take care of Sophia, something Shane failed to. If he had I'm sure that he would have looked like more of a leader and perhaps achieved what he wanted to, to return as the leader of the group and just Rick's "second in command".

It's not JUST for being dramatic. Shane was completely out of line. He's shown signs of instability before, mind you, but this was quite over the top.

A zombie is basically an unarmed, dumb person without notable weapons who moves at a shamble. A crazed human is far more dangerous to you than a zombie will ever be.

And Rick made the decision. He just didn't make the decision Shane wanted him to make. He made it clear that he was going to handle it with Hershel diplomatically. There was no decision avoidance happening there.

Skills can be learned much easier than people can be raised from the dead. Shane is a threat to people living.

[Karoht]

@Zombie Packs
Herds. They're canon. They do indeed group up. Just saying.


@Instinct
The zombies are said to run off instinct due to only their brainstems being active.
That said, most predatory creatures exhibit the behavior of "I smell competition down the left corridor, I'll go the right corridor instead." It's mostly because of laziness, or path of least resistance. Predators (common ones anyway) spend most of their energy in bursts, any energy they don't have to spend they usually won't.
Also, while hunting technique is learned behavior, hunting drive is instinctual, even in reptiles such as Alligators who have nearly no learned behavior functions. The fun thing about instincts is, they're only as good as their detection methods.
If they won't attack other walkers, it stands to reason that they won't waste the energy to compete with them, beyond the competition of ripping a corpse (horse or human or other) limb from limb.


As for the logistics of keeping live zombies around to act as a scent screen, well, that comes at a point of common sense, naturally.


@Scent Detection
An animal such as a bloodhound can smell an ounce of cocaine mixed into bleech. A human being can barely smell a cup of coffee in a butcher shop. And usually human scent detection has a nasty habit of blending ingredients together rather than being able to separate them.
So I would imagine that a bunch of walkers (all whom have rotting, decayed, and damaged scent detection at best and none whatsoever at worst) would likely not be able to pick out something like a family of 4, if they had a barn full of 20 zombies, simply by scent alone.
Also, that barn probably gets pretty hot during the day. I don't imagine that it smells very pleasant, and probably smells more 'funky' than normal.

Then again, all of this is good arguement for staying downwind of the walkers whenever possible, to avoid scent based detection. This in addition of course to keeping a low profile. Low volume, lights out after dark, etc.

Huh. Now I'm wondering. What side of Atlanta was their original camp situated on, and what direction did the wind most commonly blow? Probably a meaningless detail though. Still, anyone at camp who knew how to hunt would probably have thought of that.


Random thought. If the brainstem is the active part of the brain, therefore the part that needs damaging to stop a zombie, wouldn't aiming for the neck, or where the neck and skull meet, be the best place to aim for a melee attack? I wonder.

[Mathis]

Oh? If he was so confident in the security of the chained doors, why was it so urgent to shoot them all? However you slice it, he's being illogical.

I think you misunderstand me, I'll explain it differently to you.

If you look at the barn doors, if you can remember, there is a chain hanging from both sides keeping the doors from being completely opened. The door only opens up about 2-3 feet allowing only a couple of zombies from coming outside at a time. This is what I meant by what I said. I never meant that Shane thought those chains would keep the doors locked forever, and I struggle to see how my sentence led you to believe I did. Of course, I'm speculating in intentions here and I am assuming that Shane is somewhat observant. Did I make myself clearer or do you need a second explanation?

As for Shane being out of line, I agree. I also think he was out of line, but we don't shoot people for being out of line. You don't shoot other human beings when the dead are rising up to eat you unless it's absolutely necessary and honestly, in this situation it objectively wasn't. In my opinion, anyone who feels it's ok to shoot fellow humans because they don't act the way you think they should, is a greater danger to a group of survivors than anyone who act out of line from time to time.

Also, I'm speaking as a person with no experience in cleaning guns but I don't think that's a skill you just don't pick up on without guidance from someone who knows. Disassembling a gun is probably easy enough, but putting it back together and have it work properly can't be easy. Does anyone here have experience with this?

[Tyndmyr]

I think you misunderstand me, I'll explain it differently to you.

If you look at the barn doors, if you can remember, there is a chain hanging from both sides keeping the doors from being completely opened. The door only opens up about 2-3 feet allowing only a couple of zombies from coming outside at a time. This is what I meant by what I said. I never meant that Shane thought those chains would keep the doors locked forever, and I struggle to see how my sentence led you to believe I did. Of course, I'm speculating in intentions here and I am assuming that Shane is somewhat observant. Did I make myself clearer or do you need a second explanation?

There is also a chain across the front of the door, keeping the door shut. It's not in any worse condition, and looks quite solid, and has a shiny new padlock on it.

If he's making assumptions about it only allowing a couple zombies out at a time because both of those chains are sturdy...why would he assume the other chain was not? If the doors are not sturdy...then assumptions about zombies coming out slowly are not warranted.

In short...there is no real reason for Shane to believe the barn is insecure. There are no breakouts, reasonable precautions were clearly taken, and also, your people are not right next to the barn, and you now have a watch up. There is absolutely no urgency so great that you have to ignore everyone else and just start acting the fool.


As for Shane being out of line, I agree. I also think he was out of line, but we don't shoot people for being out of line.

When they are freeing a known contained threat merely to make a point? Yes, you do. I would have expended a single round instead of the what, hundred or so shots fired in the extremely inefficient clearing of the barn? Mostly everyone would be happier because Shane's inability to work with others has caused endless problems.


You don't shoot other human beings when the dead are rising up to eat you unless it's absolutely necessary and honestly, in this situation it objectively wasn't. In my opinion, anyone who feels it's ok to shoot fellow humans because they don't act the way you think they should, is a greater danger to a group of survivors than anyone who act out of line from time to time.

Nope. Shane is a demonstrated risk from before. This time is just the first time that rises to the level of mortal danger. He is FORCING you to fight to defend your life. That's outright hostility, and firing on him is self defense.


Also, I'm speaking as a person with no experience in cleaning guns but I don't think that's a skill you just don't pick up on without guidance from someone who knows. Disassembling a gun is probably easy enough, but putting it back together and have it work properly can't be easy. Does anyone here have experience with this?

Yes. Everyone in AF basic did all of their weapons training(including disassembling and reassembling the gun, going out to shoot, and doing the disassemble/reassemble/cleaning in a single day, consisting of about six hours. It was much, much slower than it needed to be because it's a mass of trainees with few instructors.

There is honestly no real excuse for people being non-proficient with firearms after about day three. They are fairly simple things, generally, and you do not, in fact, need to disassemble most firearms to clean them. You merely shove a rod with attachments down the barrel in a specific order. I could teach someone this in about five minutes.

[Zen Monkey]

Probably just picking on the set design folks, but there's a lot of security on the door and not much thought given to the holes in the walls of the barn. We see broken and possibly rotting wood, to the point where it seemed like the walkers could have probably made a hole and crawled out. If they have enough strength to tear pieces out of a person, it looks like they'd have enough to escape their rustic wooden prison. Maybe those spots are just good places to insert chickens.

[Mathis]

In short...there is no real reason for Shane to believe the barn is insecure. There are no breakouts, reasonable precautions were clearly taken, and also, your people are not right next to the barn, and you now have a watch up. There is absolutely no urgency so great that you have to ignore everyone else and just start acting the fool.

I'm not trying to defend his actions here, I'm just saying that he didn't put people at the risk you seem you to think he did. If you watch the last scene again you'll see that no zombie got closer to them than 8-10 metres (25-30 feet), that's a pretty succesful execution even if they did waste some ammo. The wasted ammo was probably just added for dramatic effect anyway, everybody loves some gore.

Though I do agree with Shane in that keeping walkers in a barn not far from where you are going to be sleeping, regardless of how good a watch routine you have is a silly risk to take.


When they are freeing a known contained threat merely to make a point? Yes, you do. I would have expended a single round instead of the what, hundred or so shots fired in the extremely inefficient clearing of the barn? Mostly everyone would be happier because Shane's inability to work with others has caused endless problems.

If you honestly believe this then I am so, so glad I don't have to rely on you in a hypothetical zombie survival scenario.

Edit: In other words, if you really think his actions justifies possibly murdering him I think you should reconsider what you are saying.




Nope. Shane is a demonstrated risk from before. This time is just the first time that rises to the level of mortal danger. He is FORCING you to fight to defend your life. That's outright hostility, and firing on him is self defense.

Like I've said above, I disagree with you. I really don't believe they were in the mortal danger that you claim they were. The whole scene looked to me like they had it pretty much under control. Like I've mentioned, the zombies came in a steady stream, not like a rushing herd. They also never got closer than 8-10 metres. It was a stupid thing to do yes, but don't make it more dramatic than it was.





Yes. Everyone in AF basic did all of their weapons training(including disassembling and reassembling the gun, going out to shoot, and doing the disassemble/reassemble/cleaning in a single day, consisting of about six hours. It was much, much slower than it needed to be because it's a mass of trainees with few instructors.

There is honestly no real excuse for people being non-proficient with firearms after about day three. They are fairly simple things, generally, and you do not, in fact, need to disassemble most firearms to clean them. You merely shove a rod with attachments down the barrel in a specific order. I could teach someone this in about five minutes.

Ah, today I learned. Let's hope they have that equipment somewhere readily available and someone who knows how to use them correctly then.

[The Reverend]

Im sure someone has pointed this out before, but ALL zombie films, minus 28 day later and airborn zombies, require a heavy dose of suspense of disbelief. The most realistic display of how zombies could "Sneak up" on a society is Shaun of the dead. He just kinda doesn't pay attention.

Other than that unless the zeds are particularly hard to kill, particularly deadly, or particularly virulent i just go into horror movie mode and try not to point out that simply ripping up the first 8 feet of stairway leading to the second floor will nullify any danger and allow one repeatedly kill zeds with a ax till your arms get tired or they start climbing up the mountains of bodies, which i gotta tell you is not actually easy at all.

if you think about it simply digging a whole bunch of 2 and half foot deep post holes as a defensive barrier would break lots of zed legs. Its not like they are particularly bright.


I still wonder how that tank in atlanta got stranded. Ran out of fuel? i mean zombies would be no problem, just run them over. in fact that could have been a viable tactic to round up zeds. put a platform on top of nice tall steel pole put some guys on the top of it. give them a couple weeks of food, weapons, and a zip line to a far away point with a get away vehicle incase of awefulness. But their primary goal is simply to bang trash cans, set off flares, be really stinky, and basically draw walkers in from the surrounding neighborhood. every day a tank or other really heavy vehicle makes its rounds and reduces the walkers to a jam like pulp, drops off supplies, and goes to the next lure platform.

see gotta not think 'bout zombie stuff like a Player Character

[Anderlith]

Also, I'm speaking as a person with no experience in cleaning guns but I don't think that's a skill you just don't pick up on without guidance from someone who knows. Disassembling a gun is probably easy enough, but putting it back together and have it work properly can't be easy. Does anyone here have experience with this?

Firstly, when I was a kid my grandfather was teaching me about guns. He gave me an unloaded pistol & told me to disassemble it. I was able to do this without instruction. He then told me what to clean & I cleaned it. He then told me to put it back together. I was able to do this without instruction. It's not difficult.

Secondly, I view Shane's actions to that of releasing an angry tiger, or a pack of wolves. They want to kill me. If he released them then he wants to kill me.

[Reverent-One]

Secondly, I view Shane's actions to that of releasing an angry tiger, or a pack of wolves. They want to kill me. If he released them then he wants to kill me.

Or he wants to let the walkers into a killing zone and slaughter them all. You know, like exactly what happened.

[Anderlith]

Or he wants to let the walkers into a killing zone and slaughter them all. You know, like exactly what happened.

He passed out guns, that's it. He did not coordinate everyone into a line or have them surround the barn. He walked up alone & opened the gates. The others joined in after. They were forced into a life or death situation.

[Reverent-One]

He passed out guns, that's it. He did not coordinate everyone into a line or have them surround the barn. He walked up alone & opened the gates. The others joined in after. They were forced into a life or death situation.

They were all armed, they were all right by the barn, they all saw him go up to the barn and begin to beat on the door, there was nothing else he needed to do to prepare them.

[Mathis]

He passed out guns, that's it. He did not coordinate everyone into a line or have them surround the barn. He walked up alone & opened the gates. The others joined in after. They were forced into a life or death situation.

Please, they were never in danger, there wasn't anything life or death about it. It might all have looked dramatic because that's what a show is supposed to do, but if that situation had been real they'd not be in any real danger. Like Reverent-one said, they were prepared well enough and would only had been in danger if they had all put their weapons down and turned to look another way. Don't over-dramatize this thing or make it out to be something it wasn't.

[Anderlith]

Please, they were never in danger, there wasn't anything life or death about it. It might all have looked dramatic because that's what a show is supposed to do, but if that situation had been real they'd not be in any real danger. Like Reverent-one said, they were prepared well enough and would only had been in danger if they had all put their weapons down and turned to look another way. Don't over-dramatize this thing or make it out to be something it wasn't.

He released a pack of dangerous creatures with only himself between them & the group of bystanders. Yes, some of them had weapons, but none of them were standing there ready to fire. 5 armed people to 10 unarmed people is a bad ratio when dealing with an immediate attack. Especially when you have a zombie on a leash that could spring free if it isn't being held in check.

[Reverent-One]

He released a pack of dangerous creatures with only himself between them & the group of bystanders. Yes, some of them had weapons, but none of them were standing there ready to fire. 5 armed people to 10 unarmed people is a bad ratio when dealing with an immediate attack. Especially when you have a zombie on a leash that could spring free if it isn't being held in check.

It takes all of two seconds to go from with a loaded gun, not ready to fire, to with a loaded gun, ready to fire, all they have to do is lift the gun and point it. And as the episode showed, 5 people vs X number (it was greater than 10, I think) of unarmed people is only a bad ratio for the unarmed people, especially when they're coming out of a gap only 2 or so can get through at a time.

[Mathis]

He released a pack of dangerous creatures with only himself between them & the group of bystanders. Yes, some of them had weapons, but none of them were standing there ready to fire. 5 armed people to 10 unarmed people is a bad ratio when dealing with an immediate attack. Especially when you have a zombie on a leash that could spring free if it isn't being held in check.

I can agree that this would have been a problem had the walkers been able to run. Alas, as their name implies they cannot and are forever doomed to walk at a slumbering, non-threatening pace. You can pick out details that -could- have made this a more dangerous situation than it was, but no matter how much you pick and poke at it, it really wasn't the life or death situation you claim it was.

[Anderlith]

It takes all of two seconds to go from with a loaded gun, not ready to fire, to with a loaded gun, ready to fire, all they have to do is lift the gun and point it. And as the episode showed, 5 people vs X number (it was greater than 10, I think) of unarmed people is only a bad ratio for the unarmed people, especially when they're coming out of a gap only 2 or so can get through at a time.

No, I meant that there are 10 humans without guns, not walkers.

[Reverent-One]

No, I meant that there are 10 humans without guns, not walkers.

Ah, in that case, I'll say that the ratio of armed to unarmed people is an absolutely worthless thing to consider if the total number of armed people is enough to handle the danger. If you only need one armed person, it doesn't matter if there's 1 or 100 unarmed people there too as long as the armed person is close enough to do the job.

[Anderlith]

Ah, in that case, I'll say that the ratio of armed to unarmed people is an absolutely worthless thing to consider if the total number of armed people is enough to handle the danger. If you only need one armed person, it doesn't matter if there's 1 or 100 unarmed people there too as long as the armed person is close enough to do the job.

If the others had not taken up positions the walkers would have overwhelmed Shane. Then they would have gone after Hershel & Rick. Rick would have lost control of the leashed walker. The situation would have gotten worse from there.

Shane had no conviction that the others would take up positions. In his mind it was him versus every walker in the barn. He would have lost that battle had the others not stepped up.

[Flickerdart]

If the others had not taken up positions the walkers would have overwhelmed Shane.
That is incredibly unlikely. Shane is the best shot of the group, and the walkers were coming through one or two at a time. As long as the others didn't shoot him, he would have been able to handle himself fine so long as his ammo didn't run out.

[Reverent-One]

If the others had not taken up positions the walkers would have overwhelmed Shane. Then they would have gone after Hershel & Rick. Rick would have lost control of the leashed walker. The situation would have gotten worse from there.

Shane had no conviction that the others would take up positions. In his mind it was him versus every walker in the barn. He would have lost that battle had the others not stepped up.

If we ignore Flickerdart's point and assume that Shane couldn't handle them, yes, if everyone with guns just turns and walks away, bad things would happen. But the characters are not suicidal like that, so that's a moot point. You might as well say that Shane put them in danger by giving them guns since they could then all shoot themselves. It's literally true that they could, but there's no reasonable reason to believe they would.

[Johel]

That is incredibly unlikely. Shane is the best shot of the group, and the walkers were coming through one or two at a time. As long as the others didn't shoot him, he would have been able to handle himself fine so long as his ammo didn't run out.

This and the fact that even if it did ran out, he wouldn't have been the only target of the walkers.
said targets would then have run or open fire in self-defense anyway.
The whole thing was just him forcing the decision on others as a power play against Rick.

While not planned, the fact that the missing girl was among the walkers will only reinforce the impression that he did the right thing :
People might have kept searching for her for weeks, wasting times and resources while also risking their lives in the process
Now, they know and they can make the choice to leave without any real guilt.

Shane will look like the perfect leader, as he get the job done every single time, taking the difficult but right decisions when needed.
Not the guy you wish to follow so much that the guy you need to follow, though.

[Reverent-One]

Shane will look like the perfect leader, as he get the job done every single time, taking the difficult but right decisions when needed.
Not the guy you wish to follow so much that the guy you need to follow, though.

Except it wasn't Shane who was able to do what needed to be done for Sophia, it was Rick. While everyone else was standing there dumbfounded, Rick was the one who made the tough call and took care of her.

[Carry2]

Shane had no conviction that the others would take up positions. In his mind it was him versus every walker in the barn. He would have lost that battle had the others not stepped up.
I don't think so. I believe his purpose was to force the others to step up. To realise they live in a different world. Same way he (apparently) left dealing with Sophia for Rick.

Frack, that was a punch to the gut. It adds up, though. Where else could she've been hiding?

...Also, that quicksand barrier explains a lot about how the farm managed to survive intact so long.

[Anderlith]

That is incredibly unlikely. Shane is the best shot of the group, and the walkers were coming through one or two at a time. As long as the others didn't shoot him, he would have been able to handle himself fine so long as his ammo didn't run out.

Yes, Shane is a great leader, *rolls eyes
& everyone is expendable!

[Flickerdart]

Great leader? No. Great sharpshooter? Absolutely.

[Tyndmyr]

I agree that a group of armed people is quite capable of taking on lots of unarmed people...that's not the thing.

It's that they were forced, at the penalty of dying if they didn't do so, to engage the zombies. In short, instead of talking his way through it, he forced everyone to do things his way. This is not a sign of competence. It's a sign of arrogance and a willingness to risk your life to get his way.

It doesn't matter if the man knows you can probably take a tiger if he looses a tiger on you...that's still not a thing people should do to each other.

The proper way to handle it would be more or less what Rick was doing. Acknowledge that it's Hershel's place, and either accede to his conditions or, if you can't resolve your differences diplomatically, move on. Hershel was quite fair with them and helped them plenty.

[Reverent-One]

No one was arguing that Shane was acting like a great leader there, we were just saying that he didn't put them in any serious danger by forcing the choice of obeying Herschel's request or slaughtering the walkers.

[Tyndmyr]

No one was arguing that Shane was acting like a great leader there, we were just saying that he didn't put them in any serious danger by forcing the choice of obeying Herschel's request or slaughtering the walkers.

The danger was the forcing.

There was no reasonable choice to obey Herschel's request at all. Doing so would have led to being eaten by walkers. Hence the danger.

He wasn't forcing a choice. People had chosen. He was forcing them to his position.

[Reverent-One]

The danger was the forcing.

You going to make up your mind on this at some point?


I agree that a group of armed people is quite capable of taking on lots of unarmed people...that's not the thing.


There was no reasonable choice to obey Herschel's request at all. Doing so would have led to being eaten by walkers. Hence the danger.

So he was protecting the group by not letting Rick make the group go along with Herschel's sucidal request then? Again, you're not being consistent.


He wasn't forcing a choice. People had chosen. He was forcing them to his position.

No, Rick had chosen, that doesn't mean everyone agrees with Rick.

[Folytopo]

I think that is game, set, match. Next episode it will be interesting to see how they take being kicked off the farm. If they use force to stay or take supplies.

[Karoht]

I think that is game, set, match. Next episode it will be interesting to see how they take being kicked of the farm. If they use force to stay or take supplies.I predict demoralization, followed by an arguement or 3. Lots of crying from someone. Finger pointing. Much finger pointing. Angry finger pointing.
Maybe someone will lose a finger?

[Flickerdart]

Well, Shane has guns and Hershel doesn't. That;s one option.

[Anderlith]

Open the barn & free the walkers (who could kill you) is better than keeping them penned up where there is only a possibility that they will get free....? Doesn't make sense.

[Reverent-One]

Open the barn & free the walkers (who could kill you) is better than keeping them penned up where there is only a possibility that they will get free....? Doesn't make sense.

No, it's open the barn and slaughter the walkers with no real risk to yourself, or leave them there for something to potentially go horribly wrong in the future.



Maybe someone will lose a finger?

All the better to point with.

[The Reverend]

There were infinitely better ways to handle the situation with just a little thought . Using a ladder to get up above the zombies from the outside and drop sharp heavy pointy things tied to ropes or chains on their heads while they are trapped in the barn. No ladder? Cut a small hole in the door so zeds can only get out one at a time on their hands and knees, two guys pin with pitchforks, one guy bashes with an ax or hammer, couple guys drag it out, and a whole bunch of folks stand by with guns in case. Everyone wears eye and skin protection to deal with blood spatter.

[Tyndmyr]

You going to make up your mind on this at some point?

There is no conflict. They were able to take the zombies, but only by doing things Shane's way. He forced them all to do what he wanted or die. That is an action like that of a hijacker or other hostile person.

After all, had they all opted not to fire against the zombies, it would have been a bloodbath, no?


So he was protecting the group by not letting Rick make the group go along with Herschel's sucidal request then? Again, you're not being consistent.

You are misunderstanding. Herschel's request was in no way suicidal. Not attacking the walkers was a very reasonable option UNTIL Shane opened the door. He made them an imminent threat when they were not previously so.


No, Rick had chosen, that doesn't mean everyone agrees with Rick.

And there had been a lack of talking and deciding. Rick's decision was quite reasonable, all things considered. Shane's was not.


I predict demoralization, followed by an arguement or 3. Lots of crying from someone. Finger pointing. Much finger pointing. Angry finger pointing.
Maybe someone will lose a finger?

Basically, yes. Eventually, they'll have to move on.


Well, Shane has guns and Hershel doesn't. That;s one option.

A terrible option. Hershel's your doctor. That IS a valuable skill, and one that others seem to lack. In addition, Hershel is not entirely alone. His daughter, despite her differences with him, is unlikely to want to see Shane use or threaten to use a gun on him. Glenn probably doesn't want that to happen. Others will certainly object or refuse to follow him. It's likely to end in a bloodbath if he doesn't back down.

In addition to being very morally questionable, it's not a very pragmatic choice.


No, it's open the barn and slaughter the walkers with no real risk to yourself, or leave them there for something to potentially go horribly wrong in the future.

Or you could just leave. Which they'll probably have to do now anyway, only a fair bit lower on ammo, and having turned a potential ally against them.

Or, if you're going to be a jerk and ignore Hershel's request, you could have just efficiently killed them from the upper barn entrance at no risk whatsoever. Less ammo, less risk = win. Shane was not trying to be practical. Shane was grandstanding to be in charge.

[Karoht]

All the better to point with.Yeup. That solidifies my prediction. Much angry finger pointing. Followed by a surprise to break up the arguement VS it getting to it's natural conclusion, so that the rest of the episode and at minimum the 3 after it, there is a palpable tension which could be solved if people just talked to one another and worked as a team.

It's formula, but it's surprisingly entertaining formula.

[Reverent-One]

There is no conflict. They were able to take the zombies, but only by doing things Shane's way. He forced them all to do what he wanted or die. That is an action like that of a hijacker or other hostile person.

After all, had they all opted not to fire against the zombies, it would have been a bloodbath, no?

Maybe, maybe not. It's debatable whether Shane could have handled the walkers himself. It's a moot point anyway, since the characters aren't suicidal, so of course they're going to shoot at the walkers.


And there had been a lack of talking and deciding. Rick's decision was quite reasonable, all things considered. Shane's was not.


Or you could just leave. Which they'll probably have to do now anyway, only a fair bit lower on ammo, and having turned a potential ally against them.

Or, if you're going to be a jerk and ignore Hershel's request, you could have just efficiently killed them from the upper barn entrance at no risk whatsoever. Less ammo, less risk = win. Shane was not trying to be practical. Shane was grandstanding to be in charge.

Again, no one's arguing that Shane's choice was the best one, just that the walkers posed no real threat to the group.

[Silverraptor]

So, the season continues. And it starts off with a hell of an opening. Totally did not see that happening to those 2 guys.

[Cheesegear]

Totally did not see that happening to those 2 guys.

I did. I just thought it would happen in two episodes' time, and I thought Shane'd be the one to do it. But I like the way it turned out better.

[Tyndmyr]

Again, no one's arguing that Shane's choice was the best one, just that the walkers posed no real threat to the group.

Well, we've established that the group themselves thinks that the walkers did, and that they might not have been able to handle more. Thus, Shane most certainly is seen as a threat to the group BY at least part of the group*. This makes his actions not smart.

*And frankly, his aggressive, confrontational behavior is pretty obviously a warning sign to everyone.

Additionally, the fact that they missed actually headshotting them all indicates that no, this really wasn't an efficient clean-up. Almost lost someone to what should have been a remarkably easy job.


I did. I just thought it would happen in two episodes' time, and I thought Shane'd be the one to do it. But I like the way it turned out better.

I admit I did think it would drag out much longer with stupidity. But no, killing them then and there was correct. They were *way* too intent on finding/going to their camp. Crazily so, IMO. You don't make friends like that.

[Reverent-One]

You're trying to continue an over two month old conversation? Really? Let it rest, man.

[Tyndmyr]

Er, I didn't restart the thread. And, discussing past episodes is pretty much what this thread is for. If you're no longer interested, that's fine, but certainly the resumption of conversation following additional episodes is quite normal.

[the humanity]

I see a massive fight coming, those guys probably were raiding the survivors they found.

[Reverent-One]

Er, I didn't restart the thread. And, discussing past episodes is pretty much what this thread is for. If you're no longer interested, that's fine, but certainly the resumption of conversation following additional episodes is quite normal.

I was referring to the "Was Shane opening the barn morally justified?" conversation specifically, not general discussion of the show.


I see a massive fight coming, those guys probably were raiding the survivors they found.

Yeah, they had scenes from the next episode during Comic Book Men, and let's just say Rick and friends won't be able to leave the bar for a while.

[Tyndmyr]

I was referring to the "Was Shane opening the barn morally justified?" conversation specifically, not general discussion of the show.

There was no further episodes to discuss for a coupla months. Suspending conversation was reasonable. Now that there is new information to discuss, doing so in light of previous discussion is also reasonable. I don't see the problem.

[Reverent-One]

There was no further episodes to discuss for a coupla months. Suspending conversation was reasonable. Now that there is new information to discuss, doing so in light of previous discussion is also reasonable. I don't see the problem.

There was no reason to suspend that conversation since there were no new episodes because the relevant information was already there, and even if there wasn't, there was no new relevant information in the new episode.

[Mathis]

There was no further episodes to discuss for a coupla months. Suspending conversation was reasonable. Now that there is new information to discuss, doing so in light of previous discussion is also reasonable. I don't see the problem.

I'll bite. What new information are you referring to?

[Tyndmyr]

I'll bite. What new information are you referring to?

For one, explicit statements from some of the survivors that they felt it was dangerous. Now, even if YOU don't think it's dangerous, it's bad tactics for Shane to make the group feel like he's endangering them.

For another, there was the opening sequence in which they clearly had missed one of the zombies, and as a result, almost lost a survivor. Was a fairly messy fight. This establishes that the clean-up was not handled fairly well/safely. The only way it could really have been worse is if people actually died.

[Joxer t' Mighty]

Lori...

Ok, what the HELL is wrong with that woman? They went to go get Hershell and bring him back. Why does someone need to go bring them back? They're already planning on coming back!!

And calling the Redneckinator selfish?

Her characterization is getting more and more agonizing by the episode, and now we have to waste even MORE time bringing her back to health. Crash probably made her lose the baby, all in the name of drama.

Since the zombie was only hit, not beheaded, I hope it crawls its way over and has some Idiot Sushi.

[Tyndmyr]

Lori...

Ok, what the HELL is wrong with that woman? They went to go get Hershell and bring him back. Why does someone need to go bring them back? They're already planning on coming back!!

Yes, she is dumb. Her reaction was rather pointless.

Also, going alone and not watching the road while you drive...even more dumb. Followed by a wild overreaction. It didn't even hit the window on her side of the car! She could have been just fine by just...continuing to drive.


And calling the Redneckinator selfish?

No doubt. He's one of the redeeming chars. He's practical, and usually does things what need to be done, crappy or not. Basically nobody has done more than he has.

Lori's a crazy person at this point.


Her characterization is getting more and more agonizing by the episode, and now we have to waste even MORE time bringing her back to health. Crash probably made her lose the baby, all in the name of drama.

Since the zombie was only hit, not beheaded, I hope it crawls its way over and has some Idiot Sushi.

Unlikely, but only for plot reasons...they gotta keep up the Drama! for as long as possible. I really do wish she'd die off, but I see that as fairly unlikely at this point.

[Mathis]

For one, explicit statements from some of the survivors that they felt it was dangerous. Now, even if YOU don't think it's dangerous, it's bad tactics for Shane to make the group feel like he's endangering them.

Yupp, we can agree to this. I don't really see what you're trying to discuss here though.


For another, there was the opening sequence in which they clearly had missed one of the zombies, and as a result, almost lost a survivor. Was a fairly messy fight. This establishes that the clean-up was not handled fairly well/safely. The only way it could really have been worse is if people actually died.

This clearly has absolutely nothing to do with what we've been discussing previously. I'll indulge you anyway, if you watch the scene again you'll see that they try to stop her from going over to the dead body but they realize it's her mother and sort of decide there and then to let her grieve without physically restraining her. I think you have to understand that the girl just watched her mother get shot to pieces. It doesn't matter what YOU think she saw, only what actually happened. Most people would empathize with such a situation and find it hard not to let her grieve.

[Anderlith]

I've said it before & I'll say it again. I hate Lori. Why does anyone need to go & get Rick & Glen? They weren't even gone that long. Then calling Daryl selfish because he wouldn't risk his life to find her husband, who is perfectly capable of looking after himself? I really really hate her. I hope she is eaten-slowly-while alive, I know she won't... just like Shane won't leave the group. The writers are just wanting to manufacture drama instead of letting the story unfold dramatically.

[Tyndmyr]

This clearly has absolutely nothing to do with what we've been discussing previously. I'll indulge you anyway, if you watch the scene again you'll see that they try to stop her from going over to the dead body but they realize it's her mother and sort of decide there and then to let her grieve without physically restraining her. I think you have to understand that the girl just watched her mother get shot to pieces. It doesn't matter what YOU think she saw, only what actually happened. Most people would empathize with such a situation and find it hard not to let her grieve.

It's not that letting her grieve is a problem, it's that they failed to actually kill the zombie first. That's the problem.

[Mathis]

I believe we can exscuse them that in the chaos, there were after all a lot of people shooting. Don't see what this adds to the discussion though so Im backing out, no use beating a dead horse.

[Tyndmyr]

I believe we can exscuse them that in the chaos, there were after all a lot of people shooting. Don't see what this adds to the discussion though so Im backing out, no use beating a dead horse.

It merely means that Shane's solution of "toss the doors open, and let all the zombies out" was not a particularly good one.

Also, to "the humanity", I share your assessment of the other survivors. People trying to make friends don't act as they did. They're almost certainly out to loot, steal, etc.

[Silverraptor]

It merely means that Shane's solution of "toss the doors open, and let all the zombies out" was not a particularly good one.

Also, to "the humanity", I share your assessment of the other survivors. People trying to make friends don't act as they did. They're almost certainly out to loot, steal, etc.

I was suspicious of them as well. But while I was trying to find out how to lead them away, Rick shoots them which made me do a double take.:smalleek:

[Mathis]

I was suspicious of them as well. But while I was trying to find out how to lead them away, Rick shoots them which made me do a double take.:smalleek:

I think that whole scene was great. From the moment they entered the bar to the bloody end it had a tense, awkward feeling to it and I was squirming in my couch watching it. Great acting from the two bad guys I think, they were creepy right from the start. Gave me the feeling it could only end one way, with at the least two people dead or dying. They were also a good way of forcing the group to move on now that they know someone will be looking for them and their friends.

[Caesar]

I think that whole scene was great. From the moment they entered the bar to the bloody end it had a tense, awkward feeling to it and I was squirming in my couch watching it. Great acting from the two bad guys I think, they were creepy right from the start. Gave me the feeling it could only end one way, with at the least two people dead or dying. They were also a good way of forcing the group to move on now that they know someone will be looking for them and their friends.

Yup, that scene was one of the few good scenes in a long time. You just know something is wrong, but then again, this is zombie-apocalypse land so maybe you are mista-*BANG BANG BANG...BANG*..nope never mind. Awesome.

Also, the new writers are pretty cliche, so you just know that a heavily damaged zombie is going to crawl back to the car, but it will have trouble getting in due to lack of use of both legs and one arm (you heard it here, two legs and one arm out of commission). Idio..Lori will be hanging upside down unconscious in her seatbelt, and will come to just in time to have to struggle to reach her gun, which will be suitably out of reach. At the last second, she will get the gun and cap the zombie, but will be unable to leave the car, being trapped and injured. Cue another zombie shuffling in from nearby, who doesn't seem to zero in on her right off the bat. In the meantime, the bar crew get stuck in town dealing with other looters/zombies, all as her precious seconds/blood tick/drip away!!! DunDunDUn...

[Zen Monkey]

I'm enjoying the continued Shane development. He's gone from goofy beta cop to something of a Richard Riddick style villain-on-our-side for the group. He seems to have crossed a line where he no longer has hope of anything good happening, and is either pushing the group to accept that view and/or pursuing his own death through continued self-destructive acts.

Lori, on the other hand, seems to be self-destructive purely out of some inability to think more than one or two selfish steps ahead. She's being pigeon-holed as some cliche 'whiny irrational female' that the group probably doesn't need. If you're going require a cliched hollywood female role, you could play up the maternal aspects and have her be the voice of compassion instead of whatever she's doing now.

Wait a minute... Lori's player is the annoyed girlfriend of the alpha PC, T-Dog's player just can't make it to most of the game sessions, and Daryl is clearly a character min-max'ed for the genre who got more useful skills by taking social flaws.

[Joxer t' Mighty]

Wait a minute... Lori's player is the annoyed girlfriend of the alpha PC, T-Dog's player just can't make it to most of the game sessions, and Daryl is clearly a character min-max'ed for the genre who got more useful skills by taking social flaws.
*guffaws and claps*

[Reverent-One]

Regarding Lori this episode:
Anyone else get the feeling that the scene with the sick daughter in bed right before Lori feels the need for someone to go after Rick was meant to show that what's-her-name was getting suddenly worse? Because that's about the only way her actions would make sense to me. Unfortunately, the scene didn't get that across to me, and to make matters worse, I don't think they'd even showed Rick and Glen getting to Herschel yet, which really makes Lori's action unnecessary since they just hadn't had time yet.

Oh well, a decent episode otherwise. A bit slow, but that's fits pretty well given what just happened last episode. I like that Dale's sharing his suspicions about Shane, needs to be done to push us towards an eventual confrontation. And that was a solid ending, you knew it was going to go badly, but didn't know exactly how.

[leafman]

Regarding Lori this episode:
Anyone else get the feeling that the scene with the sick daughter in bed right before Lori feels the need for someone to go after Rick was meant to show that what's-her-name was getting suddenly worse? Because that's about the only way her actions would make sense to me. Unfortunately, the scene didn't get that across to me, and to make matters worse, I don't think they'd even showed Rick and Glen getting to Herschel yet, which really makes Lori's action unnecessary since they just hadn't had time yet.



All that scene served to show me was that, somehow the girl had been infected with the zombie virus. She had a high fever and accelerated pulse, the exact symptoms exibited by people who have been bit by a zombie prior to "death".

[Gamerlord]

All that scene served to show me was that, somehow the girl had been infected with the zombie virus. She had a high fever and accelerated pulse, the exact symptoms exibited by people who have been bit by a zombie prior to "death".
I'm still wondering why they didn't check her for a bite mark.

[Reverent-One]

All that scene served to show me was that, somehow the girl had been infected with the zombie virus. She had a high fever and accelerated pulse, the exact symptoms exibited by people who have been bit by a zombie prior to "death".

I was thinking that even without that scene.

[Fawkes]

I'm still wondering why they didn't check her for a bite mark.

I thought they did, right after they pulled her away.

[Silverraptor]

Wait, is this the same girl? The girl who ran crying to her shot up mother who then turned out somehow did not get shot in the head and somehow decided to play dead until the next unfortunate soul come to check if she was dead and then try to bite girl? That girl? I thought it was a different girl for both, but then again I'm terrible with the farmer girls except the one who's after the asian guy.

And if she is turning into a zombie, there is nooooooo way she got any bite marks. I tell you, I was watching that wrestling scene quite clearly with wide eyes thinking, "Bite her. Bite her. Bite her. Bite her. Bite her. Bite her. Dammit! She wasn't bitten!" That mouth was wide open the entire time and didn't close unless it made a noise and was only trying to bite at the girl's throat/face despite the fact that it had both her arms in its grasp.

So if she does indeed turn into a zombie, does this mean there is a touch strain that almost everyone is immune to except for some reeeeeally unfortunate souls?

[Joxer t' Mighty]

It's quite possible the saliva of dear ole mam was sprayed onto her in some fashion, perhaps into her mouth.

[Silverraptor]

It's quite possible the saliva of dear ole mam was sprayed onto her in some fashion, perhaps into her mouth.

Ewwww.:smallyuk:

[eyeofsaulot]

So the Philly guys, despite the fact that (as previews for the next episode would imply) back-up is on the way, decide to kill Rick, Glenn, and Hershel? Either they were being overly confident OR the rest of their group is not like them.

Let me explain the latter:
Maybe the Philly guys have done this kind of thing before (the dead cop comment, perhaps?). If they can't get anything out of survivors that they come across while separate from their group, they kill them, steal whatever equipment they've got, and lie to their group about the encountered survivors being hostile.

I hope this is the case, so that the reasoning behind the Philly guys' decision to kill them wouldn't just be that they were being idiotic. And of course, since there's going to be a huge conflict because two of the other group's men were just killed, I feel the latter would be a lot more interesting, because it would create many more moral predicaments for Rick & co. over fighting this other group than if they were just a band of murderous people.

[Tyndmyr]

I was suspicious of them as well. But while I was trying to find out how to lead them away, Rick shoots them which made me do a double take.:smalleek:

Yeah. I didn't actually expect that to happen then. Figured it was a time for trickery and what not, likely ending badly. This was a pretty solid scene for Rick. He's actually decisive, very competent, and solves the problem that clearly, neither of the others was going to.

Of course, there's still the issue of the rest of their group, but this is a GOOD problem, narratively. It makes sense.



Wait a minute... Lori's player is the annoyed girlfriend of the alpha PC, T-Dog's player just can't make it to most of the game sessions, and Daryl is clearly a character min-max'ed for the genre who got more useful skills by taking social flaws.


Lol, I admit, my buds and I do frequently talk about the show as if it were a roleplaying game. "Crap, he just rolled a one" is a common phrase.


Regarding Lori this episode:
Anyone else get the feeling that the scene with the sick daughter in bed right before Lori feels the need for someone to go after Rick was meant to show that what's-her-name was getting suddenly worse? Because that's about the only way her actions would make sense to me. Unfortunately, the scene didn't get that across to me, and to make matters worse, I don't think they'd even showed Rick and Glen getting to Herschel yet, which really makes Lori's action unnecessary since they just hadn't had time yet.

That might be what they intended, but if so, they certainly failed to portray it well...at a minimum, it's a black mark against the writers for failing to show motivation.

As it is, I can't really see what she was hoping to accomplish by her actions.


I'm still wondering why they didn't check her for a bite mark.

I have absolutely no idea. Seriously, checking for bite marks should be pretty basic at this point.


So the Philly guys, despite the fact that (as previews for the next episode would imply) back-up is on the way, decide to kill Rick, Glenn, and Hershel? Either they were being overly confident OR the rest of their group is not like them.

Let me explain the latter:
Maybe the Philly guys have done this kind of thing before (the dead cop comment, perhaps?). If they can't get anything out of survivors that they come across while separate from their group, they kill them, steal whatever equipment they've got, and lie to their group about the encountered survivors being hostile.

I hope this is the case, so that the reasoning behind the Philly guys' decision to kill them wouldn't just be that they were being idiotic. And of course, since there's going to be a huge conflict because two of the other group's men were just killed, I feel the latter would be a lot more interesting, because it would create many more moral predicaments for Rick & co. over fighting this other group than if they were just a band of murderous people.

I saw it as the entire philly group being predatory, and preying on other survivors. They were not specifically interested in Rick and company...but rather, in pressuring them for the location of the party, and it's supplies and what not. They would probably be willing to kill one or more of them to get that, and that's where I saw that going.

[thorgrim29]

Did nobody see the thin philly guy reach for his gun before Rick shot him?

[Mathis]

I did, wasn't even aware there was any confusion on that point. So Rick didn't really solve anything there, he just acted in self-defence. Unless Tyndmyr was referring to Rick being decisive and solving the problem by telling the two guys to go piss off check out Nebraska?

[thorgrim29]

If that's what he meant, then ok, but if he was praising him for shooting two guys who annoyed him... I mean I get liking Shane but that would be callous even for him.

[Reverent-One]

That might be what they intended, but if so, they certainly failed to portray it well...at a minimum, it's a black mark against the writers for failing to show motivation.

As it is, I can't really see what she was hoping to accomplish by her actions.

Yeah, that what I was saying. That was a strange segment, it needed to be handled differently.

[Tyndmyr]

I did, wasn't even aware there was any confusion on that point. So Rick didn't really solve anything there, he just acted in self-defence. Unless Tyndmyr was referring to Rick being decisive and solving the problem by telling the two guys to go piss off check out Nebraska?

He solved the problem of two guys that went from nosy and prying to downright aggressive. He could have instead given them directions to the farm(correct or not), and the other two there seemed to be comfortable letting Rick take leadership of the situation. Refusing to give them information, and responding in kind(and effectively!) to imminent violence is definitely a good call. This is the kind of leadership Rick's been needing to demonstrate.

[Silverraptor]

Did nobody see the thin philly guy reach for his gun before Rick shot him?

Wait, the guy did? I must've looked down then because I just heard gunshots and before I knew it, he was taking shots at the fat guy.

[Mathis]

Easy to overlook, it all happens in like two seconds. I must say I'm impressed at how quick Rick was on the draw though, and accurate too. It's not easy to draw your gun and put a bullet through someones face in less than a second. Rewatched the episode with some friends today and that last scene really is good, still kept me uncomfortable on my seat the entire time. If they keep this up the last part of the season is going to be kick-ass.

[Mixt]

Yes he did, i saw it too.

Too bad for him Rick was faster.


That being said, Hershel finally learned his lesson about the nature of the zeds.
And Lori is being an idiot...again :smallsigh:
And Shane is being an A-hole...as usual.

Kind of worried about the smoke caused by burning those bodies though.
I mean, smoke that is obviously not caused by a forest fire is going to draw attention, possibly from zeds, but definitely from looters.

That said, that zed at the start was smart enough to play dead until someone got in range, but too dumb to go for the arms that were much easier to reach than the face or neck? What?

For the record, my favorite characters are Redneck Mcbadass and Delivery Boy, AKA Daryl and Glenn.
Though Glenn really needs to learn to say no when the others are being stupid (Which happens far too often)

[eyeofsaulot]

I saw it as the entire philly group being predatory, and preying on other survivors. They were not specifically interested in Rick and company...but rather, in pressuring them for the location of the party, and it's supplies and what not. They would probably be willing to kill one or more of them to get that, and that's where I saw that going.

But backup was on the way! I just think the Philly guys' actions were incredibly stupid if their entire group is as predatory as they were.

[Tyndmyr]

But backup was on the way! I just think the Philly guys' actions were incredibly stupid if their entire group is as predatory as they were.

I will agree that they were not the smartest of players...but who knows how big a group they have, or if there really even is a group other than them. Their aim seemed to be in coercing a location out of them asap, and they'd probably utilize coercion later to get whatever they wanted. Basically, a bully sort of strategy. It can work, but it's seriously dangerous. Not a strategy I'd advocate for obvious reasons, but one that I'd consider acceptable to portray in the genre.

Also, I wouldn't consider Lori useful backup in any sort of a fight. More of a liability.

Now, if there really is a larger group of people from Philly, they're likely to be similarly inclined, so this could blow up into a major thing.