# The Walking Dead 2.11 - Judge, Jury, Executioner (spoilers)



## NewJeffCT (Mar 5, 2012)

Wow, intense ending to the episode.  Carl is a friggin' idiot, and he'll be having nightmares forever.  At least the discussion in this episode was better & more intense than some previous episodes.

I can't believe they killed off Dale - he lived a lot longer in the comics.

Looks like the final 2 episodes will be good.


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## Lhorgrim (Mar 5, 2012)

Yeah, I was very surprised.  They seemed to have been moving closer to the comic storyline the last couple episodes, and then this big U-turn.

It was nice seeing T-Dog again, even if he was just mobile scenery.


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## NewJeffCT (Mar 5, 2012)

I wonder if Hershel gave us a hint of things to come - he mentioned how cows had wandered in to his farm & broke down the fence.  Maybe a nearby farm is now over-run with walkers and the cows are running away towards Hershel's farm?


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## Hand of Evil (Mar 5, 2012)

NewJeffCT said:


> I wonder if Hershel gave us a hint of things to come - he mentioned how cows had wandered in to his farm & broke down the fence.  Maybe a nearby farm is now over-run with walkers and the cows are running away towards Hershel's farm?




Or others than the dead.  

Guess, Carl now knows what Rick was telling him about thinking before acting.


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## NewJeffCT (Mar 5, 2012)

Hand of Evil said:


> Or others than the dead.
> 
> Guess, Carl now knows what Rick was telling him about thinking before acting.




Not sure that other humans would be driving the cows off - I'd think if they were at a local farm, they'd try to keep the cows to slaughter & eat?


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## Ahnehnois (Mar 5, 2012)

I was surprised with how bad they were willing to make Carl look.

The ending was pretty brutal. It was, however, well earned.


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## Wild Gazebo (Mar 5, 2012)

Sorely disappointed with the lack of Cow Zombies.

That is all.


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## Hand of Evil (Mar 5, 2012)

NewJeffCT said:


> Not sure that other humans would be driving the cows off - I'd think if they were at a local farm, they'd try to keep the cows to slaughter & eat?



Or just give chase not knowing how to handle cows, spooking them.


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## Lhorgrim (Mar 5, 2012)

Or carelessly cut fences, allowing cattle to escape.


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## Hand of Evil (Mar 5, 2012)

Think I would have setup a watch post somewhere by now, at least in the trees overlooking the main enterance to the farm.


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## NewJeffCT (Mar 5, 2012)

Hand of Evil said:


> Think I would have setup a watch post somewhere by now, at least in the trees overlooking the main enterance to the farm.




They do have a watch - however, I think because of the stress of "The Execution" and it being nighttime, the group was more careless than usual.

They've made it a point a few times of showing Dale or Andrea on watch (Andrea shot Daryl coming back once while she was on watch)


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## Hand of Evil (Mar 5, 2012)

NewJeffCT said:


> They do have a watch - however, I think because of the stress of "The Execution" and it being nighttime, the group was more careless than usual.
> 
> They've made it a point a few times of showing Dale or Andrea on watch (Andrea shot Daryl coming back once while she was on watch)




True but that is a walker post.  Thinking more "known marauders" in the area.


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 5, 2012)

First rule of the zombie apocalypse: Never go wandering off by yourself at dusk.

But seriously, they should have a rule that no one patrols on their own. Too risky. Also, I think the cattle were Hershels that broke through the fencing. Though it would seem to me that reinstalling the fences would be a priority of your on zombie maintenance duty. If you can manage to corral your cattle, you should be able to keep out your zombies.

Though I suppose it's good that shirtless walker just got Dale. If he had wandered into the farm at night, the death toll could have gotten a lot higher.


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## NewJeffCT (Mar 5, 2012)

Remus Lupin said:


> First rule of the zombie apocalypse: Never go wandering off by yourself at dusk.
> 
> But seriously, they should have a rule that no one patrols on their own. Too risky. Also, I think the cattle were Hershels that broke through the fencing. Though it would seem to me that reinstalling the fences would be a priority of your on zombie maintenance duty. If you can manage to corral your cattle, you should be able to keep out your zombies.
> 
> Though I suppose it's good that shirtless walker just got Dale. If he had wandered into the farm at night, the death toll could have gotten a lot higher.




yeah - I knew something bad was going to happen to Dale, though I was surprised they killed him off.  In the comics - spoiler - 



Spoiler



Dale survives considerably longer, and has an affair with Andrea, despite their age differences.


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## Hand of Evil (Mar 5, 2012)

NewJeffCT said:


> yeah - I knew something bad was going to happen to Dale, though I was surprised they killed him off.  In the comics - spoiler -
> 
> 
> 
> ...




He just got his wish...he did not want to live in a Mad Max world, he just forgot he was already there. 

Yep, day-to-day upkeep (guess that was what Odis did) should be checking the fences.


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## Spatula (Mar 5, 2012)

I always kinda liked Dale, although he's been an overbearing whiny fool for a big chunk of this season. I wasn't all that sorry to see him go after he spent the entire episode haranguing all the other characters. "Hey Dale, they don't agree with you, why don't you try TALKER LOUDER at them, that will make them change their minds! Or call them names again, that always works."

And again we have someone wandering off alone and causing trouble as a result. You would think at this point they would be keeping closer tabs on everyone. Especially the kid! Three times this episode he ended up in places he wasn't supposed to be, and got caught twice.

Do the characters act this foolishly in the comic series?


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## Kzach (Mar 5, 2012)

Dale was the only rational person of the group. He is absolutely right, killing the kid is murder, plain and simple. It's not justified in any way, shape or form. Nor is torturing him.

But walking off in the dark by himself like that was just plain idiotic. And then standing there like a fool and wondering what ate the damn cow?

I don't know if I can keep watching this series when the level of stupidity of the characters just keeps on rising. It should be called, "The Walking Retards".


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## Mercutio01 (Mar 5, 2012)

I know that dumb characters is a well-established trope of horror, but like [MENTION=56189]Kzach[/MENTION] said, this show seems to have problems with it. It's one thing to have a dumb jock stabbed to death by Jason Voorhees. It's another to have a survivor of the ZA, one who is apparently pretty smart in all other ways, suddenly become an insufferable fool. And the characters this season all seem to be moving in that direction.


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## Lhorgrim (Mar 5, 2012)

Kzach said:


> Dale was the only rational person of the group. He is absolutely right, killing the kid is murder, plain and simple. It's not justified in any way, shape or form. Nor is torturing him.
> 
> But walking off in the dark by himself like that was just plain idiotic. And then standing there like a fool and wondering what ate the damn cow?
> 
> I don't know if I can keep watching this series when the level of stupidity of the characters just keeps on rising. It should be called, "The Walking Retards".




I absolutely agree that killing/torturing/etc. Randall is wrong.  However, I think letting him go is reckless.  I don't really see a good answer to this scenario.  

If he was telling the truth when he said he went to school with Maggie, then he probably would be able to find the farm even if they drive him 20 miles away and cut him loose.  If he went to school with Maggie, then he is probably familiar with the area and can find his way back to his group of 30+ heavily armed friends.  Maybe they wish to live in peace, but maybe they're a shoot first/take what we want by force/rape squad.

All we know about them at this point is that the two in the bar made a move on Rick, and then when the rest of the recon group came along they fired blindly into the bar and Randall was in a sniper position trying to pick them off.  I could make the case that it was self-defense, but Rick did try to break the engagement with a "you go your way we'll go ours." proposition.   

I am very likely influenced by the comic series in this.  The show's plot is different, but 



Spoiler



if he is connected to Woodbury, then releasing him will be catastrophic.


.


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## Kzach (Mar 6, 2012)

I think the best solution is to leave the farm altogether. They now know that there's a rape/murder squad 30+ strong with heavy firepower marauding around the area. It's only a matter of time, no matter what they do with the kid, before the squad finds the farm, even if they're not looking for it in particular, they're still roaming the area looking for just that sort of thing.

So personally I'd abandon the place. In a ZA there's no such thing as holding your position. That might make sense in a mundane warfare situation, but not in a ZA, especially when you simply don't have the resources to defend yourselves against such a force.


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## Lhorgrim (Mar 6, 2012)

Kzach said:


> I think the best solution is to leave the farm altogether. They now know that there's a rape/murder squad 30+ strong with heavy firepower marauding around the area. It's only a matter of time, no matter what they do with the kid, before the squad finds the farm, even if they're not looking for it in particular, they're still roaming the area looking for just that sort of thing.
> 
> So personally I'd abandon the place. In a ZA there's no such thing as holding your position. That might make sense in a mundane warfare situation, but not in a ZA, especially when you simply don't have the resources to defend yourselves against such a force.




That's a good point.  Keep him prisoner until you can make clandestine preparations to bail out.  Drop him off 20 miles out and then get out of there.  Hopefully Herschel would go with you for the medical support, but I would keep the planned regrouping destination secret from him so the "Gang of 30" couldn't torture the info out of him.  They may not be as noble as we are after all.


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## NewJeffCT (Mar 6, 2012)

Kzach said:


> I think the best solution is to leave the farm altogether. They now know that there's a rape/murder squad 30+ strong with heavy firepower marauding around the area. It's only a matter of time, no matter what they do with the kid, before the squad finds the farm, even if they're not looking for it in particular, they're still roaming the area looking for just that sort of thing.
> 
> So personally I'd abandon the place. In a ZA there's no such thing as holding your position. That might make sense in a mundane warfare situation, but not in a ZA, especially when you simply don't have the resources to defend yourselves against such a force.




well, he claims it's 30 heavily armed men.  Who knows if he's BSing or not?

However, I agree with not sticking around.  The farm is not all that defensible against either a horde of walkers or 10-20-30 armed men.

And, at the end of the show, they made it seem like they're low on ammo as well.  (Weren't they engaging in extensive target practice a few episodes back?)


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## Hand of Evil (Mar 6, 2012)

NewJeffCT said:


> well, he claims it's 30 heavily armed men.  Who knows if he's BSing or not?
> 
> However, I agree with not sticking around.  The farm is not all that defensible against either a horde of walkers or 10-20-30 armed men.
> 
> And, at the end of the show, they made it seem like they're low on ammo as well.  (Weren't they engaging in extensive target practice a few episodes back?)





The problem with leaving the farm is the same as staying...you will run into the bad guys, that is just the way it works.   

some other points; they have yet to ask Randall where the last camp of the raiders was, this can tell them a number of things...one if he is from the area and not just dropping names he heard while he was being treated.  Maybe they think the raiders have left the area, never stay in a place longer than a couple of days, always keep moving but not knowing, not all that smart.  30 people is a lot to keep out of the mouths of zombies and keep safe.

For me...it would still be the coast and a boat.


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## Mark CMG (Mar 6, 2012)

Spatula said:


> "Hey Dale, they don't agree with you, why don't you try TALKER LOUDER at them, that will make them change their minds! Or call them names again, that always works."





It's unusual for someone that old to have learned so much from the Internet.


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## Kzach (Mar 6, 2012)

Hand of Evil said:


> they have yet to ask Randall where the last camp of the raiders was, this can tell them a number of things...




No, they asked that. He said they move around a lot and that they would've moved by now so he didn't know where they would be camped.


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## Hand of Evil (Mar 6, 2012)

Kzach said:


> No, they asked that. He said they move around a lot and that they would've moved by now so he didn't know where they would be camped.




Still, knowning where they were, placing it on a map and knowing where they have been, would give a lot of information, things like search pattern, normal travel periods, routes and future locations.  You also, can find out who the leaders are, chain of command, names of the members.  

Naaa, that is expecting too much.


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 6, 2012)

I just wish the ZA were better populated by engineers and scientists, rather than school teachers, stay at home moms and testosterone fueled cops. Honestly, give me one engineer in the fall of civilization -- somebody who can jury-rig devices to help us survive, improve the fencing, help us develop some solar electricity or a generator of some sort, then, rather than leave the farm and roam, we hunker down, build up defenses, keep the zombies out, breed us some live stock, and wait for civilization to rebuild itself. Keep Rick and Shane around as security, sure but why the hell are they in charge anyway?

In fact, here's my "wish" list for a survival party in the ZA (assume a party of 10-15 or so adults):

1. 2-3 people with engineering backgrounds, at least one with some civil engineering experience.
2. 1-2 people with military/law enforcement/security backgrounds.
3. 1-2 people with real backgrounds in farming/agriculture/livestock management.
4. 2-3 people with some form of medical training, even if it's just at the level of first aid, but at least one real doctor and/or nurse.
5. 2-3 Scouts/Foragers.

The rest of the group can be populated by a wide array of people from other backgrounds, but each of them would be actively trained in at least one of the above skill sets. So on day one, I'm useless in a zombie apocalypse, since I'm a college professor who specializes in the humanities, In the ZA, that becomes my hobby. If I'm lucky, I'll also scrounge a guitar somewhere. Also a hobby. But on day two, I'm being actively trained to build turbines, treat wounds, forage for supplies, fire a gun, or birth cattle.

Then we hunker down on the farm, build a big wall, and wait.


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## NewJeffCT (Mar 6, 2012)

Remus Lupin said:


> Keep Rick and Shane around as security, sure but why the hell are they in charge anyway?
> 
> In fact, here's my "wish" list for a survival party in the ZA (assume a party of 10-15 or so adults):
> 
> ...




Good list overall - I might flip 3 and 4, as there always seems to be medical issues, be it a pregnant woman or somebody breaking a leg or something.  The group of The Walking Dead would kill for somebody that could repair/fix things, not to mention build them.

In the comics, Rick is in charge because he is sort of the moral center of the group, which was the role taken by Dale on the TV show, and also something of a leader.  Not sure why he is in charge on the TV show - maybe he was a higher ranking police officer/sheriff than Shane?


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## Umbran (Mar 6, 2012)

Dangit!  I _LIKED_ Dale.  

I really, really wanted to hear his backstory.  _Grumblegrumblegrumble_.  

As for him acting foolishly... well, geeze, folks, you may feel you can act like machines under stress, but most folk get a little less rational.  The characters are in over their heads, and under unimaginable stress.  I'm surprised we've only seen two attempted suicides.

In Dale's case, specifically, as far as he was concerned he had just witnessed the final fall of civilization as he knew it - he'd said as much.  What he did was foolish, but only for someone who wanted to stay alive.  It seems to me that Dale may not have really cared that much about his own continued existence in his new world.

I've only seen one show where I felt the characters were under similar unremitting stress and desperation - the new Battlestar Galactica.  It was so bad for BSG that I stopped watching the show, because it stretched credulity that they didn't have main characters blowing their own heads of in despair.

The only reason I think Walking Dead manages to not get that same reaction from me is that they have a shorter season than BSG.


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 6, 2012)

I agree. I'm one of the Dale likers as well.

As for suicide, well, we've seen two attempted suicides, and at least two further successful ones (I may be forgetting someone).


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## NewJeffCT (Mar 6, 2012)

Remus Lupin said:


> I agree. I'm one of the Dale likers as well.
> 
> As for suicide, well, we've seen two attempted suicides, and at least two further successful ones (I may be forgetting someone).




Jim from season 1 was a maybe suicide.  He had been bitten and they left him behind with a gun and a bullet...  The guy from the CDC and the older black woman were the two I remember, as they went out with a bang.  Andrea was an attempted suicide in Season 1.

I thought Dale was a good character as well.


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## NewJeffCT (Mar 6, 2012)

Umbran said:


> The only reason I think Walking Dead manages to not get that same reaction from me is that they have a shorter season than BSG.




Well, they are getting longer.

Season 1 was 6 episodes.
Season 2 is 13 episodes, divided into 7/6 episode half-seasons.
Season 3 is supposedly going to be 16 episodes.  (is it going to be 8/8?)


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## Umbran (Mar 6, 2012)

NewJeffCT said:


> Jim from season 1 was a maybe suicide.  He had been bitten and they left him behind with a gun and a bullet...




That's not so much suicide as euthanasia, to my mind.  YMMV.



> The guy from the CDC and the older black woman were the two I remember, as they went out with a bang.  Andrea was an attempted suicide in Season 1.




I'd forgotten about the two in the CDC.  Okay, more like four suicides or attempts - Andrea, the two in the CDC, and Herschel's daughter.

Which only supports my major point.  It is all well and good to sit back at home on a comfy couch with a cold beverage of your choice in hand to point out how dumb these people are.  The reality of their world is that these folks are pretty much riding the ragged edge, well beyond what most modern Americans ever experience.  Perfect tactical action from them 100% of the time wouldn't be particularly plausible.


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## jcayer (Mar 6, 2012)

As much as Carl annoyed me last night, he is the one who should be the most troubled.  He's the only kid, so he has no real friends....what kind of life can he expect?

How could he not be depressed?  Although, he definitely is seriously broken.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 6, 2012)

Part of Carl's problem is that he is a kid in (essentially) a society facing  stone-age survival pressures but with modern sensibilities & parenting.  He's been too sheltered from everything by good-intentioned parents- who are scrambling just to keep things working- so he has too much unsupervised free time to get into the kind of trouble that only sheltered, naive kids can get into.

Go back to the people living near Lascaux during the Ice Age, and kids his age would have been actively making tools and weapons for the tribe, and maybe even participating in the hunts.  They'd already have received some education on the gravity of the dangers facing them.

Not that their young minds would fully grasp them, of course...but wandering off would have been a rarity.  Careless, unstructured play with a real weapon would have been even rarer.  And _losing_ such a weapon?  Unheard of.


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## Spatula (Mar 6, 2012)

Umbran said:


> It is all well and good to sit back at home on a comfy couch with a cold beverage of your choice in hand to point out how dumb these people are.  The reality of their world is that these folks are pretty much riding the ragged edge, well beyond what most modern Americans ever experience.  Perfect tactical action from them 100% of the time wouldn't be particularly plausible.



Well, speaking for myself, I'm not looking for making perfectly logical decisions all the time. And I haven't really agreed with all the folks complaining about how stupid the characters are. All I'm really asking is that people show some basic awareness of where they are and stop running off on their own (Dale in the last episode excepted). And keep their kids on a short leash, especially after what happened to Sophie! Making a foolish decision once or twice is to be expected, stressed or not. To keep making the same mistake over and over is just lazy writing, IMO. The characters are fighting for survival and should be learning from their mistakes.


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## Umbran (Mar 6, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Go back to the people living near Lascaux during the Ice Age, and kids his age would have been actively making tools and weapons for the tribe, and maybe even participating in the hunts.  They'd already have received some education on the gravity of the dangers facing them.




Yes, well, if you go back to Lascaux, you also have the fact that kids his age had parents who had been living in that situation, and their parents before them, and so on.

In apocalyptic scenarios, one of the major points of exploration is that the adults don't have the knowledge themselves, much less the ability to properly train children for the scenario.  They can't teach Carl survival skills they don't know!


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## Mercutio01 (Mar 6, 2012)

Umbran said:


> In apocalyptic scenarios, one of the major points of exploration is that the adults don't have the knowledge themselves, much less the ability to properly train children for the scenario.  They can't teach Carl survival skills they don't know!



We're not talking foraging, hunting, and camouflage. We're talking "don't run off into the woods by yourself." That's...not really that hard to train children to do. I've got two of my own. Not going off on their own was one of the first things they learned.


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## Kzach (Mar 6, 2012)

Remus Lupin said:


> Then we hunker down on the farm, build a big wall, and wait.




And who would build this wall and with what equipment? I know a little of construction and can tell you in no uncertain terms that with the resources that are available in a ZA, nobody is going to be building big walls any time soon, whether they are engineers or not. And even if they did miraculously have the machinery, materials and work-force to build such a structure, you're still talking the concerted effort of months to years for completion.

Why bother? That kind of dedicated effort would be wasted in an instant if that marauding band happened by and given the sheer resources and activity involved, is bound to attract zombie and rape-gang attention. Even at its most basic, say a wooden palisade, you're talking a huge amount of resources just for a few feet of wall. Better off finding an already fortified location with a good water supply and shoring up its defences.


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 6, 2012)

Umbran said:


> Yes, well, if you go back to Lascaux, you also have the fact that kids his age had parents who had been living in that situation, and their parents before them, and so on.
> 
> In apocalyptic scenarios, one of the major points of exploration is that the adults don't have the knowledge themselves, much less the ability to properly train children for the scenario.  They can't teach Carl survival skills they don't know!




Just hand him over the Darryl. In a month he'll either know what he's doing,  or he'll be dead.


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 6, 2012)

Kzach said:


> Better off finding an already fortified location with a good water supply and shoring up its defences.




Yes, if only there were such a site available not too far from the farm, with high walls and guard towers and such. I wonder if such a place might be in the near future?


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## Umbran (Mar 6, 2012)

Mercutio01 said:


> That's...not really that hard to train children to do. I've got two of my own. Not going off on their own was one of the first things they learned.




And I'm sure Carl was trained for such too.  

But he just saw the only other child he knew of in the world, his only peer and friend, as a zombie, shot in the head by his own father!  Carl is *broken*, and broken people are not good at following training, or orders.

He pretty clearly has some confusion right now about what life and death mean, and he won't treat his own life, or the lives of others, properly until he works that out. 

Recall the scene in which they're all in the house, discussing and voting on what's to be done with the prisoner.  Carl walked in.  Did anyone catch his coloration?  I was struck by it so much I rewound and looked again - where everyone else is in color, they had a trick of the lighting, such that Carl was in a flat, lifeless (need I say - zombie-like) grey.  



Kzach said:


> And who would build this wall and with what equipment?




Agreed.  They have, what, a dozen people?  They have how much food and fuel laid up for winter?  And folks want them to be building walls?  Really?


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## NewJeffCT (Mar 6, 2012)

Remus Lupin said:


> Yes, if only there were such a site available not too far from the farm, with high walls and guard towers and such. I wonder if such a place might be in the near future?




highly doubtful...

But, they've deviated from the comics a lot, so who knows?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 6, 2012)

Umbran said:


> Yes, well, if you go back to Lascaux, you also have the fact that kids his age had parents who had been living in that situation, and their parents before them, and so on.
> 
> In apocalyptic scenarios, one of the major points of exploration is that the adults don't have the knowledge themselves, much less the ability to properly train children for the scenario.  They can't teach Carl survival skills they don't know!






Mercutio01 said:


> We're not talking foraging, hunting, and camouflage. We're talking "don't run off into the woods by yourself." That's...not really that hard to train children to do. I've got two of my own. Not going off on their own was one of the first things they learned.






Remus Lupin said:


> Just hand him over the Darryl. In a month he'll either know what he's doing,  or he'll be dead.




Mercutio01 & Remus Lupin basically have it- the simple, common sense stuff seems to have escaped the core family...and Darryl really is the repository of the wisdom the group needs.

But there's also the element of a gun owner, trained police officer & leader of the group who also seemingly hasn't taught his son much about guns or not touching other people's stuff.

I mean, I get it- he's a kid, and kids do dumb stuff (even smart, well-taught kids)- but the group is aware enough of their situation that they post 24 hour watches but they still let him wander off?  After just losing a kid in the worst possible way?


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## Hand of Evil (Mar 6, 2012)

You don't need a wall, you just need pits.  Get a tractor with a back hoe, some can be great zombie killing machines. 


some of my thoughts on a ZA...


Okay, books, how to stuff...this becomes important. 

Seeds - roof top gardens, safe place to grow stuff, just fill with soil.  Use ladders and zip lines.  You could get a couple of years out of them, maybe more with some work.

Still say, I would have water to my back with a boat escape route, river, lake or ocean would be a greater range for foraging.  Also, House boats.  

would also be running test on walkers, would like to know things like how ammonia effects their ability to smell.  Can sound be used to draw them away.


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## Kzach (Mar 6, 2012)

There's dumb and then there's just plain idiotic. Many of the things this group does falls into the latter category. There are things that people just simply wouldn't do in a ZA. At least not people who would survive longer than a day or two. All the reasons given for why they make such mistakes are also reasons why they wouldn't. The more of these just plain idiotic mistakes that they make without repercussions, the less believable I find the series to be.

Which is why Dale dying was a good thing. He did something beyond stupid and paid for it. Now if only they'd kill of that retarded little snot kid.


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## Umbran (Mar 6, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I mean, I get it- he's a kid, and kids do dumb stuff (even smart, well-taught kids)- but the group is aware enough of their situation that they post 24 hour watches but they still let him wander off?  After just losing a kid in the worst possible way?




Yep.  Because: 

1) I reiterate, there's only a dozen of them - "full time babysitter" is not an available job description yet.

2) Carl has made a habit of sticking his nose where adults don't want it, but that's always been within the camp.  Is my recollection correct that this was the first episode where he actually wandered off on his own out of the camp?  And this time, he didn't get caught, right?  So what is making anyone believe that he needs a leash?  Beware applying viewer-logic.  As far as everyone knows, Carl stays within safe bounds.  *We* know he didn't, but they don't yet.  



Hand of Evil said:


> Seeds - roof top gardens, safe place to grow stuff, just fill with soil.




Two problems with that:

1) Most rooftops are not built to carry much more than snowload, and dirt is heavier than snow.  Without putting in proper drainage, you're asking for roof collapse and/or root rot on your plants.  

2) "Just fill with soil" sounds good, until you remember that someone's got to actually fill it with soil.  Dirt is heavy!  Water is heavy.  Both need to get to that rooftop, carried up from the ground, probably by hand.  Good luck with that.

Roof gardens would be long term projects, not something for the first couple months after the fall of humanity.


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## Mercutio01 (Mar 6, 2012)

Umbran said:


> Yep.  Because:
> 
> 1) I reiterate, there's only a dozen of them - "full time babysitter" is not an available job description yet.
> 
> 2) Carl has made a habit of sticking his nose where adults don't want it, but that's always been within the camp.  Is my recollection correct that this was the first episode where he actually wandered off on his own out of the camp?  And this time, he didn't get caught, right?  So what is making anyone believe that he needs a leash?  Beware applying viewer-logic.  As far as everyone knows, Carl stays within safe bounds.  *We* know he didn't, but they don't yet.



Well, yes, but he's just recovered from being shot and nearly dead. He shouldn't be wandering anywhere. It is not the first time he's gone missing or without supervision, though.

But, rather than blaming Carl (who is a kid after all), his parents don't seem to be doing a very good job.

Also, I forgot he showed up limping and muddy and out of breath, and his mother didn't think to question any of those things at all.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 6, 2012)

> So what is making anyone believe that he needs a leash?




I'm not a parent...but I know many.

And many of them don't let their kids play outside unsupervised because of real but rare threats of serial killers, pedophiles & gang members.

His dad is a sherriff who- along with everyone else- is aware of the real and relatively common threat of Walkers all around.  And Carl wanders off without so much as a...well..."Don't wander off" speech.

I mean, that's like going to a wild animal park and just letting him get out of the car and meander off.

This isn't viewer logic, this is Parenting 101.


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## Kzach (Mar 6, 2012)

I grew up with close to nil supervision. I was left to my own devices ever since I could remember and never even bothered to tell my parents where I was going or what I was doing. I also did a lot of travelling and camping with my father. I used to explore the wilderness, go on trails, off trails, swimming, fishing, diving, rock climbing, etc. all by myself or with whatever kids were around at the time. I would sometimes just walk in a random direction solely out of curiosity to see what was in that direction. I would poke, prod and investigate every animal, vegetable and mineral on my way, again out of pure curiosity. All of this because my parents basically didn't care what I was doing or where I was doing it. In other words, I had almost complete free reign to do as I pleased.

I'm fairly certain that, given a ZA situation, I would've had the good sense at Carl's age not to wander off like he does even given my strong sense of independence and extreme curiosity and the freedom I had to wander. So from my perspective, it's not just a "kids will be kids" thing. It's a "writers will be writers" thing.


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## NewJeffCT (Mar 6, 2012)

Mercutio01 said:


> Well, yes, but he's just recovered from being shot and nearly dead. He shouldn't be wandering anywhere. It is not the first time he's gone missing or without supervision, though.
> 
> But, rather than blaming Carl (who is a kid after all), his parents don't seem to be doing a very good job.
> 
> Also, I forgot he showed up limping and muddy and out of breath, and his mother didn't think to question any of those things at all.




Yeah - I thought about that, too.  Maybe she just thought it was a boy being a boy and getting muddy & dirty from playing/jumping around.

However, she has been pretty overprotective of him throughout - yet no questions?


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## NewJeffCT (Mar 6, 2012)

Hitler reacts to Dale's Death:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VpA0LKWYcE&feature=colike]Hitler Reacts to Dale's Death on The Walking Dead - YouTube[/ame]


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 6, 2012)

> I grew up with close to nil supervision.




Ditto, to a certain extent- but I still got cautionary warnings before I got the chance to wander off into the woods (which I did) and so forth.

But that was then and this is now.  Modern parents are bombarded with nightly news of bad people doing bad things to kids.  So (IME) modern parents tend to be more protecive than mine were.

With the dawn of the ZA, things got MORE dangerous and not less.  I'd expect modern parents- circa the WD setting- would be all over Carl on safety issues.  I mean, SHANE has given Carl more warnings than his dad has.


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## Kzach (Mar 6, 2012)

Actually, if you think about it, my point backs your point up.

My parents didn't care, but Carls parents do. So it's a double-whammy. On my own merits, even though I had all that experience, knowledge and freedom, I STILL wouldn't be dumb enough to go out by myself into zombie infested woods where my best and only friend wandered into and died.

And on top of that, Carl's parents care enough that they should be giving him warnings and keeping an eye on him. Which again leads me to say that it's writers being writers, and that pulls me out of my suspension of disbelief.

Honestly, I really want to see a ZA series or even movie where the characters are SMART and don't do incredibly idiotic things all the time solely for the sake of creating drama.


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## NewJeffCT (Mar 6, 2012)

Kzach said:


> Honestly, I really want to see a ZA series or even movie where the characters are SMART and don't do incredibly idiotic things all the time solely for the sake of creating drama.




There are a few books like that - Day by Day Armageddon is about one guy and his journey through a zombie apocalypse (he meets others along the way that join with him).   No big mistakes by him, but they're sort of helpless in their situation as things spin out of control

Similarly, Plague of the Dead focuses on a USAMRIID scientist and a military general and their experiences in the ZA - the scientist trying to find a cure or vaccine, while the general tries to hold his troops together in the face of overwhelming odds.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 7, 2012)

Kzach said:


> Actually, if you think about it, my point backs your point up.
> 
> My parents didn't care, but Carls parents do. So it's a double-whammy. On my own merits, even though I had all that experience, knowledge and freedom, I STILL wouldn't be dumb enough to go out by myself into zombie infested woods where my best and only friend wandered into and died.
> 
> ...




That's actually where I was going with that, but I didn't spell it out so clearly.  Thanks for the clarification!


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## Sabathius42 (Mar 7, 2012)

Umbran said:


> I've only seen one show where I felt the characters were under similar unremitting stress and desperation - the new Battlestar Galactica.  It was so bad for BSG that I stopped watching the show, because it stretched credulity that they didn't have main characters blowing their own heads of in despair.




You stopped watching too early then.  It happened.

DS


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## Kzach (Mar 7, 2012)

Sabathius42 said:


> You stopped watching too early then.  It happened.
> 
> DS




Oh Gods, not AGAIN?!

Let's just hope this is the last time...


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## Fast Learner (Mar 7, 2012)

When I was a kid Carl's age I'd been camping a fair bit, had Cub Scout training, etc. I was good about not wandering off, knew the dangers, and was appropriately downright fearful of some of the things that might kill me. 

However, I still snuck down to the bottom of the spillway near where we lived and poked the cottonmouth snakes with sticks, walked back and forth across a narrow beam 20 feet above a big patch of concrete and jagged rocks most every day, and hand-held roman candle fireworks, shooting balls of fire at my brothers while they shot them at me.

Boys are... stupid, even with training.

That said, in a ZA I'd be all over my kid, day and night.


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## Hand of Evil (Mar 7, 2012)

Umbran said:


> Roof gardens would be long term projects, not something for the first couple months after the fall of humanity.




See them safer than a corn field that the dead can come in and out of at will.  You could do kiddy pools of potting soil, etc.  Just a number of different locations. Yea, there are places you can find that are walled, you use them too, just saying you better be thinking about a few things, you are going to have time on your hands for a few years.   

The problem is they have wasted a lot of time, they should be out there looking for goods to harvest, empting homes of can goods, know where the local Wal-Mart is.  Finding a gun shop for equipment to do your own ammo.  The group is not planning at all, they are living day-by-day without thought.  

Tell you, in a ZA, I would be on a treadmill every day, just for the one time I have to "run away".  I would be in an outfit like a fireman suit everytime I went out because I know it is like armor to bite and claw attacks.  I would have two ways out of a building before I go in, I would drag bubble wrap by a string behind me while in a building.  My flash light would be a LED super bright area light, not a spot beam, even if I had to run flood lights from a portable generator.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 7, 2012)

> 1) I reiterate, there's only a dozen of them - "full time babysitter" is not an available job description yet.




And yet nuclear families & single parents manage to do better...

It's not about full-time babysiter, it's about him being given age-appropriate tasks that keep him busy and in LoS.  It's about recognizing he needs to grow up a bit faster than a city kid Pre-ZA.

It's about letting him have some space, but also being a nag by reminding him (and his still-developing brain) about the dangers of wandering off because there are Walkers about...and maybe even arming him because there AREN'T armed adults all over.  Kids have basically learned to heed warnings about wolves and lions throughout history, but the warnings need to be delivered.  Repeatedly.

Its about teaching him basics of gun handling.  I don't know anybody with an NRA card and kids his age who hasn't taught them _something_ about playing with guns...and those in law enforcement seem to start earlier than most.


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## Umbran (Mar 7, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> And yet nuclear families & single parents manage to do better...




When working within the social structures they started in, yes.  Well, when the parents are psychologically sound...

Let me put it this way:  It is reasonable to assume that every person on the show is suffering from PTSD the likes of which humans have rarely seen.

In the real world, we send men and women trained to handle violent scenarios to war, and a significant number of them come back broken, some of them so badly that they become violent, others such that they need support and counseling to remain a functioning member of society.  And these are people who at least knew that, in the end, they'd be able to return home.

The folks on Walking Dead don't have the training, they don't have that hope of home, there is no support structure, and they had pretty much every other person on Earth turned into implacable monsters that want to eat them.  Daryl, the person who was arguably the best prepared for this new world, has experienced outright hallucinations under stress.  Several of the folks we have seen have attempted suicide when faced with what has happened.

You want to continue thinking of them as if they should be acting in sane and rational manners, or do you want to consider them as folks who are hanging on to sanity with their fingernails, for whom sane consideration itself is an accomplishment?

This is my problem with the "armchair ZA survivalists".  Everyone's talking as if people should be (and they themselves would be) immune to the psychological trauma that accompanies violent change.  I find that implausible.

If the show took place, say, 5 years after the ZA, I'd agree with you.  Anyone who didn't get back to rationality after a while would likely have died before 5 years had passed.  But we are still just a few months post-ZA.  Recovery takes time.


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## Umbran (Mar 7, 2012)

Hand of Evil said:


> See them safer than a corn field that the dead can come in and out of at will.  You could do kiddy pools of potting soil, etc.




I do square-foot gardening as a hobby.  I use raised beds, for which I periodically have to cart in new soil.  Each bed is 4'x'4'x6", so 8 cubic feet.

Topsoil (depending on water content, and all) is about 78 pounds per square foot.  For four such beds, I wind up carting about 2500 pounds of dirt.  One and a quarter tons just for hobby gardening, which yields enough to so that my wife and I have some really fresh veggies in-season.  My garden does not produce enough to get into serious storage and canning.

You want them to tote around enough dirt to support a dozen people year-round?  Ugh!



> The problem is they have wasted a lot of time, they should be out there looking for goods to harvest, empting homes of can goods, know where the local Wal-Mart is.  Finding a gun shop for equipment to do your own ammo.  The group is not planning at all, they are living day-by-day without thought.




I think that's demonstrably incorrect.  Think back, and you'll find they've been planning, but the plans don't pan out. 

They started with a permanent encampment, and were doing okay, and intended to stay.  But, that camp got overrun.  Seeing that they were too few to reliably defend a camp, they tried to hook up with civilization, heading for the CDc. That was a bust.  They try then for a military base - they came on the farm due to accident, and have recently found out the military base was also a bust.

On the farm, there's food production, there are local people who _already know_ where to raid and scrounge.  Unfortunately, the ZA seems to have happened after spring planting, and it is only now getting to harvest time.



> I would be in an outfit like a fireman suit everytime I went out because I know it is like armor to bite and claw attacks.




In high summer in Georgia?  Yeah, that's a good plan.


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## NewJeffCT (Mar 7, 2012)

Umbran said:


> This is my problem with the "armchair ZA survivalists".  Everyone's talking as if people should be (and they themselves would be) immune to the psychological trauma that accompanies violent change.  I find that implausible.
> 
> If the show took place, say, 5 years after the ZA, I'd agree with you.  Anyone who didn't get back to rationality after a while would likely have died before 5 years had passed.  But we are still just a few months post-ZA.  Recovery takes time.




Good point Umbran

2 days before Halloween this year, Connecticut and some other Northeast states were hit with a freak blizzard.  Because the trees still had leaves on them, the heavy snow snapped thousands of branches and trees.  A good portion of Connecticut went dark - a lot of people were without power for a week, and some for even more than that.

In this scenario of being without power for a week, people were getting into fights over gasoline, sitting in gas lines for upwards of an hour (when they could have driven 20-30 minutes out of the city to a place with power and filled up with no line like I did), the places that were open were swamped with people, who hovered over every available power outlet so they could recharge phones, laptops, iPads, etc.  People called in threats to the power company, the CEO of the power company became the most hated man in the state, etc, etc.  It was pretty ugly - and, that was without flesh eating zombies roaming about.


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 7, 2012)

NewJeffCT said:


> Good point Umbran
> 
> 2 days before Halloween this year, Connecticut and some other Northeast states were hit with a freak blizzard.  Because the trees still had leaves on them, the heavy snow snapped thousands of branches and trees.  A good portion of Connecticut went dark - a lot of people were without power for a week, and some for even more than that.
> 
> In this scenario of being without power for a week, people were getting into fights over gasoline, sitting in gas lines for upwards of an hour (when they could have driven 20-30 minutes out of the city to a place with power and filled up with no line like I did), the places that were open were swamped with people, who hovered over every available power outlet so they could recharge phones, laptops, iPads, etc.  People called in threats to the power company, the CEO of the power company became the most hated man in the state, etc, etc.  It was pretty ugly - and, that was without flesh eating zombies roaming about.




My family lives in Connecticut. I could swear I remember reports of flesh eating zombies! Ah well.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 7, 2012)

> When working within the social structures they started in, yes. Well, when the parents are psychologically sound...
> 
> Let me put it this way: It is reasonable to assume that every person on the show is suffering from PTSD the likes of which humans have rarely seen.




I agree and disagree.

Yeah, the entire group is reeling and still finding their feet.  They will make stupid moves.

But the nature of the stupid moves re: Carl's supervision I think are a tad unrealistic.  Even within modern society, parents of today take extreme reactions to the dangers of the day, as mentioned, restricting unsupervised play in dangerous areas even when the anger is far more speculative.  Kids in a gang infested neighborhood simply don't have the privilege of wandering off without warnings & admonitions...and there is no question as to the amount of PTSD in the populations of those areas.

That said, the closest thing to what they're going through would be the plight of war refugees or the victims of ethnic cleansing.  And in those populations, too, parents suffering from PTSD manage to at least verbally warn their kids about the dangers of wandering off to far.  Many don't let their kids wander, period.

In this series, Carl's parents vacillate between having him under lock & key and letting him be a free-range kiddo.  At the very least, I'd have expected some kind of buddy system to be in effect, and not necessarily just for Carl.


(BTW, I _still_ think this is one of the better shows on TV in some time, and my favorite treatment of ZA fiction since _Shaun_ & _28 Days_.)


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## TanisFrey (Mar 7, 2012)

Umbran said:


> When working within the social structures they started in, yes.  Well, when the parents are psychologically sound...
> 
> Let me put it this way:  It is reasonable to assume that every person on the show is suffering from PTSD the likes of which humans have rarely seen.
> 
> ...






Dannyalcatraz said:


> I agree and disagree.
> 
> Yeah, the entire group is reeling and still finding their feet.  They will make stupid moves.
> 
> ...



I remember hearing about a study of what now is PTSD from WWI and WWII done by the UK.  It found that you could expect a higher % of PTSD occurring in modern societies where we are separated from death.  As in we pay others to handle the dead and bury them.

During WWI, the UK controlled about 25% of the world including very primitive areas.  UK soldiers from Napal suffered the least PTSD.  In napal you do not preform a traditional burial under 6 feet of dirt.  You are lucky in that region to grow some fruit bearing trees in the rocks.  So to depose of your dead the family would preform a "sky burial".  The family handed their own dead and prepared them for the burial.

None of the characters on WD has a background dealing with dead/death except Hershel.  All of them should be suffering from PTSD, including the kid.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 7, 2012)

Yep, and to give the writers credit, some of the characters show some of the classic signs- depression, suicidal thoughts, excessive drinking, misplaced aggression, etc.


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## Kzach (Mar 7, 2012)

Umbran said:


> This is my problem with the "armchair ZA survivalists".  Everyone's talking as if people should be (and they themselves would be) immune to the psychological trauma that accompanies violent change.  I find that implausible.




Believe it. Hell, I'd release the virus myself if I had the opportunity.


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## Kzach (Mar 7, 2012)

Umbran said:


> In high summer in Georgia?  Yeah, that's a good plan.




Although I think a fireman's outfit is a bit extreme, wearing biking leathers from head to toe isn't and nor is wearing a helmet or at the very least a bandana around the mouth and some glasses.

How many times have the characters come face-to-face with zombies and stabbed or slashed their way to survival and yet never had any blood spatter in their eyes or mouths? Pretty damn convenient if you ask me. Hell, Rick just had what? Four zombies pile on top of him and he shot all of them and didn't have even a drop of zombie-blood touch a mucous membrane. I call BS.


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## NewJeffCT (Mar 7, 2012)

Kzach said:


> Although I think a fireman's outfit is a bit extreme, wearing biking leathers from head to toe isn't and nor is wearing a helmet or at the very least a bandana around the mouth and some glasses.
> 
> How many times have the characters come face-to-face with zombies and stabbed or slashed their way to survival and yet never had any blood spatter in their eyes or mouths? Pretty damn convenient if you ask me. Hell, Rick just had what? Four zombies pile on top of him and he shot all of them and didn't have even a drop of zombie-blood touch a mucous membrane. I call BS.




Does zombie blood spread the virus, or is it something in the bite?  Or, does the bite inflict the disease faster, but you can get it other ways?

And, Rick was a cop and in episode one he went with Morgan & son to the police station.  He couldn't pick up any bullet proof vests or other body armor there?  They still had guns & ammo there, why not riot gear and the like, too?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 7, 2012)

Dr. Ruth says "Always practice safe Zombie killing!"


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## coyote6 (Mar 7, 2012)

FWIW, the showrunner has said (on Twitter) that zombie movies, books, etc, don't exist on Earth-WD. So the characters have no cultural knowledge of zombie apocalypse to draw on, no cinematic store of bad examples to draw on - they've been on their own from day 1.

Maybe George Romero made a pirate movie instead. 


Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk


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## Mark CMG (Mar 8, 2012)

I wonder what is going to happen when someone reaches into his motorcycle saddlebag expecting a loaded gun to be at the ready and finds it missing.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 8, 2012)

Yep.  I'm expecting a blowup on that one.


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## Kzach (Mar 8, 2012)

NewJeffCT said:


> Does zombie blood spread the virus, or is it something in the bite?  Or, does the bite inflict the disease faster, but you can get it other ways?



Would you be willing to experiment in order to find out or would you just assume the worst and try to prevent any zombie-blood getting into your system?



Mark CMG said:


> I wonder what is going to happen when someone reaches into his motorcycle saddlebag expecting a loaded gun to be at the ready and finds it missing.



Yet another reason why Carl has to die.


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## NewJeffCT (Mar 8, 2012)

Mark CMG said:


> I wonder what is going to happen when someone reaches into his motorcycle saddlebag expecting a loaded gun to be at the ready and finds it missing.




He'll have to use some of Merle's drugs to calm himself down...


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## Hand of Evil (Mar 8, 2012)

NewJeffCT said:


> Does zombie blood spread the virus, or is it something in the bite?  Or, does the bite inflict the disease faster, but you can get it other ways?
> 
> And, Rick was a cop and in episode one he went with Morgan & son to the police station.  He couldn't pick up any bullet proof vests or other body armor there?  They still had guns & ammo there, why not riot gear and the like, too?




I have to think the bite is like that of a Komodo Dragon, just nasty and highly septic...thinking about it Zombies and Komodos could have a lot in common.

Hunt by smell - check
Try and overpower prey in first attack - check
If prey gets away, it is going to die but the bite could be leading the zombie to the prey before it dies - mmmm
Will go for neck bite - check
If it gets prey on ground, goes for the belly attack - check
Others Zombies take part in the feeding - check


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## BraveSirRobin (Mar 8, 2012)

A little late to the party, but a few comments.

I think people are overstating Carl's "wandering" and stupidity of his actions.  Its not like he went for a random hike through the woods.  

The kid is coming into his own and there has been a build up surrounding his feelings that he can and should be involved in the groups actions.  He wants to be involved and is watching the dichotomy between how his father and shane handles things.  That's why he is playing with the gun shells.  That's why he steals the gun.  He goes into the woods not to _wander _but to check the gun out, hardly a stupid action for a ~10 year old boy.  You can see the confidence in himself by the way he is walking through the woods.  He's seen his two father figures handle situations with guns and has no reason to think he can't do the same.   That of course changes when he sees the stuck zombie.  Shaken by the experience he is quickly learning that Shane might actually be right about the dangers of outsiders, which is why he encourages his father to kill Randall.  This is emphasized like a dagger through the heart when he realizes it was the same zombie that he was too weak to kill that ended up killing Dale.   

As for the group continuing to stay on the farm, I think it still makes sense.  The area is remote which is why Herschel's family has been able to live there so long, has natural defenses against roamers in the swamp, has fresh well water, runs on generator power and is a fully functional farm.  You don't leave a place like that unless you absolutely have to.  

And lastly with regards to the zombie infection through blood splatter, don't assume that these are just details the writers are missing.  Remember when Shane and Rick are looking at the bodies of the two guards and find no bites?  Recall when Shane stabs a zombie with his knife and then cuts his hand?  These aren't oversights.  They are trying to tell you something.


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## Kzach (Mar 8, 2012)

BraveSirRobin said:


> They are trying to tell you something.




And what would that be?


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## BraveSirRobin (Mar 9, 2012)

Kzach said:


> And what would that be?




Spoiler:[sblock] Everyone is already infected.  If Hershel was to die from a heart attack he would rise up as a zombie unless someone shot him in the head first.  You don't die from the infection although can die from the bite.  This is why it doesn't matter if they cover themselves in undead guts.[/sblock]


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## Remus Lupin (Mar 9, 2012)

And I suspect that this will be revealed in the season finale.


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## NewJeffCT (Mar 9, 2012)

Remus Lupin said:


> And I suspect that this will be revealed in the season finale.




If the spoilers I read on another site are true, they may find that out the hard way.

SPOILER WARNING BELOW:

(you've been warned)



Spoiler



Supposedly, Shane gets killed and then comes back as a zombie, possibly killing another cast member, before getting killed a second time.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 9, 2012)

BraveSirRobin said:


> Spoiler: Everyone is already infected.  If Hershel was to die from a heart attack he would rise up as a zombie unless someone shot him in the head first.  You don't die from the infection although can die from the bite.  This is why it doesn't matter if they cover themselves in undead guts.




[sblock]Making the title a double-entendre[/sblock]- how witty!






BTW- it's rare, but not everyone uses black as their default background color, so you may wish to reformat your post thusly:




> (sblock) xxx (/sblock)
> 
> Except replace " ( "with " [ "


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## Mercutio01 (Mar 9, 2012)

And the messages that get emailed don't discriminate any of the spoiler tags.

But that's okay. There was a study fairly recently about whether spoilers actually spoil anything, the findings indicated that, in general, they do not.

Anyway, I think the title is a triple entendre. The Walking Dead refers to the zombies, the characters (since the morals/standards of society are wearing away such that there isn't much separating the dead from the living), and the characters again (based on the spoiler above).


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## Fast Learner (Mar 9, 2012)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> BTW- it's rare, but not everyone uses black as their default background color, so you may wish to reformat your post thusly:



You can also use (spoiler)your secret(/spoiler), which sometimes works better if you're just spoiling part of a sentence or what have you (rather than the clickable block reveal). Replacing the ( and ) with [ and ], of course.


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## Kzach (Mar 9, 2012)

BraveSirRobin said:


> Spoiler: Everyone is already infected.  If Hershel was to die from a heart attack he would rise up as a zombie unless someone shot him in the head first.  You don't die from the infection although can die from the bite.  This is why it doesn't matter if they cover themselves in undead guts.




I don't know where everyone has gotten this impression. We've seen tons of dead without brain-damage that aren't zombies. If everyone was infected, they would be zombies too. And if it turns out that everyone IS infected, then this is a MAJOR oversight. I recently re-watched the entire first season with a friend who hasn't seen any of it, and there are at least five examples of bodies I can point out that are dead without being zombies and without head wounds.


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## BraveSirRobin (Mar 9, 2012)

Sorry all, fixed.


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## Mercutio01 (Mar 9, 2012)

I wondered about that Kzach, but haven't rewatched the first season. I do remember reading something about it being more than just head wounds, though. It included things like broken necks or even internal brain hemorrhaging. 

I think most of this speculation for the show is because that's how it works in the books.


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## Lhorgrim (Mar 9, 2012)

The way I choose to look at the "dead people without head wounds not being zombies" is that the infection (curse, plague, evolution?) didn't simultaneously infect every person on the planet at exactly the same moment.  Thus, there was a time frame during the initial outbreak that some people became zombies, some people died prior to being infected (in cars trying to escape the reports of zombies/chaos), and some people became infected and have not yet died.  As the timeline progressed, almost everyone has now become infected as the plague or whatever has had time to spread.

Just my .02 on how I rationalize the dead people in the cars and such.


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## BraveSirRobin (Mar 10, 2012)

Lhorgrim said:


> The way I choose to look at the "dead people without head wounds not being zombies" is that the infection (curse, plague, evolution?) didn't simultaneously infect every person on the planet at exactly the same moment.  Thus, there was a time frame during the initial outbreak that some people became zombies, some people died prior to being infected (in cars trying to escape the reports of zombies/chaos), and some people became infected and have not yet died.  As the timeline progressed, almost everyone has now become infected as the plague or whatever has had time to spread.
> 
> Just my .02 on how I rationalize the dead people in the cars and such.




This.  The writer of the comic is supposedly intentionally unclear about the origins of the virus and how it really works.  The point is that I don't think we should assume that it is a writer oversight.  Much of it is done to create uncertainty.


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## NewJeffCT (Mar 10, 2012)

BraveSirRobin said:


> This.  The writer of the comic is supposedly intentionally unclear about the origins of the virus and how it really works.  The point is that I don't think we should assume that it is a writer oversight.  Much of it is done to create uncertainty.




I think that is one of the common "themes" of zombie apocalypse dramas - The *Night of the Living Dead* just happened.  There was no real explanation or anything.  The dead just suddenly started rising & killing the living.  I think *Dawn of the Dead* and *Day of the Dead* were similar as well.

(However, "fast" zombie movies seem to have an explanation - *28 Days Later *was the rage virus, while *I Am Legend* had the K-V virus.)


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## Kzach (Mar 10, 2012)

Then it's lazy writing.

By all means, don't explain it, but still have guidelines for how it works. Otherwise they're just making it up as they go along with no rhyme or reason which destroys the verisimilitude of the milieu. Consistency is an important part of creating a believable fantasy universe.


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## RangerWickett (Mar 10, 2012)

Do explanations really make that big a difference?



> Two days after, a large UFO was destroyed in space by a Russian "weather satellite", which happened﻿ to be equipped with a laser cannon and class 4 nuclear missiles. Approximately six days later, the earth passed beyond the tail of Rhea-M, exactly as predicted. The survivors of the Dixie Boy are still survivors.


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## catsclaw227 (Mar 10, 2012)

Kzach said:


> Oh Gods, not AGAIN?!
> 
> Let's just hope this is the last time...



I don't get it....  (a reaction to a BSG comment.)  I loved that show despite the controversial ending.  It was one of the best sci-fi dramas I have ever seen.


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## catsclaw227 (Mar 10, 2012)

Umbran said:


> He pretty clearly has some confusion right now about what life and death mean, and he won't treat his own life, or the lives of others, properly until he works that out.



This I agree with.  I also saw another quote about Carl's pale skin when they were talking about what to do with the hostage.  I noticed that as well.   Carl clearly isn't thinking right.  He was recently shot, he see's his father in conflict with Shane, whom he has some (misguided or not) admiration for, he see's a hostage, starts playing around with a gun in a creepy way, almost gets caught and eaten by a zombie, and generally is majorly confused.  Even if the parents DID talk to him, he's still react and do screwed up things until his childish mind can straighten things out.



Kzach said:


> There's dumb and then there's just plain idiotic. Many of the things this group does falls into the latter category. There are things that people just simply wouldn't do in a ZA. At least not people who would survive longer than a day or two. All the reasons given for why they make such mistakes are also reasons why they wouldn't. The more of these just plain idiotic mistakes that they make without repercussions, the less believable I find the series to be.



It's easy to talk about it, even act better-than and condescending, when you are sitting at your computer and playing enworld. 

It's something totally different if you were actually there, seeing everyone not only die, but rise again and want to eat you.

Try going to a war-torn Central Africa for a couple of months (like I did) and seeing what hyper-poor, crappy, war-like life is really like EVEN WITHOUT ZOMBIES.  People don't think rationally, and normally strong individuals fall apart.



Kzach said:


> Now if only they'd kill of that retarded little snot kid.



I hope you aren't serious. You must not have children, and maybe that's a good thing.


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## catsclaw227 (Mar 10, 2012)

Kzach said:


> Believe it. Hell, I'd release the virus myself if I had the opportunity.






Kzach said:


> Yet another reason why Carl has to die.




Gosh I really hope you are being sarcastic.  Otherwise, I think you need some serious help...  These are the kinds of things that are said prior to a Columbine.


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## Kzach (Mar 10, 2012)

catsclaw227 said:


> Gosh I really hope you are being sarcastic.  Otherwise, I think you need some serious help...




Gosh, I really hope you understand that it's a fictional TV series. Otherwise, I think you need some serious help...


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## catsclaw227 (Mar 10, 2012)

Kzach said:


> Gosh, I really hope you understand that it's a fictional TV series. Otherwise, I think you need some serious help...



Clearly, I know it's fictional.  But in previous threads, you have talked about what _you_ would do if there were a _real_ ZA.

And without further qualification, these things you mentioned sound like, if it was you, you would've spread the virus yourself or kill the kid in a real ZA.

I think it best if you are joking to clarify, since, with plain writing, taken in context with what you have mentioned in the past, without seeing your face, its hard to tell what part is fiction and what part is what you really believe.

People's posts on forums don't sit in a vacuum.  Most of the time, they are taken in context with what they have written about in the past, especially more prolific posters like yourself.


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## Kzach (Mar 11, 2012)

catsclaw227 said:


> People's posts on forums don't sit in a vacuum.  Most of the time, they are taken in context with what they have written about in the past, especially more prolific posters like yourself.




Yes, ma'am!


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