The Walking Dead (TV series)/Headscratchers

Major spoilers, you've been warned.

The Comic Book

 * So, uh...why did society collapse so hard? Rick's out for, what, a month, but by the time he wakes up, everybody's gone back to the stone ages. Nobody even bothers looking for battery-run computers/digital watches? I mean, what, did the vague cataclysmic event also destroy all electronic devices? And, putting that aside, was mass amnesia another effect? Everyone seems to forget the date, for no good reason.
 * The simple answer for not seeking out battery-operated devices is that they're simply too hard to come by. Even if the devices themselves were abundant, the batteries would have been one of the first things looted due to society's dependence on portable electronics. People still thought of the plague as a short event at the beginning that would be over soon, so they wouldn't give a second thought to aimlessly depleting batteries.
 * Granted it happened a bit fast but without a reason to know the exact date it would be quickly forgotten. In Zombie Land you don't get the weekend off, there is no President's Day or Veterans day. Currently these people are back to hunter-gatherer status so there isn't even a harvest. Considering how long watches seem to live it's hard to believe that nobody had a watch on when this all started but over all it makes sense.
 * Forgetting the date isn't unexpected, since there's no reason to really remember dates on account of the complete collapse of society. When the odds of surviving to see the next sunrise are so uncertain, you tend to stop caring about trivial things like what day on the calender it is compared to avoiding death by zombie. As for why nobody has watches, people probably do have them in their luggage but don't see the point in keeping track of time because again, with societies breakdown there's very little reason to need to know the exact time of day. Granted things like coordinating meeting spots would be better served with a watch.
 * Except enough people own watches, and enough cars have calendars built right in that it's a tad absurd that nobody seems to know the exact date. I can level with them simply not giving a shit but not with not knowing.
 * The only person with a watch was Dale, who kept the mechanical watch his father gave him. For the car calenders, none of the cars they use would have had them.
 * What bugged me the most--nay, what utterly pissed me off--was Tyreese's death. So, Rick doesn't do anything to prevent Tyreese being beheaded in front of him, supposedly because if they try to stop the Governor he'll kill Michonne too. Except here's Rick going on the word of the Governor, who already blatantly lied to them once before trying to kill them. Why would he be so sure that Michonne was actually a captive? (Of course, she wasn't but that's just Dramatic Irony for you.) Likewise, so much effort is made to make Rick look like this calculating and careful character, who's capable of being cold and merciless if it's beneficial to the group overall. So why would he value Michonne, who had only showed up a month or so before and was currently elsewhere with only the word of Rick's greatest enemy that she was in danger, over Tyreese, who Rick had known almost since the beginning of the plague and had proved to be one of the most capable and helpful members of the group? Likewise, it was just the Governor and one other guy against six or seven people from Rick's group. If they'd acted then they could have killed the Governor and his right-hand man, which would have made a huge dent in the morale of the Woodburians and made them think twice about attacking Rick's group. This would have saved Tyreese, and Michonne was out of danger anyway at that point. And anyway, even if Rick's careful risk/reward planning failed him for once, plain old human nature would have spurred him to help his best friend. It's like he was temporarily superglued to the Idiot Ball to give the writers an excuse for Woodbury to show up later and kill off 80% of the main characters. Needless to say, I thought Lori's reaction upon hearing about Tyreese's death was completely reasonable.
 * Between that, surviving Michonne's payback, and a few other places, it felt like the Governor practically had Joker Immunity. Hell, it took Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies to kill him off.
 * I won't disagree that the whole event pissed me off, but it made sense from Rick's standpoint. The Governor had Michonne's katana, which lent some credibility to his claim that he had her. He was
 * How exactly was Ben supposed to be presented? A burgeoning psychopath, or just a little boy with a poor comprehension of death as it relates to the zombie infection? I mean, he, but his reasoning was that he thought he'd come back.
 * I think it was supposed to be left intentionally ambiguous in order to let the readers decide whether or not


 * How come nobody is afraid of natural deaths? They all know you come back irrespective of how you die, so shouldn't you be weary of old people dying in their sleep or younger people having heart attacks, all just to devour your sleeping ass? Now that they are in this Washington "paradise", why is it no action is taken to account for this?
 * They probably do have a plan to deal with it. It's just not shown to us. Aside from that, also keep in mind that nobody in Washington has died of natural death yet.

The TV Show

 * I really want to know why living at Herschel's house is such a big deal. Can't they just find another farmhouse in the area? Darryl can clearly hunt, and defending the farm doesn't seem to be an issue with no Walkers around.
 * Not necessarily one with all the acoutrements Herschel's house has: working water pumps with wells (well, two out of three wells), a road a good distance away from the main drag, and electricity and a generator. To say nothing of the fact that Herschel's a doctor.
 * As Maggie explained most of the other farms have either been burnt to the ground or are infested by walkers.
 * OP here. Maggie's point DOES kinda explain this, but I still feel that finding a nice country house in the sticks, where there seem to be relatively few wandering Walkers, would be preferable to continuing to live as nomads. I imagine the group could get their hands on a working generator. The well water would be the only real issue. My point was that, instead of wearing out their welcome with Herschel, they could just be neighbours. That way they could utilize his medical skills without pissing him off.
 * Why the zombies in the barn are fed live chicken? Also, where do they get so many chickens anyway?
 * Because keeping them somewhat fed means they're less likely to break out of the barn. They probably have a breeding program for the chickens.
 * It's more likely because Herschell sees the walkers as sick people that just need a cure. So they're feeding them so they don't "die" of starvation
 * Why are supplies so hard to come by? It's been a couple months since the end, so perishable food could reasonably be gone, but where are the twinkies? Gasoline would be very easy to obtain even without getting it from gas stations. And guns? We're supposed to believe that in the middle of ATLANTA GEORGIA Rick's bag of guns were the most easily obtained firearms in the city? They could probably even have their pick of brand new RV's if they bothered to find a dealership.
 * There wasn't a "vague cataclysmic event." It was a zombie apocalypse, which means that our heroes are not the only people trying to deal with it. The reason supplies are so hard to come by is that other groups of people have came and went through the areas already. Everyone didn't instantly die or disappear, they spent fighting and surviving too, using those same supplies that Rick's group is after.
 * I'm with the OP, though the previous comment certainly brings up valid points. Their truck is stolen, so they WALK back? The guy is short on tools - don't tell me every hardware store was looted. The "Getting a new RV" the actual vehicles may have been taken but by god the parts stores shouldn't be too picked over. Why on earth didn't anyone give the teams going into Atlanta shopping lists? Back in episode 1 they've established the Sheriff's department was protected, well-stocked, had water, some power and gas - why didn't the man and the boy move in there?
 * The city of Atlanta has a population size of more than 420,000 people. How long do you really think it'll take for several thousand weapons to be snatched off the shelves by the populace once riots break out and reports of the dead coming back to life to attack the living start hitting the airwaves? Raiding the gun store is a trope all its own and deserves its own page. Hundreds of thousands of people are all having the exact same thought and know where to head to try and seek supplies they believe they'll need.
 * Besides of the looting that usually comes with public panic. And the fact that some areas are infested with zombies
 * Twinkies are actually not non-perishables. I live in the Atlanta, Georgia Area. These people panic shop at Wal-Mart and such when snow is predicted, let alone whether it actually does snow. The stores would be stripped in a day or two. Even of the guns.
 * I just figured Tallahassee took them.
 * Yes, the stores may be empty - but with the population becoming walkers so quickly all that equipment would be still lying around for the taking. A house smart enough to stock up on guns and barricade itself, but then fell to walkers would stand out like a sore thumb.
 * Maybe this'll get answered next week, but if Merle could reach the hacksaw-you know, the saw designed for cutting through METAL-why the feth did he cut his hand off instead of through the chain?
 * Cutting through metal takes time--time Merle might not have thought he had. Flesh and bone would have been easier to get through in a hurry.
 * Not really. Bones are not by any means easy to cut through - it could easily take as much effort as cutting through chain, especially when you throw in the fact that cutting off your own arm is difficult psychologically and can be cripplingly painful. And considering how much better it is to have two hands to fight zombies with instead of one and a bleeding stump that needs to be cauterized, it'd be worth taking a little extra time.
 * Bugged me as well. Not to mention there were other tools there he could probably have busted the pipe. Also it was surprisingly bloodless for a severed limb.
 * Both pointed out at the beginning of the next episode; the hacksaw was supposedly too dull to cut through the chain, and it's suggested that Merle used his belt as a tourniquet.
 * How did Merle get off the building? I've never been climbing on an incredibly tall building but I imagine it requires BOTH hands and none of the massive blood loss of a recently severed limb.
 * Good ol' fashioned badassery mixed with copious amounts of adrenaline.
 * and maybe Le Parkour.
 * Also Truth in Television Aron Ralston, a climber, was forced to amputate his arm when it was pinned by a boulder after 5 days of trying to free himself. He had to do it with a dull multi-tool knife, then he rappelled down a 60 foot cliff and hiked before finding someone who could get him to a hospital. It is entirely plausible that Merle COULD have done something similar.
 * Why not just amputate the thumb? 'twould be much quicker and less painful than an entire wrist.
 * If you watch carefully, it appears Merle exited via a different door than the ones the "Geeks" were behind.
 * He did. The chained staircase lead down into the store. The second staircase lead into something of a break room area where there were lockers, a stove and many other things not in the department section.

And congrats, you noticed and are calling her out on the exact same things she noticed and called herself out on. Did you watch the episode where they went into all this, and she gave her reasoning for trying to abort, and how Rick talked her out of it? So, sure, if you measure importance solely in ability to shoot people, surprise surprise, the two cops (trained with firearms and to deal with life-and-death situations) and the redneck hunter are the most "important."
 * Why haven't they considered circling the wagons in regards to the camp? And who chose a place where the only exit appears to be down into the quarry? The people in the camp seem for the most part smarter than this?
 * Most likely because they just got plain complacent. Because of their remote location, they managed to avoid most of the zombies save for a random wanderer or two. They start catching on to the problem as more zombies show up, but they probably weren't expecting an attack of the magnitude that happened in episode 4. Typical case of Too Dumb to Live.
 * It must have been complacency - because even in their secluded location, they're in TENTS.
 * In all fairness there were only so many vehicles in the camp, not nearly enough to encircle the entire encampment.
 * If only the world had ended and there were literally all of the free, unused vehicles you could ever want available. C'est la vie.
 * And if only getting those vehicles didn't always involve the possibility of being swarmed and eaten, and half those vehicles were crashed or otherwise unusable.
 * Will Glenn ever explain why they call them "Geeks" instead of "Zombies". Its clearly obvious what they are, they know they are dead, yet why no-one uses that word is a little weird. Or is it just a joke that "only geeks would call them zombies"
 * In the comic, it's something of a running gag that every little group has its own name for them. The black dude from the pilot calls them "Walkers" for instance.
 * Fun trivia: it's a fitting enough nickname, since "geek" originally referred to circus sideshow performers, occasionally of the sort that would bite the heads off a live chicken or similar for the audience.
 * It may be a failure of Genre Awareness. In the Walking Dead universe, they don't seem to have zombie movies or Zombie Apocalypse movies - therefore, to them, a zombie is an obscure movie monster that has something to do with voodoo, not a walking, virus infected corpse. This editor feels that this is common in Zombie Apocalypse fiction - what with, as in The Walking Dead, characters spend a lot of time asking 'what are those things?' and not knowing 'shoot the brain' right off, for example.
 * Confirmed by Word of God. It actually makes a lot of sense as, if this series was set in the real world, anyone who owns a George Romero boxset would have access to a list of Walker hunting techniques longer than your arm. Hell even owning a copy of Shaun of the Dead would be beneficial. Having the characters find this stuff out for themselves increases the drama tenfold.
 * Plus, it is incredibly unlikely that zombies could ever exist in a universe where people have seen zombie movies. Unlike serial killers which also exist in the real world, so someone could be hunted by a serial killer who watches serial killer movies, or vampires/werewolves which have been in legends for hundreds of years, the modern zombie was completely invented by Romero in the 1950s, so to have film-makers create an entirely new type of monster, and then to have it spontaneously appear in the natural world not 100 years later? Unless bio-terrorists were inspired by the movies to replicate the monsters, that simply wouldn't happen.
 * The above reasoning doesn't make any sense since the concept of the Zombie having been invented recently doesn't preclude a similar monster coming into existence for unrelated reasons. There are already countless instances of fiction coincidentally predicting eerily similar events. "The wreck of the Titan" comes to mind. Also the Bible makes reference to "the dead walking the earth" long before Romero.
 * How did Darryl manage to fire a crossbow three times in rapid enough succession to hit a deer each time? Deer tend to run off when hit by an arrow or bullet, even fatally. But that won't necessitate tracking a deer for so long and so far that a zombie gets to gnaw on it first. It seems Darryl is incredibly bad at hitting vital organs that aren't zombie brains, or deer in The Walking Dead have no need for them.
 * He mentions that he'd been tracking it all day. That's why he was so pissed when the zombie ate it.
 * Why didn't anyone put Jim out of his misery before they left for the CDC? It looked as if it was going that way. Or that Darryl would quickly snipe him as he left with his crossbow. It was obvious to everyone they were leaving him to die, but it was also clear that he'd reanimate. Sure he could barely stand now, but when he reanimates, he'll be just as agile as the other Zombies! Jim lost his family to Zombies eating them in front of them, imagine the poor dopes who gets the same thing when Zombie!Jim comes crashing through their door and starts eating Auntie Gladys...?!
 * Totally. I mean, what was the outcome they were hoping for, here? Best case, he doesn't die from the infection, recovers...and is now left weak, unarmed, and stranded in the middle of nowhere? Second best case, he dies, but miraculously doesn't rise as a zombie? Worst case, he becomes a zombie, and remembers where the group was going and follows them?
 * Watch the relevant scenes again; Jim specifically asks to be left alive. He wants to let the infection take him because of his survivor's guilt over his family; he feels this is the best way he can be with them. He specifically turns down a gun when they offer to leave one with him. The other characters have an extensive debate over whether or not any of this is the right thing to do and end up deciding to respect his wishes. (Alternately, it's possible Jim is simply too much of a coward to want to die before the infection does the job, but, functionally, it doesn't make much of a difference.) This is certainly not the smart thing to do, but the subject of whether or not it's smart never comes up. The entire first half of the episode deals with the survivors from the attack on the camp figuring out how to cope with the state of the world, and ultimately they decide to let common sense slide on some things because they feel like it's costing them their humanity (to borrow a line from Battlestar Galactica, it's not enough to survive, you have to be worthy of survival.) Whether or not they're right is another debate entirely, I'm sure at least one person reading this had already started thinking "if they're too stupid to do what needs to be done to survive no matter what, they're not worthy of survival," but that's not the issue on making sense of Jim; given the place everyone is in, mentally, whether it's right or wrong, or smart or stupid, the way it plays out makes sense.
 * And, honestly, in a world with (probably) millions of zombies, one more on a road in the middle of nowhere (well, yes, between Atlanta and the CDC) isn't really going to make a difference. They followed Jim's wishes. There was no real danger to them in doing so.
 * Now, I may just be an undergraduate biochemistry major, but what sort of CDC scientist (working in a Hazmat suit, no less) spills corrosive chemicals on a sample, and then starts POKING the sample!?
 * A tired and mentally unbalanced one.
 * Seconding exhausted and mentally unbalanced -- the latter was made clear in episode 6 that he'd suffered Sanity Slippage after spending 65 days with no one for company but Vi the AI.
 * And if you do decide to stay at your post through the Apocalypse, shouldn't you pass your data on? Sure, it's unlikely that our heroes will meet anyone who can use it but that's better than simply letting it "die" with you.
 * I'm hoping we someday find out that all the computer data was automatically uploaded somewhere before "decontamination".
 * Little continuity glitch. Excuse given for Andrea being all skittish is "she hasn't eaten in days, none of us have" -- but weren't they having a fish fry right before they left for the CDC? Or did many days go by after they handled the dead and the dead-again?
 * The fish fry was probably ruined by the attack. I imagine, in the panic, nobody gave much thought to securing the food, and afterward they probably got rid of the exposed fish just in case any of the Walkers had infected them. Aside from that, I'm not sure just how long the trip was.
 * Is anyone else a little confused as to why NONE of the women have learned to defend themselves yet? Slow to pick it up, I can understand, but so far all they've managed to do in any stressful situation is cower.
 * It likely hasn't really dawned on them yet that the world as they know it is never coming back, so they're probably still thinking "the men will protect us until this is all over."
 * Doesn't help that no one ever offers them a gun or training, either. The women even make remark to having to do all the domestic chores, implying tasks were somehow divided by gender. Only Andrea has a gun of her own, and she wasn't in a state to do much of anything since.
 * Think of it this way. Its been under three months since the infection happened. The only people we see defending themselves and acting badass are those who would have had experience with that in the pre-zombie world. Rick and Shane are police officers, natural leaders made for situations like this. Daryl and Merle were tough rednecks. Daryl obviously knows how to hunt and how to fight, same with Merle. Besides them, we don't see anyone else fighting. Glenn, Dale, T-Dog and such, none of them really do any fighting. Why is no one complaining about them? They were normal people before the apocalypse. It takes time for people to adjust to situations such as this. Andrea was obviously a family girl and college educated. Lori was just a house wife. Carol lived with an abusive chauvinistic husband. People have seemed to deluded themselves into believing the moment the zombie apocalypse happens, they'll be tough as nails and badass. This is the reason why I like the show, because of the portrayal of the characters is realistic. Its shows the shock, the yearning for a normal life once more (like Lori constantly treating Carl like a child still. He's the only thing that she feels she's still in control of, being a mom is all she knows.)
 * Perhaps that was the situation intended, but what's happening on-screen is "Stay in the Kitchen and let the menfolk handle things." Even Glen the delivery guy has Hidden Depths, but the women--three healthy, uninjured adults--haven't even considered trying to get some sort of makeshift melee weapon despite several months of scavenging. It's understandable to keep Andrea away from guns in case she tries to eat one, but there's still melee weapons and the other two have no excuse. In fact, Lori and Carol have a really good reason to find some kind of weapon--they need to protect their kids.
 * Mostly turned around in the second season. The women are at least given weapons while searching for things, Andrea wants to learn how to fire a gun and Shane will apparently teach her eventually.
 * I'm sorry but no it hasn't turned around in the slightest. Andrea now has a gun true, but Lori and Carol are still perfectly content to sit around/cry whilst everyone else protects the camp. In fact whilst we're on the subject of Andrea, firing a rifle at an unidentified target whilst three friendlies are in close proximity and knowing full well the sound might bring more Walkers is actually very good evidence of the Stay in the Kitchen theory above. If Daryl died Andrea would now be firmly in the Creator's Pet camp.
 * You can kind of understand where Carol's coming from, but Lori is married to a cop. Even if she'd never used a gun herself, he should have taught her how (if not, that's Epic Fail on his part). Why she doesn't carry one is a mystery, especially since she's, you know, pregnant.
 * Another point in the Let the women stay at home question above, why is it apparently only the women that are contemplating killing themselves? now personally I don't think its ever justified no matter what the circumstances but the fact is that Andrea attempted suicide, Beth attempted suicide, Maggie considered suicide, Carol considered suicide, Jacqui actually committed suicide... how many healthy males (in other words Jim asking to be left behind after being infected doesn't count) have actually gone down this route? even the, and please forgive the expression, most feminine guy in the group Glenn never went the suicide route and instead has begun to morph into far stronger personality. Personally; I can only name Dr Jenner.
 * Speaking of which, why is Lori so bad at contraception? She's already had a child, she should know that unprotected sex can lead to pregnancy. Further, after she has decided to abort, she sends Glenn to the pharmacy again for abortion pills and... several morning after pills. No mention of condoms and/or the contraceptive pill. The morning after pill is an emergency strategy with severe side-effects - not something you'd want to take after every time you've had intercourse. Not that it matters since she decides to keep the baby... which is just as stupid considering that she lives in constant danger of mobilized dead people trying to chew her face off, and being pregnant doesn't exactly make you more agile. Not to mention that without access to proper medical facilities/staff, there is always a possibility of complications, and her dying giving birth.
 * No shit she knew. Turns out in a zombie apocalypse, people tend to have lapses in judgment. She wasn't planning to use that stuff as regular contraceptives, she only had him get any of it to specifically terminate the pregnancy she already had.
 * No shit she knew. Turns out in a zombie apocalypse, people tend to have lapses in judgment. She wasn't planning to use that stuff as regular contraceptives, she only had him get any of it to specifically terminate the pregnancy she already had.
 * This bothers me as well. Lori stands around dispensing down-home wisdom about men needing to do whatever they need to do, Carol cries or goes catatonic, Andrea is training with a pistol but is totally incompetent under stress...basically, anything important is done by white males. It's an unsettling theme that wasn't present at all in the comic.
 * Well, honestly, the sad fact of life is that not everyone is going to be a badass. In fact, I'd venture to say that the vast majority of people aren't going to be badass or even effective in a situation like that. And the white males' track record isn't exactly spotless either. Hershel was in denial and that denial is part of the reason for all the conflict in season 2; Shane is a half step away from losing his shit; Dale is ineffective at the best of times (he didn't spot the horde of walkers that resulted in Sophia getting lost, or the one that killed him); and while Daryl is certainly badass, he hasn't gotten much done either and spent at least one whole episode as walking wounded, losing his arrows and nearly getting killed. And, as has been mentioned here and other places, nearly all Rick's decisions have ended in disaster of one stripe or another.
 * Well, to be fair, Andrea's "incompetent under stress" is perfectly justifiable. It's much different to be shooting actual, walking hostile targets than it is to be shooting bottles and "No Trespassing" signs, even among actual police officers who undergo longer training than an afternoon at the range. And once she overcomes that mental block preventing her from concentrating under pressure (entirely on her own, mind you) she's landing headshots with the best of them. Still doesn't excuse Lori or Carol, of course, but at least Carol's passivity is consistent with the character background.
 * I don't get why the zombies are such a threat. I understand them managing to swarm an isolated survivor or two put how do they overrun secure well defended installations? Some initial panic in dealing with the zombie infestation I get, surely after a while police and the army would be sweeping infested areas and clearing them out? Even if every dead person turns into a zombie opposed to just those bit, just give orders to put a bullet in every dead corpse. Unless there is some other mechanism at work (e.g. an airborne strain) doesn't really make sense. Series is still awesome though.
 * My personal theory is that it's both airborne and bite transmitted. The airborne strain is weak, and only managed to infect those with weak immune systems, but the concentrated dose in a bite is enough to overwhelm even the strongest immune system.
 * And I think that's what the Doc whispered to Rick. That's why he looks so horrified.
 * I personally think that the initial panic is barely over. We know that Rick was in a coma for two months before he woke up to the world as it is, and judging from the scene where Shane brought him flowers in the hospital, the plague didn't start until he'd been out of it for at least a week or two. The military may still be forthcoming.
 * That's the thing with zombie movies/TV series - you gotta accept that these slow, dimwitted corpses can somehow overrun the entire world. So yes, somehow, everyone had a severe attack of incompetence, or some other factors are at work.
 * To further expand on this; the thing about the Zombie Apocalypse as a whole is that, despite outward appearances, it's much more of a vehicle for metaphor and social commentary than most people realize, even people who know in passing that the original Dawn of the Dead was an implicit attack against rampant consumerism. The idea that no military can possibly stand up to it is based heavily on the wish to critique the failure of societies that are ostensibly meritocracies to actually allow people with true merit to advance. This is why you rarely see businessmen or the saccharine middle class Taking a Level In Badass in these stories; it's always down-to-earth people like Rick who may be at least somewhat well-off but are otherwise street-smart and are painted as having a grasp of how the world works. Because the military is the group responsible for defending the populace (and are thus the group that must fail for the zombies to actually become an apocalypse,) they get something of a meta-Butt Monkey treatment in the genre where the writer assumes that the armed forces are so full of Neidermeyers (remember, overabundance of people who don't deserve to advance who have advanced anyway) that the troops on the ground are too handicapped to adapt to the new threat, so much so that they can gain absolutely no advantage from the new threat's many weaknesses. World War Z is a large offender here, with an entire chapter dedicated to explaining how the military higher-ups screwed up a chance at an easy victory while going into detail about the simple changes to strategy that would've made the battle completely one-sided against the zombies (to be fair, World War Z is also heavy-handed about the belief in the ability of humanity to survive and adapt, so it also goes into detail about how protocols/procedures are changed to reflect the new problems, and has characters like a soccer mom who actually discusses how her suburban "get the kids to school/social functions on time while keeping up with the Joneses" mentality left her unprepared and willfully ignorant of the problem.)
 * One good example, in my opinion, is the CDC building. The building has 50 or more computer terminals in that one room (I counted 49 visible, and several more obscured by lights). That's in zone 5, so there should be at least 250 terminals (more if there are more than 5 zones, or if that room is only part of zone 5). The building is defended by at least two machine guns and it is implied that there are many, many more guns inside. So where are all the bodies? It seems like there would be heaps and heaps of dead before the building was overrun. The people in the film, especially the military, just seem generally incompetent all the time, like when a zombie soldier is found in the tank (what happened to him? He had a loaded gun and was in a tank; couldn't he have closed the hatches or shot the zombies?) or when a soldier in the flashback in episode 6 is attacked by a zombie and starts shooting at the ceiling and lights.
 * The CDC guy left probably got rid of the bodies somehow. As for the guy in the tank, he probably did similar to Rick, went in for refuge, but in his case he'd already been bitten. As for the third, he was just bitten by a zombie. It has nothing to do with being "incompetent," and everything to do with being eaten alive and reflexively pulling the trigger.
 * I don't think the zombies really did much overwhelming. In episode one we're shown dozens of bodies outside the hospital. Clearly there is an air/water/contact strain out there. In the same episode we're told that he saw what happened AFTER they started killing the infected. Presumably everybody got sick one day then woke up dead. It's also the only reasonable way to explain how the military bases got over run. It happened from the inside out. The survivors of the initial wave were probably a lot fewer than we think.
 * At the end of episode 5 you see dozens to hundreds of bodies all over the streets and yards surrounding the CDC building. It's likely they were overrun simply because zombies are nearly inexhaustible while ammunition isn't. The fact that Browning M2s are used suggests the military wasn't prepared to deal with the true nature of the threat, or they would've been using small caliber weaponry like the M249 or even just M4 carbines. Mowing down wave after wave of incoming enemies bent on killing you doesn't work when everything below the neck is of no consequence when hit.
 * In the comics it is revealed that the strain is indeed an airborne type where everybody who dies returns as a zombie. It's not the bite that does it, that's just liable to be what kills you. Also the point is precisely that they're not really that dangerous by themselves; it's when they get into a large pack that it turns dangerous because they don't stop following you.
 * Another frequent Zombie Apocalypse staple is that by the time people work out what's actually going on, the numbers are already tilted against them. Most nations, sadly, do not have a good zombie defense protocol on the books, and it would take awhile psychologically to adapt to the fact that zombies exist enough to get your act together. You also have to deal with other random factors - denial by both governments and individuals, zombie-ism being treated as a disease at first and thus getting a chance to spread through/shut down the health care system, people not wanting to kill zombies because they hoped to rehabilitate them, and above all the fact that every dead human is a potential zombie, so every successive defeat for humankind is a force multiplier for the zombies. Beyond that, you just need to put your Willing Suspension of Disbelief hat on and accept the genre for what it is.
 * There's also the very real issue that emergency services can and do break down. EMTs and Police are going to be the first people called in and naturally the first ones bitten. As for the military, imagine if large chunks of the unit decide "I've gotta get home to protect my family!" all at once.
 * You also have to remember that about half of our military is National Guard and reserve units that have to be called up to be put into action. The other half is spread between domestic military bases and overseas assets. So those soldiers that could readily be deployed within the US would not be enough to police very large portions of the country (perhaps just the areas immediately near their bases).
 * It's not clear how the plague spreads. I agree that bite-only transmission probably would not have led to an apocalypse. Others have mentioned an airborne transmission - but I don't think it's even a virus. Nothing biological could cause a body to change in the fashion the show portrays (mutant influenza won't make you capable of surviving for months without food, blood, or the lower half of your body). Even if it it's a disease, it's necessarily a supernatural one. We can also look at the zombies themselves. They are decayed but relatively intact - they don't have limbs eaten off. I think that a lot of people change without direct exposure. If we assume an infectious agent, you could have billions seeming to spontaneously transform.
 * According to that logic, almost all zombie apocalypse stories are supernatural, when in fact, many, if not most, explicitly aren't. The thing about zombie fiction is that it's very common for the zombie-ism to be caused by some crazy virus that can somehow or other allow a corpse to keep moving and walking around despite having nothing but the brain still functioning.
 * This was also addressed in Romero's Day of the Dead. Basically, people are freaked out by two things. 1) Zombies are human beings functioning on pure primal instinct. Whether they're devouring someone alive or trying to break into a shopping mall or something else that provides social commentary, we get a good harsh look at what we are when all conscious thought is stripped away, so that scares people and leaves them unable to react. 2) Zombies are our loved ones. People don't want to kill their friends and family, even when they're trying to eat them. Sentimentality spells doom for the human race. By the time everyone realizes this, it's too late.
 * Is it really plausible that a system designed to eradicate all the dangerous viruses / bacteria in the CDC building would consist of a bomb that would rupture all the walls and roof, and blast debris out all over the place? Even if they were trying to invoke Kill It with Fire, wouldn't it have been safer to have something that would collapse the building in on itself and bury everything, rather than releasing aerosolized CDC material into the atmosphere?
 * I agree. When the scientist described the process and said it "set the air on fire" I assumed it would be something similar to what we saw with the contaminated sample at the start of the episode; essentially, a WHOOMPH of fire that incinerated the interior, but left the building intact. This would surely make more sense if the safeguard was to be used in any other situation, other than the end of the world. If there was a terrorist attack that took out the power grid, or the fossil fuels eventually just ran out, they would want to decontaminate the building to prevent bio-weapons leaking, but leave the complex largely intact, you know, just in case the government still had control, so they could re-use it.
 * I'm calling Rule of Cool here and going with a wild guess that the writers or director or whoever just thought that the explosion would look cooler and appear more dramatic as they raced to get away from the building in time to escape the blast. But who knows really.
 * Collapse inward so all those things are still there just waiting to be found instead of incinerated which we know kills just shy of everything? The better question is why didn't he spend a few days trying to figure out how to turn that off? Keeping weaponized Ebola is important in case of a terrorist attack or missile attack. Not so much in case of zombie apocalypse or other outbreak. When you've got a bacteria, virus, parasite whatever the one place you absolutely cannot afford to lose is the CDC.
 * The explosive is explicitly said to be a fuel-air bomb, which makes Jenner's description of "setting the air on fire" an understatement, if anything. An FAB strong enough to bring the building down is certainly strong enough to sterilize every square inch of space inside it; this is a weapon that is rarely used in reality because of the worry that it's so easily mistaken for a nuclear bomb that one might prompt A Nuclear Error from someone.
 * Concur. A thermobaric Bomb actually creates a vacuum that sucks all oxygen from the surrounding area into the flame. Though it creates a concussive force, it is primarily a heat based weapon that would incinerate anything in the air or building.
 * Shouldn't Felipe be turning into a zombie in "Vatos"? He got an arrow that has pierced countless geeks heads right on the ass, and I've not seen Daryl clean 'em once.
 * Just because you don't see him clean them doesn't mean he doesn't. He also uses the crossbow to hunt, remember, and he'd definitely want them clean for that.
 * And then there's Daryl's knife. If he puts it back in the sheathe after dispatching a zombie the blood and infected matter goes in with it, contaminating it every time he puts it back.
 * When the doctor knocks that stuff over in TS 19 and it sets off the fail-safe for that room. After he leaves the room. he strips out of his hazmat suit to get sanitized... unless there's more than one way of doing that, they must have not done the research because to my knowledge those things spray a deadly mixture of bleach and all sorts of other chemicals to make sure it kills anything that could cause an infection. It would kill a person very quickly, and painfully.
 * Maybe it had run out of the bleach mix? I imagine the decontamination showers would be used every time he exited the lab, and given the apocalypse going on I doubt the chemical reservoirs would be refilled at all.
 * He actually goes through a bleach shower (presumably bleach, anyway) while in his suit, and then takes a water shower in the decon chamber. Excessive? Not in a place that works on WEAPONIZED SMALLPOX.
 * If fresh material is so hard to come by, why did Jenner shoot TS-19 through the head? I would think the brain-stem, which he destroyed, would be the most important part of a reanimated corpse to study.
 * TS-19 was.
 * A lot of these comments are presuming that the survivors are behaving rationally, when it's pretty clear that every single person left alive is suffering from deep psychological trauma. Expecting people, in that state, to make good decisions is a bit much.
 * If zombies tell who's alive and who's dead through scent, at what point do their olfactory senses decay past use? And if they're in a large enough herd, how can they smell the difference? And after a few weeks of no bathing and no perfumes or deodorant do humans really smell all that different?
 * I don't think it's just that they smell rotten, but that they have a distinct "undead" odor that's not found in anything but zombie flesh.
 * How did Rick survive being alone, in a coma, in a hospital full of the undead?
 * I wonder how he survived several weeks worth of dehydration and starvation. I wonder if the comics have a better explanation of how he slept through the Apocalypse** In a later episode, they show Shane blocking the door with a locked gurney. Since Rick wasn't moving or making any noise it seems plausible that they never knew he was in there. As for food and water, ehhhhhh....
 * There have been accounts of people in certain survival situations surviving for long stretches of time without food or water. In a sheltered area like he was, this reduces his exposure to the elements. He's unconscious, so he breathes less which means less loss of water that way. A person can survive 3 weeks without food being active, he was lying still in a single spot. As well he was hooked up to IVs that would continue to drip to sustain him for sometime. As well, we see the water still flowing as he heads to the sink which means there's water pressure. So you could say that he was left unattended for weeks instead of two months. We're not too certain on the time frame of when he was in the hospital and when the outbreak occurred. Requires a little plausible deniability for certain, but not a whole lot.
 * My guess is that if Rick didn't wake up when he did he was only a handful of days away from dying as it was. Probably one of those "by the skin of your teeth" things where the difference between life and death is measures in hours.
 * In season 2, we're seeing people not getting infected when it should probably have happened. Andrea stabbing a walker in the eye with a screwdriver sprayed blood all over her. Daryl hiding T-Dog under a freshly killed walker while T-Dog had a profusely bleeding arm wound. Shane punched a walker in the mouth. In the same scene, Daryl and possibly Rick get walker blood on them, something that Rick specifically mentions not to do way back in episode two. It's possible they just got lucky, but still.
 * Having the blood on you carries the risk of infection, but it seems that only actually getting bitten and having the walkers' blood/saliva/whatever actually enter your bloodstream is what does it. Incidental contact isn't enough to force an infection.
 * The show hasn't really gone into detail regarding just what presents the possibility of infection beyond an actual bite taking place. Unlike Max Brooks nobody has elaborated on whether or not the virus is in the blood and the tissues of the body, or just in the saliva. Everybody taking the precautions that they have with gloves, masks and coats may simply be an example of safety first rather than an actual necessity.
 * The Virus being carried by saliva makes the most sense, it was stated that bites and scratches(The zombies eat with thier hands so it makes sense that they would get some saliva on thier fingers)causes the infections that make people turn.
 * If the nature of the show zombies is anything like the nature of the comic zombies, the means of transmission is irrelevant.
 * First episode of season 2: Right at the end the boy gets shot by Otis who's hunting the deer. This scene annoys me so much because it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Why would the kid want to walk up to the buck anyway? And even more annoying: how can he be so quiet (and unsmelling)? The deer should have feld the second the boy made his first step.
 * The kid is walking up to the deer because it's the first good, natural, beautiful thing he's seen since, you know, zombies started eating people. Also, not all deer flee the instant something makes a sound. There are places where you can definitely get that close to deer because they're not hunted. The Shenandoah Valley, for instance, where my father nearly tripped over one deer while he was approaching another to take a picture.
 * Because God wanted him to get shot? No, seriously, I don't think it's a coincidence that after Rick asks God for a sign, Carl gets shot. Clearly the writers have a view of God similar to mine.
 * How was the hanging walker able to move? Hanging breaks the neck, severing the spinal cord. Most spinal cord injuries cause loss of limb functionality (or, at worst, quadriplegia), which the hanging walker clearly shows control over. Not sure if this is an example of Did Not Do the Research or not.
 * Guy might have screwed up and choked to death rather then broke his neck. Hanging is a rather exact art, screw-up and a relatively quick and painless death gets traded in for a long and horrible one... there's actually one instance back in the old west when the executioners screwed up a hanging so bad it decapitated the man.
 * The way hanging breaks a person's neck is the sudden drop from height, usually accomplished by the trap door, or before that, putting someone on a horse and having the horse run off. The guy who hung himself wouldn't have had either of those, from the look of it.
 * Why is Carol staying at camp while everyone else (Even Carl!)looks for her daughter? Does she not have a single Mama Bear bone in her body?
 * If I had to guess, I'd say she's probably deathly afraid of finding her dead.
 * And she's an abuse victim. Most abusers systematically brainwash their victims, so Carol is probably convinced she'd be completely useless on the search and in any other situation that didn't involve cooking and cleaning and doing laundry.
 * Season 2 winter finale's big reveal; Sophia was a walker in Hershel's barn. What. They mean to tell us that Hershel forgot putting a little girl in his barn (in most believable circumstances) days before people show up looking for her? It's not like he had reason to hide her presence from them; he wanted the group gone and she was one of the main reasons they wouldn't leave.
 * Hershel didn't know. They said earlier in the episode that Otis was the one who caught and placed the walkers in the barn. Note that it was never mentioned to Otis that they were looking for Sophia due to Carl getting shot, so he wouldn't have had a reason to tell Rick and Shane about it himself before he died; the fact that Hershel didn't mention it implies that Otis never told him about catching her, either.
 * Also, Hershel probably wouldn't have told the survivors even if he knew Sophia was in there. After all, he never wanted to tell them the barn existed in the first place.
 * The more pressing question is why we never saw her in the barn before this point despite Glen having a full aerial view of the interior.
 * Really? Glenn saw the Walkers, freaked out for a few seconds, and then got the fuck out of there, he didn't have time to look at them all. And considering how she was the last to stumble out of the barn in 2.7, she may have been in a corner or something.
 * Not to mention the fact that it was night and the entire interior of the barn wasn't lit up, making it even more unlikely that he would be able to see her in there amidst the other, much larger zombies that were gathering right underneath him.
 * Why is Rick the default leader? season 2 episode 7 is a perfect example: Shane plans to shoot the Walkers whilst his wife adamantly pleads that "it's not your call to make" why? because he outranked him as a Deputy? if anything his steadfast refusal to make the hard choices makes him a liability not an asset. Not to mention that Shane's proclamation to Lori is 100% accurate: Rick never does seem to be the one that saves her life does he?
 * This annoys me too. The group was doing fine, it was only when Rick showed up that everything went to shit. Although when she said "It's not your call to make" she probably meant they should have a vote. But really, none of Ricks decisions have been good so far; go save Merle, now Jim, Amy, and the asshole are dead; go to the CDC, now whatsername is dead; have Carl come look for Sophia, then he was shot and Otis died. I can't tell if we're supposed to be against Shane at this point, personally he's my second favorite character after 2.7.
 * Not to mention the whole Sophia situation was almost entirely his fault. Yes she disobeyed her mother and ran off but she was also a scared, emotional little girl who had seen more horror than most of us can imagine... and he just told her to just sit in the middle of a Walker infested wood and wait for him to come back. For all we know (and what is most likely) is that she ran off because another couple of Walkers had flanked them and were in the immediate proximity the whole time. To give him some kudos however, Lori was quite correct when she stated that no one else seemed to be in any particular hurry to run after her.
 * Rick is the Batman. Case closed.
 * Episode 2.7 is a perfect example of why Rick is the leader. Because after all of his chest thumping and all his self-righteousness, Shane didn't have the balls or the willingness to do what had to be done for Sophia. Rick did. Rick thinks long term which is way he was willing to make a compromise with Herschel about the walkers in the barn, because it gave Herschel a reason to trust them and thus allow them to stay on the farm. Rick probably knew the barn wouldn't hold for long and that they would be forced to deal with it down the road, but he wasn't going to force it because it would have pissed Herschel off. Plus, I'd rather have Rick as a leader than a mentally unstable, attempted rapist, who's looking to murder his supposed best friend because he wants that friends wife. Shane isn't looking out for the group, he's looking out for himself. He wants Lori because it would make HIM feel better, not because of her safety.
 * Shane does honestly care about Lori. He was perfectly stable until Rick came and started taking over everything. The only reason Shane wants to murder Rick is because he feels they aren't safe under his leadership, not just to make himself feel better. Almost everything bad in the series that has happened and put the characters in danger is RICK's fault. Of course Shane would want his irresponsible self dead.


 * The hanging walker who had only been eaten up to the knees brought up the fact that zombies, in this universe, do not have enough brainpower to climb trees so that they can get at their prey. Since there weren't any zombie guts around, why didn't Rick give Sophia a leg up into a tree, then come back with some gunpower and shoot any gathered zombies so they could get back to the road safely? Even though it took place after the scene where Sophia is last seen, the walkers had enough trouble climbing stairs and getting through a maze of cars to make tree-climbing unfeasible for decaying, unthinking bodies.
 * Rick has maybe 20 seconds to think in this case. He doesn't have time to go over in his head every small fact that they've gathered about the Walkers thus far.
 * In most combat or survival situations, taking higher ground than attackers will guarantee better chances--especially against attackers which are already struggling against gravity as it is. One would think that Rick, as a police officer, would know this.
 * He was also tired and the walkers were really close behind him. Even if the thought did occur to him, he didn't really have time to help Sophia up a tree, and since he is a police officer, he probably expected her to stay put like he told her too.


 * Does anyone else think that they will never adapt the Governor given the gritty and realistic tone the TV series is going for? the man was essentially Lex Luthor and the torture (specifically scooping out an eye) would just be all kinds of Narm.
 * Why wouldn't they? Okay, sure, he reached nearly cartoonish levels of evil in the comic (no pun intended), but the idea of a monstrous bastard ruling over survivors like a corrupt warlord is utterly plausible. He needs some altering, probably, but otherwise he'd be fine to adapt into the series.
 * Hmm. A charismatic but morally bankrupt man with a desire to be in charge of a group, sociopathic tendencies, and a grudge against the main characters? Who do we know like that? If Merle doesnt show up in a role similar to the Governors, I'll be surprised. Not to mention the theres potential for drama brought on by making Daryl choose which side to be on.
 * The Governor has been announced for season 3 played by David Morissey.
 * So Dale is willing to sacrifice his own life to keep Andrea from committing suicide by staying at the CDC but neither he, nor anyone else, seems to care about the black woman who does the same? Unfortunate Implications anyone?
 * Dale appeared to be in love with Andrea specifically. It's not about "white woman vs. black woman" it's about "Andrea vs. the other woman whose name escapes me." Not everything is about race.
 * Not only that, but Dale had a connection with Andrea that he didn't have with the other woman, and they only had like 30 seconds to snap her out of it.
 * This really looked bad. Nobody cared that Jaqui was staying behind. I'm surprised they mentioned her name in the next episode.
 * I must admit to being quite confused as to the motivations of the guys from Philidelphia in Nebraska. Were they intended to be an expy of Rick and Shane (trying to do their absolute best to protect their own respective group by any means possible) and thus we were supposed to pity their tough choice to try and steal the farm and kill Rick; or were they nothing but looters trying to steal as much as possible?
 * It was meant to be ambiguous through the whole scene, but Tony complaining about not getting any "cooze" really established their true motives as villains. And Dave drawing on Rick clinched it.
 * They were clearly "bad guys" from the beginning. The tension rose dramatically from the start of the scene. It was meant as character development for Rick and Glenn, to give the audience a little more information on the outside world, and present a new problem. (Randall)
 * What really bothers me is that the writers had a perfectly good moral dilemma on their hands (Dave and Tony being Not So Different from Rick and Glenn, as mentioned above) but abandoned it in favor of almost cartoonish (albeit well-performed, at least by Dave's actor - you could taste the tension as soon as he walked in the door) villainy. It's the apocalypse. Anything goes. I wouldn't hate Rick if he shot two people who were just trying to make their way in a broken world. But no, they have to remind us how evil Dave and Tony are. That's just lazy writing.
 * Why are so many fans already describing Shane as a rapist who tried to kill his best friend. He clearly realised she didn't want him and backed away in shock and horror about what he nearly did, and he lifted the gun off his best friend *before* noticing Dale so clearly he wasn't willing to do it. He's nearly crossed the line, but he always manages to pull himself back. Even the whole Otis thing: he had to do it to survive and escape with the medical supplies. Together they'd die and Otis refused to leave him. It was a necessary piece of pragmatism, and in that same situation the only way a character not willing to do that (like Rick) could of survived with the medicine is through a Deus Ex Machina.
 * This Troper argued the exact same thing not to long ago on this very page. for some reason, it was deleted. Honestly, i'm getting kind of annoyed by everyone calling him a psycho, seeing as how i agree with him in nearly all of his decisions. What's interesting, to me, is that in-universe people have the same reaction to him (that he's a friend-murdering rapist) and people (Dale mostly, but also Lori) keep telling that to his face. The guilt and shame are making him extremely unstable. If someone just told him "Shane, we know you've had to make some really, really hard decisions, and we know those decisions are eating you up, but you're beginning to scare us. Do you wanna talk about it?" he'd probably calm down a bit. What's especially jarring to me is how he's compared to Rick. people are trying to make it sound like both of them are doing good jobs protecting the camp, but Shane is too harsh and cold. This is despite the fact that Rick has yet to make a good decision, Whereas Shane continually keeps making level-headed, rational decisions. I hope someone else weighs in, because truth be told, the only answer i have for your headscratcher is something along the lines of "The writers want you to think he's a horrible person, and most fans seem to be following this interpretation."
 * While this troper doesn't like imagining Shane "the designated villain", we see back during the first season when he beat down Carol's husband that he was unstable even when he was still "in control". You can argue it's because he just lost what he thought he had with Lori at that point but that's still not much of an excuse. Say what you want about Rick's decisions, you can't deny that he's trying to save people's lives (he even comes back for Shane after their fight). Shane's motives are a bit too selfish and/or convoluted for my tastes. I hope he stays around but Rick needs to lead.
 * In the most recent episode, i feel like Rick got his point across to Shane. They didn't exactly have the same conversation I suggested, but it did feel like Shane understood that, yeah, he's been going off the deep end, and that Rick may be the better leader in the long run. So, hopefully the whole "Shane-as-villain" arc is over and done with.
 * Personally I think a selfish-out-for-himself is exactly the kind of person you want as a leader during a Zombie Apocalypse. In those situations being alone would kill you, so the selfish-out-for-himself person would protect the group to keep himself safe. At the end of the day, wanting to save everybody requires taking stupid risks that cause more people to get killed than not. Motives don't matter when pragmatism works whilst idealism leaves you dying cold and alone.
 * You know what happens when the selfish-out-for-himself person leads? He does things that are selfish, and benefit himself, not the group. He's not going to risk himself to save people, he's going to risk other people to save himself. It's exactly the opposite of the kind of person you want watching out for others.
 * There's a difference between being practical and volatile. As I mentioned before, his interaction with Carol's husband is indicative of his innate volatility. I'll sum it up like this: Shane can protect his allies from the Zombies but he cannot protect his allies from Shane. Don't get me wrong, Shane's input is important and he needs to lead along side Rick, but Rick should have the final word.
 * There is a difference and Shane is volatile. However lets examine the results of Rick's decisions vs Shane's decisions. Bag of guns or not Rick lead the group back into the city to to save Merle. Merle not saved, the bag of guns gets negotiated down severely and the camp gets over run causing a few fatalities and several people to leave the group. He was told that was a bad plan. A barnful of walkers isn't something you rationally talk over. You eliminate it and considering that the group as a whole hadn't even officially thought of putting up a night watch until it came time to set the boy loose combined with several people living in tents just means they've been lucky not only with the barn but just with walkers in general. Shane by contrast told Rick not to go into town, beat down a wife beater as he was threatening several women and that was at least in part because Lori snapped at him. Was she justified? Perhaps partially. I don't personally consider it lying to tell someone that a man alone in a coma (heartbeat or no) in a zombie apocalypse is dead.
 * I don't blame Shane for thinking Rick was dead and taking in Lori and Carl as his own family. Nor do I blame his reaction to the walkers in the barn, however that particular example is a moment of his volatility. If you really want to get literal Shane really wasn't "leading" anyone when before Rick arrived. He apparently allowed T-dog, Glenn, Jacqi, and Merle to go out to the city. Judging by Merle's behavior, he would have probably taken control of that group. Really Shane's "actions as leader" were all but non-existent until Rick arrived. Glenn attributed them returning in the first place because of Rick, and the bag of guns probably made a difference in being able to take out the Zombies after the 2nd trip (without the guns there would have been more surprise bites like with Jim). I'd say the worst decision Rick made was making the group look for Sophia (which was a shoot or miss). Challenging the leader=/=showing leadership skills.
 * Adding to this point. Rick has shown a willingness to "kill the living" if necessary, but he's able to do it with a much calmer demeanor. The only time he really seemed to go off was during his fight with Shane and like I mentioned before he took out his time to save the guy after he clearly tried to kill him with the wrench.
 * Shane is prone to violence, snapping, and just plain flipping his shit when he's frustrated. Those are exactly the opposite of the qualities you want in a leader, plain and simple. Level headed? No, when you're screaming your head off, physically beating people to vent, and just in general frothing at the mouth, you're way, way past "level headed".
 * How exactly can the farm have a marsh that extends ALL THE WAY around it, keeping the walkers out - and no walkers ever saunter up the driveway.
 * It's a cattle ranch so its probably fenced in around the perimeter. Absent any specific provocation to climb the fence the walkers probably just bump into it and then wander away.
 * In "Judge, Jury, and Executioner", Hershel does mention that a minor stampede broke down the fence in places.
 * Am I the only one who completely fails to see Dale's argument in keeping Randall alive? whether innocent or guilty of the various crimes (including but not limited to rape, murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, torture) he is the member of a heavily armed thirty something strong militia that has already proven themselves as extremely dangerous. Our heroes only have Rick, Shane, Dale, Daryl and perhaps Andrea and Glenn provided they can keep their emotions in check and our heroes are also starting to run dangerously low on ammo. The rest of the group would be little more than cannon fodder (and rape victims) once the attack begins. There is no alternative here - keeping him alive means an extra mouth to feed and water and someone would have to keep constant watch out of fear that he will escape or stab them in their sleep. Our modern concept of human rights works wonders when all we have to worry about is paying our bills and getting to work on time; but when you are, quite literally, facing the potential end of the human race you have to take the course of action that will best ensure your groups survival.
 * What bothers me about this whole issue is that they saved the guy's life in the first place rather than giving him a merciful shot to the head while he was impaled on the fence -- as they should have done. Now they debate whether they should kill him or not? The only character to even bring this up is Dale, and nobody gives him a meaningful reply. Addressing why they saved the person who was shooting at them would be nice, here. Is it just Rick being Stupid Good, or are we actually supposed to rationalize Randall's continued existence on the show?
 * Saving an abandoned group member whose loyalty will then most likely be with his saviours is not an inherently bad idea - it is indeed the end of humanity, and maintaining a group means you can't afford to wait for new members by breeding. Terminating viable sources of labour is counter-productive, especially when it's perfectly possible to leave him imprisoned overnight more or less indefinitely and work during the day (whilst treating him more and more as part of "the group"). Actually the main thing that bothers me is that, after saving him, after him helping save a group member's life, and ultimately after failing to kill him all of three times or so, that the group then randomly tortures the guy, after he'd not actually done or said anything to incur such treatment. If they'd kept him imprisoned overnight, and had him work with everyone during the to integrate into the group (sans-torture), then the idea that he'd randomly betray his new group in favour of the ones who'd left him to die would be far less likely. The problem is that the group is broken - the best way is either going by Shane's or Rick's method, then sticking with it and if necessary terminating the dissenting members so you're consistent, it's entertaining both that's making the mess.
 * It's not really clear why the "30 guys" would even still be around. If what Randall said was true, they move every night and it's been over a week. It's not like they will be out looking for Randall - the guy who abandoned him has to assume he's dead, if anyone but Rick was there he would be. And from their POV, they lost 4 men to a tiny town that's overrun with walkers, so why bother staying? If someone had mentioned that even once in the week while he was recuperating, they would have seen there was no need to dump Randall in the middle of nowhere. He's got nowhere else to go.
 * Three questions, all about Melee:
 * 1) Why do so few of the survivors use it? A quick trip to the farm's nearest garden centre and machetes for all would stop them from wasting around fifty bullets per episode on average. 2) Why do Rick and Shane voluntarily slice open their own hand before rubbing it along rusty surfaces (hence inviting at very least tetanus, if not simply getting zombie-blood in there)? It's not like Zombies aren't shown to voluntarily shove their heads into things to get into biting distance. 3) How the heck did Shane shove a dinky little pocket knife through the top of a skull?! I appreciate that using melee weaponry even in a remotely sensible way would remove a lot of the unnecessary drama from the series, but this coupled with the group's ongoing inability to operate in any sensible manner about the situation is really making it hard to watch.
 * As for why they don't use melee, it generally requires that you get within swinging distance of a walker, which makes it a lot easier for it to grab and bite you. It's personally safer to just use a gun.
 * There's something to this (though if they used something other than knives things wouldn't have to be quite so... "personal" when taking down a walker). But Rick already gave all the reasons for it: Ammo is limited, and guns are noisy - hence worsening the danger by adding more zombies to it. And when a walker gets into melee (as with a certain late elderly gentleman who was armed with only a rifle), the gun doesn't actually achieve much. Simply ignoring it the way they have (especially after Rick's already shown to have thought about it) boggles the mind.
 * He proposed it in the previous episode, and he's had a lot to deal with in the meantime. There's also the issue that it takes a lot of strength and some technique to properly get a killshot with a melee weapon reliably. Carl, for example, almost certainly doesn't have the strength to put a knife through a Walker's head, and most of the non-cops probably wouldn't be able to pull it off in stress conditions either. A gun, meanwhile, is pretty much point and click--the necessary force is already there, pre-loaded, and you can try again from a safe distance if you miss the first time.
 * Additionally, why is it taking so long for them to come up with decent melee weapons? The knives they've been using are garbage considering that they have lousy reach and require you to get very close to a walker's deadliest weapons. Is there not a single crowbar in the state of Georgia?
 * I would also be very interested to know if things such as Tasers and stun grenades would work against Walkers. They may be technically dead but they still have human eyes, human brains and human nervous systems. I see no reasonable reason why electricity and a blinding light shouldn't still be an effective countermeasure.
 * Most people aren't trained in it (it's much harder than point and shoot), they don't want to get that close, and the walkers are supposed to be physically stronger than living humans, due to feeling no pain. Melee tactics that work on the living wont stop them. (but knowing this makes the scenes where they DO successfully take them out by hand much harder to believe)
 * This could be a rather stupid question, but the end of "Judge, Jury, Executioner" confused me at one point: Was that cow just a sign that there was a walker nearby, and it was still alive, but only faintly? Or was it a fucking zombie cow that couldn't get up?
 * I would think the fact that we haven't seen zombie animals to this point means it's probable they won't appear. It seems like at some point somewhere in the series we would have glimpsed a zombie dog at bare minimum, given all the cites and towns they've visited.
 * What exactly does Lori do to help out the group? Carol's passivity can be attributed to her long term abuse at the hands of her husband, as well as her still grieving for . Andrea pretty much does everything; she scavenges, scouts, joins search parties, fishes, cleans, stands watch, cleans the guns and sharpens the knives, and serves on grave details. Lori just seems to stand around and give orders and make demands people follow for some reason. We see her cut some carrots and a chicken quarter, but still. She doesn't even say please!
 * She helps clean and cook. It may sound unimpressive compared to killing and hunting Walkers but a clean camp and well prepared hot meals are equally important. In real life we discovered this hundreds of years ago where more of our soldiers were dying of things like food poisoning and disease then were being killed by the enemy. As for your second point about Andrea seemingly doing everything: I'll counter your Designated Protagonist Syndrome with Creator's Pet.
 * If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times: Just because you're not a gun-toting badass doesn't mean you're useless. Conversely, just because you do carry a gun doesn't mean you're "helping." See Andrea shooting Daryl, for instance.
 * Her not being a gun toting badass has nothing to do with it. Glenn is barely competent with a shotgun and Dale has his infamously bad eyesight, but both of them take the time to run security, work on the vehicles, and so on. Even before her level in badass Andrea was out scavenging, searching for Sophia, and fishing for the camp, and now she's moving bodies and digging graves with the best of 'em. Meanwhile, we see more of Lori giving "royal we" orders, making demands of people with nary a "Please" or "Thank You" and picking mushrooms than doing actual work. Even Carol and Patricia do more while demanding less.
 * I'm going to refresh my previous point for you because I feel I may not have explained myself well enough. The Crimean War (1853-1856) killed an approximate total of 21,000 British soldiers. Of that only approximately 2800 were killed by the enemy and another 2000 by other wounds - the approximate death toll by disease and poor diet? 16,300. Only with the intervention of a certain nurse known as Florence Nightingale did any of that change. There is one very unfortunate fact that hasn't been touched upon in story; whether because the writers forgot or they are saving it for later story: very shortly the Walkers are going to be the least of their problems. Due to rotten food, poor healthcare, decomposing corpses littering the streets, the breakdown of pest control and other sanitation services such as sewers no longer being maintained; disease will soon become rampant and little things like the rat population would have quadrupled. So why am I telling you this? because without people like Lori (and the other women) spending all day tirelessly trying to keep the camp clean and cooking decent food there is a very good chance our heroes will get sick and die - and that includes Andrea. Getting off topic slightly I fail to see why you are making such a big deal about her manners because everyone else in camp is so courteous and respectful.
 * Perhaps it's a matter of Show, Don't Tell then. We see things like Andrea and Shane breaking down and cleaning the guns, or people standing watch, or Shane, T-Dog, Andrea and Jimmy digging the graves, or Glenn and Maggie scavenging and other things involved with keeping the camp supplied and secure. We see Patricia and Carol serving food and the former and Maggie helping around the farm, and we can infer Jimmy the farmhand's actions taking care of the farm by virtue of him being a farmhand. Lori tells us that she's been cooking and cleaning, and how it's so difficult, but that's a little difficult to swallow when we've seen her cut up maybe all of two carrots in between telling people "I need you to [Do X Personal Errand For Me/Look After My Kid/Risk Your Life To Look For My Husband]", and then having the gall to call them selfish when they refuse. That's why this Headscratcher is about Lori, and not about Carol or Patricia or Beth or Maggie, because none of them are taking people for granted asking for their help. And, in context, the woman she is accusing of laziness for not staying in the kitchen is the same one who, not three episodes ago (these three episodes all taking place during a 48 hour period), stepped up to the line to shoot down walkers who were heading towards her and her son. And the woman who took down walker Annette before she could eat Glenn's face, and the one who agreed to look after her kid, no questions asked, in between digging graves and disposing the bodies of a barn's worth of walkers.
 * Fortunately for them, the problems of food are currently not nearly so severe as suggested. Since most of the population is dead, the sewers are barely in use. Since the decomposing corpses are ambulatory they appear to be rotting much more slowly and only have one major disease of note. Since Walkers eat all lifeforms with equal gusto, they perform the role of pest control rather tidily as well. Since they are currently on a farm, food is fresh, and they have access to clean water. Most diseases that require a human to infect presumably have died out entirely, or are present in walkers, where infection of anything else is fairly irrelevant, as death is inevitable upon contact. Whilst not useless, it's definitely questionable whether this role is currently as important as keeping a sturdy perimeter for base defence - a walker might take out a single survivor or more, but an armed raider could easily kill every survivor in their sleep with inadequate defences. In any case, they do not qualify her to dismiss Andrea's role of sentry and security, inherently more dangerous roles, which is probably why viewers are so dismissive of her as a useless human being.
 * OP has a point here. Lori does not pull her weight much compared to the other characters and is more of the load than even Carl imo. Her role on the show is either to voice her opinion on decisions that are being discussed between Rick and Shane just because she is the wife, asking people to go on errands for her, asking people to look after her son for her while she goes off to talk, or maybe cut a couple carrots. I'm not calling out on her for not being a gun-totting badass but her actions throughout the show have not contributed toward the group. She buts into discussions between Rick and Shane who are discussing what is best for the group and lets face it, this discussion should either be between the 2 designated leaders who monitor the group and actually are the ones who put themselves at risk the most or with the group as a whole. She has people go into town for her (asking Glenn to go into town for medical supplies twice and Daryl to bring back Rick and Glenn when they went after Hershel which she asked Rick to do so they can stay on the farm). Yeah she cooks and clean which is helpful to the camp but so does Carol who at least has the excuse of being a distraught mother worrying about her daughter. We never see her do any heavy lifting like help dig the graves or clear the walkers, scavenge for resources, go into town, pick berries for additional food, etc. Even if she cant or doesnt want to use a gun, she can still be shown doing things with the rest of the group instead of walking around while others are working. I really understand why viewers do not like Lori on this show.
 * Here is a point to consider about Lori: doesn't being Rick's wife and Shane's former girlfriend automatically make her the most powerful woman in the group? It's not as if she had much competition until Andrea pulled out of her equally useless and suicidal way of life. As things stand at the end of season 2 Rick is the leader and Lori is First Lady by default.
 * This just means that Lori has some pull due to the fact that she is sleeping with them and thus has some influence with them personally. This itself does not justify her actions where she makes "royal demands" of others and "a set of rules for everyone but herself to follow" as stated by Andrea. And just because Lori has some pull on the leaders does not make her any more valuable a member to the group. She's only seen to be sort of helpful in dissolving some tension within the group such as when everyone was criticizing Rick for searching for Sophia or when talking to a shocked Beth. She fails to have any influence during critical emergencies like when Shane decides to kill the walkers in Hershel's barn, spends more time sitting or standing around while people are actively working, and seems to make herself more entitled than the rest of the group. Her argument with Andrea on living really gets the point across that she is a load on the team when she demands Andrea stay in the kitchen working with them despite already having Maggie, Hannah, and Otis' wife to help her in the kitchen while T-Bone probably actually cleans the campsite (he doesnt get much tv time). The total group is around 12 people so with around 10 of those people who can actively work (technically Carl can help out with chores or cooking but Lori just has him walking around and Beth is in shock). Having 1/3 of the workforce working on stuff inside the camp is a pretty good arrangement with the other 2/3 divided on guarding against walkers and going into town for resources.
 * Another thing about Lori, or rather, how they are writing Lori - I don't quite get how she goes all Lady Macbeth on Rick where Shane is concerned, only to be horrified and disgusted when he actually does kill him in self-defence. Seriously, first she tells him "you killed the living to protect your family... Shane is a threat now...", and then does a full 180 degrees on that. Yes, it must be emotionally wracking, and yes, she thought Shane was on his way to get a hold of himself, but it is still sloppily written, at the very least.
 * Good Job, Rick. No, seriously, by all means kill the man who busted his ass and put himself in harms way to save the life of your wife and child. The man who has, pretty much from the moment we saw him, tried to make good decisions only to be shot down by you, you idealistic hypocritical ass. Okay, i know someone is going to edit me out if i leave it at that, so here are my questions: 1. How did Rick come to the conclusion that Shane had set up the situation to murder him? it came out of nowhere, for me at least. 2. Why did the writers go back on what they were doing? It felt like all signs had pointed to the Shane plot being wrapped up. He even patched his relationship with Lori, in what i felt was a heartwarming scene that established, deep down, Shane is a good person, and then not twenty minutes later, suddenly he's a psychotic murderer for some reason. and, 3. Are the writers honestly expecting us to sympathize with Rick after what just happened? I guess i could've been misinterpreting it, but he was well on his way to defusing the situation; he refused to shoot Shane when he had the chance, Shane seemed to be calming down. They were doing it Rick's way, the good, heroic approach, trying not to get anyone killed, and then he kills him. I honestly don't feel right saying "Killed", i honestly want to say "Murdered" because its obvious, to me, that Shane is suffering from mental instability due to a combination of insomnia, stress, fatigue and guilt. It looked like some cop who managed to talk a jumper out of suicide only to kill him himself.
 * This isn't the first time that Shane has considered trying to off Rick. Rick gave Shane his second chance already and Shane repaid him by luring him out to the woods to kill him. Shane's been growing increasingly unstable throughout and has already murdered an innocent man. This wasn't a sudden, spur of the moment decision on Shane's part. He's been on the verge of killing Rick since the beginning. Shane was never recovering and he was never going to.
 * OP, you must have watched a different show. 1) How did Rick come to the conclusion that Shane was gonna murder him? Because Shane outright confessed a second after Rick asked him what he was doing! 2) That scene with Lori and Shane, that wasn't a heartwarming moment at all, that Shane thanking he had another chance with Lori and thus deciding to kill Rick. 3) What would you have done?! This man has tried to kill Rick not once, not twice, but now THREE TIMES!!! Rick knew that Shane was beyond saving, and thus when he had the upperhand and the chance he took it. And as I'm sure you saw, that devstated Rick. But there was no other way. Shane was determined to get Lori and Carl back one way or another. The fact that you think it was wrong for Rick to kill Shane after Shane tried to kill him for the THIRD TIME really makes me think you have been watching a completely different show.
 * OP Here. I admit that my earlier post was more of a rant than a IJBM because Shane is probably the only character i like besides Glen and Daryl. I can see now that the scene with Lori and Shane could've been there to make him think that he had another shot with Lori, but seeing as how Lori pretty much said the exact opposite, and Shane seemed to be fine with it, i guess i missed it. That being said, Shane has not tried to kill Shane twice. I'm guessing that you're referring to the scene in season one where he considered shooting Rick. But, here's the thing, he put his gun down. Not because he saw Dale, because he knew it was the wrong thing to do. He didn't even try. the second time? With the wrench? that was a spur of the moment action, a reaction, TO A FIGHT THAT RICK STARTED. seriously, watch that scene. They're having an argument and then, BAM, Rick starts the fight. I don't know about everyone else, but i've been in fights where, due to a combination of adrenalin, pain, and anger, where it seemed that i had the intent to kill someone else, or someone else had to intent to kill me, which is why i'm willing to forgive that situation. And, again, the situation never should've come to this, the fact that it did is pretty much everyone else's fault BUT Shane's. I can't look at a single thing Shane has done and go "Evil". Killing Otis? Had to be done to save Carl. the attempted rape Lori? wasn't really an attempted rape at all, because he stopped when she made it clear she didn't want him. Killing Randal? THEY SHOULD HAVE NEVER SAVED HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE. Granted, i would've popped him right then and there when he was stuck on the fence out of mercy, but saving him was probably the stupidest thing that could've done. I do grant you that Shane is mentally unstable, and if you go to Fridge on this page, there's a theory that implies that he's probably not sleeping. Insomnia which is probably brought on from the stress of knowing his best friend is driving everyone into certain doom, the guilt and sadness he feels for "Lying" to Lori and losing her as a result, and everyone unanimously coming the conclusion, both in and out of universe, that he's as evil as fucking Hitler. Also, i don't think i mentioned this before, but if Rick had already decided he was going to kill Shane, why not just shoot him? at one point, Shane holstered his gun, which would have been the perfect opportunity to shoot him, but he waits to stab him instead, probably one of the worst ways to die.
 * The fact that he even had it in his mind in the first place to kill Rick shows that he's a mentally unstable and untrustworthy individual. And what did he do when Dale confronted him about it, he threatened to kill Dale. Yep,that's a good person right there. And the attempted rape? That was ATTEMPTED RAPE and you are blind if you think it wasn't. Sure, he quit, only when she started clawing at him desperately trying to get away from him. He only stopped when she CLAWED his face. The Insomnia excuse, alot of them including Rick probably have insomnia, but you don't see them goin off the rails. Why didn't Rick kill Shane when he holstered his gun, because Rick's gun was holstered too and right there thats a quick draw situation. You can't tell me that if Rick had went for his gun, Shane wouldn't have done the same. Then they both would have been shot with walkers on their ass. Rick got him destracted with the gun and took his chance in SELF-DEFENSE! To say that was murder is like saying killing the walkers was murder. Shane still had HIS gun trained on RICK. He wasn't giving up. Even when he was taking Rick's gun, he still had the gun on Rick. If he was giving up he would have put his gun down too, like Rick said. Instead, he was taking Rick's gun while still holding on to his gun, which would have left Rick totally screwed if he didn't stab Shane. Let me ask you this, what would you have said if Rick didn't try to stab Shane. What if he had given him his gun and then Shane executed him anyway. What would you say then. I have a feeling you still would be defending Shane. Your hatred for Rick and your love for Shane is blinding you from common sense and rationality. Kinda like Shane with his love for Lori.
 * Dale was POINTING A GUN at Shane, for no other reason than he thought, albeit correctly, that Shane killed Otis (And how he knew this is just a whole 'nother example about how the writers kinda suck). He had no evidence, and he was trying to hide the guns. Lets think about what would've happened in an emergency and the guns are just GONE. people would have died. What if the emergency claimed Dale's life, and only he knew where the guns were? then pretty much everyone dies. As much as i liked Dale (up to that point) he really deserved a good beatdown for the utter stupidity of that action, and i assume the only reason he wasn't beaten down was because there's no plausible way for someone like Shane to beat up a sixty-something without critically injuring him. I still disagree that the Attempted Rape was Attempted Rape; the entire scene happened in the span of five seconds, and as soon as Lori made it clear (which, granted, she had to do by scratching him.) he stopped. You're right, i guess. the quickdraw situation would've been bad, and i actually commended Rick for not doing it, it shows that he's still got his police training in his mind; giving your gun up is actually a good idea when you want to talk someone out of a rash action like murder, especially when that person is mentally unstable; it shows them you're not a threat, and while i'm sure police only do this when they have backup to kill the suspect if the plan fails, i know Police do that on occasion when they want to defuse a volatile situation, which honestly, i felt Rick could have done that, the way Shane was acting, it felt like he was calming down. I don't "Love" Shane, i like him because he's one of three characters who isn't an unlikable prick (To me). Granted, he's a mental unstable killer, but he's also the only person who seems capable of making good decisions, and i've yet to actually disagree with a decision he made, with the exception of him luring Rick out there to kill him, and I guess the root of my problem with this is that the entire scene came clean out of left field. it felt like they were FINALLY letting the Rick VS Shane plot go, and then, BAM, its back again in the last three minutes of the episode. Why? Why was this necessary? Didn't Rick and Shane see eye-to-eye in "18 Miles out" where Rick saved his life even though he didn't have too? it seemed like Shane finally understood he was going off the deep end a bit, and if you look up on this page, you'll find an earlier thread with that exact conclusion. It felt unnecessary, it felt hypocritical (of rick), and it felt like the writers trying desperately to make a character "evil" despite the fact he'd only qualify as "Anti-Heroic" if that.
 * Shane threatened Dale before he tried to hide the guns. This was after him and Andrea had sex in the car. How you don't think a man forcing himself on a non consenting woman isn't attempted rape is beyond me. And they didn't let the Rick vs. Shane plot go. Just in the next episode Shane was talking to Andrea about Rick being the leader and saying maybe there was something they could do about that. The way I look at it, Shane had three strikes. That fight with Rick and Shane, sure Rick did start the fight, but Shane escalated it from just a couple guys blowing off steam to one man trying to iill the other. And just when the fight had calmed down, thats when Shane threw the wrench at Rick's head. The first strike in the woods, the second strike in 18 Miles Out, and the third strike in the field. It would have been utterly stupid for Rick NOT to have killed Shane right there. How many times do you give a mentally unstable person a chance to kill you before you just say enough. Rick WAS NOT being hypocritical. He had straight up given Shane a chance to move on in 18 M Iles Out. Shane didn't take it. A person has enough to worry about in a zombie apocalypse, they don't need to be worried that their supposed best friend his going to shoot them in the back of the head, just because they want your wife.
 * Alright. I can see i'm not going to change anybody's mind, and i'm fine with that. Alternate Character Interpretation is one of my favorite tropes and it would hypocritical for me to get pissed if someone didn't agree with me. That being said, They lost a viewer in me, and honestly i'm very disappointed. I had been defending this show against criticisms pretty much since it came out, and i just feel betrayed. Does anybody agree with me about Shane? I feel like i'm the only one.
 * Sadly when I saw "Good Job Rick, no seriously", I thought that was sincere. Shane was a clear threat, and one that was never going to back down - just wait for a better shot. Rick made a hard decision which was most definitely not hypocritical at all. I actually find it sad that you think the writers tried to force the idea that Shane was evil, I personally thought the actor did a brilliant job of portraying someone with redeeming qualities along with a laundry list of bad ones. Was he evil? No, though he was mentally imbalanced and untrustworthy, which came through in both his acting and the relationship between him and Rick. The true villain of the piece is Lori. She had no reason to walk over there, and she was the direct cause of his mental break and the reason he acted the way he did. You could even see it on his face - another sign of his quality performance - the blank-faced look boys get when girls are brainwashing them. It was played subtly, but he sure as anything wasn't fine with it, and we could see the signposts clear as day.
 * Okay. I'm a huge Shane fan. If I had to chose team Shane or Team Rick it's not even a conversation. I'm going with the guy who kept a large group alive through an apocalypse not the guy who took the reins once things had more or less settled. However it was an obvious set up from step one. The odds of Randal getting his cuffs loose and escaping through the rafters is improbable at best. The same guy coming across and instead of avoiding knocking out Shane and taking his weapon and Shane seeing which way he went wanders so far into the unlikely that it's mildly amazing that nobody else caught on immediately. Rick let Shane get himself out there so he could eliminate a threat to himself and his group. Shane may or may not have been suffering from any number of mental break downs but a guy who's suffering from mental break downs and wants what's yours and has lead you out to a secluded area to point a gun at you is a guy you need to take out of the equation. It sucks. I wish to God that Shane had simply left the farm with Randall and joined the bad guys and maybe showed back up later but Rick really did the only thing he could given all the information he had.
 * About letting the Shane vs. Rick thing go after 18 Miles Out: On the way out to the dump off site, Shane and Rick have a talk. During one of Rick's optimistic speeches, Shane stares distractedly at a lone walker out in the field, and doesn't bother to mention it to Rick. On the way back from the dump off site, Shane and Rick have the same talk, and while Rick is talking later Shane sees the same lone walker out in the field, and still doesn't bother to mention it to Rick. It seemed to me that the writers were beating me over the head with the idea that Shane and his thinking hadn't changed at all, honestly.
 * Some points:
 * ・Anyone who would intentionally leave a man on his team (or maybe even an enemy) to be eaten alive is doing evil. It doesn't matter what the reason is.
 * ・If you were surprised by the ending with Shane, or thought it came out of left field - this was intentional, not writer incompetence. Sometimes you want to put the audience in a state of relaxation before you shock them out of it. Also anyone who paid attention during the talk between Lori and Shane could have seen the signs. While she thought this would finally give "closure" to Shane, it only made him think he had a chance with her - if only the other guy hadn't come back. That event would be a pretty stupid reason to stop watching The Walking Dead. I was a fan of Dale and thought the way they handled his death was even more pointless.
 * ・You guys are missing the Fridge Brilliance if you just try to take one side or the other. They hinted in the final episode that it was about Rick, not Shane. From past behavior he knew this day was coming, and he "wanted Shane dead." That's the only way he thought it would be over. Jealousy didn't help the situation any. His best friend had sex with his wife. Logically there was an excuse, but that doesn't make it easier emotionally. I agree that Rick was being reasonable, and acted in self-defense, but that doesn't remove the human drama from the picture.
 * ・Agreed that maybe it would have been better if Shane had just run off, so he could return as a rival in the future.


 * According to Dr Jenner's MRI of his zombified wife the only part of the human brain that remains is the cerebral cortex - explaining why they can still do things like walk for example. The problem is that the Walkers in this series have begun to exhibit Villain Decay and have begun to take less and less damage to kill as time goes on. Why? because if the only part of a Walker that is alive so to speak is the base of the brain, how can you kill one by stabbing it in the top or side of the head? I could understand if this paralysed or stunned the Walker in question but that's not what's happening here - during the opening montage of season 2 episode 12 it now appears that stabbing a Walker anywhere on it's head will kill it. So was Jenner's theory wrong and that MRI was incorrect or have the scriptwriters just forgotten their own back story on Walker biology?
 * That's pretty common in Zombie stories; any damage to the brain will a zombie, despite the fact that it shouldn't be that way. Hell, even in real life people can recover or at least survive damage to the brain. in a realistic portrayal of a zombie apocalypse the zombies would be damn near invulnerable, because only destroying the most protected organ on the human body would finally kill it. That being said, Zombies aren't exactly the most scientific of things in the first place, so i guess its best to just roll with it. That all being said, there's probably something Jenner didn't make known to the audience(whatever he whispered in Rick's ear), so its entirely possible that its intentional on the writers part.
 * You have a good point there - the writers have to toe the line between realistic and making a good story. Given what happens to Shane and Randall I think Jenner must have told Rick that the virus is airborne and thus doesn't require a zombie bite like the T-Virus would for example. It would seem as if everyone is now infected; probably why Jenner wanted to go the way he did.
 * Since he broke his neck, fatally.... How did Randall rise from his grave, and secondly, how the heck was he mobile? Zombies do not regenerate severed spinal chords.
 * ...What do you mean how did he rise from his grave? You have to ask that question in a show about zombies?
 * Well, actually yes. I could see him reanimating, possibly. I could maybe see him biting some serious toe.... But yeah, to kill the zombie, you remove the head or destroy the lower brain/central nervous system. For the guy who hanged himself, I can see he did it wrong and didn't break his neck. For Randall, he's explicitly lost one of the key requirements of unlife, yet he manages to not only reanimate (Okay, I could possibly see an animated head if a decapitated zombie head still functions, though I've not yet seen it in the series), but walk around and engage in hand to hand? Did they mention anything about restoring severed nerve tissue when they turned and I just missed it?
 * Severed zombie heads continue to...un-live. The walker that ate Daryl's deer in his debut episode survived through decapitation and kept snarling and biting until Daryl shot it with his crossbow. Also, the walker in the pharmacy (that Glenn killed) survived almost complete decapitation while remaining ambulatory. Finally, I'm not too sure about the...logistics, but Shane may have broken Randall's neck without completely severing the spinal cord. Maybe Randall suffocated or choked on his own blood or something. "Broken neck" is also a lot easier to say than "collapsed trachea," especially since it was dark and Daryl isn't typically one for technicalities.
 * It is generally established in zombie lore (ZSG for example) that zombies don't have to be unharmed to be able to move about. A broken leg will more or less stop a human because of the pain but that doesn't bother a zombie. Same thing with the neck, they appearantly don't need the spinal chord, the virus is enough to move them about. So basically, a zombie wizard dit it. In any case, it didn't bother me. The rest of his body was fine so he could still walk. Having your legs and lowered body eaten away (like the bike zombie in Episode 1) would slow you down however.
 * The spinal cord doesn't just carry pain messages, they carry the information that tells the body what to do. If Shane severed the spinal cord in breaking Randall's neck, he shouldn't be able to move. It would be no different than decapitating a zombie and having its arms and legs continue to work.
 * And a broken neck doesn't necessarily kill you by severing the spinal cord. Ideally that's how you'd do it, but it's not necessarily the case.
 * Many people have gotten broken necks and not suffered paralysis, as long as the spinal cord wasn't cut or bruised, and they were treated carefully. Plus, we don't know how the plaque reanimates dead corpses. If it can activate parts of the brain, why couldn't it independently activate parts of the nervous system? It's all speculation at this point.
 * It bugged me, too, for a bit, but we never did see what Shane did, just heard a crunch. I figured he just crushed his throat; quick and easy. Breaking a neck is actually pretty hard, I hear.
 * Is anybody else bugged by the fact that a good portion of the firearms Rick obtained with the precinct's armory room were nothing more than hunting guns? Both the rifles and some of the shotguns are literally marketed for people who are going to be hunting rather than law enforcement or military applications
 * I'm not entirely sure if this applies, but I lived in a small town once where the budget for cops was just above "fuck all", so most of them bought and maintained their own guns. Truth is that a rifle designed for military/police work is more or less the same thing for hunting, albeit probably less powerful, same thing with shotguns and pistols. This is actually why Rick having a revolver didn't bother me, i knew plenty of cops who used their own guns on duty and some of them did prefer revolvers to semi-automatics. That all being said, Rick is a Sheriff, and that means his department was probably better funded than some small town redneck police force, so they really should have more "Professional" looking weapons. Its probably a matter of aesthetics rather than what a police force would actually have; in reality, they'd probably have a few AR-15's, a few shotguns and maybe a sniper rifle of sorts, and they'd all probably be jet-black. Don't know if i answered your question or made it worse. sorry about that.
 * The guns Rick took from the Police Station could have been confiscated firearms. Not that big a stretch, along with the "small time, self-armed police force" theory.
 * Maybe those were the only guns left behind and the rest (i.e. assault rifles, sniper rifles) were taken at the start of the disaster. He did get to the party late.
 * The world has been functionally over for the past month or so. Why are the lawns still so well-manicured?
 * The budget for the show took a serious hit but the season was lengthened. They've been having to skimp on the sets and locations through all of season 2. Letting someone's lawn grow out and then fixing it up later was probably one of the expenses they cut out.
 * The amount of Failed a Spot Check is ridiculous. Dale, Rick, Glen, Amy, and more have had zombies like five feet from them and not noticed a thing. Not the smell of rotten flesh, the sound of them walking, or the constant moaning they do.
 * Three things from the final episode of season 2:
 * "No we can't go back to the farm!" (Never mind it's daylight, they're in cars and walkers don't go fast - if they see walkers ahead, just turn around!)
 * The farm is still, you know, overrun.
 * NOT checking the gas for siphoning in all those stopped cars on the highway
 * They did. The first time they were there. Back when they first lost Sophia. Remember?
 * I don't think "A few months ago" counts here.
 * ...What? Are you saying you think there'd be more gas that wasn't there previously?
 * That's a valid point. They couldn't possibly have taken it all at once, but just enough to fill their gas tanks and canisters.
 * One car runs out of gas, they ALL STOP. They couldn't have squeezed into one? Sent Daryl ahead to scout for more gas?
 * They said in the episode, right then and there, that they couldn't all fit into one car, and Rick shot down the notion of splitting up entirely.
 * If I'm not mistaken, the car with gas was a Hyundai Santa Fe and that seats 5. They had 8 for that car: T-Dog, Hershel, Beth, Maggie, Glenn, Rick, Carl, Lori. That's just too much to cram in.
 * There was also the pick-up truck, which could easily fit two in the cabin and two or three people in the bed. That would be room to fit 6 comfortably (4 in the Santa Fe, 2 in the cabin of the truck) and 2 uncomfortably.
 * Um...the pick-up truck was the one that was out of gas, remember?
 * Aside from moving the plot along why are they leaving the farm? Sure it's got a zombie problem but we know enough about both how easily killed zombies are but also how easy it is to lead them away from something by making a lot of noise and staying just a head of them. Not to mention how easily they could take out zombies by driving around with weapons and killing them you'd need a lot more zombies than that to convince me to leave a stable food and water source like that.
 * Well the stable food source is certainly gone. That was a cattle ranch. But they were already running out of ammo and there were hundreds remaining and lord knows how many were converging on the sounds of the battle or the light from the fire. The farm was lost.
 * There is no indication the food source was gone. Cows will naturally return home to be milked. As for how many there zombies there were it doesn't really matter. Drive out to the road set off every alarm and sneak back. Hell if you really wanted to you could have a couple people pied piper every zombie within earshot all the way to Atlanta and just melee kill the straglers.
 * No indication the food source was gone? You don't think the zombies are gonna eat the cows, and chase the ones they don't catch?
 * Considering there were clearly zombies on the property previous to the finale as it's the the last episode of season 2 that they are shown actually doing a thorough sweep to clean up the farm and we'd already seen a few zombies on the farm it's clear that zombies either can't catch, can't infect or aren't interested in cows. Not to mention they clearly had a supply of chickens and likely were growing something off screen.
 * Are we watching the same show? The zombie that Carl let onto the farm eviscerated a cow before attacking Dale. In fact, the dead cow is what captured Dale's attention long enough for the walker to jump him. The chickens? They were being used specifically for feeding the barn zombies, so obviously walkers chase and eat them. How long is a chicken coop going to hold up against a zombie mob? The livestock is dead, the nearby town is basically picked clean, and the finale proved that the farm is basically indefensible. There's no reason to go back.
 * Quick physics lesson for the scriptwriters: What happens if you drop a lighter into a puddle of gasoline? absolutely nothing. Given how far they've currently strived to make this the most realistic zombie series of all time it would have been a nice subversion if this tactic was rewarded with nothing but an Oh s**t reaction from Rick. As it is? wasted potential and a critical research failure.
 * It wasn't just a puddle, it was the straw-cowered floor of a dusty barn. I've started camp fires in similar way (but with matches, don't want to waste lighters), it works.
 * Besides, as I told my best friend when we were trying to write our own zombie story: You inevitably come to a certain point where you have to decide whether you want to be "realistic" or "entertaining". I'm pretty sure the dude above me has it right. You can in fact drop an open flame on a puddle of gasoline and set it alight(my pyromaniac nephew has done it many times), but even if it wasn't real: Who cares? Honestly, who really cares?
 * Just so I'm clear, this is the same show where the zombie virus has apparently infected absolutely everyone in the world, but doesn't "activate" until death? Oh, it is. What were you saying about realism again?
 * There's an old rule of writing that applies here: "You can ask a reader to believe the impossible, but not the improbable." You can have dead characters reanimated walking around and infecting the living and viewers will roll with it, but if someone correctly guesses the combination of a padlock on the first try - they will be headscratching.
 * If I was in the position that Jenner put Rick in - I wouldn't have told the group about the airborne strain either. At the time Andrea had just tried to commit suicide and a day or so later Sophia went missing and Carl was shot so obviously it would have been stupid to reveal anything at that point. Then he started to have all the problems with Shane and was making a determined effort to earn Herchall's trust... I fail to see the problem the group has here. Rick knows that half his group is teetering on the brink of a mental breakdown and the other half is becoming violent - telling them all they have been infected with the Walker virus has the potential to be disastrous. And even if he had been stupid enough to tell the group about it; what difference does any of them think it would have ultimately made? they neither have the resources nor the intelligence in which to cure or treat it. All that it would have gained is the group knowledge that none of them would face salvation after death. Fact is that false hope is better than no hope at all - and Rick knew this.
 * If the headscratcher here is: "why is the group so hilariously stupid about this fact" then I have to say I share the same question almost every week.
 * I don't think mental problems had anything to do with it. There were like four suicidal people in that group. They didn't know they would reanimate. Imagine Beth offing herself in the bathroom, they open the door to get her body and then two more people get bit. He was putting them in more harm's way by not telling them.
 * As much as I really, really, hate rick, i have to side with him on this one, and here's why: We have no idea how Jenner worded what he said to Rick. Unless he specifically said "We're all infected, its airborne, everybody has it and when they die they're going to reanimate no matter what." (Which i think we can agree he didn't. whatever he said wasn't anything more than a few words) then Rick was probably thinking "What? what did he say? and what did he mean?" Rick probably could've come to the conclusion eventually, but he had absolutely no way of being sure. There was no reason to tell everyone that there was a chance they were already infected if it wasn't true. To his credit, when he realized it WAS true, he did tell them almost immediately. Also, that's probably the only way the words "WE ARE THE WALKING DEAD" could ever get a mention in the show; if Jenner whispered that in Rick's ear. Of course, above tropers "Hilariously stupid" line seems to hold a bit more water given what we know.
 * Why did walker Randall already look like a bloated and decayed body, when he'd only been out there a few hours? Rule of Cool?
 * Well, he was already beaten half to hell before he died.
 * Did they ever explain why Dale had to be killed off when he was? The only thing I've heard was "this would present new opportunities for drama".
 * Well, during the show's mid-season break, reports came in that one of the stars had asked to leave after Frank Darabont was fired. Since Jeffery De Munn, who plays Dale, has been a long-time Darabont regular, it's fairly safe to assume that De Munn wanted to leave.
 * It always bugged me every time we see the characters shooting walkers unnecessarily. By that I mostly mean like situations where they obviously don't have nearly enough ammo with them to fight off all the walkers, yet they'll run around shooting at walkers when it'll barely help their situation. For example, at the high school with Shane and Otis, when they were down to like a handful of rounds with a massive horde behind them, picking off like four walkers in that horde isn't going to do shit. Same thing with Andrea in the season finale, where you'd often see her just picking off random walkers in the distance. (It also happened with Rick hauling ass out of the tank, though I guess that was also kind of lampshaded when he met up with the other survivors.) In cases like those, you'd think the thing to do would be to only use your ammo if there's any particular walker you really need to kill, like one that's getting too close or is blocking a doorway or something.
 * Its been bugging me too how much more frequently the characters are relying on their guns to kill walkers when in the first season, they only used the guns as a last resort and focused more on running around and avoiding the walkers or even killing them with melee when cornered. After Shane's gun training and living on the farm for a while, I think everyone is getting way to complacent, especially when ammo is scarce and there is no cache nearby. The shooting walkers at the distance may be a rule of cool/adrenaline rush. If your being chased by a horde of walkers like Shane and Otis was, you would still probably shoot back since instinct would have us attack to scare off the enemy. Too bad walkers arn't scared of bullets.
 * So where have all the automatic weapons gone? Despite their immeasurable tactical advantages no one thought to lift an M4 from inside Jenner's lab or loot one of the soldiers - that explosion can't possibly have wiped out every piece of ordnance laying outside. Even the militia the team encountered were lacking the garden variety Uzi or Tec-9. Apparently only shotguns and handguns are allowed in the Walking Dead universe.
 * Automatic weapons were probably the first choice of most survivors--meaning they've been used, lost, broken, or out of ammo. The ones on the ground outside the lab have been sitting outside, exposed to the elements without any maintenance, for months. Plus, for all you know the dead soldiers next to them are only dead-ish. And honestly, I think you're overestimating just how prevalent automatic weapons are outside of the military. The movies make it seem like every street gang has enough Uzis and AK's to take on Schwarzenegger, but that doesn't make it anywhere approaching true.
 * I have to disagree with the "immeasurable tactical advantages" an automatic in this setting. Zombies can't be suppressed with rapid fire, so you lose the major advantage of having one in the first place. But the disadvantages: increased maintenance, jams, increased use of ammo - are all magnified.
 * Adding to the above or clarifying his point is me, a Marine. The main purpose of automatic weapons is basically to make a lot of noise so your enemy keeps their head down while your allies get to better positions. Even if you're hitting these are zombies. If it's not a head shot at best you eventually do enough damage where they can't stand but that takes ALOT. You literally need to rip/saw them apart or hit the knee or hip in a way that renders them immobile. Other than that all you've done is make a LOT of NOISE. And if there is nothing else this series has been clear about it's that being quiet is in your best interest. Additionally fully automatic weapons are difficult to accurately aim. Anybody who's done so much as play an FPS (and no, I'm not saying Halo or Call of Duty is realistic but for this point it's. . .well not close enough but gives the first hints of) that a vibrating controller and shakey camera make it hard to hit moving targets. Now multiply that by a thousand and you get the picture. A fully automatic weapon in this setting is probably more of a liability than a "immeasurable tactical advantage" especially if you don't have a fairly secure base to work out of.
 * Pelvic shots. Y'know, like you're supposed to do on opposition wearing bulletproof vests? A solid hit to the pelvis is a mobility kill. Raking a mob at about pelvic height is going to a)stop several and b)make it harder for their fellows to walk over them. I'd like to know why no one seems to be using smoke grenades and pepper bombs.