You know, it’s a pretty interesting (and timely) question. The US population only has a few days of fresh food on-hand at any given time, and of course that would be gone to pot in a week or two. The preservable food (dried and canned) seems like it would be more plentiful, but believe it or not the stuff that is on the shelves in grocery stores is actually turned-over fairly quickly, as anyone who has ever worked stock at a Krogers can tell you – without resupply, all that food would be consumed by the population in a few days at regular consumption levels.
Yes, you say, but the population isn’t THERE anymore – it’s been almost entirely zombified. So who is eating all this stuff?
Well, that’s where you get to talk about the start of the ZA. Was it incredibly sudden, where the bulk of the population was turned in a day or two, or was it a more gradual thing where the human population dwindled over the course of weeks or months?
If it was the latter, then you have the outbreak of zombism shutting down supplies and food shipments in the first few days and then the (large) population of cities and towns burning through their canned goods in a couple days, then raiding their (now zombified) neighbors’ places for supplies and emptying the population centers of food in weeks before they too become zombie-chow.
But even if the ZA wiped out 90% of the population in a couple days or a week, you still don’t have a free ride with the food. That 10% of the population would still eat through the available canned goods; it would simply take them ten times as long – a year instead of a few weeks.
Those ex-gang fellows in Atlanta are picking the inner city clean quickly to feed those geriatrics. The group of 20 to 30 rapist lowlives that we sort of saw in Season 2 are harvesting the small towns and country homes to feed themselves. There are people like Hershel’s clan that are sending guys like Otis out to hunt and scavenge. There is the unseen lone survivor whose nest was uncovered by Daryl in the abandoned house last season. We’ve only seen the above examples, but it’s safe to assume that they are not the only ones operating in the area.
One thing is certain: I’ve spent much too much time thinking about this for a supposedly “sane” adult white male.
I’m with you here. The implication was that the huge “herds” are so dense that the group cannot even drive through them to leave the area.
I didn’t mind this one bit, given the context. They are in a dark and gloomy cellblock, turned around and confused despite their seemingly-sensible precautions. They are being chased by at least two groups of very ambulatory undead whose location is unknown. Herschel in particular is anxious to find his daughter and is aware that when the next humanoid steps out from around the next dark corner he has to make a split-second choice as to whether to shoot a zombie or NOT shoot a friend. Worse, he is actively calling out for his daughter, and he knows that this is attracting zombies.
Under those circumstances, I think it is forgivable that he ignored yet another corpse on the ground (and remember, they had seen dozens in the hallway up to this point) to keep his eyes up and focused on the upcoming corner or door.
In other words, I don’t think it was bad writing – it was an “earned” mistake.
