2681

Obviously the wisest course would have been saving the ketchup to make the cat food more palatable!

2682

One point that hasn’t been mentioned yet is one of interest to me. It’s been months since the last season, and in the cell block they found zombie prisoners who seem to have been locked in their cells the entire time with nothing to eat. Unless the still human survivors have been feeding them regularly (with what? why?), this answers the question I’ve wanted them to address from the beginning: will the zombies starve to “death” without food?

Apparently, the answer is no, so on some level they’re magic. Movement in the real world requires energy, which in organic beings is provided by the oxidation of food. The walkers appear not to need it, which has major long-term consequences for the show’s universe. For example, surviving humans can’t just wait them out somewhere relatively safe while they starve to death. Instead, they need to find a permanently defensible location where they can raise crops in relative safety. The cans won’t last forever, as the season premier pointed out, but the walkers will.

2683

Zombies don’t eat to live. They eat because of instinct. Their bodies are dead. This is why, given enough time, you can wait them out since the meat will eventually rot.

Also, yes, some magic. They’re zombies after all. :)

2684

Right, traditional zombies are magic. 28 Days Later Rage-style zombies aren’t, and months of being locked in a food-free cell without destroying them proves walkers are traditional zombies. That assumes the writers are aware of the consequences of their writing, of course, which isn’t always the case.

2685

90% seems like way too high of an estimate for the world of Walking Dead. 10% of Atlanta is 42K people. What they’re showing is like a 99.9% or greater kill rate. That could potentially leave a lot of food behind.

Basically, scavenging to survive doesn’t seem impossible or even improbably unreasonable for their fiction.

2686

Yeah, I agree with this. The Walking Dead world is one in which humans are in serious danger of extiniction, a tiny minority that’s overwhelmingly outnumbered. Scavenging major cities would be viable for a long time, as long as you could survive the endless hordes of walkers who’d be scavenging for you…

2687

Romero established in Day that Zombies eat out of instinct, not necessity. And the show seems to be following the rules he laid down.

2688

I just watched this, and it was definitely a step up from the second season.

Regarding hacking off that old guys leg, I think it was the smart thing to do, even if it was a spur of the moment decision. It’d be very handy for them to know whether that works or not, in the future.

By the way, does anyone know how long it takes a human body to completely decompose? Not that I’m really into nitpicking over that kind of detail in zombie movies, but I couldn’t help but wonder as I was watching the show.

2689

Winter is bad for human survivors since cold preserves meat…

2690

Well, sure, but hasn’t it been like 6-8 months since the end of season 2? I’m unsure about this, since I don’t actually remember the ending of season 2. Why isn’t Andrea with the others, by the way?

2691

She got separated during the escape from the farm at the end of season 2.

2692

Oh, right. Thanks.

2693

That was a great episode, as good as the pilot. This is exactly the kind of zombie show I was hoping to see. Grim survival, with the interspersonal drama dropped in between the cracks, not interpersonal drama with grim survival dropped between the cracks.

I think they were deliberately circling. It makes sense to me, you basically work a grid and this allows you to always have situational awareness. You know where the hideouts are, you know where there’s water, etc. If you leave the area entirely then you put yourself in a far riskier situation. With a baby on the way, I’m sure having a home territory was made even more preferable.

I think anyone else would have got a bullet in the head no questions asked, but Rick needs that guy. Of everyone in the group, he’s the one they’d risk a whole hell of a lot to keep alive.

2694

I am offended that you are questioning my vast and encyclopedic knowledge and experience of all things related the to Zombie Apocalypse. But perhaps it is partially my fault for not laying out my point properly: certainly the number of humans alive “now” is in the 1% range… which as an aside means that they are probably paying very low Federal income rates.

But unless some 99.9% of the population was zombified in the first couple hours of the ZA, that was not always the case. From flashbacks we can see thousands or tens of thousands of people clogging the highways trying to get away from the huge “herds” of zombies in the cities – the vast majority were later “turned,” but my thesis is that in the weeks or months before Rick woke from his coma and found the camp, those thousands of still-living humans had enough time to eat through the relatively sparse amounts still left in the supermarkets after the supply-line broke down and before they were eaten in turn.

The 0.1% that is left is picking through the remains.

Now for the sake of argument, I’ll grant you that the supermarkets and pantries in urban and suburban areas may be bursting with many cans of peas and that one lone tin of water chestnuts that almost everyone has waaaay in the back, but the folks small towns and urban areas that our heroes are passing through would have presumably held out longer and had more time to deplete their supplies… not to mention providing larder for the people that fled the cities and left their cars in the traffic jams we were shown. In the areas that the group is raiding, those water chestnuts were eaten on day-zero +16.

2695

I like water chestnuts, but I still have one of those cans waaaay in the back. I keep thinking I need to make something to use it up, but maybe I should just save it for the Zombie Apocalypse. Carl can eat it. He can also have my dog’s treats, they look and smell like bacon…

2696

Nice episode, the scenes with various people in close contact with One-Legged Hershell handcuffed to the bed stressed me out immensely, especially THE JUMP SCARE MOMENT. Really loving this season, characters are being developed and shit is happening in the same episode.

2697

Prisoner with Attitude (Tomas) meets the new and more ruthless Rick with Machete.

And dammmmmmmmmmn! Ruthless Rick wasn’t done - he rings the dinner bell and puts the main course on the dinner table for the zombies.

2698

Loved the stuff with the prisoners. That’s the sort of stuff that can happen when you kill zombies with friendly fire on! And I’m glad to see Scott Wilson will still be on the show.

But my favorite part of the episode was Lew Temple’s mustache.

 -Tom
2699

Great episode

2700

Can Lori get any stupider?