2921

It will not be Carol on the phone.

comic book spoilers

[spoiler]This is actually a much better set up for Rick’s journey to crazy. In the book, he KNEW Lori was totally dead, because he saw her die. Here, he didn’t see it, and can’t find the body, so that she calls him on the phone, while completely bonkers, it at least feasible. Dead people can’t call you on the phone. Missing people who others tell you are dead can.

As for Carol, I’m going to bet all my worldly possessions that she is alive. In some respect I think she is going to be taking Tyreese’s “surrounded by zombies, surely he’s dead - nope, that motherfucker killed all of them sons-a-bitches!” role. I want this to happen, and I want her and Daryl to live together in zombie apocalypse bliss, perhaps stealing Rick’s baby to raise it together.[/spoiler]

For those who don’t want to read the spoilers. My theories, Rick is bonkers and Carol is alive.

2922

He clearly wasn’t cutting anything open to look around. He was stabbing something to death.

We know the zombie Rick found it isn’t Lori because the belly is untouched but yes, as you pointed out, Rick doesn’t know what happened. So he thinks… what? Kill the baby left behind? He saw the baby!

Man is clearly crazy.

There was no bits of bone or other human detritus left behind that Rick found, just frothy blood dragged in a clear direction. So the zombies dragged Lori off and then ate her completely? What?

Also the bullet was clean, if smashed. I think the director clearly wanted to show it was fired at the floor and not Lori.

2923

Eh? The full-bellied zombie was clearly male. I don’t think even crazy Rick would have thought it was Lori for even a second.

I don’t see how you come to the conclusion that he “clearly wasn’t cutting anything open to look around.” The scene implies that he started to, but couldn’t finish.

2924

Internet meme.

2925

Here lies one of the main issues with the show. Scenes that shouldn’t be ambiguous actually are. This thread is a prime example of people perceiving the on screen events differently. They are ambiguous because they are poorly constructed, plain and simple.

Ambigutiy ingeneral is fine, but people aren’t discussing the show at a “who shot JR” level, but on the “wtf just happened in that scene” level.

Although last season’s dirth of zombies has been rectified, this show still has a serious “day time drama” vibe with serious pacing, directing and plot issues.

Season 1 was great, and although season 3 is a lot better, just due to the fact that there is zombie head splitting at every turn, its really not much better than season 2. Count me as disappointed.

2926

My point exactly. Corsair thought I was picking on him. I’m picking on the last episode being pointlessly (?) confusing.

-Tom
2927

I thought you were expressing exasperation at the episode through the convenience of using my post as a starting point - I was just having some fun with it. I agree with your comments for the most part - it seem a contrivance to create doubt at what actually happened, doubt that would not be there if you see the clothes and bones. Perhaps it was meant more to indicate Rick’s doubt as to what happened, but just have him see the clothes and bones just before he decides what to do. It reeked too much of artificially fooling the audience.

2928

I thought Rick going off on bloated (pregnant-looking) zombie was supposed to be metaphorical. He was taking out his hate/anger/frustration for everything he’s had to do for Lori on the visual representation of her. Plus, he’s crazy.

2929

Yup, I didn’t think he was doing a Jaws and trying cut out his dead wife from the stomach of the monster.

I think it’s clear that in the tight quarters of those prison halls, the ratio of zombie to victim is so high that the victims get shredded. It’s not like Dale getting jumped by one out in a field. There are so many nooks and crannies, and so few of the group left to go searching, that chunks of Lori or Carol could be anywhere and they’ll never be found.

I think that’s why they buried Carol with no body found. Who is going to risk searching for something that may be there but impossible to safely retrieve?

The walker battle arena bothered me at first, because I thought it was going to be played as an obvious nutjob activity. However I do think the Governor sold it quite well as an outlet for anxiety. What else are they going to do for entertainment? Do you really want so many people just getting drunk, fighting, and probably raping the women? Also, turning walkers into sources of amusement is a clever way to show your superiority over them. The Governor and his men are like the Crocodile Hunters of the post apocalypse.

In my opinion this show is on fire right now. This is the dream zombie tv show I always wanted. It’s like a very twisted version of Watership Down, with every new potential home turning out to be a further drop down a rabbit hole of unimaginable horrors.

2930

You know, entertainment!

2931

I’m loving season 3 so far, but without spoiling anything, knowing what happens in the books at around this time makes watching every episode a nail-biting, stressful experience for me. There are two seriously messed-up events which I whole-heartedly hope they DO NOT recreate in the TV-series for various reasons, and wondering if every scene is a lead-in to them is making this season some of the most suspenseful TV I’ve ever watched. Beer is required. Lots of beer.

2932

It’s just at odds with the 1950s fantasy world that they have going on elsewhere in the town. They have shown Woodbury as Mayberry – everyone is middle-class, there’s no racial or class strife, everyone dresses nicely, everyone is clean, and everyone is polite.

Now sure, you want to dramatically pull back the curtain and show the ruthless, terrible truth that supports this fiction, but they’ve already kind of done that. And sure, you want to eventually show that maintaining this American Dream in the midst of the apocalypse is making everyone in Woodbury crazy… but gladiatorial combat based on pro wrestling just kind of seemed “off” somehow.

I think they could have done better. My two suggestions:

“Home Movie Night” where they show footage of Meryle and his crew outside the walls taunting and then killing zombies in humorous but vaguely disturbing ways.

“The Punishment Gauntlet” where townspeople who have transgressed with minor crimes like littering or being out after curfew are tied together in a three-legged race type of thing (to tie it back to 1950s motifs) and made to run through the zombie auditorium (all safe, the Governor informs Andrea as she watches; they make sure no one is actually caught by the walkers).

This I very much agree with. It is easier and more fun to discuss the flaws of the show, but I am absolutely loving every episode this season.

2933

I also suspect the phone call is tied to the comics, and a fake-out would be appreciated by me but is perhaps a dangerous choice to make as it might tick off some of the more ardent fans. That, or it’s Dog.

2934

I don’t think that it is a ruthless terrible truth we are seeing in Woodbury, if we are in the position of the townspeople. I don’t think it’s crazy for them to be watching the walker fighting. It’s all for fun, no one is being forced to do anything, no one in the audience is in danger, even the competitors start by joking around and laughing at the whole thing. It’s about as crazy as going to a circus.

Also, we can infer that they don’t do this often. The Governor wouldn’t postpone it for a week, if they did this often he’d have no reason to be so adamant that the show must go on. It’s not like everyone goes to the zombie fights twice a week or something.

For this to work, everyone has to work together. There is no room for individualists and free thinkers in a closed environment like that. So I wouldn’t expect to see anyone in that crowd balking at the entertainment, except new people like Andrea.

I like your ideas but I do think they are on the side of ‘crazy’, which once again I maintain is NOT what Woodbury looks like(yet). The whole point of Woodbury is the Governor is protecting the people from walkers, not using walkers as some kind of threat or punishment on the people, even if it’s in a joking way.

2935

As I said early, I doubt that they will hand Rick all the problems he encounters in the comic, if only for logistical reasons, and perhaps displace that onto other characters where it is easier to deal with.

(and yes, shhhhhhhhhhhhh!)
;-)

2936

"Greg Nicotero: No. The idea is supposed to be that walker has sort of dragged her around the corner of the boiler room so there’s actually a blood trail that continues past the walker and goes around the corner. The zombie has sort of engorged itself, disgusting as it is, and what we did was, when you first see the walker, you see its extended belly. And we kind of wanted to give a little call back to Lori, even though we clearly know that Lori’s not pregnant anymore. And then we come around the corner. and some of the little touches we added was bits of hair in its mouth and hair in his hand when it reaches up towards Rick. And it was just one of those things that we really wanted to show that this thing had feasted on her–as horrible as it is. And it’s sort of a call back even to Episode 1 in Season 2, when they were going to do the autopsy on the walker to see if it had eaten Sophia and they find the pieces of the woodchuck.

So when Rick gets there and kneels down and pulls the blade out, there’s that moment where you think, ‘Oh God, he’s going to cut it open because he just needs to see.’ It’s almost like a really horrible sick connection. He just needs to be connected. He walks into the room. He sees her clothes on the ground. He picks up the bullet from the ground. It’s a little hard to see until he rotates it, but he picks up the bullet that Carl shot at her. So he keeps that and then walks around the corner and finds the walker. So it’s really the beginning of his descent into madness. He never had a goodbye with her. He never had any resolution, even going into the deepest depths of the prison. That’s a really horrible way for him to have a last final connection with her."

http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/61664/walking-deads-danai-gurira-and-greg-nicotero-carols-fate-michonnes-intensity-ricks-phone-

2937

As others have said, they did a poor job of clearly conveying that, but I do think it is what they mostly conveyed (e.g., good choice to make the zombie male to reduce confusion).

2938

Agreed. The scene was poorly executed.

2939

Yep, same here - I really couldn’t figure out exactly what was going on. I even thought it was Lori’s corpse for a moment and the show just did a really bad special effects job. It was confusing to say the least.

2940

Honestly, I don’t think it was that bad of a job, but the lighting kind of killed it. For instance, I couldn’t really identify that her hair was hanging out or even identify the bullet (I had to guess at what it was the first time around, and I was thankfully right) until I watched again with foreknowledge.