4181

I’m not sure I can take any more Eugene screen time.

4182

I’m waiting for the big reveal that Eugene’s sat phone belonged to his dad or his neighbor who worked with people in Washington, and Eugene knows nothing and only survived the initial outbreak because he was holed up in his parent’s basement on an extended online gaming binge for days until the power finally went out.

4183

That brings up something I’ve been wondering about, who has verified this whole story about how they know the cause of the zombies? I mean, if I’m in Glenn’s shoes I’m wondering were these three working together before the ZA and that’s why the two bodyguards know the scientist is really in the know? Or did they meet him afterwards? If they did, how did he prove his story to them?

Even in the tunnel everyone new(Maggie/Sasha/Bob) just accepted it at face value. Whether they wanted to go with them or not was another thing, but they did seem to believe the story. Why? If I was there I’d need something, some bit of information, to convince me their story wasn’t bullshit.

4184

No one has verified the story - I’ve thought it fairly transparent that the story is bull. “Classified” doesn’t mean a whole lot at this point, what’s more important is getting the information there (if it were real). Set it down on paper, tell several people, don’t have the fate of the whole world riding on one man out in the wilds - look for a short-wave radio antennae and some solar panels, something, anything besides one guy just moseying down the railroad tracks. Now, admittedly things don’t always proceed from a logical standpoint in this series, but Eugene is just a little too interested in detours.

4185

The episode was titled “Faith”. I think at this point, they are looking for something, anything that would be a glimmer of hope. Faith is a powerful force when all seems lost. People are willing to believe almost anything if it means there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

I enjoyed this episode quite a bit. A bit weirded out on the direction we’re seeing Darryl go. It was very telling having him throw the sheet away instead of using it to cover his rival’s corpse up.

The preview for next week’s episode is…strange. The question is, will Terminus end in a cliff-hanger to keep us coming back for next season? (of course it will)

4186

The episode’s title is actually “Us”.

4187

Oooo, interesting. Time Warner has it titled as “Faith” in my DVR listing with a description saying “The theme of this episode if Faith…” along with some babble about how everyone is clinging to something to believe in. But I see in the episode guide that it is indeed “Us”. Weird

4188

That’s the thing, from a character’s point of view the entire thing must seem sketchy as hell. What are the chances that you just randomly crossed paths with THE guy who knows something? What are the chances, having had extensive survival experience already in the ZA, that you’d think you have even a one in a million chance to make it to DC? It’s totally screwball yet some of them are really thinking about it. Then I’d ask, so let’s say we get this guy there, then what? Even if they made a cure or vaccine it’s a bit too little too late.

I think if it were me there I’d say surviving and finding a nearby defendable homebase is the main priority.

4189

Did u catch denise crosby tasha yar at the end?

Cannibalism anyone?

4190

It’s totally cannibalism in Terminus. It has to be.

4191

The insecure security officer? Well, yes and no. She has not aged well.

4192

Well, it was too much to hope for three great episodes in a row, I guess. Maybe last week’s just raised my expectations too high, but I found myself really disappointed by this one.

The stuff with Daryl and the Bandits (look for their tri-state tour next summer!) was fine, I guess. It does slightly put the events of “Claimed” in a different light… sort of. Rick is awakened by the sounds of the gang brutally beating someone (presumably to death), and then witnessing a fight between two bandits. We’re led to believe that the beating victim is some innocent guy that they picked up off the streets, but now we (sorta) know that he was much more likely to be a fellow gang-member who had fallen afoul of their elementary school playground justice system.

I guess we still know that they’re bad guys though, because they killed the rabbit-cheat guy. Though why they killed him is still a bit hazy to me. He was an asshole, but I’m not clear where he stepped over the line from beating-asshole into fatal-asshole territory. “Fatal Asshole Territory” is probably a better band name than “Daryl and the Bandits”. Claimed!

The stuff with Glenn’s crew was by-and-large horrible. It’s cool that Josh McDermitt got to flesh out Eugene’s character a bit, but it pretty much just ensured that we know how much of a comic book caricature he is. The several dialog exchanges dedicated to reminding us that Tara is a lesbian mostly didn’t work, and the Abraham/Tara mutual psychoanalysis thing didn’t do too much more for me this time than it did a few episodes back – we already know why Tara is the way she is; watching Abraham find out too is dull.

Worse, Abraham comes off as a complete idiot. The whole “Eugene is The Mission” stuff might work if Rosita were not in tow, but probably not even then. Abraham’s ironclad faith in Eugene’s preposterous claim doesn’t seem to have any foundation at all - maybe if we had seen a flashback to when Eugene was talking to someone on the satellite phone it could have worked. As it is, we the audience don’t have any reason to believe the claim and the fact that this super-classified scientist is a 30-something with a mullet and a hick accent just leaves us wondering how Abraham could have survived for two years with such an obvious gullible streak running through him.

The exchanges between Glenn and the rest of the crew were head-scratchers too. He’s already pretty much dismissed Abraham’s folks as superfluous to his requirements, so why would he trade away his (really effective) body armor in exchange for help he doesn’t think he needs? Don’t get me started on Tara’s contrived knee injury.

But all that stuff is just trivial musings compared to the horrible tunnel scene. My first thought on seeing the cave-in was “OK, this is interesting: someone has built a wall with embedded zombies that act as both an alarm system and additional defenses – what a cool, original idea!” But no… it turns out that this was the world’s most neat and orderly cave-in. And we find out later that it was caused by Maggie plunking a couple pistol shots into a concrete ceiling! That’s… not that great.

And yeah, the obvious conclusion is that Terminus is a place that solves their food shortage problems by ensuring a constant flow of survivors show up, lulling them into a false sense of security, killing them in secret, and then grilling them up with a sweet Georgia BBQ sauce seasoned with just a little more paprika than is probably wise. I kind hope it’s not that trite, but… it’ll be that trite.

4193

Question for the masses: Seasons 1 and 2 took place in the summer right after the ZA. Season three starts with an extended montage showing that a year has passed with the group dodging zombie hordes. Season 4 starts with the Woodbury folks having been accepted into the prison after some significant period of time has passed – it’s unclear if a second winter has come and gone or not. So we’re looking at a minimum of 18 months having gone by since the ZA, and maybe as much as 24.

Does that sound about right to everyone? Or am I making bad assumptions?

4194

Hard to say. Best I can rationalize is that framing Darryl was a bit more than the average lie, so they started a serious beating, and then they enjoyed it too much to stop. I believe we’re supposed to understand they’re a Band of Assholes. Not claiming that one, you can name your band that if you want.

“Ouch! I fell down and broke my knee!”

It didn’t occur to me that the Wall O’ Zombies might be a defense system. My first thought was that these were people killed by a cave-in and then turned, not zombies buried under the rubble, though that had me puzzled as to what all those people were doing in the tunnel when it came down. When it turns out it was Maggie, I said, “OK, that makes sense,” and didn’t immediately think how highly unlikely it was that you could bring that much ceiling down with a few shots.

While Terminus being a Venus fly trap is quite likely, the preview made it sound like they had some sort of brainwashing room where they played stuff over a scratchy PA system. Not sure if that’s going to be literal or not. In any case, it’s clearly a hellhole, and they’ll find that out almost immediately. Which is preferable to how long it took them to figure out Woodbury.

The easiest guide to time since the Zombie Apocalypse would seem to be Baby Judith. She was conceived shortly post-ZA, either immediately before or immediately after Rick finds his wife. She’s definitely less than a year old. That puts the ZA about 18 months ago.

4195

Yup, your timeline seems about right. I would say that at least 18 months have passed, possibly more. By the time the group reached the prison it had defintely gone from the spring/summer when the ZA began to a second spring/summer where the settled the prison. Then events between the Prison and Woodbury had to have taken a few weeks, and then the Woodbury survivros seemed to have been pretty well acclimated by the time the prison fell, so yeah, 18-24 months.

Which then begs the question, how the hell are so many walkers still mobile after at least a year and a half of shambling around with no regard for their own safety, and how the hell have the ones outside especially not rotted away to nothing at this point?

4196

Zombies are magic. Even ones animated by an “infection.” 28 Days Later rage “zombies” which aren’t dead, just crazy, is the closest you’ll get to something that isn’t magic. There’s no way to make really dead tissue move around the way zombies do.

4197

I think we can look at humans and compare to zombies in so far as rotting is concerned. We living humans are rotting, but slowly. So slowly it can take decades to reach the end. Zombies were dead but now are obviously not quite dead. Therefore I think you can expect them to rot faster than humans, but not as fast as dead bodies. It could be years before a zombie rotted enough to start to make a difference.

4198

Wait, was the Maggie-shooting-the-tunnel-ceiling shown or just told, because I sure don’t remember seeing it (maybe I’d gotten up to answer the phone).

4199

Just told.

4200

She’s apparently a comic book villain with the power to find weak spots in structures now.