1821

Not specifically:

Very minor-level spoilers for the comics

In the comics they travel from Atlanta to the DC area, and I believe that one or more of the newer characters come from further south than Georgia, so we know that it is at least the US Eastern seaboard… it’s certainly implied that it’s the whole world.

1822

Despite my comments I still like the show and I might even put this episode as the best of the season thus far. Taken alone this seasons accidents don’t bug me but putting them all together seems a stretch. I’ve never read the comic books but in the first TV season zombies and everything epic that comes with them was a large part. Some comments on other forums mention the comic really isn’t that much about zombies, is that right?

1823

Agreed. Finally a good episode in Season 2.

Yeah. As someone who has been thrown by a panicking horse, sometimes it doesn’t take much. A snake could certainly do it.

1824

It’s about zombies about as much as the show is about zombies. They have to deal with them sometimes, they have to work around them and be aware of them, but they don’t go out zombie-fighting every issue trying to clean up the world.

1825

Yeah, I don’t get the people who are somehow offended that fighting zombies isn’t the only thing that anyone does in these types of shows.

Action-driven stories are all well and good, but you can’t sustain a long-term show aimed at mature audiences with nothing but decapitations; even the most bloodthirsty fans would get tired of the “zombie kill of the week” plots. You need some character drama, some character growth, something. [An aside: the A-Team lasted for several seasons and nearly 100 episodes on effectively nothing but action, but I’d argue that this show is after a slightly more discerning audience]

At its best, the comic is about the hard choices that otherwise-decent people are forced to make in the post-apocalyptic word, and about whether it’s possible to remain a 21st-century civilized guy when you’re no longer at the top of the food chain. The show hasn’t done much more than give lip-service to those themes yet, but I’m optimistic.

1826

I WAS feeling this as well but this recent episode seems to be turning a lot of those frowns upside down so stick it out for a bit. This thread might get good again. :)

I’m enjoying the show too…

1827

I thought this last episode was good, nearly a return to form from the first season. The opening scenes were fantastic, and I would LOVE to see more snippets of the last days of humanity like that from each characters perspective. I thought this episode did a good job of setting up the tension between Herschal and the group, while also giving us glimpses of people in Herschal’s group perhaps not being as comfortable with his control as they seem (Maggie and the kid who volunteered to go searching being examples).

The Daryl segments were fantastic, every bit as gripping as anything they did with Rick in the first few episodes last season. I seriously thought Daryl had died when Andrea shot him. Maybe I’ve been watching/reading too much Game of Thrones! I especially liked how his vision of Merle sort of voiced a lot of the thoughts viewers have had over the course of the show so far, bscially how Daryl would be better off on his own, and how the group was making poor decisions and holding themselves back.

Finally, I’m now very curious as to why Herschal has a barn full of walkers. Is he trying to find a homemade cure by using samples from the walkers? Are they people that Herschal and the others knew in life and they simply can’t bring themselves to kill? Does Herschal think the process can be reveresed and the walkers saved somehow? Looking forward to the next episode.

1828

Pretty sure it’s a sex thing.

1829

My wife thinks it’s the rest of the family.

I think maybe they’ve been tricking any random walkers that come onto the farm into the barn … maybe for experimentation, who knows?

1830

Ewww.

Maybe he’s planning on chaining them all to a giant wheel so they can provide electricity to the farm as they endlessley walk in circles? If it’s a mill wheel they can grind wheat/corn too! ;-)

1831

I think my biggest problem with the show is the heavy-handed, clumsy way these things are handled. Because when you say it like that it sounds like good development. But when I’m watching it, it all seems awkward and forced. Passing notes at the dinner table?

Andrea’s scene I guess was supposed to show her taking control of her own life and being less of a victim, but it really just made her seem too stupid to live. Shane and Rick’s conversation could’ve been poignant, but the whole thing from discussing highschool sexploits to Shane talking about abandoning the search just seemed forced and fake.

Maybe it’s the change of showrunner that was mentioned earlier. The show just isn’t as good as last season, and it’s hard to pin down exactly why. There are a lot of little things that add up to big things.

1832

I think you’re right in placing some of the blame on the change in show runner. There is a perceivable difference to the last couple of episodes versus the ones Darabont was producer for (his last episode as producer was the one where Shane escaped the high school). On the other hand, the show is still written by the same people (including Darabont) all the way through this season, so as far as scripting and plot go it’s all the same folks from the previous season.

I think you have to take into account too that while some of this seems heavy handed to you and I and many other folks, the writers still have to write for the majority of TV audiences, which sadly often need some heavy handedness to point them in the right direction. I wish the writing and direction could be a better, and not just on this show, but unfortunately TV is what it is, and a show that is too cleverly written or requires too much thought from it’s viewers often ends up cancelled before it has a chance to take hold. I’ll trade a little heavy-handedness and awkward scenes for a successful show so that I can continue to enjoy watching it.

1833

Also, show not actually all that good last season.

1834

Andrea’s rise to being not-sucky is way too heavy-handed, I gotta agree. In the comics it was a fairly quick change, but she didn’t start out as some untrustworthy emotionally unstable ditz. Yeah, questioning the point of living is a theme in the comics just as it’s touched on in the show, but this recent happening was just silly and contrived… not so much just the emotions she had, but the context she was given in order to do what she did so that yet again other people can be given doubt about her before she finally breaks through and stops sucking. It’s just dumb.

Hershell does not have sex with the zombies. The most obvious answer is probably the correct answer, and if the first obvious answer that pops up in your head is that he’s keeping a zombie harem, you’re fucked up and should seek help.

Here are my predictions for how this season will generally end, given the comics (spoilers):

"

The group convinces Hershel, like in the comics, that the walkers in the barn are actually dead. We get a nice 15 minute scene of the barn doors being opened and the zombies being used as a life threatening training exercise. Andrea proves herself as a great shooter. The group takes the rest of the episode to talk with Hershel about what it is they should be doing, Hershel stays while Maggie joins Glen and those other two young ones come along, then they hit the road in another episode and consider stopping at the gated suburban complex that they were supposed to go to before the farm… they muse about how it’d be nice to make it home for themselves, until they get caught by zombies and we see yet another cliffhanger where someone is almost surely dead, take another episode to save them… season ends after they find the prison, take an episode to clear the prison out. I hope they do that instead of just showing a shot of the prison and ending the season. Final shot prediction is them in a group at the prison with a bunch of dead walkers everywhere with a look of hope as it pans out from the prison, Season 3 will get into prison drama.

1835

Below is NOT a spoiler… just my guesses how the season will unfold.

I thought Hershell had a barn full of walkers because that is their “big secret”. My guess is he (as a vet/doctor) is studying them to learn from them and potentially try to find a cure.

That’s why Rick stated Hershell wants to kill all the zombies on the property without the help of Rick’s crew. My guess is Hershell doesn’t kill them, he just traps them in his barn to study them.

I also guess that the obese zombie stuck in the well was one of Hershell’s zombies - he probably got out of the barn and fell in the well one night… somehow escaped.

The walker barn is also why Hershell wants Rick et al off his property. The longer they stay on his property the more likely they will find his walker barn and would kill all the zombies and destroy his work.

Given the Asian dude is banging Hershell’s daughter my guess is that it is just a matter of time before Hershell finds out and gets pissed at the Asian dude (Glenn?). I bet you during that moment somehow Glenn will tell Rick at al about the zombie barn and Shane and Darryl will probably go apeshit killing the zombies and lighting the barn on fire.

This will be the end of the season.

How did I do?

1836

Ha! I thought it would be obvious, that was just a gruesome jest.

As a huge fan of the comics but absolute hater of the TV show’s Rick, I have a hard time believing TV-Rick can ever develop into
vague comic reference

the character seen in the comic’s ‘Fear the Hunters’ storyline.

If they can, I’ll be impressed.

Just to prove I’m not a total Walking Dead curmudgeon, I adore Dale’s performance.

1837

In a post-apocalyptic world, or ZA, or gov’t implosion of the USA… the last thing you want to do is go running around. As others mentioned, the most dangerous animal is another human. You want to limit your exposure to others. The only time you want to run around is if your trying to get to your secure location.

If this ever happened, the last place I would want to be is in a FEMA camp, so I don’t know their reasoning to go off to a military base. They never said.

Herschal’s homestead is an ideal place, but they don’t treat it like it’s the end of the world. No fortifications, no defense, barely any weapons. Basically, they were just waiting to die, rather than trying to survive.

They have several wells (hopefully not interconnected now that one well is contaminated). They have a large clearing from the tree lines to see who’s coming. They need to setup a wall or secure fence. They can grow their own food. The small town nearby apparently hasn’t been completey looted. They need to loot it completely.

I love the show, but their complete lack of any strategy to do anything other than wait until shit hits the fan, and then to react is getting frustating as a viewer.

1838

Well, we can’t tell because this tv show doesn’t always give the same justifications for things that happened in the comics.

1839

I agree with you on all those points but I thought this was done intentionally. Hershell’s farm seems to be treated as an oasis. Having a secure fence or wall would diminish the appearance and writer’s intent.

I also don’t think Hershell thinks zombies are the enemy.

I think Hershell is convinced that the zombies are patients who are infected with a disease which is treatable. “So why build a wall or a fence from people with a potentially treatable disease?” (I ask in Hershellian voice).

1840

I agree, it’s not even that they are being driven by events but that they don’t show many common sense things I think I would do to survive. I don’t know the exact amount of people on Herschel’s farm now but it has to be somewhere around 12+? it takes a lot of food to feed that many people. Instead of sitting around all day you’d think someone like Glenn would be out scouting for food. When is the last time food has even been mentioned or worried about?

The Survivors series others have mentioned did a lot better job on that aspect. Food was a constant concern and they at times ran out. They also raided a lot of stores and even went after the main warehouse.