1861

You take that back! It’s nowhere near as entertaining as plough zombies.

Family and friends was what I was thinking too, though.

1862

Hershel should have stormed out all in a rage that they ruined the farmhand he had working on cleaning out that well.

I mostly file things like an alleged farm showing people never doing anything on it as fairly typical TV-and-movie-writers sometimes not having much of a notion about how such places actually function. Farming’s hard, especially when it goes manual. That’s why early civilization invented serfs.

1863

Maybe it not them not understanding how a farm works, it has more to do with the visual shorthand that TV and Film employ. They’re on a farm, so assume they have access to food and that they are working it. Honestly, I think it’s the gamer mentality that makes one want to nitpick the silliest things.

1864

I just assume that these two new speaking characters that were conjured out of the great void were doing all the farm work.

I had forgotten about the barn full of zombies. My memory must be going in my old age, because that’s another thing they took out of the comics (though I think that at this point they’re headed for a rehash of the same discussion that Rick and Ubiquitous British Black Actor With Impeccable American Accent already had way back at the start of the series). I think it’s, what, two or three episodes to the hiatus? Seems like perfect pacing to have a big screamy argument, find the missing girl, and let loose all the zombies to devour the living.

1865

There is a show tonight and next week before the split and restart in February. I’m hoping we start to see some crazy zombie action. I started reading the comic it seems to really move and has a lot more violence (both zombie and human) than the show.

1866

Any chance we’re seeing less zombie action because of the well-publicized budget cuts that immediately preceded Darabont’s departure? It’s gotta be expensive to get and feed all those extras and stage those battles. The school episode is the only one this season that’s had real hordes, IIRC.

1867

I’ve thought that as well but it’s really hard to say since facts are sketchy.

1868

And it was way too dark.

1869

Good episode, maybe things are starting to turn around, but it was still fairly light on zombie action. A lot of other things happened however. Nice to know the writers must be thinking somewhat along the same lines as they did finally show some chores (feeding chickens) which makes it obvious the farm actually can produce some food. Lori was really annoying all show.

1870

I could not disagree more. I thought it was a lousy episode. The teaser from last week was OMG A BARN FULL OF ZOMBIES and that gets brushed over to nothing more than ‘keep it a secret’ and we instead focus the hour on whether Lori is going to keep her baby? Even the zombie swarm was the opposite of tense.

I’m all for developing personal relationships, but the zombie aspect is really just shoehorned in around ‘Guiding Light’ for all that it’s become.

1871

Okay. See you next episode. :)

More seriously, I enjoyed it because it “fixed” a lot of storylines:
[ul]
[li]Glenn & Maggie seem a little more legitimate than just “two young, unattached actors sharing the same screen must obviously have a thing for each other.”
[/li][li]Dale has always been a busybody, but is finally impacting the world around him outside of Andrea … ironically as that purview seems to be getting intruded on.
[/li][li]Shane actually seems a little more enjoyable to watch as a character now that he’s been given something to do other than look grim and mean.
[/li][li]I don’t think that Rick whined even once, which is a nice change of pace.
[/li][li]Andrea’s character seemed a little more enjoyable and I appreciated the whole Shane-being-a-jerk-and-making-her-shoot-the-walker bit.
[/li][/ul]Issues I had: just how much ammo do they have at this point? Was there an unraided gun store in that town or something? Does Herschel have a depot in his basement? Setting up a firing line can go through it plenty fast. Sure, it’s important to teach the skill in their environment, but I’d think the ideal way to do that is to conserve the ammo and teach individually as repeating poor habits does nothing but waste a limited resource. Ah, well - it’s a minor quibble, and at least they emphasized they were taking a short trip to do the shooting instead of just doing it by the home where it could draw more zombies to their safe haven.

Second issue - Lori. As has been mentioned, she’s getting a little annoying. I’ll admit that many people would be that emotionally distraught in that kind of a scenario (quite possibly myself among them), but that still doesn’t make it good TV on its own. I kept wanting to say “get over yourself” again and again, but nobody except my cats would have heard … and they’d just think I was about to offer them food. I think a whole full-fledged debate over whether to have a child in that world would have been a really good way to go. Perhaps it will come up in the future, but I think the moment passed and they chickened out (my guess is that they didn’t want to alienate the anti-abortion people out there).

1872

Hershell has to be completely off his rocker to actually FEED his pet zombies. Food is scarce enough, and zombies aren’t pulling their weight (unless they took suggestions from this thread and make them into plow-zombies).

This episode was a letdown. Again, nothing seems to have been resolved. Great moments squandered and replaced by the same emotional and personality conflicts that are reiterated over and over again in every episode.

When the car’s a rockin’, don’t come a knockin’!

[spoiler]
Andrea and Shane investigate an abandoned neighborhood, and all we see them is going into one house, and then run out by zombies. Time compression and if the show had better narration, could have somehow implied they searched house to house, but I didn’t see it.

They park a block away from the first house they search and then a bunch of zombies appear out of nowhere is all I got out of it.

I thought it would be funny if Shane ended up impregnating all the females in his group. He’d have a little post-apoc harem going.

What’s her name REALLY needs to grow out her hair. I mean, she has to keep that thing trimmed daily to keep it that short all the time.[/spoiler]

So far, Andrea is annoying. Dale needs to die. I don’t care at this pint about Rick and Lori. Hell, kill everyone off, and just turn the show into making Daryl some zombie hunting, revenge-filled madman riding his motorcycle across a ZA world, righting wrongs, helping the weak, and leaving a wake of zombie corpses behind him.

Maybe add a motorcycle sidecar, and have Glenn as a comedic-relief sidekick who invents weird zombie killing weapons.

1873

I didn’t even understand what was going on there. Is Hershel that delusional that he thinks zombies need to fed? Why would the others go along with that and waste livestock?

1874

After reading this thread and watching the episode last night I think there were TONNES of chores and demonstration re: how they eat/survive on the farm. The opening scene Sarah Tencredi from Prison Break and Cole were feeding chickens. Lots and lots of chickens. Horses were being fed on. Pigs were referenced. In the last scene there were horses (10-20?) in the background off Rick’s right shoulder. Hopefully we can put this chores discussion to a rest and talk about the plot and take our best guesses regarding future episodes?

Do any of you watch the Talking Dead after the Walking Dead? The host of that show is awesome. The commentary and analysis is also great.

1875

I thought it was an AWESOME episode. I guess I am an optimist who is easy to please. I think you may be dissappointed with next week’s episode (which I think is the final episode before the break). I don’t think they will address the zombie barn issue until February and they will use the zombie barn issue as the cliffhanger for next week’s episode. I also think a standoff with Rick’s group and Hershell will serve as next week’s cliffhanger before the break.

I also think the missing girl (?Sarah?) will not be found anytime soon. I think she will end up being the “Walt” from “Lost” and will return in a future season.

1876

No, Sarah Fucking Tencredi from Prison Break and Cole were not feeding chickens. Lori from The Walking Dead and her son Carl were feeding chickens. Congratulations on having watched Prison Break, but this thread is not about that show.

1877

I totally agree. My first thought was that they’ve got way too much General Hospital and not enough plot (zombie action or otherwise). When Lori (who I can’t wait to become zombie meat) took the “abortion pills” I was thinking “YES! They are finally advancing the plot.” Then she spits them up. And the big “reveal” was that Rick knew that she and Shane got a little sumfin-sumfin together? Give me a break. Hope the show picks up the pace a little cuz the tedious melodrama is getting old.

1878

The comic the show is based on is essentially ‘Guiding Light’ with occasional zombies. The difference is that 10 pages of dialog in a comic can be read, the images skimmed through, in about a minute, maybe two. Your brain can process it and understand it all that quickly without detriment to the entire story. On TV, they have to actually act it out and speak the lines. You can’t skim it. When 90% of a comic book is talking with 10% zombie fighting action, you can read the talking in about 2-3 minutes and then dwell on the fighting pages for as long as you want. On TV, you get 37 minutes of talking and 5 minutes of fighting, which is the same percentage split on the 42 minute per episode show.

1879

Lori and Rick have the same damn emotional argument every episode. I’m getting to the point where I want to leave the room whenever the two of them have screen time together.

Other than that, I didn’t think this episode was particularly bad, but I do wish there was more zombie action. This season has been sloooow in that regard.

1880

SOLD! What time does this show air??