The Walking Dead

[MichaelWinicki]

Doubt it, but if so, only for a couple of episodes... Shane is the guy we all love to hate...



Well if she had played stick-shift with him in the comics, I'm sure he would have done the same...

True. Gotta have a "Shane" in there for the evil element.

But in Shane's world everything he's done has been justified... And to a certain extent I can see that.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Bravo!


Outstanding mid-season finale.

That was great TV.

 

[punchnjudy]

Outstanding show. I saw in the previews for the next episode that the old man tells them to get off his property. I'm wondering how he plans to enforce this order? During an apocalypse, property rights don't really have much meaning.

All that shooting may attract the wrong kind of attention anyway though.

 

[cowboyeric8]

Bravo!


Outstanding mid-season finale.

That was great TV.

Yeah, great episode.

Now waiting until February, ugh.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Outstanding show. I saw in the previews for the next episode that the old man tells them to get off his property. I'm wondering how he plans to enforce this order? During an apocalypse, property rights don't really have much meaning.

All that shooting may attract the wrong kind of attention anyway though.

Even if one didn't have some idea of what was going on next due to the hints offered by the graphic novel, you could see that the secluded farm story line has kind of run its course. Not much else you could wring out of it.

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

Notice how Shane was hardcore about killing all the walkers and the others joined in without hesitation but only Rick stayed out of it.

Then when the missing girl comes out as a walker they all just stand there doing nothing but Rick steps up and does what needs to be done.

That was a powerful scene and showed why Rick is actually the best of the bunch.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Notice how Shane was hardcore about killing all the walkers and the others joined in without hesitation but only Rick stayed out of it.

Then when the missing girl comes out as a walker they all just stand there doing nothing but Rick steps up and does what needs to be done.

That was a powerful scene and showed why Rick is actually the best of the bunch.

Well said.

That scene, along with his in the opening episode shooting the crawling zombie, are two of the best television sequences I've seen in a long time.

 

[trickblue]

Great finale...

I didn't see that one coming with the girl being a zombie. I feared they were dragging that out over the break...

Good stuff...

 

[TheCount]

Very good finale, much better than the finale from the first season. My wife watched the ending 3 times, she loved it.

What they're doing to Shane had to be done, you need the conflict to keep the less-interesting episodes interesting, just popping zombies and arguing over guns isn't going to get it done.

 

[diehard2294]

Just started watching the show this year.

Great episode and glad they put the lost girl story to bed

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

Interesting about the girl being in the barn. I think I hinted at this being a possibility before.

The interesting part to me is why did Hershal not tell them at some point. He had to know she might be the girl they were looking for.

I understand him not saying anything when nobody knew about the walkers in the barn but once it was common knowledge it seemed odd.

I say that because you know he felt uncomfortable with them staying there and has always said it was a temporary thing. One of the main reasons they were staying there in the first place was to look for the girl. One would think that once they knew of the barn he would just say there is a girl in there that is probably the one they were looking for and maybe that would get them to leave.

I also wonder why they just don't look for a farm of their own. I know the girl said they were all swamped with walkers but surely there is another farm out there somewhere they could fix up and fortify in order to feel safe and away from major areas.

 

[Idgit]

Interesting about the girl being in the barn. I think I hinted at this being a possibility before.

The interesting part to me is why did Hershal not tell them at some point. He had to know she might be the girl they were looking for.

I understand him not saying anything when nobody knew about the walkers in the barn but once it was common knowledge it seemed odd.

I say that because you know he felt uncomfortable with them staying there and has always said it was a temporary thing. One of the main reasons they were staying there in the first place was to look for the girl. One would think that once they knew of the barn he would just say there is a girl in there that is probably the one they were looking for and maybe that would get them to leave.

I also wonder why they just don't look for a farm of their own. I know the girl said they were all swamped with walkers but surely there is another farm out there somewhere they could fix up and fortify in order to feel safe and away from major areas.

The backstory is that Otis was the one responsible for capturing and securing the zombies and that Herschel didn't know she was in there. That's a stretch, but not out of the realm of possibility.

The producers of the show also said they'd toyed with keeping Sophia out of zombie makeup entirely, having her just react to the sunlight after so long a time, and stumble quietly towards her mother, only to have the camera pan around to her back where you can see the huge bite taken out of the back of her neck. That would have been a pretty cool scene, too, if they could have pulled it off.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

The backstory is that Otis was the one responsible for capturing and securing the zombies and that Herschel didn't know she was in there. That's a stretch, but not out of the realm of possibility.

The producers of the show also said they'd toyed with keeping Sophia out of zombie makeup entirely, having her just react to the sunlight after so long a time, and stumble quietly towards her mother, only to have the camera pan around to her back where you can see the huge bite taken out of the back of her neck. That would have been a pretty cool scene, too, if they could have pulled it off.

Hmm.

The thing is the carl-getting-shot incident happened so quickly after they lost Sophia, that I'm not sure the timeline works out... I mean, Sophia had to get bit, pass away, reanimate, have someone from the farm (Otis) find her, corral her and take her back to the barn. And then you have Otis out hunting for wildlife (and maybe stray zombies).

Oh well.

 

[Idgit]

Hmm.

The thing is the carl-getting-shot incident happened so quickly after they lost Sophia, that I'm not sure the timeline works out... I mean, Sophia had to get bit, pass away, reanimate, have someone from the farm (Otis) find her, corral her and take her back to the barn. And then you have Otis out hunting for wildlife (and maybe stray zombies).

Oh well.

The idea is that Otis regularly found zombies trapped in the mud where they found the two walkers in this episode. The line 'it happened again' from the farmhand was a reference to the previous times that Otis had found and retrieved them. Otis never had time to tell Shane, or anyone else, about Sophia before he was killed. Sophia was lost in the woods for several days before they found the farm, so I think that part of the timeline works ok. The problem I have with it is how does a little girl get bit badly enough to bleed out without getting devoured entirely? But I'm willing to overlook that in order to get a great end to the mid-season finale.

 

[Concord]

Great finale...

I didn't see that one coming with the girl being a zombie. I feared they were dragging that out over the break...

Good stuff...

Neither did I.

Nice twist.

Too bad it's over 2 months till the next episode.

 

[punchnjudy]

On Talking Dead, the writer said it was actually Shane's fault that they didn't know about the little girl because he killed Otis before they had a chance to mention they were looking for her.

Now I can understand why they haven't brought back Merle yet (if they bring him back at all). Having another type A personality in that small group would have been awkward.

Since they were feeding the zombies in the barn, I'm wondering if the remaining zombies will weaken and die from starvation as they did in 28 Days Later or was Hershel just covering all the bases?

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Since they were feeding the zombies in the barn, I'm wondering if the remaining zombies will weaken and die from starvation as they did in 28 Days Later or was Hershel just covering all the bases?

I think Hershel was just covering all the bases. They (the zombies) have no need for nurishment. They eat strictly from a deeply ingrained need to eat... not because they have to do it to survive.

The folks in "28 Days" really weren't zombies. Not in the sense we're talking about here. They didn't die and weren't reanimated. Their mannerisms changed and they became animalistic but they didn't clinically die.

How long could the human body last in a zombie-state? Who knows?

I remember in the movie "Day of the Dead", Dr. "Frankenstein" was making some mental notes while experimenting on one of the zombies and he thought a reanimated body could last 10 years if it was in decent shape when it passed.

 

[TheCount]

I think Hershel was just covering all the bases. They (the zombies) have no need for nurishment. They eat strictly from a deeply ingrained need to eat... not because they have to do it to survive.

The folks in "28 Days" really weren't zombies. Not in the sense we're talking about here. They didn't die and weren't reanimated. Their mannerisms changed and they became animalistic but they didn't clinically die.

How long could the human body last in a zombie-state? Who knows?

I remember in the movie "Day of the Dead", Dr. "Frankenstein" was making some mental notes while experimenting on one of the zombies and he thought a reanimated body could last 10 years if it was in decent shape when it passed.

lol, I love that zombie culture has gotten to the point people discuss it scientifically. I'd argue that there's nothing in this universe that doesn't require energy to produce energy, even the undead would need some form of fuel.

28 Days is one of my favorite zombie flicks every, and yes I'd certainly consider that a zombie movie, but you are right, they aren't dead, they are infected with the rage virus, which means they probably could be starved out.

Being that zombies are completely ficitious however, it's up to each individual writer how they want to justify these things so 10 years without anything is as good a statement as any but I wouldn't say that defines the canon of the genre.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Being that zombies are completely ficitious however, it's up to each individual writer how they want to justify these things so 10 years without anything is as good a statement as any but I wouldn't say that defines the canon of the genre.

Well it's almost a couple months before the next episode... We can spend that time debating the length of time a zombie can remain mobile before its body wears out.


On the another front, even though I think the farm arc was at least one episode too long, it did provide for one whale of a high-point.

The number of farm episodes did allow for some character growth, like for instance Glenn and Daryl.

I am glad the Sophia part of the story was brought to a close and TWD higher-ups avoided the now routine "cliff-hanger" and gave a finale that actually answered a question or two.

Interesting from reading comments on other sites, how many people cried at the ending, i.e. Sophia coming out of the barn as a zombie. I hope Brain has gotten over it.

 

[ajk23az]

One thing I didn't get was that when Shane was demonstrating to Hershel that living people don't walk away from being shot 3 times in the chest, and then Shane shot that walker in the head too and it still continued to walk around.

Then when they were shooting all of the walkers from the barn and whenever they wanted to kill one, they shot them in the head and they all died.

Me being very picky here but that just stood out to me. Excellent midseason finale though!