Thanks for saying that about the comic. I'll be reading those now, in addition to watching the show. Anyone else doing a Zombie-thon for Halloween? This show has won the "We are not watching that shit at night" award from my girlfriend and gal-pals. The church speeches were pretty intense. For a show based on a comic book, about zombies, the acting is pretty good, IMO. AMC does not mess around these days. Spoiler From epsidode 1: What is with the limiting access of guns? Like they couldn't have found one in one of those cars on the highway, but they found a week's worth of water? The speech to Dale was priceless, however.
So who else was disappointed by how easy it was to predict how the Shane/Otis scene was going to play out? This show does not like to admit that, with some practice, these characters should be able to easily outsmart the stupid zombies. The most obvious way to deal with the situation: Shane distracts the zombies with the road flares, Otis runs into the medical trailer, he has 10 minutes to gather supplies and then Shane distracts the zombies again. Otis leaves, they go back to the house. As soon as they both went into the trailer without even discussing an exit strategy, I knew exactly what was going to happen and thought it was utterly retarded. It is strange how the characters show an ability to easily adapt to new situations, but when they are faced with the same situation over and over (distract a hoard of zombies and sneak past, which has been done at least 10 times by now), they inevitably find a way to fuck it up.
Daryl is easily the most useful member of the group and my favortie character on the show. I hope it stays that way. The thing that bothered me the most about last week was when Lori got all uppity to Herchel (the old man) about "only" being a vet. Seriously bitch, I know your upset about your son but he's your best option. There aint shit you can do for your child without the old man. Holding out hope for something better is needed to survive but Carl is not going to survive to make it to anything better. Also when Otis and Shane were outside the school did anyone else see the ambulance right next to them? I'm sorry but with all those walkers out there I would have looked in the ambulance first. That and devised a better plan.
Shocked by the change of events and what they are doing with Shane. In the comic, this would be Rick's M.O. I guess AMC figures we aren't ready to see a protagonist "turn" like that. Rick in the comics makes Heizenberg look like a newborn kitten.
I predicted Shane shooting Otis as soon as he stepped out of the truck alone. He should have plugged the guy in the head, he wouldn't have struggled and it would have been more humane. But, it played into his character perfectly (at least, from what I've seen—heroism clouded by moments of terrible selfishness). This episode had a lot of culminating moments which makes me think that it could be much better paced than the last couple seasons, where it was just a constant barrage of chaos. Now there's enough time for different events and characters to flesh out. This has been the first episode of this season (arguably, of the whole series) where none of the characters did anything profoundly stupid (with the exception of Daryl and the blonde walking around at night), which made the episode WAY more enjoyable.
Live bait is better than dead bait. All of the screaming, that Otis did, did nothing but attract more and more of the zombies to him instead of Shane.
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giAQuLntqXY&feature=player_embedded" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giAQuLnt ... r_embedded</a>
Interesting to see Shane changing. I thought the hanging zombie was amusing, albeit very darkly. The rest of this episode, and most of the last, were like pulling teeth to watch. Boring. as. fuck. For the love of God, wrap up the Carl and whatsherfuckingface plots already. Dump her crazy mother and move on. Write the next episode pretending that Carl never existed, just please enough with building entire episodes almost solely around characters who add absolutely nothing to the story.
Carl is arguably the most important character in the Walking Dead comic. I hope the producers don't fuck it up like they are fucking up Rick.
Amen. The first few episodes have been alright I guess, but I'm getting tired of waiting for some kind of main season story arc to begin. I don't think many people give too much of a shit about Carl, and nobody could possibly give a shit about "whatsherfuckingface." Not only is she a minor role character, but the circumstances surrounding her disappearance aren't even interesting. She's just missing. That's it. Maybe they'll turn it into something interesting, but for now that story line just feels like it's holding the other characters back from moving on and doing interesting things.
When Shane came out of the pickup alone I had a feeling he did something like that. Then I started thinking about him trying sacrifice himself and have Otis go on alone and I had doubts. If they were smarter they could have completely avoided having to mess with the horde. On a side note, Daryl is the man.
On second view, I realized you could interpret Shane buzzing his head as a way of washing away the guilt he felt, or it could be in reference to Otis grabbing his hair and holding him down. Maybe he realized that shaving his head could be helpful if he has to pull a similar stunt in the future. Not that I think he necessarily will, but it's interesting to see that scene interpreted as polar different reactions.
there was a pretty clear shot of him realizing that Otis had torn out a chunk of his hair and then frantically looking for a set of hair clippers.
I'm not sure how much sense this is going to make and I swear I'm stone-cold sober (for the moment anyway) but here goes: Being the Mom-of-the-year that I am, I have decided to let my kids watch the first season of The Walking Dead. They are used to all sorts of zombie what-have-you so I'm not worried about it. What I want to know is, this is set in modern times and zombies have been around forever. When Morgan was explaining them to Rick during the first episode, why didn't Rick go "Holy shit!!! You mean like ZOMBIES?!" Why does that never happen? Why do filmmakers gloss over the fact that these characters should already know what a zombie is?! The only zombie movie that I can recall off the top of my head that actually refers to them as zombies is Shaun of the Dead (and Zombieland but that doesn't count). Correct me if I'm wrong (because I'm so totally sure that I am). (sorry for all the parentheses)
The universe that TWD exists in is one without Romero, any of his movies, or any modern zombie lore period. It's why they call them 'geeks' or 'walkers'. Don't know exactly why Kirkman (dude that writes the comics) chose to go this way, but its why you never hear anyone say the Z word. Someone with better googlefu or more time may be able to point you to an interview or something where Kirkman goes into more depth.
As one of the few people that didn't think Land of the Dead was a total pile of shit and thought that Diary was just the start of his dementia, I feel sorry for them. A world without Romero is no world indeed. Survival, et al was embarrassing and pitiful though.
I haven't seen a lot of the old zombie movies everyone always references, but I've always assumed that the characters don't know about zombies because the confusion and shock at seeing the undead rise up and start wrecking shit. As scary as "Holy shit!! It's ZOMBIES!" would be, "Holy shit!! Everyone's getting infected and dying. Their bodies are coming back to life, they're lurching around trying to tear apart any living thing in their way, and they can't be killed!! (til they realize to go for the brain)" is way scarier, and that's why they choose to go in that direction. As far as movies like Shaun of the Dead and (yes, even) Zombieland go, a good bit of the humor in those movies comes from the fact that the characters already knew about zombies.
In the second ep of "Talking Dead" (my google-fu sucks at work), Kirkman addressed that, and it was exactly what you said.
I don't know if I'm the only one who feels this way and never read the comics, but can the people who are putting out what may be obscene spoilers for later in the series maybe put comic spoiler in front of their shit? Otherwise, it doesn't necessarily get the point across.
I just rewatched the latest episode and noticed that Shane tells Otis to leave and go on without him. Interesting that he would be that selfless and then a moment later make the decision to sacrifice the other guy instead. (Sorry that I keep dwelling on this scene but I feel like it's the best one of this series by far.) Agreed. Please spoiler any plot points that haven't been revealed in the show yet.