The Walking Dead Season 2 Discussion *Spoilers*

Wow. I normally like my tv morally ambiguous and challenging, but this episode was so relentlessly bleak I found it hard to take. I think I'll have a hard time sympathizing with any of the surviving characters in the coming episodes.

 

Does anyone thing the the leader of the 30 man gang will turn out to Merle? Great way to bring him back and cause a moral conflict with Daryl if so. I'm going to guess that this gang is whats going to cause the group to leave the farm..just a guess not a spoiler.

 

I didn't think about the Merle angle.. That's a good one... However, I have thought Randall may have to do more with what's on tap for next season with the Governor... My thought is that he's part of the Governor's crew. Merle could fit into that scenario as well..

As for Carl, I think he's developing in line with Carl from the comics and, frankly, as almost any other child would... He's becoming hardened, either genuinely, or superficially (as evidenced by his breakdown at the end when Dale was killed)...

 

I thought the big twist at the end was gonna be Rick deciding last minute not to kill the guy (true) but then Carl coming out of no where and shooting him. What actually happened was truly shocking. Why couldn't they have told him they decided he was right in the end before offing him? Give him that last bit of vindication...

 

I seriously hate Carl the little shit, I couldn't understand what he was playing at with that zombie and am glad his actions have resulted in the death of Dale, hopefull he might grow up a bit now but doubt it.

 

Actually I can see most boys doing that very easily. Dipping little girls' pigtails in inkwells... poking sticks into anthills... taunting zombies. Carl is turning into a little bastard, but that part rang true.

 

me too. The zombie was likely to wander onto the farm eventually anyways. Dale shouldn't have been wandering around in the dark without paying attention to his surroundings.

 

One thing about the show this season that consistently bugs me is the tendency for characters to go off alone. One would think (and the recon missions into Atlanta seemed to confirm) that it would be SOP that no one goes anywhere without backup.

 

That was one of the best episodes so far, I think. I was really sorry to see Dale go as he's one of the few characters that I'm genuinely interested in but at least he got a stellar death scene. His final scene among the group in the house was excellent and I'm glad Jeffrey DeMunn got the scene before leaving the show.

 

Yeah, my line of thinking has been the same. The raping Randall described does seem in line with what I've read about the Governor's character, and I'd bet real money that Merle has joined up with the Governor's crew since he left Atlanta, and that'll be where Daryl's conflict comes from next season.

 

I didn't have so much of a problem with Dale going off alone because of his state of mind. He was depressed and giving up on life as it were. Perhaps thinking he might end it. The whole group let him down, or so he thought. People in that state of mind tend to do dangerous things. It's not so much that they desire to die but more that they don't want to live because of their despair.

Rick and Lori actually trusting that little dipshit Carl not to roam off on his own is what stretches credulity for me. Very irresponsible of both of them. They give him too much credit for having enough brains not to run off and taunt a zombie. How could that little bastard not tell anyone there was a zombie in the nearby marsh who'd managed to free one of his feet??? Seriously, Carl. If they recast him with a better child actor, the character could go to some seriously dark places.

 

Great episode!

Every single decision the group has have made about Randall has been wrong. They blew their shot at befriending him by not giving him a chance from the start. Now there is no way he won't turn on them after everything they put him through. It really would have been better if Rick has shot the kid in the head when they first found him instead of rescuing him.

I can't believe how stupid Carl was the entire episode. He went off on his own, stole a gun, played with a trapped walker, lost a gun, and didn't even tell any adults about the walker near the farm. If the group had known about the walker they could have easily killed it, and Dale wouldn't have died. I blame Carl completely for Dale's death!

I found Dale annoying at times, but him getting killed like that was shocking as hell. He was the moral compass on the show, and now that he is dead, hopefully Rick will step up.

RIP Dale.

 

It would be awesome if we got an adaptation of the Governor story arc from the comics.

 

Finaly caught up. On Demand didn't put up last week's episode until yesterday morning (Though the HD version was up all week ).

So, the two episodes (Last week and this week) kinda bleed together for me, since I watched them back to back last night.

Andrea putting her foot up Lori's behind was great, I was cheering her the whole way, and then of course, she went and interfered with Maggie's sister's head. True, it turned out for the best, and Andrea did have a point that in that environment, you can't just watch them 24/7, but, it was incredibly wrong for her to take things into her own hands.

Shane and Rick throw down was really good, and I got a kick out of Shane thinking Rick was abandoning him on the bus.

Randall, yea, they've blown that whole thing 7 ways to Sunday, should've killed him right away or tried to accept him into their group and watched him carefully. Having made neither of those choices, he should been killed during the outing or released. Having made neither of those decisions, and then having him on the Executioner's gallows, and not doing the killing because of Karl, Randall has got to be seriously torqued and vengeful now.

Karl is definitely turning into a right punk now, hurting Carol so bad, when she was reaching out to him, playing with the Zombie like that, and losing a gun, and not telling anyone, interupting Randall's execution (I, like many, was believing Karl was going to execute him, either when he snuck into the barn, before Shane ran him off, or after Rick backed down. I gotta say, though, it all played pretty realistically, that a kid who's been through what he has, would act jsut the way he is, as stupid as it was for him to play with the ZOmbie and not tell anyone what happened, it didn't seem unlikely to me.

Dale is like the Uber-liberal Democrat in a Government filled with Conservative War Hawks. I don't like Nancy Pelosi turned loose in Government with the power to do whatever she wants, but, I also, don't want to lose the voice she represents, especially in such a Warmonger Conservative environment. So, it was shame to see Dale be lost, to no longer have that voice for "Holding onto our Humanity" (Yes, he did get carried away and at times became annoying, but, keeping voice speaking was important to the group dynamic, IMHO, and if no one else takes up that mantle, it could be even worse for the group and Humanity as a whole). I too agree, it's shame he wasn't told Randall was being allowed to live for now, even if it was a "deathbed" gift they him to tell him.

 

that reminds me, Andrea being banned from the house didn't last long did it

 

Agreed. Did you catch where he looks at the walker, realizes it was the same one he was taunting, and then runs to his mother's lap for comfort? I'd imagine there is some guilt going on here related to Dale's death and rightly so.

It will be interesting to see if the truth comes out. Like Shane, Carl as a dirty secret related to someone's death.

As aside, did you or anyone else see the Talking Dead episode where they interview the actor who plays Randall? Either he was shy, nervous, drunk or high but he gave a terrible interview on the follow-up talk show to the series and could offer nothing subsantial to the conversation about his character.

 

I saw it and he looked really nervous. Probably his first experience at that sort of thing.

 

He probably wasn't allowed to say much, or else he'd give away whether Randall lived or died.

 

If you have a chance to watch the talk show about the series do so, it was last week's and it's On Demand on Comcast if you have access to that.

It's more than that. It's as if he cannot talk about the dynamic of his character, the other characters nor some of the details of the show.

I got the feeling that he was either high, drunk, disinterested, or just plain shy.

It could be also I suppose that he looks at the show as just an acting gig and like with Trek actors who really didn't get into the series or shows and couldn't add much when interviewed about their characters or the series it annoys fans. Could be that too.

 

I saw part of it when it was broadcast and I got the impression he was trying not to give anything away. After all, if you start talking about the character's backstory or motivation, that tells the audience the character may be around for a while.

But I didn't analyze it that closely while I was watching, so you may be right.