I'm not a mental health expert, but I'd think in "our" world, it would have taken years of psychiatric help (including talking to a psychiatrist and a regiment of medicine) to help Lizzie. No matter how stocked Terminus is, I doubt they'd have those resources. Let's say, for argument's sake, they did have a psychiatrist. Would s/he have brought psychiatric medicine along? And in a quantity enough to see someone go for the full range of the treatment? And would it still be good for years or would it be past its expiration date. And what do you do with a Lizzie? My guess, in "our" world, especially after she killed, would be to isolate her. Where do you do that (assuming Terminus is a town like Woodbury, would they have a psychiatric hospital within its limits?)? And do you really want to isolate someone in a world where, at any moment, a herd of walkers could descend, causing you to flee in a hurry? That's assuming you tell them in Terminus about Lizzie. It doesn't seem good practice to me to go to a sanctuary, one of the few you're aware of, and say, "Hey, while we have two able bodied adults willing to help out, we also have an infant and a troubled child who has killed before and will most likely kill again." If I were in charge of Terminus, I might let the baby in, for survival of the species, but I wouldn't risk Lizzie. So, they don't tell them about Lizzie. In my opinion, that would make them accomplishes when she kills again. Or lures walkers to their gates/doors/whatever they have to barricade themselves from the walkers. And, then, when they meet the others from the prison who will ask about Mika (unless, they are so jaded, they just accept that her absence means she died and don't even bother asking about how she died), how will they answer? In "our" world, I don't think killing a child is justified, ever. In the world of The Walking Dead, well, "Needs must..." That does make sense. It's her way of coping with the world she's now in. In "our" world, she might have reacted by trying, unsuccessfully to kill herself. One of the (sadly) many people who use a suicide attempt as a cry for help. I have a feeling that if she really wanted the walker to bite her, she would have let it. I just mean I think there's story potential there, that won't be addressed on the show. Was Mika unaffected by these things or did she use innocence as her coping mechanism? My own personal "head canon" is that Lizzie saw her mother turn and wanted to understand it/believe that she wasn't gone, just temporarily transformed, with the hope that, eventually she'll come back. As things went on, Lizzie decided that the only way to be with her mother again was to be turned into a walker, but every time she came close, her doubt/sanity prevented her. But, her curiosity won out, and she decided she wanted to see what would happen to her sister, as a proxy for the (presumably, long gone) mother. Perhaps, seeing it happen to Mika would have given her the courage she felt she needed to allow herself to be turned. Or maybe she was hoping Mika turning wouldn't give her the choice to pull away anymore. To me, the true mark of a good story (book, show, movie, etc.) is that it allows me to think about it and create my own explanations for things. So, I am curious about these things, as it allows me to understand the show on my own terms.
Good points. Yes, like season two's Randall, a threat is a threat (though Shane killed him for selfish reasons). In Lizzie's case, she was like the Governor: adopting an utterly warped view of reality, and no amount of reasoning, pleading or force would change them. At best, Lizzie--even before the unforgivable act of murdering Mika--would be isolated with no means to kill (or defend / suicide, etc.) at a new camp, with limited social contact to see if she can be counselled back into common sense. Carol may feel she's "responsible" for Lizzie, but the debut episode of season 4 illustrated that something was wrong with her for a very long time (at least in the off-screen time between s3 & 4). I do not know if I would take Carol's action. Risky as it could be, I think I would have tried one last attempt...pre-Mika's death. After that, I do not know.
There really wasn't any way to change her outlook. The part that made it next to impossible was the fact that she thought they just wanted to make people "like them." So even if she saw them murder someone and move on, which I'm sure she has many times, she'd have no reason to change her mind on the topic. Her only hope would be to be locked up in an asylum and drugged out of her gourd. And, honestly, that's a worse fate than being shot in the head to me.
Didn't Lizzie at some point mention about hearing their voices? Is it possible she was a schizophrenic?
Quite right. Lizzie did have a similarly warped view of reality to that of the Governor. "Good a reason as any" to terminate her now rather than let her grow into an even more dangerous adult. Not quite the strangling in the crib method, but close. In most situations, the execution of Lizzie would be seen as a significantly horrible thing; it still is... but in a universe like the one presented in "The Walking Dead," for the good of what remains of mankind, people like Lizzie need to be put down. That's pretty strong stuff, but damned if it doesn't make for fine TV drama.
Tyreese and Carol also left that guy that bitten by the train tracks (who first told them about Terminus) alive even though he was going to turn. That guy was the walker that almost got Beth in the woods. They should have put that guy out of his misery.
Yeah, Shane had kind-of fallen off the boat after he killed Otis. (Which even then I'd argue he made a tough choice in a tough situation. Not really the "right" choice but hard to say the "wrong choice" either. Sort of a Kobayashi Maru type deal. Yeah, but, again, maybe not practical in a place or time of limited resources and space. That's kind of what's great about this episode. It's very much a "I don't know" thing as it was a very, very difficult situation that, really, has no good, clear, right answer.
yeah, whenever I saw one and was able I'd kronk them on the head - you never know when you might see them again.
Yeah, I thought that was the whole lesson with Dale's killer and Carl not taking care of it. As is, Carol and Tyreese are being pretty selective about who they prevent from becoming a zombie. They should have killed that guy by the train tracks if their logic is that they don't want to leave zombies as a threat. They're not entirely consistent there. As an aside, that walker attacked Daryl and Beth because Carol and Tyreese didn't kill them. And Daryl and Beth got their revenge by sending them some burnt ones.
The Old Yeller comment was made, and pretty much fits what they had to do: -Can't keep her around like nothing is changed, you'll be killed by her sooner or later -Not safe to keep her locked up, it'll turn bad eventually and she'll escape or injure you, or have to flee and can't get her in time, etc. -Not safe to take her with you, have to guard at all times. -letting her loose is cruel to her, and risky to anyone else that comes across her. Either dies by zombie, or elements/starvation/injury, or unsuspecting group takes her in and she does this shit again. Gotta put her down. In this world, not safe to keep her around, and no time/resources/safety to deal with her mental situation to 'cure' her.
Do you think Tyrese eventually came to that more logical conclusion at the end when Carol admitted to killing Karen in light of the fact he also witnessed her killing the girl? On this episode - this was IMO that best acted and best story arc in the whole series. Hats off to both Chad Coleman who plays Tyrese and Melissa McBride who plays Carol. They are as good if not better than Andy Lincoln in some respects. One of the amazing things I think this episode covers - very well in fact - is not many TV shows will touch mental illness and especially with children. In fact the only other time I can think of when they've touched mental illness in children on TV is a Law and Order episode where a young girl was trying to revive a boy she had killed with a battery. Obviously Lizzy had some sort if dissociative disorder - one in which on her plane of existence the walkers are more, "real," than humans.
I think what some people are missing here is that one of the core themes of this episode is the idea that what is "right" and what is "necessary" aren't always the same thing. To my mind, that realisation is the reason why Tyreese forgave Carol. He recognised that what she did was necessary and they live in a world where doing what is "right" is a luxury they can't always afford. It's a fine line to walk of course, since doing what is right can easily be forgotten about altogether. At which point we cease being human and go back to being animals who act purely on survival instincts. On the other hand doing what is right at the expense of necessities is a negative survival trait and an easy shortcut to extinction.
The longer the show goes on the more it bothers me that they aren't all just slaying every walker they can. That they don't have a policy of complete genocide. Or "walkercide". They will never get anywhere till the population of walkers starts declining.
The very first walkers should have rotted to the point that they can't walk by now. And the difference between the very first walkers and 80 percent of America is probably a month.
Again, it's probably emotionally taxing to kill walkers all of the time. It's one thing if they're an active threat it's another to go out of your way to do it. Also using ranged weapons to do this means depleting your supply of ammunition and in the case of guns the noise can attract more walkers which could lead to bigger problems. Using close-ranged combat and melee weapons brings with it the risk that your tactics might fail you and you get bitten by the walker or otherwise injured by it to the point of you being infected with the active strain of the walker disease. I see it as being best to not kill unless you absolutely have to. Even a few weeks ago Daryl was opposed to killing a walker outside the moonshine shack as it didn't pose any threat to them actively or, at the time, calling the attention of other nearby walkers. We've even seen him indifferent towards killing walkers that have been restrained in a manner to not making them a threat to anyone. Why kill unless you really have to?
Wouldn't the most humane thing to do be to wait till she falls asleep and shoot her in the heart/head?
The theme of this season is hopelessness. Total elimination is impossible without a rebuilt society of some kind, which currently no one has. I'm feeling like everyone who leaves a walker alive does so for an internal reason, fear, weakness, weariness, hopelessness, etc... It's reasonable to see it. They're people, not an army I see Tyrese as being fully complicit & committed to that choice. He knew exactly what Carol meant at that dinner table. So, in a way he had no place to judge Carol for what she'd done to Karen. He's been in those shoes now, even if he didn't pull the trigger on Lizzie imself. Likewise, Carol had some humbling in her acts. I feel like she offered that gun to Tyrese as a way of saying "Maybe I deserve the same fate as Lizzie for what I've done" I've been saying for quite some time that Melissa McBride is maybe the best actress they've had on the show all along. We are finally getting to really see it, & the 2 of them together were stellar this week
except that you aren't actually killing anything; they are already dead. You are killing the carrier of a pathogen. They could set traps and then kill them with sticks. Lots of them are being killed without guns now anyway.