The Walking Dead Season 3

Something to do with the reason british rock singers lose their accents when singing?

 

Really enjoyed this episode. I thought they did a pretty good job with the reactions to Lori's death, and we got some good stuff at Woodbury. I like how they are making you think maybe the Governor isn't really that bad after all, but then throwing something at you to remind you that yes, he really is that bad.
I just read through the Wikipeida description of what all happens during the prison/Woodbury story and at this point things are so different I don't see it being much of a clue to the show's future.

Spoiler: This might be a little more spoilery

Hmm, looking around at the character bios I see that Lennie James character from the pilot eventually comes back in the comics. I wonder if he'll pop back up in the show too?

Does anyone know if Rise of The Governor and The Road To Woodbury would work as a prequels to the TV show? Or do they only work for the comics?

 

Here's what Kirkman told the press the day after last week's episode: " I think we’ve seen enough that we know Carl would not miss from that range....that poor child did shoot his mother and, yeah, we’re going to be dealing with that."

So either Kirkman lied through his teeth or Lori is dead, really dead, from a Carl inflicted head shot.

 

Lauren Cohan (Maggie) though American born was raised in the U.K as well, & has a natural British accent. Then of course there's London born Lennie James who played Morgan Jones in the pilot (Who I really hope returns). The show is positively littered with Brits doing American accents, & good ones

 

Hmmm... That can be taken more ways than you think. They are dealing with it, and that poor child did shoot his mother... but it might still have been a graze. Enough blood spatter and Carl wouldn't know the difference. (Heck, they've pulled that one on us before!) I seriously doubt he hung around long enough to take her pulse afterward.

Heck, Carl may have shut his eyes, squeezed the trigger and run away without looking at the results. I can totally see that.

Kirkman doesn't have to be lying. He only has to be a bit ambiguous.

 

Except for the fact that Kirkman made it a point to note how well established it is that Carl is a very good shot and would not miss at that close of a range.

Furthermore, given that a knife or a shovel to the head have been shown to cause enough damage to kill a walker, even a graze at that close a range would put one down.

No, given what we've seen in the show, and given what Kirkman said, there is no ambiguity. Any that he's now created would be, as noted before, basically lying.

Lori is still in the credits because she's either in flashback or, like Merle last season, in a dream or hallucination.

They are going to be "dealing with" the concept of a post apocalyptic teenager who's killed at least two parental figures in his life (Lori and Shane), seemed to be considering killing a third (Rick) and what its like to raise that kind of kid in that kind of world. That was already hinted at, both last season and this season when Carl was eagerly about to chow down on a can of dog food. The kid's in real danger of becoming a psycho or feral or both.

 

Actually there are a few good reasons for this...

1) Most of the Brits in American entertainment are actually good actors that can effectively do an American accent. Having lived in the UK and seen plenty of British TV, I can assure you that there is no shortage of dodgy British actors that do questionable American accents. Actually, anyone that has ever watched Spooks/MI5 has probably seen a few of them.

2) Most British actors, indeed Brits in general are regularly exposed to American accents in the media.They watch our shows, listen to our music and Americans are regularly in their news. Thus they have a somewhat better sense of how we sound.
Americans have comparatively much less exposure to the range of British accents. Unless one is a regular consumer of British entertainment (like watching BBC America or seeking out British shows/news) you probably never hear a British accent. This is also why Australians can be just as good at the accent.

 

This comment on CNN is in error. Kirkman has already said that they had a joint going away party.

Lori is dead.

 

^This was always the explanation I assumed. Exposure is key in mimicry. Try to find a U.K. actor who can believably mimic one of the several American southern accents & now you've got someone with serious talent. Whereas mediocre Californian actors like Sam Elliot have made careers speaking with them. Even some of the best Brit actors, known for their voice work, like Oldman & Day-Lewis don't do them perfectly

The most natural sounding U.K actor mimicking the American South, that I've ever heard was Kelly MacDonald in No Country For Old Men. At the time I had no clue who she was, & never doubted for a second that she was Texan. I was stunned to find out she was Scottish. She held her own alongside a cast full of native Texans like Tommy Lee Jones, Woody Harrelson, & Barry Corbin

and of course Josh Brolin, who's also another Californian. But an ordinary American accent? It's the most commonly heard speaking voice on the planet, because of how vast our media exposure is

 

Most likely you're right, but I'm allowing for the possibility of surprises. Besides, they kept up the ambiguity when Lori's body wasn't where we last saw it. For whatever reason.

It's not unrealistic to imagine Carl closing his eyes, squeezing the trigger, and walking away without looking, is it?

 

That's a good explanation. I just assumed that there was something within American speech that made it easier to mimic, like fewer colloquialisms and whatnot. I hadn't thought of what you outlined above.

Ciarán Hinds is Irish, but I thought he was pretty good as a southern politician on Political Animals.

 

It's not bad, but it doesn't sell 100% either. It sounded a lot like how Albert Finney does it. They never quite capture the essence of the drawl. There's a slackness to the mouth that is incredibly tough to get just right, unless you hear it all the time

 

Yeah, I was a bit surprised when I heard Lauren speak in her normal voice. I was starting to wonder if all of the actors were from elsewhere.

 

The irony is that Norman Reedus' most notable role prior to being on The Walking Dead was playing an Irishman in The Boondock Saints

 

You also need to remember that you can usually get away with a more muddled American accent a lot easier than you can a muddled British accent because American accents are generally a lot more blurry. If someone sounds Liverpudlian and keeps sliding into a Mancunian accent it is going to be a lot more distracting to a Brit than a Midwestern accent that slides into a Texan accent or a Californian accent would be to an American.

 

The only time differing american accents get on my nerves are when they are far against type. Say, a texan character with a Boston accent or a New York italian character with a california surfer accent. But either of those characters with a "generic american" accent would be just fine.

 

Slight digression but that always bugs me about 9/10ths of the David E. Kelley shows. So many of them are set in Boston but none of the main characters (with the exception of first season Bobby on "the Practice") ever has a New England accent, let a Boston one.

 

I'll always think of him as Scud from Blade II.

 

So was creepy science dude wearing sleaves of duct tape while they were hunting walkers? seems like such a simple precaution

 

Makes me want to see a spin-off of TWD with MacGyver and how he's coping in this zombie apocalypse.