The Walking Dead Season 2 Discussion *Spoilers*

[pork3]

DarthTom wrote:

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In short, I think you may be giving them way too much credit for foreshadowing what may come when they don't even know themselves.

Giving me bad vibes of BSG (oftentimes I wondered if they were winging it...).

-Jamman

[Xerxus]

At least the Walking Dead doesn't start with "and they have a plan."

One thing that bothered me this episode (and in a lot of zombie fiction) is that the characters don't just drive over the herd with their cars/trucks. Even if it doesn't brain the zombies, it should at least break some limbs.

[Silent_Bob]

sojourner wrote:

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I know the prison storyline in the comics is great, but is anyone worried about a general backlash against it in regards to the show? I can see a lot of reviews to the effects of "great, they finally get off the farm and now they're going to sit in a prison all season".

I can only speak for myself, but my problem with Season 2 wasnt that they were in one location, but that they told the same story repeatedly for several episodes. There are only so many variations of "where's Sophia? Let's look" and "Get off my farm! No ok you can stay. No, get off my farm!" before it gets stale.

Hopefully they'll do a better job in the third season, and not use a static location as an excuse for keeping the plot static until the last few episodes.

[sojourner]

God I'm getting tired of the "they can turn any moment even if they're still alive" and the "Rick is special/immune" crap.

[davejames]

Silent_Bob wrote:

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I can only speak for myself, but my problem with Season 2 wasnt that they were in one location, but that they told the same story repeatedly for several episodes. There are only so many variations of "where's Sophia? Let's look" and "Get off my farm! No ok you can stay. No, get off my farm!" before it gets stale.

Hopefully they'll do a better job in the third season, and not use a static location as an excuse for keeping the plot static until the last few episodes.

Yeah while I really liked all the main story beats they hit on the farm, it did get awfully repetitive and drawn out at times.

It didn't help that things seemed a little TOO calm and serene there. The longer and longer they stayed, the more it strained credibility that they weren't discovered by a zombie hoard.

[wissaboo]

davejames wrote:

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Yeah while I really liked all the main story beats they hit on the farm, it did get awfully repetitive and drawn out at times.

It didn't help that things seemed a little TOO calm and serene there. The longer and longer they stayed, the more it strained credibility that they weren't discovered by a zombie hoard.

what I didn't like about the farm is the show was totally lacking any insight into what is going on in the rest of the world. Now that the season is over though I like the juxtiposition of the serenity of the farm and complete vulnerability they are facing now. They have no supplies at all.

btw, why aren't they finding cb radios and trying to contact other survivors that way now?

[Ruaidhri]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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Or, people don't die from zombie bites. They die like Amy did - from massive blood loss, and then they turn.

Don't forget about the guy in season 1 who they left tied to the tree, who had been bitten, and slowly got feverish until he died. Can't remember, did they leave that guy a gun so he could off himself before he turned?

But anyway, the bite was clearly the reason his condition worsened to the point of death (and imminent zombification).

[Ryan]

Silent_Bob wrote:

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He's not declared himself a despot, he's declared himself a tyrant in the truest, original sense of the word. Which is exactly what they need to survive.

In the comics Rick makes one retarded decision after another that get tons of people killed and it looks like the show has adopted that take.

Just look at the horrible way the whole Randall thing was handled. They wasted gas, ammo, medical supplies, and created a big internal division in the group for what? So Rick could decided to kill Randall after saving him then back off and go with the original catch-and-release scheme a second time?

And do we even need to talk about all the time they wasted doing absolutely nothing on the farm? Why did they wait for Dale to die before they started trying to pro-actively protect themselves?

[FreezeC77]

9 million for the finale and the season average was around 7mil viewers per episode.

So basically if you took Breaking Bad and Mad Men and added them together their total viewership would still be on average close to 2.5m/3m viewers less per episode than Walking Dead averages... yet somehow the budget gets cut before the season starts.

It's like if Alabama cuts the budget on its football team(which brings in all the money) in order to give more money to the women's lacrosse team.

[SonOfMogh]

sojourner wrote:

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God I'm getting tired of the "they can turn any moment even if they're still alive" and the "Rick is special/immune" crap.

Jesus Christ this.

TWD is based on the traditional zombie lore inspired by the George Romero movies. In which anyone who dies for any reason reanimates as a zombie. Being bitten causes death... presumably due to the amount of bacteria etc... This death leads to reanimation as a zombie.

Other than that simple insignificant background rule this is a character based drama. Special immunity, or zombies turning into Lickers or Rick turning into a Nemesis complete with mini gun arms will not benefit the story in any way.

The show could be set in any post apocalyptic world and wouldn't be hugely different week to week, pretty easy to replace the zombies with raiders etc and your story doesn't massively change. They've decided to do this story in the Romero zombie universe, they've even gone to the extent of ensuring that no zombie moves faster than the fastest zombie in NotLD, as they love and respect this fictional universe- there is literally no incentive to start changing it.

[the G-man]

SonOfMogh wrote:

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Jesus Christ this...

I'm the G-man and I approve this message

[davejames]

wissaboo wrote:

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what I didn't like about the farm is the show was totally lacking any insight into what is going on in the rest of the world. Now that the season is over though I like the juxtiposition of the serenity of the farm and complete vulnerability they are facing now. They have no supplies at all.

I'm perfectly fine with not learning more about the outside world, and seeing everything only from the perspective of this one group. The creators have said from the beginning that this is more a show about how our characters DEAL with the zombie threat than a show about the threat itself. And I think that's totally the right approach.

Although apparently from the lastest interview in EW, the show's worldview is going to be expanded quite a bit in the third season...

[SonOfMogh]

They'll probably just hear more anecdotes from other survivors or possibly hear about how other nearby outposts have fared. With no communication technology working and limited fuel it would be hard to do much more.

[propita]

Spoiler on Michonne in the new Playboy. It explains who the two zombies are and why they're on chains.

If the zombie herd was heading out of the city, why wouldn't our group want to be BEHIND them? Staying in front of them means the herd is always chasing them; being behind the herd should give some rest.

And shouldn't the herd be decomposing more and more? I can understand that there could be new zombies as people die, or evidently, the zombie-flu takes them over (a la Shane).

[FreezeC77]

SonOfMogh wrote:

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They'll probably just hear more anecdotes from other survivors or possibly hear about how other nearby outposts have fared. With no communication technology working and limited fuel it would be hard to do much more.

Plus there's no way to verify then authenticity. I'd be worried about someone setting up an ambush. Obviously Herschel didn't want to add people to his farm and did so reluctantly after a child was shot, but still didn't seem to want to let them be there. He wasn't trying to make contact with the outside world.