AMC's The Walking Dead Season 1 Discussion & Spoilers

[Obiwanshinobi]

I loved this season. One of my new favorite shows and will definitely stay tuned next season, but my one complaint with the finale was that it felt a bit abrupt. They get to the CDC, use up all the hot water when told not to, shit goes down and then they all have to leave again.

 

[Zombie]

I wonder if the real CDC is rigged to explode in a BIG ASS fireball?

I bet a bunch of people are asking them right now. Heck I bet some of the employees who've seen the show are asking the question.

 

[Zombie]

One more thing I'm puzzled by. Shane pretty much watched govt troops hunting down and shooting innocent people like dogs in the opening scene. Yet he's all gung ho for the group to going rushing straight towards the nearest military base. The hell?

That's a good point.

I chalk it up to the craziness going on at the time. When they first showed the troops you could hear them say, "check them" before shooting. I'm thinking since they were right next to that door the troops panicked and thought they were going to be future Zombies and shot them. Notice after they shot them the real Zombies opened the door and said, "SURPRISE!" and ate the troops. Well they said it as well as a Zombie could which is more like "grrrrrrrrrr"

During the hospital scene you could see nurses and people moving with the military. They weren't all being lined up and shot. The hospital probably got attacked, the troops panicked, and then people just started shooting.

You could also hear them say, "fall back" over the radio. I think they were getting overwhelmed.

What's interesting is where are all the bodies when Rick woke up? Should have been a lot more in those hallways.

See how I rationalized it? Shane probably did the same thing.

 

[Snaploud]

I wonder if the real CDC is rigged to explode in a BIG ASS fireball?

I bet a bunch of people are asking them right now. Heck I bet some of the employees who've seen the show are asking the question.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

I imagine management saying something like this, though:

"Yeah, that would be nice...truth is...I break this vial...planet Earth is fucked..."

 

[Canadave]

Just saw the last episode and loved it. I don't know why I kept hearing murmurs of discontent about it.

Also, I can't believe I didn't realize last week that the guy playing Jenner also played Truman's best friend in The Truman Show. That was a little distracting.

Finally, anyone else catch the Dr. Strangelove nod in the set design of the CDC?

 

[the_wildcard]

I just saw the finale myself. My only complaint was the season was a bit too short. I really hope next season we find out a little bit more about how the rest of the world is doing....

 

[Snaploud]

Also, I can't believe I didn't realize last week that the guy playing Jenner also played Truman's best friend in The Truman Show. That was a little distracting.

"The last thing I would ever do is lie to you, Truman."

"My name's Rick."

"Whatever. I'm only here for one episode."

 

[Temis the Vorta]

And I'm really happy the old guy survived. The actors on this show range from good to really good, but he is without a doubt the best.

Of course he survived. He's in the opening credits. And so is the blonde.

Ahhh, but it was the season finale. Next season could have a new cast. Still I'd be surprised if either of those die anytime soon, and ditto for Rick, Lori, Shane, Rick & Lori's son, and Glenn. Those seem like the core team.

And my quatloos say, Jim will be back, and not as a zombie.

I wonder if the real CDC is rigged to explode in a BIG ASS fireball?

I bet a bunch of people are asking them right now. Heck I bet some of the employees who've seen the show are asking the question.

Finally, anyone else catch the Dr. Strangelove nod in the set design of the CDC?

Yepper, the big circular light thing in the main room was cribbed from the War Room in Dr. Strangelove, which famously doesn't exist under the White House. A deliberate wink to nonsenscial Hollywood depictions of real places, complete with BIG ASS fireballs!

 

[SG-17]

Gentlemen! You can't shoot in here, this is the big room!

 

[Caliburn24]

I just finished watching the last episode, and very much enjoyed the series as a whole.

But I am more and more having a problem with one of the core ideas of the premise. Namely that the group of functioning retards that are our heroes could survive as long as they while any governmental forces or other organized forces(so far as we know) have been wiped out.

Due to the families in the show being largely intact, it seems a reasonable assumption to assume that whatever causes "zombie-ism" is not air-born. You get scratched or bit by a walker and you turn into one, simple enough.

So how the heck did the world fall apart from that?

I served in the United States Army in Iraq, I had bad guys shoot at me, try to blow me up and mortar me all day long. There is no way a bunch of brainless shambling walkers are going to destroy any country with a modern military. It just ain't gonna happen.

Let's just use Atlanta as an example. Everyone in it is infected. Several million walkers. Our engineers could throw a ring of hesco barriers around the city in a day or two, topped with concertina wire with a scoped rifleman posted every quarter mile or so. Every few miles we set up a kill zone. One Bradley fighting vehicle equipped with speakers playing music to suck in the walkers. Our standard loadout in a Bradley(in the Armored Cav anyways) was 1500 rounds for the 25mm, and 2200 7.62mm for the co-ax. With the optics on the Brad every shot can be a dead on kill shot. And we can sit in place for three days or so running on just our internal fuel.

My scout platoon of six Brads and thirty soldiers could thus kill 22,200 walkers using just our vehicle combat loads. Plus another 6,300 from our personal rifle loads. All done while totally impervious to attack.

Maybe Hollywood just doesn't understand what sort of firepower the military has at their disposal, but it is plot holes like that, that make watching the show more and more annoying to me.

 

[SPOCKED]

My scout platoon of six Brads and thirty soldiers could thus kill 22,200 walkers using just our vehicle combat loads. Plus another 6,300 from our personal rifle loads. All done while totally impervious to attack.

Maybe Hollywood just doesn't understand what sort of firepower the military has at their disposal, but it is plot holes like that, that make watching the show more and more annoying to me.

It is politically incorrect to obliterate more than 50 undead at one time - even in a post apocalyptic landscape

Great finale! I really liked the CDC guy's wife's brain scan scene. Wow... creepy.

 

[Corran Horn]

I just finished watching the last episode, and very much enjoyed the series as a whole.

But I am more and more having a problem with one of the core ideas of the premise. Namely that the group of functioning retards that are our heroes could survive as long as they while any governmental forces or other organized forces(so far as we know) have been wiped out.

Due to the families in the show being largely intact, it seems a reasonable assumption to assume that whatever causes "zombie-ism" is not air-born. You get scratched or bit by a walker and you turn into one, simple enough.

So how the heck did the world fall apart from that?

I served in the United States Army in Iraq, I had bad guys shoot at me, try to blow me up and mortar me all day long. There is no way a bunch of brainless shambling walkers are going to destroy any country with a modern military. It just ain't gonna happen.

Let's just use Atlanta as an example. Everyone in it is infected. Several million walkers. Our engineers could throw a ring of hesco barriers around the city in a day or two, topped with concertina wire with a scoped rifleman posted every quarter mile or so. Every few miles we set up a kill zone. One Bradley fighting vehicle equipped with speakers playing music to suck in the walkers. Our standard loadout in a Bradley(in the Armored Cav anyways) was 1500 rounds for the 25mm, and 2200 7.62mm for the co-ax. With the optics on the Brad every shot can be a dead on kill shot. And we can sit in place for three days or so running on just our internal fuel.

My scout platoon of six Brads and thirty soldiers could thus kill 22,200 walkers using just our vehicle combat loads. Plus another 6,300 from our personal rifle loads. All done while totally impervious to attack.

Maybe Hollywood just doesn't understand what sort of firepower the military has at their disposal, but it is plot holes like that, that make watching the show more and more annoying to me.

I never served as you did (and thank you for your service), but I've had similar thoughts to your statements here.

I think World War Z plays up the scenario that the US lacked the political will to do anything in terms of a measured, reasoned military response because they were in full-on 'deny' mode well into the zombie crisis.

But for what you said though...how, besides simply running out of ammo, could the military be overrun? Do zombies have any other tactics besides 'keep coming'? I imagine once they gathered in a group and came down the streets (attracted by the noise) they could simply be bombed. How the hell could a helicopter be brought down?

 

[Shurik]

I think World War Z plays up the scenario that the US lacked the political will to do anything in terms of a measured, reasoned military response because they were in full-on 'deny' mode well into the zombie crisis.

In that chapter US military invited the press and wanted to do a lot of flashy, noisy but completely ineffective stuff, like trying to kill the zombies with machine guns, bomb them and such. The problem was that in order to kill the zombie, you have to destroy its brain, so all the military effort was ineffective. In the end the military was simply overwhelmed by several million zombies that came from New York. In one of the later chapters US military developed a much more efficient tactic, similar to what Caliburn24described, and it helped.

 

[PsychoPere]

I really hope next season we find out a little bit more about how the rest of the world is doing....

You might want to stifle that hope a bit, so you don't end up disappointed. I suppose the show could take a detour that would give some answers as to the status of the world, but the comics have never been concerned with such a question, so I wouldn't necessarily expect one. Jenner's remark in his log about how long it had been since the epidemic went global is probably the only indication of larger world issues we'll receive for some time.

 

[Landed]

Let's just use Atlanta as an example. Everyone in it is infected. Several million walkers. Our engineers could throw a ring of hesco barriers around the city in a day or two,

That's the problem. They didn't HAVE a day or two.

 

[Meredith]

Anyone here watching the walking dead (on AMC) and the High School of the Dead (anime network)?

I have been watching High School of the dead and it plays out a LOT like the Walking Dead, I tend to call it "The Walking Dead, Anime Edition".

 

[Chaos Descending]

Due to the families in the show being largely intact, it seems a reasonable assumption to assume that whatever causes "zombie-ism" is not air-born. You get scratched or bit by a walker and you turn into one, simple enough.

Zombies don't turn you into zombies, dying does. Zombies simply make you sick and die. Everyone who dies from any reason at all will becomes a zombie.

Imagine when this "outbreak" started and everyone in every morgue, every fresh grave, all at once rose from the dead and started biting people before people could figure out that what was going on.

 

[Canadave]

I think World War Z plays up the scenario that the US lacked the political will to do anything in terms of a measured, reasoned military response because they were in full-on 'deny' mode well into the zombie crisis.

In that chapter US military invited the press and wanted to do a lot of flashy, noisy but completely ineffective stuff, like trying to kill the zombies with machine guns, bomb them and such. The problem was that in order to kill the zombie, you have to destroy its brain, so all the military effort was ineffective. In the end the military was simply overwhelmed by several million zombies that came from New York. In one of the later chapters US military developed a much more efficient tactic, similar to what Caliburn24described, and it helped.

That, and the book implies that the US military was extremely effective, at first. At Yonkers, they did kill off a significant number of zombies, but the sheer number of them pushing out of NYC proved to be insurmountable, especially when combined with issue like military tech often being designed to wound, not kill, and infantrymen being trained to go for ineffective torso-shots, not headshots.

Yeah, it does require some suspension of disbelief that the entire military got overrun, but there are plausible ways it could happen. There's also the possibility that the military beat a strategic retreat, a la The Redeker Plan.

Also, I apologize for constantly referencing World War Z, but it's such a similar-sounding scenario that it's hard not to, sometimes.

 

[SG-17]

Due to the families in the show being largely intact, it seems a reasonable assumption to assume that whatever causes "zombie-ism" is not air-born. You get scratched or bit by a walker and you turn into one, simple enough.

Zombies don't turn you into zombies, dying does. Zombies simply make you sick and die. Everyone who dies from any reason at all will becomes a zombie.

Imagine when this "outbreak" started and everyone in every morgue, every fresh grave, all at once rose from the dead and started biting people before people could figure out that what was going on.

I don't think that you would be able to rise after being embalmed. As well the zombies aren't stronger than a normal person and a single one wouldn't be able to break out of a metal coffin and get though six feet of Earth.

 

[The Fatman]

I always found the idea of the zombie plague spreading too fast for a reasoned military response to be plausible. I think it's reasonable to assume that you would have at least 48 hours of confusion wherein a large portion of your population is taken down/infected.

Now, I don't know about the rest of the world, but in the US, I can see several days of debate and arguing about what to do, with a lot of people arguing for following of CDC quarantine policies and for the search for a cure first before authorizing military action against sick american citizens. I am sure there would be borders and checkpoints set up, with soldiers being authorized to engage if engaged first, but no offensive actions ordered....then it's too late.