Is it conjecture on your part that Shane was turning in advance of death or did I miss something in the dialogue?
If people turn in advance of death why hasn't anyone else in the group started to do so also?
The Walking Dead Season 2 Discussion *Spoilers*
- Thread starter PsychoPere
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Is it conjecture on your part that Shane was turning in advance of death or did I miss something in the dialogue?
If people turn in advance of death why hasn't anyone else in the group started to do so also?
Purely speculation, I don't read spoilers or the comic or read/watch any interviews, so it's coming solely from what I see in the show. It wasn't anything in the dialogue, it was more the way Bernthal played the role (more mouth breathing and shuffling/hunching than usual) and especially the way his scenes were shot, such as Shane looking sinisterly from the woods, framed by trees, the way a zombie would be depicted.
I got the distinct impression that the director was giving us very subtle clues...and they shouldn't be more than subtle because it's way too early for that shoe to drop. Yet. I'd say S4 at the earliest, but I'll sure be watching like a hawk for more clues. For instance, the sheriff deputies who had no visible signs of death of any kind, yet had become zombies - that could have been suicide by poison, but armed deputies would be far more likely to choose to eat a bullet as their favored means of suicide.
And I just thought of a way we'll be able to tell early next season. If I were one of the survivors, my first thought upon learning I was infected would be, "does that mean I can become a zombie at any time? And all the rest of you, too?" My mind would instantly snap right to the worst-case scenario and I don't think I'm an unusually negative person in this regards.
If none of the characters voice this fear early next season, like in the first episode, that is a big fat clue that the writers don't want us to be thinking about that. Yet.
EDIT: holy SHIT! TWD's season finale got 9 million viewers! NBC should be so lucky to get numbers like that!
Irrational fits of jealous rage? IMO Lori's little "I'm sorry speech," through Shane around the proverbial bend.
It's interesting to note that for comparison purposes TWD is beating most of the broadcast network shows.
Variety
Shane was already irrational, so having it all just be jealousy doesn't add anything or more importantly, do anything for the plot going forward.
I'm already thinking ahead to what they're going to do after S3, and we've done the prison thing, and having these characters fight each other and try to survive and not turn into monsters starts to get a little dull. Which it will after another 16 episodes of the same. It's fun now, but it can't last.
They need to keep ratcheting up the threat to hold our interest year after year. We've already seen how antsy people get when the narrative slows down like it did in the first half of this season. The ratings started to sag around that time, and then picked up as the action picked up, which is a big warning sign to the writers that they cannot let up the tension.
Yet they can't have a show that is only zombie-fighting and people fighting among each other. There's got to be some larger mystery that gets doled out judiciously, to keep the audience engaged.
They've got two ways to do this: the helicopter mystery (is there some form of civilized government still?) and curing the virus (there's gotta be some cure, or they're all doomed and then how does the show end?) Even if the cure fails, there's gotta be a plotline about it, so that we can have more episodes and keep the audience engaged for another year or two. AMC has got a golden goose and the show needs to use every trick in its bag to keep going and keep the story fresh.
I'm already thinking ahead to what they're going to do after S3, and we've done the prison thing, and having these characters fight each other and try to survive and not turn into monsters starts to get a little dull. Which it will after another 16 episodes of the same. It's fun now, but it can't last.
They need to keep ratcheting up the threat to hold our interest year after year. We've already seen how antsy people get when the narrative slows down like it did in the first half of this season. The ratings started to sag around that time, and then picked up as the action picked up, which is a big warning sign to the writers that they cannot let up the tension.
Yet they can't have a show that is only zombie-fighting and people fighting among each other. There's got to be some larger mystery that gets doled out judiciously, to keep the audience engaged.
They've got two ways to do this: the helicopter mystery (is there some form of civilized government still?) and curing the virus (there's gotta be some cure, or they're all doomed and then how does the show end?) Even if the cure fails, there's gotta be a plotline about it, so that we can have more episodes and keep the audience engaged for another year or two. AMC has got a golden goose and the show needs to use every trick in its bag to keep going and keep the story fresh.
The writers admitted on last night's Talking Dead episode that they don't even know necessarily how the season might progress.
In fact they cited an interesting example. The original plan was to kill off Herschel but they changed their minds at the last moment
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.
Or put a bullet in his head. He's a liability, eliminate him lest ye get eliminated first due to his lapses (see Dale).
-Jamman
Shane wasn't turning into a zombie he had just totally lost the plot. In every zombie film I have seen everyone is already infected and rise again with the onset of death, this is nothing new.
Giving me bad vibes of BSG (oftentimes I wondered if they were winging it...).
-Jamman
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.
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.
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.
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?
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).
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?
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.
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.
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.
