The Walking Dead Season 4

[Agent Richard07]

The bit with Rick, Carl and Michionne in this episode felt shoehorned into the episode because we hadn't seen them for a while.

This is the episode where everything is starting to come together and we're seeing more than one group, so getting a bit with Rick makes sense. Plus, it was a good way to establish where the candy wrapper came from and that the sons of anarchy are close.

"it's classified", as I mentioned earlier, is a bullshit answer though. Classified from who exactly? The Russians? The Chinese? What good does it do to keep the cure a secret?

Another plot contrivance so that the audience doesn't get too much info too quickly. Stuff like this doesn't ring true. Lost did this a lot and so has this show right from the beginning.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It's probably classified because he's responsible somehow.

Wouldn't it be amazingly odd if America was he only country that fell?

The rest of the world is fine, learning how to exist without America?

 

[PKerr]

Joe, the leader, conveniently forgot to mention that some of the guys were probably raping a girl while they were at the house.

On Eugene. Sure it'd be annoying and pointless to continue to ask him to spill what he knows given he's committed to the "It's classified" thing but it's odd so many are just taking him at his word.

Abraham enough so that he's willing to risk his life, and others, to get Eugene to Washington. Glenn seemed to mostly just accepted that he knows, Sasha, Maggie and others. They just say, "Oh, okay! Cool! The world is saved!"

Hell, Glenn should be more suspect since he was there at the CDC when Jenner pretty much said world health organizations were struggling to figure out what was going on.

Seems like given the state the world is in you would just accept someone's word that they know what's going on and can stop it given the global impact the problem has caused and that even if there is a "cure" it's hardly going to kill all of the walkers at once and instantly bring the world back to normal.

Now, maybe Eugene was able to fast-talk Abraham into believing him somehow but everyone else so far seems to have pretty easily taken Eugene/Abraham at their word.

I guess since there is apparently a still-functioning government in DC

They've been away from TV, sci-fi books and TrekBBS for a long time, so they may not be so up on science.

He could've given them technobabble, and in his annoying voice, they said "OK, whatever".

While the CDC didn't have a cure, it was just a few weeks into the crisis, and by the time they reached Jenner, he was all alone. His wife had recently died, and most of the other people at the CDC either died or abandoned their post. So there might not have been as much research done as there could have been. And being almost 2 years out, plenty of time for observation & experimentation.

Assuming that Eugene isn't just a Trekkie spouting enough technobabble to sound plausible.

No sir, Jenner says " It's day 194 since wildfire was declared and 63 days since the disease abruptly went global."

When Eugene says it's classified I would expect Glenn to say "Bro, I've been to the CDC and got the whole low down, wanna share notes?"

 

[DarthTom]

It's probably classified because he's responsible somehow.

Wouldn't it be amazingly odd if America was he only country that fell?

The rest of the world is fine, learning how to exist without America?

We know for a fact that the infection also affected the French from Dr. Jenner.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Smaller countries, less industrialized countries might find it easier to create a survivable equilibrium?

Cities fall quickly, and rural farmland, not so much.

 

[Mojochi]

Suffice to say that any place during a ZA where you can walk up to the front door, walk in and no one is seemingly guarding the entrance there is a problem some where afoot.

What was that line Merle said to Glenn way back in season 3? "I'd just about crap myself if I came across someone with their hands in their pockets" or something like that. Yeah... Somebody who ain't got their guard up is somebody you need to be guarded with. Fact.

The same goes for Eugene. Taking people at face value is a bit tougher when they are pompous & spouting mild crazy. Although, I don't recall anyone saying he knew something about a cure, just that he knew how it all began & had managed some satellite contact with brainiacs in D.C.

That could be BS, or true, but if it is true, then he was likely there & involved somehow, in which case, he's still questionable. However, I warmed up to him ever so slightly this week when he turned around to retrieve Glenn & Tara on moral grounds. That said a lot about his character

Joe's an interesting nut to crack. There's a lot to be said for someone who can keep order amongst mercenaries, & that outdoor cat line revealed some powerful insight he has into people. I'm not saying he's a good person, but I'd trust him more than I'd ever trust the Governor.

He's like the other side of the bad guy coin, values honesty, a code of conduct. Don't get me wrong though. They're still a bunch of marauders. He's just savvy enough to be able to corral them. Heaven help the woman that comes across those guys

Rick was right to be concerned. He was hurt. Daryl was not. Daryl managed a standoff. Woe is be the dumbass who shows weakness around these pirates

 

[Velocity]

The thing that makes me doubt Eugene the most is that he seems to be in no hurry to get to DC. He goes off on any tangent that is offered, instead. He makes excuses, but I wonder if he has nothing to offer if they DO make it to DC.

 

[shivkala]

I think Glenn didn't seem to trust Eugene, he's just going along with it. I think at this point, they've all been in such hopeless situations that they really want to grab hold of anything that seems positive, even if it's not entirely credible. And those that don't believe will go along with it because they've got nothing better to do but survive.

Especially after the fall of the prison, they need something to keep them going. For some, Terminus might be it (unless everyone is right and it's tied to the cannibal plot line from the comic). For others, the hope Eugene represents might be it.

 

[Mister Fandango]

So the question is, do these guys have a legitimate gripe against Rick when it comes down to it?

Yes, he killed one of their own. That doesn't make them good people.

It's a tribal thing. That's what life is like in the world now.

 

[bbjeg]

Smaller countries, less industrialized countries might find it easier to create a survivable equilibrium?

Cities fall quickly, and rural farmland, not so much.

It's airborne. The virus will get everywhere eventually.

... The same goes for Eugene. Taking people at face value is a bit tougher when they are pompous & spouting mild crazy. Although, I don't recall anyone saying he knew something about a cure, just that he knew how it all began & had managed some satellite contact with brainiacs in D.C.

That could be BS, or true, but if it is true, then he was likely there & involved somehow, in which case, he's still questionable...

I think Tara should call him out on it after following the Governor so gung-ho.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Everyone is a carrier now, but no one is symptomatic until they are bitten or scratched, and early on the dead from all other means stayed dead.

Besides, do we know that it's in the air and not the water table?

 

[bbjeg]

I thought Rick said the CDC guy said it was in the air.

 

[Trekker4747]

I thought Rick said the CDC guy said it was in the air.

I don't think it was every strictly said what the delivery method for it is. Just that everyone has it. But it's not clear when and how everyone got it. For example in the beginning of Season 2 the gang encounters an abandoned car pile-up on the highway inside of which there are dead bodies that have not reanimated. Suggesting they died before whatever the sickness is went global and infected "everyone."

 

[kitik]

Joe's an interesting nut to crack. There's a lot to be said for someone who can keep order amongst mercenaries, & that outdoor cat line revealed some powerful insight he has into people. I'm not saying he's a good person, but I'd trust him more than I'd ever trust the Governor.

He's like the other side of the bad guy coin, values honesty, a code of conduct. Don't get me wrong though. They're still a bunch of marauders. He's just savvy enough to be able to corral them. Heaven help the woman that comes across those guys

Rick was right to be concerned. He was hurt. Daryl was not. Daryl managed a standoff. Woe is be the dumbass who shows weakness around these pirates

One thing to keep in mind is that these weren't just normal guys who chose a darker path to survive the ZA, they were already bad people. Len or Joe had some line this episode along the lines of "nasty pig cops planting evidence" or something like that, implying that they were bad guys long before the ZA came along. (Of course, so was Daryl apparently.)


As for Eugene, yeah, the notion that he knows how to fix everything is farfetched, but there's definitely something to be said for hanging on to a glimmer of hope. Though yes, I did find it somewhat glaring that Glenn didn't say "I spent a day at the CDC".

That said, Glenn has shown very little interest in Abraham and Eugene. He's been very single-minded on finding Maggie. I can actually picture him saying virtually nothing to the others on the journey back to Maggie. After all, conversations with them would just be an opportunity for them to try to talk him out of his wild Maggie chase.

And as for Maggie, she sure seems to care a lot more about Glenn than for Beth. Or is it a case of preparing for the worst with her sister, and Maggie just assuming that of the two, Glenn is stronger and more likely to survive, so she's placing her hope in Glenn instead of Beth? (Though with Glenn being sick with the prison flu, I'm not sure that would actually have been the proper assumption.)

From a writing/storytelling standpoint, if they intend to kill Beth off in the season finale (I have no clue, just a guess since she was kidnapped and it all seemed so nefarious and we're obviously supposed to be worried about her), you would think that they would want to maximize the emotional impact by having Maggie searching for Beth too in the final half of the season, not just Glenn.

And maybe it would have been nice if Sasha would have left a bloody note for Tyrese too. Though of course it makes 100% sense that anybody from the prison would have recognized the names of Glenn and Maggie, and followed the same path for other survivors.

 

[Noname Given]

It's probably classified because he's responsible somehow.

Wouldn't it be amazingly odd if America was he only country that fell?

The rest of the world is fine, learning how to exist without America?

Except in the first season episode when they're at the CDC in Atlanta, we find out it IS worldwide; and the French were the closest to finding a cure before commu9nication was lost.

 

[Silvercrest]

Assuming that Eugene isn't just a Trekkie spouting enough technobabble to sound plausible.

I think that's exactly what he is. Or more accurately, a gamer. When he spouted gamer lingo, the intent could be for us to think "Scientist geek = lots of gaming in his spare time", when in reality it's the opposite: "Expert gamer = lots of spare time to read up on science-y stuff".

Before the ZA he probably mastered some minor online game that happened to be about Romero-style zombies. That sort of fiction may not exist in the TWD universe like it does here, but that's not to say it doesn't exist at all. This would be something so obscure that maybe one person out of 50,000 would know about it. (If we assume the non-zombified world population is down to, say, five million people, that means only a hundred people worldwide would still remember it.)

So Eugene was one of those few. Maybe he and some of his gamer friends in D.C. are tech-savvy enough to manage a satellite phone connection, and maybe D.C. is the only place he knows he can get a copy of the game. In that game is some combination of household substances that is a surefire zombie exterminator. Eugene knows that if he can run a copy of the game, get a list of materials, and collect them, he'd have a way to save the world.

Basically Eugene's logic is, "Of course it will work. I mean, why wouldn't it?"

Remember, the guys in The Return of the Living Dead treated the "stab in the head/destroy the brain" method as canon simply because it worked in Night of the Living Dead. Right up until it didn't actually work.

I'm just throwing stuff out here, but this would seem to cover all the facts so far. His gaming references, his lack of competence in real life... also his self-importance and apparent sense of entitlement. He acts as though he really has something.

It's possible he really is a scientist who has access to a real cure, but given the tone of the show this seems unlikely.

It's also possible he's a bull artist who has nothing at all and who's scamming a free ride — but that also seems less likely. He doesn't have the necessary personal charm or social graces. And a stone-cold scammer who's willing to let people die for him doesn't seem like the type to go back for Glenn & co.

So, his arrogance is for a reason. He really thinks he's got something and can save the world. Of course it's "classified"; it bolsters his ego if he knows something that other people don't.

Poor guy.

 

[kitik]

It's airborne. The virus will get everywhere eventually.

I think its safe to assume that the whole planet is boned, not just the US. We know for a fact that Europe fell, and one would assume that if there were still any fully functioning countries/armies/governments out there, we would have seen a sign from them at some point over the past 2 years. Instead it's just the opposite, where we're seeing the small pockets of functioning authority remaining slowly succumb over time (namely the military folks that the governor ambushed/killed, and the people Eugene supposedly lost contact with).

Regarding the global scale of the thing, one thing you do have to wonder is how smaller populations on isolated islands fared. For example, people on places like Falkland Islands or Tristan da Cunha, where it's possible that they heard some information on the ZA and were able to isolate a large portion of survivors while they were still safe. Surely some islands fared better than others.

Imagine what it's like on Christmas Island or one of the Marshall Islands: "Diary, Day 700. Still no contact from the outside world. Fortunately no one has turned in the past 5 months, and while we all generally assume the worst has happened everywhere else, our hope lives on. We continue stocking up on fish and vegetables before the coming winter."

 

[Guy Gardener]

Is this set in an alternate universe with no zombie movies?

Have they used the word zombie ever?

 

[Trekker4747]

Is this set in an alternate universe with no zombie movies?

Have they used the word zombie ever?

It's pretty much on record by the creators of the show that the word "zombie" will never be used in the show (along with us ever being told how society fell) and that zombie movies never existed in TWD universe. Which makes sense when you think about it. If zombie movies existed in the TWD universe then people would immediately know how to deal with them rather than having to learn it.

 

[Mojochi]

I've never heard any usage of the word zombie. So, I have presumed all along, much like most zombie fiction, that there has never been a consideration, fictional or otherwise, of the possibility of reanimated dead until this situation

So the question is, do these guys have a legitimate gripe against Rick when it comes down to it?

Yes, he killed one of their own. That doesn't make them good people.

It's a tribal thing. That's what life is like in the world now.

Yes, it is a legitimate grievance, despite their troublesome nature. Imagine the flip side. If our main cast, when 1st arriving at the prison had thought it uninhabited, & the inmates were away, all but one, & that one inmate hid until he stumbled across Glenn & then killed him & ran off, don't you think Daryl & Rick et al. would've gone out looking for him? Even if only to rid themselves of a potential future menace