The Walking Dead Season 2 Discussion *Spoilers*

[Temis the Vorta]

I sympathized with Shane when Dale lit into him. How the fuck is he supposed to know the old goat has the hots for Andrea? Shane probably thinks someone's Dale's age wouldn't be interested in sex unless he's been sending Glenn to town for Viagra.

As for Lori, her angst is understandable. She personifies the predicament that everyone is in: are their lives even worth living now? Everyone else is pushing it aside by denial (we can cure the zombies) or just focusing on what's right in front of them (find Sophia, learn to shoot, have post-zombie-fight sex in the front seat of a Honda Civic...) But being pregnant means Lori has to confront what everyone else is strenuously trying to avoid.

I have a feeling Carol is going to be zombie-chow before they ever find Sophia. That will lead to some of the gang arguing that they should abandon the search since Sophia's mom is dead - a horrible attitude to take, but of course Shane will be in everyone's face about it. Shane and Daryl will fight about it, since Daryl more than everyone else will want to keep looking.

After they've actually given up, they will stumble across Sophia by accident and will have to pretend that they were still looking for her all along. This provides a new source of secret guilt, and finger-pointing blame based on how strongly or weakly each wanted to keep searching - and raises the issue of who will raise Sophia?

Carl will want to adopt her as a sister, but since it's a foregone conclusion that Lori will have pregnancy complications (maybe she didn't throw up all the pills?), she won't be able to be a good surrogate mother.

So that leaves Andrea, who will come to see Sophia as a surrogate Amy. If Andrea and Shane become a couple, that makes Shane - the guy who wanted to leave Sophia for dead - as daddy. That will infuriate Daryl, who of course can't tell Sophia the truth since it would traumatize her.

 

[sojourner]

^Thank god your going to be wrong on most of that.

I thought it would have been awesome for Sophia to walk up on the car while Shane and Andrea were "getting busy" inside.

 

[the G-man]

For what it's worth being this is from AICN and comes from a poster who claims to be a fired FX employee:

Spoiler: the next episode (and it is a detailed one, so be warned)

SPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERS

"Pretty Much Dead Already"

Episode opens with Glenn revealing the presence of the walkers to the rest of the group, who promptly proceed to freak out. Maggie becomes angry with Glenn for not keeping the secret and ruins his hat in retribution. Dale gives Glenn his trademark bucket hat as a replacement. Maggie later makes a plea to Hershel for the group to stay. She and Glenn also have an argument about the walkers, after which they eventually admit their feelings, kiss and make up.

Rick and Hershel argue, with Hershel demanding the group leave within a week. Rick uses the my-wife-is-pregnant card, but Hershel's not persuaded. Shane also wants the group to get the hell out of there because of the walkers in the barn, but Rick uses the same excuse to cool him down. However, Shane then becomes convinced that Lori's baby is his.

Dale takes off with Shane's guns to hide them in the swamp. Shane tracks him down and demands he give the guns back. Dale points his rifle at him and threatens to shoot. However, he backs down at the last moment, since he has no wish to become like Shane: he reveals that he knows Shane shot Otis and lied about what really happened. Shane heads back to the farm with the guns.

Hershel has Rick help him and Jimmy try to fish some walkers out of a nearby pit of quicksand and lead them into the barn with snare poles. He says the group can stay on the farm if they agree not to kill the walkers. They arrive at the farm about the same time Shane emerges from the swamp and hands out guns to other members of the group..

Shane sees the snared walkers and goes berserk. He yells at Rick and Hershel as they guide the walkers towards the barn, with the rest of the group and people in the farm looking on. He pulls his sidearm and unloads it in the chest of one of the walkers, demanding to know "Could someone who's alive just take that? Why is it still coming?" Hershel has no answer.

He finishes off the walker with a headshot, grabs a nearby pickaxe and breaks open the barn door. Walkers pour out, T-Dog, Daryl, Shane, Glenn, and Andrea form a line and open fire. Once the dust clears, one more walker emerges. Sophia. Rick finally steps up next to the others, pulls his six-shooter and kills Sophia with a shot to the head.

End episode.

 

[issreliant]

My guess....Sophia is in the barn.

 

[the G-man]

Again, I'm not vouching for AICN TB'ers but the same poster also claims:

Spoiler: possible character death in the season (not winter break) finale

"I worked for FX, we get given the episodes in advance so I watched them. I got laid off, so I thought I'd leak this. Part of the production team, well I was anyway. I had a hand in with making the trailers, marketing and boring shit like that. I was able to read potential and finished scripts and the episodes so that I could pre-decide what to include in the trailer etc....

the finale there will be some unexpected events, and a main character will be killed off... And that will be shocking by who it is and how they were killed."

"I loved it, but the producers and management were just dicks to us.

Oh, and don't get too connected with Daryl. Just sayin'."

 

[Ruaidhri]

I loved the fact that this episode was filled with honesty and characters being forthright. Which is so NOT how most shows have things. TV show characters usually have the worst communication skills. Glenn can't handle the secrets and spills it. Dale gets two pieces of information and immediately confronts Lori and Herschel, neither of whom deny a thing, and in fact, they are open to discussing the issues! Lori apologizes to Glenn. Rick confronts Lori upon finding the pills, gets the truth from her, and then spills it about Shane.

I love it!

 

[CorporalCaptain]

My guess....Sophia is in the barn.

I'm starting to suspect this too.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Sophia in the barn is too damn obvious. I hope they can come up with something a lot better than that!

 

[the G-man]

If the spoiler is correct, it's not just a question of what is or isn't in the barn but how the situation is (allegedly) dealt with that would seem to have serious repercussions for our survivors.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I'm staying resolutely spoiler-free but now I'm starting to worry that the notion of curing the zombies really is on the menu after all?

Edit: something just occurred to me...there has been a lot of speculation that Jenner whispered to Rick that Lori was pregnant. Yet, when Lori spilled the beans, there was no confirmation from Rick that he already knew. So are we to assume that Jenner whispered something else? I would expect that whenever what he whispered is revealed, we get some immediate confirmation of the connection to Jenner, since that's the usual setup/resolution style of TV writing.

Edit part 2: did some digging and found this spoilery interview (spoilery because it confirms what Jenner didn't say).

Spoiler: what Jenner didn't say

THR: Rick also learns of Lori's pregnancy and seems surprised by the news. Is it safe to say that Lori's pregnancy isn't what Jenner whispered to Rick before the CDC exploded?

Kirkman: If it was, I would imagine that Rick would have brought that up and wouldn't have seemed surprised. I can say it's pretty safe to say that that's not what he said. I guess we're ruling that possibility out as much as I hate to. That is pretty much not what Jenner whispered.

So I'm sticking with my original theory: Jenner told Rick he's infected with the zombie virus. Rick has discounted that statement as insanity since it is clearly impossible that he could go so long without showing symptoms. But Jenner will turn out to be correct, just as Shane will turn out to be correct that he didn't hear Rick's hearbeat...

I'll have to bow out now and just leave it there since I won't be able to follow any spoiler discussion that might go beyond what was broached in this interview. We shall see what we shall see...

 

[the G-man]

I pretty much figure Jenner whispered to Rick that

Spoiler: what he may have whispered

everyone on earth is infected and anyone who dies who isn't shot in the head becomes a zombie whether bitten or not

.

 

[Cutter John]

Well heres hoping we'll get a break from some of the drama now that so many secrets are out, because even I'm starting to get a bit restless. Found myself FF'ing through several of the chatty scenes.

Dale - He came off as the real hero in this episode. Its really nice for once to see a tv character who's able to put two and two together.

Shane - I wonder how long until he either leaves, or is eaten. Because he's really about to make the jump into villainhood.

Andrea - Considerign how well shes taken to guns, I how much longer before she finds an automatic rifle, shaves her hair and goes all Ripley on us?

Sophia - There'd better be a HUGE payoff to this storyline after all this buildup.

I forget her name, but miss 'farmers daughter' thats been hanging out with Glenn is seriously getting on my damn nerves.

 

[FreezeC77]

The pacing this season has been pretty horrible. I realize last season was only 6 episodes so a lot was condensed, but the problem is it gave your a false sense of expectation on what to look forward to for S2... Where as when S2 got here everything is all stretched out so that not even half as much has happened in the 7 episodes of S2 that have aired then what happened in all of S1.

 

[Dream]

Great episode this week.

Not much happened with the search for the girl, but we got some good character drama.

I liked that so many things happened and people finally started finding out what was going on around them. I was surprised to see Carl up so quickly, but glad he wanted to be useful and learned how to use a gun. Even the kids need to know something like that.

I hate how hot and cold Maggie is, Glenn deserves someone way better. I'm glad Dale got more to do and confronted Hershel, Lori and Shane. But confronting Shane like that at the end was a dumb move.

Glad Andrea has finally learned how to shoot. Hopefully this mean she will be more useful and stop whining all the time. Shane got lucky, and I was grossed out. I'm glad Lori and Rick decided not abort the baby. The Zombie Apocalypse might be going on, but they'll need to repopulated the world again someday.

I'm expecting a huge fall finale next week. Hopefully the walkers in the barn bust out and kill the useless people. The writers NEED to answer where the hell Sophia has been after all this time. That has become a joke now. I think everyone that has been watching has been fed up with that storyline. Time to move on.

 

[sojourner]

I think I just figured it out! Sophie is the dead girl on The Killing. That's why they can't find her, she got transported to another show!

 

[RJDiogenes]

AICN is often wrong. I hope that's the case with both of those Spoilers.

I loved the fact that this episode was filled with honesty and characters being forthright. Which is so NOT how most shows have things. TV show characters usually have the worst communication skills. Glenn can't handle the secrets and spills it. Dale gets two pieces of information and immediately confronts Lori and Herschel, neither of whom deny a thing, and in fact, they are open to discussing the issues! Lori apologizes to Glenn. Rick confronts Lori upon finding the pills, gets the truth from her, and then spills it about Shane.

I love it!

Same here. This is what makes the show great.

 

[Jax]

The pacing this season has been pretty horrible. I realize last season was only 6 episodes so a lot was condensed, but the problem is it gave your a false sense of expectation on what to look forward to for S2... Where as when S2 got here everything is all stretched out so that not even half as much has happened in the 7 episodes of S2 that have aired then what happened in all of S1.

Well with the 6 final episodes in Feb, its a good guess the show will move on to a new location eventually setting up the 3rd season. However in season 3 I agree there needs to be better pacing overall and more zombies

 

[Borgminister]

The show puts Dexter's current season to shame, while not quite approaching Breaking Bad quality, although it is close. One of the best written shows (of the shows I watch) on television...

 

[DarthTom]

Same here. This is what makes the show great.

Agreed. That's how real people handle secrets. Most people I know cannot hold water let alone secrets these people have under the circumstances fictionalized.

And not only is the writing real the actors who deliver the lines do it well.

 

[Cutter John]

Is anyone else at all concerned that the groups 'shooting lessons' must be burning through an awful lot of scarce ammo? I confess my memory is hazy about last season, but wasn't their last resupply that big duffle full of guns that Rick found early on?