Walking Dead II

[Sandra Craft]

Almost caught up, just finished season 4 which I liked better than 3 despite the (thank goodness) brief return of the Governor.  And he's now definitely dead, so I'm happy.  Monomaniacs are boring. 

Altho the separate wandering around stories did tend to drag a bit, I liked getting all the background info on the various characters, and Daryl and Carol's reunion was well worth seeing.  I'd love to have someone say hello to me like that.

Also well worth seeing, despite my usually gore-adverse nature, was the big fight with the Claimers.  Lesson: never ask Rick, "what are you going to do?", unless you're really ready to find out.  Rick's jugular, toothy man scene now joins Glenn's chair fighting scene as one of my big favorites.

Question, because I think any fan of this show has probably thought about it: in a zombie apocalypse, what would you choose as a good hunker down spot?  I was thinking police stations, military bases and fire houses would be good choices with the fire house being the best bet.  All of them are, for obvious reasons, well fortified and hard to break into, have emergency generators, weapons, first aid and medicine, food, water and cots always on hand.  Also, tho this is depressing, the original occupants are all first responders and would therefore be among the earliest victims so you wouldn't have to deal with their prior claim to the place.  Fire houses are at the top of my list because they're relatively small and it would be easier to clear out any zombie infestation, plus they have real beds, full kitchens and pantries stocked with real as well as vending machine food.

[Pasta Chick]

Assuming the rules of the TWD universe apply, I'd head north, staying a couple hundred miles off the coast to avoid the more highly populated areas. All the walkers will freeze over the winter and we can get around easily on the absolute fuckton of snowmobiles that are lying around. Since Daryl has never been outside of Georgia, I'll have to teach him how to keep warm.

[Firebird]

BCE has the right idea.  Failing that,  would have gone to this repurposed armory first:



It was down the street from our old place. Probably no weapons, but it would have at least allowed us to catch our breath.

After that, hard to say. There's lots of uninhabited island off the Massachusetts coast, so maybe get to one of them and learn how to fish

[Pasta Chick]

Having been to Nantucket, the Vineyard and Block Island... I fear there isn't enough food or fresh water on MA islands. You could theoretically raise livestock, but you'd have to get it out to the island.

[Pasta Chick]

BF just predicted that tonight on TWD Jesus dies and the group encounters him as a walker 3 days later.

[Ecurb Noselrub]

The core moral question of the show is whether or not Rick is veering into evil or protecting goodness. Carol , Morgan , Marshone  , Deanna ,Herschel ,or Darrell are just embodiments of the alternative moral realities available for Rick to choose from or build upon.

I think this is true.  Rick is the focus of the show.  The nature and character of his person, and therefore his leadership, is the foundation of the series.  He's the only indispensable.

[Ecurb Noselrub]

I'm disappointed in Daryl because he lets people sneak up on him too much.  Now it looks like he's been shot.  Carol, on the other hand, never disappoints.

[Sandra Craft]

Assuming the rules of the TWD universe apply, I'd head north, staying a couple hundred miles off the coast to avoid the more highly populated areas. All the walkers will freeze over the winter and we can get around easily on the absolute fuckton of snowmobiles that are lying around.

I remember the question of whether cold affects zombies coming up in the show, but I don't remember if it was ever answered.  I was disappointed, in the scene with Herschel in the bar, that no one asked that survivor from Philadelphia about it.  He'd likely have seen if zombies can get too cold to move.

Also, what's the story with zombies and water?  In TWD it looks like they can't even handle crossing a fairly shallow stream, but I've seen commercials for Fear of the Walking Dead where it looks like they're moving around in the ocean without a care in the world.

Since Daryl has never been outside of Georgia, I'll have to teach him how to keep warm.

I'm getting dizzy imagining your competition for that.   

[Sandra Craft]

BF just predicted that tonight on TWD Jesus dies and the group encounters him as a walker 3 days later.

I'm disappointed in Daryl because he lets people sneak up on him too much.  Now it looks like he's been shot.  Carol, on the other hand, never disappoints.

I think PC mentioned Daryl's been losing his touch lately.  Maybe Reedus has been getting movie offers so they're working up to an "out" for him?

[Pasta Chick]

I was really looking forward to this episode as the previews looked like Carol left, Daryl went after her, and a bunch of shit happened with the Saviors leading up to a showdown next episode. So the whole episode felt random and disconnected to me. Daryl trying to take out an entire fucking group of well armed people who have captured him twice already, on his own is just dumb. I always took him as somewhat smart, not just dumb muscle.

As far as walkers and water - I think the issue in this show is more that they get stuck easily, and rivers are full of mud and clay. The ocean should knock them around but it'd make sense if it didn't fully stop them.

[Davin]

Oh, I see, so you're saying she was alive when she went into the barn and then just fell off the ledge into the zombie pit?  Still finding that a bit of a stretch since the house was right there, but OK.  I was assuming she'd been zombified in the forest and then collected when she got stuck in the mud like all the others.

As a lone kid, she might have been afraid of going up to an occupied home filled with strangers. Meanwhile, a perfectly good looking shelter was away from strangers (but filled with zombies). That doesn't seem like a stretch to me. She could have died in a lot of ways, maybe she dehydrated in there while hiding from the Hershels, maybe she got bit and hid in there before dying, maybe she did fall into the zombies, maybe the zombies were quiet when she got in and she went down exploring and got attacked... there are a lot of different ways it could have gone down.

What strains my belief and enjoyment now, is the run on gag of the Saviors always sneaking up on the crew. It's happened so many times and from angles and places that a normal person would be able to see. Twice just in this last episode, once in the one before, to Daryl once before that... it's gotten very silly. I actually laughed when Glenn and Michonne got captured. Instead of feeling like, "oh no," I felt more like, "those rascally Saviors!"

[Sandra Craft]

Finally finished season 5, so I just have to find a way to catch up with the first half of season 6 since Netflix doesn't have those.  And I was reminded of how I formed the impression of Carol as a "bad granny".  While flipping channels one night before I became a fan, I just happened to catch that bit with her threatening the Sam kid with death by zombie.  That was all I saw of it but it was not a good first impression.

[Sandra Craft]

Heads up to anyone who doesn't know -- AMC is running a season 6 marathon on Saturday, starting at 8 p.m.  Yes, I double checked that it was PM and not AM, which would have made more sense.  Lucky for me, since the only other way I could find to see the season 6 episodes I missed was to buy them on Amazon, which I am reluctant to do.

Random thoughts:

Most people bitch about Morgan, but Father Gabriel is the one I have problems with.  I know he's supposed to be all better now, but he still strikes me as way too emotionally unstable -- he took far too long to kill that savior, for my taste.  I know Rick's been emotionally unstable too, but at least his behavior when he's close to the edge tends to protecting others while Gabriel's tends to endangering others.  I can't see leaving him in charge of a goldfish, much less an entire town.

Of all the characters and groups that have come and gone over the past 6 seasons, I find myself wondering most often about the street gang from "Vatos" in season 1.  You'll remember that was the group that had grown up around a nurse and janitor who'd stayed behind when Atlanta was evacuated in order to care for the abandoned residents of a nursing home -- people who couldn't even walk, much less run from zombies. 

I can't help wonder what might have happened to them -- are they still there, sheltering in place as the military calls it?  were they over-run by zombies and killed?  did they find a way of transporting their remaining charges to a less infested location?  did they manage to get out when their last charge died naturally (with limited medication, that wouldn't have taken long)?  I would really like to know.

I also wonder how much of the story was based on this: If we left, they wouldn't have nobody.  There are too many similarities for co-incidence, but I wonder if the writer deliberately based "Vatos" on this real life story, or if it was just something he vaguely remembered hearing about that sounded compelling?

[Pasta Chick]

I've thought of that group from season 1 too. Them, and the family Daryl saved on the bridge in season 3, when he and Merle were off in the woods alone. I guess they had to go on their way because Merle was being a douche, but that group fit every fucking criteria to have joined them, except they didn't speak English.

Father Gabrial is erratic but I find him interesting. I think Morgan comes off as preachy and people dislike the non-violence aspect in a show like this. I don't dislike him, in fact I think his current character is very in line with who he's always been.

[Crow]