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Well, for the USA at least, the new season begins tonight. To get you in the mood, here are the 4 webisodes that were released earlier this month.

Hope they do the time jump properly, like they get in the prison then they say "few months later" or something, not that they have been roaming for months. Even then hope they pull it off, still have the whole season for the pregnancy angle.

Meest wrote:Hope they do the time jump properly, like they get in the prison then they say "few months later" or something, not that they have been roaming for months. Even then hope they pull it off, still have the whole season for the pregnancy angle.

Sounds like that is what happens, that winter has passed, according to this preview.

Saw it, liked all the parts without Michonne in them, still hate Michonne.

Was great. Michonne was great, and the scene with Hershel was awesome.

Trial by fire. They made a lot of bad decisions in the first two seasons. But they managed to survive for a year.

Had the producers been realistic they should have done away with some of the cast and brought new ones in. But for the TV series, this works.

The group has spent a sufficient length of time dealing with Zombies that they learned good tactics. They clearly found new supplies to keep them going. Securing the prison is fundamentally a good idea. The problem is they lack the numbers to do it safely. Safest thing they could do is take a slow and steady approach. Instead they rushed, and it cost them Hershel's leg if not his life.

But, very well done. Good use of zombies. Throw some new situations. Riot gear protected zombies. Very hard to kill with melee. And the twist they did with Hershel was well done. Rick made a decision on the spot to try and save Hershels life. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Ya, it kinda bugged me how they did not kill as many through the fence as they could before moving onto the second stage.

What I don't get is why they didn't just open the cell block and make a racket like they did in the comic.

I was mostly enjoying the competence of the group, that is up until they brought Hershel along to clear out the prison. Considering he has the most medical expertise which they need for Laurie and the baby, and he's around 70 years old and not the most physically capable, I would have suggested he stay behind. But that's hardly the dumbest thing the writer's have come up with, and I otherwise really enjoyed the episode.

The issue of a stillborn walker baby actually occurred to me in the recap of the previous season where back-to-back Lori mentions her pregnancy and Rick tells the group that they're all infected. I doubt that's how things will turn out, but if by some chance they do, that is going to be one revolting scene.

On that note they really ratcheted up the gore and overall budget. The flesh ripping off the riot zombie's skull is the grossest thing I can recall from the series. I think it's pretty much a given that there's not much danger of getting infected from splattered walker guts since several characters got splashed pretty good. If I were Maggie I wouldn't want to be slicing into walkers with that much skin exposed. And if I were Glenn I would at least try to wipe my girl down with a pillowcase or something before planting kisses on her shoulders.

Anyway, they started the series off with a pretty good bang and I see tons of potential for this season being the show's strongest. Hopefully they manage to keep the tension up.

Dread Not wrote:I think it's pretty much a given that there's not much danger of getting infected from splattered walker guts since several characters got splashed pretty good.

Yeah they pretty much stopped caring about that in the first season, after we saw Rick use a face shield in the pilot and then the gloves and lab coats or whatever they were when the small group was trapped in the department store prior to Rick and Glenn smearing themselves with guts o' walker.

Incidentally, this new episode is called "Seed."

Some dumb things about this episode but that is pretty much inherent in the zombie genre.

Why did they have to run into the court yard immediately? Why couldn't they just stay outside the fence, continue making lots of noise and just killed as many zombies as they could from the safety of the fence?

Zombies play possum now? With the fact that they ve already seen that zombies just lay their looking dead you would think that they would be more careful with seemingly dead zombies.

Bringing hershel in for hand to hand combat seemed like a bad idea to me too.

My thoughts in no particular order:

- That jail interior set has seen quite a bit of use in all manner of movies and shows.
- I agree with spaceviking and alyeska: they were really stupid whenever they entered a (new area of a) building this episode. Rushing in as if they were a SWAT team, when there really was no need to be that reckless. And I fail to see how "let's have one of us run in to potentially be trapped in a guard tower out of our reach or even just be bitten on the way there" achieves anything that "let's just continue stabing the Zeds through this nice chainlink fence that they can neither get through or around" wouldn't have. But it gave Rick a chance to be the awesome hero/leader guy, I guess. The writers even let him push a Zed back with a flying kick that totally wouldn't have ended with Rick lying on the ground in easy reach of any undead hands or mouths. Who needs to use a riot shield? Not Awesome McAwesome.
- They don't care about splatter because they are all infected already. Doesn't make any sense because then why would a bite turn them but it's established in universe. Why they didn't clean the riot gear in the moat right outside the prison or at least take the riot shields with them into the dark and enclosed hallways, is a good question.
- If the baby were dead, it would have killed Lori already, wouldn't it?


edit/ Yeah, it seems like the writers once again had no ideas how to build suspense when the heroes are competent. I mean, it's not like the human race knows any other ways to put people into dangerous situations other than "let's just rush in like Han Solo on the Deathstar."

Skgoa wrote:My thoughts in no particular order:

- That jail interior set has seen quite a bit of use in all manner of movies and shows.
- I agree with spaceviking and alyeska: they were really stupid whenever they entered a (new area of a) building this episode. Rushing in as if they were a SWAT team, when there really was no need to be that reckless. And I fail to see how "let's have one of us run in to potentially be trapped in a guard tower out of our reach or even just be bitten on the way there" achieves anything that "let's just continue stabing the Zeds through this nice chainlink fence that they can neither get through or around" wouldn't have. But it gave Rick a chance to be the awesome hero/leader guy, I guess. The writers even let him push a Zed back with a flying kick that totally wouldn't have ended with Rick lying on the ground in easy reach of any undead hands or mouths. Who needs to use a riot shield? Not Awesome McAwesome.
- They don't care about splatter because they are all infected already. Doesn't make any sense because then why would a bite turn them but it's established in universe. Why they didn't clean the riot gear in the moat right outside the prison or at least take the riot shields with them into the dark and enclosed hallways, is a good question.
- If the baby were dead, it would have killed Lori already, wouldn't it?


edit/ Yeah, it seems like the writers once again had no ideas how to build suspense when the heroes are competent. I mean, it's not like the human race knows any other ways to put people into dangerous situations other than "let's just rush in like Han Solo on the Deathstar."

Thought the set was made for them this season and was part of the increased budget. Agree on the dumb character driven plot still dominating the writers instead of plot driven danger.
- Low on ammo dialogue line right after going on a mad minute shooting spree against low danger walkers, stuff like that keeps happening.
- They go into a new cell block then run at first sighting of walkers, did they not discuss what they would do if they spotted them? They have been clearing houses all winter without speaking and working like a unit then in the prison they all scream and run and get lost after marking each corridor.
- Time jump was real lazy but seems like they don't care, they put in the whole map scene where they have been looting the same area all winter. If they had that much gas why not get to more lucrative areas, how can a few "150 head" herds stop a caravan of trucks and cars on the move?

One of the biggest laughs for me was the riot geared walkers, how they were dumbfounded until Maggie attacks under or through a gap then they all "get" it and start attacking the slow ungainly walkers through armour gaps. Guess it was a way of showing they are a team and learn from each other, but done is such a basic way.

I think them being dumbfounded is justified, they are exhausted and killing zombies is very much muscle memory for them. Fighting riot gear zombies goes against a lot of their zombie fighting impulses.

I like the improvised silencers. Rick has a maglite attached to a Glock. Not sure what that is Carl has, but its on a Beretta 92FS.

Would that work? Like real silencers are still loud as fuck, would this be like putting saran wrap around a sub woofer?

Alyeska wrote:I like the improvised silencers. Rick has a maglite attached to a Glock. Not sure what that is Carl has, but its on a Beretta 92FS.

You might find it at the Internet Movie Firearms Database entry for the series.

spaceviking wrote:Would that work? Like real silencers are still loud as fuck, would this be like putting saran wrap around a sub woofer?

You can make improvised silencers that work to varrying degrees. One of the quickest and easiest is take a tube and fill it with expanding foam. Then drill a hole down the center. The foam catches and disapates the gas. Won't last forever. But you would get a plenty of silenced shots through it.

I liked the episode, in spite of a few weird things.

1. It didn't feel like they'd gone through a year of this, even though Lori's much more pregnant and they're better at killing zombies. Maybe it's the lack of changing seasons, since it still looks like late summer or whenever they shot season 2.

2. They must have found some usable gas at some point, since they're still driving their cars around. Then again, they've pretty much ignored the gas issue throughout season 2 (although it was important in season one, since that was why they were so "Oh shit we're fucked" when they initially found no safe zone at the end of episode 5).

3. Michonne . . . I don't know. She looks like one of those characters that fanboys really love, what with the whole "katana-wielding badass" element.

Skgoa wrote:- That jail interior set has seen quite a bit of use in all manner of movies and shows.

It must be an old jail, too. I think the modern max security prisons all have electronic locks, and have had them for years.

Really enjoyed tonight's episode. All of Herschel's scene had me on edge and when Lori performed CPR I thought I was going to have a heart attack. The fractured arm zombie was pretty cool too. Unfortunately it looks like next week's episode is going to be Michonne-heavy...

Shop has it been established getting scratched by a zombie will make you into a zombie as opposed to getting the blood and guts splattered all over you?

I might have to rewatch to confirm.... but I think it was more than "just a scratch". If a slight scratch was enough I think they would all be dead by now.

Unrelated I liked how they were already planning to farm.

It was a huge gash, actually.

I really liked the episode. Lori pulling her Lady MacBeth bullshit and then turning on Rick after he killed Shane actually had consequences, even though I think it was just bad writing last season where her character is concerned. Rick offing the 2 problem prisoners was also some great shit I wasn't expecting. At least not at this point in his character progression but it worked great giving him more of an edge than at this point in the comics.

Good episode all around. Acknowledging the mistake of taking Hershel into the cell blocks. A funny scene when the prisoners try to beat up two zombies. That was freaking hilarious. The scenes with the prisoners were well done. I like how Rick made a decisive decision to protect everyone. That one inmate got exactly what he deserved. Though the one that ran, not sure that he deserved to die. But Rick wasn't going to take risks at that point.

Big Tiny, too bad to see him go. The other two prisoners appear to be interesting personalities. I'm hoping to see them integrated into the group.

The scenes with Hershel were very well done. Not knowing what is going to happen. Wanting him to pull through. Seeing Maggie say goodbye.

Carol is getting some nice character development. Wanting to be more useful for the group. I wonder who or what was looking at her through the fence.

Next week looks to be interesting. I'm wondering what the backstory will be on the helicopter. Same one Rick saw the year before maybe?

No, this one is military. The other one was civvie.