Did anyone else catch this? I finally managed to watch it a few minutes ago on AMC.com (I recorded it on television, but I haven't gotten a good chance to watch it on tv yet).

1. Rick's monologue at the beginning was a bit melodramatic - it didn't really have the emotional punch of some of his performances in Season One. We do get an interesting mention of the secret that Crazy Doctor told him in "TS-19". My guess is that it's either Lori being pregnant, or that Romero Rules apply (i.e., everyone who dies without severe trauma to the head comes back as a zombie).

2. The basis of the plot - Sophia gets lost and they spend most of the episode doing a search for her - is good, and the unresolved ending sadly realistic. This is actually what I like the most about the "Walking Dead" so far: the day-to-day issues of survival in the zombie-infested world. Unfortunately, I might lose interest later on if it follows the comic's plot, since I've heard the comic leans heavily on the whole "Real Monster is Man" theme.

3. I like how Lori stood up for Rick, even if I do think that Rick has made some bad decisions. It was also nice to see her finally call Andrea on her constant prickly attitude.

4. Some of the promos for the rest of the season look interesting. They finally meet some other people, and it looks like the helicopters that Rick saw weren't his imagination.

5. That ending was a huge shock. I wonder if Carl is actually going to live.

6. There's some serious gore in this episode. They actually rip apart a zombie they just killed in order to open its stomach and find out if it had taken a bite out of Sophia.

Thoughts?

EDIT: I think it's also worth pointing out that the show still looks pretty good considering that it lost a good chunk of its budget ($750,000 per episode IIRC), and lost its showrunner (Frank Darabont). It also got fantastic ratings for the Season Premiere.

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"You can't hammer tin into iron, no matter how hard you beat it, but that doesn't mean that tin is worthless."
-Jon Snow, A Game of Thrones

"I prefer my history dead. The dead sort is written in ink, the living in blood."
-Rodrik Greyjoy, A Song of Ice and Fire

I have to say it's not as bad as I was expecting and a huge step up from season 1 (which started off well but fizzled by the second episode).

1. I think it might be a speech Rick gives in the comic that SHOCKS EVERY1

2. Yeah, I think this plot was really good and I actually found myself wondering what was going to happen. Also, I really, really hope they DON'T follow the comic story line at all, but I kinda accept they will use bits and pieces of it. The whole speculation on the 'herd' mentality and everyone going 'don't shoot the guns any noise might attract that herd' is straight out of a later storyline. But I hate the comic so I hope they don't follow it beyond basic hints. For one thing, the TV show should stand apart anyway and forge its own identity.

3. Lori is still the most irritating character in the series, both the comic and the show.

4. Yeah. Some of the things I really liked was how they think they might have found other survivors - like turning on the car and hearing the emergency signal, and when they're searching for Sophia hearing the bell from the Church. Also those walkers who were in the Church were really creepy. Not in a threatening way, but it's little things like that that make you feel uncomfortable. How much of who the person was before turning into a walker compels them to go to familiar places? It's not them yet they still go to where they used to go when they were alive.

5. Ugh. Yeah, he will.

6. It was smart of them to do so, and I genuinely didn't know if they were going to find... Sophia's remains or whatever. I keep hoping the show diverts strongly away from the comic. Because the comic sucks. (on the other hand season 1 also diverted from the comic and it kinda sucked too, but that was for different reasons)

I wonder how much influence Frank Darabont had on this episode and the rest of the season, and when his shitcanning will come into effect in terms of the quality of the production.

Apparently Darabont is still around until episode 3 or 4 of this season, so we'll know about whether or not the quality will go down then.

And the comic is great, fuck you Stofsk.

I looked on wikipedia to see where the comic goes with the storyline. Christ, that's depressing. I hope the show doesn't follow that storyline.

EDIT: By the way, did everyone catch some of the details of Carol's prayer? It seems that her dead husband Ed was not just a lazy, wife-beating asshole - he was also a potential pedophile.

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"You can't hammer tin into iron, no matter how hard you beat it, but that doesn't mean that tin is worthless."
-Jon Snow, A Game of Thrones

"I prefer my history dead. The dead sort is written in ink, the living in blood."
-Rodrik Greyjoy, A Song of Ice and Fire

I think I enjoyed the first season more than a lot of people on this board did. The stupidity didn't really start to bother me until the last couple of episodes. The premiere was good enough for me to stick around, especially since there's fuck all on TV that is holding my interest this season. I really enjoyed where the story went this episode and agree with most of the good things people have said so far. It was good to get back to the whole struggle to survive direction of the show, especially since the last two episodes of S1 featured barely any zombies at all. However, despite liking the episode overall, some things really bugged me:

-Andrea's angry little speech to Dale felt WAY too much like she was reading from a script. The dialogue felt incredibly forced and unnatural. Who says stuff like "life affirming catharsis?"

-Previously in the series, the survivors were very cautious about not getting zombie juices on them to avoid infection, but they now seem to be paying that precaution no mind. Andrea got splashed with tons of blood when stabbing that walker with the screwdriver several more times than necessary. Just one stray drop in her eyeball could potentially infect her, but she doesn't seem to keep this in mind. Granted, she was in a serious panic, and she clearly doesn't have much of a sense of self-preservation, but it still stuck out to me. Also, Darryl draping the dead walker over T-Dog when he has a massive open wound in his arm struck me as a very bad idea. At the very least he should have draped the corpse from the car over T-Dog and covered himself with the dead walker leaking blood out of its head.

-While deer are far from an aggressive species, they can be vicious when provoked. That buck would have almost definitely just run away, but considering the fact that the survivors have limited access to medical supplies and have enough problems to deal with already, I thought Rick should have told Carl not to get too close. With the way the scene was shot I was seriously expecting Carl to get a face full of antler, though of course he ended up with considerably worse.

-Similarly, Carl is a colossal idiot poking around corpses that can easily come to life. While he's just a kid, it would be nice if the show could avoid the cliche of dumbass kids getting themselves in trouble.

-Not really a criticism, but I'm a little confused after seeing the herd of walkers pass right by the hiding survivors. Do they not identify prey by smell, and were only unable to identify Rick and Glenn as prey by sight in the second episode because they smelled like zombie guts?

Despite all those nitpicks I was quite entertained. The show is as well shot and produced as ever, and I'm still finding some of the characters like Rick and Darryl very likable. Unlike Dexter and Supernatural, I am actually looking forward to the next episode, which is kind of sad really.

I really liked the show as well, and particularly Episodes 1,2,4, and 5. The ending to Episode 5 is moving every time I watch it, since it's when you see Rick finally lose most of his composure after one too many dead-ends.



Parts of it definitely felt that way, although I liked the overall speech. It fits with Andrea's personality so far after her sister's death, which is bitter, whiny, and unhelpful. That's what made it so satisfying when Lori snapped at her.



That bothered me as well - in the second episode of S1, Glen and Rick actually put on overcoats rather than risk touching the zombie gore. I put most of it down to split-second decision-making, with Darryl not having any time to make a better decision that would conceal both of them.



I don't get that, either. Why did Rick let his kid walk right up to a buck with no weapon like that?



To its credit, the show seems to have avoided the whole "infant immortality" thing that you usually see in tv shows. The first zombie we see is a little girl that Rick shoots, and we've also got Sophia missing. I wouldn't be shocked if the show killed Carl, which would be a divergence from the comic (what would be really jolting would be if Carl died, but then Sophia turned up).

In fact, Carl dying could be a good excuse to introduce the whole Romero Rules situation wherein all people who die without massive head trauma come back as zombies. Having him die after a shot to the chest, then come back as a zombie would have the whole group going "WTF?" at which point Rick reveals that Crazy Doctor already told him this.



No idea. The horde was marching off towards someplace else, so maybe they already had a scent they were following until the noise of the group distracted them.

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"You can't hammer tin into iron, no matter how hard you beat it, but that doesn't mean that tin is worthless."
-Jon Snow, A Game of Thrones

"I prefer my history dead. The dead sort is written in ink, the living in blood."
-Rodrik Greyjoy, A Song of Ice and Fire

Well, if her background is similar to the comics, she is a college-educated woman, so it wouldn't be out of place for her to use terminology like that. A little odd, but not something that breaks SoD.



It seems in this episode, they don't have the time to practice surgical sterility with the undead, so they just wing it and hope for the best.



There seems to be a large difference between simple corpses and walkers, though. Walkers seem to become active rather readily if prey is nearby, while corpses are corpses.



Live humans don't put off as much of a smell as rotting corpses. Remember that the walkers still have only baseline human olfaction when fresh, and it gets worse as they decay. So, all they smell is corpses and other walkers. Although, that does jar with the experiences in Atlanta, though they might use a combination of smell and sight to determine prey.

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SDNet: Unbelievable levels of pedantry that you can't find anywhere else on the Internet!

Incidentally, the 6 Walking Dead webisodes (from between seasons, I believe) are available here. I don't recall if they were ever discussed on the board, but I also don't think it requires a new thread. None of the main characters appear in the webisodes, but there is a connection to the pilot show.

God, those were awful. The actual series has been a mixed bag, but those webisodes had pretty much nothing redeeming about them other than the production values. That "It's okay baby boy," line from the ending has to be one of the most nauseating pieces of dialogue ever put on film.

It's not a matter of how extensive her vocabulary is. She could have had a PhD and it still would have sounded unnatural. With the right delivery, such a line could have worked, but the whole thing sounded totally rehearsed, and it kind of detracts from the emotional impact if she's not speaking from the heart. I certainly don't think it breaks SoD, but I don't feel it was particularly well acted.


Well in Andrea's case it was more than just winging it. She stabbed the walker four times, and the last one after tackling the walker to the ground was definitely unnecessary. I understand she would have been in high gear fight or flight response, but it was pure character shielding that she didn't get infected. She had blood all over her face and chest, and yet not a drop gets in her eyes or mouth, not to mention any cuts she might have on her exposed skin? If this sort of thing routinely happens and nobody gets infected it's going to feel really contrived. Furthermore, chopping down the walkers in the church with up close and personal weapons like hatchets and machetes was totally unnecessary. They could have fallen back and had Darryl take them out with his crossbow. It would have looked a little awkward, but they could have written around that. I just don't like them paying no mind to blood spatter when previously they made a big deal out of it.


I doubt they know that for certain, and poking around dead bodies during a zombie apocalypse is just asking for trouble, especially if you're not equipped to deal with a walker. Considering they were already down a member, he was being pretty dumb. He should have at least poked the damn thing first.


I figured as much. It's just that I got a different impression from the plan for the Atlanta escape. I guess it's along the lines of "If it moves and doesn't smell like shit then it's food."

I justify it by saying she rehearsed the speech in her head until she found a good time to use it on Dale.

Outside of that bit of mental gymnastics, I just try to ignore Andrea as much as possible.



A little jarring, yeah. We might see next episode if anything comes of it. Hopefully.

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SDNet: Unbelievable levels of pedantry that you can't find anywhere else on the Internet!

Maybe blood splatter doesn't transmit the virus or whatever it is, but bites do? (in which case, if you want to get scientific, that would mean that the saliva is what transfers the zombie virus not the blood or other body fluids)

I mean these are zombies, not the infected from 28 Days Later. As for chopping down the walkers in the church, that's better than using guns, which is really the cliche of zombie films. 'Melee weapons don't run out of ammunition' after all.

Why did the chick in the bathroom, Andrea is it? Why did she continue to assemble the gun, making noise, when she knew she couldn't use it anyways? If she did she'dve brought the whole swarm, would've had to fight them all off and ended up getting eaten anyways. Plus it was leaving, which you'd be able to tell from the footsteps, so why not just sit there and shut up? At some point flight or fight gives way to the calmness of experience in these situations and you stop panicing. Considering it's what, weeks? months? after the intial outbreak why is she acting like an idiot?

How the hell did the prolonged noisy battle between Andrea and the walker in the RV not result in the rest of the herd swarming her? She's screaming her head off, the zombie is bashing in a door, then she continues to scream after throwing it to the floor and shanking it repeatedly with the screwdriver.

The rest of the "herd" (pretty pathetic actually) should have mobbed the RV and torn her limb from limb (and there was much rejoicing).

I found this episode an big disappointment in many ways.

I'm really rather surprised they let the kids out of the vehicles at all in unknown territory like that. Let alone near a wild buck. These are just very stupid things to do, even if they do drive the plot.

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John Brown was right.

I caught the premier of the second season, and haven't seen the first. These seems like a character based show so I will share impressions mostly based on that, and not on a lot of glaring oversights, that may just be because i haven't seen all the show yet.

Rick. Seriously dude, you're a cop right? You gotta let go of the talk button when you use the radio man, whoever you're hoping to hear from has been screaming at their handset for you to stop talking and probably attracted a herd of zombies before you finished your monologue.
That being said, you spot a walker a few cars away from your group, maybe throw up a word of warning, or at least have a prearranged contingency plan? Something better than "Hide under the cars where we can be isolated and cornered!"

Something along the lines of... "Children and useless people, stay in the car in the back with a clear exit plan, badasses with guns and experience using them, we will move forward in teams and secure the area FIRST before letting the buffet in to try on clothes.

T-Dog: Sweet jesus man, when you cut your arm, you don't mess around! You pick the time, the place, the absolute minimum movement necessary for a crippling injury and just go to TOWN. Seriously man, with your luck at the very least, one of those dead bodies piled on you gave you hepatitis.

Dale, a SCREWDRIVER, asshole? A SCREWDRIVER? You had a gun, and you're the one who let the whole freaking mob of Zombies SLOWLY shamble up while you were on the top off your RV with binoculars. "Sorry sweetie, I could have shouted a warning but I didn't want to attract attention, and I still don't. Here's a screw driver instead of a gun because hopefully your screams of agony will be less of a liability than a gun shot. By the way, I like it up here on this roof so I'm not coming down to help.

Lori: Oh for god's sake, your world is plagued with walking dead, there's no such thing as a graveyard anymore. Just loot the damn cars, LATER we can worry about what caused this many cars to just stop all at once. Thanks for trolling the situational assessment with "This place gives me the willies Scoob"

Carl Listen kiddo, I don't know how to tell you this, but you were on borrowed time anyway. I was pretty sure you were a goner when they let you start playing with knives, or when you started being a whiney bitch in the middle of a creepy forest.

Carol... listen I don't know how to tell you this, but Jesus is apparently REALLY fucking mean in this world, and I feel like the zombies are now his chosen people. You should probably get back out and search for your daughter before she becomes a snack.

Shane: you... Lori... something went down... love...
Take Andrea's offer buddy Rebound is for everyone.

Dayl: you are a creepy fellow.


Hey Bear McCreary, the sound of SciFi since BSG...

It's mostly just something he does as a kind of confession/blowing off steam. I don't think he thinks that the guy who has the other walkie-talkie can actually hear him all that well.



There were at least two dozen zombies in that swarm, and they only have a handful of people who are competent at using guns (and a limited supply of bullets and guns). Not to mention that zombies respond to sound, and the sound of gunfire would draw zombies from the whole area.



Zombies also respond to smell (which is partially why the "hide under the cars" strategy shouldn't have worked, but I digress). Not to mention that he seemed to be in "panic" mode, with all the blood coming off his arm.



As I mentioned above, a gunshot is very loud. Fire off one of those, and Andrea won't be just worrying about the zombie in the trailer then - she'll have to worry about the other zombies that will come inside following the noise.



These are people whose world basically collapsed just a month ago. I think it's actually realistic for her to have holdover sentiments and uneasiness about looting corpses and cars full of corpses for spare parts.



That's what they did - they initially searched right after she got lost, and then they organized a search the next morning when they had more light. Simply having Carol stumble around in the woods looking for her daughter isn't going to help much.

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"You can't hammer tin into iron, no matter how hard you beat it, but that doesn't mean that tin is worthless."
-Jon Snow, A Game of Thrones

"I prefer my history dead. The dead sort is written in ink, the living in blood."
-Rodrik Greyjoy, A Song of Ice and Fire

Carol doesn't have to stumble in the woods, she could just NOT stop the entire search party dead in it's track while light receded.

If zombies respond to smell maybe the car thing makes sense, what is airflow like under a car, wouldn't the chemical smells off the engines mask "live" human smell?

Ahem, the plan would have been to maintain a clear path of egress, for the vulnerable and scout with the able bodied. Secure a perimeter safe zone, and have the snack packs start collecting goods while the able bodied stood watch. Once these hopefully MORE alert sentinels spotted walkers, they could retreat through the safe zone picking them off the closest, and buying time for the entrees to get back into a working vehicle.

I wasn't disputing T dog's state of mind, or decision making, I was acknowleding his clear short end of the stick, the same as i acknowledge psycho McDeliverance's superior gift for quiet kill.

You know, talking into a radio you don't think anyone's listening too seems a tad self indulgent don't you think? If it was a tape recorder, OK, save your memoirs, but you know what, if you're wasting your radio's batteries so you can clear your head, you might as well start using your rifle to blow off steam, maybe your flashlights to make shadow puppets, your fresh drinking water to take a ba...
Ok well maybe Rick's not the only douche here...

By the way I caught TS 19. Based on the intro, and the doctor's whisper, they've GOT to be telling us that somehow rick has the disease and is walking dead. Shane was probably right, he died in the hospital, and Lori not believing him just makes him a hilariously tragic character.

Regarding zombies' ability to smell: again, remember, they were once humans, so their sense of smell is starting at baseline human senses and going downhill from there. They aren't bloodhounds, so the overpowering stench of corpses (their own and the ones in the cars) means that they aren't smelling the humans, and thus without hearing or seeing them, they aren't going to find the survivors.

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SDNet: Unbelievable levels of pedantry that you can't find anywhere else on the Internet!

By far the stupidest loophole in the episode was how Dale was on the look out on top of the RV and didn't spot a single walker until the whole herd was down upon them. Seriously, you'd think he'd be able to spot them a couple miles away with those binoculars.

They didn't have a working vehicle that could carry more than 4-5 of them - that was why they were stopped when the zombie swarm showed up (their RV broke down). Nor did they get to choose where they stopped, what with the RV breaking down in the middle of a crowded section of dead traffic. Also, like I said earlier, firing guns in that situation is incredibly risky, since they'll draw not just the swarm marching by, but any other zombies within earshot (that's something that show has pointed out since the first episode in season one).

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"You can't hammer tin into iron, no matter how hard you beat it, but that doesn't mean that tin is worthless."
-Jon Snow, A Game of Thrones

"I prefer my history dead. The dead sort is written in ink, the living in blood."
-Rodrik Greyjoy, A Song of Ice and Fire

They had just had a run in with walkers and hacked them to pieces. Taking a few minutes to rest and coordinate is perfectly reasonable.


That radio is faulty and can only communicate with the radio the guy on the other end has. It's otherwise useless.

Yeah, it's just that there was the line in episode 2 along the lines of "They identify us as food by sight, sound and smell." But the point of that line was probably to explain why the walkers don't eat each other, i.e. because they smell like rotting flesh. Personally it gave me a bit of a false impression.

Rick's Truck WAS carrying the most vulnerable, meaning the children and the woman least likely to fight back effectively. When Rick got out, Andrea could have gotten in, and the truck was behind the RV, and had successfully woven in and out of the traffic to that point. Backing it up a few hundred feet to give it a clear path of egress wouldn't have been the end of the world. In fact, they could have had the RV parked outside the mess in the first place, though admittedly the hose may have blown at the first sign of trouble, depending on how bad off it was.

Firing guns is not ideal obviously, and a more mobile, capable group probably wouldn't have had too, simply sprinting back at the first sign of trouble. They could have siphoned gas off from the first couple of cars to ensure they had enough to continue, and really should have. if things worked out scavenging, awesome, if not



Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? How long have they been using THAT nugget? Again I just watched them clamber over a few hundred dead soldiers in front of the CDC, none of them grabbed a working radio? they would have been handy coordinating between the group on the road and the group in the forest.

I'm starting a list of plot devices. Dale's Hose, Rick's Radio, anything else I'm missing, that because of it's inherent properties, force a plot situation? I don't think Andrea's gun counts because that was her fault, Shane could probably have put it back together in five minutes.

Well, the group was mostly focused on trying to find cover before nightfall when they were in front of the CDC. Not exactly an optimal time to scavenge for useful items when you're keeping your eyes open for walkers and trying to find your way into a barricaded building.

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"A country without a Czar is like a village without an idiot."
- Old Russian Saying

"What Senator McCain was able to do was to help bring all of the parties to the table, including the House Republicans, whose votes were needed to pass this."
Steven Schmidt, chief strategist for the McCain Campaign, you FAIL.