The Walking Dead

We'll get back to that shortly after we discuss another problem I've noticed with this show. They still haven't explained about the sun. It raises and sets each day, but they haven't said anything about it! How can we care about the time of day without some explaination? It just reeks of lazy storytelling.

I know it's shoddy production and should be fixed in studio but I've figured out a method of compensating. I DVR the show and make sure to watch it at the appropriate time. Sometimes I have to pause the show 8 hours or so when they switch to night scenes but at least it fixes the jarring time discrepancies.

Could have been worse you could have sharted. :P

You do realize that hating most things is a non-substantive reason? Especially hating anything in a TV show.

Indeed. Right before they stop at the jam, lori and Rick are waxing nostalgic about a failed trip to the Grand Canyon. Carl is in the back with Carol and Sophia and remarks that he doesn't remember going. Lori tells him he was to little and he got sick so they turned around but that it was still a good trip.

Then Carl says he'd like to go, which prompts a 'how the hell' look from the parents, followed shortly by Sophia asking, "Can we come too?" With obvious excitement in her voice.

I saw Sophia as starting to break out of the shellshock this season. Last season she was living thru hell with the ZA and most likely being molested by her father in tents before his demise. With the ZA starting to be the normal day to day, and her father being long gone, I saw her starting to smile and be more interactive with the group. That is until...

Personally, I was hoping they'd actually off both the kids right off the bat this season. Watching Carl try to get the tools from the corpse, I was just shaking my head wondering how long it'd take before one of the kids gets the group slaughtered.

Still... By the mid-season finale, due to the glacial ppacing of the show, I'd all but forgotten about her. I was right there with Darryl thinking we'd find her. That or we'd have to abandon the search to leave, a fate much worse than knowing what happened to her.

The moment with Shane demonstrating how 'dead' the walkers are by unloading 3 center mass into Hershels neighbor, while he was walking her to the barn no less, Hershel falling to his knees. That was poignant. The look on his face, as the denial he's built up gets blasted away.
It's relentless at that point for the poor old fool.
He then has to watch as the barn is opened and his lifetime of family and friends (small towns like this are tight nit) pour out into the firing squad.

I caught the grimace from him when the woman's cheek was blasted off. I assumed it was his wife. The man is being killed watching this.
Then it ends. The music, the mood. All of it was just so perfect.

The small shoe appears and I think, Oh great! Poor guy has to go through all this and just when he thinks it's over... now he has to watch his young step son get mowed....

OH...





I think if it hadn't been for the drawn out search, if I hadn't been expecting them to find her. Her being found like that wouldn't have had as much impact on me.
As it stands, it was the perfect finale in my opinion. Leaving us hanging before the smoke clears, I can only imagine the ramifications shortly after!
Can't wait til Feb now.

I bet you grew up in or near a big city.

Different environments, different parents, different paranoia. When I was growing up none of the parents watched over us. Want to go out and play in the woods? Be back for lunch. Want to take a machete so you can chop through the brush and cut down small trees? Go ahead.

None of us were ever injured other than normal kid cuts, bruises and scrapes.

The paranoia some parents show about their kids is what makes me shake my head with disbelief. Driving to work I'll see parents of kids who are around 10 years old standing with them at the end of the driveway waiting for the school bus. The end of the freaking driveway only about fifty feet from their front door.

You also see these same parents dosing their kids with every antibiotic and germ-killing thing known to mankind. Rather than helping their kids, they are doing them a vast disservice since childhood is the time that people develop their immune systems (to a great extent). If you kill off all the germs, their systems won't know how to fight 'em in the future, as well as helping to develop germs that are immune to the cleansing agents.

I blame the media and their constant need to show stuff like "18 items in your house that are killing you!" and the reliance on shock journalism.

Exactly. You need to teach your kids to survive on their own and lend a hand when life gets too hard. Overprotecting your kids doesn't help them to live when they are on their own. It just teaches them to live with their parents when they are 35 years old.

To be fair, living with your parents at that age kinda depends on where you are. Farm families wherein the kid helps with the running of the place while living with the parents? Completely different scenario than a 35 year old living with his parents in a city.

True enough, but the 35 year old on the farm is a Farm Hand and lots of Farm Hands live at their place of employment. There is also the possibility that the 35 year old living with his parents could be his parents' caretaker and that is a completely different scenario than the 35 year old virgin living in his parent's basement playing video games all day.

Yes sir, about 20mins from NYC to be exact. Like you point out, theres probably way less to worry about with kids outside of a city environment than urban areas. You guys probably had to worry about catching horses humping each other and being ambushed by swarms of ticks/catching lyme disease though huh?

Seriously though, Id rather see kids eat dirt pies all day than worry about antibiotic soaps and such. Gotta say also, in 2011...I would stand with my kids at the end of the driveway waiting for the bus too. Im sure the stats point towards a greater freaquency of it happening in cities, but I see reports of kids getting snatched up by weirdos all the time these days. Lets not even bring into the equation a zombapacolypse...dun dun DUUUUUUUN!

Actually my brother did wind up with Rocky Mountain Spotted Tick Fever so yes to the tick thing.

But as to kids getting snatched by weirdos all the time... you should have emphasized the "I see" part. There is actually no higher incidence of kidnapping than there was in the 70s, or 50s, or whenever. It's just instantly reported across the entire country so it seems like it. Once upon a time you would hear about child abduction only if it happened in your local area. Now you hear about it if it happened in an Amish community in Alaska. It's cliche but a kid actually has a much greater chance of being struck by lightning than abducted by a stranger.

But as to how this relates to the show. Kids aren't idiots so letting them out of sight during a zombapocalypse wouldn't be a problem so long as you had made sure the area was clear, which they had. Well sort of. I'm still not sure how a horde of zombies walked down the middle of the road unnoticed till they were about a hundred yards away.

I think there's actually a certain amount of logic to this, although there's certainly a fair amount of hand waving, too. They had just finished driving along that road and didn't see any horde of zombies just strolling along. They had no real reason to watch their back trail. A herd of zombies like that was outside their experience and was totally unexpected. They were watching the sides of the road and snarl of vehicles ahead of them because in their experience that was where the greatest danger was. They had no idea a herd would, or even could, form behind them.

What you say could be true man, but I see the news/hear radio reports of kids being abducted, molested and/or killed pretty regularly (cpl times a month?). I dont know the stats, so Im not saying it does or doesnt happen more now than it did in the 70s but bottomline, I wouldnt let my kids out of my sight while at the mall...let alone outside, in an unsecure area during world war zombie attack.

Also, I have to say that many kids are indeed "idiots". Not in the sense that they are inherently unintelligent, but more along the lines of their lack of experience and lack of maturity hasnt allowed them to develop a sense of great judgement.

As far as the show, I dont remember the adults walking a far stretch of the highway, clearing the area/vehicles (may have missed it). I just remember seeing Carl looking into a truck at a dead body and grabbing stuff...the whole time Im thinking, "I guess the TV version of this kid gets eaten in the front seat of a Ford pickup...lazy storytelling"


Sorry to hear about your brother, that sucks (no pun intended).

Good times

and you guys must live in some pretty nice areas...

**edit - I dont disagree with most of what you guys are saying, but I know that based on growing up where I did and then being in the military, I tend to look at the world through worst case scenario goggles more times than not. Im living decent enough now, but as kids we dealt more with exposure to crime, gangs and drug activity versus Lyme disease and tetanus shots. I wouldnt keep children locked in a basement for their own safety, but tying it back into the topic...I wouldnt let 9yos move around without me in a world infested with zombies either.

Dealing with #s is usually my strongpoint as well, but Id kill myself if my kid happened to be #115 if there was anything that I could have done to reduce the chances of something like that happening. Im sure the parents out there that have lost their kids (bless them) have literally gone crazy thinking what they could have done differently...sometimes nothing, but sometimes everything.

When you live in a State that has a smaller population than most cities, yep, you do get a relatively nice place to live. You can stretch your arms out and not hit 18 people in the nose while doing so.

As for the kids in the show, the parents need to let 'em realize that the parents most likely won't be around forever. Let 'em come out with you when clearing a house (if they are double digits or at least have started puberty). Keep 'em in the back, but let them watch how it's done, because they may just have to do it on their own in the not too-distant future.

I agree, but your scenario is definitely different than the show's situation of Carl rifling through vehicles with no adults in view. If the body in the truck was actually one of those lazy zombies, Carl would have been dead...done deal.

Youre rite, it is great. Ive lived in some places like what you describe when I moved off on my own (was in Germany for 3 years, I couldnt get much nicer than that), but I didnt have that as an option growing up. Im not complaining and I actually prefer having lived in the city early on and adopting my current viewpoint. Ive dealt with so many people that have grown up in those "nice" areas but were shellshocked when outside of that comfort zone.

I wouldnt want my kids to grow up where I did, but Ive always thought that its easier to transition from a difficult lifestyle where you may have to mature quicker like in a urban environment versus growing up carefree and possibly being thrust into a fastpaced lifestyle. People do it all the time and I can see the pros/cons of both.

That's just it, Carl was taking his time and making sure it wasn't a Lurker. He didn't just go start searching through it, he made sure it wasn't one. And just because we didn't see the adults, didn't mean they couldn't see him.

See, I feel that living in the city blinds people to the way things actually are. How many people living in a city their entire life actually know where the food they eat comes from? I'm not talking the grocery store, but the amount of work and effort that goes into it. As to shellshocked, those same city dwellers get a rude awakening when they venture outside their comfort zone of the city.

I would never have kids in a city like NYC or LA. It would be fine while a person is single or married w/o kids, but I could never see raising a kid there.

I would argue that someone who grows up in a city is more mature for their age than someone out here. But that's just me.

Im working night shift tonight, so here we are with some TLDR

Reference the show...

I dont see how Carl made sure it wasnt a Lurker; he didnt call for help or poke it with something from a safe distance I dont think (would have to watch the episode again). If I remember correctly, he was just slow in reaching for the satchell.
Its safe to say that knowing how protective Lori is...she would have flipped out if she realized Carl was going through vehicles.


This is all generally speaking, Im sure someone else growing up in an urban setting sees it differently than me and obviously this doesnt apply to everyone...

Maturity is the wrong word...maybe more seasoned? Rural inviduals are somewhat like the newly arrived, green soldiers in a warzone compared to the veterans that have seen a little more.

You could be right, but I think that concept depends on where your interests are versus the idea of being "blind" to something. It seems like a peson doesnt have as much of an appreciation for the simpler things if theyre always focused on something maybe more complex. I was exposed to farming/hunting but it wasnt anything I was interested enough in continuing to do once I tried it. Like anything, it was cool and I am glad I had a chance to give it a shot.
Growing up in the city, I had been robbed a couple of times as a teenager and exposed to some wacky stuff that I obviously wouldnt want my kids to go through, so busting my hump farming food and tending livestock would have been a nice deal in my eyes and probably much preferred to the daily worrying about the hustle and grind. I can see your point about not wanting to raise kids in the city but not all cities are as rough and tumble as all rural areas arent as countryish.

Im not sure how rural your lifestyle is and this isnt a city life VS rural life deal, but Im saying that I personally felt better equipped to handle different issues compared to some of my country counterparts. Having dealt with so many different ethnicities of people, being exposed to a host of different situations, there wasnt much that shellshocked or surprised me when introduced to different lifestyles and even living in different countries.

For example, I was surprised initially when some (not all) of my more rural soldiers had never dealt with people outside of their own ethnic group prior to joining the military, which sometimes was an issue. Some of my rural female soldiers seemed to easily fall for the slick/fast talking guys and that was definitely a problem I had to deal with a lot. On the other side, city dwellers were sometimes "too smart" for their own good which caused them to often get into trouble. I never had that issue b/c I grew up with the constant threat of my father literally, not figuratively, killing me if I stepped out of line. My father btw was a good old country boy from the Carolinas but even he has a couple of stories of how he was taken advantage of after moving to the city b/c he just wasnt exposed to certain situations and it took him some time to adjust. I can honestly say that after living in N Carolna, Texas, Arizona etc the only adjustment I had to make was to stop looking so hard at what a person's or situation's angle was versus getting caught up in that angle if you know what I mean. I can see the pros and cons of both rural/suburban and urban living.

Back on topic, if you have kids in a post apocalyptic zombie world, youd be crazy to let them stray a few feet from you considering adults who are better equipped to handle physical threats and able to make quicker assessments are being attacked, killed and eaten regularly.