Amph The Walking Dead and Spinoffs on AMC

Interesting that Hershel gets Dale's comic fate, i.e. losing a leg to zombies.

 

It'll work rather well I think, assuming it is successful and he survives. Hershel's character arc in the comic after the farm doesn't go beyond "grow crops, be religious, mourn dead kids". This will give him more depth as he reacts to his injury.

 

On the other hand readers of the comic will recall that Rick's spur of the moment decision to chop off Dale's leg almost ended with Dale dying anyway, it took Herschel to save Dale. Who will save Herschel?

Also, I bet that lurker wouldn't have gotten him if they had differentiated between Lurkers and Roamers instead of just calling them all Walkers. Calling them Walkers will get people all "Not walking, not a problem" instead of "Has a head? Problem"

 

We shall see next week.

 

Plus they had Allen to practice on first in the comic.

 

An io9 commenter reminds me that it was Allen who Rick chopped the leg off of spur of the moment. And Allen died.

Dale was amputated by Herschel himself I think.

Edit: Also the post above.

 

The "lurkers" seem like a too-convenient plot device. They only show up when a character is in desperate need of being surprised by one. Also, I'm a bit frustrated by Rick's constantly shifting personality. He seems to develop an entirely new set of personality traits every half-season or so. Naturally, we start season three with a whole new Rick Grimes, ready to fulfill whatever new character development arc the writers have in mind for him this time around.

Otherwise, I really enjoyed the season opener. Lori raises the "Dawn of the Dead" OBGYN problem. I liked that.

The zombie disease remains perplexing. Everyone is already infected, yet a zombie bite is needed to activate the infection absent some other death. Theory: zombie bites are irrelevant to the transformation process per se, but they contain a separate lethal toxin that kills anyone who's bitten once it has a chance to spread through the system. In that case, a quick amputation could save someone's life.

 

I think the issue with zombie bites is that they ultimately kill you, either by bleeding to death or the eventual septic shock that would result from being bitten by a rotten creature.

 

That's pretty nearly the conclusion the characters come to in the comics.

 

T-Dog should get all of Lori's lines.

Problem solved.

 

This season is so big if you take the comics into consideration. I feel they might get two seasons out of this arc.

Spoiler

Bets on Lori actually dieing this season?

 

My gut is I doubt it given her conversation with Herschel about putting her down if she died in childbirth. But Kirkman's deviated a lot from the comics so far in terms of characters fates differing from the comics that it's hard to be 100% certain on that.

 

Why does rick have split personalities.

 

PTSD in my opinion. In a world like that you're under constant stress.

 

Or inconsistent writing more likely.

 

Can we at least make some effort not to talk so openly about things that happen in the future comics that might affect current arcs on the TV show? I'm not sure if we need a split comics/no comics thread like with GoT, but it's a little worrisome to come in here to talk about the show and hear so many people openly noting who lives and dies in the comics. It's not allowed in the GoT thread so it would be nice if that were at least under a spoiler tag here...


Anyway, I liked the episode. I appreciate that the characters have gotten somewhat smarter, which they need to be by now to still be alive. Although they still aren't geniuses as no one seemed to note that if all those walkers had been shot in the jail, it probably means some other people have already come through and taken any useful supplies. My guess would be that the prisoners have all of them, but are still imprisoned because there are walkers between them and freedom. Still, the gang should have realized that this was possible and no one really seemed to. So they remain a bunch of really average intelligence people, which is actually okay with me because not everyone is a genius, despite what TV tells us sometimes.

Something incredibly important about this episode, from an outside standpoint were its ratings. More to the point, it was the highest rated show of any kind in the demo (18-49). That's right. It's higher rated than The Big Bang Theory, The Voice, everything. I haven't seen anyone say so, but I don't think any cable show has ever done that. This is a huge accomplishment for a cable series, and I think can only lead to more and more people watching and talking about dramas that aren't network crap. Finally. I mean I know us online folks love cable shows, but this is the first time the broad US public has actually tuned in to a cable show in higher numbers than network shows. Pretty big deal.

 

SJ's right, we probably shouldn't be discussing the comics so openly.

 

Someday I'm going to have to read a comic book. To date, the only graphic novel I've ever read is "Watchmen," if I don't include the complete Calvin and Hobbes. Are comic books considered a different genre from comic strip books?

 

Comics aren't really one genre, they're a medium consisting of many genres and sub-genres. They're a related medium to comic strips, but as they tend to tell stories over long form rather than in short ongoing bursts, the effect is somewhat different, sometimes more fulfilling IMO.

 

If you haven't read the comics, you deserve to be spoiled. That being said, I don't see anyone saying anything that hasn't already happened on the show. And the show is so different from the comics that there's no reason to fear being spoiled. It's not like they're following them.

 

I have no objection to anyone discussing the comics.

I wonder how many people are left in the U.S. in the WD universe. If we assume that as of the start of the series, there were roughly 100 million zombies and 195 million corpses, and that one million or so additional survivors have died since Rick woke up, there could still be at least 1 human per square mile, or nearly 3.8 million people alive.

The remaining humans as of the start of season three are now much better at killing zombies than at being killed by them. If they take out an average of 50 zombies before being killed by a zombie, they actually stand a chance of eradicating the zombie population before being eradicated themselves. This really doesn't seem like such a difficult task. The chain link fence system is nearly flawless and wastes no ammo.

The one thing about the series that truly bothers me is the lack of proper safety eyewear use. They really need goggles that provide chemical splash protection.

 

Spoiler: SPOILER FOR COMICS! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED

I for the most part stopped reading when Glenn died. Not really feeling Negan, just more Governer it seems.

I don't know whether I'm just feeling that the story is getting too repetitive, or if I'm just not satisfied with character deaths anymore. Because lets face it, if you kill off every character we've known about since the beginning of the story except Carl and Rick, I just don't care anymore. And Kirkman's saying he's not even halfway through...I don't know how to feel.

 

You make that sound like its impressive, it JUST happened all too recently.

 

It feels like months and months ago. What issue are they on now?