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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsThe Walking Dead - 18 Miles (spoilers)
Another good episode - very intense at times. Didn't expect it to end the way it did. Good zombie action with the new guy, Rick & Shane, and a tough fight between the two of them.
I thought Rick was going to leave Shane behind. And, good scenes with the women with Lori, Andrea and Maggie, though I was disappointed Lori was a little too accepting of the men protecting them and that Andrea should do the laundry.
madinmaryland
(64,931 posts)Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)We've established Walkerism is spread via bite and probably scratches.
There must be at least one store with some Platex Living Gloves or disposable latex gloves for occasion walker encounters.
But then to cut your hand and start stabbing walkers and splattering their blood all over your face?
It leaves me screaming at the TV, "Wipe that damned zombie shit off your body, right fucking now!"
NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)it's more like a black ichor that comes out, it seems.
Duer 157099
(17,742 posts)They seem really cavalier about splashing walker blood everywhere and WTF was Stupid Shane thinking when he slashed his palm? He couldn't think of any other place on his body to make a cut rather than his working right palm? What a dolt.
Keystone Writer
(65 posts)I see it all the time. Why would someone cut themselves in the palm of their hand, and not on some other part of their body, which isn't necessary for gripping or friction?
Baclava
(12,047 posts)Our little group is getting more dysfunctional by the day though. Rick's moral crusade is gonna get them all killed.
Duer 157099
(17,742 posts)I'd bet it's not nearly as easy as they make it seem, unless the walker skulls are already like mush anyway.
Joe Shlabotnik
(5,604 posts)so I've re-assembled a lot of people. When somebody is autopsied, the top of the cranium is sawed off, and its about 3/8" thick. It'd be highly unlikely that you'd be able to stab a knife through the top of someones head. Even if the eye socket is a little bit thinner; doubtful because the head would most likely snap back with the momentum required. Heads are not cantaloupes!
cstanleytech
(26,213 posts)Joe Shlabotnik
(5,604 posts)Unless of course the body was submerged in water. After 6 months of being a walker though, I'd really be cursing things like the Georgia summer, wild animals, friction, and that god awful body odor.
ellisonz
(27,711 posts)Keystone Writer
(65 posts)One of the hosts said he had trouble stabbing a straw through a sippy drink.
NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)can be tough.
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)It makes it more real. Once they have time to stop running and fighting for their lives every day personalities start to clash.
Baclava
(12,047 posts)I could be shane
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)I am a huge zombie genre reader, wistener, watcher. There isn't mu I havent seen or read.... some fantastic, so totally horrible. I love TWD especially because non zombie fans can really enjoy it to. You make real connections with the characters and their humanity.
NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)I recently read Plague of the Dead and Day by Day Armageddon. Both were pretty good. Plague has a sequel of a planned trilogy, but the author died before writing the 3rd book.
World war Z and A Zombie Survival guide, both by Max Brooks.
Look up David Wellington and Brian Keene Both have a few good books
Also Joe Mckinney
There are a bunch of sites out there dedicated to the genre, including the Morningstar series. Their forums are filled with short stories based on the work of Recht.
And yes, I am well aware what a dork I am
NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)I forgot, I had read World War Z - good book. Did you know that Max Brooks, the author, is the son of Mel Brooks & Anne Bancroft?
Flaxbee
(13,661 posts)images freak me out -- I don't like the zombie scenes. Just freaks me out. But the story is fascinating.
Thank you. I find a lot of the recap sites too cutesy for their own good ("Television Without Pity", I'm talking about you).
Rick and Shane go to bring Randall away from the farm (18 miles) and let him go. They stop and have a heart-to-heart talk, though, and Rick asserts to Shane that his wife and his son and his unborn kid are his and basically tells Shane to lay off them.
They find a county maintenance facility and decide to scavenge for food and fuel and stuff before dropping Randall there (he's bound and gagged, with an iPod taped to his ears blasting music, and a mask over his head). Rick and Shane find a couple of zombie cops wandering around inside the fenced-in facility, so they kill them with knives (quiet, saves ammo) and go inside. They leave Randall there, drop a knife on the ground, and start to walk away. Randall starts pleading for them to take him back, says he'll help them, etc., and reveals that he went to school with Maggie.
Shane and Rick realize that this means that Randall probably knows where the farm is and that all their precautions have been useless. Shane wants to kill Randall and goes to do it, but Rick grabs him, making him miss. Rick's and Shane's emotions boil over, and they engage in a knock-down, drag-out fight. Eventually, Rick wins and is walking away from Shane when Shane grabs a big pipe wrench and hurls it at Rick. It misses, but smashes through a window and a dozen or so zombies come spilling out. Rick kills the first one and hides under the corpse as the rest of the herd pours out and begins chasing after Shane. Shane retreats to a school bus and is trapped inside, holding the door closed with his body.
Randall gets the knife, cuts his legs free, and gets his bound hands up in front of him just in time to stab an attacking zombie. Rick gets up, but the tail-end charlie zombie sees him getting up and gives chase. Rick runs but trips, and tail-end charlie goes to attack him. Rick draws his revolver and shoots him in the head, and charlie falls on Rick. Two more zombies see what's going on and attack him as well. Rick shoots a second one in the head, and this one also falls on him. The third one joins the pile-up, leaving Rick pinned on the ground and unable to get his gun around to shoot the last zombie, so eventually he shoves the barrel of his revolver in charlie's mouth, wrenches his skull around, and empties the gun through charlie's skull into the last zombie's head.
Rick and Randall go to escape, stripping the gun belts from the zombie cops, but Rick has an attack of conscience and goes back to save the trapped Shane. They drive up to the back of the bus, and Shane exits through the rear door and into the car, and all three of them escape.
Meanwhile, back at the farm, Hershel's daughter (the younger blonde one... Beth?) decides she wants to commit suicide, to escape the hopelessness and horror of the post-zombie apocalypse, and had stolen a knife from her uneaten lunch. Lori goes back, retrieves the knife, and goes to find Hershel. She can't find him, but tells Maggie about what Beth wants to do, and Maggie and Beth go upstairs and have a long and vocal talk while Andrea and Lori do some domestic stuff in the kitchen. Andrea and Lori have a fight over Beth's desire to kill herself as well as Lori's assumed role of the queen of the group.
Maggie and Beth talk about Beth's death wish, which includes Beth's hope that Maggie and her will have a mutual suicide in the house. Eventually, Andrea comes up to spell Maggie's watch over Beth. Once Maggie leaves, though, Andrea basically tells Beth that it's her choice, and leaves to do what she will, that nobody but Beth could make her decision to live or die
Beth locks herself in the bathroom smashes a mirror, and slashes one of her wrists. Lori and Maggie here the commotion and her crying and force the door open. Beth is holding a towel over her slashed wrist, and Lori and Maggie take the unresisting Beth downstairs for treatment.
While Hershel is sewing Beth up, Maggie throws Andrea out of the house and tells her to never come back inside again. While Andrea is walking away, Lori tells Maggie that, regardless of the rightness or wrongness of Andrea's method, Beth did make the decision to live after all.
I'm telling this out of sequence, because the action cuts back and forth between the two story lines during the episode, but this way is how I remember it.
denbot
(9,897 posts)You have a knack for this.
ellisonz
(27,711 posts)Flaxbee
(13,661 posts)from a loong day and was looking forward hopefully to a recap - you did a terrific job. I caught the last 3 minutes or so (through my fingers) of the scene with Rick coming back to get Shane out of the bus ... but had missed everything with Beth and Lori, etc. etc. ... I know a lot of people watch it for zombie-killing scenes which I hate, but I really like the storyline. Appreciate your efforts very much!
krispos42
(49,445 posts)Keystone Writer
(65 posts)The one thing that may have been disingenuously convenient is how easily the back door of that bus swung open. It didn't even seem locked.
Baclava
(12,047 posts)oh-no!
Duer 157099
(17,742 posts)The guy they saw walking while they were driving those 18 miles and then saw again on the return trip.
Anybody know?
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,308 posts)RZM
(8,556 posts)denbot
(9,897 posts)You would think there would be more along the roads, like cows during a country drive.
Joe Shlabotnik
(5,604 posts)I thought the 2 scenes with the walker were actually really strong. Reminded me a bit of some early 70's gore/grindhouse style like Tobe Hooper would have done or Rob Zombie. The music was awesome as usual too.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)And I am pretty sure, he was walking in the opposite direction from the first time they passed him by.
I really feel sorry for Randall. Jumps onto metal spike, his friends ditch him, his new friends try to do a field amputation with no anesthesia, he gets back to the house, is stitched up and on his feet in a week (Herschel has some mad surgical skills between Carl and Randall to have them up and about in a week), gets driven to zombie yard to be left for dead, then has to get packed up into the trunk again to decide if they want to kill him tomorrow and all the while they are talking about killing him in front of his face.
alphafemale
(18,497 posts)Seeing animated corpses is commonplace. That one was in no way a threat and not even worth a comment.
NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)Shane noticed it, but Rick did not.
Keystone Writer
(65 posts)The actor who was walking in the field was the same actor who played waterfall walker. That's what they called the zombie who fell out of the window.
RZM
(8,556 posts)I think it's the best show currently airing on TV. By currently airing I mean showing new episodes. There are others I think are good but are in between seasons right now.
ellisonz
(27,711 posts)...also glad to see Darryl is going to be back in the action next week.
Shane is an idiot.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)Rolling cars to get Rick who had been gone for 10 minutes to get Herschel, Telling Shane the baby wasn't his, wheedling Glen to go get pregnancy tests and morning after pills, hopping up on the stove and telling Maggie not to tell Glen to "man up" and slicing cukes and tomatoes.
Lori's been so busy, she hasn't had time to run a comb through her hair.
Andrea has obviously been slacking.
blue_onyx
(4,211 posts)I don't agree that she should be doing laundry but Andrea and Shane are obsessed with who is charge. They have ego problems and seem to be annoyed that people look to Rick, not them.
ellisonz
(27,711 posts)Also, it's not like the farm is under constant zombie attack or anything. Most of their troubles are of their own making.
Baclava
(12,047 posts)Lori isn't worth the trouble, she's a loon too.
alphafemale
(18,497 posts)Randall is way more of a man, though he's barely done with being a boy, than Shane will ever be.
dr.strangelove
(4,851 posts)I think they just set off a new plot direction and maybe teased what Rick was told by the CDC scientist. Last night, after Shane and Rick offed the two cops, Shane noticed no bite marks on the cops. Rick quickly put it to the scratch marks, but I think it was too quick for Rick. He is one to question all things Walker. He did not. Me thinks he knows something about the "walker virus" and is not telling, like maybe for some people, its airborne and for some its not.
anyway, I'm just guessing.
NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)is that while a bite/scratch will infect you more quickly, and then lead to fever and death, and then re-animating as a zombie, if you die normally, you will still eventually rise as a zombie unless you're decapitated or similar.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)EmeraldCityGrl
(4,310 posts)after killing the big guy in the bar scene, Rick walks back over and shoots him in the head.
Why would that be necessary if he's already shot him in the chest and killed him? Has there
been one death by natural causes on the show yet? I don't think so.
denbot
(9,897 posts)I did not make that connection.
dr.strangelove
(4,851 posts)I missed that. I bet thats it. He knows that its not just bites, anyone who dies is doomed to be a walker.
Keystone Writer
(65 posts)What happens if a fetus dies in the womb?
Duer 157099
(17,742 posts)Ewwww....! Zombie fetus eats it's way out
dr.strangelove
(4,851 posts)Imagine getting attacked by your own baby inside. Thats some good horror movie stuff right there.
racaulk
(11,550 posts)Keystone Writer
(65 posts)There is a chance that the baby is protected--depends on where the writers want to go with this.
EmeraldCityGrl
(4,310 posts)Keystone Writer
(65 posts)they say that "Walking Dead" refers to the people who are still alive.
I don't get the impression that this will end well, for anyone.
EmeraldCityGrl
(4,310 posts)that flash on the screen during Talking Dead.
Hope it doesn't end anytime soon.
racaulk
(11,550 posts)This point was addressed in the graphic novel series on which the TV series is based.
Highlight the white text below if you want to know more (potential spoiler!)...
[font color="white"]In the graphic novel series -- After leaving Hershel's farm, the group move into a prison where they stay for a while. While there, someone (a character not yet introduced in the TV series) is killed by gunshot and later reanimates as a zombie. Rick then makes the connection that any dead person will come back as a zombie, not just those that are infected by existing zombies.
For the TV series, I bet this is the secret that the scientist at the CDC told Rick. And since no one has died of natural causes since their visit at the CDC, he hasn't had to tell the group this news. This is why he shot the guy in the bar in the head after he was already dead and why he was so disinterested in examining the bodies of the dead cops with Shane -- he kinda shrugged off and dismissed Shane's observation about lack of bite marks.[/font]
But then again, the TV series is deviating somewhat from the graphic novel series, so who knows?
Keystone Writer
(65 posts)in order to avoid a panic?
Baclava
(12,047 posts)don't follow the comic book conspiracy theories, they've been wrong every time
Digit
(6,163 posts)Shane is seeing the walker in the field on his side of the car while traveling to the release site and it appears to be walking the same direction as the car.
Returning to the farm, the field walker is yet again on Shane's side (huh?) and traveling in the same direction of as the vehicle.
Are zombies following cars hoping to get to the chewy center?
That coupled with all the zombies released from the compound made me question if they would be able to "track" the car back to
the farm for a snack attack.
EmeraldCityGrl
(4,310 posts)But then I see the entire premise of the show as a metaphor
for life in the twenty-first century especially if we ever face
a full blown economic or cultural breakdown.
Whatever it is, I'm completely addicted
Baclava
(12,047 posts)not that that's a bad thing
I think we all think we know how to do it better. The writers have done a good job keeping us guessing.
I think that's entertainment
racaulk
(11,550 posts)Andrea talking to Lori in the kitchen:
"She can have it all: a husband, a son, a baby, ... a boyfriend."
The look on Lori's face was priceless!
EmeraldCityGrl
(4,310 posts)When Lori was bitching out Andrea for not helping with the drudgery like
laundry and brought up her doing nothing but hanging out on top of the
RV, I wish she had said, " and when you do shoot a walker it turns out
to be one of us."
lunatica
(53,410 posts)All I can do is wait with bated breath to see what's going to happen next.
OneGrassRoot
(22,920 posts)I've never been a "zombie" movie/show kinda person, but I enjoy this show a lot. Not sure why, but I do.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)as human beings who are scared and who make mistakes and are heroic and it brings up some pretty profound questions about what we would do if it happened to us. The new baby is a great example. Do you bring it into that world? What if you find yourself hiding from a bunch of zombies and the baby cries? What do you do? Do you have the right to force a child to live in that world? The same question comes up about suicide. That subject has been brought up a lot. The CDC guy blowing up the Center, and Andrea wanting to die there only to be forced against her will to save herself in order to save Dale and now with Hershel's daughter.
The show makes us think and examine what we would do. I love that. I see it much more as a Science Fiction story than anything else. It treats the theme of apocalyptic disaster seriously and in depth.
OneGrassRoot
(22,920 posts)I've actually been trying to stay away from anything remotely realistic these days, wanting to escape reality when I watch anything/read anything for pure pleasure, but they portray the apocalypse in a stunningly realistic manner which has engaged me instead of turning me away. Interesting.
Stardust
(3,894 posts)the field-walker. It occurred to me that Shane didn't mention it to Rick out of vengeance...hoping it would eventually make its way to the farm and wreck havoc. But maybe he was nonchalant because of the hopelessness of the whole situation.
Who knows what the writers have in mind. I just suspect that most scenes are there for a reason.
dr.strangelove
(4,851 posts)I'm not sure the odds are in favor of that walker making it to the farm. But the farm is sure to be overrun at some point. too many walkers out there.
crimsonblue
(5,337 posts)Lori escaped death yet again. Why won't she just die?!!!
NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)would it have made a good episode?
crimsonblue
(5,337 posts)The sooner the show can be rid of this helpless, raging harpy, the better.