The Walking Dead: Clear

[thistlechaser]

(Edit: Oh well that's a pain. My work network has decided my main LJ page isn't work safe and won't let load it. It's probably that post about adult toys... Anyway, I can't check and confirm that the LJ cut is made correctly, so leave a comment if the spoilers are showing.)

Often times when I have a strong emotional reaction to something in a TV show, I search for online reviews of that episode to see if others felt the same. In the case of last night's Walking Dead ep, it appears that not only did no one agreed with me, most of them felt the opposite...



A number of things have been annoying me about the show lately, but they're the little plot hole-y things that you have to ignore with Walking Dead. But last night there were annoyances of a different kind:

1) The more minor of the two: While clever, it bothered me that they used rats and birds that way. Yes, I know that animal abuse is way low on the scale of things come the zombie apocalypse, but it still made me frown a lot. If the situation had been real, how scared those animals would have been!

2) The hitchhiker/camper guy. Holy cow. I cannot believe every review I read wrote about how funny those scenes were. At best they described them as "darkly humorous" or "morbidly hilarious". How horrible the scenes were to watch. Were those reviewers unable or unwilling to put themselves into that guy's shoes? What would it be like, to be alone and on foot in that world? To be so desperate he was willing to yell (and thus attract walkers to himself) to try to get them to stop?

Yes, strangers in their world could be dangerous. Could be. Or they could be people who are just trying to survive. As much as possible, the survivors should be sticking together. Helping each other. How many living people are left in the world? Do they not realize that each living person matters? That the pool of them is only going to get smaller and smaller? Yes, day-to-day survival is their priority, but can't they see longer distance as well?



And on a more minor note: I've said this before, but I really hate the timeslot Walking Dead has. As soon as the ep ends, I turn off the TV and go to bed. More than half the time, I wake up to zombie nightmares. And even if I have no nightmares, I'm so hyped up and on edge, that it takes me a long time to fall asleep. (But the show is too good for me to record it and watch it later!)

Comments

[tersa.livejournal.com]

1. I wasn't bothered by it, because in the situation in which they were being used...it was them or 'us'. I thought it was genius on Morgan's part to use them as bait.

If it makes you feel any better, they were in cages that seemed mostly zombie-proof and it would have behooved him to actually care for them. They were probably hard to catch in the first place, and without them, his system falls apart.

2. You weren't the only one it bothered, but I recognized it for what it was: I think there was an element of humor to the way it was depicted, but it was supposed to also be chilling as an illustration for how hard Rick, Michone, and Carl (especially Carl, OMG) have become since everything started going to hell.

That line at the end when Carl apologized to Morgan for shooting him, I knew Morgan was going to say "Don't ever apologize for that." Because that's what the world has come to--a world where the survivors all have to be hard people.

But on the other hand: I was watching the backpacker at the beginning, yelling and following him, and thinking "And you've just called out for every zombie in the area, you idiot, how did you survive this long?" It makes me wonder if the writers really put much thought into that, about the survival skills a lone person other than Michone would have had to develop in order to surive a year, and learning not to yell at the top of your lungs would've had to have been top three at least.

I did find the going back for the backpack funny, but just in the way they did it: the driving past it, then backing up to grab it. Because of course, that's what you do in this world.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Good point about caring for the rats/birds. Seemed odd that the zombies were able to break open one rat cage (not to mention, it lead them right to the characters...).

I wonder if eventually animals will get the zombie virus, too. Viruses do grow and mutate and evolve. (Might be an issue of money for CGI effects though.)

The yelling thing bothered me, too. Was the hitchhiker related to that guy in the cabin who had no idea what had been going on for the last year? Seeing other people would be rare, sure, but not so rare you should shout (plus what if the people in the car had been horrible folks, wouldn't you want to size them up instead of attracting just anyone's attention?).

Agreed that taking his pack had been the right thing to do. Speaking of... Was there some sort of time jump I missed? The prison had had a ton of food, then last week they were out of food and I scratched my head.

As much as I enjoy the show, I wish the writing were a little tighter.

[tersa.livejournal.com]

Seemed odd that the zombies were able to break open one rat cage (not to mention, it lead them right to the characters...).

Well, in most of the other cases, the cages are amidst contraptions meant to capture the walkers and in most cases seem to keep the cages out of reach of them. In that one case, they just threw the unadorned cage into a whole bunch of them. Unimpeded, they've shown in the past they can tear through things/break glass, so a cage would be nothing after a while.

Was the hitchhiker related to that guy in the cabin who had no idea what had been going on for the last year?

Haha. :)

(plus what if the people in the car had been horrible folks, wouldn't you want to size them up instead of attracting just anyone's attention?).

EXACTLY.

Was there some sort of time jump I missed? The prison had had a ton of food, then last week they were out of food and I scratched my head.

Yeah, I don't know what happened with that, either. Unless it was maybe the sudden demands of trebling the number of mouths to feed.

But mostly I think it's because they want food sources to always be an issue. Having to forage for food is a good excuse for making them have to go out and interact with the world, which drives the plot.

Although I was watching Rick in the gun locker last night thinking "You know, guys, it's been a year. The food stores are going to start going away entirely, you really ought to think about how you're going to live when you can no longer go to the drug/grocery/convenience store whenever you need to eat."

Someone linked me to this, which is cute and amusing.

Haha, that's awesome. Although (a) I think there would be a ton of fans ragequitting the show if they killed off Daryl and (b) why did they use a photo of him that looks like a Nick Nolte mugshot? XD

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Not even just the food. Gas goes bad, too. Gas in underground storage would last longer than the stuff in car tanks, but would be harder to get at. How much longer will their brand new, spotless Hyundais run?

I wish the show could do a big time-jump ahead. I'm not usually one for spoilers, but in this case I'd like to know how things will turn out in the end. Will all living people die off? Will the virus be cured? Is this happening world-wide or just in North America? Sadly, I suspect we'll never know.

Although (a) I think there would be a ton of fans ragequitting the show if they killed off Daryl and (b) why did they use a photo of him that looks like a Nick Nolte mugshot? XD

Haha. Yes, to both!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

It's a pain not to be able to use my own main LJ page... Anyway! Someone linked me to this (http://i.imgur.com/xpAgVPT.jpg), which is cute and amusing.