AMC's The Walking Dead

These are some of the practical questions that drive me batty with this show.
These people are in frequent, life and death struggles on a nearly daily basis. No one gets cut, no one breaks bones, no one pulls a hamstring running away. I'd love to see someone die because they pull a muscle as a walker horde overtakes them.
In this environment, too, where there's no medical care available beyond first aid, it irks me that no one has any lasting injuries. Didn't Daryl break a leg in Season 2? He should have a permanent limp, if it didn't kill him outright. Now, just a few months later in show time, he's running around like Usain Bolt.
People have gotten shot and been just fine a few days later. How in the holy fuck does that happen? Where are the staph infections? The gangrene? People simply bleeding out?

And don't even get me started on the concept of showers in this world. Working and living outdoors, or in an enclosed, non-air conditioned space like the prison in the heat of a Georgia summer? Rick's crew must smell worse than the walkers. No wonder they piss off every group they come across.

 

Some people adapt as well as they did and some do not. That makes it more realistic to me, not less.

 

I'm not 100 percent clear on how long it is supposed to have been since the pilot (at least a year, right?), but I would think a zombie apocalypse would introduce an abbreviated form of Darwinism. Those who adapt and are strong survive. Those who scream with knives in their hands while being attacked do not. At this point in the show, those who do not adapt/are too weak should be dead.

 

In fairness, Beth has been pretty sheltered (by and large) to the actual zombie apocalypse. Let's think about this. From the moment the thing started until Rick's company showed up at the farm, Herschel and company had pretty limited interactions with walkers and (from what we can tell) were pretty well protected because the farm was far enough away with major cities to only warrant a couple of walkers, all of which seem tohave been controlled in the barn.
Then, the horde takes down the barn and Beth has to run for it. Then she's with the rest of the group on the road, where Daryl, Rick & company take care of the heavy duty walker killings. Same with her time in the prison.
She seems to have gotten out of the prison breach fairly easy and has been with Daryl the whole time since so he's no doubt taken the bulk of that walker killing.
It's not too much of a stretch to think that Beth doesn't have a ton of experience with killing walkers directly and probably even less experience getting attacked by one when she wasn't expecting it so I don't have a problem with her not being very Michonne like there.
But, yes, there are a lot of plot holes with this most recent episode. Most, I think, are just systematic of lazy writing. Still, I'm OK with that. I'm not of the illusion this is supposed to be on the level of Breaking Bad. I just enjoy the show for what it is.

 

I'd always stop to bathe in the river. Or how about last season's episode, there's some berries on a tree and they eat like two of them. If that's me, I'm eating every fucking berry I see.

 

Weren't the barn walkers mostly Beth's family?

And I'm with you on this one: I don't have a problem with how Beth reacted when the walker came up from behind her. It's one of the smallest "plot holes" there are.

 

I don't think "most" were, but yes, it was family and friends, then if they found any, they would put them in there as well. I seemed to remember a scene where Hershel and someone else was using straps and sticks to direct them away from a river.

 

Beth is soft. That was the point. She's lucky to have been stranded with the baddest of motherfuckers. It's ridiculous that this show seems to draw more criticism for trivial (and explicable) shit like that than it's many mediocre actors, poorly developed characters and weak plots.

I say that as a devoted viewer.

 

I wouldn't say the show receives more criticism for that, but when you are discussing it on an episode-by-episode basis, you are going to point out the little things that bothered you about each one. For me, it was all of the little stupid things the characters did during this particular episode, including Beth's damsel in distress routine. You could make the "mediocre actors, poorly developed characters and weak plots" criticism for just about every episode (and I would add bad writing), so there is almost no point in saying it over and over and over again. That would make for a very boring discussion thread.

 

My beef wasn't with Beth's reaction -- so she froze and wimped out, rather than going warrior.
My beef was with the walker, a mindless feeding machine, who didn't quickly drop his head and take a bit out of her shoulder or back when he had her firmly in his grasp. Can't respect a slacker walker like that.

 

The point of the past two episodes has been to show how much better they function as a group. But I see your point.

 

Certainly to illustrate that people need people.
Carl still needs his father. Beth needs Darrell, and Darrell needs people to care about so he doesn't become his brother.
Michone can survive on her own, like Darrell, but that existence is really no better than being dead.
Etc