AMC's The Walking Dead

I kept feeling like this season, particularly the Sophia storyline, was dragging, but boy, was it worth it.

Looking back on it, I think it almost required that slow burn to really make the closing to this episode have the impact it did. Everybody's growing frustrations — Herschel with the Grimes Gang, Shane with Rick's leadership, Daryl with Sophia, and all the others — all came to a head in that cathartic last scene.

You could see how much they were all enjoying killing the zombies and how devastated they were when Sophia trudged out.

Rick stepping up to make that one kill, the little girl he left behind, was pretty powerful.

There's no doubt there's a schism in the group now, but it seems as if T-Dog (who is barely part of the show — they need to figure out a way to incorporate him more or kill him off) and Andrea are really the ones who will be on Shane's side. Daryl is more of a loner, but he seems to lean more toward Rick than Shane.

 

Finally got around to watching the webisode about the half-zombie from the first show. Powerful stuff, and made me jump at one point, which pretty much no horror movie ever does.

 

I put Daryl on Shane's side only because I think he wants to leave the farm. And Shane's group will want to leave the farm.

 

I agreed with the earlier breakdown and Darryl, being the survivor type, begrudgingly agreeing with Shane, especially if Shane tells him the two of them know better than Rick. And Carol would blame Rick for 1. Losing Sophia in the first place (though I don't think that was his fault); and 2. Blowing her zombie brains out.

On a different topic, if Shane "loves" Lori and Carl and wants to be the man in their lives, what's he doing banging Andrea in the SUV? (Yeah, I know why, but....) I'd love a scene where Lori finds out about Andrea and Shane.

 

Carol would be an epic bitch if she blamed Rick for losing Sophia. It was Sophia's dumbass who moved around and attracted the zombies, and then ran off into the woods. At the least, she should be grateful Rick even went after her and risked his life. I believe Lori and Carol had a little discussion about this late in the first episode or early in the second. And there's NO WAY Carol would be angry for Rick or anyone blowing out Zombie Sophia's brains. That girl was coming at them ready to chow down and would've done so on her own mother. To make Carol angry about any of this would be more heavy-handed bullshit and the biggest steaming pile of shit delivered by the writers.

 

I don't think they'll go that route, but I wouldn't have a problem if Carol turned on Rick. As they showed in the early episodes, and as I think this episode points out, zombies don't mean shit to you until you see one of your loved ones staggering toward you. That puts a different spin on how you view the undead.

I don't think it would be that ridiculous to have a mother to be really pissed at Rick for leaving her daughter behind and later seeing him blow her daughter's head off. Seems like a pretty human reaction.

 

I disagree. It's a human reaction if you're completely irrational. He didn't have to go after her in the woods, but he did. He did what he had to do to protect her and risked his life doing so. She's the one who ran away and defied his orders. She already had her misplaced anger and Lori put her in her place. She's shown no ill-will toward Rick about it since.

 

I'm not sure what makes you think she'd be at all rational about seeing her zombie daughter get her brains blown out with a .44 Magnum.

 

But when she saw Sophia walk out of that barn, she knew what had to happen -- and what was going to happen regardless of what she did.

 

It's her daughter. The guy who had the best chance to save her ended up "killing" her. It's not irrational to be upset about that as the girl's mother.

The whole, "Rick didn't even have to do that" thing wears thin. He's an adult. He tried to protect a child and failed. Regardless of the world you're in, if that doesn't wear on both him and the mother, then that world is not worth inhabiting.

That said, he tried to do what was right in both cases under absurdly heart-breaking/difficult circumstances. Her anger would eventually fade for the most part and, objectively, intelligently, she would recognize all of that. Emotionally? It would certainly be human for her to harbor some resentment, even while she realized it wasn't entirely fair.

 

Re: AMC\'s The Walking Dead

Remember when the black dude, in the first season, could not pull the trigger on his zombie wife when he had her sighted in his scope? I forget his name, but he was the guy that Rick was supposed to let know about Atlanta. The wife ended up turning the door knob on their apartment trying to get in. I think the writers are pointing out how difficult it is or would be to pull the trigger on a loved one, and I do think there will be some resentment towards Rick for killing Sophia. It is only natural.

 

Testing the survivors' moral limits, in terms of what they're willing to do or not do morally in this hellish existence they have now, is obviously part of zombie stories.

One thing we don't have to worry about is them confronting the prospect of cannibilism (the stranded shipwreck question or Donner Party).

Walkers handle the chowing off human flesh, thank you.