The Walking Dead Episode Discussion

I'll have to give it a glance after the season finale. Thanks for the link!

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"I was walking down the street with my friend and he said, "I hear music", as if there is any other way you can take it in. You're not special, that's how I receive it too. I tried to taste it but it did not work." - Mitch Hedberg

Norman Reedus! I can't pinpoint the character from the comic though. Once again, I need Lennon. We need Lennon.
Even though Reedus' character and the brother aren't in the comic (at least not to my memory) I still think the former is a great addition. I just hope they don't dive into some sub plot where the group need to go find Reedus' brother. Maybe they do need to flesh it out a bit though, depending on how many seasons they're going for. Huh, that's gonna be a problem down the road. How do you wrap up the never ending story of survival horror, without just fading out of peoples interest? As far as we know Kirkman's just gonna keep writing them, you see.

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The Freedom Roads

Well I was wrong.
Episode four was awesome! Of course the genius Robert Kirkman wrote it himself, which might have just about everything to do with it, but this episode had a bunch of brilliant twists and turns man! I found myself raising my eyebrows at stereotypes one moment and having these shattered and laughing out loud the next.
This T-dog character is growing on me too. He can't be Tyreese though, still.

Best episode yet! I hope Kirkman will write some more.

Chime in guys, c'mon.

I wasn't thrilled with episode 4 but it was probably the pacing. It feels a little slow to me. Excuse me if I go all girly here but is that Jon Bernthal hot or what. Where is Sexy Celebrity when you need him. Hot guys and Zombies what more could he ask for. The ending of this episode was quite a shocker and I can't believe Rick gave all the guns away. What a nut. At least hold one or two back. Sheesh!

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Louise Vale first woman to play Jane Eyre in the flickers.

He didn't give up all the guns, he said he didn't even give up half of them. Or was he talking about the ammo?! Ah you have me second guessing myself.

The ending of episode 4 was so intense! "Now I remember what my dream was about."

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If I had a dollar for every existential crisis I've ever had, does money really even matter?

Mixed feelings. I agree that this episode was a nice step forward, but that's relatively speaking, because I thought the third episode was pretty bad -- almost nothing of lasting consequence happened in it, and given that the entire first season is just six episodes, you'd think every episode would be fairly eventful.

That's kind of my problem with the whole series so far, really: after episode three, it became apparent that the entire first season arc was going to be a lot smaller than I'd anticipated. Perhaps this isn't the fault of the show, and my own expectations are to blame, but I'm finding the scope a little disappointing.

Mind you, this isn't one of those instances where I'm just curious about the rest of the world (though I am). I don't think scattered news reports from across the globe would help the show. I think focusing on one or two bands of survivors is a good idea, but something about the way it's being done just feels...small. I realize this isn't a very articulate critique, but I can't shake it.

Part of it is the lack of newness. One thing I expect out of any new entry is a genre with its own set of conventions is that it introduce some new ideas into the mix, or else execute the existing ones flawlessly, but I prefer the latter. I feel the execution here is pretty good, but I feel like we're just watching a generic zombie story 90% of the time. Merle's storyline is a bit fresher, but everything else feels very conventional and well-tread. Nothing in the show's really surprised me, and I wonder why talented people would take the time to do something as substantial as launch a television show about zombies if they didn't have some very new ideas to bring to the table.

One thing I did dig about this last episode: the idea of going back for the guns. Too often in movies or shows like this, you just sort of lose them, but the idea of forming a plan to correct the mistake in episode one rang true, and I liked it.

See I wasn't expecting the camp to get raided with so many fatalities. Sure, the hints were there but I was expecting an angry Merle attack or just a shoot em up zombie scene.

Maybe I'm jaded, but I thought a) the grave-digging thing was kind of obvious and b) the Merle stuff was so front-and-center that it had to be misdirection.

It might help a bit if the victims of the zombie attack didn't all seem to just sort of stand there. That's always bugged me about any zombie film; at least have them go down after trying to push the zombie away, for crying out loud.

Anyway, I love a lot of the people involved, and I love Frank Darabont, and I really like the idea, I just find it all so zombie-by-numbers so far. But I'm definitely going to keep watching and if it finishes strong (which I think it probably will), I'll still be pretty optimistic heading into season two.

Explain b) please. There might be a language barrier here.

I agree, this bugged the hell out of me too.

I'm confident the focus will shift to character development and their relations later on. The primary threat won't come from the zombies as we move further along the comic book storyline and there's definitely plenty of opportunity to allow the zombies to fade into an underlying threat instead of the primary focus. Given the source material at least.

He didn't give all the guns away.

Did he?

My thinking was that all the talk about Merle coming back to get them, and stealing the van and heading to their camp to wreak havoc, was too obvious. Director Frank Darabont is very talented, as are (I assume) most of the writers (especially given that this one was written by the creator of the comics), so if I see something really obvious and telegraphed I tend to think it's misdirection because good filmmakers wouldn't give us blatant warnings about what's happening next.

Oh, and I remember him saying he only gave away half the guns, as well. Not even that, actually -- someone suggested he shouldn't have given away half, and he said it was less than half.

You usually don't make this little sense to me, so I might've missed something in the episode. Are you saying that the characters were like "Oh I bet Merle is gonna steal our van and come back to camp and kill all of us'?

I thought they actually did say something like that after they noticed the van was gone, or shortly after.

Oh after, I see. Sorry about that. But why wouldn't they though?

No reason they wouldn't. Certainly not quibbling with the characters. If I were them I'd probably think the same thing, but the fact that we were made to hear it and there was so much tension surrounding the possibility made me think that it was misdirection.

That said, I still think Merle will pop up again. He's kind of like a Gollum character at this point. Though obviously now we're all waiting for him to pop back up and ruin things, so I hope there's a twist to his return. For example, returning to save someone, rather than to inflict vengeance. I guess we'll see.

I gotcha now. Needless to say it didn't bother me at all.

There's actually a pretty damn good opportunity for him to pop up again. If what I'm thinking about is the case a twist is unlikely. All speculation of course.

That thing you said about six episodes per season worries me a bit. Might ruin the pacing of the whole thing, but I'll have to wait and see where this season ends to judge that.

What're you thinking? I like speculation!

Yeah, I was kind of surprised when I heard it, but then I figured "well, they'll just be jam-packed and they'll all feel like mini-movies." The first kinda did, but everything since has only advanced the plot about as much as I'd expected a season with twice as many episodes to.

I'll spoil a whole season. Or have you read the comics?


Right that's why I wasn't worried before. It just seems silly. The comic is so drawn out (in a good way) and it takes its sweat time developing the characters. Dammit six episodes?

Oh, my bad. Nevermind then, about the comics and all that. From what I understand they've already deviated a little, but yeah, that's quasi-spoilerish since I assume the first season will at least mostly mirror the comics.

It'll be interesting to see if it diverges more over time, like, say, Dexter has from its source material.