Walking Dead Ep1: Days Gone By

No, I said that if you don't like the show, then don't watch it. I just don't understand the need for some people to continue to watch a show that they don't like and constantly bitch about it. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but there comes a time when you need to give up the ghost and turn the channel.

Life is too short to waste on watching bad TV.

False rumor.
http://www.tvguide.com/News/Walking-Dead-Writing-Staff-1026363.aspx

You didn't miss a scene, but you did miss the conversation point. The old guy mentioned he could fix it again with duck tape, but that it was mostly duck tape at this point, and he's running out. There was never a statement that it was beyond fixing.

It did however give a reason for the RV to stop at that particular area. I can't fault that as bad writing because it was previously introduced as an issue.

I'd say that a larger issue with credibility is leaving the guy there to turn into a walker. That seems unlikely.

Though clearly that's going to tie into the CDC needing a specimen issue. That's a tad weak just because it seems a bit forced.

I think it's pretty obvious Merle let them in. He was stated as heading back to the camp right at the time the walkers broke into the perimeter. The characters just don't realize it yet.

I don't think it's poor writing to imply without explicitly showing. That's generally good writing IMO, because it requires thought by the audience.

If it turns out that they don't find out Merle had something to do with it I'll be disappointed and change my mind, but for now it certainly seems like the most plausible scenario.

One of the things I really like is how people's psychology are affected. For example, the main character's need to get the walkee talkee back to let the man who saved him know not to go to Atlanta, and how that's the only person he really let's know what he's thinking despite not knowing if anyone is receiving it is really interesting to me.

I remember the conversation. I don't remember him saying he could fix it. I remember the cop asking if he could fix it and he made the "it's mostly duct tape now and I'm running out of that" comment. He was pessimistic. Nothing about that conversation led me to believe that they were just going to be able to give it a quick patch job and drive off. But that's only part of the problem. They shouldn't have any issues finding a replacement part in the first place. It'd be a lot easier than finding gas.

Like I said, it's a stupid plot point to begin with. Scavenge one of the hundreds of thousands of vehicles sitting around empty! Contrived drama.

No argument. Hard to believe they would do that. However, as a group, their decision making has been pretty horrible so far.

It's a bit forced if they do it. I'm not sure that they will. I think it's just as likely they never revisit that dude or his plight. We're still waiting to revisit Merle.

That's the only thing I would accept. So far, zero indication that he was involved. Honestly, they hinted at other explanations. The knew the walkers would start wandering out of the city when they started running out of food. And since they're a really smart group, they made their camp about 2 miles from downtown Atlanta. It's a given that walkers were going to crash their party at some point. Hell, they already had one wander into their area. These people are retards (with the exception of Daryl, who seems to be the only one with survival instincts). But lets say Merle let them through the perimeter. Surely the group would have realized something like that must have happened. How come no one was curious about why the noisemaker fence failed? They haven't mentioned it at all. They haven't really mentioned Merle since then either. They went from wandering what happened to him, to being scared that he would harm the group to just kind of forgetting about him.

That's not what they're doing. Reference that horribly contrived boat scene with the sisters. That was a blatant attempt to make us care about a completely undeveloped character right before they kill her off. That was the writers idea of being subtle.

That was a decent scene. I also liked the scene in the woods where the one guy seriously considered faking a friendly fire incident on his best friend. It's not all bad. Just disappointing.


*One more thing: That blonde chick has now pointed a gun in the cop's face twice for no good reason other than being emotional. Why does she still have a gun? They tied that one guy up just for digging holes in the ground. She's getting off light.

If I am not mistaken, when the RV stopped due to the hose, Shane took off to scout a service center up the road to see if it had a replacement hose.

EDIT: Confirmed in dialogue on a rewatch. Shane drove ahead and got a replacement. The repair took place offscreen while we were being shown the CDC stuff.

They did this in the comic book. They left Jim behind because he asked them too. They never saw him again. Really one more Zombie isn't going to make or break the extinction of the human race.

However in the show it looks silly because of the CDC part which is not in the comics.

I'm hoping if they get the crazy idea to go get him since he's "fresh" that they can't find him.

I don't think Merle was involved. I don't think Merle would put his brother in jeopardy like that because Merle couldn't have known that Daryl was in the city looking for him when Merle stole the truck.

In fact given that Merle was handcuffed to the roof I don't think he ever got a look at the truck so when he stumbled upon it he wouldn't know it was used by his brother.

As for the noisemaker. Either they didn't put enough up and left a gap or the writers dropped the ball.

Plus if Merle had driven the truck back to the camp there was a good chance the campers would have heard it.

I think the Zombies were just spreading out and of course it didn't help that Glenn was driving that car with the alarm blaring. With no other sounds to mask it the sound waves must have traveled a long ways.

Yeah that was stupid. It was no where as "deep" in the comics as it was in the show.

She was justified the first time. New guy just brought a whole lot of Zombies on their heads and the group was pissed.

Second time... ... emotional woman....

Jim on the other hand was losing it. It was obvious.

Yes, but it was left at the location that the Korean kid left the previous car. Merle had been there before with the first group going in (we didn't see it), but it was pretty clear that's where the Korean kid was stopping regularly, and he did go into town regularly to forage.

Not doing it to his brother is plausible, and the only reason I can think of as to why he might not have. However, his brother clearly knew how to take care of himself, and Merle didn't strike me as being the altruistic type. More the 'I'm a fucking moonbat' type.

Disagree - Merle knew where the camp was. Easy as pie to park outside of range and walk in.

True, but old guy also stated that it probably didn't do any harm because of the echoes made it impossible to pinpoint.

If the Zombies were just spreading out, seems unlikely they'd come in numbers in a group.

Unless of course they were being led.

But I concur, that's only one possible theory. Old guy could have just been wrong.

I agree it was contrived specifically to give us a reason when blondie died, but I thought it was a well written scene in general. It also establishes that the surviving sister has some skills.

Agreed.

You guys really think she was justified sticking a gun in his face the first time? He was being attacked by zombies, so he shot them. If that's so unreasonable then she has no justification for carrying a gun in the first place. Besides, he didn't know there were other people sneaking around and he didn't know gun fire would cause them to swarm. She was out of line. Shooting him sure as hell wasn't going to improve the situation for her. No body else got all homicidal over it. She's a nut. The only reason they didn't give her the Merle treatment is that she's an attractive woman. This isn't a complaint about writing, just my own take on the character.

There was no previous car. They went in on foot. They stole the van because it was the only way they could get past the Zombies surrounding the area.

The kid had always gone alone until the first episode. This was why he was complaining at the basement of the building. "I go alone everything's ok. First time I bring a group everything goes to hell." (paraphrased)

Merle didn't know that the van belonged to his group. I'm of the mind that he would have come storming into camp looking to fight Rick, not help a bunch of Zombies attack the camp.

Plus after the attack was unsuccessful why didn't he just show up a little later and say, "I'm back". It's not like they could blame him for the Zombie attack.

There is one part of the forest attack scene that makes no sense. Zombies aren't exactly stealthy. They should have been making noise like crazy pushing through that area. Writers....

I think Merle had nothing to do with the Zombie attack and is still in the city or will go to the camp after resting and find the note and then head towards the CDC.

Or show up next season as a villain leader of a group.

They were upset. They are scared. They do however understand the value of staying quiet.

And some guy they don't know comes galloping in on horseback and starts shooting causing Zombies to zero in on their location.

To them they don't know Rick is clueless about Zombies. They don't know he's only been awake a few days. They just think he's a freaking moron. They think he should know better then to do what he did.

It's why Glenn calls him a dumb ass over the radio when Rick gets in the tank.

To them they are now trapped because he came into their area acting stupid and brought a few hundred or thousand Zombies to their doorstep.

You're looking at it from Ricks POV. I say look at it from the groups POV.

Edit: And Rick has enough sense to realize that he wronged the group and that he's outnumbered and to just go with the flow since the group doesn't seem out right hostile (the Spanish guy telling her not to shoot and her not paying attention to the safety).

I'm looking at it from everyone's point of view except the crazy lady. No one else in the group thought he deserved a gun in the face. Calling a guy a dumbass and threatening to kill him are two very different things. She wasn't justified. No way. Every time she gets upset or rattled she threatens to kill someone. Take that gun away.

Well you ain't seen nothing yet........

Provided of course her character follows the comic book.

I got the impression that they stole the van to get the entire group out of the department store, not because they walked all the way from the quarry originally. But I might be mistaken.

Agreed - however that was still the first time. I was speaking of the assumption that they brought a car from camp (which has quite a few of them) instead of hoofing it to Atlanta from the quarry. In which case Merle would have seen where the kid stopped when he went with him the first time.

Previously the kid certainly went in by himself.

The later maybe. The former? They all blamed the disappearance of the van on Merle. Perhaps they were mistaken (I like the fact that the POV opinions of the characters aren't gospel), but clearly the audience was supposed to believe that a) the van was stolen by Merle, and b) that the characters believed Merle was heading back to the camp in the van.

Because he hates them and wants them dead? And he'd see his brother was still with them at that point in time so he didn't reappear after the attack.

Guess we'll see. If he isn't, then they should attempt to resolve what exactly he was doing, and how the van disappeared.

I got the impression they walked in because taking a car would generate too much noise.

I suppose it is possible.

True.

Not buying it. I don't think Merle in his condition led any Zombies anywhere nor did he go through the woods and lift the "can line" alarm system without getting caught, eaten by his "Zombie gang", or for that matter transporting the Zombies to the right location.

And I don't believe for an instant he would do anything to jeopardize his brother. He might be a cantankerous racist bastard but he's still human.

I think it would be cool if we never found out. Or towards the end of the shows run, last episode, one handed Merle shuffles by the group as a Zombie.

[?=next episode spoiler]I looked at IMDB and it doesn't show Merle for this episode. We shall see how accurate that is tomorrow[/?]

I just realized the biggest "suspension of disbelief" is the small percentage of black walking dead.....HELLO! ATLANTA! You Southerners know the deal...just sayin'.

Clue us in. Haven't had a chance to watch it yet.....

Had to have been something about the blood tests. Earlier, he told them that there were no surprises with the tests. That's a lot different than saying "you're all fine!".

I enjoyed this episode, btw.

I've been reading the imdb board, and based on the comics a lot of people seem to think that the doctor told Rick that they're all infected (they just haven't died - the virus is dormant until "event 1," death).

Decent enough episode, I can sympathize with Shane even if he was being a jerk.

It felt less like a season finale than the episode leading up to the season finale.

That whisper is driving me crazy! Now I'll be wondering whayt the secret is! Good call about "no surprises" on the blood tests. Maybe out of any group of people at least one person has the sickness!

Here's a good story: (I suck at names so bear with me here) - the black haired cop is infected. He has wild sex with the cop's wife after she + her husband break up. During their bodily fluid exchanges, she gets infected too!

So, season finale already, huh?

I say the entire group is infected. The writers practically hung a wreath on it with "No surprises." The Doctor knew it before he ever let them in. He just didn't care because he knew he was hours away from power loss and daisy cutter decontamination.

Re: Infection

From the comics...

Atlanta's got a pretty strong racial divide to it, geographically. Maybe they just haven't gone far enough South/East...

Puts "the walking dead" in a new light, eh?

That doesn't explain why the guy with the chest bite seemed to transform so quickly. Obviously a strong injection into the blood stream does something to speed things up. The bite at least speeds up death.

Jim didn't transform. We didn't even see him die. We saw him get sick and get left by a tree. He was still human at that point.

Eventually the sickness would kill him and then in a few hours he would wake back up as a Zombie. They haven't nailed down a number but I'm willing to bet it's different for everyone.

The way you become a Zombie as told by Chaos is the way it is in this version. A zombie bite doesn't turn you into a Zombie. That's the whole point of the "Walking Dead" title. It refers to the still living and not the Zombies.

If you think about it, a zombie bite would be incredibly toxic. That mouth is rotting and full nasty things. Maybe an immediate and aggressive treatment with a full spectrum of antibiotics would save a person, but they're not going to have that as a option.

I thought it was mighty nice of the zombies not to attack the group while they stood around and watch the CDC explode. Pretty dog gone considerate!!!!

Probably were running for their undead lives.

I'm impressed that Dale and Andrea managed to beat the clock running up those stairs and out of the building.

Anyone else here think that what Dr. Jenner whispered into Rick's ear wasn't Z related but instead was that