TWD 2x07 "Pretty Much Dead Already" episode discussion... **SPOILERS WITHIN**

[shootemindehead]

Poor Carol. Top marks for that episode. No feckin marks for making wait around for months to see the next bleedin one.

[acealive1]

i dont think herschel had to wake up or couldnt wrap his mind around things. he was a god fearing bible reading M-A-N. in the bible there's sickness, and thats all he saw. but he also saw color and that was his only downfall. i had no idea sophia was in the barn, but as soon as they showed the shot from inside the barn and then the camera gets lowered by about 3 feet, i just knew it was her right then. so many questions, so little answers. people nearly died looking for a little girl everyone knew was in the barn.

[Wyldwraith]

Exactly Aces, I'm having a hard time with how Kirkman chose to deal with the leak. It's the easy way out, frankly, and I just don't respect cop-outs in any way, shape or form. They happen of course, TV just being TV, but they're nothing we should give our tacit blessing to by giving those who made the cop-out decision a free pass on said decision. At the end of the day, it's the majority viewer reaction that decides what stays on the air. I REALLY, REALLY don't want to see Kirkman (or anyone else affiliated w/ filming TWD) develop a habit of retconning shot footage. It makes it so even things that are supposed to be seen as very final, or very definitive in the events depicted lose that finality. I'm gonna call it now, months in advance. When the dust clears, and we look back on how things finally resolve themselves between Rick & Shane, I 100% believe that Dale's 1-on-1 and behind peoples' backs statements will play a part in turning what is ultimately a conflict of philosophies/moral codes into something violent. Dale's little "Father Knows Best" moments are getting more and more extreme. Just take the progression in 2x06-07. He goes from confronting Shane privately (nothing good to possibly come of that), to telling Shane he needs to leave because Dale doesn't like Andrea's developing rapport w/ Shane (which only exists because everyone else has marginalized her desire to join the gun-toting camp protectors and leave the clothes-washing and meal-making to Lori and Carol. Then Dale has another one of his little 1-on-1s, this time with Andrea, where he asks her "Do you really want to become someone like him (Shane)?" Andrea's reply, serious and obviously something she'd considered at some length: "He (Shane) isn't a victim Dale." Moving right along, we see further evidence (out of respect for the mods requests won't go into anymore detail than that) that Dale is upping the ante in his 1-on-1 convos with people. Especially people he hasn't been in the habit of talking to like that before. With the common denominator being his drive to persuade other pivotal members of the group to see Shane as Dale sees him. How does talking about a fellow group member, any group member, in an extremely negative way while remaining unwilling to come out and face the subject of his criticism in front of the rest of the group do anything but draw lines in the sand and create and adversarial situation? Up until now, any serious problems and opinions that could effect the group as a whole have ALWAYS been talked out/debated amongst the entire group. Very recently however, that pattern has completely broken down and everyone is keeping secrets, not being straight with the rest of the group etc etc. Is it a coincidence that group cohesion is at the same time at its lowest-ebb ever? I don't IMO think so. Rick started it (about the big, group-affecting issues I mean) with the best of intentions as he sought to persuade Herschel to change his mind...but that's also where things started to go wrong. Even Lori, fervently loyal to Rick as a way of overcompensating due to guilt as she is, put the screws to Rick when Herschel pressed his point about them leaving to her and she then finds out Rick has known about Herschel's wishes for some time. Inspiring those very dramatic statements (from Lori) "We need to FIX THIS!" and from Rick "Don't look at me that way. Like you're afraid. I can take it from everyone else, but not you." Then Dale pulls his stunt with the cache of guns and ammo, and before there's any time to decompress from that Rick is demonstrating once again that he's willing to contravene the group's wishes as they conflict with Herschel's delusion about the Walkers being sick people, and comes trotting out of the woods with a couple more Walkers for the rickety barn. Honestly, I don't see how anyone who knew Shane as well as Rick does would expect anything but exactly what Shane ended up doing in those circumstances. The others weren't comfortable with Walkers in the barn either, or SOMEONE would have hesitated before accepting a gun under those circumstances. HELL, even CARL didn't hesitate to reach for the snub-nose revolver Shane offered, and only ended up without it due to Lori's direct intervention. The way that everyone stepped up to Shane's "firing line" and opened up when the Walkers came out (Andrea running forward to be the first at Shane's side with a gun up and ready to fire spoke volumes) was very telling. Even if the general consensus the group comes to accept is that Herschel and his surviving people knew nothing about Sophia being in there, there's no getting around the gasoline-thrown-on-the-fire effect of all witnessing that. It was the very symbol of the flaw in "playing ball Herschel's way." Herschel put Rick in an unfair spot to begin with though. He wanted everything to do with his own people run by him first, but he put Rick in the unfair position of blindsiding his own people with the Walkers on catch-poles. I'm glad Rick stepped up, but really it was his only credible move after what a dogged advocate of continuing the search despite all the bad that came from doing so Rick had been. It WAS heartbreaking to see Sophia as a Walker come out of the barn like that. One of the few times I've been genuinely horrified by something I saw on TV. Yet the legacy of her having been in the barn would be difficult enough to leave behind after Rick's Herschel-Appeasement strategy, and all but impossible (without something VERY BAD happening) with Dale feeding the flames at every turn in his cloak-and-dagger Anti-Shane campaign.

[Neil]

people nearly died looking for a little girl everyone knew was in the barn. There's a few questions to be answered there. Clearly Hershel (or someone) put here in there!? So they new almost certainly the groups little girl was to be found in the barn... Would be kind of cool if they did a flash back for her where she found the farm at night, was scared away from the main house by people, and went to a remote barn to try and get warm... Only to fall climb into the hay loft in the dark, and then lose her footing and fall down to the ground inside... (ie: So no one knew she was in there!) However, there were no real signed of major attack on her so she wasn't attacked on mass!

[shootemindehead]

She'd be completely devoured in a situation like that though Neil.

[Neil]

She'd be completely devoured in a situation like that though Neil. Agreed... And I said, "there were no real signed of major attack on her so she wasn't attacked on mass!" But it would have been a nice plot twist!

[krisvds]

This show is heading into classic 'Romero' territory with these two groups of people on the farm failing to communicate properly and thus posing a greater threat to one another than the zombies ever could. Love that. Rick was pretty much spot on in this episode: in trying to keep it all together and doing what he feels is best for the group, being sensible, trying to see both sides of the coin he actually does more wrong than right. Classic TWD.

[AcesandEights]

There's a few questions to be answered there. Clearly Hershel (or someone) put here in there!? So they new almost certainly the groups little girl was to be found in the barn... And yet no one told them! Kind of makes you wonder if maybe the person who put her in there died before he could say something about it...oh, yeah--he probably did.

[MikePizzoff]

And yet no one told them! Kind of makes you wonder if maybe the person who put her in there died before he could say something about it...oh, yeah--he probably did. Yeah, I think people are skipping over what Mr Clean said on the first page. Otis probably put Sophia in there. No word of Sophia was mentioned until Otis was already dead. There's your explanation.

[AcesandEights]

Yeah, I think people are skipping over what Mr Clean said on the first page. Otis probably put Sophia in there. No word of Sophia was mentioned until Otis was already dead. There's your explanation. I get that some people want it to be a conspiracy and they're not without their reasons. However, in the end I think it'll be a case of Hershel suspecting it as a possibility, but not wanting to know or give up the secret of the barn and that's close enough to the incrimination that some viewers emotionally want to be able to lay at his feet.

[Thorn]

Yeah, I think people are skipping over what Mr Clean said on the first page. Otis probably put Sophia in there. No word of Sophia was mentioned until Otis was already dead. There's your explanation. This has been verified by Kirkman. Otis was the only one who knew. Though I liked Neil's idea above... it would make for a great flashback. Maybe she fell in, scrambled up a wall all cat like and nimble but was bit at the last second and died in the loft before fallback in with the walkers... Yeah it is a stretch. -- -------- Post added at 09:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:24 AM ---------- My focus is on what was revealed of the beginning of the first new episode of February in the sneak peek during Hell On Wheels (didn't watch the show, but I left the TV on AMC to catch the Walking Dead sneak peek that was much more "meaty" than the "Next time on TWD" regular preview at the end of mid-season finale). We see the pile of corpses still on the ground in front of the barn, Maggie is helping a shaky Herschel back up the steps into the farmhouse as Shane strides forward and vehemently accuses Herschel and his people of knowing about Sophia. Herschel responds angrily with the statement "Otis handled all that. I didn't know anything about that"...which Shane replies to with "That's bullshit. What, you think I'm stupid? You expect me to believe that?" To which a distraught and angry Herschel retorts "I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU BELIEVE!" All the while, the rest of the group has kept pace and is right in a cluster even with Shane at the bottom of the farmhouse steps, but none of them say anything. Then it flashes to Rick and Shane heatedly arguing, before finishing with a scene that was obviously a bit later of all of them (including Shane) digging graves in front of the barn. Whatever you think about that scene, it tells us they're picking up chronologically seconds after the end of the mid-season finale and going forward from there. I still maintain that whatever the truth about who knew what, and when, about undead-Sophia being in the barn...there's just NO WAY that Otis did all the moving of Walkers into the barn all by himself. Especially when we KNOW they weren't all put in at the same time. Realistically, Hell, remotely POSSIBLY, how does ONE MAN move multiple Walkers into a structure already containing other Walkers...and without some complex effort like tying them up and tossing them in. (Which we know wasn't done because they're all shambling freely around inside.) Maybe Otis did the bulk of the work, and maybe even got most of the Walkers in there alone after they died but before they reanimated, but we KNOW that there have been AT LEAST TWO times that the male teen in Herschel's group has said (and was thus aware) of Walkers getting trapped in the bog as we saw during the finale. Which tells us that even if you assume Otis got Herschel's 2nd wife and stepson, plus their neighbors etc etc into the barn before they reanimated, at least one ONE other occasion (besides the one we saw Rick and Herschel dealing with) occurred where a Walker or Walkers plural (coulda been Sophia in fact) were pulled out of that bog the 2 Walkers were in. Meaning that at a bare-bones-minimum, Otis had to get at LEAST Sophia into the barn with the other Walkers already in there...and unless the teen was aware of Walker-Sophia getting stuck in the bog (which would blow a hole right there in Herschel's statement that only Otis knew about imprisoning the Walkers in any detail) that there was at LEAST one OTHER occasion where Otis took a zombie out of the bog and put it in the barn with the other Walkers. That much is airtight. Unless that teen is a compulsive liar, that is. And I don't see him lying to Herschel with his statement "It happened again!" Thoughts? Edit: @Thorn: Ok, we have to respect what Kirkman stated of course. That doesn't mean it's a situation that calls for suspension of disbelief though. It's a glaring scripting error in the KEY plot element(s) of the mid-season finale. Who did what, when they did it, and who knew what when and about what is the CORE of the finale. Will of course have another post up to completely disagree with you a bit later Thorn. Oh, and Shane was 150% right. That had me laughing out loud here at the office and getting a few odd looks,, but they know I am jacked up anyway so... f those guys. I agree as well, if it is real, then it should be in the script we shouldn't have to have it explained to us, even if they do it in a flashback.

[darth los]

Rick was pretty much spot on in this episode: in trying to keep it all together and doing what he feels is best for the group, being sensible, trying to see both sides of the coin he actually does more wrong than right. Classic TWD. That's because when you try to please eveyone you end up pleasing no one. This was exhibit A.

[blind2d]

Great episode. Sophia scene very emotional. Yes, I'm alive.

[AcesandEights]

Great episode. Sophia scene very emotional. Thanks Rorschach Yes, I'm alive. Cool, been wondering. Hope all is well, young sir.

[krisvds]

That's because when you try to please eveyone you end up pleasing no one. This was exhibit A. Indeed. As a fan of the comics i say bring on exhibits b, c, et al. On with the deconstruction of the sheriff!