4th episode - "Vatos"

[kidgloves]

Uh maybe it's just me but, did random people we never saw before just happen to appear when the campfire site was attacked? No. They were always in the background doing something

[Wyldwraith]

Not just you, I CANNOT place the 2nd black guy. There was T-Dog. That's it. There's a black WOMAN, yes. (And a character that really needed to be eaten BTW, for her total lack of contribution to the show. This isn't Old Star Trek, and we don't need a "Captain, I'm afraid" black woman for "color on the bridge"), but just can't place the 2nd black guy. The non-bat-wielding 2nd Latino male I've seen, but was glad they disposed of because he's as much a silent extra as individual zombies, only without cool makeup. As for Amy, I buy her BEING ATTACKED that way, and I care BARELY swallow shock/surprise holding long enough for a chunk to be taken outta her arm, but the whole sitting there immobile and not moving until a chunk was taken out of her throat? BZZT, wrong answer! The correct/believable answer was Screaming PLUS blind thrashing/heaving/struggling to pull herself loose. Women struggle when suddenly gripped from behind all the time. It's how rapists and serial killers end up with defensive wounds. Shock is one thing, but once SEARING PAIN hits, Fight or Flight will cause SOME SORT of, well, FIGHT OR FLIGHT. People are not wired to freeze during prolonged attacks while being chewed on. Human beings attacked by big cats struggle more effectively than that, and that's after being taken by COMPLETE surprise. She'd already had her "frozen moment" when she lost the chunk from her arm. It didn't ruin the scene for me, but it was an annoyance. What REALLY bothered me was their ignoring what Grey's Anatomy text could tell anyone. If an *adult male* removes a *mouth sized* bite of flesh from THAT AREA of the throat, your BEST outcome is him biting clean into the esophagus and/or windpipe. It was on the left, so no jugular vein, but as much blood as there was, there woulda been a LOT more. It would've been frothy too from the escaping air as she struggled to breath as her own blood began drowning her. Now yes, it IS POSSIBLE that the curvature of the bite caused most of the blood to run down her windpipe. HOWEVER, I've PERSONALLY been 10-12 feet from a car accident victim at the Paddock Mall parking lot where paramedics were trying to deal with exactly that sort of injury, and blood was spewing in these AWFUL gurgling coughs/gagging sounds PROJECTILE STYLE every 3-5 seconds. Not always a lot of fluid volume, but enough that the paramedics were damp with it from hair to pectorals. Whatever the result, without an IMMEDIATE intervention to keep her airway clear, she would have been gone FAST. If nothing else, the sudden drop in blood pressure due to blood loss woulda knocked her out. Still, overall I loved the entirety of the scene. I'm even willing to voluntarily overlook the convenience of timing in Rick and Co.'s arrival JUST THEN, due to all the rambo-esque headshot goodness we got. Plus, like everyone else said, the show needed the extras thinned. As for where the show is heading, that's easiest of all. To a MASSIVE CLIFFHANGER. Let's see, Rick saw a chopper. Now the group will be talking about moving/wanting to find somewhere safer post-attack. Enough airtime left to get them moving, and run them into the major danger/obstacle threatening the on-the-move group and cut it in mid-action, PRE-climax at end of Ep. #6 I pray they don't. If they do and THEN follow through on the tentative plan to forestall airing season 2 until NEXT YEAR'S FEARFEST because they want to bump it in order to show more of their cookie-cutter drama-TV, they'll kill this show. Maybe if it had a 24-28 espisode run the delay would just be aggravating, but 6? The show's still just building momentum and cementing the beginnings of becoming a habit for committed viewers. I'll bring up a show I guarantee few people like here, but is an example of this. HBO's True Blood. They had a 7-month delay before Season 2's beginning, after ending on a HUGE cliffhanger, and the show went from being another HBO phenomena to a program struggling to keep its ahead above water. Interestingly enough, True Blood is also based on a long-standing, very successful and LONG run of Sookie Stackhouse novels. AMC may screw us yet folks.

[DjfunkmasterG]

Well i will say the dude who got shot int he ass has probably been infected. I am sure the brother who is the archer is not on top of cleaning and sanitizing his equipment enough and if i had written this storyline I would have played that angle to throw some of the groups safety off.

[blind2d]

Well I liked it... but I see what you mean, yes. I pray to God (something I don't often do, honestly) that it won't die after this season... On a lighter note, I wonder where Captain Rooftop went? Did he really take the truck? If so, why not drive back to the camp, where his brother would be? Hmm... And Jim should get on the bottle. That would stop him from diggin' holes.

[Trin]

Most of the elderly people that were already there probably had died by that point. The few people you still see remaining (a handful of elderly people) were probably the few that were still left around. Not every older person in a nursing home has some type of illness/"issue" where they have to need constant supervision and medication. In more cases than not, they just have no where else to go because their family either doesn't give a shit about them any longer or their social security check won't provide for them to live anywhere else except for a nursing home (where they take all their social security check). It also depends on the type of nursing facility as well. If it is a state run home, you're going to have people from all walks. When I was younger my grandmother used to work in a nursing home (she was an R.N. there and the head nurse on her floor) and so I have quite a bit of experience in going to these places and visiting with the elderly folks. There are usually certain floors set up for the "more needy" patients (i.e. Alzheimer's/Dementia if that nursing home takes care of these issues, patients that need special attention/medication, etc.) and then the rest of the floors are for what are classified as "General Admittance" patients. Most of the "General Admittance" patients only suffer from being old in a society where old people aren't wanted any longer. So, yes, the patients that were ill/needing constant attention would probably die off fairly quickly (and were probably already dead). The rest of the "General Admittance" patients would probably be confused/upset but otherwise relatively okay as long as they still had a food supply. j.p. But what you're not considering is that they started with 2 staff for the entire place (a nurse and a custodian) and had people dribble in afterward. Over the course of a month. Imagine the first few weeks. Basic sanitation for a facility that large would require a huge staff. What happens when the toilets stop working, there is no running water, no clean linens/towels, and no cleaning products? Confused or invalid patients would wallow in their own filth, having minor accidents that would lead to rampant infection and disease. They'd spread that throughout the place, hitting the other healthy patients and staff alike. The ones coming down off of pain-killer highs would wail and moan to an extent that the place would be surrounded with walkers, effectively barring wide-scale looting. It's a no-win situation. Perhaps a different way to look at it is this - if they were surviving after a month of those conditions in a major city looting the immediate area than how bad is it really? The show has repeatedly portrayed survival as at times impossible and at other times relatively simple. It needs to make up its mind. @Wyld - I sure hope that they don't try to keep us on the edge of our seats for months and months. That'll suck.

[BillyRay]

Well i will say the dude who got shot int he ass has probably been infected. I am sure the brother who is the archer is not on top of cleaning and sanitizing his equipment enough and if i had written this storyline I would have played that angle to throw some of the groups safety off. Oh snap....didn't think of that... That could come back and bite them in the ass. Also, I don't get the incredulity over the "gangbangers with hearts of gold" angle. Seems they explained it pretty well in the show. 'Bangers come to check on assorted Grandmas, stick around to protect the elders against both Zeds and "Plunderers". (Prolly the nursing home was a better fortress than anything else they may have had) They were after the guns "just lying there", and of course came up against Rick's party in the process. Their worst crime is lousy timing. Seems to me that with any number of raiding parties around ATL, that an aggressive stance is required. Especially when you're protecting helpless oldsters. They had no idea that Rick & Co. were "The Good Guys", so came out chests puffed, safetys off, being bold. Glen just got caught in the middle of a situation that was unraveling faster than anybody involved could fix. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed. (I buy that a Wandering Granny could diffuse a tense stand-off in the manner she did. I've had a lot of Tough-Guy friends who will completely defer to their Nanas - it's a respect thing)

[Trin]

"What? Cause I rap about reality. Like me an my grandma having a cup of tea. There ain't no tea party like my nana's tea party. Hey... Ho..." - Flight of the Conchords... Yeah, I can totally see the granny coming and telling the boys to back off and show some respect. I actually thought that's what was gonna happen for a second. If nana had been a bit more hardcore granny (and less confused old person) that would've been quite plausible. I can live with the improbably timing of both groups going for the guns at the same time. I have a bit of a hard time with the bangers realizing it's a bag of guns without having gotten close enough to take them already, but whatever. And I can agree with the aggressive stance. That's cool. But when Rick says both sides made mistakes I thought that was a great line. The fact that the bangers didn't respond well to it was the hard part. That wasn't hardcore, that was idiotic. And how they protected themselves wasn't too bright either. Then to have them turn around and be reasonable, level-headed, intelligent... Eh, not a huge deal, but that whole interaction coulda been different or non-existent.

[Doc]

Not just you, I CANNOT place the 2nd black guy. There was T-Dog. That's it. There's a black WOMAN, yes. (And a character that really needed to be eaten BTW, for her total lack of contribution to the show. This isn't Old Star Trek, and we don't need a "Captain, I'm afraid" black woman for "color on the bridge"), but just can't place the 2nd black guy. The non-bat-wielding 2nd Latino male I've seen, but was glad they disposed of because he's as much a silent extra as individual zombies, only without cool makeup. I missed episode 2 and the first 10 minutes of episode 3 so maybe, I missed the extra characters introduction. I was like, "what who the hell is that?" when the zeds attacked them it really took me out of the scene. Did even get as, much as a line any of them? Oh well, they were just canon fodder anyway. Dr. Tounge's sister? Also, am I the only one liking Daryl character?

[ProfessorChaos]

daryl is the man. my favorite character added just for the tv show so far.

[MoonSylver]

Yeah, Reedus is a likable actor & I didn't expect him to have much of a part, or if he did, about like Rookers, so this is nice. We'll see how far it continues.

[bassman]

I was surprised how Darrell seemed to care about the well being of the camp once he realized Merle was probably on his way there to get revenge. He might be changing into a more heroic character. My wife had the idea that if Merle did lead the zombies to the quarry and if he's gone crazy....she thinks Darrell will come to the rescue and be the one to put him down. I thought that was an interesting angle...

[wayzim]

Love the episode and really didn't have much to criticize about it. All the characters pretty much acted as they would, even the urban survivors. I mean, it's not one of my stories or Romero's so it goes as Darabont intended it to ( if we listen to the dialog as well as looking at the pretty pictures. ) I've known enough hard-asses that are actually decent people to imagine folks trying to act well under the worst circumstances, so it's not that far removed from reality for either Darrell or the leader of the city crew to step down abit. As for who does what under stress, it's always a crapshoot ... always. There's this fun saying 'Under the most strict laboratory conditions, the subject will do whatever it damn well pleases. ' So the most reasonable response from the characters is what the scriptwriter decides it is. This is, by far, the best written and best paced show I've seen in any genre, so many creds to the crew for getting it done and getting a second season from AMC. Wayne Z "When a fan asks How Fast Starfuries go, I tell them they go at the speed of Plot. " J MIchael Strazynski

[sandrock74]

I wonder now, since Rick helpled arm the people at the old folks home, if the survivors now have potential allies in the Atlanta area? Seems to me that they would be thankful to Rick for helping them out and be willing to return the favor in the future... Also, not so sure that Merle would have brought the zombies back to the camp, as that would involve him putting his own brother in danger. Of course, I am assuming that the two of them had a "normal" sibling relationship. Personally, I thought these were the zombies that showed up due to Glenn's car alarm from the last episode. Hey, zombies move slow, but they don't give up! There could still be more on the way! Just my thoughts.

[ProfessorChaos]

i only watched the episode once, but it seemed to me that one of the zombies looked an awful lot like the first one glenn passed by (the one sitting in the car, he was also shown in the first trailer). if that happens to be the same zombie, then that's a definite sign that the zombies were brought to the campsite. sure seemed like a lot to just show up at the same time, ya know?

[acealive1]

Uh maybe it's just me but, did random people we never saw before just happen to appear when the campfire site was attacked? LOL yea. i saw the black guy getting his back chewed up and im like "uhhh, where'd he come from?"