3rd Episode - Tell it to the frogs

[Mitchified]

According to the comics, Andrea should be somewhat timid at this point, Glenn should always be working alone when he goes into the city, Dale should be always open to doing the right thing instead of wheeling and dealing over van parts to allow someone to borrow his tools, Carl and Sophia should be inseparable, Shane should still have delusions that he's the man Lori wants to be with, and half the cast shouldn't exist. I think it's fair to say that we can throw the comic characterizations out the window at this point. The reason I'm doubting that Shane will actually end up the same way as in the comics is because he has no delusions that Lori wants to be with Rick. In the comics, he asks her when they should tell Rick about how they're together now, and Lori throws a fit at him. He seemed pretty much resigned to the fact that things were over (about pissed about it, sure, but still).

[Thorn]

Before everyone jumps on the "Shane is an ass" bandwagon, keep in mind that there's a completely different explanation for why Shane might have told Lori that Rick was dead. And it has nothing to do with lusting after his best friend's wife. Say that they went to the hospital and retrieved Rick before fleeing to Atlanta. What then? Rick is in a coma; how are they supposed to care for him? Staying with Rick or being burdened with him would probably have been a death sentence for Shane, Lori, and Carl. Shane might have simply made the hard choice and chosen to protect the people that had the best chance of survival. The rest of it, stepping in as a father figure to Carl and getting into a relationship with Lori, could have simply come afterward. True, thing is though he owed it to Rick and his wife and child to tell at least HER so she could make the decision. He decided to leave him there for her. Maybe there will be a twist and they will try to make us see another side I welcome that, but in the end I want to make my own decisions about my loved ones. NOT a biased third party. Bass I see your point, and in a way yes it could be two sides of the same coin. However Rick was stressed and losing it for the right reasons in my opinion, I view this incident as a guy taking out his anger on someone else over impure motives. So to me anyway it is different. Now the dude deserved what he got if he was indeed beating his wife and daughter so I ca not argue that point.

[Mitchified]

True, thing is though he owed it to Rick and his wife and child to tell at least HER so she could make the decision. He decided to leave him there for her. Maybe there will be a twist and they will try to make us see another side I welcome that, but in the end I want to make my own decisions about my loved ones. NOT a biased third party. Lori would only have had two options: stay with Rick and probably lose her and Carl's lives in the process, or have to leave Rick behind, which would be the equivalent of murdering him. If Shane did make the decision to tell her that Rick had died so that she didn't have to make that choice, I hate to say it but that's pretty damn humane of him. Whether it's in the comics or on the show, I've always been inclined to believe that, at the beginning, Shane's intentions were pure. He simply wanted to protect the wife and child of his partner; a cops take care of their own thing. Over time, though, the burdens of leadership, the constant need for both violence and vigilance, and the loss of the woman and son that he had ended up emotionally clinging to simply became too much. It's a harsh world they live in, and no one is immune to it. Keep in mind that, in the comics, Rick himself starts becoming a lot more brutal and a lot less human, and he's the stronger willed of the two. That's why I've always felt a bit bad for Shane. He wasn't really a bad guy, certainly not as cut-and-dry awful of a human being as the Governor, but every man has his breaking point and he reaches his.

[BillyRay]

Think about Rick's culpability in all of this... When he and Shane get into that roadblock shoot-out with the fugitives, and Rick gets hit in the vest, his first reaction is to adamantly tell Shane: "Don't tell Lori". Then he takes the bullet that puts him in a coma, etc, the series "proper" begins. Let's look at his subsequent actions. He's not even reunited with his family (that he went through Hell to find) for one whole day before he's taking a squad back into ATL to rescue Merle and recover the Bag 'o' Rifles. A little reckless, wouldn't you agree? Rick has a "hero Complex". Has to be the good guy, the brave and wise leader, the "New Sheriff in town". He's the first to ride into the fray, oblivious to the danger. That's all well and good for a single guy like Shane, not so much for a man with a wife and son. Granted, as a Law Enforcement Officer, it's his job. But based on the roadblock scene, and actions he's taken since then, his bravado goes quite a bit further than his job, and that's the sticking point between him and Lori. Rick's headstrong, and always tries to do the Right Thing, regardless of consequence. That's hard to deal with when you're keeping the Home Fires Burning, waiting for the worst phone call in the world to come.

[ProfessorChaos]

well, to be fair, it is his fault that merle is still on the rooftop when he decides to go back. he could have uncuffed him once he calmed down and talked some sense in to him, but chose to let him stay there while the rest of the crew found an way out. also, it makes his "there are no more (n-bomb)'s, no more white trash whatev's anymore, either. it's us vs. the dead" speech irrelevant if he's willing to let merle die on the rooftop of either exposure, dehydration, starvation, or zombie buffet. and what he said to lori is also true, he owes his life to morgan and is hoping that he can repay morgan and duane the favor of helping them if they decide to come to atlanta. so far, i think andrew lincoln is doing a superb job portraying rick. later in the comics, rick does get a bit macho and reckless, but from what i've seen so far, he's the moral compass of the group and a true team player. i will concur, though, that having a wife and child is a bit of a drag on his hero routine, so to speak.

[BillyRay]

i will concur, though, that having a wife and child is a bit of a drag on his hero routine, so to speak. That's why you never see a superhero driving a minivan.

[Thorn]

Lori would only have had two options: stay with Rick and probably lose her and Carl's lives in the process, or have to leave Rick behind, which would be the equivalent of murdering him. If Shane did make the decision to tell her that Rick had died so that she didn't have to make that choice, I hate to say it but that's pretty damn humane of him. Whether it's in the comics or on the show, I've always been inclined to believe that, at the beginning, Shane's intentions were pure. He simply wanted to protect the wife and child of his partner; a cops take care of their own thing. Over time, though, the burdens of leadership, the constant need for both violence and vigilance, and the loss of the woman and son that he had ended up emotionally clinging to simply became too much. It's a harsh world they live in, and no one is immune to it. Keep in mind that, in the comics, Rick himself starts becoming a lot more brutal and a lot less human, and he's the stronger willed of the two. That's why I've always felt a bit bad for Shane. He wasn't really a bad guy, certainly not as cut-and-dry awful of a human being as the Governor, but every man has his breaking point and he reaches his. There are more than to choices, she may have opted to shoot him so he he wasn't eaten by zombies if and when the hospital was over run. She could have stayed with him to make sure he was evacuated. There are a lot of options some good some bad. The thing here is they are HER options. If my daughter is in the hospital in that situation and you deny me the right as a parent to choose and instead choose for me you are not being humane you are being an ass. He may THINK he was being humane and making her life easier but the bottom line is he made a decision for her, not only was it wrong but it is insulting. Put yourself in her place, if you would rather someone else make your important life decisions for you, no offense but I feel sorry for you.

[ProfessorChaos]

well, maybe these superheroes would travel in such a vehicle when they're not kicking ass:

[Mitchified]

There are more than to choices, she may have opted to shoot him so he he wasn't eaten by zombies if and when the hospital was over run. She could have stayed with him to make sure he was evacuated. There are a lot of options some good some bad. The thing here is they are HER options. If my daughter is in the hospital in that situation and you deny me the right as a parent to choose and instead choose for me you are not being humane you are being an ass. He may THINK he was being humane and making her life easier but the bottom line is he made a decision for her, not only was it wrong but it is insulting. Put yourself in her place, if you would rather someone else make your important life decisions for you, no offense but I feel sorry for you. You're missing my point. I'm not saying that I want someone to make my decisions for me. I'm not saying that Lori shouldn't be pissed that the decision was made for her. What I'm saying is that if you look at it from a dispassionate place, Shane telling Lori that Rick was dead might have been the right call. You said that there were some good decisions that could be made. What good decisions are those exactly? Rick is in a coma, you can't care for the guy in that state without proper medical training and equipment. You mentioned waiting for him until he was evacuated, but you have no way of knowing if that evacuation is coming. And even if there is an evacuation planned, you can damn sure bet that priority is going to be given to healthy people over patients near death and/or in comas in a situation where society is collapsing. What are the good decisions exactly? Look at it from Shane's point of view (assuming that his motives were altruistic). Help may or may not be coming. The government is telling you that the only safe place is five hours away. If someone isn't functioning at one hundred percent, the odds of making a mistake that lead to death are hugely increased. The only realistic options that you can give Lori are to wait for help that may or may not be coming and thus jeopardizing her own life and her son's (or seperating Lori and Carl, which isn't exactly super happy time either), have her basically commit murder by either leaving Rick behind or euthanizing him, or bring Rick along and watch him die because they can't provide for him in the state he's in. Every single one of those options involve increasing the risk of death or causing severe personal trauma during a time that you have to maintain as much clarity and foresight as humanly possible. Whether or not it should be Lori's decision is irrelevant. The option with the greatest chance of survival for their little group was for Shane to do exactly what he did. Does it suck? Hell yes it does. Would I kick the crap out of Shane if I found out that he something like that to me? Damn right I would. However, when you take emotion out of it and look at it from a purely logical standpoint...it makes a lot of sense. I wouldn't have been able to do it because I'm not the kind of person that can de-humanize a situation, but he is.

[MoonSylver]

Of course we don't yet know how exactly the show will play out, but I think most people feel he's an ass because of the character in the comics. Yeah, I've been wondering about that. We can take it 100% for granted that things will play out a certain way just because they did in the comic. We're already pretty far into uncharted territory to a certain extent as is. Could be interesting...

[Thorn]

You're missing my point. I'm not saying that I want someone to make my decisions for me. I'm not saying that Lori shouldn't be pissed that the decision was made for her. What I'm saying is that if you look at it from a dispassionate place, Shane telling Lori that Rick was dead might have been the right call. You said that there were some good decisions that could be made. What good decisions are those exactly? Rick is in a coma, you can't care for the guy in that state without proper medical training and equipment. You mentioned waiting for him until he was evacuated, but you have no way of knowing if that evacuation is coming. And even if there is an evacuation planned, you can damn sure bet that priority is going to be given to healthy people over patients near death and/or in comas in a situation where society is collapsing. What are the good decisions exactly? Look at it from Shane's point of view (assuming that his motives were altruistic). Help may or may not be coming. The government is telling you that the only safe place is five hours away. If someone isn't functioning at one hundred percent, the odds of making a mistake that lead to death are hugely increased. The only realistic options that you can give Lori are to wait for help that may or may not be coming and thus jeopardizing her own life and her son's (or seperating Lori and Carl, which isn't exactly super happy time either), have her basically commit murder by either leaving Rick behind or euthanizing him, or bring Rick along and watch him die because they can't provide for him in the state he's in. Every single one of those options involve increasing the risk of death or causing severe personal trauma during a time that you have to maintain as much clarity and foresight as humanly possible. Whether or not it should be Lori's decision is irrelevant. The option with the greatest chance of survival for their little group was for Shane to do exactly what he did. Does it suck? Hell yes it does. Would I kick the crap out of Shane if I found out that he something like that to me? Damn right I would. However, when you take emotion out of it and look at it from a purely logical standpoint...it makes a lot of sense. I wouldn't have been able to do it because I'm not the kind of person that can de-humanize a situation, but he is. Honestly I didn't miss your point at all. I get it, you feel that Shane may have made the right decision, and I am saying I disagree with you and at no point is it right for a man to make a decision for another person regarding their family. There is nothing missed here just two people who disagree. As for the rest of your post you are putting out a lot of examples and leading them to bad ends, that's cool I could paint a dozen scenarios with rosy happy endings. The bottom line, and the point of my post is not to suggest what might of happened it was simply to illustrate that there was more than two options as you said. Whatever option was selected would ultimately be the right one for Lori and her family if she made it and she would have to live with it. Hypotheticals do no interest me we could invent scenarios all day. Bottom line it was not Shane's choice to make he denied her the right to choose for herself, he lied to her and this caused her to abandon her husband who was defenseless. As it was he awoke alone and lived through a miracle he did not die of infection, or being eaten alive. As I said as well she might have opted just to put him out of his misery as they sat there with him at the end and it was flee or die. They might even have died in that flight, we don't know. What We do know is she was not allowed to make her own decisions for her family and that is what my point. So I ask you, would you in her situation want to have say in what happened to your loved ones or do you want that decided for you by a man who might have ulterior motives? Again to use a real life comparison if it was my daughter, and ANYONE lied to me and caused me to leave her to die alone there would be hell to pay. Even if my choice was to die there defending her alone. That Is my choice and no one on this earth has the right to take that from me.

[babomb]

Mitchified-You got the right idea. Couldn't agree more... As it was he awoke alone and lived through a miracle he did not die of infection, or being eaten alive. So then you're saying that Lori and Shane should've counted on that miracle? Going back to the hospital meant certain death. If my daughter is in the hospital in that situation and you deny me the right as a parent to choose and instead choose for me you are not being humane you are being an ass. He may THINK he was being humane and making her life easier but the bottom line is he made a decision for her, not only was it wrong but it is insulting. In normal circumstances you're totally right. But under normal circumstances this choice would never have to be made. The right to choose as a parent is gone with society. You have the same right to choose in this scenario as an animal has to choose if their offspring becomes food for a predator. Say Shane didn't do that, say he allowed Lori to make a decision knowing Rick is in a coma. Lori would never be able to go rescue Rick on her own, Shane would have to lead that rescue mission and do most of the work to see it through. So now, Shane Lori and Carl are storming a hospital overrun by the dead while the military is trying to hold it down, with inadequate weapons and really only 1 of them(Shane) is capable of attempting this. If they could lay the situation out to Rick, and ask Rick what he would do, what do you think he'd say or do? Would he say "yeah, risk the lives of my wife-son-partner/best friend to come and save me even though the likelihood of me being alive is miniscule"? No! No way! He'd say "do what you gotta do to save my fucking family"! And ONLY Shane is capable of making that decision. Lori would choose to go after Rick without weighing out the consequences because her love for Rick is clouding her judgement. It's these hard decisions that allow people to survive. And this very decision we're debating is certainly the only reason that Lori and Carl are still alive. It's not like they could get a babysitter for Carl while they storm the hospital to save Rick who's probably already dead. So what are they gonna do with Carl? Press the B button and command him to wait in a dumpster? If you notice, Shane is very protective over Carl. Whether the motivation for that is pure or not, he's still making decisions with Carl in mind. Which was probably a factor in the decision to leave Rick and tell Lori he was dead. It's still pretty early on in the show to know what becomes of Shane, but at this point I don't see him as a seething maniac that's intensely focused on making Ricks family his own at any cost. He seems like a control freak, he was probly a real "by-the-book" cop, and he definitely has an anger problem. But there needs to be someone like that in the group when you have another person/s who act heroically on a whim. Keep in mind the scene where Rick tells the blonde lady to go ahead and take the necklace because "those rules don't apply anymore". Looting is immoral under normal circumstances, just like lying to someone about a loved one being dead. But "those rules don't apply anymore" because the focus is survival. Making the right moral decision all the time and striving to simply be a good, kind person, are luxuries that died with society. It's probly something you'd have to be able to accept if you wanted to be a survivor. Ultimately, it comes down to the intent. Again to use a real life comparison if it was my daughter, and ANYONE lied to me and caused me to leave her to die alone there would be hell to pay. But that lie didn't cause Rick to die alone. It caused Lori and Carl to survive. It's also different when your talking about your child. The whole dynamic changes if it was Carl in the hospital because the decision to leave Rick was made primarily to save Carl. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find out that Rick stands behind Shanes decision to lie to Lori. He already said that Lori had every reason to assume Rick was dead, and told Shane he couldn't thank him enough for keeping Carl and Lori alive. Another real world example: If your house was burning and you know your daughter is alive but the possibility of your wife being alive is miniscule, would you go in and get your daughter and bring her with while you enter the room engulfed in flames where your wife might be? Or would you get your daughter to safety and go back for your wife? And would you go in after your wife at all if it appeared that shw was almost certainly already dead? As Mitchified said already, this decision is the only one that makes sense when you look at it from a non-emotional POV.

[bassman]

Why are you hitting enter after every sentence? Kortick....is that you?

[MoonSylver]

Why are you hitting enter after every sentence? Kortick....is that you? NO!!!!!!!! (I assumed maybe he's using one of those moblie device thingies? AH, the kids & their technology! )

[Thorn]

I find your post too hard to read so I will just address one point. I am not saying they should count on anything. I am saying only one thing that no man has a right to decide for anyone else what is right for anyone else in that situation. It does not matter what the mitigating factors are, in that situation you have every right to your own decisions and whatever the end results is irrelevant. You are saying that Shane made a decision that kept his group alive. I am talking pre-group. It is him, Lori, and her son. He lied for whatever reason to make her think she could just leave and there was no obligation to stay. EVEN if it got her out of there and lead to her staying alive... I do not care. I am only addressing what is right. It is right that you or I make our own decisions and those decisions are based off the truth no matter the circumstance. I do not see how that is so hard to understand, and any of you who think that is a great way to go through life are crazy and remind me not to count you as friends when the shit hits the fan because I want someone I can trust not someone who trusts that they make better decisions than me as it pertains to my loved ones. Right or wrong it would be Lori's decision to make not Shane's. Stay go. Live die. Some people choose to die with their husbands rather than take the life boats (women and children first), some captain's go down with their ship, some men throw themselves on grenades to save their comrades in arms. THEY make these choices and when you deny a human being that right you are overstepping your bounds. Period.