The Walking Dead: Episode 2: "Guts" (SPOILERS!)

[Gryphon]

See, I was under the impression that it had been longer than a month since it all started. Now, this assumption was going off of the comics, not the show, since the show was fairly vague about it. In the comics, Morgan makes the comment that all media shut down after a few weeks, and that he hasn't heard any word from anyone since. That combined with how much some of the zombies have decayed always gave me the impression that we're talking three or four months since everything started. Plus there was Lori's, erm, "mistake" with Shane, and given her personality in the comics I can't imagine that happened almost immediately after the zombie outbreak began. Hence the comment about the car batteries. I was surprised that the cars just started right up after being hotwired. If I missed something in the show that changed the timeline, then whoops. Good points, but then again, how long does a bullet-wound take to heal so that it no longer needs fresh bandages? I would think month-->6 weeks tops. Course, I've never had a bullet wound And for all the disagreements we have on the series even at this early stage, this is the prize. Seriously, when was the last time a zombie movie made you do that? Me and my kids were actually sitting there like "Oh god, oh god. They're not gonna make it!?!" And that my friends is priceless. That's what we watch the 100 crappy zombie films for. If it's just to get a sliver of this stuff. With the hope that if only one out of the hundred can elicit feelings like that. Exactly! 100% Agree. Molto bene!

[Mitchified]

The problem with coming up with a firm timeline is that we don't know so many of the details. How bad was the extent of the damage to Rick? Most bullet wounds wouldn't cause a coma if it was a clean shot, so if there was a bunch of internal damage (enough to cause a coma) the bandages might have been from whatever surgeries had to be performed. We can't even go off of how long he was attended to by the hospital staff because there's no indication given for how long the hospital has been abandoned. In fact, if we're going off of the fact that Rick's wound was no longer severe enough to stop him from walking, riding a bike, or shooting a gun one-handed without causing extreme pain to himself, I'd wager that it was at least a couple of months after he had been shot, probably more. The problem is we don't know when the zombie apocalypse itself started. The only clues are the ones that I mentioned before, and it's really the quote from Morgan that made me think that it's been a substantial amount of time since the zombie outbreak began. Here's the exact quote: "All media shut down after a few weeks. I haven't heard much of anything after that." If it had been someone recent of an occurrence, Morgan would have more than likely said something like, "All media shut down a few weeks ago." It's a small difference, but it completely changes the implication of the sentence. I might be looking far too much into it, but that's where I got my assumptions about the timeline.

[Tricky]

Just finished watching this episode, great as far as I'm concerned, still setting the scene & bringing in characters! The Zombie getting its head split by Ricks axe was pretty grim, as well as the dismembering scene! One thing though, if zombies are dead and therefore not breathing, how do they smell? But I guess when living people sniff something, they physically suck air in through the nose rather than the automatic action of regular breathing, so they could still do it, thats how I rationalised that part in my mind anyway Oh, and good to hear the Black Strobe track from "Rocknrolla" getting an outing in TWD!

[Andy]

Just finished watching this episode, great as far as I'm concerned, still setting the scene & bringing in characters! The Zombie getting its head split by Ricks axe was pretty grim, as well as the dismembering scene! One thing though, if zombies are dead and therefore not breathing, how do they smell? But I guess when living people sniff something, they physically suck air in through the nose rather than the automatic action of regular breathing, so they could still do it, thats how I rationalised that part in my mind anyway Yeah i beleive the zombie survival guide says that the lungs of a zombie function so far as they are capable of drawing air in and out, allowing zombies to smell things and make their signiture groans, but provide no further function, they dont take anything anything from the air they 'breath' in, allowing them to function just as well underwater or even without the lungs altogether. Sounds like a reasonable enough explaination to me. Anyway, i loved part 2, it was brilliant and consistant with part 1, it kept the mood, the zombies were fantastic, i loved the 'covering each other in guts to mask the smell' taken straight from the comics and i loved seeing grant grant from slither on the roof. Its just what i needed to see to restore some faith in modern media and without starting a debate up here, i really think somebody needs to sit romero in from of this series and say to him, this is what your fans want you to make for fucks sake.

[bassman]

Its just what i needed to see to restore some faith in modern media and without starting a debate up here, i really think somebody needs to sit romero in from of this series and say to him, this is what your fans want you to make for fucks sake. We may have had our differences in the past, Andy....but fuck yeah. Fuck. Yeah.

[ProfessorChaos]

goddamn, that's almost signature worthy, andy.....fuck it, it is signature-worthy. hope you don't mind. for all this series' "flaws", i've seen nothing as ridiculous or unbelievable as half the silly shit in romero's last few films.

[Andy]

goddamn, that's almost signature worthy, andy.....fuck it, it is signature-worthy. hope you don't mind. for all this series' "flaws", i've seen nothing as ridiculous or unbelievable as half the silly shit in romero's last few films. Not at all, but i really do mean it. If romero had been directing TWD, the first part would of had rick walk into town with a giant crossbow, then some zombies ride horses at him, he takes refuge in the tank while the zombies surround him throwing stones at the tank but then he would of figured out how to use it and driven away from them, met up with glenn and the other survivors on the other side of town, left the tank for absolutly no reason and got trapped in the store where they go up to roof and find the sniper dead becuase the zombies have sniper rifles too and they shoot back, so they all run back inside where a zombie janitor is trying various keys to open the glass doors at the front so they dont have much time, they run down to the basement to the sewer but there's a metal door stopping them going in the sewer so rick has a great idea, he drives the tank down there and through the metal gate, and they all escape in the tank with the zombies on horses chasing them, shooting at them. That coule be the plot of the next romero movie actually...

[MinionZombie]

My thoughts on episode two - http://deadshed.blogspot.com/2010/11...-thoughts.html Week two of the rather spiffing television adaptation of The Walking Dead comic books delivers on the gore and the action in spades. Picking up where the first episode left off, with Rick trapped in a tank surrounded by walkers, we're immediately off to a thunderous start. Within minutes we've seen the 'Hinzman hobbler' zombies pose a real, armchair-gripping threat, and been introduced properly to Glenn (played pitch-perfectly by Steven Yeun) - who goes on to provide the best lines and the most fun throughout this episode, which boasts an impressive mixture of serious issues, horror, humour and moments of gruesome gore (such as the titular scene, re-worked somewhat from the source material). Similar to the first episode, some of the zombies - at times - can seem a bit too spry, but I guess these are the vagaries of wrangling a whole cast of zombie extras on a production. I'm sure over time they will really find their footing to create a consistent shambler for the series. Branching out in a slightly different direction, character wise, from the source material, episode two introduces us to some new faces - such as Michael Rooker's racist redneck Dixon, who gets into a bit of a fuss with African American T-Dog, which establishes a story arc that we'll see play out in future episodes. Speaking of these newly introduced characters, some of them feel a bit useless - only there to provide a piece of information and then just to become bystanders (I'm thinking along the lines of Jacqui and Morales, who don't do an awful lot here). Then again the comic books (in particular Volume 2 of the trade paperbacks) had their fair share of bystander characters who weren't of much use - perhaps we'll see these characters expand in future episodes, but with so many other characters at the camp site that we've not been introduced to yet, I do wonder if we really need this many side characters. It would be nice if some of these side characters actually had names, or had their names said more than once, so we could at least identify with, and refer to, them by more than just what they look like. More impressive though is the sense of scale, as our protagonists desperately try to figure a way out of the zombie infested city, and the aforementioned titular scene in which Rick and Glenn have to make themselves smell like the zombies to avoid detection as they go in search of means of escape. This is the sort of thing that The Walking Dead handles really well - the sort of situations and ideas that we zombie fans (or "zed heads") like to discuss on internet forums and chatrooms to the nth degree. To see these 'what if' and 'how would you' scenarios play out on screen is a real joy - speaking of which, Glenn zooming around in a brand new Dodge Challenger? So much fun! So with a considerable amount of action, and future plotline establishing, handled in this episode, I'm looking forward to the next one, which will no doubt really get into the meat of the character interplay as we finally get to see everyone come together and really get to explore the camp site set-up and characters. Although that said, the main scene between Shane and Lori was impressively worked with a deft hand and sense of subtlety. This is shaping up to be an excellent series. Thoughts on Episode One here - http://deadshed.blogspot.com/2010/11...-gone-bye.html

[shootemindehead]

Yep, agree with a lot of that. I watched ep 2 again and I'm still REALLY uncomfortable about this T-Dog rubbish and the bog-standard racist redneck. It's just WAY too forced and totally not needed...at this point anyway. "Hi I'm T-Dog" "What?" "T-Dog...but I insist it's spelt T-Dawg" "WHAT?" "T-Dawg" "Fuck off" Glenn still stikes the right chord and like the comic comes across as a genuine character, unlike "gangsta rappa guy" and "dozy KKK goon" and I want to see more of Dale too. Yep, some of the zombies ARE a little too nimble for my tastes, but again, I'd put it down to directorial shortcomings. There's no fence jumpng or ladder climbing in the comics. The superfluious people are also an indication of bad scripting and director choices too and again, at the end of the show I was left saying "why?" Why mess with the comics (especially so early on). There's your script AND your storyboard. There's no need to dick about. Doubly so, when the changes are bad. Either way, I am also left wanting more (much more) and after all that's the indication that something is going right...isn't it? Also...   I'm I the only one on here that has a suspicious feeling that this "Dixon" guy will come back later in the show as "The Governor"? The guy that fucks up Michone?

[Andy]

Also...   I'm I the only one on here that has a suspicious feeling that this "Dixon" guy will come back later in the show as "The Governor"? The guy that fucks up Michone?   I Think he's pretty much fucked, we saw at the end of the episode the zombies forcing the door open and the chain holding it closed creaking and grant grant still handcuffed.

[ProfessorChaos]

as for dixon   i highly doubt he's gonna be the governor. that story arc won't even come into play till season 3, i'd imagine, as darabont has said that it'd be the end of season 2 before they reach the prison if he had his way about it...although that does seem like it's a lot of episodes (15 or 16) till then... and MZ, about all the extra characters, like somebody else has already said, they're just more "shock-and-awe-violent-death-at-the-hands-of-zombies" for one of those future action-packed episodes.....   like the bit where the camp is overrun and amy is killed, jim is bitten, and i imagine they'll have at least a handful of those nameless folks killed as well

[shootemindehead]

To Andy and the Prof...   I just can;t imagine that they'd go through the trouble of hiring Michael Rooker though, just to have him on screen for 10 minutes. That doesn't make sense to me. He's in this for a reason.

[ProfessorChaos]

i dunno, man. the governor's appearance is iconic....that fucking hair....and rooker looks nothing like the governor except for his style of clothing. plus, the governor is friendly and welcoming at first and is introduced as a good guy of sorts...of course, then you find out about him and his ways. between the appearance and the revelation of just how cruel the guy is after he welcomes rick, glenn, and michonne, i can't see them using merle dixon. plus, we never hear the governor's name (wait, maybe it was phillip or something, now that i think about it..). but i just cannot see them using dixon as the governor. if they do, it'd be a huge disappointment. almost as bad as if t-dog is actually tyrese

[childofgilead]

Be awesome if they could get Ian Mcshane in for the Gov.

[MoonSylver]

I just got to see Ep 2 last night & tonight, but really enjoyed it. Interesting (in a good way) how far (to an extent) they're going off script from the comic. Liked the "new" characters, even if they ARE a bit cliched. Loved the scene right before the dismemberment. It sold the rest of the Ep for me. The whole scene from where they get "camoflaged" on was quite tense, even though I KNEW they were gonna make it, just because they do such a great job of shooting it in a way that I can put myself IN the scene, & it gives me the heebie-jeebies. Overall