TWD 3x05 "Say The Word" episode discussion...**SPOILERS WITHIN**

[sandrock74]

So, Carl didn't shoot Lori? Rick found the slug on the floor and a smeared trail of blood that went off someplace. I'm guessing Lori reanimated and she's shambling around the prison?

[Cykotic]

Yep, mucho confused now. Where the hell is she? **actually, forget what i just said... watching Talking Dead. Just revealed what happened to her

[sandrock74]

Yeah, I just saw that on the Talking Dead, too. Now we know! I think they should have made that more clear in the actual episode.

[facestabber]

So, Carl didn't shoot Lori? Rick found the slug on the floor and a smeared trail of blood that went off someplace. I'm guessing Lori reanimated and she's shambling around the prison? Nicotero just explained that Lori's body was drug by the walker and consumed. Not sure why a zombie would drag a body rather than just consume it where it lay. Solid episode but some holes. Can't get enough though. Hour episodes aren't enough

[Cykotic]

Maybe they're starving and will now eat anything... we've seen that they will eat animal carcasses, why not non-reanimated bodies

[JonOfTheShred]

Holy fuck, every episode literally has enough material for a movie. Season 2 covered what, 5 - 10 issues of material? The show is moving entirely new fast through it's best material. They've done the arena fight, Woodbury has heavy hints of the Alexandria Safe-Zone, Loris dead, Rick is already hearing the phone ring....holy fuck. The reason people were pissed about the pacing in Season 2 is because it dragged at the farm, we weren't suggesting "Cover full arcs of the comic in 2 episodes." Having said all that, I still think this season is the strongest zombie 'cinema' since Shaun of the Dead. (Cinema as in, live action portrayal of zombie apocalypse.) Thought it was funny when Maggie bounced with Daryl. Glenn is all like, "FFFFUUUUU, she's gonna cheat on me with the coolest character on the show." Rick has completely lost it. Loved seeing him decimate those walkers, very good acting too when he sort of attacked Glenn there. He's certainly lost it pretty fast. If almost feels like they're reversing Rick and the Governors roles slightly, making it seem that both leaders have their ups and downs, because Governor isn't nearly as twisted as he was in the comic, he's a much more multidimensional character. Rick is scarier than the Governor, at this point. Liked Daryl taking control. He's definitely the glue holding everything together, not only as the toughest warrior, and most resourceful in times of peril, greatest survivalist, etc., but he also lightens the mood with jokes. He's the only character with any sense of humor, making him far and away the most likable character. It's as if they gave Daryl ALL the good traits of a apocalyptic survival buddy. Always got your back. Toughest person in the group. Most skilled at survival. Will take your girl on the road and not bang her. He's a good dude. I found it funny they also do cliff-hangers at commercial breaks. As a fan of the comic, they ALWAYS end on huge moments, and in the show its rather humorous to see it do the same thing before every commercial. Like everyone else, I enjoyed the back-story of T-Dog, helping the elderly folks with rides during the onset of the outbreak. This episode had throwbacks to Day and Dawn. The boiler room Lori gave birth / died in / got eaten in reminds me of the boiler room in Dawn of the Dead. And the way they captured zombies, lead by Meryl, felt a lot like Day of the Dead in the mines, with Meryl kind of being like Steele. Loved the creepy daycare / playground sequence. Awesome tension there. Was hilarious it all climaxed with the anti-climatic possum reveal. Then the group feeding the baby together...they're all raising the kid together. Like a giant family. They definitely have grown really close in the apocalypse, as is expected. And lastly, I enjoyed Meryl as a celebrated bad ass. 2nd episode he's shouting racial slurs and intimidating his entire group, two seasons later he's getting cheered by an entire community of survivors. Funny stuff.

[ProfessorChaos]

me and my usual viewing guests all kinda agreed that this episode was rather weaksauce. carol's name wasn't even mentioned, they never even bothered searching for her....and if they were implying that a walker consumed every single bit of lori, that was cheap as hell....since we've had numerous instances of this show where they show carcasses only half devoured, it seems sorta odd that one walker would totally finish lori's corpse off, bones included. and it's waaay too early for rick to be getting phone calls, if you ask me. i honestly was hoping they'd leave that part out of the story. it was cool to see daryl stepping up, even taking care of "lil ass-kicker"....but other than that, this episode fell pretty flat, in my opinion. still better than most shows on television and most zombie films, but a far cry from anything so far this season or even going back as far as the 2nd half of season two....

[rgc2005]

Man they shove a whole lot into one episode: Maggie, still isn't hungry enough to eat Possum. Daryl getting all paternal and singing to the baby. Glenn getting a psychological boost and moral compass check from Herschel. Carl remembering the names of every dead woman he has encountered. Rick's journey through the basement of the prison reminds me of Luke Skywalker in the cave on Doghabah. The Governor is very "Multi-Dimensional" but still a murdering psychopath. Andrea's look when she realizes Michonne is right. Michonne letting the Governor live even after reading his notebook, looking in the special room and finding the Gladiator Pit. Woodbury does seem to be a mash up of the two towns in the books.

[facestabber]

Yep and I agree. I can suspend disbelief after all this is a zombie story. But the impossibility of human mouths consuming bone. A skull? They just went to far with it. I enjoyed the whole engorged zombie bit, slowed by its huge meal but it went too far to suggest what it did. Im assuming the phone call is some reference to loss of sanity in the comics. I just like Rick. I will always root for him to pull it together and survive. I cant believe the journey we have been given from the opening scenes of Rick and Shane chatting about life in the squad. I empathize and connect with Rick and I assume its from episode 1 season 1 of how he awakens to the possible end of human kind. Alone. Some day when I'm an old gray haired man I will look back at the different eras of tv I enjoyed. I will always be fond of The Fall Guy, Tour of Duty, Airwolf and others but the ride that TWD has been so far will be what I will still be talking about. Minor flaws, I enjoy discussing but I can live with them.

[bungi43]

I don't know about you guys, but I never even really concerned myself with the zombie eating "all of Lori". They never showed her dead body after carl shot her, they didn't show Carl shoot her, so is there really any reason to expect they'd show her half eaten carcass? While it wasn't the best implication of what was going on, it was pretty clear that zombie ate Lori. I'm just going to assume there is still part of her there and they didn't show it just like they didn't show anything associated with her death. Yep and I agree. I can suspend disbelief after all this is a zombie story. But the impossibility of human mouths consuming bone. A skull? They just went to far with it. I enjoyed the whole engorged zombie bit, slowed by its huge meal but it went too far to suggest what it did. Im assuming the phone call is some reference to loss of sanity in the comics. I just like Rick. I will always root for him to pull it together and survive. I cant believe the journey we have been given from the opening scenes of Rick and Shane chatting about life in the squad. I empathize and connect with Rick and I assume its from episode 1 season 1 of how he awakens to the possible end of human kind. Alone. Some day when I'm an old gray haired man I will look back at the different eras of tv I enjoyed. I will always be fond of The Fall Guy, Tour of Duty, Airwolf and others but the ride that TWD has been so far will be what I will still be talking about. Minor flaws, I enjoy discussing but I can live with them.

[MinionZombie]

My weekly debrief... IN SUMMARY: * The Governor's undead daughter - the inhuman gurgling sound was a bit of a giveaway a few seconds too soon, but one of the weirdest revelations about his warped private life from the comics made its way to the screen. Creepy - very creepy - and testament to Morrissey's ability to juggle the multiple faces of The Governor. * The glimpse inside The Governor's notebook was an interesting insight. Crime in Woodbury is apparently up 20%, the price of food is up 40% (but with hopes they can decrease it 20% over the next year), and there are plans for proper sanitation, policing, and bringing the community together with town hall meetings. Then the list of names - who are they, what do their entries mean - the significance of Penny is interesting though ... everything gets a bit All Work And No Play Makes Jack A Dull Boy after that point - was this the stick that broke the camel's back? * The chance to mourn - in the now fast-moving world of The Walking Dead, I think it's important that, particularly when it's someone the group cares about, that we get a chance to see our gang taking the time to mourn them. The dead are an ever-present threat, but the walkers were also people once. * Driving the wedge between Andrea and Michonne - this had to happen, and it was good to see that Michonne finally opened up her gob a bit more and Andrea demanded more information as to why Woodbury is such a bad place in the eyes of the katana-wielding one. Michonne makes herself appear to be a conspiracy nut, a paranoid sort who refuses to play well with others. This pushes Andrea away from her, and closer to the folks of Woodbury. It's a severence that doesn't come easily, but Andrea has been hypnotised by the possibilities on offer here. We viewers may know the dark side of Woodbury, but Andrea hasn't specifically seen or experienced anything to really make her feel properly uneasy. * Good to see Rick's darkest side coming out. It's strange to look back at that Deputy Sheriff chatting with his best friend Shane in that police car in the very first episode - how far he has come. This will be fascinating to see how it plays out. * Rounding up walkers - a rather nifty trap. A machine generates noise to draw the walkers into various pits, in which are cargo nets. Milton's biter-proof sleeves are a nifty invention too - someone should tell the prison dwellers about that, I've never felt so uneasy around so many bared arms before! * Daryl's at his best when he's got a mission to dive into. Finding baby supplies in a nursery proved to be a tense sequence, but it was also filled with sorrow-filled echoes of a world now long gone. It's not just adults suffering from the apocalypse, but millions of children will have also perished. It's a dark thought indeed. * Daryl's tender side - we've seen hints of it before, but it was great to really see it unveiled more fully here. Feeding "little asskicker", and then placing a Cherokee Rose upon Carol's empty grave (her body hasn't been found, but they're all assuming she's dead - I don't think it's that clear-cut), showed us the sweet and gooey centre underneath the harsh exterior of everyone's favourite redneck. Another tug of the heart strings came when Carl listed off possible names for his new little sister - all of the names of every single female member of their group that they've lost along the way. That roll call really packs a punch. * Feasting - one thing that did confuse me a little was (providing it hadn't been removed and buried) how seemingly every single shred of Lori's body had been eaten by one walker (replete with distended gut). What about the bones? That felt a little off, even if it would have been rather harsh to see only some of Lori's body left behind (like with T-Dog) ... although I had been wishing for a scene where Rick gets to say goodbye to his, albeit dead, wife. Mind you, with his sanity on the brink, it wouldn't have quite fitted in, and would have got in the way of the cliffhanger. Also, was he trying to hack open the zombie to find bits of his wife - perhaps her wedding ring? Or was it merely him taking out his frustration - there's a few ways this whole scene could be interpreted, I guess - Nicotero has said the body was dragged away (although, why would a zombie bother?), so that's probably to spare the viewer from seeing Lori's mangled corpse - so perhaps an amount of corpse, similar to T-Dog, has been left behind elsewhere in the room. * Let the games begin - good to see the sick form of entertainment witnessed in the comics. Like all the best towns on American television, there's a dark heart hidden behind the facade. Their version of bare knuckle boxing, with the added danger of walkers (with their teeth removed), gives Merle the chance to be the top man. This reversion of a form of gladitorial combat gives us a taste of a Mad Max-like post apocalypse. BEST GORE MOMENT: There were plenty of decapitations and split heads on offer, but a little dose of zombie dentistry proved to be a memorable moment from the folks at KNB. I think the walker's eyes following the pliers really helped sell the moment. BEST TWIST ON THE COMICS: Not a lot in this respect in this particular episode, but judging by the preview for the next episode, might we be seeing Andrea seduced by the darker side of Woodbury? The gladitorial side of things was immediately offensive to our group, but are we going to see a strange flirtation with horrible things here? THE CLIFFHANGER: Having said nothing for the entire episode in a confused and angry state, Rick hears the ringing of a telephone. "Hello?" - fans of the comic will recognise this plot thread, which came at perhaps Rick's lowest ever point. It'll be interesting to see how they handle this in the show. And onwards... Ok, so i'm the only person, who thought "TWO MEN ENTER... ONE MAN LEAVE!"? seriously? Alright! One more thing, is there any way back for Rick now or can we assume that Daryl is now the de-facto leader? Rick will definitely find a way back, but we're in an interlude now - he's gone temporarily barmy for a spell. Michonne letting the Governor live even after reading his notebook, looking in the special room and finding the Gladiator Pit. She never got a chance to look in the room. She heard movement inside, but never got the chance to look inside as she was interrupted.

[bassman]

* The glimpse inside The Governor's notebook was an interesting insight. Crime in Woodbury is apparently up 20%, the price of food is up 40% (but with hopes they can decrease it 20% over the next year), and there are plans for proper sanitation, policing, and bringing the community together with town hall meetings. Then the list of names - who are they, what do their entries mean - the significance of Penny is interesting though ... everything gets a bit All Work And No Play Makes Jack A Dull Boy after that point - was this the stick that broke the camel's back? You seem to have read a lot more of the notebook than I did(never noticed the percentages and such), but I was under the impression that the list of names were people they had lost. When Penny died, that's when he fully snapped.

[Wyldwraith]

This was the first episode of the season I didn't really feel hit "It" on all cylinders, The Woodbury stuff continues to fail to be the compelling seduction of Andrea it's trying to be, the Michonne/Andrea split felt less momentous than two adults who survived on their own together for most of a year and more melodramatic like two B.F.Fs giving each other the silent treatment. The stuff with Maggie and Daryl searching for baby formulae/other supplies came closest to the level of the previous episodes IMO, but between the weird ambiguity about Lori's remains and Rick's irrational and partially inexplicable gut-stabbing of bloated-Walker, this episode just didn't grip me the way all the other episodes this season have. And C'MON, Daryl can mount a fanatical days-long search for Sophia but NO ONE has even SPECULATED ALOUD that no remains MIGHT = Carol not dead? WTH?? Then that made an otherwise touching scene of Daryl at Carol's empty grave into a frustrating scene, at least for me. The "staged gladiator combat" at Woodbury didn't even COME CLOSE to being the Thunderdome fight scene. Sorry, just don't see the parallel here. You had Merle playing the part of a fake-ass professional wrestler using an extra and harmless zombies as props. I don't know what exactly this scene was supposed to communicate to the audience, but that's literally all I got from the scene itself. Andrea's mild disagreement over what she was seeing with the Governor was vastly more compelling, and that just doesn't seem like the way such a scene should go. I dunno, maybe if they'd let the Walkers actually grab Merle and the other guy with some firmness instead of half-assed flailing it might've gotten it across...honestly can't say. All in all, I consider it a poor episode, but since it is ALONE in being a poor episode I'm MORE than willing to give all involved with the creating of TWD a pass on this week's offering. And no, it wasn't a lack of intensity or high-emotion moments coloring my judgment. I just honestly didn't connect with Rick's rampage the way I did with his initial breakdown, or with Carl's recitation of all the women who've died in their groups names as potential names for his sister, versus that cold stare after shooting his mother and stalking past Maggie.... After all, it's television. The greatest series of all time will STILL have flop episodes. TWD is no different, and the (VERY) occasional flop won't do much to drag down the show IMO. My .02, as always your mileage may vary.

[bassman]

Although it's still a bit of a stretch that one walker ate Lori's entire body(I'm just going to assume others helped and walked off), I did think having the bones sticking out from the walkers body was a nice touch. At least they KINDA showed what happened to every last bit of her body. I keep reading all these crackpot theories around the net how Carol may have sewed up Lori and they ran away, Lori is a walker, etc. She's dead. Plain and simple.

[Wyldwraith]

@bassman: Agreed. The wild speculation concerning Lori is just ridiculous. Maggie spelled out Lori's death sentence when she needed Carl to apply direct pressure on the vein she knew she'd severed in the gut. No amount of half-assed rudimentary stitching up of Lori's belly was going to save her. Just for her to have a CHANCE you'd need someone with practice at locating and tying off and/or a means of cauterizing the severed vein. Materials to pack Lori with, IV antibiotics....no..she wouldn't have even made it that far. Even if Carol had swooped in five seconds after Carl & Maggie exited, the wild speculation still relies on the fact that Carl DID shoot Lori but such speculators want to twist a less-is-more scene into something it's not. Now the Carol being alive speculation is something that even next week's previews seemed to support that theory, with Daryl discovering Carol's knife somewhere seemingly indicative of her not having died in the prison. Which is exactly the question they seem to want us to be asking ourselves. Personally I think it was a mistake to turn Carol's survival/death into a mystery instead of tying it definitively then and there to T-Dog's sacrifice, but I'm willing to sit back and wait and see how they handle it. Who knows, it may be just the springboard needed to push Daryl into a more prominent/proactive position. Rick certainly isn't going to be calm, composed and seeing to his responsibilities anytime soon. Understandable, but I wish they'd kept going in the crushing regret direction of his reaction instead of going into feral fury almost instantly thereafter. Not saying it didn't make for some cool scenes, just that a bit more buildup to the explosion/meltdown/rageout woulda been appreciated. Just thought I'd chime in with my agreement.