TWD 3x10 "Home" episode discussion...**SPOILERS WITHIN**

[Cykotic]

So, is this attack gonna be the thing that snaps rick out of his kinda catatonic state?

[JonOfTheShred]

I'm not really going to argue this, I fully understand why it happened and it didn't ruin anything for me. I understand that the circumstances would directly impact one's ability to hit their target, but with the amount of firing that ensued, if this were reality, a few of those bullets might accidentally find a target. I understand why they didn't and I'm fine with that, you see it all the time in "Hollywood". I mean, how many shots were inches away from hitting an exposed Rick? It's all about building action and anticipation. Obviously none of those characters were supposed to be written off at this point, so the bullets had to miss by a few inches. Axel was the most expendable and was sacrificed for effect, to stun the viewers and the characters, so the bullet found its mark on the first try from far away. Yes, I know, the governor did have ample time to snipe him. Yea, I totally agree more people should have taken some bullets in the prison, like in the arm and shit. Would have made it slightly more believable. Especially Rick and Hershel. Or maybe Tyrese and his group could have showed up, and Ben gets shot in the face, so Allen is all like "WTF!" heh

[facestabber]

I'm not really going to argue this, I fully understand why it happened and it didn't ruin anything for me. I understand that the circumstances would directly impact one's ability to hit their target, but with the amount of firing that ensued, if this were reality, a few of those bullets might accidentally find a target. I understand why they didn't and I'm fine with that, you see it all the time in "Hollywood". I mean, how many shots were inches away from hitting an exposed Rick? It's all about building action and anticipation. Obviously none of those characters were supposed to be written off at this point, so the bullets had to miss by a few inches. Axel was the most expendable and was sacrificed for effect, to stun the viewers and the characters, so the bullet found its mark on the first try from far away. Yes, I know, the governor did have ample time to snipe him. Would have helped if our group unselected full auto. Michonnes range could have scored hits on the gov but the group inside were too far away for even accidental hits at that range. Toward the gov I mean. The guy in the tower, sure a couple controlled bursts. But semi auto is the way to go.

[AnxietyDilemma]

In the end it's not a huge deal, I just thought it was kind of funny comparing their marksmanship between the season 2 finale and this episode so I halfheartedly commented on it. I thought it was a great episode either way, even though I'm not too wild about the whole "Lori" angle. Actually though, I was a bit surprised that we didn't see the obligatory superficial gunshot wound that would disappear within a few episodes to one of the main characters.

[facestabber]

Ok my girlfriend is yelling at me to post her observation about a golden opportunity lost. Regarding the mother and baby on the bridge. There is a good chance she was a breast feeding mother and would have proved invaluable to feed Judith. I give her credit for that observation. I have to give her feedback of responses so fire away.

[Moon Knight]

Wow was an amazing episode. The story purposely slowed down so the final ten minutes could have the impacted it delivered. They set the stage up perfect for the remainder of the season. Bravo! RIP Axel. At least you went happy and in peace with yourself.

[babomb]

Ok my girlfriend is yelling at me to post her observation about a golden opportunity lost. Regarding the mother and baby on the bridge. There is a good chance she was a breast feeding mother and would have proved invaluable to feed Judith. I give her credit for that observation. I have to give her feedback of responses so fire away. It's a good observation. But the logistics of it are more difficult. 1st, daryl and Merle weren't set on going back at that point, and Daryl just wanted to diffuse the situation with Merle looting those peoples vehicle. We also don't know that the baby was even that woman's birth child. With such a lack of nutrition out on the road like that, the woman probably would have a hard time producing enough milk for 2 babies. She would also prioritize her own baby, which could lead to conflict. And then to even make that all happen in the 1st place, Daryl and Merle would've had to convince 3 people that didn't speak english that it was imperative that they bring them to a prison where there was a group of unknown people, that would've been involved in an intense firefight at the time of their arrival. Those people would've likely just hightailed it out of there once they saw the situation at the prison. Unless they were to be held against their will. So in the end, to make that happen would've been very difficult and likely involved taking those people hostage and forcing them to stay at the prison once they got them there, and then forced the woman to produce breast milk for another baby, if she was actually the mother of the baby and was lactating. Not all mothers naturally produce breast milk that's fit to feed babies with. Too many variables there to seize upon the situation and make the outcome favorable. The thing that's most aggravating to me at this point in the show is that they're at this point where group cohesion is extremely important. but everyone is emotionally unavailable or at odds with each other. You'd think that by this point, that people would be able to get their emotions under control or at least switch them off entirely. Emotions are the #1 most annoying thing about the human race! Anytime there's a stressful situation that requires clarity of thought, it seems that inevitably, these are the times that people choose to get all butthurt and emotional about things.

[JonOfTheShred]

Emotions are the #1 most annoying thing about the human race! Anytime there's a stressful situation that requires clarity of thought, it seems that inevitably, these are the times that people choose to get all butthurt and emotional about things. Yea, the characters do seem to cling a bit too tightly to their 'comfortable' emotions. But it seems like once the group started to get attacked they banded together. (Like the Glenn hand on Maggies shoulder, and she reciprocates with her hand, or Michonne helping get Hershel in the truck.) I agree that emotions can be the #1 most annoying thing about the human race - unless delivered with a dose of comedy. Comedy + Rage is, in particular, a potent and highly amusing combination. But then 99% of people will miss the joke and get all butthurt about another persons semi-serious Rage joke, so the situation escalates.

[MinionZombie]

An interesting interview with Lew Temple (Axel) that's well worth reading - http://dailydead.com/exclusive-lew-t...sode-310-home/ ... A solid episode (from the lady who wrote 3x02) - plenty of good time with the characters, it really lulled me into a false sense of security, and then BOOM - poor old Axel, we hardly knew-ye. That does make me think that we need more time with new additions. I want to get to know these people more so that their possible death would have even more of an impact ... plus, if people are dying all the time you do think: 1) Well how the hell did they survive without a single loss for 8 months? 2) Might the impact of significant character deaths be diminished with the frequency being too high? Tame the death squad in the writer's room a bit and space these huge shocks out a touch more, you know? I understand the reasoning behind Axel's death (as laid out in the above link), but in future I would like to see the deaths a little bit more sparse - I don't want to become inured to it all. Great stuff between Daryl and Merle too - strange to think that this is really the first proper time we've had between these two (aside from some stuff in 3x08 and 3x09 - we'd never seen them within the same frame, side-by-side, until 3x08!) ... I loved the little details filtering in. The revelation that they had intended to loot the camp (I wonder how it ended up transpiring that they joined them instead?), Daryl's scars from abuse from his father (as was dealt out to Merle) - good to see Merle get a dose of reality from a more confident Daryl, too. We didn't play that roaming around in the woods too long, it was kept nice and efficient - in this world you don't have time to faff about. I also liked seeing that yes, there are small groups of other people out there in the world roaming around and that occasionally you'll come across one another. A good way to add in some action to a satisfyingly chatty episode (I imagine some folks out there somewhere were complaining about the chatty stuff before Axel suddenly went down) - I for one was glad to have some time to breathe with these characters. I was certainly taken by surprise when Axel's head took a bullet ... poor bugger. Nice stuff regarding The Governor too - aside from seeing them replacing and charging walkie talkie batteries (wink wink?) - how he talked to Andrea was very interesting. We know he's a horrid beast, but Andrea doesn't, and look how he manipulates her (or attempt to, anyway) with his words. He comes off as being truthful (saying he's done terrible things) and even tries to butter her up as a potential leader (or at least #2 of Woodbury) ... playing himself somewhat supplicant to her by being 'honest' with her. He wants to keep Andrea on-side (one more for their side, and she's a crack shot to boot). Clearly from the preview for the next episode though he'll cut her off clean. She'll see and hear what Woodbury did to Team Prison, and at that point she's become an enemy of The Governor. If he can keep her onside, then bully for him so he thinks in this episode, but that won't work Phil. I actually quite liked all the Rick stuff shambling about in a nutjob stupor - I too loved the call back to that piece of music from 1x01 ("The Mercy of the Living"). Very fitting, very moving, and nice to see Sarah Wayne Callies on-screen again. Rick's only just lost his wife a few days ago and he's not had the time to properly deal with this horrendous emotions - he's suffering some form of temporary psychosis - but evidently when bullets come flying, he's snapped out of it. It's definitely important - as they're doing - to dwell a bit on the emotional impact of death in this world, of personal loss. Definitely important to cover this ground too. The gloves have been off all season, but now they're on the ground and left in the dust! Amazing how the group can execute head shots to perfection from speeding vehicles in a dark field, and yet in a fire fight, none of them can hit the side of a barn. To be fair, walkers don't shoot back ... also, no doubt it was to redress the balance a bit after people moaned about them being too good at killing walkers in 2x13. Re-read what I added to my post. There's no arguing that the bullet points you mentioned from the Season 2 finale were ridiculous, but again, the ending of this episode was done nearly perfect. Some of the best and most tense moments in the series. In broad daylight, too! I thought it was handled quite well in this episode - it was nail-biting stuff - genuinely tense (they're very good at tension on this show), and felt dangerous. It also showed the group up as what they are - not Marines - so they're not going to be the best shot, or necessarily all that calm in a massive ruck like this (full auto) - they can definitely learn. Pick their shots some more etc - perhaps Andrea, when she inevitable crops up at the prison, will focus their gun-toting skills? Ok my girlfriend is yelling at me to post her observation about a golden opportunity lost. Regarding the mother and baby on the bridge. There is a good chance she was a breast feeding mother and would have proved invaluable to feed Judith. I give her credit for that observation. I have to give her feedback of responses so fire away. Although at that point they weren't going to go back to the prison - it was only after this situation that Daryl and Merle got into a tussle and Daryl took the lead, leaving Merle unless he chose to follow his little brother, by which time that family were gone.

[bungi43]

Yea, I totally agree more people should have taken some bullets in the prison, like in the arm and shit. Would have made it slightly more believable. Especially Rick and Hershel. Or maybe Tyrese and his group could have showed up, and Ben gets shot in the face, so Allen is all like "WTF!" heh Yeah, I would've liked to see someone from Tyrese' group bite it and have Axel a bit longer. Speaking of, where did they do? You know they have to show back up. I wonder if Rick goes in search of them.

[babomb]

I don't like how they're all just wasting ammo. Like they're DHS and have 1.6 billion rounds sitting there on palettes. The Gov is the worst! How is it that he's sitting pretty with a fucking Steyr, just blowing off more rounds than you can cram in a drum mag, throwing them around on full auto like they grow on trees and magically appear in his mags like all you have to do is press right trigger+X to reload. he doesn't have access to a UN armory, where all international small arms are just there waiting to be used. That Steyr would be damn hard to come by in that world!

[Moon Knight]

I don't like how they're all just wasting ammo. Like they're DHS and have 1.6 billion rounds sitting there on palettes. The Gov is the worst! How is it that he's sitting pretty with a fucking Steyr, just blowing off more rounds than you can cram in a drum mag, throwing them around on full auto like they grow on trees and magically appear in his mags like all you have to do is press right trigger+X to reload. he doesn't have access to a UN armory, where all international small arms are just there waiting to be used. That Steyr would be damn hard to come by in that world! Man, I don't care about none of that, all I know is that he looked pretty badass doing it lol

[Neil]

I enjoyed the episode, but it felt like it tread water a little bit - ie: Didn't really go anywhere. And I have to say the gun battle at the end was a tad ridiculous:- a) The Governor drives up without being noticed? b) He and his men, with the element of surprise, manage to shoot one person? c) The governor and his men are all happy to just stand around waiting to be shot? eg: The honcho in the watch tower just waiting to be shot? Hey, why not lie down for a smaller target and better aim? Etc etc... d) The truck to drop a load of zombies in there? Felt extremely contrived! Why did the driver have to get out to leave the prison? Why no drive it out? All felt a bit 'thin' TBH! And I'm getting a bit tired of Rick's visit to loony town now... He needs to come back!

[MinionZombie]

Yeah, I would've liked to see someone from Tyrese' group bite it and have Axel a bit longer. Speaking of, where did they do? You know they have to show back up. I wonder if Rick goes in search of them. Yeah - where did they go? I was expecting them to be hanging out outside or something (because Glenn followed them out after Rick's rant), so I was wondering if he was going to say to them "just hang out here and wait it out" or something. Surely they'll come back, or perhaps they're elsewhere in the grounds ... but if they were, you'd have thought they'd come to their aid, but then again maybe they just hid ... hmmm. Yeah, Allen could have bit the dust, I already don't like that arsehole - but then for the audience that wouldn't have the same impact as losing someone from our group, if that makes sense? It also has to be someone from Team Prison specifically ... a damn shame as I too wanted more from him, but oh well... I enjoyed the episode, but it felt like it tread water a little bit - ie: Didn't really go anywhere. And I have to say the gun battle at the end was a tad ridiculous:- a) The Governor drives up without being noticed? b) He and his men, with the element of surprise, manage to shoot one person? c) The governor and his men are all happy to just stand around waiting to be shot? eg: The honcho in the watch tower just waiting to be shot? Hey, why not lie down for a smaller target and better aim? Etc etc... d) The truck to drop a load of zombies in there? Felt extremely contrived! Why did the driver have to get out to leave the prison? Why no drive it out? All felt a bit 'thin' TBH! And I'm getting a bit tired of Rick's visit to loony town now... He needs to come back! A) Perhaps that's the point. They were all getting pretty relaxed, plus you've got to surprise the audience. Seems like he drove out of the woods or something, but I don't know. B) Once they got one person - who was a standing still target - everyone ran for cover immediately. So they aren't going to be getting anyone easily after that - plus they don't have a wait to really coordinate their fire like "I'll take this one, you take that one, and on the count of three". C) They're not professionals for one, and for two this is as much a brash show of power as anything else. The Governor really doesn't care anymore, so he'll gladly stand amongst the bullets ... meanwhile Martinez (or whatever his name is) was hopping about in the tree line, and someone else was using the G-Man's truck for cover (didn't help him much though as Michonne missed TG and got him instead - but as Danai said in the online Making Of, Michonne isn't good at guns, she good at the katana). D) I presume they couldn't drive it out because they've got to make sure all the zombies leave the van (you don't want to be driving off with some still in there - you want maximum impact for your trouble - plus the van had two fences wrapped around the front of it and was bogged down in a bumpy field. I doubt you'd be getting out of there with any ease. As for the truck full of walkers - I'm down with that - it fits Woodbury's M.O. what with those arena games and so on. They frequently catch walkers and use them as entertainment or weapons. It wouldn't be hard to round some up into a van - plus it gives Team Prison even more to worry about.

[babomb]

Seemed like someone went to alot of trouble to muscle up a Hostess truck to bring those walkers in there. That thing was all souped up, glass packs on it and everything! Sounded like a stock car with a bread truck body mounted on top.