4th episode - "Vatos"

[babomb]

It's a smart move "politically" on Shane's part to pull the "I don't think our losses would have been as bad if you'd been here" on Rick, as we see in the Ep. 5 preview. After all, things have already happened to damage Shane's leadership. I see your point. You're really distrustful of Shane. Is that because of the comic? I think that Shane saying that to Rick is out of legitimate concern. Not as a part of some grand political "master plan" to steal away those who trust Rick. I think if that were to be the case there would be more focus put on things to indicate that. I think they're going in the direction that Shane is gonna start to feel like he cares more for Ricks family than Rick because he's always the one that saves them. ***I'm not making that as an argument in itself. I'm simply stating an observation on what might end up driving SHane's possessive state of mind*** I don't think they're actually going in the "everything was fine until you came back" direction in the same way as the comic did. They're intentionally creating Shane as a character that people have a certain ambiguity about. Whether you share that ambiguity or not, that is obviously the intent here. I'm not trying to argue it. I just think that for whatever reason you may be over analyzing Shanes character. somebody brought this up on another site, but it is possible that all those walkers at the camp were brought there by a certain somebody....hrmmm....it is possible, i suppose. Makes sense. That's what I immediately thought. If it was him that took that van? He could've also done it unintentionally. But at the same time, his brother was gonna be at that camp. It's kind of funny to have this lone wolf character that can be suspected of all sorts of evil, but never be seen doing anything. I would've thought Amy had a little more fight or even sense to her. The way she died was very unrealistic. The walker grabs her arm and she turns her head and watches as it bites a chunk off. Then she sits there screaming while the other one bites her neck open. Not once ever even moving away as it happens.

[Trencher]

Anyone who got surprised by the "gangsters" being good guys have not seen a hollywood movie the last twentyfive years. That Jim has psychic powers is also very dramaish. I almost turned this episode off to be honest but the end was good. Overall I say that the extra material the TV director adds does not have the sharpness of the original work.

[Ghoulman]

Vatos’ was a pretty good episode, but what the hell happened to Merle? I didn’t care for the Hollywooding of the “Vato’s”, BUT, it was handled fairly well as the two main gangbangers were the nursing home nurse and custodian so…meh. Rick handing over some of the guns was a powerful move to humanize Rick even further as well as show the leader-to-leader respect he had for that vato/custodian but it was un-needed development in my opinion. The ending was incredible! I was chomping at the bit all the way to the end. I counted five attack/kill/bite victims (Ed, Amy, random black guy, one of the Hispanic guys, the not-Lori hot gal and possibly a 6th if they stayed true to the source material)… Will have to watch it a 3rd time to confirm. As far as the complaints about the victims “turning” goes? The episode literally ended right after the attack and we haven’t even seen the aftermath yet.

[babomb]

Why would the gangsters have been bad guys? Cuz they wanted guns during an undead apocalypse? Bastages.... What I want to know is where are they getting all this beer? Everytime there's a campfire scene there's beer drinkin goin down. Must be Dales!! Everything else is. The inter-relational dynamic is gonna be further thickened when Andrea starts teaching Carl how to fish because her sister promised to. She's gonna develop a bond with Carl, and give Lori Rick and Shane a chance to play out their drama.

[kidgloves]

Weak episode. Would have been good/great if they hadn't bothered with the Vatos plotline. Totally contrived and poorly executed. It would have been much more suspenseful just following the group looking for Merle. Hate to say it, but I hope Kirkman doesn't write anymore episodes. Ending was awesome though and straight out of the comic book but with cavalry. In terms of "turning", in the comic book everyone is infected. You just have to die and you will turn. The bites just speed up the process.

[bassman]

Cool episode. A bit slow in places, but the ending made up for it. Can't wait for the start of the next.

[kidgloves]

After a 2nd viewing I'm gonna elevate this episode to good. I think the problem first time around for me is that they meet so many people in a seemingly dead city. It kinda feels out of place and took me out of the whole dead world for a bit. Interesting angle on taking care of the old though. Who would? Certainly not staff. They have families to look out for. Can't wait for Wildfire. I get the impression it's going to be one of the best episodes and then we have the season finale. Boo. Far too short a season.

[Thorn]

I enjoyed the episode a lot, some things I was not fond of would have to be the conflict with the other band of survivors. I was not a fan of how it played out. It all seemed very forced and contrived. SPOILERS BELOW: An armed banned of hold outs let another armed band they are in conflict with and do not trust walk into their "home base" with all of their weapons in tact? An armed stand off is stopped cold by a kindly old woman? I understand some of the players here are not street thugs, but a lot of the mare based on the dialogue so... I find it impossible to accept that they just were okay with this. Those would be my only gripes. I did like the resolution, I liked the twist because it was not predictable, and I loved the character development throughout. ---------- Post added at 10:25 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:12 AM ---------- I see your point. You're really distrustful of Shane. Is that because of the comic? I think that Shane saying that to Rick is out of legitimate concern. Not as a part of some grand political "master plan" to steal away those who trust Rick. I think if that were to be the case there would be more focus put on things to indicate that. I think they're going in the direction that Shane is gonna start to feel like he cares more for Ricks family than Rick because he's always the one that saves them. ***I'm not making that as an argument in itself. I'm simply stating an observation on what might end up driving SHane's possessive state of mind*** I don't think they're actually going in the "everything was fine until you came back" direction in the same way as the comic did. They're intentionally creating Shane as a character that people have a certain ambiguity about. Whether you share that ambiguity or not, that is obviously the intent here. I'm not trying to argue it. I just think that for whatever reason you may be over analyzing Shanes character. Makes sense. That's what I immediately thought. If it was him that took that van? He could've also done it unintentionally. But at the same time, his brother was gonna be at that camp. It's kind of funny to have this lone wolf character that can be suspected of all sorts of evil, but never be seen doing anything. I would've thought Amy had a little more fight or even sense to her. The way she died was very unrealistic. The walker grabs her arm and she turns her head and watches as it bites a chunk off. Then she sits there screaming while the other one bites her neck open. Not once ever even moving away as it happens. This was a sudden attack, in the middle of the night. No one was even remotely on the defensive about anything. This shows the group was a bit too comfortable and complacent. She was worried about old world things like toilet paper not checking her perimeter. She despite all she has been through is young, and she was bit. Pain, shock, fear, confusion realization of impending death.. all of these things could easily lead her to a state where she does not react like a super hero in a comic book. How many of us who think we would react one way in that situation would freeze up or just break down? I am willing to bet a lot more than expected. Just my thoughts.

[Trin]

Note that I really liked the episode, as I extolled a page or two back. But now the rant... The Vatos thing really cannot be griped about enough. The layers of implausible are only obscured by the distractingly poor execution. The gangbangers did not act anything like reasonable, charitable, people of conscience until the old lady appeared. They attacked without provocation. They kidnapped Glen for no reason whatsoever. They did nothing to assure the safety of their own person. They showed no inclination to reason with Rick, valuing a bag of guns over their own safety. Complete beligerent idiots. I really thought it might end up with a shootout cause they were so hard-headed. The transition when the old lady appeared was so jarring and contrived as to make my head spin. My first thought was that Rick ought to point the gun at her. Or that maybe she was gonna go all grandma on them and make them see reason. Either of those would've been better than what actually happened. Given who they turned out to be there are a million scenarios that are more plausible than what happened. Some specific gripes: - Old people don't live in that kinda facility in those conditions for over a month. Sanitation and medication deficiencies would kill a lot of them. The resulting spread of disease would kill off the rest. The confusion and disorientation as medications ran out would lead to lots of noise and that would lead to a never-ending swarm of walkers outside. - How did the gangbangers compound not get swarmed with walkers after the car returned? Where were all the zombies that we saw at the department store? The show really has to get better about the on-again/off-again nature of zombie swarms. - Dude who got shot in the butt with the arrow better start writing his will. Without antibiotics (which are surely depleted) he's a goner. I'm really glad that it didn't turn into a situation where the survivors screwed each other to death. That is pretty horribly overdone in the genre. It was a nice change of pace from that, and preserved the zombies as the main villain. So bravo on that at least. I'm also curious how far the 4 of them ran getting back from Atlanta to the campsite. I don't see them hauling it for better than 5 miles given their exertions prior to that and the loads they were carrying. Yet I cannot imagine it being less than a 15 mile hike. And the whole Jim dream thing was hokey. Didn't like it. Not one bit.

[Wrong Number]

It's funny, I tell my husband how amazed I am that people here nitpick to death this series. Come on people, this was a great episode and we have a friggin zombie series being well done on TV finally. Embrace it! WN

[JDFP]

- Old people don't live in that kinda facility in those conditions for over a month. Sanitation and medication deficiencies would kill a lot of them. The resulting spread of disease would kill off the rest. The confusion and disorientation as medications ran out would lead to lots of noise and that would lead to a never-ending swarm of walkers outside. 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.

[Sammich]

The vatos reminded me of the black gang encounter in Diary of the Dead, but Romero did it more believably.

[MoonSylver]

Speaking of which, forgot to mention last night, am I the only one who was reminded to "the people of 107"?

[Thorn]

The vatos reminded me of the black gang encounter in Diary of the Dead, but Romero did it more believably. Agreed. I like what they were shooting for here, but they really dropped the ball on the transition from locked and loaded and ready to blow to "let's follow the kindly old woman through the vatos inner sanctum fully armed and everything is cool so we can get the shock moment back story that shows u that these guys are good guys so we feel off balanced and are never comfortable going forward with our own thoughts and accepted stereotypes" It was a great episode I just hated that scene/climax/conflict resolution....

[Doc]

Uh maybe it's just me but, did random people we never saw before just happen to appear when the campfire site was attacked?