The prisoner group was armed, athletic, and told how to kill the zombies, and yet most of their attacks were useless. If you count out all the people who mostly likely couldn't kill a zombie (elderly, weak, injured, child, unarmed, asleep) and all the people who panic or incorrectly tried to kill a zombie, the simple math of one to one ratio starts to unravel. One walker child could kill a large living male, but a living child could not kill a large walker.

Plus, a lot of the people who could fight early on were the ones getting killed because they had poor understanding of what was going on. Who are we left with? The living have to sleep, eat, and recover, the dead do not. How many people barricaded themselves in a house, hospital, or gymnasium, with a bitten person? How many living people killed other living people for resources?

I imagine we are at about 10% living at this point in the show.

About as bleak as "The Road," and that world didn't even have zombies! Just bad-ass humans of the Merle-variety who would eat you at the drop of a hat.

If that's true, then Carl is going to have a very lonely existence once all the grown-ups around him die of old age (if they make it that long). He'll have to kill them before they turn (not appealing), and the only person he'll have is his little sister (if she lives).

The spoilers for this show have never bothered me; I have always read them and it didn't affect my viewing of the show. This time however I am not going to read them and it is killing me...I may break before Sunday but I am moving this weekend so I will be without a lot of stuff until Sunday so that may just save me.

I might of read that, but my post came out of conversations I've had about fast vs. slow zombies. Making the zombies speedy in order for them to be more of a threat misses the whole point - it's like a Towering Inferno remake where the only selling point is that the fire is hotter.

In fast zombie films, you have to get bit in order to become infected. It's basically a giant game of tag. If you're fast enough or have a great hiding place, you'll be okay.

In the standard slow zombie scenario, everyone is infected. It doesn't matter how fast you are, how smart you are, how many weapons you have, or how high your fortress walls are. You and everyone you know are eventually going to turn into one of things. It's inevitable as death itself.

This doesn't mean that humanity can't overcome and adapt. Shaun of the Dead, World War Z, John Russo's Night of the Living Dead sequel, heck even the orignal NotLD itself all postulate such a case. Folks have to be more careful, funerary rites must change, but life carries on. There will still be outbreaks from time to time - all it takes is one homeless guy dying alone - but once humanity learns the trick of dealing with the undead it can go on*.

(Of course, humanity still has to learn the trick. Notice how no one uses the word "zombie" in The Walking Dead? Zombie media does not exist in the worlds zombie media takes place in. This lack of mythology actually helps speed the zombie outbreak along - no one can really contextualize the problem at first because they don't really have a framework to start from.)

So how to we get to the end of the world as seen in The Walking Dead and the later Romero films? Because everybody is a dick. Politicians and bureaucrats cover up the initial problem to prevent panic (and preserve their careers). Scientists and soldiers abandon their duties to bug out with their families. Outright incompetency and corporate profiteering play their parts, too (remember the Easter Eggs from Return of the Living Dead?). This may sound like a cynical approach, but keep in mind that the best slow zombie films aren't really about zombies. They're about us.



*I can see crews similar to Crime Scene Cleaners being called into areas where mini-outbreaks occurred. The apartment complex where the Cat Lady died unnoticed, the national park where some hikers went missing a few weeks back, the religious compound where folks don't "multilate" the dead, Detroit. Add in the nutjobs who kill themselves with the intention of starting an outbreak and there's plenty to keep these pros busy.

There are all kinds of lists out there concerning why a zombie apocaplypse cannot happen. Couple of my favorite reasons:
1) Humans are really good at one thing: killing. We exterminate species by accident, imagine if we were really trying.
2) Walkers reproduce and feed by going after their #1 natural predator, so it is like humans having to eat and reproduce by walking up to a lion or grizzly bear in the wild.

The Masai laugh in your face!

Well, it sure would be an awesome few weeks!!!

And after that, the stories!

Oh, I've seen th Masai doing their thing. But I have yet to see one devour or rape the lion once they walk up to them!

Just finished that book.

And after that the Brad Pitt movies!

Laundry and clothes shopping can be done off camera ... just like bone-and-clothes-eating zombies can exist off camera. (Yeah, still bitter.)

Fixed. And that did not come from the com ... er, Kahmex.

Which brings up another question: Why does everybody object to talking about Carmex so much in here? I don't think it will help with zombie-lips.

I am surprised I didn't find more on this on the inter-webz ... but here is a research paper predicting it would take 3 to 6 years (dependent upon variables) for zombies to outnumber people ... http://www.loe.org/images/content/09...ublication.pdf

And then there is this: http://www.class3outbreak.com/ (I don't have Flash ... somebody let me know how it works out.)

Can you imagine all the fucked up YouTube videos if a zombie apocalypse occured? In fact, home movies of the dead could be a riot.

Maggie not showing her tits didn't bother me. It seems more realistic that she'd be embarrassed with the Governor watching her.

What the hell is taking you so long to watch these episodes? 2nd half of the season starts in 35 days.

He finally un-paused the "Maggie takes off bra" scene ... severe hand cramps.