Groucho

Who could "the mole" possibly be? It's a HUGE mystery, especially since only two new characters have been given significant screen time, and only one is still alive.

Lifepawn

I think they were having people go down to the fence every day to kill zombies, but the zeds have started coming in larger numbers and more often. In show time Carol only noted the problem to Darryl the previous day. I'm assuming for the months prior to this they were keeping up with it fine.

dvdjunkie32

Or maybe it is the governor himself. The show plays pretty loose with logistics so I can see them just letting the viewer accept that he got inside the compound somehow. The man has got to be insane with revenge at this point.

The scene with the little girls and their dying dad was so messed up. Why the hell did Carol let them stay and watch him die and then almost insist that they finish him off with the knife? Have they all become this insensitive to killing their loved ones?

Flatlander

I wonder if Rick burned the bodies. With Scott Gimple liking foreshadowing, the scene of Rick burning the pin could be showing what he does later with the bodies. At first I thought that the scene was only there for Carl to get his gun back but the more I think about it I am thinking Rick did it. I am now done thinking about it.
As far as the fence clearing. Carol has mentioned that they have cleared them out during the day but then just build up againovernight. My guess is the way they have been handling it has worked up until recently. Could be one of the new folks they brought in after Woodbury. Would make sense why they think killing several zombies at the fence will work each day.

Lateralus

Stack them up by what looks to be the main route in to the jail from that road, won't that mask the scent of anything coming from the jail? The two Zombies that Michonne had worked well for her. They could also make a wall of dead walkers in the forest to do the same thing.



Mod note: again (second time in this thread), please put comments about next week's preview in tags.

Groucho

Paff

Man, you guys are impossible to please. Last week, the complaint was too many scenes of people just plugging zombies through the fence, and this week it's "why aren't they just killing zombies through the fence all the time?"

I think the reason for them not to keep killing zombies is threefold. One, it's BORING. Create an episode where the only thing we see is them stabbing zombies through the fence. No dialogue, no story, just zombie killing for 42 minutes plus commercials. Yeah, people wouldn't complain about that.
Two (and less tongue-in-cheek), I believe that the show's mythology tells us that attacking zombies creates a commotion that only attracts more of them.
Three, the logistics of all the zombie corpses (is that a redundancy?) that would pile up. I believe they feel they're better off with just a handful of live zombies (oxymoron?) outside the fence than a metric ton of zombie bodies to dispose of.

As far as using the pigs to lure them rather than just mowing them down Dead Alive-style, the immediate concern was keeping the fence intact. Luring them away from it was the first thing to do, so that little plot point made pretty good sense. My only plot-related complaint about this episode was why they let ANYONE (especially kids!) anywhere NEAR the fence if their presence attracts the zombies.

Finally, did anyone think they were recalling Romero's Day of the Dead a bit when the zombie inside the prison leaned up and its guts fell onto the floor?

TomOpus

On The Talking Dead, Nicotero said it was a homage to the scene in DotD. They just piled on some guts and had the actor lean over. They liked the scene so much they kept it in, so sounded like it wasn't originally in the script.

Apples and oranges. Doing the killing through the fence is fine. They just don't have to show it so much. I think that was the complaint.

Draven

I think they are acknowledging that they are not in "our" world anymore. Plus, Carol lost her child to zombies. I don't think she is going to ever let a kid go out defenseless again, and taking care of people who have been bitten is a part of this world.

Like with Carl, I'd rather have a kid next to me who knew how to use a gun than one who lost their shit and I had to actively protect in addition to myself. Again, different world now.

fumanstan

No one says they want to see people killing zombies at the fence all day. Obviously the show doesn't have to JUST show that to tell the audience they're doing it.

Still, even if there is a pile up of zombies it seems like they've been clearing them out some way or another during their stay there, so I imagine they could do body cleanup. I do wonder if they had to use the pigs though; seems like zombies mindlessly chase any live human and racket; wouldn't they follow anyone in the truck and not just pig blood if they wanted to draw people away?

Navinabob

Good episode. I wondered about the piling up bodies too... I just assumed that they dragged them off and burned them every so often. Otherwise the stench would just be too awful after a week of doing that. Just considered it a day-to-day task that didn't need to be shown.

Regarding the girls (bit of comic book spoiler-talk, remember to hide responses):



So we got a doctor, an army medic, and a vet in the group. At least they finally got some decent medical care going for them.

So is the Army medic the first pick for who burned the bodies?

I was thinking a fairly simple solution would be to sleep in the cells with the doors closed. Keeps everyone safe, and traps the zombies.

devilshalo

I was just wondering why he had guts to begin with since that zombie nerd kid was feasting and digging around in that guy's chest cavity.

TomOpus

On The Talking Dead, Chris asked Nicotero why zombies stop eating humans when there is so much more meat. Greg said once the human turns, the zombie is no longer interested. They want meat that's still alive.

devilshalo

He had both hands in that guy's chest cavity, pulling out entrails, no way should there have been all those guts to spill out after he turned. And if that was the case, why did the one zombie that found dead Lori pig out on her?

Celtic Esquire

Re: the sleeping with the cell doors open.

I asked a guy that I know who is a guard at a medium security prison. He said that nearly all prisons, old and new, do not have keys for each cell for security purposes. That prevents prisoners from trying to pick the locks at night and also protects the guards, none of whom want to be part of a crew that goes around and manually lock and unlock each cell door. He also said that prison policy is to minimize guard and prisoner contact to prevent hostage situations and to prevent guards from giving contraband to the prisoners.

Instead, he said that most prisons usually have an electronic locking mechanism for the cells on each block that locks/unlocks all of the cell doors at once. For the older prisons, it's a manual locking system, but all the cell doors lock at the same time once the system is engaged. For these systems, each cell door is generally programmed to lock automatically if a prisoner wishes to lock himself in for whatever reason.

After hearing this, I can understand why they slept with the cell doors open. A bike chain and lock wouldn't even work either because if they closed the door, they would be locked in regardless.

Groucho

Except one guy was sleeping with the door closed.

Celtic Esquire

They mentioned he had a sleep walking habit so he chose to lock himself in at night. Good thing he did that because he was locked in after he died in his sleep and turned.

TomOpus

Don't kill the messenger

DJariya

13.9M viewers for episode 2. Understandably down, especially since there was a huge football game on NBC last night that took up most of the ratings.

rw2516

When Rick sees the dead rats piled by the fence it looks like they are on the inside of the fence. It would have to be somebody on the outside of the prison pushing them through.

Draven

Why? Person on inside of fence holds rat up...zombie chews on it for a bit...person drops it on the ground. In fact, we saw this happen (except for the dropping part).

TomOpus

The opening scene shows a flashlight shining through the fence at the face of a zombie. The person would have to be inside the fence. They are probably letting the zombie eat half the rat then dropping it in the ground, inside the fence.

Edit: Draven beat me.

MScottM

Draven should not beat you or anyone else. There is to be no beatings on this forum.

You have been warned Draven.

RocShemp

It's okay. They have a safe word.

datagirl7

IIRC