When Rick said 'We are the Walking Dead" I thought BOOM, jumped the shark. lol

I figured they were rotten given they were all white or whatever already.

Remind me who that is? It's been a while since I read the comic books.

Goody. Another asshole for Rick to get into a big argument with and eventually kill.

I was hoping the endless cycle would break, and was enjoying the idea of the group surviving (or not) in the wild. But alas, we're back to the formula.

The frogs were dead and had been on the ground for who knows how long. If the meat wasn't rotten, it would've been full of bacterial toxins, even after cooking.

A few of those dogs seemed rabid to me.

Many of us watch the after-show, which spells out quite clearly whom has died in each episode. I could see how a person that doesn't follow it or the Internet discussion think that Eugene died.

I don't know where you're getting this, "There are no rules," mantra from, because there certainly are. Just think about it for a second. What if Carl were to make out with Judith? How many levels of "eww" would you go through? Or would you just say, "Well, there are no rules, so... meh?"

These are certainly people whose humanity is being tested, but as far as I'm concerned, the whole show has been about how to balance the needs of the situation with maintaining some semblance of humanity. It's especially underlined in this episode by the dialogue containing the words ("We're not them.") The point of that dialogue is to say that while they will continue to become different than they were and do what they have to do, they have not abandoned their humanity. At least not yet.

I thought we had already gotten the "We are The Walking Dead" speech a few seasons back. I must have misremembered.

A comic spoiler:

I'll side with Coral ... Rules are rules, not balances of needs and the situation. Our fair group of heroes has done very little, if not nothing, to maintain any semblance of society. Truth be told, they are savages. They are the very thing they hate. They protect their own, destroy those who aren't with them, and take what they need. The hospital is the only "world" they encountered (after the first season) but did not destroy.

The only time they came close to reestablishing humanity was while at the prison. Here they established "government", made their only attempt at sustainable survival, and developed a sense of an organized society.

Comic

I thought the episode was great. It finally showed us just how much these people were finally, nearly out of luck.
No more water or food. Practically "wondering the earth" not knowing what was next. No safe place to be.
Some of them seemed to want to call it quits or finally reflect on just how good they had it for whatever time they had it.
Now they are shit on luck and finally see just how bad off they are now.
These are worn down people who cant catch a break and now have to deal with a new "enemy" while they are at their wits end.

We normally saw a group that had it all together for the most part. Now they have little to go on.

I don't know about them not catching a break. I still haven't heard of a reason why they couldn't have taken over Woodberry after it was abandoned. Clear out the walkers and secure it again. It was a good little town.
Hell, more recently they were offered refuge at the hospital and didn't take it. Instead they choose to wander around like idiots. They probably could have taken over another building in the area. At the very least they could have used these places for the short-term where they could regroup, build-up supplies, etc. while providing them safety in the meantime.

I have a hard time feeling sorry for them as they rarely ever have a plan and get themselves in trouble because of it.

I absolutely concede I missed Eugene lurking in the background -dazed and confused- during several episodes. Considering my zoning out on this snooze-fest episode, I can't imagine how/why my attentions wouldn't have been held 100%.

But come on... like I say, watch that clip. That's one dead SoB. Hitting the pavement like that isn't survivable, imo. Then, covering his body with a sheet?! In my experience, that gets done with... corpses.

Why there wasn't a "kill Eugene the zombie" scene? See: head trauma.

My problem is that I don't think they intentionally tried to mislead anyone into thinking he was dead.. which means it's just atrocious production/creative. My God, nobody on the show, in the aftermath of "Eugene gets knocked senseless (but isn't dead!)" even said a *word* one way or the other on his fate. Abraham goes near catatonic, crazed -now I realize only from losing hope for a cure- as everybody suddenly ostracized him... at the time, I assumed because he'd snapped and killed one of their own.

Maybe it's a case of me looking too much into things, but my thought, something I do with every show I watch... what purpose is there in writing and filming so grotesque, traumatic an assault? When you've got 44 minutes, everything is/should be in there for a reason. So, as I said, beat him up? His head slammed into a firetruck? All fine and groovy. Hitting asphalt like that? *And* adding such a sickening sound effect plop? You're either setting up the suddenly comatose, permanently paralyzed/quadriplegic Eugene storyline... or killing somebody off, highlighting the severity of the assault.

To do that head, meet pavement scene... then have Eugene MIA for several episodes... then never address transporting him, his recovery, or mere status (beyond one scene I apparently did miss where he groggily "woke up")? Again, for several episodes?! I still hold it's shoddy filmmaking... given the only alternative is my being an absolute idiot.

If one is expected to have to watch an hour long aftershow for a show -what's become the most retarded thing on TV, that I gave up on the second they started acting like every tiny event in the show was real life (Hardwick: OMGz!!! Guys, I know! We lost Beth! She's dead!!! Life no longer has meaning! Dead!!!!!! Let us all spend the next hour crying passionately, getting through it only with mass-group therapy!)- simply to have consequences from poor production clarified, I guess I'll stick with Z-Nation for my TV zombie fix. I'd at least have respect for it if I felt like they meant for such ambiguity/misdirection, but the fact I'm now certain it was wholly unintended only makes it worse.

Edit to Add: I just Googled to see how many episodes ago that "assault" occurred... Episode 5, so this was the fifth episode since. But...! More importantly, it showed me everything I'd "missed." http://walkingdead.wikia.com/wiki/Eu...#.22Crossed.22 Sorry, I definitely hold it's shoddy production. That's a joke - you've got a half-dead corpse being dragged around in the zombie apocalypse, with all that happened in Atlanta/Beth, *then* travelling hundreds of miles -never mind simply his injuries/recovery, regardless of all else- and *that's* all it gets dealt with over four plus hours of TV?

Not me. IF a person actually watches the show it beats you over the head with the needed information so you don't have to get it from other sources to figure it out.

It appears you have decided to interpret rules of society as being analogous to, say, rules of chess. Whereas chess can have hard and fast rules, the rules of society are typically not as rigid. And they can vary from one society to another (just like here). And they can change over time.

Rule. Noun. An authoritative, prescribed direction for conduct

One of the reasons Rick became the leader is because he was responsible for maintaining law and order pre-outbreak. He's seen as "authoritative". People look to him to maintain order and I'd even say... humanity.

If you choose to believe this is a society with no rules, you're just not paying attention. The rules change (as they do in our society), but they're there.

They're not heroes, they're protagonists. That said, your position simply isn't true. They may not have done as much as quickly as you (in your comfortable environment watching TV) thinks they should have, but they have. I think people watching are sometimes way too hard on these people. They've balanced trying to settle in with fighting off various groups and holding out hope there's a better place or even a cure. There's no mass communication. They can't be sure there's not a cure somewhere else. Sometimes they want to go find it. Sometimes they want to just hunker down (like in the prison). But just because you'd make different decisions at different times doesn't make the decisions our protagonists make automatically stupid. Rick was a small town Sheriff. These were not people heading up Mensa before the outbreak.

No, they're not. However, they can behave savagely (as people in our society do). They have very much attempted to maintain as much of their humanity as possible. I'm not sure how much you've seen of real savages, but they place no value on life, and thus have no guilt over ending it. That's not our protagonists, at least not yet.

A bit of a straw man since the vast majority of societies they've encountered have been untenable or wanted to wipe them out. Let's take Woodbury. If the Gov wasn't doing what he did, our protagonists would still be there. They didn't happen upon that society and decide to just take it over for themselves.

How "coincidental" then, that the prison is the only environment they've encountered where they felt able to do so. Certainly people can say they could have stayed in Atlanta just like the people in the hospital, but that's subjective decision as to whether that'd work. Maybe the hospital people would tire of fighting for resources with them. Maybe the hospital people would gather strength and come after them.

It's just not as simple as you're making it out. And one of the reasons I continue watching a "Zombie Show" when I have zero interest in zombies, is because the talent involved gets that it's not simple.

Holy crap, you spent way too much time writing about something so simple.

Exactly. I thought the same thing watching Oz, I mean "I'm in prison... don't rape me... I'm going to die" over and over. Couldn't they have the prisoners have other motivation? Maybe trying to win the Midwest Show Choir Sectionals?

It's the same reason I stopped watching The Wire; I get it, selling drugs is rough, big shocker. Don't get me starting on the police constantly trying to arrest criminals. Couldn't they have the police solve real mysteries like the Scooby Doo gang did 20 years earlier?

Oz had a lot more going on than just that. That was probably Beecher's motivation for the first episode or so, but for the other 20 main characters, that wasn't at the forefront.

If face planting on the pavement was instant death there would be a lot more dead skateboarders.

Umm... the prison was more secure then Woodbury. After the prison fell they dropped off to several small groups, and when they regrouped they still didn't have the numbers to secure the town, even without the D.C. plan they had.

They don't want to hold up in a city, they think the outskirts is safer. So the hospital isn't that great an idea in their mind.

Granted, I would have tried to secure something in the city, but I understand why they didn't.

No one said the characters don't have to have these introspective thoughts about the situation they're in and trying to make sense of it... and I'm willing to sit through it being mentioned from time to time... but I don't need to hear the characters dwell on the same stuff for an entire episode 3 or 4 times a season.

These types of episodes are just the writers attempts to make this show something more than it actually is. I don't mind that they're trying, but they're failing miserably. Either stop trying to be so serious or get some fresh dialog.

For what it's worth, I thought this episode was fine. Not sure exactly why Sasha dissed Abraham (I don't recall any strife between them). Sure there was a lot of introspection, but at least it wasn't like that episode early in the series when everybody got up to pray at the altar for like 3 minutes each, and I think Rick even did so twice.

A question I had was (and I may have forgotten some info from the first half) how did the food situation get so dire at the church? Last episode they were able to mourn and bury Tyrese, but this one they're starved for water. I know supplies were scarce at the Church, but did I miss something implying they had pretty much no food?

Fine. But can we agree that Friends dealt far too often with each other? I mean, how much can you really say to "friends"? Just like the spin off Falling Skies, David Schwimmer fighting aliens yet again? Afraid his sons will die still? Just once I'd wish he'd try and find out what caused the massive black out that stopped all the technology on the planet.

I dunno, I've only seen about 3 episodes of Friends. But I can see your point if you believe the themes are repetitive.