The Walking Dead

[trywait]

this was a set-up episode

[NativeSon]

The good news is I'm starting to care about some of these characters.

The bad news is there are only two episodes left in the season.


Not a walker in sight and yet those last minutes were pretty damn chilling.

[Steve]

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Ok, episode 4. 'Not Fade Away' Two more to go this mini-season.

Yes, it keeps getting better. But like I said last week, in at least one way it was predictable. Come on, it couldn't have been only me who knew the military was going to be worse than the zombie plague? Even the National Guard who are the nice guy branch of the military here on US soil turn out to be pricks. (You'll have to trust me on that one, I grew up in a town with a full time ground pounder base. I've personally "experienced" more than one NG and they are pretty decent guys, although the NG brass really are asshats.)

So, from my perspective, in this episode they portray the National Guard more like regular Army (who tend more often than not to be complete assholes --yes dammit, I've had a couple of them too). The NG have somehow managed to surround this LA enclave with fences in 9 days. Hmmmm... The fences feel more like a cage, which was scary in itself. No one likes to be caged.

Plus they're purposely keeping Madison, Travis, and all the neighborhood gang under curfew. It's a curfew that feels scary. The one neighbor who pounds on Madison's garage door after curfew, frantic about her missing husband is greeted not with "What's wrong?", but "It's after curfew. What are you doing out after curfew?" And both Madison and Travis sound scared when they ask it.

It's obvious the military doesn't really give two shits about these people. Not from the the way they bluntly use Travis to talk to the guy who is obviously having a breakdown. 'Either you get in and talk to him or I'm going in and taking him'. Or when Lt. Moyers (just had to look up the douche bag's name) gets interrupted giving his town crier news and says something really frightening like 'Be nice so I don't have to shoot you'.

It's just like TWD: A city full of zombies is terrifying, but regular human beings are even worse. A military presence was bound to be a bad thing in the middle of a bigger crisis.

How lame is it that Travis and Madison are acting like they're just waiting for this thing to blow over and everything goes back to normal? Madison is painting the Mothereffing living room for Christ's sake! Travis is out on a morning run like it's his summer break from teaching. I have a problem with this.

Even though I know I'm just a viewer with knowledge of the larger threat, Mark and I both agreed last night watching the show that we would still be huddled quietly in a room discussing our options. Discussing what we were going to need for an extended leave of home. Maybe we're just two paranoid gay guys, but I think not. Maybe it's a holdover from the days when gay people couldn't be open and you had to be wary of straight people who could be the undoing of your life (ask the older gay people here how it used to be in small towns in America in the 70's... it isn't like it was even ten years ago). We didn't trust the police, the government, or the military then. In many, many ways Mark and I still don't.

So with that in mind, I know Mark and I would be planning for worst case future scenarios. The last effing thing I'd be doing is painting a wall.

As soon as Nick didn't need his fix from naive addict mother Madison I knew that he was getting his supply else where. It was the first thing I said to Mark. Again, the writers had to have known how low an addict will sink to get his fix. Stealing morphine from that old dying man. It was horrible, but it was kinda funny too. Writers knew enough to have him inject right between his big toe and second toe. Horrible, but I laughed.

Liza, not a nurse but trying to act like one, rats everyone out to the military. No surprise there. I didn't think she'd be so naive as Travis, but then maybe she was feeling empowered contributing to the community welfare and she got sucked into the comfortable lie. Who knows? Just when I think, 'There's someone who isn't entirely stupid' they go and do something entirely stupid.

The two characters who seem to have the best handle on the situation are Daniel (the father from the barbershop played by Rubén Blades) and Travis's kid Christopher. The kid's been on the roof figuring out how dead the city seems to be and watching the mean green machine roll in and out of locked gates with way too much street fire power. And he sees how oblivious people like his dad are.

And Daniel, who's figured out shit from nearly the beginning. He knows when he goes with his wife that there a good chance that it's going to be 'Kiss Today Goodbye". Rubén Blades is playing that character to the hilt and I'm loving it.

“Men do these things not because of evil. They do evil things because of fear.”

Too excellent.

It's wasn't a surprise to me when they took Griselda and Nick at the end of the episode instead of Daniel. It was sort of easy to see that they are "culling the herd". I knew that when they hauled off the guy with the mental breakdown and Lt. Moyers tells Travis while swinging his golf club. The military never cared for these people. Moyer's doesn't even bother telling the poor dude's wife that he's been carted away. '...I'm not a social worker, you do it...' he said to Travis.

Poor Travis. He's starting to figure out he's an idealistic idiot. Madison's continuing to figure the truth out too, even if she's trying to hang on to denial. Both of them eventually climb up on the roof to see that light Christopher's been seeing. Madison's even been smart enough to go outside the fence and see the truth.

The question now is, where are all the damned zombies? That's probably the most scary part about this episode. Because we know they're coming.

Next Week's Teaser:


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A sneak peek from next week's episode (about a 1minute 30seconds):


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[East]

WOW [MENTION=21461]Steve[/MENTION]...your analysis is better than watching the shows.....I could get addicted to this. Seriously good...I want to watch again so I can see some of the details I missed that you brought up...

Again...I thought it was near brilliant in spots...but big gaps....and I still wonder if it is the editing?????? I think they did a great job of setting up what is sure to follow....and I don't want to see all of them eaten now (just a few actually).....

I really want to see what is happening in that hospital now.... (BTW...thanks for the clips!!!!)

It is now must see TV though..so they have done more than enough right or it wouldn't be....

[Emiliano]

I can't sleep now

[trywait]

my money is on Daniel! and unless travis pulls out a "carol" in the making, he's going to be the next "lori."

[CellarDweller]

Is it mean of me to say that I felt a feeling of satisfaction when Madison woke up and beat Nick?

LOL

[NativeSon]

This last episode illustrates why my interest in this franchise is mostly centered on the zombies rather than the ongoing drama. And that's kinda disappointing because I did enjoy episode 3 going into 4 (despite the awkward time jump which left many unanswered questions in a show that's supposed to document just *how* everything went to pot).

Anyway, the 'Cobalt' revelation. This was my biggest issue in that it only seems to makes sense if the primary goal was to actually secure this L.A. enclave as part of a last ditch effort to regain control in a defensive that is probably(?) already mostly lost. Otherwise why would they bother risking invaluable resources, soldiers and personnel to help these civilians? But this doesn't seem the case as even lower ranking troops like the tortured soldier (Andrew?) are in on the details of the Cobalt evacuation plan (which suggests it's always been looming large). This is dire. This is the end of the world. And that makes it hard to believe they would have bothered with these very disposable civilians in the first place.

I don't know. Threw me for a loop. Perhaps another one of Daniel's long-winded soliloquies will eventually help to make better sense of it all.

When I was a little boy in El Salvador....

[CellarDweller]

Well, Sunday is the last episode, I'm assuming we'll see some sort of zombie attacks.

[NativeSon]

^ It'll certainly be DVRd. Hopefully there won't be too many casualties.