Tough shit. Shane gave Otis the option to leave him behind, and Otis said no, good on him I guess, he was a great character for the brief time he was on the show(EMT paramedic, but competent hunter who felt horrible for accidently shooting Carl and knowing his "obesity issue" went anyways to atone for his mistake)...only makes what happened at the end all the more juicy! But Shane knew they both would have died, which meant Carl would not have gotten the medical supplies. He made a tough coldhearted choice not only for his survival, but for others as well. It's why he's my favourite character along with Glenn and Daryl...so many layers to his choices and actions. Is he an asshole with moments of psychotic breakdowns, yes...is he under appreciated and had to go through loads of crap since Rick came back, yah.
As I'm sure many of our ancestors said, "I don't have to outrun the Sabortooth Tiger, I just have to outrun one of you" Why happened at the end of last episode has happened many times throughout history I bet, especially way back when.
Yes, they ate the legs off the guy who hung himself. Now does Shane know this? Can he take that chance if he does not know? (speaking of which, does not hanging snap the neck and sever the spinal cord? Hanging zombie should have only been able to move his head) It follows that something happens around "reanimation" that makes dead flesh no longer appealing to zombies. Also, would a bitten dog that escapes become zombified? I wonder if they will address whether this pandemic is limited to humans. Would there be any danger from an zombie herbivore?
The show is still far too direct and linear in its storytelling. Starting with Shane 'reflectively' (get it guys?) looking into the mirror, the presumption of Otis' death was not too far off. There was still too much beating around the bush with the school scenes, obviously to build up tension but it failed to do so because the moment was still very anti-climactic. The writers must have thought to up the melo-drama because that's the only way to really pump these characters full of life but it's really coming off as annoying and pretentious, treating its viewers like children who need to be whacked over the head with emotional heaviness in order to understand the density of a given scene.
Yeah - you lost me. Maybe it didn't work for you but I didn't find it overly melodramatic or that I was whacked over the head with emotional heaviness simply because they started out with the shaving scene. Maybe it didn't work for you, or maybe you don't like the show which is valid - but this sounds a little like over-intellectualization to me, not legitimate criticism. But maybe I'm just slow because I didn't have the reaction you did. How is showing before and after too direct and linear?
Think of it this way. What is the narrative purpose of the before/after and what role/effect does it have in creating the dramatic tension? For one, it's something a lot of tv shows have done recently and it's becoming a tedious exercise intellectualizing narrative by giving it added depth. It hints at the obvious 'twist' but stays just vague enough. Meanwhile the entire narrative is written around the idea that the twist might not happen.
I would agree that the device may be hackneyed, but I thought it raised a question why he would shave his head, and the answer - to hide the shame/potential for uncomfortable questions about how he got it was decent enough. I didn't have a big problem with the flashback device in and of itself. Don't understand what you mean by entire narrative written around the idea that the twist might not happen. But I will confess that maybe I missed something in the beginning because I got a little confused by the jump from shaving in the beginning as at the time it wasn't totally clear to me that it was meant to be "present time". Did they do an "hours earlier" super? So like I offered earlier, maybe I'm just slow.
Nothing to do with slow. In fact that device is not all that clever because I'm sure most of the audience have by now caught up to standard narratives and I doubt there are any fans out there, or many who didn't think that opening scene meant something dubious regarding Shane's side-story. And what I mean is simply that Shane's story was really just about whether the two would make it out of there with the materials they need, and consequently what would the consequences be. The opening scene confirmed that something did indeed happen and because it's Shane looking rather distraught in the mirror (reflective gaze, hiding shame by shaving, etc) it's too easy to assess that whatever happened resulted in possibly the auxiliary character (obese, under-developed and guilty Otis) biting the dust. Thus that entire build up in the school could have been reduced to maybe three minutes instead of being stretched out and scattered throughout the script for this episode which suggested that maybe both got out alive, contrary to the opening scene. It's a paradoxical approach and that's what really made Otis' final moments so anti-climactic.
I agree with you in part, although I think you're being a little too harsh. This episode was more compelling than the others from this season so far. I thought the escape from the high school was fairly well-executed, with at least one good startle if no real scares. The zombie hanging in the tree was super creepy (although now I'm wondering about how this zombie infection works. If you die from another cause after being bitten, the infection continues to develop inside your dead body? That seems odd). Shane taking this darkly pragmatic path makes sense, and I think he's one of the only 2 compelling characters on the show, so it's nice to see him featured. All that said, I do agree with your main point. It felt like the writers had maybe 15 minutes of good stuff to show, and they had to stretch it out to an hour. A lot of it feels like filler. The "twist" was not particularly surprising, the suspense surrounding whether Carl would survive felt rather empty (did anyone really think Shane wasn't going to show up just in time with the medical supplies?). And the character development scenes, as has been typical for this show, just dragged, dragged, dragged. One of the reasons Shane is a good character is because his traits have mostly been revealed through actions. Two characters sitting on a porch talking is not really character development. I mean, it can be, if they're talking about the actual plot; if they're having an actual conflict. But talking about faith and musing about whether it's better to live or die in the crazy messed-up zombie world, is not developing them in an interesting way and it's dull as hell to watch.
It's also a lot more dull than the first Maggie-Glenn convo in the comics. [result]Unless I'm misremembering, Maggie offers him sex in that. [/result]
What, and she didn't on the show? He was talking about prayer while she was getting on her knee's! From the previews it looks like they kept the Maggie/Glenn dynamic.
I have been without power for 3 days and could not view Sunday's telecast and FIOS still does not have the episode on demand. It is being repeated late tonight so I am taping it.
I do think you have to suspend a lot of critical thinking about the infection - I mean how do any Zombies get infected without being mostly consumed anyway? I guess it's possible to get bit/scratched and fend off attackers - but if you were bit and knew you were turning, wouldn't you kill yourself first? Seems like there wouldn't be so many mostly intact zombies out there. But given that torsos can drag themselves along the ground and still be "living dead" - I'm not sure it's worth trying to analyze that much. I guess he could have hung himself and then a zombie bit him while he was still alive? Doesn't make tons of sense but it was a cool scene - although not sure I would have wasted an arrow there - I get the mercy thing, but then you gotta cut him down and retrieve the arrow. On the one hand, I'm sorta surprised there isn't more pro-creating being attempted. It is the end of the world after all - on the other hand, I guess most of them have a pretty bleak outlook. But it would make sense that Maggie would be more hopeful given her father's belief that life goes on.
Everyone is way too depressed about it. That's been getting on my nerves a bit, the constant sobbing and depression, displayed by most characters. Maybe I'm irrational about it but is this how we would all truly act when something like this would happen? Constantly express to one another how sad and broken down we are?
Actually that occurred to me, too. If the zombies eat human flesh, then most victims wouldn't just be bitten and left to die, then reanimate. They'd be consumed, leaving only ravaged remains to reanimate. There should be a lot more skeletal zombies, or torso zombies, etc. Probably would be a good number of zombie heads without bodies. It also occurred to me that if the infection can develop in a body after the person has died, then people who killed themselves or died by other means during the zombie takeover could still be turned into zombies after their death -- assuming their brains weren't destroyed. Although of course that would require the zombies to bite dead bodies, at least recently dead bodies, and it's still rather unclear as to whether they do that.
Yeah, I think this is how it would play out. Poor food, lack of sleep, constant threat of death, numerous hyper-exhilerating moments, traumatic death of loved ones, forced associations, 2 and a half days spent looking for one little girl, and then the absurdity of Carl getting shot by friendly fire... Seems to me like the wailing and gnashing of teeth should have started earlier. However, it may be realistic, but man o man can it be boring. 3 episodes with the crew stuck in the traffic snarl has really slowed down the pace of the show. Kind of like when JK Rowling wrote Order of the Phoenix. Yeah it was true to life in that Harry was a typical whining teenager, but it's realism didn't make it any more fun to read.
I think after so much trauma, psychologically man goes into a stunned, almost indifferent phase, not into more bitching phase. Again, this might come off as a silly complaint and normally it wouldn't be an issue (David Lynch, my favorite uses hyper-emotions constantly in his films) but it is an issue because it's at the very heart of the narrative in this show, particularly a central driving device in character development. Like Demo mentioned, a lot of the 'development' happens through exposes and monologues instead of actions. That gets tedious after a while.
It's still pretty soon after the apocalypse. Everyone's in survival mode (day-to-day survival). A pregnant woman and/or screaming baby wouldn't exactly help matters.
Okay, just watched the first 3 episodes, and though it's not a bad show...loads of things are annoying me. Mainly, that they're all quite stupid, and what seems like inconsistency (already mentioned). From what I saw in season one, these people presume that the dead can smell humans (and why wouldn't they. It was clear when the rain washed away the zombie crap that they started sniffing and getting some sort of scent). So why on earth would you all hide under cars, trapping yourself. The advantage of being in the open is (again, going from the dead in season one) that the living can move faster...which brings me to the next point... Why all of a sudden are these Zombies suddenly going on what seems like a sprint? Seemed more than just walking fast to me. Also, the other advantage the living have when in the open, is vehicles. Did they not drive a truck to the school? Why didn't one lead them away with the truck, while the other grabbed the supplies. It's not rocket science. drive close, make lots of noise, drive away at half speed, and wait for them to follow. Hell, mow some of them down if they want. I realise that they wan't to create tense situations, but that can be done without the need for these characters to make retarded decisions.
This is exactly what Mr. Demo said. Why not have the fat guy go in and get the supplies, while Shane drives away to lure the zombies away? He could go in a big loop and get back to the school in time to pick up the fat guy before the zombies ever catch up.
Why not. Enclosed spaces are prime examples where a number of Zombies have the advantage. These situations will always be tense, because it creates a more claustrophobic feel, and it's very easy to get caught out while having to scavenge\look for supplies. For an outdoor scene, the traffic pile up was a very good idea, I just thought how they reacted (given what they'd already experienced) was foolish. Like I said, if you get caught out in the open during the day....then you must be doing something dumb. You have speed, intelligence, weapons and vehicles. In regards to the medical supplies for the boy. It would have been better if the supplies were in the school, and then they got caught out. A very simple change. Well, I'm not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean, creating situations where as people do dumb shit, and are hit by extraordinary bits of continued bad luck in order to create a scene of tension, propped up with the occasional offing of a character to feed the audiences blood lust?
I have an issue with Shane's motivation. Both he and the fat hunter were both moving equally slowly. One because of his weight and the other because he was injured from his jump out of the window. So if both are barely moving ahead of the Zombie's how much time does that really offer Shane for a chance to escape. It seemed forced to me. Contrived merely to paint him to be a person of lesser character.