Walking Dead Recap: Infected

by North

Here we are at episode two of the Walking Dead. Once again I’m not going to even gesture at throwing together a formal recap (I’m lazy like that) so what follows are various Walking Dead musings that sort of track what happened in tonight’s episode. Spoilers obviously follow though I’ll helpfully Rot13 anything I think is too spoilerific for the future.

The opening scene of the show produced diverging opinions between my husband and I; I thought that the Governor had planted a mole in the prison who was working to bring down the perimeter fence while my husband immediately pivoted to blaming the children who were emphasizing with the walkers last episode (subsequent scenes with the children seems to imply he’s correct). What we both agreed was that whoever was supposed to be standing watch was doing an absolutely awful job. Actually I’d say the first half of tonight’s episode was brought to us with the theme of “what happens when you inconceivably don’t have anyone keeping an eye on things at night.”

The show then proceed to the adventures of zombie Nerdlinger who shuffles, wheezes and groans his way through the prison (including past the door of Karen who literally ~just~ laid down to sleep) and then cleverly bites the throat out of a sleeping neighbor. I do hate the way the show reels from inconsistency to inconsistency. For instance we see two apparently able bodied adults die in this show who previously didn’t appear to be doing any work around the prison. This doesn’t make much sense and the total lack of even a casual night guard strolling the prison to keep an eye out for trouble makes no sense at all for a group of people who’s just recently survived a zombie apocalypse. The fact that Karen only missed discovering zombie Nerdlinger because her flashlight started flickering at inopportune moments also felt annoyingly contrived to me.

Husband insists that Nerdlinger was an unusually fast and quiet zombie but I’m not personally convinced. Still it’s bad news all around if we’re dealing with some mutant zombie strain. Did any of you get the impression that the new zombies were especially nimble? In any event the prison residents proceed to run around in madhouse panic as a handful of walkers shuffle around after them. I know a lot of these people are Woodbury refugees but it’s very hard to believe any of them somehow survived several years out in the world prior to this point. We’re talking about maybe 2-3 walkers in the block at this point; baby Judith could probably take them out with her rattle.

I will continue with my hate-fest on Farmer Rick as he seems to have gone overboard with the pacifism thing including disarming and forcing Carl to be Farmer Carl to the exclusion of any more violent business. Husband is more sympathetic pointing out that Carl was killing ordinary people at the end of last season and that Farmer Ricks program appears to have reverted Carl to a considerably more ordinary mode of thinking. I will admit that Carl hasn’t really annoyed me at all so far this season so maybe there’s merit to Farmer Rick’s rehab program.

On to Carol; Husband thinks that Carol was out of her mind trying to get the tots to pith their zombifying Dad. I think our steely sympathetic Carol can do no wrong and these girls could probably use the closure. At least Carol now has two children she can teach anything she wants to now since the Dad handed over custody before dying.

I’ll admit I’m gratified that the show didn’t pussyfoot around with this disease; the council seemed to figure out pretty fast that they have an outbreak on their hands. I’m not very clear on the “spread by birds and pigs” angle. Where is the prison getting its water from? Any doctors in our crowd are welcome to throw out some speculation here, could some sick pigs get some random people from the prison sick with a fast acting flue? I’m also annoyed by how ambiguous the show is about the population in the prison. Half the time they’re running around like only the core group is around to do anything, then the other half of the time they’re talking about separation and quarantine as if they have an unmanageable number of people in the prison. We also see the prison council which consists of various named people and one new face. Gee, I wonder who the evil one is going to be?

The Walker crowd at the fence is clearly bad news. Props for perceptiveness to the person who spotted the dead rats, I’ll reluctantly concede that their presence supports husband’s evil tyke theory. A nefarious saboteur would have the savvy to carry away and conceal the incriminating rat bodies. More props to Farmer Rick on figuring out a practical means of pulling the pressure off of the fence. Those pigs apparently had to go. The actor did some good work on showing Rick’s misery and metamorphosis as he killed off his squealing crop one by one. Goodbye Farmer Rick; hello Rick.

The damage to the fence doesn’t look like something that can be easily repaired. The prison is a refuge but these barriers simply aren’t going to last forever as long as there’s walker stimulus wandering around inside them. This brings me to a favored topic of discussion: alternative/ideal refuges. My personal opinion is that an island would represent an ideal location to build a refuge; maybe a large one on the middle Mississippi river? Some decently deep water would greatly impede walkers and with even a bit of current they’d have an awful time trying to get across. Put up a perimeter fence around your island for drifting strays that wash up and you’d have an excellent barrier. You also have access to fresh water, potentially fish and access via boat to a massive expanse of area for scavenging. Boat travel would also reduce the amount you’d be drawing walkers to your refuge as I discussed last week. An island on the Mississippi would also not be afraid of hurricanes like a coastal island would be though I know the Mississippi does flood (and how the ol’ Miss would behave now that there are no army engineers managing all those levies etc… is anyone’s guess). Georgia, however, is pretty far from the Mississippi so that’s not plausible for our crew. Still, anyone else got any ideas for zombie refuges? Think medium to long term here, agriculture and water sources will be vital. Canned and preserved foods do not last very many years, especially in a freeze/thaw environment (let’s be frank, in the real world most of the stored food would be ruined after only a year or two by the weather and vermin).

Back to the prison now, Michonne’s actress delivers some bang up acting and it’s patently obvious our girl Michonne had a child before the apocalypse. My own theory is that her boyfriend/brother killed this child which would explain Michonne’s odd attitude towards them when she showed up with them in tow.

It’s a fortunate thing for Carol and Carl that Farmer Rick bowed out with the pigs because he’d have thrown a hissy fit when Carl spilled the beans about Carol’s eminently sensible educational curriculum. Our new more rational Rick agrees to keep it to himself which goes to show that despite a zombie apocalypse the PTA retains its crown as the group of irrational, groaning, flesh eating automatons that educators most fear.

Finally we find two of the prisons few able bodied adults who happened to be displaying a cough murdered and burnt in the back yard. I wonder what member of the council could be responsible for that; new guy, any thoughts?!?!?