From what I understand, they do revisit the neighborhood at some point in the books, but it's also been roughly a year. Hard to say if they would still head back.

they do in the books and I hope they do on the show

Rewatching the episode.

Absolutely loved the part when Rick gives the elaborate speech of holding in formation, and then all the prisoners run off prison riot style and bum rush the first group of walkers. Possibly one of the best moments of the show yet to date.


Also really thought that Tomas guy looked like he was something that would have been drawn in a comic book or something. Perfect casting.

First alternate location/case episode of the show I guess, necessary if not as compelling as our usual cast of characters.

I'd been dreading this episode all week, didn't turn out as bothersome/ disappointing as I had feared, so that's a good thing.

I understand -- even if I'm disappointed by it -- the decision the writers had Michonne make with regard to her friends. From a technical standpoint that was going to be an issue, I was happy they got across several points of information from the little scientist at least.

Thought they actually handled getting across the Gov's character & brand of insanity pretty well. But was that a twinge we saw from Merle with the NG troops, is the Gov too brutal even for our favorite sociopath?

I think I figured out why this aspect isn't as interesting to me: it's an entirely human drama storyline, the zombies are just the Indians/Gang Members/Aliens that represent some threat same as hundreds or thousands of other shows/movies.

On the one hand, I get that being a big part of the point of the show; the notion that even in a world filled with zombies, people don't actually change all that much. On the other hand, I don't find that as interesting a subject to explore as I do surviving & adapting in a world filled with zombies.

Did not like the constant shots of Michonne scowling & brooding. We get it, she's a dangerous & private person with trust issues. But right now she's so one-dimensional that she's only interesting with a kitana in her hand. Until she gets it back, she's just a waste of screen time until they do something to develop her character.

I counted 21 heads in the tanks.

Interesting that he mentioned rescuing three people the previous night - two of who are not all that interested in sticking around and the third who now has their head in a fish tank.

If any of the folks in the town did a head count (only 73 in town?) then they might start asking what became of the third person. But I get the sense that people don't ask the Governor all that many questions ...

I kind of feel like they have made (or are trying to make) Merle into some type of cult hero-type character, and I mostly just find him annoying at this point.

I'm kind of wondering if the black guy, that they kept showing close ups of, might end up playing a big role (and end up being one of the favorites from the GN).

I was actually shocked at the "new" Merle. He seems almost sane, certainly more controlled, than the guy we first met. Question is whether that's an act, or how much of it is an act anyway.


That was my guess throughout the episode. They certainly made a major point of making sure we saw him.

Same thing my wife And I were thinking.

I liked this one, three really solid episodes in a row IMO. I agree w/ Jon that the emphasis on Michonne and her distrust and independence felt a little over done. We don't know enough about her (at least for those of us who haven't read the graphic novel) to know whether that is just good spidey sense with the Woodbury community, or if she's just a broken down person incapable of trust. Since we don't know and they aren't interested in telling us yet, most of the stuff with her was not interesting to me. Not a big deal and something that can be remedied in a few seconds of dialogue/actions if they want at any point.

I generally enjoyed the introduction of the Governor and what they did to try to show us about his mindset and leadership of the community, and his insanity and ruthlessness.

Does it seem like a bit much for the entire community to just buy the fact that the army guys couldn't even survive a single day with all their training, weapons and vehicles, as the Governor explains it? Or for that not to be a red flag for at least Andrea (or a selling point from Michonne on why they need to get the hell out?). For some reason that scene felt just a little off to me, I think all I needed was a very slight look of distrust from any single person there to be ok with it... not a big deal by any stretch, I get what they wanted to convey with that scene, but it just felt a little bit off.

I liked that part. I felt it did a good job of showing him using fearmongering and how all the people not affiliated with his hit squad are drinking the kool-aid because they want to feel safe, and how that also resonates with Andrea. I did have a bellyful of Michonne scowling and watching a bunch of hicks successfully ambush a platoon of soldiers with no casualties felt pretty ridiculous.

Talking Dead said 24

Are they trophies or is it an experiment in starving.

That was a pretty decent introduction to Michonne and The Governor. There wasn't much action, but given that the past two episodes were jam packed with zombies, it was a nice little break. I liked the little "Stepford Wives" town they have going there.

My only complaint was the lack of anything from Michonne besides "gimmie my weapons" and glaring at everyone. We don't know this character yet and it got annoying after a while. Even Xena, Warrior Princess showed character depth, but Michonne's performance was lacking. I'm hoping we get to see a bit more of her personality before we have to deal with Glowering Warrior Woman again.

That stuck out to me too. The idea that trained military personnel would be so completely careless, especially in a world full of zombies around every corner, that a bunch of civilians playing solder could get the jump on them like that is just terrible writing. The rest of the episode was solid, but it felt like the writers just phoned it in for that scene.

So far, so good in Woodbury.

The guy playing the governor is great. The right amount of charm, presence, menace and absolute craziness.

It will be interesting to watch things shake out.

I am not too concerned about the Michonne glower. Besides a few minutes in Episode 1, this is really her first full episode. A big part of her character is her reluctance to trust anyone, talk about her past, etc., so I don't think we can expect a swift bit of character development, especially in her current situation. Unless they T-Dog her, her development should come over time, sort of like Daryl's. Her line about "never losing her shit" was great. My second favorite of the night after the governor's eerie, "Never." If she doesn't move past glower phase soon, however, it will get a bit tiresome.

I wasn't too bothered by the ambush. Military outfits get ambushed all of the time. It happens. Here, you have a group of national guardsmen (?), who have been holed up for most of what's gone down. Shit falls apart and they venture out. They think the biggest threat is walkers, so that's what they are ready for. Walkers don't ambush or shoot at you, they wander out and are easy to deal with. The Govenor rolls in waving the flag, mentions their guy by name, they relax and... ambush.

Last episode showed the difference between Rick's zombie-hardened crew and the prisoners who sheltered from it. Rick's group was much more deadly and effective having lived in this world for so long. You could say the same thing about the Govenor's people. This very likely wasn't the first time they ambushed some group of people and this unit of men had been largely holed up until just recently. Who knows if they had ever really had much combat experience. Throw into the mix that they're likely tired, hungry, strung out... Ambush.

Agreed with the ambush HB. The writers also showed us Merle's accuracy earlier. Highlighting that, to survive in this world, you have to hit small targets. Throw in that these NG guys were stressed and most likely had limited sleep, not to far a stretch for them to go down like that.

I also liked the creepy scientist guy.

He reminded me a bit of an creepy, evilish Gale Boetticher.

Oooh, I like the comparison and I can totally see it.

I think there's an interesting juxtaposition of Rick's actions towards the prisoners and the Governor's actions towards the NG troops. Morally, are they really that much different? Sure, Rick sort of gave the prisoners a chance to cooperate, but the inmates didn't really get much choice in the matter. Rick saw a threat to the group (and his leadership) and removed it. In a survival situation, how many times do you give strangers a chance to co-exist before you just start skipping straight to the removal of a potential threat?

It certainly felt different.

Even before that one guy tried to kill Rick not once, but twice, during the zombie fight when he opened both doors, instead of the just one as told to, it was clear that he was a complete liability that had to be put down. The soldiers were a potential threat, sure, but they hadn't done anything that could possibly be construed as a threat.

It's like the difference between self defense (what Rick did) and pre-meditated murder (what the Govenor did). They might have committed these acts for the same reason - protect your own - but did so under a very different set of facts and circumstances. Now, when Rick locked that one guy outside with the zombies... A little sketchier.

Rick is certainly no saint, but he's not quite at the Govenor's level.

I was just happy we got a week with no Lori in it.

I think what we are seeing is what Rick could become if he continues to follow the path he is starting to go. The Governor has already become what he is.

If you survive a world full of zombies, obviously god does not exist and I'd be merc'in everyone for stuff. No reason to leave heavily armed soldiers alive when you can use their supplies.

So, the only reason not to kill people is because you're afraid to go to some mythical place called "hell"?

Weird.

If Zombies exist, sure.

Well, you've got that and you've got civil law.

In the absence of those, gracious, I'd be a one man depopulation device.

With Rick, he only started offing them when they made it clear that they were a threat (the one did try to kill him). The NG troops hadn't made themselves out to be a threat. That was more of a preemptive strike. Plus, I'm guessing (I have not read the GN nor read any summaries of them so this is just a pure guess on my part) that he has other motives in doing what he did.

I would bet the governor is on a power trip and would be afraid of bringing in strong, well-trained men into his camp. If civilization, does rise again, he is going to be the leader.

... even if he has to kill most of the followers to get/keep the job ;)

Yeah, I agree.

It makes sense to kill the national guardsmen and take their stuff. You can't bring in a large, decently trained and relatively cohesive unit of people into a place like that. They could cause too much trouble. If they didn't like the way things were going, they could rally and overthrow the balance of things, because there are many of them and they are bad asses.

My view of how the Governor's crew works overall is that they take in people who they think they can control or handle. If you pick up one or two people, you bring them in, talk to them, get information out of them and if you think they can be good citizens, you let them live. If you think they are a liability or a potential threat, you kill them (or if they are already badly injured). Based on the conversation between the Governor and the scientist guy, they obviously think that Andrea has some information about Darryl and/or Rick's group and they think that info could be valuable. So, that's reason enough to keep them around and not kill them on sight.

plus you can never have enough single women who are easy on the eyes

I think they're all the people that have died in the settlement (plus the Michonne zombies).

Were the military guys only out there for 1 day? I didn't understand all of that.

They had only been in that specific location for a day, maybe that's all they'd been out at all, I forget. The story as I remember it... big group of military guys is holed up at a base somewhere, its going ok til someone gets bit, the place turns into chaos and that group flees. Helicopter guys try to scout ahead to figure out where to go when heli crashes. I am not clear (and maybe just don't entirely remember all the dialogue) if there was much time that passed between fleeing the encampment/fort they were at and the heli scouting & accident.

I think it was longer than a day. It sounded like they left whatever fort they were at, drove around for a while and then decided to send the chopper up to scout around.

I am not exactly sure how many days in total.

I think they got blocked on a highway, probably similar to what happened to Rick's group in season 1.

Were his wife kids in the aquariums? I couldn't tell.

Remind me not to trust you if we're on the same server in DayZ one day. :)

Heh, heh.

I have the feeling they're substituting the tanks for something from the GN, but you've made me laugh with this comment.

I was just watching the Yahtzee Crenshaw review of the Walking Dead game. Didn't know it was a decision based adventure game and not an action/adventure/survival Horror game at all. Am still intrigued but it makes me not want to buy it until supersuper sale.

I mean if there is no actual game and is all choose your own adventure stuff...

What's wrong with point and click decision games?

Didn't you ever play Sam and Max Hit the Road or Day of the Tentacle or Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis?

Man, I miss the early 1990s...

I have never really been that into choose your own adventure stuff, but this game is excellent.

To be honest, it's not too terribly different in playing style (and, in fact, better) than "Heavy Rain" and I loved "Heavy Rain."

I played through the demo of ep. 1 when it was out and it was not enough to really get into it...but I have heard really good things about it. I want to try it more.

well heavy rain had definite gameplay. But from the sound of his review there wasn't any actual gameplay at all. I mean it's a zombie game. I wanna like you know kill some stuff?

As previously stated Sam n Max is in my all time top 10 and Day of the Tentacle is way way up there too. BUt this is zombies. THose were straight comic adventure games. This is zombies, man. ZOmbies. I wanna kill and junk.

and actually sam n max and tentacvle were straight adventure games and nothing to do about decisions. THis is more "let THIS guy die or THAT guy die....do THIS or do that....and let the torturepron begin :P wash and rinse.

You kill plenty of zombies.

Also, like I said, I have played both, so, no offense, but I reckon I am in a better position than you are to decide how similar they are or are not. ;)

There isn't the crazy sequence-type stuff, hit X then O than D than L1 and all of that. It's slower paced on that end, but there are still some quick-timey events and zombie killing. The game is much more about the characters and writing and emotional impact than action and zombie killing. In that vein, it's a thousand times better than "Heavy Rain."

If you just want to run around and kill zombies, go play "Left 4 Dead", "Dead Rising", "Dead Island" or any other countless games where you can kill zombies.

[ republican ]
No you aren't. YOu are a liar. Everyone saw you lie. You never played that game. Two years ago you were arrested for drug dealing and you went to prison. Now you inflated the price of games by 2 trillion dollars this year alone. Is this the kind of person we want telling us what game to play? I think not...
[ /republican ]


And Heavy Rain is pretty damn good. I love the action sequences. Really intense!



I don't want to do that. Because...well...they suck.
I want story and atmosphere and creeps and shivers and yet I want to be in control too. ANd yes killing a zombie would feel good. RUnning like hell from them too...


and thanks for the feedback and info! :)

Anyone figure out how the Governor's crew surrounded those military guys without them knowing about it? That seemed like a plot hole out of Lost to me.

.

Adventure is making a bit of a comeback lately. Plus I'd read that George Lucas did not have a whole lot of interest in licensing or selling the old Lucas Arts adventure game IPs, perhaps that will change with Disney in charge of them now.

One of my favorite games back in the day was Gabriel Knight.

Jane Jensen is currently making a spiritual successor to Gabriel Knight called Moebius.

It's probably just because they were new and cool and we had never seen games like them before (or I certainly hadn't), but the old Sierra Quest games still hold a warm place in my heart.

Especially Space Quest. Loved that game. Go go Roger Wilco!

Gabriel Knight was the best.

The creators of Space Quest are also making a new adventure game called SpaceVenture.

There's also a fan remake of Kings Quest you might want to check out.

http://www.agdinteractive.com/games/games.html

I really liked the various Quest games too, especially Quest For Glory.

Awesome! I'll definitely check these out.

you are such an apologist...:)

he never did have any common sense. :) Loom was such a gorgeous game!

And I love the King's Quest series. It is amazing! 6 and 7 were my favorites. 7 was definitely amazing.

And way back before that the Infocom and Scott Adams adventures. Adams was like "Infocom light" . Just a tad easier and not as big. Same great stories though.

wow thanks mckerney! WHOA!

And a man of reason! :D

You're welcome! To continue with something that we could only say is even close to being relevant to the topic by saying that Glen probably played these games before the whole zombie apocalypse, I also saw today that the creators of Quest for Glory have put up a kickstarter for a new game.

Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption by the Quest for Glory designers by Corey Cole — Kickstarter

I love that this thread is completely derailed.

So how about those zombies? And the prison? And the governor? And Michonne's angry scowl? Merle's pretty bad ass. Loose cannon, I think he'll get his by the end of the season.

A couple thoughts...

I'm interested to see if/how Rick's group aligns with the two surviving prisoners and if there may be more prisoners in undiscovered parts of the prison (possible, but unlikely). I loved that part of the GN and thought they did a great job making me care about the promise of a secure habitat.

I like the governor character and am looking forward to seeing how he develops, but I wish they would have spent more time developing the prison storyline (think I've complained about this before in this thread) and let us enjoy it. I want to see the pending conflict, but want to make it stretch out and let the tension build. :)

I think they are setting Merle up to die in some type of heroic/sacrificial way. His character wasn't set up with much depth in the first season, so I'm guessing they spend part of the season showing that he is not all bad and then he saves Darryl or one of the kids or something.

LOL, sorry bout that. Just curious about the game as I hadn't played it yet and got carried away. :) Can't speak of the series though season 3 wise. Haven't seen it yet.

How did all the governor backstory work in the comics. Were those one off type issues? Also I feel like they could easily go 30 more minutes per episode with these stories.

Alright...as usual I am behind on the episodes as I DVR them & watch them on the following Friday night usually.

A couple of thoughts...

1. Love the Governor character/actor. The guy is clearly good at manipulating people but also not afraid to get his hands dirty. This seems to be a believable set of skills that would have people follow somebody in a post-apocalyptic world.

2. I havent read the comics but I also feel like they are assuming too much info on the part of the viewer regarding Michonne. I think I like her (and I am somewhat aware of her character from reading up) but not sure the show has done a good job of making me like her.

3. I dont have much of a problem with the ambush of the NG troops for the reasons HB laid out. But thats only because of sheer ignorance to "what does this military know about the outbreak & survivor encampments that we dont know". Still...I have a hard time believing none of the military guys got an easy shot on the governor. Dramatic effect I suppose.

4. Not knowing the comic series..I'm completely intrigued by the tanks & cant wait to see a little more revealed about that & what the Woodbury scientists know.

I played the first 4 episodes of the game last weekend (5th & last episode will come out early December I believe). Its structured very closely to watching episodes of a different survivor group. It has small bits of action & the like but most of it is point & click on the clues & "team building" conversations/tasks.

While I enjoyed it, I dont think the replay value is as good as I was hoping. The decisions you make that can "change" the story are not as fundamental to the general story & are a bit linear.

Basically, you still go from place A to B to C to D to E...you just do it with people feeling differently about you as you do those things and/or small changes in the characters. I was more hoping for it to be a bit more open ended than it is, personally. Still...I did enjoy the story format & the game itself but cant say I see a ton of depth that would lead me to play it again because the story would be dramatically different.

A quick story about the National Guard: I had an Infantry Platoon from the Oklahoma National Guard assigned to me during the initial part of OIF. The platoon leader (who was 10 years older than me) came to me and asked me how I wanted my perimeter set up. I told him that I could tell him what made sense to me, but that wasn't my specialty. If someone asked me how to fire a Patriot missile, I could do so in detail...but I wasn't trained in Infantry tactics, other than Infantry Week at West Point.

Anyhow, the National Guard isn't always the most trained organization in DoD.

Yeah people seem to forget that a majority of the Army is made up of support personnel. Now if it was the Marines I would expect a different outcome.

Thanks for your thoughts. Yeah I definitely will check them out eventually. I think I can hold out til later when they are cheaper.
I had similar hopes for Heavy Rain when it came out...that you legitimately could do anything, go anywhere but again that didn't turn out to be true. Was story not really even based on choices but more on succeed/fail. YOu still went to every scene, just some things become harder the more scenes you failed and thus some characters could succeed and pick up the slack for the failures of others. Still enjoyable, but the plot never changed persay.

Anyway all the insight is good and it does sound fun. (except for the parts about chopping off legs and such...yowch)

Not lacking for action tonight but dang it, I was hoping that victim wasn't gonna be a victim. Bummer.

Just when they finally started writing that character well, he's gone. I was starting to enjoy him.

thinning the herd.

I was speaking of Tdog. At least Carl did the right thing.

see my posts in the Lost threads about this very thing ...;)

See I told ya this show was a Lost wannabe :)

Bet you he didn't.

I'm betting that shot hit the floor.

I knew T-Dog was a goner the moment he started talking so much.

Amazing episode. One of the best, easily. Wow. Show has been on fire so far this season.

I knew he was a goner because he was never in the opening credits.

Didn't love that episode.

Not going to get super critical about decisions made, but I thought that birth scene was way too contrived. I don't see why the c-section had to happen right that second and it seems silly to think that the best option is for mom without giving a little more time for the situation to stabilize (WTF is the kid supposed to eat?).

I'm all for suspending belief in my TV/movies and I'm not too upset with the outcome (although I'm not crazy about having a baby around for the next however many episodes), but that was one of my least favorite episodes to this point.

Damn, huge shakeup tonight. They remain on fire this season, another really good episode all around I thought.

How much does Michonne need Andrea I wonder? We obviously have the benefit of knowing that her gut instinct about the governor is spot on, but, she's got to be quickly getting close to taking off on her own, right?

Not too much to say about the prison stuff, solid stuff moving forward, and I won't be missing any of the ones that won't be around anymore. Taking care of a baby will be create problems for the group to solve for awhile so that'll be good.

I am with Swaggs for now. I have to think about this episode for a bit.

How did the one prisoner survive against all those zombies with no weapons?

Yep, baby + one legged old-timer = tough spot to try and run from the next herd.

I'm guessing Carl actually did do the right thing, and that this marks his continued evolution into zombie killing machine. Although this isn't the world he has always known, he is growing up in it rather than coming at it as an accountant for 35 years or something along those lines. His value system will be fully formed in this world, and he's already carrying guilt from last season when he was weak and people died because of him.

Really high level of tension this episode. Still very inconsistent throughout in terms of lighting, zombie presence, reaction to noise, etc but I guess not badly enough to shatter my suspension of disbelief.

Hope we are not headed towards an episode (or three) where our fearless leader is a dumbass while working through his grief.

I would imagine Carl will be a badass from this point forward.

Also, pretty sure this was the goriest episode we've seen yet. A couple of the walker deaths, T-Dog's throat being ripped out, seeing Lori get sliced open ... kinda messy for something outside of HBO/Showtime/etc

I thought Lori's good-bye to Carl was really touching. Tough to imagine a mom having to go through that. No - I'm still glad she died though! :)

Pee Esss - Who will step up as the new Annoying Character That Everyone Wants To Die, now that Lori's gone?

I liked how the offed Lori in the comic a lot better than they did on the show..

It was definitely more shocking the way it was done in the comic, but it was a little more emotionally impactful the way it was done on the show with Carl being there, her getting to say good bye, and her sacrificing herself for her child.

My wife and I said the same thing. The fact they didn't show it seemed pretty blatant.

That's always been Andrea for me :)

Have they showed any of the humans getting shot yet? I don't think so, but maybe I am wrong. I think the look in Carl's eyes afterwards said it all, that he did do it.

I was rooting for Lori to get killed, but I didn't really think it would ever happen and not like that. I don't know much labor, but as someone else said it seems like they had more time to think through that decision.

I think the group got overconfident in the prison. Rick should have made sure that one guy died instead of just assuming he would. Maybe if Glenn and Maggie should have been on the lookout instead of knocking boots in the prison tower.

It does seem odd that characters they were starting to develop more like T-Dog and Carol are gone just like that. Maybe that was the point.

I will admit that Andrea is starting to get on my nerves with this nesting thing she has got going right now.

Although next week it looks like the village is going to have to deal with some biters.

Wait a minute. The guy who turned on the alarms, opened the gates, etc. was the guy who appeared to end up as zombie kibble in episode 1?

If so, that didn't cross my mind for a second, I just thought it was a previously undiscovered prisoner.

Yes, I think so. I read another article that said Rick watched him escape from the zombies in episode 1, but I don't think that is accurate. I think he shut the door and just assumed he was dead.

Yeah, that's how I remember it.

Well I'll be damned, this makes more sense than (what I assumed was) a random survivor that no one realized was in the prison.

And yeah, as I recall that scene from episode 1, we heard the guy scream as Rick left him to his fate & walked back down the hallway after closing the door.

agreed on both counts. as soon as he had lines I was like "yep, he's going to die now".

I loved the prison yard scene - the alarms coming on was a really nice way to ratchet up the tension.

I could have done without the birth stuff, but what can you do. maybe the island will take the baby and we can forget that ever happened.

yeah, definitely was the escaped prisoner. in related news, we still don't know who was watching them from outside the fence in that first episode, right?

Correct - that is who I have been assuming was behind all this, but who knows.