And now she has a knife and the skillz to use it!

But Carl is armed again, so I ain't too worried long term ;)

Plus, he's good at killing kids.

It's why I have so much confidence in him to do the right thing.

Talking Dead had gotten better, Talking Bad was downright really good at times.

Tonight's return to celebrity stunt casting felt like a bad idea to me, took less than a minute for me to be convinced I was right about that :(

Not too bad tonight, but one of those that I could have used an extra half hour or so to get my fill.

Minor graphic novel spoilers below (I'll try to be vague):

Tyreese establishing himself as a badass with the hammer versus a horde was a nice tip of the cap to the graphic novel.

I watched episodes 2 and 3 back to back tonight (was out of town last week) and am getting a pretty bad vibe from the older sister. I think one of two story lines from the graphic novel might come into play with the introduction of those two. Either would be pretty sizable events, I would think.

Still not sure what to make of Bob Stookey.

Him surviving there given the way they showed it was pretty hard to believe.

Going from what I remember in the comics, it was hard to believe there as well.

Probably even more so in the comics. Loved the tip of the cap there though, either way.

Yeah, not surprisingly this episode was written by Kirkman himself, which is why, I think, you had the nod to that scene as well as the fight between Rick and Tyrese (which is even more extreme in the comic).

A solid episode. Not as good as the first two, but the first three episodes of this season have been really strong.

Oooh, good call, H_B - I had forgot about that from the comics too.

I (a non-comic book reader) would not have guessed Carol.

Very interested to see where that goes.

I don't believe that was in the comics. I, for one, saw it all the way

This whole super flu plot is not at all in the comics.

The whole prison/Woodbury arc ends very differently in the comic.

Me neither, but I'm glad that it was. I was really worried it would be someone from Woodbury whose name we didn't even know and take all the teeth out of the story. This is great though.

One thing I'm not sure about... did they show us how Rick figured out that it was her? When he was looking at the door and at the "crime scene" did they show anything? Or are we supposed to be thinking that this was just intuition on Rick's part after seeing Carol stupidly risk her life to go clean the hose by herself?

there was a bloody hand print, I believe, presumably Carol's. but how he linked that to Carol I'm not sure.

I think the question we should ask ourselves is "what did Rick figure out?"

I think he saw the size of the handprint and deduced that it was a woman/child ... which would have narrowed the list of people to consider.

From there, who would be able to drag the bodies, light them on fire, etc from a physical standpoint? Probably not too big a list of candidates once you get to that point.

Yeah, when he asked Carol if she did it, I was trying to remember if there was something they had shown us to physically link it to her that I'd missed.


So Rick saw Carol going out into danger alone to handle a problem that Rick wanted to put off, and Rick knows that she is teaching the kids about weapons without telling anyone else. Carol is looking like someone who is willing to face realities that most others are not. Given her background (abusive husband/lost her daughter), it makes enough sense to me. And I *think* Rick knows enough to at least reasonably ask Carol the question, so that makes sense enough to me as well to be ok with all of it to this point.


Between the interactions with Carl/Herschel, Maggie/Beth, Rick/Carol and Tyrese/lots of people, I was pretty impressed again that they were able to keep my interest at a high level without overloading things with zombie action.

both of the Carl / Herschel scenes were...odd. the first one was so odd that I wonder if they had changed something and had had to add that in after the fact. It just didn't seem right at all

I think they are trying to build on the scene from last season where Carl was out in the woods with Hershel and some other folks and he shot that kid who refused to drop the shotgun.

That's my only explanation for it.

Also, Lady H_B suggested that Carl and Arya Stark should get together. They seem to share similar world views.

Great suggestion for crossover!! Well played Lady H_B!!!!

That sick, uneasy feeling in my stomach just won't go away when I watch this show. The feeling that, no matter how good these current episodes are, the whole show goes back in the shitter when they decide to bring back the governor.

I think the smart move would be to kill off that arc ASAP. Bring him back as a zombie and move on. It's like waiting for the other shit-caked boot to fall.

probably waiting for the opportunity to have him come back and jump over 25 zombies in a motorcycle

If handled correct, the return of the Governor could be good.

His presence has sort of lingered without every coming up. Darryl and Michonne have talked about him without mentioning him.

I thought the Governor was great in the first half of season 3, but things took a turn for the worse in the second half, especially that one episode when he was stalking Andrea through that shattered factory like some sort of villain from a slasher flick.

I am curious to know how far the medicine fetching group was away from the prison when they ran into the wall of zombies. Any chance that wall is headed toward the prison, and how would they possibly defend themselves against that.

.... and why with 4 people in the car, is the driver the one changing the radio stations? Don't you know that as soon as you look down at the radio, you are going to run into a wall of zombies???

Along the lines of the things I nitpick about the show....

Why do they take a car like that on these runs? Why wouldnt you drive something made for a bit more offroading? That car would be lucky to run 1 zombie over without it pulling the transmission with it.

IDK...maybe its my inner hillbilly coming out...but in a zombie apocalypse I'm not getting my muffler stuck on a pile of zombies when I need to run a bunch of them over.

That herd was awesome. I want more of that kind of stuff.

Yeah, you would think they could find a better vehicle for that. Besides the fact that I would want something that could offroad, I would think you would want something that is easily repairable. Like the RV they had in season 1. I am not a car guy, but I would think it would be a lot easier to fix something pre-1990 if you could find it.

Because Dodge is a sponsor of the show? :)

Yes I feel like the writers could have pulled off a better way to run into the herd of Zombies than playing with the radio. Couple of ideas...

1) Car backfires causing group of zombies to come from behind. Then while they are messing with car the huge herd comes from the other side.

2) Tire blows out. However since I think they may have to get back in the car at some point next epiosode I guess I could see why this would be a bad angle.

Radio just seems cliche which this show is pretty good at avoiding.

I think it wasn't so much the radio, but that they heard a voice/distress signal or something. That's what drew everyone's attention.

They should have been driving a GM vehicle. That shit would never happened if they were.

Also, in a move that surprises no one, the show has been renewed for a 5th season. In a somewhat surprising move, they won't be replacing the show runner, so that Gimple guy (or whatever his name is) will still have the reins come next season.

5th season :)

But yes - very excited, especially that Gimple will be able to stick around. Hope that gives the show a little bit of stability over the next two years.

Not sure if I missed it somewhere, but did they explain how Old Man Herschel got his leg back?

He still has his peg leg. That's why he's always kind of limping around when he walks (sometimes more than others). He just wears long pants and they affix a shoe to the peg, apparently.

Yeah - they showed a shot of it at some point where it looks like they basically made him a prosthetic leg type thing. Shoe on the end of the peg, and almost like a metal boot around the peg too i thought.

The hand print moment at the door was odd since they made it out to be the "aha!" moment of Rick's half-assed investigation especially since all he had to do was ask.

What I don't like about the whole prison thing is that all they have prison cells that would keep them safe if they just locked the frickin' doors. Carol didn't need to kill those 2. Just lock them in a cell and kill them if/when they turn. It was already too late to worry about infection since the germs were already all over. I understand it makes a nice little conflict but I think Carol would have waited.

Why doesn't everyone lock their cell doors at night?

This was my first thought as well. Seriously...lock your damn cell door at night and keep a supply of canned goods/h2o and a blade in each one and you're basically safe as can be in the medium-term.

I guess we're supposed to believe that they're all so happy to be somewhere where they don't have to that they don't, but IMO if they're not taking that simple and obvious precaution then they deserve to die.

Also - since they know the virus is in everybody and you don't have to be bit to turn you'd think they'd have guards posted inside even when people were sleeping/wouldn't let people go places alone.

There is a theory floating around about that handprint. I'm not sure I buy it completely but it's a fair possibility IMO.

That kinda makes sense Jon...

the theory does make some sense

Hmm... okay, so in this proposed theory...

If they were sleeping?

Makes sense but this show isn't exactly the deep, plot twist kind of show. (And I mean that as a compliment as it's one of the my favorite shows on right now) Rick looking at the door and asking Carol if she burned the bodies most likely means that Carol burned the bodies.

I don't buy it at all, I feel nearly 100% certain that its Carol. Part of that may be bias though, because I *want* it to be Carol. A scenario where they put pressure on a main cast member who we've gotten to know for 3 years only to relieve it with a twist revealing its actually this new character who we've seen in like 3 scenes would feel like a massive letdown to me.

I'll give you my own two cents on the theory (which I first saw popping up within minutes of the end of Sunday's episode)

RE: Herschel's leg - I think it was Scott Gimple or someone on Talking Dead that said they found a prosthetic on one of their runs and he is using that. Or maybe I am just making that up...but I think that is right :)

Sounds sensible at least PF.

Or already dead and not yet turned.

Interesting...