While I thought it'd be a cold day in Hell where I'd be defending Lori, here we are. What she was saying to Andrea had a point, albeit a very weak one. It's a proven fact that men are physically stronger than women, which means that they'd probably be better at foraging for supplies, or something, although how that figures into killing walkers I have no idea.

More people defending the camp means more people can leave today (in a manner of speaking) which was Andrea's point, not to mention the fact that Dale is nowhere to be seen and all of the rest of the girls seem to not want to pick up a gun.

As far as Beth committing suicide goes, I'm conflicted. While it is Beth's choice whether or not she wants to live, she's also removing a pair of hands from a group that has become little more than a hunter-gatherer society.

Finally, about Andrea and Shane being less-than-human. While I fully recognize that they're "ahead of the curve", so to speak, I also see that Rick is getting there. Essentially, what I think the show is trying to do, is show Shane as a foil for Rick. Shane already views most of the group as expendable, with possibly Rick being the only other guy who isn't, although throwing a wrench like that sort of puts a dent in that idea. Shane's also a bit of an influence on Rick, in that his point of view is starting to be recognized, if Rick really is thinking about blowing Randall away.

Andrea, on the other hand, is a whole different story. While she is right that they need to defend the camp, she was also wrong in her assessment of the situation with Beth. Maggie was right to condemn her choice to leave Beth alone like that, because she was essentially enabling someone whose mental state was less than ideal. I understand that it's the most expedient route to finding out whether or not Beth really wants to live, but ultimately it's still a bad choice. A bad choice among bad choices, granted, but still a bad choice.

 

This would matter if they lived in a pre-industrial society where work had to be manually. Walkers are killed with guns and bows and arrows, not brute strength so this has little bearing on anything.

As for foraging, send two people out and you can handle most things. The fact that there may be an extra hand is all for the better.

And lastly, lets point out that Lori isn't talking about anything essential here. She's doing that bitchy thing that people do when they see someone going outside the system and doing something different. She could simply tell Andrea to wash her own damn clothes and leave it at that. Hell, a better system would be to institute some sort of rolling service and make /everyone/, both men and women do menial jobs. They all have a lot of downtime anyway.

But this isn't about work. This is about Andrea not joining their little Housewives of Bumfuck, Wherever and singing kumbaya.

Yes, they have fallen back into a hunter-gatherer society. But that doesn't mean that someone's life doesn't belong to them anymore. There are many ways to discourage someone from committing suicide (where do you think the "It's the cowards way out" thing came from?) but if they want to go they fucking want to go, it's their life, it's really the only thing they have control over.

As for mental state, I can buy this for a rich socialite popping pills because her husband was cheating, but not for the situation Beth was in.In fact feeling suicidal may simply be a sign that you're sane and not in denial.

And not to mention that most people can't kill themselves, no matter how bad it gets, if the girl was in shock -which she was- she couldn't have gone through with it. But if she was serious enough to actually do it then it might have been a mercy to let her go. Luckily that wasn't the case but they should have let her work through it on her own.

If she had really wanted to die, they should have let her be. Andrea did the right thing imo, it's the height of selfishness to try to hold on to someone who doesn't want to be in such a shithole.

I've already mentioned that I don't think that Rick will kill that boy. Hershel and his wife will talk him out of it based on some vague notion that they 'should be better than that'.

 

Am I the only one that believes that its there right as family and friends to try to convince her to not kill herself?

I believe if she wanted to kill herself, she'd have found a way to do so after awhile, but I do not feel any of them were in the wrong about trying to convince her not to. Leaving her alone in a room when she was clearly in shock and depressed was not a good call in my opinion.

It's bullshit that you can only kill yourself if deep down it's what you really want. She was not thinking all that clearly, short term depression can let you kill yourself just as well.

 

Possible spoiler for you, if you wish to read it.

Spoiler

On AMC's store where they are advertising season two blueray, in the description it says that it includes Shanes final episode. Click

 

Kai: We apparently have very different meanings of the word convince. I take it to mean; "providing logical evidence why someone's reasoning is flawed", while the characters take it to mean "browbeat someone until they stop an activity I don't agree with". Unless they had thought of something she hadn't really then they weren't really saying anything were they? And whether or not she felt like that only at the moment is irrelevant, it's her decision to make, regardless of circumstance.

nath: Goddamnit. Well, I hope Rick continues to redeem himself as he's done in the last few episodes but damn, I just can't see where the internal conflict is going to come from without Shane. Perhaps they'll introduce such a large external threat that they have to stop fucking bickering?

 

That's exactly what they're going to do. The part of the external conflict was cast just a few days ago.

Source, if you're interested. For those who have read the comics, it isn't spoilery. For those who haven't, click at your own peril.

 

I guess you could say the same for someone who's suffering from clinical depression and is fully convinced that their life sucks. Doesn't make it right. You can't reason with that, it's not logical.

I actually kind of find it pathetic. This girl has been sheltered this whole time in a relatively safe farm. Her mother dies in one incident, and she is on a suicide binge. This isn't someone who's been clawing and fighting for her life for months, this is someone who's been quite sheltered, and only just got over the shock of her mothers death. Short term depression is quite a big possibility. Andrea's situation was completely different in my opinion, but even that was spurred on by her sisters death

If Dale hadn't blackmailed Andrea to leave the building, then she'd be dead, and from what you've been saying that seemed like the right call. However, where is she now? She's still fighting tooth and nail to survive, she hasn't laid down her life, so that must mean she didn't really want to die? She would have left the explosion on her own free will eventually?

 

Recently started watching this and am overall loving this show. My biggest gripe with it, though, is the lack of awesome or even likable female characters. About all of them are either bitchy or irrelevant.

 

KAi: I think we've gotten turned around.

Unless you hear voices or have some weird genetic chemical imbalance (and we can argue about that), in my mind you get to make your own decisions, regardless of how permanent those feelings might be. Fuck you, go as far as I'm concerned.

If she wants to kill herself then, and has her reasons then she should have at it. It's not like she was living in a fantasy land or something, she was far more realistic about the situation than the people trying to keep her from killing herself imo. Not that I have a problem with it, self-delusion about the future is just a part of being human, but that doesn't make her pessimistic or illogical. She right. The future she outlined is a huge possibility, if she wants to do it on her own time then they should let her.

I also dislike the false logic that people use. You do not have to feel completely sure about something to do it.If that was so then no one would do anything. Rick made the same argument and it's bullshit. There's a reason we don't listen to the reptilian part of our brain at times. Because it's stupid. So just because Andrea was willing to rush out of the building doesn't mean that her original decision was any less valid. She changed her mind thanks to a dick move by Dale, but it doesn't mean that he was right in any way.

We don't walk around stopping people because "some part of you doesn't want to do this" in any other situation, nor should we here.

tl;dr: Protecting people from suicide is a social convention we created for our own benefit. It may even be good for the person at times, since generally people want to live, or will, once the necessary work is done. But that is in our world. If there is any situation where a person can maybe justify it, it's this girls.

 

I guess I just never saw her as someone in her right mind. Her being in a comatose type shock, only to come out of it obviously depressed with immediate suicidal tendencies doesn't scream sane to me. If her wanting to kill herself lasted longer than a couple days, then yeah, I'd say restraining her and making sure she doesn't is wrong, but I still feel like the best option would be to make sure she didn't do anything rash when she was still recovering from being in severe shock.

I know if I obviously wasn't in my right mind, I'd want my friends to make sure I didn't do anything rash and stupid until I had time to actually think about it, or recover from being an emotional wreck.

Was her wanting to commit suicide because of the shitty world they live in, or the depression from her mother dying? Who knows, but I still see nothing wrong with her family trying to help her cope with it before she resorts to that.

I still think Dale was a dick though, I just thought you were arguing that you can only kill yourself if you really wanted to, so only brought that up to say that the point wasn't logical at all.

 

37 minutes in, and I get the feeling that stupidity might be a vital part of the Grimes family genetic makeup.

Little Carl Grimes is the star of the show in this, stealing Darrell's gun and going off into the woods. He finds a zombie that luckily has both feet stuck hard in the mud. It's agitated that it can't get to Carl, but is not a threat for the moment.

The boy then goes even closer to the zombie, 6-7 feet away, and looks up close and personal at the fucker. The zombie then summons the energy to pull out of the muck and go after Carl. Carl in his haste leaves the gun in the woods. One less gun. Good job, son!

Then there is the argument about killing Randall, the prisoner. Dale wants to 'do what's right', whatever that is. Shane wants to kill him. Dale is tall on his soapbox about the civilization they all knew and humanity and survival of the fittest.

Sigh.

Of course he fails to get that things ARE survival of the fittest. Not enough bullets? Dead. Too loud? Dead. The group does not cooperate? Dead. The fittest are alive. That's the whole point. People no longer have the next paycheck or the latest movie to look forward to. They have another day in the world, another day breathing, another day whole.

So fuck you, Dale.

PS-What heppened to Dale was totally Carl's fault.

 

Dude, put some damn spoilers. The episode just aired and there are a lot of people who haven't watched it yet.

 

The problem that I have with all the Dale hate, is that all he's really trying to do is keep some semblance of humanity in the group. He's basically a walking conscience for the group, and because there isn't really a better parallel, he's the guy who'd be giving the player free stuff for good karma if this was a video game.

All Dale really wants to do is ensure that the group doesn't lose what made them human. What separates them from the walkers. The whole entire reason for Dale's "soapbox moment" as Dethklok put it, is that he wants the group to show a little human decency every now and then. Say what you will about Herschel, he was right, in a fashion. They aren't people now, but at one time they were.

Another parallel to make, which I'm almost positive one of you will use against me, would be to compare a walker to a rabid dog. For the sake of effect, we'll use Herschel's wife in this example, comparing to a dog that you've had and loved for years. The cold, logical part of your brain will tell you that it's over, you need to put them down. But the part of your brain that Dale is trying to keep alive? That's going to tell you that, at one point in time, this was your dog. Man's best friend and all that.

Essentially, Dale and Shane are two extremes, and I can't for the life of me fathom why some people on this site honestly dislike Dale without disliking Shane as well. People are probably going to defend their Dale hatred by saying that he's "high and mighty" and that he "blackmailed Andrea".

Honestly, he's really not high and mighty. He's an old guy with a lot of life-experience who didn't get harder because of it. He's got a soft-heart, and he doesn't want to see the group turn into a bunch of things that are closer to the walkers than to the human beings he knows they all are.

As far as him "blackmailing" Andrea goes, Scrib was right, at least on the suicide portion of his post. If they really want to go, you should let them. But that's the cold, logical part of your brain. How long had the group been together up to that point? It doesn't really matter, being one of the last few people alive on Earth (that you're aware of) is going to generate some strong bonds with the people in the group. Dale genuinely did care for Andrea and her sister, he probably saw them as the daughters he never had.

You guys suck for hating Dale, and it really makes me wonder how many of you could actually honestly do the cold, efficient thing in the face of the kind of choices you'd have to make. Before you say "I wouldn't like it, but I'd do it", you can't honestly say that. In all probability, you've never been faced with a choice of that magnitude. To reference Season One, let's go with the guy that got bit. Now, I'm sure Scrib will say that he should have been put down on the spot, because he seems like he loves Shane and the moral choices Shane would make. That's all fine and dandy, but I honestly think that Scrib wouldn't be able to make that choice when it was presented to him in the same fashion.

As I said, being in a group like that, one of the few remaining survivors, you're going to create bonds with these people, and the choice to have to put them down is not one to be taken lightly.

Rick is an excellent median between Dale and Shane's viewpoints, because he'll do what needs to be done, but not until that point. Dale might not be capable of doing whatever needs to be done, and Shane wouldn't hesitate as soon as the choice was presented to him. And that's the issue that Dale has with Shane. He's too quick to jump the gun. He didn't have to do some of the things he did.

As an example, Shane wanted to kill Randall right away. That's fine and dandy, he could give them up to his group, etc. Except he couldn't. He was blind-folded the whole way to the farm, and all the way to the bus depot he was in the trunk and had earbuds playing generic metal so he couldn't hear any outside noise. Leaving him out there like that with a canteen and some food was the decent thing to do. That is, until he revealed that he went to school with Maggie (Which may or may not be a lie, we don't really know) At that point, it became prudent to kill him, because it became likely that he could have knowledge of where the farm was, but it wasn't entirely possible.

Which is Dale's entire point. Just because he went to school with Maggie didn't mean he knew where she lived. It was more than likely, but there was still a chance. Also, his group left him for dead. If he came hobbling back in, especially with the fact of how they left him to die, they'd probably shoot him on sight, believing him to be a walker.

Y'see, I really think that most of you are looking at it from the cold, logical standpoint, when that does not, nor will it ever, always apply to a situation. You're a human being, for Christ's sake, and that means that you're better than the walkers.

Also, Carl is an idiot. While some of that blame could be placed on (insert adult here) for leaving him alone, he's growing up fast in a world that's not very forgiving of mistakes. He should've known it was stupid to go into the woods. Yes, taking the gun to protect himself was a good idea, but not killing the walker wasn't. My own argument will probably be turned against me here, but that's not the point I'm trying to make. Killing a walker in that situation is easy to rationalize, because you honestly did not know the person, so you can drop them like a bad habit and not lose much sleep over it. Leading a walker back to the group like he did was plain stupid, and while that can be chalked up to "he's a kid" it doesn't take much effort to point at the woods and start screaming as soon as you run back to the farm.

(Also, for the sake of defending myself from vitriol, Scrib, this was not intended to be a personal attack, you were just the most vocal Shane supporter.)

EDIT: Note that I made this post before I had seen the episode, so I was working off of what I knew of Dale's character and Dethklok's spoilers. I'm not going to change the post based on the new information, because I still raise some good points, and I enjoy being wrong.

 

Spoiler

To me, all Dale was doing was guilt tripping everyone, making the decision harder than it needed to be. He had no solution to the problem, he's just the guy that remains on his high horse so he can look down on everyone else. Every single one of them would have had trouble killing the boy except for Shane. The decision shouldn't have been easy, and it wasn't. Whether or not Rick would have done the deed if Carl didn't show up remains to be seen, but I'd like to think he would have.

Yes Dale, this is a world where its the survival of the fittest; something you just found out. Maybe if he spent the day he had thinking of a solution rather than trying to make everyone feel guilty about what needed to be done, I'd hold him in a higher regard.

Carl was taken off my good character list halfway through, but when his actions killed Dale, he was put right back on.

I am not a Shane supporter, since he's way too extreme about it, but where Shane is on the extreme part of a spectrum that keeps them alive, Dale is on the extreme part that kills them all.

 

No Dale is a delusional idiot who is hanging on to outdated beliefs because he's not strong enough to face facts; that the world he lived in is gone, permanently. Civilisation is dead and so is any incentive to act like it isn't.

Notice how he never truly provides alternatives when he's being a dick, all he ever says is that they should be 'better'. What the fuck does that mean? Is a virus 'better' than a human being? No? Then why is it that Ebola can ride your body like a love bus and not just survive in it but multiply? The name of the game is survival, that is the end goal, not trying to keep alive belief systems worthless in the real world.

Walkers aren't people, whether they were before is irrelevant. Jenner provided evidence that they weren't. They're meatsacks with residual instincts. They do not need to be treated with respect, they need to be put down or avoided, depending on the situation. That's the reality, avoiding it because it's uncomfortable is just dumb.

And who is he to say what makes a person human?

We can't know until the zombie apocalypse can we? But I have a fairly good idea about which way I would swing. But that is all irrelevant to the argument.

He was in the trunk sure, but he could have gauged the length of the journey and how many turns there were, what type of road etc.

And you offer a whole bunch of maybes and probablys that we have no evidence for. If there was even a one percent chance that the kid was going to lead his group back to them, it was a risk not worth taking. This isn't some video game with a respawn point, lives are at stake. No one wants to be killed, and their wives and children raped.

And again with this 'better' shit. Morality is a social construct created to benefit the society of that time. When that society fails the moral system instantly loses all value except in the minds of the individuals. Being better morally is not going to stop a walker from chewing on your bones. It's not going to magically conjure food to eat since you wasted yours on some kid who could get you all killed.It won't make you bullet proof. It. Is. Meaningless.

 

Finally got around to watching some of this recently.

Early episodes were good, and the first season ended all right. I've hated the second season though, and after looking ahead at events in the comics, it looks like the retarded grimdark shit is only going to get worse. I don't think I'll be continuing with this at all. I'll wait for the World War Z movie later this year for some good zombie entertainment.

 

I absolutely loathed this episode. Everything about it pissed me off. Carl was mind-bogglingly stupid, Dale showed that he must have lost his fucking mind about the time the first zombie showed up, and has been living in lala-land ever since, and Rick pussied out again! Saw the preview for the next episode, and apparently they're right back at square one with Rick determined to let him go. To tell the truth, the whole fiasco gives me a new appreciation for Shane; not the man's actions so much as the sheer amount of brainless idiocy he has to put up with on a daily basis.

Overall, I'm hugely disappointed. If the next episode continues in this disgustingly moronic vein, I think I'm done watching this series.

 

I honestly thought this episode finally gave some life to the season. Admittedly more the last 5 minutes or so than the episode as a whole, but it was life none-the-less.

Carl, I just... whoever mentioned stupidity being part of the geentic code, I entirely agree. Lori has been gradually getting thicker with every passing episode, I'm stunned she's not borderline retarded by now. What Carl did probably pips his mother on that one though, I was honestly cheering for the walker at that point in time.

As for Dale... I can see where he's coming from, but I agree with the majority, he needs to let go of his ideal world, it's long gone, has been since walkers started eating people. I don't hate him, but, I don't think he

Spoiler

deserved to go out, even though it's added a spin I didn't really see coming till the final couple of minutes. Alone, in the dark, in a rage? Well this seems glaringly obvious... Though the walker actually tearing him open was new, seriously thought Darryl was going to get there in time & save him.

Speaking of which - the whole cow thing irked me, I honestly don't believe that the cow was still alive given the state it was in, not to mention that was the work of a lone walker, just seems off to me, given the time surely they'd have heard the cow too, it looked closer to the house than Darryl's new place.

I can honestly see Shane just gathering Hershal & family up & locking them away or just taking out Randall the next time he so much as breathes in the wrong direction, which would take away from it. Randall's walking far too easily on a leg that got torn to ribbons on a fence post not 2 episodes ago, probably my only other major problem with this particular showing.

Honestly, I'd let the kid live and get on with his job, keep him in tow, lock him in a room in the house or something along those lines, maybe in the barn & get Darryl to come down & watch him, eh.

Still, Carl is entirely to blame for this episode more or less. I know he's the only kid surrounded by figures he'd love to emulate and has watched lead the way through this dead world but come on... 2 Episdoes to go, I'm just finally glad something happened outside moping around a farm, Glenn having commitment issues with a girl he's banged twice and Andrea & Lori constantly sharing the lone braincell they seem to have between them.

 

This. I'd be slowly losing my sanity too if I was stuck with that group of people. Too bad Shane didn't just leave with Andrea like he was originally going to.

 

Yes, the logical, emotionless part of me tells me the same thing. But morals are pounded into your brain from birth. Abandoning them is not easy as you believe it is.

Empathy is built in. I don't know if any of you have ever seen someone die violently. I have. It is impossible to not feel some empathy. It isn't like watching it on a television screen. If you're the one doing the killing, in a cold moment where you aren't in direct danger, can you say with 100% certainty you would be able to go through with it? Is killing Randel, the smart thing to do? Yes. Does that mean you would be capable of it. No. I completely sympathize with and understand Rick's hesitancy.

I also do not get how people can call Shane rational. He doesn't think, he acts. He is completely guided by his instincts, he's a psychopath who is obsessed with his "best friend's" wife. He literately has almost killed Rick twice. He is fucking unstable, he may hide under a mask of 'the protector or rational one' but don't mistake that for who he really is. I like Shane as a character, but as a person I would get as far away from him as possible, so I am not the person that, eventually, he is going to kill.