Episode 3--Isolation

--Maybe I'm an overthinker, but I believe this episode's title refers to spatial and emotional isolation.  Like, Carol's, for example.

--SMOOTH SEAS DO NOT MAKE GOOD SAILORS.  Indeed.

--I'd be surprised if Glen has reached his character arc already.  So I think he'll survive this illness.

--Was that Rick's Woods Woman sitting against the tree?

--Carol has somehow managed to look younger over the years.

--Something on the bloodied doorway told Rick that Carol had killed the sick and burned them?

--I never understood the whole Marilyn Manson thing, then or now, for those of you who saw him on Talking Dead.

--He's one of those people who makes a room more uncomfortable when they walk into it.

--And then speak.

--Something's up with Tyrese, or how else did he survive after being overwhelmed by attacking walkers?

--Judging by Gale Anne Hurd's inadvertent reaction to one of Chris's questions, Lizzie doesn't have too much longer.

--Marilyn Manson, shockingly, is stoned, or drunk, or something on Talking Dead tonight.

--And Chris Hardwicke, the host, is getting tired and frustrated with him, as of 10:20 pm.  Manson has said things like Carl should be spanked with the gun, so the frustration is understandable, especially during a live program, which Talking Dead is every night.

--During a zombie apocalypse, don't listen to the radio (even if there's finally a voice), and take your eyes off the road.

--And don't back up over a pile of walkers.  If you do, you can expect to have your tires turn on their entrails like wheels on slush and snow.

--Hardwicke has been ignoring or been snidely to Manson for about a half hour now.  Again, understandable, as Manson's been babbling and talking over people, and saying nonsensical things--and, again, it's a live program.

--This episode of Talking Dead has shown me that Chris Hardwicke, the host, does not book his guests.

--So does this mean that Carol was serving rats to the walkers, too?

Walking Dead: Episode 2--"Infected"

 Photo: from Time.com.  Karen, we hardly knew ya.  Unless, of course, you were wise enough to put your bracelet around someone else, knowing that someone was going to kill and burn the sick.  And if that actually happened, maybe you, Karen, are killing and burning the sick.  Or maybe I just overthink things.  But the more I think about it, the more I like this storyline of mine.

A few quick things about this episode:

--The sacrificing of the pigs was incredibly depressing.  I'm trying to convince myself that they were going to all get sick and die anyway.

--So much for Farmer Rick.

--Never once in any episode has anyone ever said the word "zombie."

--Why wouldn't the walkers go back to the gate and knock it down after they finished with the pigs?

--I liked Karen.  Oh, well.

--The squealing of the pigs reminded me of The Silence of the Lambs.  That's how my noggin' works.

--How come nobody smelled the burning bodies?

--I'm surprised more wasn't done with the cellblock and gate-crashing walkers.  Separate or together, they could've driven everyone out of the prison.  Permanently.  And the gate-crashers still might.

--I'm tiring of all of the ads for Walking Dead-related products and games.

--I've never heard of Hayley Williams or Paramore, for those of you who saw The Talking Dead afterwards.

--For awhile there, I thought the baby was going to turn and bite the blonde girl.  I'm so young, yet so cynical.

--I agree with The Talking Dead's guest: Lizzie is feeding rats to the gate-crashing walkers.

--And I'm saying that Herschel killed and burned the sick.

--Hopefully nobody from PETA watched this episode.

--Carol's gotten weird.

--And the kid who plays Carl had a massive growth spurt.

--If Daryl's in charge, he's not effectively keeping law and order amongst his own people.  Nobody would be feeding rats to the dead during the Ricktatorship.  (Yeah, I stole that.)

--Rick's a bit of a lost soul right now.  But he'll be asked to lead them again, and he'll reluctantly agree to do so.

--It's been so long since I've seen an episode as it aired that I didn't realize how impossibly long the commercial breaks were.  I know there's a lot of commercials, but this is way too much.

--Which is why I'm going to watch as many episodes as possible on DVR.

--A viewer's awesome question: Herschel was a veterinarian, so why didn't he look at the dead pig to find out how it died?  Greg Nicotero's answer was simple enough: Rick never told him about it.  Technically I guess that's true, but that answer still is unsatisfying BS.  But you can't think of everything, I guess.  And Herschel mentions in the middle of the episode that he knows there are sick hogs, and Rick says right there that he saw a dead pig the day before.

--And how did they know that Patrick was the first one to die?  Carol and the others in the library knew that he didn't feel well, but they had no evidence in the carnage that followed that he was the first to go.

--So I don't feel so old and out of touch, I'm going to Wikipedia Paramore now.  ::later:: Oh.  Eh.  Sort of like Hanson, but female.  I'm seeing some early 80s pink pop, a la Cyndi Lauper, kind of.  I'd read they were alternative rock, but that's not what I saw in the video "Still Into You."  That ain't alternative.  It's bubble-gum pop for girls between 7th and 11th grade, or so.  Like, whatever, man.

30 Days Without An Accident

Photo: To make it bigger, click on this great shot of Daryl and Michone, from http://entertainment.time.com/2013/10/13/the-walking-dead-watch-30-days-without-an-accident/

Loved the episode almost as much as I love the show (Andrea's exit notwithstanding.  It's the show's biggest strikeout, allowing her to have a casual conversation for so long with a guy who will obviously be a zombie soon.  Still not over that.)  But the title of this episode sounds like something you keep track of after a long and nasty stomach flu.  Maybe a really old person who's been wearing Depends for twenty years, trying to show some optimism.  Or me just being a bit immature.

Well, welcome to my blog about The Walking Dead.  I hope to cover a bit about each episode, so keep coming back if you like the show.  I'll probably include spoilers, so reader beware.

In this first episode of Season Four, we find the prison in a lax state.  They've got a garden, and the old man has a new leg.  Daryl has sort of taken over.  There's a lot of new people, and a lot of kids.  And we even have a library, which you know I like, if you've been reading my main blog at all.

And we've got some new romances.  If you're a diehard romantic like I am, you'll think right away: One of them's gonna get it.  Soon.  And then the nerdy kid shows up, and you know he's quick to go as well.  Sure enough, before you can say So young, yet so cynical, one of the young boys in love gets his neck and face chewed off--after saving someone else, no less--and the nerdy kid gets something nasty in the water (like the pig, probably), and turns while in the shower.  Sleeping cellblock beware, including the blonde girl who's been on the show awhile now, who shrugged her shoulders when told her boyfriend bought the farm.  (I swear that I predicted her reaction to someone as well.  She'd been rather la-de-da towards the kid before he'd left.)

I was about to be disappointed with the episode, with the predictability of it (you even knew the Copter Walkers would crash through the rotted roof soon), when the storyline with the weirdly pretty woods woman took over.  I was wondering if Rick was going to wonder why she was so green (literally; she was quite moldy) and you knew right away it was a mistake for him to give her the knife.  Luckily, she wasn't quite a killer, just a lovestruck and lost (and insanely depressed and starving) woman who just didn't want to go on anymore.  She wanted to serve her husband, you might say, and when she was unable to do that (her effort was rather lackluster), offered up herself instead.  She'll find, as she said, that you can't go back, and I doubt she'll find romance with her husband now that they're both walkers as well.  Look for them soon at the prison fence.

So where's the next episode to go?  You can expect a call for a cleanup in cellblock twelve, once Patrick is through with them.  Rick will regret telling the woods woman that having more people in the jail is a good thing, that there's safety in numbers.  There will be a lot of shambling walkers in the jail, many of whom had been just recently thirsty or sleeping.  Rick may also regret not killing the woods woman a second time before she could turn, and with her husband she will be amongst those who crash the fence.  And the fence will surely come down.  You know this not just because of the constant foreshadowing in the beginning, when all the characters were marveling at how the walkers knew to push at one part of the fence, and not be so spread out like they used to be.  Nope--you know this also because every before- (or was it after-) commercial promo has Rick standing in a section of ruined chain-link jail fence.  And you constantly hear the old man saying that everything they had tried to keep out has now made its way in.  Makes you regret The Governor hadn't won the jail war.

See you next week.