The Walking Dead: The Distance

Well, it's been awhile.  I know there've been a few episodes upon the show's return, but if you've been following my other blogs, you know the novel's going well, and time is at a premium.  I'm doing what I can.  So, as it's late, very quickly:

--My guess is that this time, Rick's group will be the reason a utopian society doesn't work.  Maybe they'll be so hardcore, so paranoid, that they either cause the place to implode from within the walls, or the society gets together and forces Rick's group to leave.  Just my guess, and I haven't read the comics, but I'm thinking it's time that Rick's group messes up a good thing for once.

--Having said that, let the record show that Aaron lied about the pictures.  Not about collecting the license plates, or about how many other people were waiting with him--but Michonne did catch him in a lie about the pics, and she knew it.

--Then they splattered through a large group of walkers with the car, and everything else got lost in the shuffle, especially when it turned out that he'd spoken the truth about everything else, even the license plates--but he lied about people in the pics.

--That will come back.

--As will the gun Rick hid near that shack just outside the gate.

--Are Glen and Maggie not going out anymore?  They haven't been close for a helluva long time now.

--Didja notice that Father Gabriel was mostly absent, but understood to be there.  Maybe he was filming an episode of Teen Wolf nearby.  That's the beauty of an ensemble cast.  You show an actor at the very beginning, and maybe at the very end, and it's understood he's been there the whole time.

--Again, I haven't read the comics, but I'm guessing the sound of children playing is from a tape.  Did they hear it once they got inside?  I'm not feelin' it.

--The sound of the kids playing would be to get anyone hesitant inside the gates.  Not necessarily for nefarious reasons.  Same goes for the lie about the lack of people in the pics.

--I'm guessing there aren't a helluva lot of people in this town, and they need the Ricktatorship to protect them.  There's a flaw in the safety of the camp they're not telling Rick's group.  Just a guess.

--If I were a member of Rick's group, and that place was actually a real, safe place, I would still crawl up inside my own house, lock the doors, and be totally okay with myself, my food (every house would have an internal and external garden, and a greenhouse), my books, my writing and, hopefully, my baseball cards.  Forever.  I'd say hello to the rest of the group now and again, when I saw them outside in passing.

--It's not that I don't trust anyone or anything.  It's just that I don't trust anyone, or anything.

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.