The Walking Dead Episode 4 Slabtown

Photo: Emily Kinney as Beth in "Slabtown."  From the episode's Wikipedia page.  (Does Kinney look 29 to you?  She is.)

I'm very late getting this entry in--like, almost a week, as the next episode airs in a few hours--so let's get right to it.  And sorry about the delay.

--The hospital is a Marxist Utopia (or, actually, dystopia): Your only worth is what you produce.  Production = worth.  Of course, the hospital is a bastardization of Marx's ideas.  He thought production could also be something abstract, like leadership, or good friendship.  But mostly he preferred physical production.  It's easier to quantify.

--Poll #1: Better leader: Dawn or Gareth?  We don't know enough yet about Dawn to say, but in terms of those they led, I have to say Gareth may have been better.  For everyone else alive, outside of those he led?  Maybe not.  Though they're both dangers to others outside their camp, Dawn at least helped you stay alive.  (These polls, by the way, come from the Talking Dead show afterwards.)

--Who was creepier, Dawn or Gorman?  I'll go with Gorman, though Dawn was more dangerous.  That's my own question, BTW.

--What's Ana Gastmeyer been doing these last many years?

--Poll #2: Yes, in a zombie apocalypse, doctors would be too important to kill.  Though, as we saw in this episode, doctors would be amongst the first to be killed by other doctors.

--Speaking of that, Beth better not tell anyone she has a little medical experience.  (Hershel was a vet, remember?)

--Anyone but me remember Emily Kinney from one episode of last year's The Following?  She was one of the silent followers and got shot dead real fast.

--I'm no prude, but wouldn't Darryl be a little too old for Beth?

--Speaking of Beth's age--which I think on the show is supposed to be early 20s?--the real age of Emily Kinney, who plays her, is 29.  Hard to believe, but true.  She's one of those women who will look 30 when she's 40, and so on.  I'll bet she got carded until she was in her mid-20s.  Maybe she still does, at 29.

--I haven't been carded in a few years now.  I did for a long, long time after I turned 21.  Especially if I was clean-shaven.  No, seriously.  I did.

--And--on the Talking Dead, at least--Kinney turns her head (and blonde ponytail) whiplash fast.  Reminded me of the little girl in the Verizon commercial and the little dog at the end of Coming to America.

--No, I'm not comparing the very pretty Emily Kinney to a little, furry, fluffy dog.  I'm just sayin'.

--Just researched it.  According to her Wikipedia page, Kinney was 25 when she first played 16-year old Beth Greene on this series.  It's possible in the life of the show that Beth is just barely in her early-20s, while Emily Kinney is just barely in her 20s at all.  Now that's messed up.

--I could also play a guy who's 9 years younger than I actually am.

--Or, not.

--Poll #3: Did Carol let herself be caught?  The option never occurred to me until it was offered up on the talkshow afterward, so I'm going to say No.  And I'm guessing she doesn't have any weapons.  I mean, wouldn't they search her, especially if they believe she's unconscious?

--I'm guessing Darryl, in last week's episode, was leading out Noah, who'll tell the Ricktatorship about Beth and the hospital.  And then they'll infiltrate the hospital to get Beth.  And find Carol?

--And all this after the next episode, which is about the D.C. group.

--Being a guest on the Talking Dead is not always the kiss of death--as Beth / Emily Kinney showed--but since two guys from the D.C. group are on the next episode, I'm guessing that at least one of them will get it.

--And I'm guessing it's the "genius," who I think will turn out not to be.

--Or, not. 

The Walking Dead--Live Bait

Just a few things to say about the first non-Rick episode of the year, if not of the entire series:

--So the Governor is Brian Heriot?  Or did he just make that up?

--And he just strolls into the house of these two women?  And the kid, and the guy on oxygen?

--The Governor sorta looks like Kurt Russell in his 80s action movies, like Escape from New York.

--In the beginning of the series, most of the characters would kill almost all of the walkers that came at them, often out of sympathy.  (Or at least it seemed that way to me.)  Now, there's no pity.  The Governor, for example, just closed a door on one, and left one strapped into a wheelchair, theoretically forever.

--The guy got "killed" with the oxygen tank that the Governor got to save him.  If I remember right, that's called irony.

--This is the family guy before the zombie apocalypse transformed him to the dark side and he became the Governor.

--The creators of the show are giving the Governor a lot of his own time in order to set him up as Rick's foil character--that is, the one character who he is most similar to, but who also has a couple of glaring differences in order to set up the traits of both.

--The pit kills, especially the last one with the bone and the face-stretching, are the kills of the week.

--I don't mind the total focus on the Governor here, and it seems like next week will be more of the same, but I'm hearing that many viewers are less than thrilled.  A few are threatening to stop watching.

--The show's creators are taking a heckuva chance here, and if the ratings plummet over these two episodes, there'll be a lot of finger-pointing.