The Walking Dead Season 3 (contains spoilers)

The only thing I can think of to explain the way they did the Hershel bite bit is that he wasn't paying attention, he was concerned for the whereabouts and safety of Maggie, and in being so wrapped up in looking for her he wasn't paying attention to his surroundings as much as he otherwise might have done.

I don't think it was too badly done. The main thing I didn't get is that they were so close to the prison at the end of the last series and yet it seems to have taken them 5-6 months to find it. They suggest the group has been 'going in circles all winter', but you couldn't go in circles in such close proximity to a gigantic prison and not find it or a sign leading to the prison, it's just not plausible. Also, one gunshot from Carl on the farm in ep.2 drew loads of zombies, yet all that shooting at the prison didn't attract any zombies from the area?! That again is quite hard to believe. Apart from those two issues though, I thought it was a good episode, much better than nearly all of season 2!
 
TBH pretty much every episode of the walking dead has stupid scenes that make no sense at all, just have to accept it and deal with it :p It will never be realistic, as if it was, it wouldn't be as interesting/entertaining to watch and if they just go over the top and avoid what they are trying to do currently i.e. how the characters cope mentally and how they change with all the burdens etc. then the show would just be a typical hollywood zombie film, which would get very boring after a couple of episodes, the last episode in season 2 was proof of this, they did what the majority of people wanted by just having stupid action scenes and it ruined what could have been a great finale.

I think they got the pace just right in the episode in season 2 where they clear the barn out and all the episodes after that were great except the last one.

Season 3 episode 1 was very good and the pace is just right too IMO, however, I have a funny feeling that it will slow down after the next episode or 2.


As I said before, although my post was deleted..... the most annoying thing for me is the way they keep going on about lack of ammo, yet they never seem to run out and if they do, in the next episode there ammo has come back.... and they go and waste it in stupid ways as shown in episode 1.....

They must have had plenty of ammo to spread among the entire group for target practice over 7-8 months, as they all seem to have excellent aim now :p

As some have been getting at, it would be nice to have some form of continuity throughout.

The only thing I can think of to explain the way they did the Hershel bite bit is that he wasn't paying attention, he was concerned for the whereabouts and safety of Maggie, and in being so wrapped up in looking for her he wasn't paying attention to his surroundings as much as he otherwise might have done.
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Exactly what I thought as well.

I really hope they show some flashbacks as to what happened in those 7-8 months but unfortunately I don't think they will :(
 
nicktay2605 said:
Also, one gunshot from Carl on the farm in ep.2 drew loads of zombies, yet all that shooting at the prison didn't attract any zombies from the area?! That again is quite hard to believe.
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The gunshot from Carl on the farm drew so many zombies because a herd happened to be within earshot. The "Herd behaviour" of the zombies has been well documented (they even discuss the location of the various local herds in s3 ep1).


I agree that it seems somewhat unlikely they only just discovered the prison after six months of searching around the area though.
 
I know it's a tv show and I shouldn't care to much but the little things are starting to grate.

Why would you put yourself in harms way when you could kill all of the walkers through the fence. Why wouldn't you double tap every body just to be on the safe side and remove the risk of accidentally getting bitten. Why would you take your only medic especially an older gentleman like Hershel on a walker clearing mission. Given the prison was only a few miles from the farm and one assumes Hershel and his family have lived on the farm for many many years, why didn't Hershel seem to know about the prison which resulted in the group travelling from house to house/place to place over the winter. Why have the group only travelled a couple of miles in 4-7 months.

I do accept being realistic (as in what you'd actually do if it was real life) wouldn't necessarily make for a very exciting show but come on....
 
I assumed they knew about the prison yet put off going there, I mean why else would rick and dale be walking along a train track without the others?

Rick probably thought enough is enough we take the prison.
 
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Your in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and under constant threat day and night from being attacked. You'd at least scope out the prison in the first instance to see if it was a viable option. What you wouldn't do is spend several months travelling around, going from house to house and only then think sod it lets try the prison.

After all the prison by it's very design is safe, has potentially a decent stock of medical supplies and food. Plus this being America probably has guns and lots of ammo.

Having watched the first Episode I got the impression they didn't know about/hadn't considered the prison.
 
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I think they just added the prison scene to the end of season 2 as a way to give the audience a preview of season 3. I don't think the intention was to make it seem like they were right next to the prison, although it definitely came across that way.

I realy liked the episode and did not realy have that many problems with it. I thought the scene where they were going around the cells, where hershal got bit, was very well done. Very annoying that he got bit like that and now he has lost a leg :(
 
anticonscience said:
I assumed they knew about the prison yet put off going there, I mean why else would rick and dale be walking along a train track without the others?

Rick probably thought enough is enough we take the prison.
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I'd agree if it didn't seem like Rick and Dale were both surprised at seeing the prison. Rick looked at it with a mixture of shock and joy and said 'it's perfect'. His reaction suggests they didn't know it was there, which is kind of dumb. Like some have said though, you have to ignore the minor continuity problems and focus on what the show is, an entertaining, character-driven, but not wholly realistic zombie-apocalypse drama.
 
FutileBreadMachine said:
Hehe, good point, I just saw loads of spoiler tags the other day so I wasn't sure what the etiquette was.

I thought it was an alright premier, but there were loads of problems:

1. It took them about 6 months to find the prison which was right nearby at the end of season 2? Surely there would be road signs all over the place saying "State Penitentiary 1 mile" or something similar? And I'm sure it was different at the end of the other season, with walls, and now there was a fence, but maybe it's a different side.

2. They wasted loads of ammo and made a hell of a noise shooting the prisoner zombies when they could have killed them through the fence or even up close as they did inside the prison. Also, every shot, even from an AK was a headshot (except the one misshot from Carol for comedic effect).

3. All the noise should have attracted all the zombies from the surrounding woods, but at night there are none at the fence making a noise and trying to get in. Rick even walks around the fence and it shows 4 just chilling there not trying to attack him. Obviously this was all so the group could have their little moment with the song round the fire.

4. Hershel getting bitten was absolute garbage. In a world where the dead come back as zombies, they don't automatically decapitate every corpse they come across? Hershel just steps directly over a body just so he can get bitten, it was just terrible writing. It even showed Rick earlier poking a body with his machete to check, but then they changed the rules later to them just walking past/over nearby bodies. I don't know why they even took him with since he was their doctor and they needed him for Lorrie.

5. When they were going through the prison they could have just thrown something down each hallway to see if any zombies would be attracted to the noise, rather than walk around blind corners into a horde of them.

6. When Michonne cut the zombie's head off it still made a noise without any lungs or throat.

It also seems like they just added in the 6 months passing thing so that Lorrie would be near birth, since Rick is still angry with her. And they appear to have abandoned any sense of realism and turned the episode into a standard Hollywood zombie movie.
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Fanboy flipout responses :D

1 - I need to go back and watch the end of the 2nd series but im sure all that was, was the camera panning out into the 'scenary' and showing the prison in the background... im sure the 2nd season just ended with them around that fire or something and not them actually seeing the prison.

2 - Yeah that annoyed me too - either kill via fence, or hand to hand... would have been easier as the numbers were not that overwhelming once the gate was shut.

3 - You did see the odd zombie, maybe they came and moved on once it got darker? Cant think of anything else as the scene went from day to night pretty quick.

4 - Think thats pretty harsh as a) they were in a panic, the group had split and zombies were everywhere... b) Hershel heard a noise, they'd already passed that zombie and it hadnt reacted so im happy to assume he would have thought it dead.... BUT I do agree with how did it suddenly react at that point and not earlier when they originally passed it.

5 - Good idea, but id have done it their way... rather not attract anything tbh, sometimes you have to think you will get lucky and nothigns there and/or you dont startle it/them and get easy kills... making noises could have aroused more zombies than there already was.

6 - Reminded me of Original Day of the Dead with the 'alive' head scene :D Other than that no arguments.

My fanboy comment was tongue in cheek and the above is merely my opinion.. I do love the series and live the world as it were when watching, so form my own views on things... Yes some stuff annoys me like you, but I look past that as this is a series ive been waiting for.
 
anticonscience said:
I assumed they knew about the prison yet put off going there, I mean why else would rick and dale be walking along a train track without the others?

Rick probably thought enough is enough we take the prison.
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Rick and Daryl were looking for food.. ie animals to hunt. Just before that the black guy and Maggie iirc went to get water, Daryl said lets hunt the owl didnt hit the spot or something similar, so im assuming they just come across the train line and followed it and stumbled across the prison.
 
So glad it back :)

Killing zombies is epic!!!

BTW did this get 10 million viewers when it was first aired in the states? Aint that epic for cable tv?

At lest we get a 4th season now :D
 
Don't you just love it when they stare at each other for 20 seconds with heavy breathing without saying anything?
 
Hmm I still have the same complaints I had about this since S1 although admittedly the show has improved since then. Do have some major gripes though which stem from unnecessary melodrama that is so heavy in this show.

I know it's end of the world and tensions are high but characters really just seem to come out of nowhere with their forehead vein popping emotions out of the blue with little character build up leading to those outbursts. I know it's probably the writer's intention to portray the chaotic nature of the new world order but there's a difference between that and just plain chaos and randomness of characters that is so often demonstrated in this show.

Also there seem to be those stupid moments when they just show gore for the sake of gore. I'm sure the official line is that it sets the scene of this brave new world but to me it just screams, "Hey look at me we are a revolutionary show, we show you braaaaains!". I'm not disgusted or anything it just seems pointless unless this show is actually just a mafia front for teaching make up people their practical skills.

In regards to S3 in particular so far specific gripes include total confusion as to why they turned all nomad, roaming land to land when they were in desperate need of everything with the prison a stone trow away from them? Although thinking about it, my guess it's so they could teach themselves those ninja shooting skills that would make SAS look like a bunch of cowboys where they brandish automatic weapons and score head shots with precision known only to Counter Strike players. Unfortunately latter means that they also only posses the intelligence of said Counter Strike players, as there seem to have been a general paresis of the group when they encountered zombies in riot gear. It was only after the girl accidentally killed one of them through the only vulnerable spot on their gear that the rest realised they could only kill them through the only vulnerable spot on their gear.

The bite incident a the end of the first episode was of course just your typical cheesy 'monster jumping out the closet' moment that was really too cheap for this kind of show.

Still this is the only show of its kind right now on TV so I will still savour every moment of it and would be interested to see how they will introduce the governor and guessing Merle will be making an appearance around the same time too.
 
neoboy said:
Also there seem to be those stupid moments when they just show gore for the sake of gore. I'm sure the official line is that it sets the scene of this brave new world but to me it just screams, "Hey look at me we are a revolutionary show, we show you braaaaains!". I'm not disgusted or anything it just seems pointless unless this show is actually just a mafia front for teaching make up people their practical skills.
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It's never come across to me as just showing gore for the sake of it.

Just imagine some of the things you would see after a zombie apocalypse. The later part of the prison when they were walking around in the dark and there was rotten bodies everywhere and the bit where they pulled the helmet off the guard and his face came off all seemed like they would be pretty plausible.
 
I liked the riot gear zombies, was like moving up a level in a fighting game!

Though, I have a question. They didn't look to have been bitten, so how did the riot zombies die?
 
anticonscience said:
It's never come across to me as just showing gore for the sake of it.

Just imagine some of the things you would see after a zombie apocalypse. The later part of the prison when they were walking around in the dark and there was rotten bodies everywhere and the bit where they pulled the helmet off the guard and his face came off all seemed like they would be pretty plausible.
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This.


As I and others have said before, it is just like any other TV show/film, there are plot holes and some stuff is stupid but overall the show is very good and there are no other TV shows like this and tbh I don't think anyone could do a better job of it.

You make it too realistic then it will just become incredibly boring, you make it too action packed then it will just be like dawn of dead (new film), which would also be very boring after 2 episodes.

Some people might consider Hershel's scene to be typical zombie/horror scene but as has been explained many times by Duff man etc. it is better than doing the other usual heroic type where they try to escape from loads of zombies, one gets half way in and said man goes to push him out of the way to save everyone else but at the cost of getting bitten himself.

Besides, he should have never have been brought along in the first place given that he is the only one who could deliver the baby and had the most medical experience and plus given his age, thus being slow and not having good stamina etc. he was a risk to the entire group. They didn't involve him in the part where they cleared the outside so why bring him on an even more dangerous situation, which is closed in?

On that point again, some people said that they went pass those bodies before, so why didn't that zombie get up first time..........I don't think they did go that way before, because when Glen and Maggie etc. were running back to where they originally came from (could see the white arrow on the wall), zombies were coming from that way (of course another plot hole here, where did those zombies come from as they had already come from that way yet didn't encounter them......reminded me of season 2 episode 1 with the horde of zombies on the highway) so they had to go another way and therefore passed by different corpses.


Just like any other TV show, film etc. you have to sit back and ignore these niggles and just enjoy it for what it is :p
 
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johnny6 said:
After all the prison by it's very design is safe, has potentially a decent stock of medical supplies and food. Plus this being America probably has guns and lots of ammo.
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Being America, I'd say the houses would have lots of food and guns too :D
 
anticonscience said:
It's never come across to me as just showing gore for the sake of it.

Just imagine some of the things you would see after a zombie apocalypse. The later part of the prison when they were walking around in the dark and there was rotten bodies everywhere and the bit where they pulled the helmet off the guard and his face came off all seemed like they would be pretty plausible.
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To be fair I'm only referring to less than 5% of the violent scenes in this, the face thing was pretty awesome actually :cool:
 
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