CletusMusashi

Hobbes wrote that without strong modern government and civilization, the natural state of man was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." But actually, the history of human race shows that, wherever you put us, we persevere. We adapt. And we not only learn the things every other animal knows, like "try to avoid being eaten by a polar bear," but we invent things and build cultures. And ultimately, the polar bears lose. What we see on TWD is a mix of: 1. Postapocalyptic scavengers, like Joe. 2. Groups like the hospital that have managed to hold on for a while to what the original infrastructure gave them, at least until they hit a speedbump, and 3. Groups like Woodbury and Ricktator Prison and, hell, even Terminus, that, good or bad, are trying to build a functioning society in the new world. This category is the one that I always have the highest hopes for, and continue to be let down because the writers honestly don't seem to give a fuck. Woodbury fascinated me. Not just "Wow, that Governor guy sure is a crazy. I think I'll call AMC and see if I can buy a "Governors B Whack" lunchbox. But... it seemed like it worked, and the people had a decent standard of living, and a functional balance of bread and circuses, but... how did it work? If you're going to have zombie fights, you're going have people betting on them. Does money still have value? If so, how has the ease with which it can be looted affected that value? Maybe pennies are like dollars, because copper is so useful for other things? Or maybe it's all barter. Barter is world-building, too, if it's done right. Is a gold ring still worth more than a horse? That tells us something. Is it worth less than a chicken? That tells us something as well. Terminus could have been fascinating with a longer story arc. And, you know, writers who wanted to tell a story beyond "They're screwed up because they were abused." But they obviously were not interested, and don't seem to grasp that anybody else might be. I understand the "he who fights monsters" aspect of it. What I don't understand is how they built up that city in the first place! Or how they kept zombies outside their crappy little gate. Even at the prison, I rarely had any idea what most people's day to day jobs were. Did they make Merle scrub the bathrooms? Or did Carol just do everything herself? What did they do socially? We occasionally saw books. And of course Beth singing. But we never had a sense of what the characters do together normally outside of an immediate survival context. There were kids there, yet we never saw how kids in the ZA play. And don't try to tell me they don't. There should be a version of tag called Living and Dead. They should be throwing pebbles at a tree to see who can hit at head-level first. And they should only be using a tree because Rick (or Carl,) told them that throwing rocks at zombies is not funny. Even the adults should have some kind of social life. I'd love to see a poker game episode about who has to clean the septic tank. Or a zombie-fighting adventure that only happens because the softball went over the fence and the losing team wants it back so they don't have to forfeit. I get that it's meant to be a bleak barbaric world. But in real life, the concept of the stupid unwashed barbarian was always more propaganda than observation. Even in modern times, people often deride, say, a group of very destructive airplane hijackers, as "stupid goat herders," instead of simply as cruel and philosophically dissonant. While Romans made jokes about northerners being naked stone age cannibals, Celtic smiths invented maille armor while Germanic merchants maintained huge, centuries-running trade roads throughout northern Europe. Later, while the rest of Europe mocked the savage and allegedly beastlike Vikings, the Vikings fended off disease-infested fleas by shaving their faces, wearing their hair short, bathing frequently, and finding a whole new continent to colonize for 500 years. In other news, the Huns revolutionized warfare by inventing the stirrup. The MesoAmericans selectively bred corn from the hardly-worth-noticing teosinte plant, and once they had a decent crop staple were on the cusp of a bronze age when smallpox defeated them. People do scavenge things. But it's not all they do. it's never been all they do, in any society, ever. People build themselves up. Not all people, not every single individual, but many. Enough that if you see a society, it was built by generation after generation of people workng at doing things better. Even if their only motivation was laziness, that still counts. Honestly, it just seems implausible to me that, of the ones who are still alive, they seem to think so little about anything beyond where they are going to forage their next can of Beefaroni from. People have been foraging and watching out for predators for most of our species existence. Yet, in real life, Eskimos learned how to start fires in the Arctic. Because otherwise they'd freeze to death. In TWD's world, people are still struggling with ideas like "Bathing is good?" If this were 2 weeks after the outbreak, I'd get it. We're an affluent society, and when zombies attack, the spoiled and weak need a little bit of time to die off. But the people who are left are (supposed to be) survivors! Shouldn't we at least see Daryl learning to make his own arrows by now?

Or this:

People are weird about "the F word." I've never understood why, but it runs insanely deep. Trying to tell a swear-nanny that it's just a word is about as productive as trying to change someone's religion.

She was 17 at the beginning of Season 3, when Axel was hitting on her. Judith is still a few months old, so Beth could still be 18. On the other hand, Carl is about to start applying to colleges, so Beth could now be older than Emily Kinney.

If you find an entertaining spoof of the show, and it fits into an existing thread, that's great. But sometimes, it's just funny. So what do you do with it? Post it here! Example:

If the poor man gets any more "character development" he's going to be lamer than Father Gabriel in a nail factory.

The worst is yet to come. You know it's only a matter of time until somebody posts a new video for it using footage of her and Daryl.

I think his level of Necrovirus B has finally advanced to the point where it has caused his body hair to fall out. In women, it usually has that effect almost immediately. Men take a bit longer.

And a tendency to make lollipop jokes, like "There's a sucker eaten every minute.'

Eugene could employ his science fiction knowledge to open a portal and find an alternate universe version of her, who escaped by leaving Noah behind with his injured leg. I'm not sure what her schtick would be, though. The Governor already did the eyepatch. A goatee seems highly improbable. Maybe she'll just dye her hair black and wear leather? I think I'll ship her with Father Gabriel, since it's the only thing that might make him interesting.

So, just out of curiosity: What's up with young blondes on horror shows having to die over extremely unpopular new characters named Dawn?

Type A might even have a life cycle where injection into the blood causes it to change and adapt itself to the brain, where upon nearing maturity it then dribbles down into the mouth. Because perhaps when it's in infectious mode it requires more oxygen? A snarling mouth tends to aerate itself better than a skull does.

Maybe there's two different pathogens. Type A is the "They bite you and you turn" kind. It can travel through the bloodstream for a short period, but quickly settles in or near the mouth. Whether it's in the mouth lining itself, or whether it manifests as a sort of zombie-inducing tooth plaque, or something else entirely, is still undefined. But it can't live for long away from the mouth area, so if you get their guts splattered on you not only does the actual virus count in there tend to be pretty low, but they tend to be weak and dying from being stuck in the belly or whatever for too long. Type B is a mutated version of Type A. It lives permanently in the bloodstream, spreads easily, and only turns you into a zombie after something else kills you. It may even have beneficial side effects, like helping to fight off most other diseases. But it also has extremely non-beneficial side effects, like dramatically softening parts of your skull. Some very advanced cases, like Carl and Tyreese, have developed such soft skulls that they can only keep their brain in its proper shape by wearing a hat at all times. Type A infections became obvious before Type B was as widespread as it is now. That's why, early on, you could still see lots of people who'd stayed dead. There's also a Type C, which has no effect on humans but dramatically slows down the growth of most forms of grass.

Maggie wakes up: "I had a terrible dream last night. Beth was kidnapped by a bunch of perverts who were molesting her with lollipops, and I couldn't even remember her name, and for some reason she suddenly had a more advanced degree than I do, and this annoying priest kept on attracting zombies everywhere he went, and Eugene wasn't a real scientist, and Rick looked like Charlie Manson, and Bob got eaten by cannibal hipsters, and for some reason I think we all lived in a fire truck. And a lot of other stuff was different too. Thank God I'm still married to you, Abraham."

We pretty blatantly saw her killed, permanently. What do the petitioners expect exactly? A singing zombie that lives entirely on Peach Schnapps?

Until proven otherwise, I think my personal canon is going to be that Beth sacrificed herself partly to kill Dawn... and other important partly to remind Rick that sacrificing people to zany ubervilains was still technically classified as a big ehtical no-no. Beth never really met the Governor. She heard stories about how bad he was, but she also heard Andrea defending him. And Andrea was, to Beth, a rather admirable figure. She also saw, twice, Rick Himself thinking the Gov could be negotiated with. No doubt by now she's heard the story of How Rick Almost Tried To Placate The Governor By Giving Him Michonne To Torture. She probably hasn't heard the part about how it failed because Merle, of all people, developed a stronger moral spine than Rick, but she has probably heard some version of it. All she really knew when the prison got blown up was that everybody has a job to do. No matter how worried you are about other things, no matter how little you like your assigned role, you still have a job to do. It's the Zombie Fucking Apocalypse. There ain't no temp agencies. So, scan forward to the prisoner exchange. CDB have come the rescue, and Noah was a huge help to them. Plus, he'd already helped her personally whenever he could. Yet, when Dawn insists that she will only honor the original agreement if they give him back to her, Rick doesn't really care that much. He refuses, sure. But when Noah decides to give up his gun and go back, Rick is, more than anything else, glad to be off the hook of worrying about this new character. Understandable? Yes. Good indicator that the show's hero should be the show's hero? Probably not. Good answer: "Noah, wait outside.... Sorry, Dawn... You can't go back. Get it? Well, it's a Bob and Gareth joke. You had to be there. But anyway, we're leaving , and if even one of you fires a shot, we will kill and eat all of you, because that's a thing now. Okay? Bye bye now." Bad answer: "No you can't have h- oh, you're willing to surrender? Are you really important to this group's survival, like the only guy who can keep the hospital machines working or something? No? You're just some laundry guy placating a supervillain so she can continue to be obsessed with capturing menial servants? Huh. Weird. But... whatever, that's cool. It still doesn't affect the single digit number of people in the world that I actually give a shit about..." Beth's big "I get it" moment was finally understanding how seemingly intelligent competent adults kept on falling for the bullshit of a charismatic manipulative power-mad loony. The reason she dies forcing someone to shoot Dawn was because that's what she's realized Rick should have done back at the prison. If Rick had tried to kill Brillip, he may well have succeeded, but he'd probably still have died. Meanwhile, if his initial move did fail. Carl would probably have managed to Kill Brill, while Daryl shot the moron who was standing around with his head sticking out of the tank. Beth was on the road with Daryl for quite a while. I think she heard a lot of "if we'd done this" scenerios. Forcing a gunfight that she knows will kill Dawn, but severely doubts will kill CDB, if viewed this way, if arguably a heroic act of self sacrifice. Now, do I actually have enough faith in the writers to believe that this is what they wrote? Hell no. But I watched what I watched, so god damn it I am going to salvage the narrative any way that I can.

At the very least, I expect to know on February 2nd whether or not Lord Fluffington is out.

It would probably be jumping a zombie. And the cool motorcycle rider in leather would probably be Dixonzie. But I could watch that. Rick: "Can you see if there's any Walkers ahead of us. I would... but... I'm waiting for a phone call from Beth." Dixonzie: "Ayyyy, Ricky... looks like it's zombiemundo out there." Judith (who has grown up in the zombie apocalypse:) "I could light them on fire. I like to start fires. Can I set them on fire, please?" Dixonzie: "No, Shortkick, I think this situation calls for a little less hot, and a lot more cool. Ayyyyy!" Abe, (mishearing): "You called? Wokka wokka wokka!" (Meanwhile, all of the zombies are slashed to pieces by MIchonnezie.)

In my opinion, characters we can make fun of are not exactly in short supply.

Acrobatic Ambulance had fun jumping off the bridge. It doesn't understand why the humans suddenly wanted to stop playing Dodge Charger. Also, it really doesn't like that Big Red Hussy that just pulled into town. Or his fire engine.

Pun intended?

He's probably better off right now than he will be. Walking around alone, reacting to things, with no horrible lines to have to read convincingly or ridiculous plot holes to spackle over, he's got the best job on the show.

So, how many times now has Judith been near gunfire without any ear protection? And, more importantly, does her age mean she has a higher chance of her ears healing and staying okay, or a higher chance of them being permanently damaged?

About FPP's footie-stigmata, I was feeling nostalgic for the good old days of Season 1, when the smell of blood would drive zombies wild.

Kindest thread title you could have offered him. I personally would have gone with "Why Isn't he Dead Yet?" The show just seems too crowded to gratuitously make room for an awful character just so he can level up. I mean, we spent all those years putting up with Carl, and now that he doesn't completely suck, he gets like two minutes of screentime a week? And as soon as Eugene realizes that it's even easier to kill zombies than vehicles and allies, they sideline him, too. Tyreese used to be the one who didn't like violence, then he became darker and more pragmatic, and then they suddenly randomly neutered him to level the playing field for New Character #276474838373. The reason I don't care if Father Pee Pants has potential or not is that he hasn't paid his dues, entertainment-wise. He hasn't earned my interest, to put it mildly. To put it more strongly, he somehow manages to be extremely boring and extremely annoying at the same time. He's been a waste of screen time that could have been used on characters I was actually already interested in, but the writers don't want to play with their old toys any more. Holy crap do they like to play with their old symbols, though. How many episodes until he just happens to accidentally get a bunch of thorns wrapped around his head?