CletusMusashi

Hey, so if Dandy's mom knew how he was, did she hire the derelict clown to serve as a victim nobody would miss?

2 Limericks and a Haiku: There once was horrible cop who caught Beth with a green lollipop He said "Hee hee hee hee, Just pretend this is me!" She said "I'd rather risk the long drop." There was an escapee named Joan who was great, in the time she was shown She went down like a fighter to rise as a biter and chew pig-cop's face to the bone. Dawn's Dr. Kelso. Beth's J.D. but Turk's escaped. Beardface is evil.

Also, there's still the confusion about how dangerous an infected wound is. Beth had at least one fresh cut on her. Might think twice about wallowing in zombie goop. Plus, it's Beth. Yeah, Beth is going to put a whole bunch of zombie guts in her hair on purpose! Even Rick doesn't like to do it. Yes, even Rick generally considers the zombie gut technique to be beneath his standards of personal grooming.

How about "Noah: Everybody Hates Lollipops?"

Large bags of dried guinea pig food were probably not something that people looted much of. Hey, maybe Daryl is coming out of the bushes with a guinea pig. "I couldn't find Beth, but this is just as good. Show 'em how you can hit those high notes, Lord Fluffington!"

Well, if Beth gets drunk or Carol gets worried, burnings do tend to happen...

It seems to me that a force competent enough to get in and out of Atlanta on a regular basis would be smart enough not to leave their keys in the ignition. The keys are probably kept locked up most of the time, and only issued to the lollicops for specific official business. Seriously, if you were in charge, would you trust Gordon not to get his keys stolen?

So... Beth and Carol are being held by an evil group that has a a big zombie pit that people can easily be dropped into. Anybody else see a Bond climax coming? I'm thinking either Carol gets tossed in there alive and comes back with a combination halberd-chainsaw-flamethrower-machine gun that she made out of zombie bones... or the heroines end up sending Dawninatrix down the shaft instead.

Does Beth know the camo trick? Rick and Glenn used it way back in Season 1, and I don't remember seeing it since then, at least until Carol brought it back. Of course Carol remembers it. She's the one who had to do their laundry afterwards. But Beth didn't meet them until Season 2.

As far as other groups go, they're kind of damned if they do, damned if they don't. They've met so many others already, in a small area, that it's obvious there are other survivors all over. To suddenly just never see them any more would be like if all of a sudden nobody ever wandered through Gilligan's Island. People tend to form larger, more organized groups. If they encounter a group that's wonderful, they might not want to leave, so that leaves us with groups that are obviously worse than life with Rick. Seriously, what if Terminus hadn't been evil? Abraham's group would be driving to D.C. and everybody else would be drinking soy lattes with Gareth. No thank you. There's a trope called "Failure is the Only Option." It refers to shows that are not allowed to really progress during their run, because if they do they're over. Gilligan can't leave the island until the end. Voyager can go through as many wormholes and time portals as it wants, but it's still going to be stuck out there in deep space again next week, until the finale. And Rick will never have a safe, sane, happy place to settle down until the end of the series. Until then, he and his followers must wander the metaphorical desert enduring hardship and encountering heathens on all sides. Those are the rules, and if they ever do decide to have them settle down in a rebuilt city with jobs and complex society and reasonable authority figures, everybody will scream that the show has jumped the shark.

Actually, I got more of a 1970s-80s "Women's Prison Warden" vibe off of Dawn. If the show were on HBO instead of AMC... hell, maybe even if it were on FX, she'd be giving Beth the same exact lectures that she did, but Beth would be naked and shackled from the ceiling and Dawn would be wearing fishnets and a Nazi hat while beating her with a riding crop. This has me worried about Carol, though. The older mentor convict tends to gets killed off in the middle of those stories for pathos.

Maybe her Big Escape will be a musical episode.

About the guinea pigs: I think it was to make clear that they were raising lab animals for food. If they'd said mice, rats, or rabbits, viewers might simply think they were trapping wild ones. Also, they're bigger than rats, so until proven otherwise I'm going to picture all their electricity being provided by a giant system of guinea pig treadmills. About Beth's acting: Under-acting can bother people as much as over-acting. I actually found it to be a plausible depiction of somebody who's being real-life stoic, as opposed to cigar-chomping, winking-at-the-audience Hollywood stoic. Granted, the latter is more fun, but the former is more realistic. She wasn't in a situation where charisma was the goal, she was in a situation where fading into the woodwork was. About the episode: I didn't even bother watching it until 1AM. After watching Bob take pretty much an entire hour to finally get off my TV, I feared we were into that mid-half-season slowdown that they so like to do. I was wrong. I liked the setting, I liked the characters, and, no, I did not mind going a week without Rick, Gabriel, Eugene, or Yosemite Sam.

There is no way in hell that Michonne is going to get with Gabriel. If she did, though, think what a pefectly average amount of hair the children would have!

Dell seemed very angry. I took it as a continuation of his earlier "if you let them see you for free, they won't pay" argument.

The problem with that guy's argument is that it's based on using the Termites as an example. To which I again ask: for who? Seems like a bit of extra risk to go through just to make sure... who..? to make sure Father Gabriel doesn't try to eat you? Couldn't you just kick his ass if he tries? There is no one outside our group to witness the execution and take the news to the other potential bad guys. The next bad guys they meet are going to do whatever they are going to do, regardless of whether the protagonists had gunned the Termites down like walkers, took them prisoner and then beat them to death, or tied them up, had a tea party with them, and then made them run home in their underwear. Street cred just isn't worth that much when the streets are empty. ETA: Sorry for repeating so much of what others already said. But I got excited about a big law professor article about TWD, and then after I read it I immediately hit the "quote" button and started rambling. My only real issue with Rick's choice is still that he allowed the enemy too many variables. Example: When Martin was refusing to kneel, Rick should have killed him right there. One more bullet, to make sure he doesn't pull out another gun and kill somebody? Just get the job get done already. Life or death combat is not the time to be a cheapskate.

Yeah, that ending with the townspeople was just too happy. It worries me. I had that same thought! I mean, we're watching a show about evil clowns and malicious circus pranks, so it actually seemed like that particular trope might be in effect.

One of the grossest moments of the episode was Dandy putting on that dirty, slobbery mask that had probably not been washed in... forever.

So how many episodes until Dandy's mother realizes there may be some disciplinary issues?

Elsa was behind it all. She didn't want the competition.

So, does anybody else realize... after dumping Bob in front of the church, what was the first thing Gareth did? He wiped his ass.

Maybe. But unless Rick had already read the whole script, there was no reason to just take for granted that there were no more Termites moving in. Last time he tried to take a hostage, he wound up surrounded and locked in a cattle car. Straight up honest fights are what he and his group are actually great at. Any decision whatsoever involving hostages... not really Rick's forte.

I have no problem whatsoever with Rick being brutal. The Termy Bunch had to be killed, and the quickest way to take down an enemy is with brutality. Anyone who knows anything about ballistics knows perfectly well that shooting somebody with a gun, even though it's only a trigger-pull to the shooter, is brutal as fuck to the shootee. And if you're in better position for a throat bite or a machete slash, by all means, take the opportunity and win the fight. My only issue is that it was too slow. You're in a church, at night, with no electricity. It is illuminated by the show's usual improbable number of candles, which are playing hell with everybody's peripheral night vision. You, fortunately, can target the main bad guy so well that you can actually shoot off his trigger finger. But you couldn't use that same bullet to shoot him in the head? And then have one less bad guy to worry about? Maybe not everybody else on your side can watch every single cannibal that's supposed to be kneeling down harmlessly. Kill them all, because if even one of them had decided to surprise the group, one of the good guys might well be dead right now. What are the reasons for punishment? 1. Discipline. If you want to train someone how to behave, the stick has a role as well as the carrot. But if you're going to kill them in a few minutes anyway, that's not your motivation. 2. Example: You know. Just to make absolutely certain that Glenn and Tyreese and Eugene know that you don't want them to become cannibals. Because otherwise they totally would. 3. Closure: Sometimes a group has been so wronged that they absolutely have to see what they consider justice. In this case, however, we're talking about a group of basically friendly people who have seen and done way, way too much violence for their tastes. If shooting the Termites in the hands, limbs, and genitals before eventually managing to kill them was the only way to take them down, they'd be okay with it. But mostly, they just want the immediate violent threat dead right now so they can go back to their other regularly scheduled problems. 4. Ego: Personal revenge. Not always evil, but certainly not a sign of a cool-headed CO. If you are choosing between killing a bunch of smart, tough, ruthless, dangerous people right now, and making a speech at them for a few minutes before killing them just as dead, the only real objective your choice is accomplishing is putting your group at risk for a longer time. What makes him so sure there weren't more coming in from outside? This was a big group, with radio communication, and they'd obviously planned out how they wanted to use Bob to throw Rick's group off their A-game. What? Bob says "This is how many survivors of Terminus there are..."? Right. 'Cause he couldn't possibly be confused and in shock. Or unaware of things they chose to keep secret from him. Or... an idiot... Kill the immediate threat, immediately. You are not going to take them prisoner, so wasting your time pretending to is stupid. I actually agree they deserved to be put down like Walkers. That means no trial, no explanation, no showboating. Just kill, turn around, and see if there's more coming after you.

Please. Next you'll be claiming that shirts were invented before steroids.

No, Rick is Ned Stark. (Joffrey was The Governor.) The biggest difference is that Rick has much better plot armor than Ned. And probably more medieval parasites.