S05.E05: Self Help

[nodorothyparker]

lol dolphinsmooth is trending on twitter.

 

Thanks for the reminder of why I don't go on twitter.

[JackONeill]

 

Lastly, if I were to find a nice, safe bookstore to make camp in, I would never leave!  lol

 

Don't forget what happened to that dude on the Twilight Zone!!!

[Boofish]

Few random thoughts upon rewatch

 

I wish they had explored that walker farm a little closer. Who was cutting the grass?

They never showed Abraham, his wife and kids in the same frame. I wonder if the person(s) her and the kids were recoiling from was one of the original Merletons

His wife had very good penmanship

[Cheetosandchoc]

Am I the only Eugene sympathizer? I know peoe died protecting him, they also chose to believe him and follow carrot top. Whose to say protecting Eugene did not give them hope and that they wouldn't be dead otherwise? I say go Eugene!!

[Misty79]

I thought this episode was super boring until the final 5 minutes, which almost, but not quite, rescued it. 

 

Still nothing solid from Maggie on why she has so little interest in finding Beth. Glen and Tara were great, as always. I couldn't care less about Eugene and the red-headed dude as they are the phoniest characters this show has ever gone with and neither dude can act. 

 

Last week's episode was far superior in terms of suspense, philosophy and acting, but hey it centred on a female character that isn't Carol (who may as well be a man based on the way she behaves these days) so most TWD fans seem to think the other way.

 

 

 

[Statman]

But the rednecks from Season 2 specifically said Washington was overrun. 

 

Those rednecks didn't say anything like that at all. 

 

In the bar, they told Rick, Herschel and Glenn that they were heading towards Washington, D.C. because they heard there was a refugee camp there, but that they "never even got close" because the roads were so jammed. 

Edited November 10, 2014 by Statman

[Nashville]

Where fresh water is at a premium, to waste it all on killing Walkers, dumb.  Especially when they were just hours earlier drinking water out of a toilet tank.

I don't think water which had been sitting in a fire engine's holding tank for over a year could be classified "fresh" by any standard.

Assuming, of course, it was potable water to start with.

 

I have never read the comics, and this wasn't a bad episode, but I shouldn't have to watch The Talking Dead to fill in the gaps of what wasn't explained on this episode, in terms of why Abrham was beating people to death with a can in his hand in those flashbacks, they could have given more info during the episode.

ITA. More below.

 

So if you can kill a Walker via hose now I figure by the end of the season you'll be able to dispatch one with a well timed insult.

 

I think Eugene's bit with the fire hose indicated the nature of human/walker combat in the near future:

Walkers? Piss on them.

 

It seems illogical in retrospect, but my initial reaction was that Abraham killed those guys in the grocery store over supplies.

 

I blame it on being from the South and in winter if the news reports a possibility of snow flurries, everyone converges on the grocery stores and buys all the bread, water, and peanut butter like the ZA is coming and you will never have electricity or leave your home again.  So I think I just assumed that in an actual ZA that blood would flow. 

 

In retrospect, the wife looked more disheveled than Abraham so they likely were telegraphing an attack but the show didn't have enough of my attention that I picked up on it.

 

 

I haven't read this far into the comics, but I thought it was pretty clear what had happened: Neither Ellen or the children were "neat and clean, not a hair out of place, no tear-stained faces or ripped clothes" - in fact I thought they looked really banged up. Ellen's blouse is ripped half-way down her stomach, and both she and the girl had big bruises on their faces. Combining this with Abraham's "We're safe now" I didn't need anymore confirmation of what had happened; in fact, I was happy they went with subtle. I don't need to see rape on my screen.

Respectfully have to disagree. Nothing about their appearance distinguished them from anybody else in the post-ZA environment deprived of normal bathing or laundry access, and definitely didn't telegraph rape - unless you already knew about that part of the GN's storyline, and were looking for specific clues/indications to support that conclusion.  Our intrepid crew get more bruises and scuffs on a daily basis.

 

I think it was suicide. I think it makes the best sense in the context of Abraham trying to commit suicide too. (Otherwise you're right, and it would make her dumber than dumb).

 

I would also disagree with this, if for no other reason than the note left for Abraham.

Ellen didn't say "I'm sorry", or "Please forgive me", or "Goodbye cruel world", even.

She said "Don't try to find us".

Which indicates concern over the potential for being found. 

Which strongly implies you're at a location which is findable - and I'm going to go out on a limb and say "in a zombie's large intestine" doesn't count.

 

I am starting to lean that way myself. At first I just thought Abraham WAS too Alpha and hot-headed to be anything but the leader. But after seeing his backstory, I think he just needed a cause, any cause, to keep him going and from dwelling on the past. If they go back to the group and Rick gives him a clearly defined role, I actually think he might do just fine.

 

Echo.  Post-ZA Abraham needs a mission to keep himself focused and going.  Eugene unwittingly gave him one in Houston - and regardless of how hare-brained it appeared to everyone (including Abraham, probably), it was *a* mission, which was better than none at all. 

 

Now that Eugene's original "mission" has been invalidated, I see either:

• Abraham creates a new mission to keep motivated ("ok, yeah, Eugene's a liar - but that doesn't mean what he was saying about DC couldn't still be true").
• Glenn assumes the leadership role; Abraham has a chain of command to follow, and Glenn's direction can feasibly be considered by Abraham to constitute new "missions".

 

How does the water cannon get the pressure if the engine is not running?

Good question. Stellar, even. ;)

[poppy-]

Why would Maggie be focused on finding Beth? She has no way to find her, at all.  Where would she start?  She was kidnapped, driven off, gone, presumed dead.

[CletusMusashi]

Might be interesting if she considered the idea that the car was from Terminus. Which would raise the possibility that they left Beth in a metal boxcar in the middle of a burning city. Or maybe she has considered that, and her mind's snapped. Hence the need to adopt Eugene as a new sibling. How many family members has she had die now? Pre-ZA mother, Herschel, at least one red-shirt sister, at least one red-shirt brother, plus people like Otis who were like family... Maggie may not be as stable as she usually acts.

[kj4ever]

Re: The scene with the killer can.

 

The boyfrend thought that Abe was possibly like a bad, bad dude that had kidnapped that family.  He knew her name, but he could have gotten that before the killing spree.  For non-obsessed people they may not remember that he was married with children before he met Eugene.  This is actually a probable theory for what happened to a relatively new viewer.

 

It was just done so bad.

Edited November 10, 2014 by kj4ever

[mandolin]

Those rednecks didn't say anything like that at all. 

 

In the bar, they told Rick, Herschel and Glenn that they were heading towards Washington, D.C. because they heard there was a refugee camp there, but that they "never even got close" because the roads were so jammed. 

That's how I remember it. They did say they heard that Fort Benning was gone, though.

 

I thought Abe's wife had a black eye.

[Ottis]

Last week's episode was far superior in terms of suspense, philosophy and acting, but hey it centred on a female character that isn't Carol (who may as well be a man based on the way she behaves these days) so most TWD fans seem to think the other way.

 

 

I agree that last week was better than this week. My main issue is that neither seemed very relevant. I guess since Carol showed up at the hospital, it makes that location more relevant. Otherwise it was a peek at how other survivors are handling the ZA and little else. I don't think whether a female character is at the center of it or not matters in my enjoyment.

 

This week's episode was very slow and boring. And, clearly, confusing, as few seem to know what Abraham's flashback was about and why his wife left. The rape theory would seem to explain it, but then you would also have to fanwank that 1) the wife was raped, and maybe a kid or two was abused or saw it, 2) that Abraham wasn't able to stop it from happening but them somehow was able to overpower multiple men with a food can, 3) that when he did that, his rage so upset his wife and kids - the wife having been raped and then rescued by her husband - that they were more afraid of him than the outside world and left, and 4) that the outside world was so bad they barely made it a few hundred yards before becoming zombie chow (so his wife was more afraid of Abraham than an external threat that great?). That is a lot is wanking.

 

To me, it makes more sense to assume Abraham and his family ran out of food during a ZA, they all went out to get more (a wank right there ... why all of them? But I digress), while out they had to fight with other survivors for food and in doing so Abraham brutally killed other survivorsin front of his family. I could see how that might be shocking. Still, given they would have been in a ZA for a while, I don't see it being so shocking that his family would flee him.

 

So no theory so far seems to make sense. My initial reaction was that he had killed zombies in the grovery store to protect his family, and there weren't other survivors with them so people didn't just turn/get attacked, so again I don't know why his wife fled with the kids.

 

This is becoming a dead horse, but what happened there matters to the rest of the episode. Either Abraham murdered surviors in cold blood and maybe has a temper that was apparent before the ZA so this was the culmination of a series of episodes that then set off his wife, or Abraham was a decent husband/father who was protecting his family and his wife was ... an idiot? I don't know. But for some reason, yeah, he needs a reason to live.

[Misty79]

Why would Maggie be focused on finding Beth? She has no way to find her, at all.  Where would she start?  She was kidnapped, driven off, gone, presumed dead.

 

She could at least express distress that she is missing? Or even maybe mention her name? ;)

 

I agree that last week was better than this week. My main issue is that neither seemed very relevant.

 

I've no argument there, neither were great episodes and both feel like filler. They actually felt kind of similarly disconnected from the main plot until the final five minutes. 

Edited November 10, 2014 by Misty79

[JBody]

Even my DH noticed, and he doesn't follow the show as closely as I, which means pretty much everyone has noticed that now which means the omission is deliberate (the writing isn't that bad..?).

Yeah I think it's fair to say the two last eps could've been combined with no great loss to the narrative

[ChipBach]

If a gang of men rapes my kid and me, my husband is more than welcome to can them to death, and it doesn't even have to be the ZA.

 

Also, Abraham is so cock-sure and loud and in a hurry, it never occurred to him that the fire truck was backed up against a door FOR A REASON.  Then they wasted gallons of potable water on zombies, to reveal a message they couldn't read BEFORE they let them out.  Stupid.

 

You can't light campfires inside buildings.  There's this thing called smoke.  This show is supposed to be better than this.

 

Lastly, if I were to find a nice, safe bookstore to make camp in, I would never leave!  lol

Peach - it perplexed me too.  

According to the Talking Dead, these people Abe killed were friends of his and inexplicably decided to rape his family when he left for a supply run. It was pretty personal...

 Being horrified by your husband killing the hoard that raped you and your daughter seemed odd.  Being so terrified of the guy that just put things right that you would take your kids out, unprotected, in ZombieVille didn't make sense...

[nachomama]

Holy crap I think I'm Eugene! I had a dream on 9/11 about the earth running out of oxygen because of solar flares on the sun. They had people on tv describing it and Joyce Brothers was there telling us how we were going to die peacefully in our sleep. And the news was all about how you needed to get where you're going because internal combustion engines need oxygen so they will quit running....all science I don't actually own in my brain. I even knew the names of gasses on the sun. So in the ZA I can apparently spin some crap into science and be believable and people will protect me. And MULLET FREE SINCE '93!  

 

I will just be happy to get back to the OG gang/CDB and see who Daryl is carrying

[feverfew]

Respectfully have to disagree. Nothing about their appearance distinguished them from anybody else in the post-ZA environment deprived of normal bathing or laundry access, and definitely didn't telegraph rape - unless you already knew about that part of the GN's storyline, and were looking for specific clues/indications to support that conclusion.  Our intrepid crew get more bruises and scuffs on a daily basis.

 

I would also disagree with this, if for no other reason than the note left for Abraham.

Ellen didn't say "I'm sorry", or "Please forgive me", or "Goodbye cruel world", even.

She said "Don't try to find us".

Which indicates concern over the potential for being found. 

Which strongly implies you're at a location which is findable - and I'm going to go out on a limb and say "in a zombie's large intestine" doesn't count.

As I wrote in my initial post, I have only read a few of the first comics, so I had absolutely no idea what was coming. But for me, what I saw (torn shirt, big bruise on her face, shivering in the corner, Abraham saying "we're safe now") was a pretty good shorthand for what had happened. We have seen - or been told - several times now what can happen to women/children unprotected in the Z-world, and I for one did not need to see another rape on screen. I agree with you that it wasn't spelled out, but for me - without any prior knowledge - it was telegraphed well enough. 

 

You're right about the non-suicide. I forgot the note; that doesn't imply suicide. I think pete martell hit the nail on the head:

The flashbacks were so vague, but going by the rest that was said, I can't blame her for her reaction. She'd just been gang raped, her daughter had been raped. She was clearly in shock, horribly traumatized. She likely couldn't go near any man, and when she saw Abraham looking like an animal, covered in blood, she probably just felt some urge to get away, get anyplace else. 

It was stupid, obviously, but I can't say for sure I wouldn't have reacted in the same way. 

[Nashville]

To me, it makes more sense to assume Abraham and his family ran out of food during a ZA, they all went out to get more (a wank right there ... why all of them? But I digress), while out they had to fight with other survivors for food and in doing so Abraham brutally killed other survivorsin front of his family. I could see how that might be shocking. Still, given they would have been in a ZA for a while, I don't see it being so shocking that his family would flee him.

 

This is pretty close to my original assumption upon viewing this episode:

1. YSB and his family holed up in a relatively untouched (perimeter security-wise) grocery store - providing security and ready access to some degree of food supply.  This may have also "blindered" them somewhat to the horrors associated with survival outside.
2. Either (a) the YSB clan was sharing the space with others and a falling-out ensued, or (b) the grocery store was set upon by raiders.
3. Either way - YSB single-handedly eliminated the threat to his family, while they hid.

 

And I'm sorry, but I'm not going to automatically equate a black eye on a woman to rape; without the input from the Comic Book Crew, I'd think it much more likely that Sgt. PTSD popped her one in his sleep during a nightmare.  To my observation, the only trauma indicated in the TV episode was their reaction upon seeing a blood-covered Daddy Moobucks.  If the episode's intent was to communicate a sexual assault, then additional exposition dialog was needed; without it, the inference failed miserably - otherwise, we wouldn't be seeing so much back-and-forth about it here.

[Sofie Fatale]

I'm still lost as to why his wife thought leaving with two young kids was the better option. Was he an abusive husband pre ZA, and seeing him kill five guys with a can of peas was too much? As a parent I though it was just so weird. Your first instinct is defending your young, which Sgt. Slaughter sure did.

[mandolin]

I don't equate black eye to rape either, but I mentioned it only because I felt some people thought she looked "normal" for ZA conditions, To me, the eye indicated things were amiss at the least.

[Nashville]

As I wrote in my initial post, I have only read a few of the first comics, so I had absolutely no idea what was coming. But for me, what I saw (torn shirt, big bruise on her face, shivering in the corner, Abraham saying "we're safe now") was a pretty good shorthand for what had happened. We have seen - or been told - several times now what can happen to women/children unprotected in the Z-world, and I for one did not need to see another rape on screen. I agree with you that it wasn't spelled out, but for me - without any prior knowledge - it was telegraphed well enough. 

 

I guess those clues were too subtle for me, because I didn't catch them on my initial watch - but I see where you're coming from.  It probably says more about my naivete on the subject than it does the episode's writing.

[SoSueMe]

I am only mildly interested, but does anyone have a clue to Rosita's back story? I don't remember anything being said, but then again I may have been dazzled by Abe's hair and missed it.

[nachomama]

I actually chuckled that when Ford went looking for his wife they just had the glass doors of a 7/11 type place, not locked, not barred, not boarded up and they just slept like that and felt safe. Again maybe really early days and they didn't know what was up.

[Mu Shu]

I would have joined in the head bashing with a Carl sized can of pudding myself. How doesn't Abe's wife wait til he's asleep and mercy kill the kids then herself? Getting torn apart and eaten alive is better? She dumb.

[Timetoread]

Going into what I knew would be an entire episode about people that I don't care about I felt only a little fear and apprehension, because after Slabtown there was simply no place to go but up. The good news is that I was right! I actually enjoyed this one and might actually rewatch it when a marathon airs. Like Route 666 and the Ghostfacers episodes of Supernatural, or Double Meat Palace from Buffy, I plan to forget about Slabtown and never speak of it again. But I liked Self Help and the insight into the characters.

I totally got Abraham in the present and past. I understood what was happening with his family and that he'd killed a group of humans. What I didn't get was how his wife figured that the Zombie Apocalypse was a preferable alternative to a husband who is sometimes a bit extra. I'm willing to put $20 on said wife being Lori's sister. That said, because I tend to think too hard about things, I thought that what we were seeing in Abe is a shadow of Rick. Both men are prepared to do anything, including become brutal killers, to protect their families. That has worked for Rick so far but it didn't work for Abe. To me, THAT was the crux of his tragical past. Also, and I have made this point about Shane and Rick and others, so much is expected of "tough" men. They are expected to fight and fight and protect and fight but they are just people and they can hurt and hurt deeply. It is clear that something inside Abraham broke -not when his family died, but when they required a retribution that involved killing humans with his bare hands. He has never recovered from it. He seems to feel that his only value is in protection in order to do what he didn't do before.

Except for Maggie, who remembered Sunday school but forgot about the siblings who rode there in the car with her, I was loving the women in this episode. I hated Tara at first but I truly love her now. But I give the MVP award to Rosita. She isn't just Abe's chick, she is an intelligent, thinking human being who is caring but not a push over. She stands by her man, because he is her man, but she does NOT follow him blindly and she will NOT follow him into hell. I found the scene when Abe was going off, and it ended with the two of them facing each other - him looking like a bull about to charge, and her staring the bull down with her hand on her gun, to be fascinating. She may love him but she will stop him if she must.

As for Eugene. Well I'm glad he's been exposed. What a terrible thing it is to use the lives of others as your own protection. It is why he couldn't get Pastor Punk out of his head. I did forgive him for watching them have sex, though. Sure it's pervy but it's kind of hard not to salivate, when you are starving, and those around you are feasting. I imagine he's had to feign noninterest for lots of Abe and Rosey's not-so-discrete sessions. Really that is the lesser of his sins.

[feverfew]

 

My computer's acting up; nothing to see here. 

Edited November 10, 2014 by feverfew

[editorgrrl]

I'm still lost as to why his wife thought leaving with two young kids was the better option. Was he an abusive husband pre ZA, and seeing him kill five guys with a can of peas was too much? As a parent I though it was just so weird. Your first instinct is defending your young, which Sgt. Slaughter sure did.

 

I assumed it was murder-suicide by walker. Andrea, Beth, and Jacqui all wanted to die at various points. As a mother, Ellen Ford wouldn't want to leave her children behind in an unbearable ZA world.

[feverfew]

Aaand then the computer ate my second post. Let's try again.

I guess those clues were too subtle for me, because I didn't catch them on my initial watch - but I see where you're coming from.  It probably says more about my naivete on the subject than it does the episode's writing.

...or maybe I have too much of a hair-trigger response to bruises on women's faces. My tv's also high def so the bruises stood out really clearly. (I also wanted to say I'm sorry if I sounded like an ass in my previous post. English is not my first language, so sometimes stuff comes out harsher than I intend to.)

[AndySmith]

I feel this episode was supposed to make us feel...sorry for Abraham? Emphatic towards him? Just, no. The sad sack backstory wasn't enough to make up for his bull-headed obnoxiousness this episode. Whatever they were going for, it just didn't work for me.

Nice to see Rosalita displaying some personality. I hope that continues.

Maggie couldn't give just one comment for Beth? Not even a "I hope wherever she is, she's ok"? Nope?

Eugene's running away from the zombies in Abraham's flashback cracked me up.

[ghoulina]

I'm willing to put $20 on said wife being Lori's sister

 

That's the only explanation. And, sadly, her less intelligent sister. 

 

Either that or she really WAS Amy Winehouse and was so whacked out of her mind she wasn't thinking clearly. 

[feverfew]

I totally got Abraham in the present and past. I understood what was happening with his family and that he'd killed a group of humans. What I didn't get was how his wife figured that the Zombie Apocalypse was a preferable alternative to a husband who is sometimes a bit extra. I'm willing to put $20 on said wife being Lori's sister. That said, because I tend to think too hard about things, I thought that what we were seeing in Abe is a shadow of Rick. Both men are prepared to do anything, including become brutal killers, to protect their families. That has worked for Rick so far but it didn't work for Abe. To me, THAT was the crux of his tragical past. Also, and I have made this point about Shane and Rick and others, so much is expected of "tough" men. They are expected to fight and fight and protect and fight but they are just people and they can hurt and hurt deeply. It is clear that something inside Abraham broke -not when his family died, but when they required a retribution that involved killing humans with his bare hands. He has never recovered from it. He seems to feel that his only value is in protection in order to do what he didn't do before.

I really loved your whole post, but this I think, hits the nail on the head for me. You explained exactly why I really liked to get inside the head of this man in this episode - because it also says something new about the people we've been following all this time: Rick - who did the same as Abraham -  was saved by his son, by his friend, by love and forgiveness (sorry if I sound like a sappy fool) while in the end, Abraham had nothing but a false profet and a false mission. That's also the reason why I want them back in each others' orbit. Last season's question was "Can you come back from this?" I don't think we're finished with trying to answer that.

[Sofie Fatale]

According to Cudlitz on Twitter, this episode almost never made it to air. If the rumours of this episode being censored are true, then perhaps there was an almost rape scene prior to the death by beans.

That's a big maybe though.

[Portia]

Meh, I liked this episode more than I thought I would . . . but that's not necessarily saying a lot. I did get a bit of satisfaction from knowing Abraham's back story, however poorly telegraphed it was. It occurs to me that he's lost his religion, so to speak, and I wonder whether he's going to completely go bonkers or somehow find a new focus for his life. 

 

(Edited to add: I'm digging feverfew's post, two posts before this one, which I didn't see until after I had posted.) 

 

I was screaming at Abraham not to un-block the door. That sort of scenario has played out sooo many times at my house, and it has always ended with me groaning to my spouse or child, "Everything I do, I do for a reason!" 

Edited November 10, 2014 by Portia

[Nutjob]

You know, even knowing it was coming, I still felt bad for Eugene. Everyone has their own way of surviving the zompocalypse, and his was lying to get people to protect him. I mean, yeah, it's crappy to do that to people who are risking their lives for you, but you can't say the dude's survival instincts weren't working.

[peach]

Peach - it perplexed me too.  

According to the Talking Dead, these people Abe killed were friends of his and inexplicably decided to rape his family when he left for a supply run. It was pretty personal...

 Being horrified by your husband killing the hoard that raped you and your daughter seemed odd.  Being so terrified of the guy that just put things right that you would take your kids out, unprotected, in ZombieVille didn't make sense...

 

OTOH, spending five minutes with bellowing, everyone do what I say, one-note Abraham would have me leaving a note that said "Don't try and find us."  I damn sure couldn't tolerate being on a bus trip with him.  It would either be escape while he slept, or he'd get a can to the head himself.

 

I watched a few min of TTD and heard him say, answering a hypothetical about who would win a fight between between Abraham and Rick, that it would get messy, but Abe would ultimately win.  Has he ever seen this show??  Bitch, please, Rick would tear your heart out and feed it to you.

[Nashville]

Also, and I have made this point about Shane and Rick and others, so much is expected of "tough" men. They are expected to fight and fight and protect and fight but they are just people and they can hurt and hurt deeply. It is clear that something inside Abraham broke -not when his family died, but when they required a retribution that involved killing humans with his bare hands. He has never recovered from it. He seems to feel that his only value is in protection in order to do what he didn't do before.

To me, this is key.  Abraham is strong, yes - but brittle.  He'll break before he bends.

 

But I give the MVP award to Rosita. She isn't just Abe's chick, she is an intelligent, thinking human being who is caring but not a push over. She stands by her man, because he is her man, but she does NOT follow him blindly and she will NOT follow him into hell. I found the scene when Abe was going off, and it ended with the two of them facing each other - him looking like a bull about to charge, and her staring the bull down with her hand on her gun, to be fascinating. She may love him but she will stop him if she must.

This, submitted in triplicate.  Rosita stands BY her man - as in BESIDE him, as an equal - NOT behind him.

 

Aaand then the computer ate my second post. Let's try again.

...or maybe I have too much of a hair-trigger response to bruises on women's faces. My tv's also high def so the bruises stood out really clearly. (I also wanted to say I'm sorry if I sounded like an ass in my previous post. English is not my first language, so sometimes stuff comes out harsher than I intend to.)

We're good; I didn't see anything that needed apologizing for. Of course, it may just be I'm THAT dense.... :D

[Trek]

That was definitely about eradication, not curing.  So, in my mind it should've been obvious to those who had been to the CDC that he had no idea what he was talking about.

Indeed he was talking about bioweapons, not a cure, but that actually makes Eugene 'analysis' more logically formed than the CDC guy. Think about it for a second here. Unlike in some other ZA scenarios like I am Legend or 48days/Weeks Later where infection causes a transformation in the living, in TWD, you must die before you become a zombie/walker and there is no cure for death, only eradication.

 

To "cure" walkers one would need a potion that not only kills the virus but completely repairs whatever the cause of death may be – whether it be from having several arteries ripped open while being fed upon, a bullet in the lungs, trauma from falling off a building, or testicular cancer – somehow replace all the blood lost since death, repair all wounds (like torn off arms), jump start hearts that have stopped beating for 1.5 years and pretty much still only get brain dead people.

 

The very best one can ever hope to accomplish in a TWD scenario is to release a pathogenic weapon to wipe out whatever agent/virus is causing the reanimation for good. This will stop new people from turning when they die and would be to walkers like cutting the cords of a puppet putting them into the ground permanently. Even though it was flawed in so many other ways, for that aspect at least, Eugene’s conceptualizing his lie as more of a weapon than a cure is not flawed.

Edited November 10, 2014 by Trek

[SimoneS]

IMO, Eugene's story was never credible and not because of his hair or oddness -- I know quite a few brilliant scientists and engineers who have poor communication and social skills. Where did Eugene do his research? What is his field? Again, where in D.C. was he going to produce this cure? What lab? What materials did he need and where were they going to have to find them?  However, given the ignorance about public health and medical research in the general public, it is probably realistic that it did not occur to anyone to ask these pertinent questions.

 

I will say it on every thread; l going to D.C. is pure craziness. I cannot even imagine how they would get through densely populated northern Virginia alive, much less D.C. 

 

Gale Anne Hurd said on Talking Dead that the earlier walkers are more frail and easier to kill. If that is the case, I would like our survivors to encounter denigrating walkers who are unable to move and attack.

 

I can't believe those sexually repressed prudes were actually considering censoring this episode. A couple weeks ago, a man got his head hacked off with a machete and they want to censor that tame sex scene. Seriously, those people need to pull that stick out.

Edited November 10, 2014 by SimoneS

[Pete Martell]

Unlike last week, I was at least able to make it through a rewatch on this one.  I actually found it more tolerable on second viewing even if the same issues remained. 

 

Is it weird that while Abraham still leaves me mostly flat despite his terrible awful backstory, I find myself minding Eugene less now that they've dropped the pretense that anyone is going to be taking his "I'm a scie-un-tist" schtick seriously?  I still don't care for him in that I want to see him as a main character, but he had small moments that I liked enough (the amazing face plant on the asphalt and his confession about his "Tennessee tophat" lie) to make me think he can at least bring needed moments of amusement and levity in what is often otherwise a seriously dour show.  Assuming that the whole band will be back together at some point, it'll be interesting to see what they do with him going forward as everyone learns about his fraud.  Something tells me he's going to have to learn to to start pulling his weight fairly quickly now that no one's going to be carting his ass around like the golden ticket anymore.

 

Hey, if they can find a role for Father Pee Pants it's not really that much of a stretch going by their theme this season of everybody's done something.

 

Abraham is a character we've seen multiple times. Eugene's a bag of tropes himself, but they're a little fresher for this particular canvas. I think McDermitt and Cudlitz are both very good actors, but Eugene gets a chance to be a little more rounded, and he's never going to be arguing over leadership roles. There's more room to figure out where to take him. 

 

I think Abraham has more potential now that the facade is gone, but there's still a certain "Do we need this character?" question for me.

 

Eugene will never be a favorite of mine, but I could see him as part of the group, in a way Axel probably would have been. I also think he's smart enough and now in need of proving himself enough to where he may be able to work on some stuff for day-to-day survival that the rest of the group won't be involved in while they're off scavenging and angsting.

[PunkyMouse]

Finally got to watch since the cough medicine did me in last night. Not nearly as bad as I was dreading. Certainly better than last week's schlockfest. I was a bit confused by what went down with the Abrafam in the beginning, but at least it gave us some insight into why Abraham never wants to stop moving. Last time he set up camp with the fam and something tragic happened to them requiring him to kill some dudes with canned veggies. So he cannot stop, cannot relax, cannot let down his guard for any more than one night. He's like a shark. Stop swimming and die.

 

I still hate Maggie. I still hate Eugene. But I really like Tara now, when I was truly indifferent before. And if they want me to believe that walkers can be taken out with a firehose, they need to show me their heads being torn off from the force of the water. I kept waiting for them to get up again and I still don't understand why they didn't.

[Watcher0363]

IMO, Eugene's story was never credible and not because of his hair or oddness -- I know quite a few brilliant scientists and engineers who have poor communication and social skills. Where did Eugene do his research? What is his field? Again, where in D.C. was he going to produce this cure? What lab? What materials did he need and where were they going to have to find them? However, given the ignorance about public health and medical research in the general public, it is probably realistic that it did not occur to anyone to ask these pertinent questions.

I will say it on every thread; l going to D.C. is pure craziness. I cannot even imagine how they would get through densely populated northern Virginia alive, much less D.C.

Gale Anne Hurd said on Talking Dead that the earlier walkers are more frail and easier to kill. If that is the case, I would like our survivors to encounter denigrating walkers who are unable to move and attack.

I can't believe those sexually repressed prudes were actually considering censoring this episode. A couple weeks ago, a man got his head hacked off with a machete and they want to censor that tame sex scene. Seriously, those people need to pull that stick out.

This is America you can show people killing each other in all kinds of violent ways. You can even show violent rape. But the line is drawn when you show consenting adults having enjoyable sex. For that will destroy the moral fabric of America. You know by giving the youth the wrong message about how decent adults express love and solve conflicts.

[Whimsy]

Indeed he was talking about bioweapons, not a cure, but that actually makes Eugene 'analysis' more logically formed than the CDC guy. Think about it for a second here. Unlike in some other ZA scenarios like I am Legend or 48days/Weeks Later where infection causes a transformation in the living, in TWD, you must die before you become a zombie/walker and there is no cure for death, only eradication.

 

To "cure" walkers one would need a potion that not only kills the virus but completely repairs whatever the cause of death may be – whether it be from having several arteries ripped open while being fed upon, a bullet in the lungs, trauma from falling off a building, or testicular cancer – somehow replace all the blood lost since death, repair all wounds (like torn off arms), jump start hearts that have stopped beating for 1.5 years and pretty much still only get brain dead people.

 

The very best one can ever hope to accomplish in a TWD scenario is to release a pathogenic weapon to wipe out whatever agent/virus is causing the reanimation for good. This will stop new people from turning when they die and would be to walkers like cutting the cords of a puppet putting them into the ground permanently. Even though it was flawed in so many other ways, for that aspect at least, Eugene’s conceptualizing his lie as more of a weapon than a cure is not flawed.

I didn't make it clear that I don't think they're going to "cure" the walkers. They're rotting flesh. I always thought that whatever cure that is discovered would be to kill the virus in the currently living. Maybe it was intended to mean that the cure would be released through pathogenic weapon. I heard Euugene talking about bombing and killing the walkers only. He never mentioned curing the living.

[Pete Martell]

This week's episode was very slow and boring. And, clearly, confusing, as few seem to know what Abraham's flashback was about and why his wife left. The rape theory would seem to explain it, but then you would also have to fanwank that 1) the wife was raped, and maybe a kid or two was abused or saw it, 2) that Abraham wasn't able to stop it from happening but them somehow was able to overpower multiple men with a food can, 3) that when he did that, his rage so upset his wife and kids - the wife having been raped and then rescued by her husband - that they were more afraid of him than the outside world and left, and 4) that the outside world was so bad they barely made it a few hundred yards before becoming zombie chow (so his wife was more afraid of Abraham than an external threat that great?). That is a lot is wanking.

 

I don't think it's that difficult to believe. 

 

The story is supposed to be that he was on a supply run and the men, whom he trusted and had known for many years, raped his wife and daughter. When he got back, he murdered them.

 

I do think it's a little absurd that his wife and kids almost immediately left, but I can buy that they'd be afraid of him. They were all clearly traumatized. They see Abraham, husband and father who probably told them stories and laughed with them and had a big soft heart, covered in blood and still checked out from what he'd just done. 

 

His wife had just been raped. Her daughter had also been raped, and her son had to watch. I assume she just snapped and had to get away from everything, from men, from memories of the place where these horrors had occurred. This was still fairly early in the ZA and they'd probably been very sheltered from what the world was truly like. So she left with the kids, being totally unprepared for what they'd face. 

 

I don't really think the flashbacks were THAT opaque - I didn't know all of his backstory, but I could tell they were his family and he'd killed to protect them. I never thought he kidnapped a bunch of people or anything like that.

 

I just don't think they got the rape stuff across that well. I think they may have been better off adding a line of dialogue. I think this is one of those instances where the story is just so heinous that it's difficult to get the horror across on TV, especially since this is not HBO or Showtime where they have more freedom. So they tried to be subtle and it had mixed results.

[editorgrrl]

The least surprising revelation of the season still manages to pack an emotional punch, thanks to Abraham.

http://previously.tv/the-walking-dead/mystery-of-the-mullet-man-solved/

 

The recap includes a bright (yet too zoomed out) image of "the rotting hand ranch."

[Mu Shu]

Uh, Rosita?    Should have stayed with Rick's group.   Four single men there, all who would be a better match than the middle aged frat boy bragging to Glenn about "getting some ass".     Poor Glenn,  he seemed as grossed out as I was, and by Glenn I mean the actual actor getting a visual of Mr. Moobs getting  some ass.   Mortifying shit, that was. 

[Pete Martell]

Even my DH noticed, and he doesn't follow the show as closely as I, which means pretty much everyone has noticed that now which means the omission is deliberate (the writing isn't that bad..?).

Yeah I think it's fair to say the two last eps could've been combined with no great loss to the narrative

 

I actually think both episodes worked as solo episodes, in the sense that they built up to strong conclusions. Chopped up material crammed together wouldn't have worked for me. But then I generally enjoyed last week's episode.

 

One of the problems, if you can call it that, is the show has a lot of great characters right now (to me anyway), some of whom are barely seen at the moment. 

 

If it were me I would have waited to introduce Abraham/Eugene/Rosita, if they needed to be introduced at all.

[Christi]

Ok..

So...the area that smelled so bad:

Dead cows?

Walkers?

Both?

Looked like a livestock yard....but I couldnt really make it out :/

[Pete Martell]

I would have joined in the head bashing with a Carl sized can of pudding myself. How doesn't Abe's wife wait til he's asleep and mercy kill the kids then herself? Getting torn apart and eaten alive is better? She dumb.

 

She didn't want to die. She left because she didn't realize just how terrible it was outside of their safety.

[GaT]

Do we really know that Maggie's ot concerned, just because we've never seen her ask anyone if they know what happened? After all, we've never seen any of them go to the bathroom either, but I don't hear anyone talking about how unrealistic THAT is.

 

We see a fraction of the lives of these characters, spread out in 45-minute (or so) chunks 16 times per year, so I'm OK with knowing that we're not seeing everything they do, or hearing every conversation they have. Especially when the answer to this particular question is always going to be "I have no idea what did or did not happen to Beth." The only person who could possibly have a different answer is Darryl; maybe he and Maggie had the conversation off-camera, or maybe Darryl avoided the subject because he figured Maggie had been through enough already. The day she last saw Beth is also the day she saw her Dad get beheaded, probably not a day she likes re-living.

Of course they do things we don't hear or know about, but if it's important to the plot, then it has to be either shown or told to us. Maggie spent all last season looking for Glenn, the fact that she never mentions her also missing sister seems a little strange. Has Darryl even told her what happened to Beth? You would think they would at least give us a piece of that conversation.

[Pete Martell]

I am only mildly interested, but does anyone have a clue to Rosita's back story? I don't remember anything being said, but then again I may have been dazzled by Abe's hair and missed it.

 

All we know about her is she joined up with Abraham and Eugene at some point (and then literally joined up with Abraham). I hope we get more info soon. As I said before I don't want a Rosita solo episode, but a flashback scene, like we got with Bob, wouldn't be amiss.