4.01: The Walking Dead - 30 Days Without An Accident

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Rick and the group are as close to an ideal life as possible at the prison. Will they be able to hold on to humanity in the face of a new evil?

TWD is back on Sunday 13th October on AMC and October 18th in the UK.

 

[Culhwch]

Can't wait! Didn't realise it was so soon!

 

[ctg]

"Caaaaarrrrrooooot, Caaaarrrroooootttt...."

How creepy are they standing behind the fence moaning and howling as the people go to pick up their lunch?

More season 4 photos in Love blossoms among the zombies in 40 new Walking Dead images

 

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For a show that's been wildly successful for AMC, The Walking Dead has been one of the most tumultuous programmes on television. Forget the constant churn of cast - that's to be expected on a drama full of zombies craving human flesh - it's the constant behind-the-scenes problems that make The Walking Dead into something more soap-opera than hard-hitting survival horror drama. Going into its fourth season, The Walking Dead has had three different captains directing the ship. Frank Darabont left early in the production of the second season, reportedly over budget friction with AMC, who wanted their most popular show to cost less than their prestige fare. Glen Mazzara, who took over for the third season of the hit, pushed the show more towards the entertaining gore that fans want while still producing some really good television drama. He's out after a difference of opinion with AMC over the future direction of the show.


Enter Scott M. Gimple, the new man in charge of AMC's lumbering ratings monster. The third guy in charge in four seasons, Gimple is a man serving two masters. He has to keep AMC and Robert Kirkman happy, while still keeping fans tuning in week after week for a dose of zombie action. Gimple has said in interviews that he hopes to take the best from both previous bosses; is it possible to blend the action of seasons 2.5 and 3 with the character focus from seasons 1 and 2.0?

Read More The Walking Dead: 30 Days Without An Accident spoiler-free review | Den of Geek
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[alchemist]

Glen Mazzara, who took over for the third season of the hit, pushed the show more towards the entertaining gore that fans want

Yeah, i really noticed that, and thought it was getting borderline gratuituous. Last episode of season 3 for me tomorrow night, but I'm getting satellite TV in a couple of weeks so maybe I'll catch up!

 

[ctg]

*** Spoilers ***
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Oh my days, what a thrilling beginning. The walking dead are back ... I wanted to say bang, but allow me to use instead ... with a MIGHTY ROAR. With the thousand throat growl from straight in the heart of the hoard. Not the hilly billie farmer's song that Rick was listening, when he tended the early crops.

But that's the thing. The survival mechanism one uses to protect himself from more mental damage and it was well used, as we known for a while how void the series is from any background music. Instead you get the hear how beautiful the nature really sounds after the traffic and the machines has stopped working.

In the world of walking dead that however doesn't sound as pleasant as one could possibly imagine in their head. Not because every extra sound might tell you about the danger. Just like it was with Bob when he looked up but didn't realise that the sound above him was a footstep. And as illogical as it might seem to you, those roof zombies might have been the passengers that the Authorities tried to ferry off from the mall.

So in a way I admire the beauty of the TWD when it shows scenes like resolution for Rick's long walk in the forest. The deadly nature and consequences that Hersel tells him at the dark of the night. And it like he says, Rick has taken a beating and risen up a stronger man.

However, that's not all as in the same time Carl has degenerated and twisted in his father's shadow. So it is very likely that it is like people say it is: He has become a sociopath.

You can kind of see it over three seasons. But I would say that they haven't come so far from the end of old culture, that by using methods learned from there, they could heal his PSTD's and other issues.

However can they do such a thing, when the world is becoming increasingly difficult place to live as the life depletes from it?

I don't think so. But in the same time they allowed one psycopath to live among them, so why not another?

What did you thought?

 

[Lenny]

I still expect Carl to go off the rails at some point, but I'm not sure, anymore, when that might be. He seems to have lost his child soldier attitude (he's no longer wearing Rick's hat), but he also appears to be segregating himself from the larger community and sticking as close as he can to people like Rick and Michonne. I don't think he has quite the strength that Rick does, and if there comes an event that affects both Rick and Carl (the gruesome death of one of the original prison group might do it), I wouldn't be surprised to see Rick ride the wave whilst Carl goes under.

The episode was gooood. A slow-burner with character development, an underlying feeling of complete tension (I spent most of it worried about what was going to happen), and a fantastic set-piece in the supermarket made all the better by the fact that I can't think of anything similar in any other zombie media I've seen. To cap it all off, we've got a zombified kid in the middle of camp, who appears to have fallen ill to something yet unexperienced by the group!

 

[ctg]

The episode was gooood. A slow-burner with character development, an underlying feeling of complete tension (I spent most of it worried about what was going to happen), and a fantastic set-piece in the supermarket made all the better by the fact that I can't think of anything similar in any other zombie media I've seen.

I agree, even if seeing booze still sitting on the shelves of a supermarket made me suspicious, when it's usually one of first items to disappear as trading/bargaining takes over traditional commerce. But talking about the commerce, it was so eerie to find out that people doesn't actually need all those extra blenders and "HiFi" sets - even if Glen managed to fiddle some of them.

In the regards of that sort place I'm sure you've seen a similar place at the beginning of the Fallout 3, when the sheriff asks you to go clear out that "supermarket." Yeah?

To cap it all off, we've got a zombified kid in the middle of camp, who appears to have fallen ill to something yet unexperienced by the group!

Cholera, Ebola and Marburg all gives out similar symptoms at the end, but could this be the one that caused the zombie plague?

 

[Dave]

A slow-burner with character development, an underlying feeling of complete tension

Much, much slower than the end of S3, but then they did have to introduce a lot of new characters, even if some of them only lasted a few minutes. One good thing about this show is that you don't feel anyone is safe (apart from possibly Rick anyone could die.)

Cholera, Ebola and Marburg all gives out similar symptoms at the end, but could this be the one that caused the zombie plague?

I just thought the blood was from his broken glasses, but you must be right as there was too much. My thoughts were that it was related to the pig dying (which it might still be.) Disease has been something that hasn't really affected them yet, which is odd since they have drank contaminated water and spoiled food. There is a bigger group of them now though, and they are in contact with more animals from their traps.

 

[ctg]

Are you saying it might be possible for the pigs and the hens to catch the zombie virus and therefore cross the species? Because if you are, TWD world had become much, much more dangerous place to live and eventually I'd see their world slowly getting depleted from all life.

 

[Dave]

I only meant that whatever it was that the pig died of, that could be the same thing, maybe only influenza (it depends if he was really meant to be haemorrhaging.)

However, it is possible that this is the "virus" and it has changed in some way. All of our common diseases were animal diseases that jumped the species barrier from animals to man, and that happened when we began living indoors overnight and bringing the animals inside with us. No reason at all for the reverse not to happen.

 

[ctg]

However, it is possible that this is the "virus" and it has changed in some way. All of our common diseases were animal diseases that jumped the species barrier from animals to man, and that happened when we began living indoors overnight and bringing the animals inside with us. No reason at all for the reverse not to happen.

That is very, very interesting Dave and its certainly not something that has happened in the comic books, but taken in the producers attention on the poor piggie (remember Chekov's guns) it is possible.

What did you thought about the world and state of it?

 

[ctg]

Returning back to the Raining Zombies Supermarket, this is the one who's head was split open, but the question is had the skin on his head split or had someone tried to cause an injury? What did it look to you?

 

[Dave]

What did you thought about the world and state of it?

I thought the walkers at the fence was realistic and should have probably been that way for some time. They would have to try to ignore it as Rick did with the headphones. They would also need to kill them by hand to save ammunition. I still think that they could come up with a way of killing them en mass that did not involve large amounts of ammunition. Man is a particularly good animal at devising ways of killing. Why not something involving garrotte wires?

I think what was unrealistic was what happened to all the bodies. Killing them is easy, disposing of them less so. They would need some kind of mass grave, but going out into the killing fields and digging it would be dangerous. Or, maybe we are meant to believe that the walkers cleaned up their own. Either way, the ground around the prison would be soaked in blood.

The undisturbed supermarket I think might be realistic. The fall of civilisation happened very quickly - just the time it took Rick to recover in hospital. There are a lot of supermarkets and not many survivors, so not every shop will have been raided.

Why were so many walkers on the roof? That was a small helicopter and there didn't seem another way up. Also, if there was another way up, what was the attraction and why didn't they come back down the same way?

 

[Phyrebrat]

Please take this reply with a heavy seasoning of dufus as I usually get these things wrong (you could foreshadow something in my face with a cricket bat that had cheesegraters glued to it and I would still miss it, buuuut.......).

I felt there was a definite link between the boy and the pig. I seem to recall hearing/seeing/reading that we use pigs in dissections because they are so similar to us in terms of shared genetic traits. Much (scaremonger) talk was made in recent years about the jumping of avian flu and BSE to humans but was always ruled out as highly unlikely because of fundamental genetic differences.

My mind went two ways on the whole pig thing: the Walker virus had crossed over to pig species due to the similarity, the pig died (was I the only one anticipating it coming alive and goring Rick as it lay there dead?), the pig returned as the ...er...Oinking Dead , or 2; as mentioned above, we've not seen much in the way of diseases and absence of medical care allowing virus and bacterial infections running wild amongst the survivors.

Oh and another thing just popped into my mind. If there is a disease that is sweeping through livestock, like avian flu, then the implications on starvation are massive.

The boy, BTW; I thought that as he worked with food on Carol's bacon shack, he may have had exposure to whatever ailed the pig and that is why he ended up sick. And dead. And undead. However this did not affect anyone else eating the food, like Darrell, so....who knows.

pH
ps. speaking of my crapness at detecting foreshadowing, I did totally get that the Irish woman was a madder and Bad News. So there is hope for me

 

[Lenny]

Don't worry, pH, you're not the only one - I too was having visions of Violet violently violating Rick's braaaiiiiins.

Putting aside the hope that we might see some zombified animals, whilst I agree that it's more likely the zombified kid caught a mundane disease from bad meat or dirty water (in which case, I do have to wonder how it could present itself and kill him so suddenly - I'd estimate he went from looking healthy, to feeling ill, to zombie within twelve hours), I think it would be more fitting, and definitely scarier, if the TWD virus has itself mutated or combined with other viruses and mutated them (for some superfast ebola, for example).

 

[Culhwch]

I'm a bit late to the party, but an excellent episode, I thought. I thought Rick's putting aside of his guns particularly poignant, especially as a result of Carl going full psycho at the end of last season. Obviously feels he hasn't been the best role model, and is trying to set a better example. Still, probably not the best time and place to become a pacifist...

 

[ctg]

Why were so many walkers on the roof? That was a small helicopter and there didn't seem another way up. Also, if there was another way up, what was the attraction and why didn't they come back down the same way?

To be honest I think they cocked it up. The helicopter on the roof feels as if it was planted there deliberately where everything else felt like they were in correct places. But they said that there's an explanation to the helicopter, so I'll keep my eyes open.

PS. It wasn't that small helicopter.

My mind went two ways on the whole pig thing: the Walker virus had crossed over to pig species due to the similarity, the pig died (was I the only one anticipating it coming alive and goring Rick as it lay there dead?), the pig returned as the ...er...Oinking Dead , or 2

I have been seeing all sorts of things walking in my mind after their dead. So I tried my best to suppress the Oinking Dead from surfacing but I failed and it's now there; oinking and staring at me with its glassy eyes.

 

[Culhwch]

Yeah, the way they did that slow-pan up to reveal the helicopter really made it feel like there was something bigger going on there. Whether that was just overdoing the foreshadowing of it collapsing the roof, I'm not entirely sure...

 

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Well here's the thing straight out from Kirkman's mouth:

Pulling in a new threat in your fourth season, I think, is a good thing. Also, it’s important to know that this is really just some form of the Spanish Flu. It’s something that exists in our everyday world now; it’s a time where there is no modern medicine. Scott Gimple, the new showrunner, really wanted to explore that new possibility of the simple things, the really little things, coming to devastate these people. That’s what we’re going to explore.
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He also hinted that this new threat is going to take out many of the new characters that the premiere introduced:

At the end, when Patrick dies, you realize that this is not an isolated incident. [Rick’s] pig is dead, we see the walker at the fence … it’s a ticking time bomb. Now, all of a sudden, [the virus is] right in the middle of the prison. We set up some great beats. Norman [Reedus, as Daryl] set up a great beat when he licks his fingers then shakes Patrick’s hand. You look at it and go, ‘Wait a minute, Daryl licked his fingers and shook Patrick’s hand and now Patrick is [dead].

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Massive spoiler that I would have not read: Kirkman and Nicotero on The Walking Dead Virus -- Vulture