Forget Everything You Know
If you have been watching AMC’s The Walking Dead, you know the last episodes of last season felt like a zombie was slowly sucking out brain matter. Where is this series going? What are they doing? Snore… Season Two has been a huge wake up call. Hailing back to the first part of the series where story was king and zombie kills were gruesome, this season of The Walking Dead has kept me more than hooked. I am absolutely infected. Then again…they are completely turning the whole zombie mythos on its head.
NOTE: DO NOT READ IF YOU DIDN’T SEE THE MARCH 11 EPISODE OF THE WALKING DEAD. BIG NASTY SPOILERS AHEAD.
Shane - You aren't looking so good.
We all knew that Shane was going to come after Rick. It was just a matter of when and how. I saw it coming for sure when Lori (who I still look at and think Sarah from Prison Break) told Shane she didn’t know whose baby she was carrying and that “must be hard on him.” The foreshadowing was there in previous episodes. No surprise there… The HOW and the what happened afterward was the big surprise.
The Walking Dead Blows Up Zombie History
The shot heard around the world was when Shane got up, after Rick had stabbed him, and he was a zombie. WHAT? WHAT?!?!? This positively blows up any bit of zombie tradition. Forget the fast zombie versus slow zombie debate – now we have questions about the whole way you BECOME a zombie.
Quite honestly, the way that the crew kills “the walkers,” with gruesome splashes of blood flying everywhere, I did wonder. Um… can that get through your skin? What if you have a cut? What if it gets in the eyes or mouth? Is a bite the only way a person can become a zombie? So, I did what any 21st century gal would do — I hit the Internet.
Here is what I found.
The Federal Empire and Zombie Agency has this to say, but it doesn’t address alternate means of disease transmission.
“The zombie virus comes from the same Mononegavirales family as the Human Vampiric Virus. The virus is propagated mainly through ticks of the familyIxodidae. The prevalence of these ticks in tropical climes is the main reason for the large number of outbreaks in those regions. The nature of the spread of zombie plagues generally depended on the place of origin. Most urban plagues were spread by aggressive rats that had been bitten by an infected tick. In the country, the tick would bite humans directly, or pass the virus through mice, raccoons and other animals. As was the case with vampirism, humans infected with the virus would pass it from their saliva into the bloodstream of another through the bite.”
Ok… on the whole, pretty unhelpful… so I pressed on and found that the CDC (yes the United States government Center for Disease Control) has a blog about preparedness for the Zombie Apocalypse.
I am seriously not kidding… here it is…
So… I wrote a letter to the CDC. I am committed to finding the truth!
Here is the letter I wrote…
I stumbled upon your blog about Zombie Apocalypse preparedness and will be linking to it from my pop culture blog – PopTwist. I do have a question, though.
I am wondering about other methods of transfer of the zombie virus other than bite. For example, what if the victim got zombie blood or saliva in an open wound, the mouth or eyes? Would this be enough to transfer the virus or possibly a slower progressing form of the virus?
I would be happy to quote the CDC and link back to your Task Force campaign.
Best,
Diane Hansen
So let’s take a vote. Shout back — Will the CDC get back to me? In the meantime, I will continue to search for credible resources on the transfer of the zombie virus. But, really, if the CDC doesn’t know – who will? And, if not, why the blog? They mention The Walking Dead right up top. Were they thinking that the horrible second part of season one would affect their reputation? If they contact me, maybe I can get an answer about that too.
The truth is out there. Ha ha…
this may be a SPOILER!!!!!!! Read with caution!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I believe that the character Jenner (the guy from the CDC in the show) whispered something to Rick before they all left the building. Supposedly, he whispered ‘we are all infected’. If you look at that scene, really pay attention to Rick’s expression. Fast forward to a few episodes ago in the bar. Rick had to defend himself by killing those two guys. The first one he shot in the head and the second one he didn’t. He waited a few seconds then I think he shot him in the head just to be on the safe side.
Another time he noticed two police or security guards that were zombies when he and Shane took Randall to the school to drop him off. After killing them, he noticed that they didn’t have any bite marks or scratches and wondered why they were zombies.
Last night’s episode also showed Randall attacking Glenn and Daryl as a zombie, yet how could that be? Because he was killed by Shane (broken neck) and once he was dead he turned. Same thing we see after Shane was killed. He became a zombie.
I believe that it is because something was airborne to begin with before the apocalypse happened and now, anyone who dies becomes a zombie because of the airborne pathogen.
Just my humble opinion…
And to further deepen it – when the old guy was suffering, Rick shot him in the head to kill him. Very subtle… but your points make a lot of sense, Dawn.
Actually, he was going to, but then I think Daryl took up the gun and did it. I am really starting to like him. I also liked what he said last night – that it shouldn’t be all on Rick to do the heavy lifting, so to speak. That show is probably the most compelling and thought-provoking show I have ever seen in my life.
I have to admit, even from the earlier comments, that attempting to discover depth in what has been an increasingly rambling, shallow and aimless plot is something that us writers would really try and do.
All season long, I’ve seen so many opportunities where the show could pull out of this funk. Even in the first season, which I found to be much stronger, most of the characters were still flat and one-dimensional.
This season, the writers seem to enjoy tormenting us by turning characters into even flatter archetypes that go beyond being “unlikable” into the domain of sheer annoyance.
The hilarious part is that I think there’s a snarky writer behind the scenes that’s actually writing Darrell as if he were the audience. Darrell hates everyone in the group, thinks its broken, doesn’t want to do anything for them any more and thinks the majority of them are crazy.
The audience sympathizes, my friend.
This group is full of awful, preachy, helpless and whiny people that make ignorant decisions based on their archetype. Although Rick started as a moral compass, he’s literally been crippled to inaction by his morality. His “think, just think” line to Carl was beyond sickening coming from a character who literally can’t pass up an opportunity to do what he thinks is “right.” Dale’s death was welcomed as his lectures and judgments became more and more obnoxious, particularly in his “this is a human life” scene. The wife (who cares about her name) flat out sucks. Half the other characters barely even exist this season.
The only character that had any type of arc was Shane.
Then, as a deus ex machina to bring zombies back into the show, we let some cows loose and fire of a round that gets all their attention. Never mind that they’ve been shooting off guns regularly, flying around in cars, yelling and screaming while tramping around the woods for an entire terrible season hasn’t gotten their attention – SHANE’S DEATH DID IT.
It’s amazing how quickly this show descended into complete dreck. I have a feeling it had a lot to do with the departure of Darabont, but maybe it’s just that these people have no idea how to write characters that aren’t zombies.
I think what really gets under my skin about the show is the gender roles and the one character who doesn’t want to play them is shoved aside and is the black sheep. So the men can guard and the women can cook, clean and care. Characters are one-dimensional because personal identity has even gone out the window – reducing the women to those who “run in the house and lock the door.” Let us men take care of this. It leaves a nasty nasty taste in my mouth.
Diane, I have to agree. The scene between Andrea and Lori especially. How dare Lori tell Andrea what she should be doing? Yes, i know it’s a show, but this mentality is also in real life. If I were in a ZA, I would be like Andrea, fighting along side the men and trying to protect the homestead, not cooking and cleaning. I have never been a domestic ‘goddess’. I do it because I have to but if I had a choice, I wouldn’t. Just because you’re female doesn’t mean that’s the only way to contribute. Personally, they ALL need to cross train. The men need to know how to cook and clean and the women need to know how to defend themselves and the group because there may come a day when they need to use those skills to survive. They definitely need to all make sure they are trained in the most basic of medical issues and Hershel could be doing that.
Yeah why the HELL is the oldest guy in the group the only one who can do ANYTHING medically oriented? Someone’s hurt. Go find Hershel! Well, he’s back on the sauce and unless you want Jack Daniels poured into your open wounds, you’re shit outta luck! LOL!
Well, wouldn’t you think Rick and Shane should know some basic medical stuff since they are cops?? and Daryl is some kind of ‘survivalist’ type so surely he should know some stuff……
Yeah… this is my feeling about some of the details in this show – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Xywqv1cDH8
This… does not… make sense…