The Walking Dead - "Guts"

[FaxModem1]

I like Chuck's point about having to make long term decisions in an apocalypse. Something the show took over half a decade to realize was something the main characters should have been doing from the start.

For instance, the Herschel farm from season 2. There's no reason not to raid all the local hardware stores and construction sites, build up a cement wall around the farmhouse and barn, then build another fence further out for crops and at well locations, etc. It won't solve everything, but it will be enough for most problems while you focus on rebuilding. Such thoughts took years for the main characters to consider, when it should have taken days or weeks, maybe a couple months, tops.
Sometimes the main characters will purposely ruin a safe location, as Carol and Tyreese famously did after a bad experience at a pecan farm, letting walkers roam in and destroy everything afterwards.

It's why at times, the show seemed to be having the characters shoot themselves in the foot constantly, so they could continue having zombie action scenes, because having the characters rebuild civilization just wasn't a story that they wanted to tell.

[Wargriffin]

Well if only they gave the Zombies some form of intelligence

https://ytcropper.com/cropped/W-5d9628c33e62d

[Admiral X]

I, too, couldn't help but have a laugh at Merel's expense in Escaflowne thanks to TWD.

Also, this episode made me think this show could have used a different form of Guts to help out this group.

[CrypticMirror]

For instance, the Herschel farm from season 2. There's no reason not to raid all the local hardware stores and construction sites, build up a cement wall around the farmhouse and barn, then build another fence further out for crops and at well locations, etc.

Well, first they got to figure out how they are going to get Mexico to pay for all that.

[clearspira]

Here's a question: Is Rick Grimes actually Kathryn Janeway? I ask because given how they are both intensely bipolar in their fluctuating and contradictory morals and tendency to get their own people killed they are in many ways very similar characters. They also have a tendency to pick up annoying side characters that everyone watching hopes will die.

Sadly I think the group would probably have been better off with Janeway as for all her faults she is also a scientist whereas Rick only really knows how to shoot and not a lot else.

I think we can also admit that ParodyJaneway would have made this show awesome as F. She would have fed Neagan that baseball bat within three episodes.

[FlynnTaggart]

Two things always bothered me about the show, armor and zombie huntin'. Zombies are just people, they bite and scratch, its a very very very easy thing to defend against. Sports equipment, riot armor, heck my freaking stormtrooper armor made of plastic could provide a defense and to their credit they do show armor use on occasion. But it boggles my mind why everyone isn't wearing armor. Even if its the heat, its Georgia after all, having your limbs protected would do plenty to keep alot of people safe, you don't need to walk around as Sir Dude of Apocalypsia all the time.

The second thing is zombies being able to recognize the living. I can get that maybe people would smell different towards the beginning when people are showering and perfuming, a couple weeks sweating and stinking in the sun a person should smell just as rank as a zombie. And its not like people have super noses, the zombie virus might kill brain cells but shouldn't give dead people super nose powers. The people right then especially Rick might be able to be spotted by smell, people are still washing clothes and visibly clean but not as time goes on.

Behavior I can understand, the Shaun of the Dead style where if you act like a zombie they leave you alone but not smell.

Of course thats all nitpicking for a show that has the dead walking around and natural rotting processes dramatically slowed to the point someone who died years ago is still shambling around perfectly fine if maybe a bit pruny in Georgia heat rather then being a pile of bones and fluid.

Nitpicks aside probably the main thing I enjoyed about the show is the various characters. Glenn was always awesome, Rick and Shane had a good dynamic, and Merle despite being a reprehensible human being that part of you would want to leave on the roof to die you kinda felt sorry for despite getting himself in that situation. Someone, even someone like Merle, doesn't deserve to die alone and being eaten.

[FaxModem1]

Two things always bothered me about the show, armor and zombie huntin'. Zombies are just people, they bite and scratch, its a very very very easy thing to defend against. Sports equipment, riot armor, heck my freaking stormtrooper armor made of plastic could provide a defense and to their credit they do show armor use on occasion. But it boggles my mind why everyone isn't wearing armor. Even if its the heat, its Georgia after all, having your limbs protected would do plenty to keep alot of people safe, you don't need to walk around as Sir Dude of Apocalypsia all the time.

This is part of why the Kingdom works as a city state. Anyone guarding the walls or going out dresses like a knight in motorcycle/sports armor.

The second thing is zombies being able to recognize the living. I can get that maybe people would smell different towards the beginning when people are showering and perfuming, a couple weeks sweating and stinking in the sun a person should smell just as rank as a zombie. And its not like people have super noses, the zombie virus might kill brain cells but shouldn't give dead people super nose powers. The people right then especially Rick might be able to be spotted by smell, people are still washing clothes and visibly clean but not as time goes on.

Behavior I can understand, the Shaun of the Dead style where if you act like a zombie they leave you alone but not smell.

A stinky human will still smell like a living human. Have a guy running around without a shower for a month, he'll smell, but it will be of sweat, dirt, piss, and other bodily fluids. But, they will still be smelling of the living. A dead body smells like rotting flesh, which is a VERY different smell.

This is why mortuaries have to add preservatives to dead bodies before a funeral. The smell would be intolerable otherwise. Compare the smells of a high school locker room to a morgue, and note the contrast. Running around just smelling of your own juices wouldn't be camouflage, it would be a big advertisement about where the new meal is.

[FlynnTaggart]

A stinky human will still smell like a living human. Have a guy running around without a shower for a month, he'll smell, but it will be of sweat, dirt, piss, and other bodily fluids. But, they will still be smelling of the living. A dead body smells like rotting flesh, which is a VERY different smell.

This is why mortuaries have to add preservatives to dead bodies before a funeral. The smell would be intolerable otherwise. Compare the smells of a high school locker room to a morgue, and note the contrast. Running around just smelling of your own juices wouldn't be camouflage, it would be a big advertisement about where the new meal is.

The problem is the zombies aren't rotting, Rick wakes up about two months since the outbreak and many of the zombies he encounters look insanely fresh, like they were just turned. No sign of decay, they are not bloated, not infested with maggots, they look almost alive save the wounds. They probably shouldn't smell of anything beyond bodily fluids, a living person who hasn't bathed shouldn't smell much different beyond not probably having shit their pants (finding clean underwear must be fun in the apocalypse).

If they were rotting that should make them smelling the living even stranger as dead rotting things smell pretty darn bad and would I would think overpower any other smells I'd think not even getting into how rotting would destroy the soft tissues of the nose.

But they just don't seem to be rotting. Even the stuff they are eating doesn't rot if I remember correctly, they eat and "push" food out its obvious exit without digesting it or anything.

[Killerbee256]

If Merle was high it makes more sense, but it always bothered me why he didn't cut through the metal support or the hand cuff.

[Mickey_Rat15]

If zombieism is spread like a contact disease, then smearing yourselves with zombie offal may be idea for camoflage, but may be an excellent way to accidentally contaminate yourself.

Also, just imagine the smell from all those walking corpses.