The Walking Dead 4.03: Isolation

And it’s time for Week 3 of our Walking Dead posts (man, these weeks are flying by! I feel like we just wrote the last one).

Nikki: As if being stuck in a prison wasn’t bad enough, now many of the prison folk are actually trapped in Cell Block A, or Death Row. Where once it housed inmates who’d been charged with unspeakable crimes, now it simply houses people who have the flu, and will probably die from it.

“Isolation” wasn’t just about how certain people were trapped in a section of the prison, but also how each person seemed to be pushing their feelings down, denying what they were really going through in order to fit in in this new world. Beth holds Lil’ Ass Kicker and tells Maggie through the door that she can’t get upset about Glenn, because in this world, they simply don’t have the right to cry or get upset about things. Rick has been burying his sense of justice and righteousness and authority so deeply inside a pacifist shell that once that other side of him has been allowed to surface, he’s gone completely apeshit and beaten Tyreese to a pulp. Like Beth, Hershel tells everyone they have jobs to do, and his job is as a doctor, administering to the only other doctor they have, who is sick and dying.

And then there’s Carol. She quietly mourned the death of her daughter. She quietly flirted with Daryl. She quietly mourned the death of Dale. She quietly followed the others and made a place for herself. She quietly talked to Andrea. She quietly took care of Judith and quietly stood by Carl as he went through the death of his mother. She quietly stood back and watched Rick fall apart, and quietly continued to take care of everyone, stepping up to deal with food and be a part of the Council. She secretly took on the duty of teaching the children how to defend themselves, and agreed to become the adopted mother of the two little girls who lost their father last week. And then, when she saw two people being sick and not quarantining themselves, she quietly killed them, dragged their bodies outside, and burned them. And then quietly went about her business, collecting water, cleaning the pipes, taking care of the sick, helping quarantine them, agreeing to watch over Sasha, and giving her condolences to Tyreese. And then all of a sudden she wasn’t so quiet anymore, breaking down and kicking the water containers, wasting water, crying, and falling apart. Rick sees right through her calm façade, and realizes she’s the one who’s done this terrible thing. What will he do now, after vowing to take down the person who’d done this?

Josh, what did you think of the episode?

Joshua: Season four to date has spent most of its run time re-introducing us to the prison colony – as residence and residents alike – and setting up the contagion storyline that began to take shape when poor bespectacled Patrick took ill near the end of the premiere. Both of those first two episodes were great, by my estimation, but that is nonetheless one big chunk of construction without much in the way of significant return. This week's episode, scripted by creator Robert Kirkman, corrected that course in spades as “The Walking Dead” began to pay off all that setup with bloody interest, setting into motion a chain of events that will doubtless carry us through to mid-season, likely right up to the point when The Governor's ugly cyclopean mug pops back up again like we all know it must. As for what will be left of the place – or the people – by that time, it's anybody's guess. Because we're certainly off to a damned nasty start.

First and foremost, there is the superflu, which is swiftly spreading its way through the population and killing its victims with brutal efficiency. A medical epidemic of this kind was probably inevitable at some point, considering the state of the World At Large, the specific proximity of their living conditions within the prison, the persistent lack of proper nutrition, the scarcity of clean water and medicine, and this show's natural affinity for anguish and despair. But the severity of the problem doesn't fully snap into focus until it begins to affect members of the core group – first Sasha, then Glenn. They both quickly quarantine themselves, but even in a best-case scenario, that still means two members of the already small council out of commission for the foreseeable future.

When the decision is made to sequester the young and old, it is obvious that neither Carl nor Hershel like being lumped in with those considered to be the most vulnerable. They both go, albeit reluctantly, but Carl takes his pistol, and Hershel is plagued from the start by the idea that he could be doing more than merely sitting around, staring at the walls. Even the walls themselves seem to be arguing his case, as evidenced by the inspirational poster that reads: “SMOOTH SEAS DO NOT MAKE GOOD SAILORS.” And then, as he stares at the coffee mug in his hand, he remembers his herbalism, remembers the elderberry tea his wife used to make as flu remedy, and knows what he needs to do, heading out into the woods with Carl in tow.

Hershel's speech to Rick on their return, as he justifies going into the quarantined area to attend the sick, was one of the best in the series' history. The philosophy he outlines is not only noble and poignant, but also brilliantly practical in the sense that this harsh new world is one in which life itself is a danger, and the only way to make that kind of endless struggle worthwhile is for it to mean something, for the actions you take to be worthwhile. When even the act of breathing could be deadly, then suddenly no risk is too great to ensure the future.

On the other side of the coin, we are faced with Carol gone rogue, far beyond testing the boundaries of principled behavior and deep into self-righteous delusion. I told myself that the culprit in Karen and David's murder must be someone we know, and she should have been one of my first logical choices, but I still didn't see it coming. And despite the different light in which this revelation cast her earlier breakdown by the water barrel (the first time we've seen such an outburst from Carol in as long as I can remember), I have to wonder how conflicted she really is about her actions. She sees the murders as service to a greater ideal, just as Hershel views his trip down Death Row. The major difference is that Hershel made his sacrifice voluntarily, whereas Karen and David had no such option. Carol's intentions were pure, but that doesn't make the act itself any less appalling, or the situation any less complicated.

I sure would hate to be Rick right now.

Nikki: Agreed on the Carol front; if they do manage to find a cure and heal those who are sick, then what she did is beyond appalling, and she’ll have to live with that forever. Now, interestingly, I did see something on another site where fans were speculating that perhaps Carol didn’t do it, and instead she’s covering up for the little girl who’s sick now. The suggestion is that Carol told her not to be weak, to stare danger in the face and take care of it, and Lizzie took care of it. But could Lizzie have taken down two adults, killed them, dragged their bodies outside, doused them in gasoline, and burned them without anyone noticing? Not bloody likely. I don’t buy this one at all, and think we have to see this as a shocking turn of events.

I also loved Hershel’s speech. “You step outside, you risk your life. You take a drink of water, you risk your life… the only thing you can choose is what you’re risking it for.” I hope this character lasts forever, because he gets all the great lines these days. Over and over, the writers are reminding us that this is not our world anymore, and the rules we follow don’t work here. In which case… are we allowed to hold Carol up to the same scrutiny as we would someone in our world who did what she did? It’s a tough one.

I want to give a special shout-out here to Chad L. Coleman, who plays Tyreese, for putting in a tour de force performance this week. The pain and anguish on Tyreese’s face, the barely repressed fury, was so palpable I swear I could feel him shaking in rage through my television screen. That was the performance of the season so far. First he is shocked and furious over the death of Karen. Then the left side of his face is beaten by Rick (his good eye is the right one now, which is the opposite of the Governor’s good eye, a comment on his character if ever there was one) and we watch him angrily shoveling the grave for Karen, refusing to listen to Daryl’s reason. Then he accepts Rick’s apology, but charges him with finding — and punishing — the person who did this. Then he realizes Sasha is sick, and we watch him talk to her through the window, possibly for the last time, before deciding he’s not going to wallow, but do what he can to find a cure. And we see him talk to Carol, calm but in extreme pain, asking for her help with Sasha, complimenting her on being a good person, completely blind to the fact that she’s the one who did it. And finally, we see him sitting in the back seat of the car, surrounded by zombies, and looking like he’s about to give up. To just sit there and let them rip him to pieces actually seems like the much easier, much better way to go at this point. It’s living that’s so hard for him, especially on this horrific day. But he gets out of the car, chops his way through the walkers, and comes out on the other side. Cutty was amazing.

Back over to the quarantine, though, I couldn’t help but think that locking these people in isn’t just locking them away for everyone else’s good, but locking them to their doom. What about the woman insisting she just had allergies? I have terrible allergies in the summer, and imagined being in a situation where I’m actually perfectly healthy, but having allergic reactions to the weeds outside, and then I get locked into the Apocalyptic Chamber of Doom, and I’m pretty much sentenced to die. Maybe this was supposed to be metaphorical — showing that on many a Death Row, there are innocents sitting there who’ve been charged with crimes they didn’t commit — but I honestly thought that putting the sick ones into a room that’s guaranteed to make them sicker just seems counterproductive in a way. Yes, it’ll keep everyone else safe, but it’s killing the people you’re putting in there. My heart broke into a million pieces when Lizzie walked up to Carol and said she had a cough. I imagined being the mom and grabbing her and running out of the prison with her instead rather than locking in that horrible place. But as Beth says, in this world they no longer have the right to show emotions. You’re sick, you go in the Doom Chamber. End of story.

Joshua: It seems that quarantine was the least awful in a list of terrible choices, ranging anywhere from banishment to Dr. Carolvorkian. At least in this case, they're still together. And aside from the obvious buffer that their seclusion provides the uninfected, this system also protects the weakened ill from any danger beyond the flu, as the cells offer ready-made cages for those that pass away untended and would otherwise simply eat their way through the rest of the patients. Inelegant, perhaps, but effective.

In the meantime, we have the strike team of Michonne, Daryl, Tyreese and Bob Stookey out on a long excursion for medicine that looks like it just got considerably longer with the loss of their car. Daryl comes across as a knowledgeable mechanic, so it is possible they could find another vehicle along the way and get it working well enough for the return trip, but they certainly aren't going to make it back in a day any more. Fifty miles is a three-day hike, bare minimum, and that's just one way. But the whole trip is moot if they can't find a way around the massive horde of walkers they've discovered. This throng is the biggest we've seen, far larger than the one that overtook Hershel's farm, and if it's headed toward the prison... Well, let's just hope it isn't headed toward the prison.

[As an aside, however, I have to say that if someone twisted and enterprising enough – someone with a specific facial disfigurement, perhaps, and a tendency toward antisocial behavior – were to figure out a way to herd and propel such a group, like an undead drover, then I'd imagine presenting such a threat as the front line of an assault would prove insurmountable, regardless of how well-fortified the structure under attack. Nothing of that sort ever took place in the comics, so this is pure conjecture on my part and probably more a result of nostalgia for the good old days of crazy “Lost” theorizing than anything else. Still, TWD does love its foreshadowing, and I'd have a hard time believing this slow stampede won't come back to haunt us in some fashion before the season ends.]

I miss the days of crazy Lost theorizing...

Speaking of Bob Stookey... boy, does that guy have the worst luck or what? His first run after being taken into the group is the supermarket excursion where zombies literally rain down from the frickin' sky, and now he gets taken along simply because of his medical background and winds up in the midst of a Bonnaroo crowd of undead. It's almost like he's cursed. Fortunately, he couldn't be traveling with a band of bigger badasses than these three. But if the biblical plagues continue to follow him like this, I bet the invitations stop, whether he's a walking Merck manual or not.

Perhaps most significant in this sequence, however, was the cause of the accident in the first place: the sound of a human voice on the radio. The mind reels at the possibilities. Could you make out any of the broadcast, Nik?

Nikki: In the summer, at ComicCon, they aired a trailer for this season of The Walking Dead, and the trailer was subsequently posted to YouTube. In that trailer, they showed this very scene, and the voice on the radio was crystal clear: “Sanctuary,” it said, “Those who arrive, survive.” However, on the show’s broadcast on Sunday, the voice had definitely been distorted, like they didn’t want us to hear it that clearly. But here’s the trailer (the radio bit comes at the very end):

Is this the first they’ve heard a radio in the series? I don’t know why I feel like we heard another voice on a ham radio back in the first season, but perhaps that was in another apocalyptic TV show I watch (there are just so many!) I never even thought of The Guv’nah, but that would be amazing if he’s behind the massive zombie horde coming their way. That was terrifying to see them all coming up over the ridge. You’re right; they have to find another car to get back to the prison… if they’re on the run for drugs to save the lives of everyone in the prison, they don’t have three days to wait. Remember how fast this flu ran through Patrick?

Any final thoughts on the episode, Josh?

Joshua: Just one quick thing before we wrap. Excepting the possibility that Carol is protecting little Lizzie by confessing to the murders in her place (a scenario which I also find unlikely but dare not dismiss outright), I continue to be mystified by who was feeding the walkers through the fence. My initial thoughts linked the two actions together as those of a single saboteur, but now I wonder who else could be responsible, and why. Is this deliberate subversion or something else entirely? It is the show's first real mystery, and one that has my imagination tying itself in knots.

Whatever the case, I can't wait for whatever Sunday night brings.

Bits & Bobs:

•  Effects empresario and sometime-director Greg Nicotero and his KNB team really outdid themselves this week. Both the mossy and bear trapped walkers that Carl and Hershel encounter at the campsite were absolute classics, but in particular, the long looks at Karen and David's burnt corpses that we got this week revealed a level of detail I missed in their initial reveal, right down to the charred underwire of Karen's bra. These kinds of things really lend so much more narrative heft to these moments, and my hat's off to them.

•  Michonne: “He's already given me fleas.” A joke! Just for you, Nikki.

•  It's been a long time since we saw Beth and Maggie have a heart-to-heart. I sure do hope that doesn't bode ill for either.

•  Really surprised that Carl didn't press Hershel to shoot the walkers in the woods, considering what happened last time he left one moving. RIP, Dale.

•  “We decided to do that tomorrow.” “We don't know if we get a tomorrow.”

•  I may like Glenn and Hershel's relationship more than any other on the show these days. The two of them have come so far together, and I love how the writers have handled it. And that shot of the two of them silhouetted against the cell doors at the beginning of their conversation was just gorgeous. This show could use more beauty.

Happy Halloween, gang. Don't forget your flashlight.

The Walking Dead: 4.02 "Infected"

And with death, mayhem, Tom Waits, and poor slaughtered pigs, we welcome (I think) another week’s episode of The Walking Dead! As always, I’m joined by Josh Winstead. Let’s jump right in.

Nikki: And the grim just keeps getting grimmer. I’ll be honest, after this week’s episode my husband and I had a discussion about whether or not we’re still enjoying watching The Walking Dead, given how terribly bleak it’s become. There’s not an ounce of humour or lightness to be found on the show. Sure, there’s hope — Tyreese finds love, Carol and Daryl possibly get together, Beth has a new boyfriend, Glen and Maggie get married, Rick finds inner peace and builds a garden, they fortify the prison and begin to live real organized lives — but we see NONE of that. All we see is when their worlds begin to fall apart, when Tyreese and Beth lose their loved ones, when Rick loses all hope and his inner peace is destroyed, when the farm is burned, when parents lose their children, when children lose their parents.

I’d like to talk about the mothering aspect first. As we know, Carol lost her abusive husband, and then lost her beloved daughter, looked for her for most of a season, and then discovered she’d been turned into a walker when Sophia came lumbering out of Hershel’s barn in what is still the saddest moment of the series for me. She almost went into a sort of denial, didn’t seem to be in mourning for very long, and ended up joking and an even happier version of her normal self soon after. Now she’s taken on the mother bear role of the group, teaching all the children how to wield weapons and protect themselves when in harm.

When the two little girls lose their father in this episode and moments later, Carol, their surrogate mother, is telling the eldest girl how weak she was for not staring her dead daddy in the face and sticking a knife through it, I immediately thought she could take the prize for most ineffective mothering ever. Couldn’t we give these girls 24 hours to mourn before giving them the whole, “YOU ARE WEAK AND WILL NEVER SURVIVE” speech? But then I realized no, this is a new world. A world where Beth no longer cries when someone dies, because people dying is as common as going out to fill up the car with gas once was. It’s a world where you can’t let the girls mourn for 24 hours, because in 24 hours they could be dead. She needs to teach them that this world is a harsh, terrible one, where the corpse they saw is no longer their father, but a shell that will momentarily house a demon that will rise up and kill them with no remorse. It’s no longer their father. She needs to instill this in them because for all she knows, the little one will be dead tomorrow and the older girl will need to stick a knife in her forehead.

Like I said, grim.

Josh, what did you think of this episode?

Josh: I'd say 'grim' sums it up quite well. The events of “Infected” served to accelerate us directly into the oncoming train of contagion we glimpsed at the end of last week's premiere, and it did so very effectively, killing off perhaps a dozen denizens of the expanded prison colony in very short order. And no, that's never going to be fun. Unless you place bets, or maybe turn it into some kind of predictive drinking game. But assuming you watch the show for entertainment instead of an excuse to gamble and/or imbibe hard liquor (not that you can't do both), I'll admit that season 4 thus far has been short on optimism.

Of course, no one watches this show for its levity. Still, I think it's reasonable to wish a finer balance could be struck, some way to temper all that darkness with a bit more light than is offered by brief, glancing instances like Beth singing the baby her a cappella rendition of “I Don't Want To Grow Up.” In fact, I was faced with a similar situation last year when, after almost ten years of being a steady fan, I elected to stop reading the “Walking Dead” comics for just the same reasons. Any ongoing series with a premise so dark runs the risk of overwhelming its audience at some point – of crossing the line from dour to unpleasant – just by the nature of its own frequency, if nothing else. The ideas and situations that logically carry such a narrative forward are not cheery ones, by and large; something needs to happen, and it probably wouldn't be the whole gang throwing an old fashioned hoedown in the prison gym. It's a slippery slope for a writer, finding something for the audience to cling to in a story where everything is so tenuous by default. I think in this instance, things will get worse before they get better, and mileage will surely vary on where the line falls for the viewer.

A big part of what keeps me engaged and invested is the way each character's history continues to inform their behavior, and how well that plays into my emotional response, strumming my empathy like a virtuoso. Episodes like this deliver their hits with such regularity and precision that afterward, I'm left reeling. And sure, I'm basically a big teddy bear, but those moments of poignant relativity are the reason I love movies and tv in the first place. I watch because I want to feel something, and from the pain on Rick's face as he throws that last runty pig to the walkers, to the gentle way Carol tucks that flower behind the little girl's ear after the harshness of her instruction, to the cathartic release of Michonne's breakdown as she finally takes Judith in her arms, “Infected” delivered throughout.

One of my favorite aspects of these first two episodes has been the continuing evolution of Rick and Carl's relationship. I loved the way their scenes played out this week. In particular, Carl's decision to tell Rick the truth about Carol's covert weapons training not as instigation but ingress, as a way to prompt a deeper discussion about their own rapport and their place within the larger group, indicates a much deeper respect and maturity than I would have expected. I'm curious to hear what you think so far.

Nikki: Well put. Hope is something I can’t get rid of, no matter how dire the circumstance, and it’s been what I’ve clung to the entire series. Hope that they’ll stay together, hope that Sophia is still alive, hope that they’ll be able to get on top of the zombie apocalypse. Then we lose people, Sophia is dead, and not only do the zombies keep coming, but now we know THEY will all turn into zombies, too. In the book World War Z (spoiler ahead): they eventually find an end to the zombie plague, but only after the world’s population has been decreased exponentially. But that’s because it’s a different kind of plague, not one they all contain within them. It’s a dark but brilliant metaphor, that in some sort of Hobbesian way, man is essentially evil at his core, and contains a darkness within that he cannot escape no matter what.

I laughed out loud (see? There WAS some levity after all!) when Rick said, “Carl, don’t ask questions, just go to the tower with Maggie,” and I wondered if that would be the new meme: Rick says, “Carl, get in the fucking tower!” Carl’s not in the tower… But Carl really has matured. There’s a moment where we all go, “CARL!” when he tells Rick exactly what Carol made him promise not to tell him: that she’s training the children to use weaponry. But then he immediately stands by her, telling Rick she’s doing the right thing. Of course, there’s a self-serving aspect of it — he wants his damn gun back — but Carl doesn’t want the gun just to shoot things; he wants the gun to protect people. And he proves that when he grabs the gun and instinctively kills the zombie who’s grabbing Michonne, when 95% of the people who would have grabbed that gun would have instead accidentally killed Michonne. He knows how to use the gun, and he’s old enough to be a protector. His dad wants him to be a peaceful farmer, but that’s not what this society demands or needs as much as a protector.

And let’s move over to Michonne for a moment. That last scene with her was extraordinary. We know very little about Michonne pre-plague, and now there’s a suggestion that she lost a child. Which, of course, puts a whole new spin on that scene from last season in the Governor’s secret room. He was “protecting” his daughter, hoping he could find a cure for what ailed her, and was failing to see that she was long gone, and instead her body had simply been reanimated by this monster within it. Michonne, on the other hand, knew the hard truth, and shoved a sword through the child. Did she have to kill her own child? Or is she just remembering her two pets, which we’ve strongly assumed could have been brothers of hers? Were they kid brothers? Did she raise them when they were little babies, and then just killed them outright without a second thought? Did she keep them close to harden herself against them, knowing they weren’t her brothers anymore?

Usually episodes of The Walking Dead have a common thread running through the stories, and there was definitely a parenting one in this one: how does a father say goodbye to his girls? How do the girls look upon the body of their father and believe it’s not him? How must one be a parent and a child in an apocalypse? Can a parent allow his/her child to take up weaponry? Can you be as callous-seeming as Carol, knowing that through her tough love she’s actually being the better parent?

Rick and Carl are forging a new relationship, trying to find their way from being a father and son in the world they once knew to equals in a fight against monsters. Glen and Maggie are newly married, but the possibility of a pregnancy terrifies them, rather than being the happy news it should have been. Carol has mourned Sophia, and now will raise these two girls very differently. Sophia was her daughter in the world before the plague, but she will convey completely different parenting techniques in this new world. Michonne has been the hardest of them all, but she doesn’t want to be anywhere near Lil’ Ass Kicker, and when she’s forced to, she breaks down. Perhaps that hardened exterior is all a show, hiding a devastated mother underneath it all. No wonder she took to Carl over all of them. In the now-infected cell block, parents are burying their children, and children are burying their parents, and they’re trying to do it without tears, blocking the emotions they once reserved for occasions like this.

Joshua: I want to take a moment and make special mention of the actor who played the girls' father. Dealing with so many new characters among an established cast always opens up the possibility of these big emotional beats landing flat when they relate to people with whom the audience has no history. Save the writing, there's probably no more significant aspect of keeping things compelling than the cast chosen to illustrate it, and that guy was fantastic. His performance was the primary reason I got wrapped up in their story, and as it undoubtedly progresses in the future, the idea that his delivery of two or three simple lines of dialogue will be enough to keep his memory clear in my head is remarkable.

Speaking of bit players, this week saw the death of Karen, who I thought would wind up playing a larger part in the season after how prominently she figured into these first episodes. Her horrible end, and the circumstances thereof, service the larger mystery introduced in the opening – namely, that someone inside the prison has been sabotaging its defenses. Details are scant at this point, but we know a person (or persons) has been feeding the walkers at the fence, presumably in an effort to compromise the perimeter, as we saw with the almost-breach foiled by Rick's clever porcine diversion. Less clear are the reasons for the burning of the flu patients; we aren't even certain they were dead when they were burned. At first, I thought that it might have been done in an effort to eradicate evidence, to render the bodies unsuitable for investigation and/or testing that might illuminate the details of the contagion and maybe allow for the beginnings of protection against it. Then again, such tests could easily be impossible to perform under the circumstances, so I don't know. Right now, we have nothing but questions. Is the illness a deliberate creation or merely bad luck? Is it just the rats at the fence, or are there other methods of treachery we don't yet know about? Is the culprit someone we've already met or an entirely new character that won't be revealed until later? We know that Michonne's systematic combing of the countryside in search of the Governor has yielded nothing, so it is conceivable he's hiding out somewhere in the bowels of the prison, creeping out under cover of night to wreak his twisted havoc on both Rick's team and the Woodbury emigrants he no doubt views as having betrayed him. It remains to be seen how long we'll have to wait for solid answers, but right now, pretty much anything's possible.

Meanwhile, poor Cutty is in a bad place. We've been led to believe that Tyreese has been having a hard time incorporating into the group; we know he doesn't like working the fence or going on supply runs, and we haven't seen him close with anyone except Karen and Sasha. Now his meager support system is halved, and with the remaining half serving as part of the council, he's left with a lot of anger and no ear to bend, much less a quiet method of diversion. The longer this situation drags on without resolve, the angrier he's going to get. And I don't believe the answers are coming soon.

Nikki: They won’t be coming soon at all, you’re right; this is clearly the mystery that will be drawn out throughout the season. Poor Cutty… I hope Sasha doesn’t get sick, because I’m not sure he’d be able to go on after that. At first, I think we’re supposed to believe when we see the blood in the bed that Karen died like Patrick, with blood coming out of every orifice of her face, and then dragged herself along the ground to the outside (at least, that’s what I was thinking was happening at first). But then we see the charred bodies outside and it was far more sinister than that. It looks more like she was hit in the head or something, or shot, then dragged outside and incinerated. God, I hope she was dead first (shudder at the thought she wasn’t).

My immediate reaction at the end of the episode is that the rat feedings and burnings were being done by the same person. My husband, on the other hand, didn’t see a connection at all. He didn’t think the rat feedings were being done to hurt the fence on purpose, but that the little girl — who referred to the zombie as “Nate” — saw the walkers as some sort of pets that she needed to take care of. I disagree with that notion. For one, I’m pretty sure we see the rats dangling far above the zombies’ heads at first, and the little girl simply isn’t that tall. I think there’s something far more purposeful at work here.

As grim as this show is, I think it’s brilliantly done. In a world where zombies are everywhere and you’re running to stand still, you simply can’t get on top of the carnage. There’s no way to get ahead, no way to find a light. Now that they’re all possibly infected, the only way they can sleep at night is to lock themselves into the cells the way that one guy did. But do they have keys to all the cells? If so, they’ll have to each go to their own cell, lock the door, and pray that they’ll be human the next morning and able to open it. The prison was created to lock inmates in. Then it became a place to lock the zombies out. Now it serves both purposes simultaneously. It’s starting to make Woodbury look like a haven again…

Any last thoughts, Josh?

Joshua: As much as “The Walking Dead” is a show about survival, it is also a story about home: what it is, what it means to have one, and, in absentia, what it costs. This season began by reintroducing us to these characters' present homes, both physical and emotional, and then began to systematically break them all apart, piece by piece. I hope these relentless attacks don't eventually serve to drive them out of the prison altogether, because as vulnerable as it's been made to seem – and aside from tenacity and togetherness – it's pretty much all they've got.

Bits & Bobs:

•  Noted during the D Block attack that all the usual running and screaming, but with the addition of children into the mix, was infinitely more upsetting. Not a fan of kids in jeopardy.

•  During the council meeting scene, I thought the matchstick lamp on the table was a particularly brilliant touch. Prison arts & crafts for the win.

•  “You see mistakes. I see when the shit hits, you're standing there with a shovel.”

•  Michonne, again. That scene with Beth and the baby was just goosebumpy, heartbreaking perfection.

•  The walker getting squeezed through the chain link fence made me think the show should investigate the possibilities of a Play Doh playset cross-promotion. I swear they'd make a fortune.

•  Props to the venerable Bear McCreary, whose score for this entry was outstanding, particularly during the pig slaughter sequence. That music coupled with Andrew Lincoln's extraordinary silent performance was so good as to rival even the stuff with Michonne. Almost.

•  “I know you're gonna say it's not up to you. But it can be.”

•  From my notes, when Rick strips down and throws his bloody shirt in the fire: “Fan service, ladies! Next week, Daryl spills motor oil aaaaaaall over himself!”

See you then.

Books in 2013: #25-30

OK, I'm now on my 40th book of the year, and realized that I've only listed up to 24 (and that was way back in August or something). So now... short reviews of each book, just so I can begin to catch up. Here we go!!

#25 Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
This one came as a recommendation from many friends, and it's a truly fascinating account of the author, at age 26 in 2009, suddenly descending into what appears to be insanity, and just as she was about to be committed to a mental institution because of her screaming, moaning, vegetative states, a doctor was called in who spent a couple of hours with her, did a few tests, and discovered that a part of her brain was off-kilter. Two months later, she was back to living a normal life. It's a fascinating book, one I can't stop thinking about, and I very highly recommend it. Interestingly, the doctor who ultimately gives the correct diagnosis passes a piece of paper over the desk to her at one point and asks her to draw a clock, and she fills in the clock with all the numbers shuffled off to one side, even though to her, it looks like a normal clock, and that's the trigger that tells him what's wrong. I read this, and a couple of weeks later the episode of Hannibal aired where Hannibal got Will to do the same thing, and Will also bunched the numbers on the one side of the clock, letting Hannibal know exactly what was wrong with him (if I'm right, he also describes it as Will's brain being on fire). It made me wonder if Bryan Fuller had also read this book.

#26 & 27 Fables: Legends in Exile & Fables: Animal Farm
I'd been told by various graphic novel readers that I really needed to check out the Fables series; but I'd also read things saying that Fables was the sort of book that non-graphic novel readers who pretend they love graphic novels read... along with things like Scott Pilgrim. (Probably written by comic-book snobs, and by the way, Scott Pilgrim is FANTASTIC.) So I finally picked it up, and while I'd say the plot is a little lightweight, it's still a pretty good and fun read. Much like on Once Upon a Time, the characters are fairy tale creatures who've found their way into our world after a huge coup d'état in fairy-tale land that ousted them, but they live in secrecy. Creatures who look human (like Snow White and Little Boy Blue) can live amongst us, but those who don't (like the Three Little Pigs or the Gingerbread Man) live in a little hidden fairy-tale land in the forest in upstate New York. The first one was pretty good, if the story was a little banal (Snow White, who's the badass ruler, discovers her sister Rose Red has died and needs to get to the bottom of it) but the second one, Animal Farm was much better, when Snow goes up to do her annual check on the non-humanoid fairy-tale creatures and discovers a revolt in progress, where the characters are sick and tired of being exiled to this particular area. It was fabulous, and made me want to move onto the third, which I've just started reading.

#28 A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
This is one I'd had my eye on for a long time. Goon Squad is a Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel by the amazing Jennifer Egan, which is effectively a bunch of connected short stories that all tell one long one. There's the record company executive who's past his prime but still trying to find the next best thing; his former assistant; and their friends and family. The story moves into the past, present, and future of the novel's writing, but along the timelines of the people, and by reading it all the way through you really get a sense of the story of these people. There was one section about a filial connection that comes so quickly and wallops you without warning, and I was instantly in tears, and that one moment really stuck with me and coloured the rest of the book (in a really good way). The end of the book looks into a not-too-distant future, where children are all connected to various tablets right from infancy, yet the world still finds a way to connect face-to-face. A brilliant book.

#29 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
This is one of those books I've had for years, ever since it was actually first released, but then the Finding Lost series got in the way, and during the years of writing that series, I barely saw any TV or read any books that weren't connected to Lost in some way, so this is one of those books that I kept starting and restarting, but had to stop to let another book project get in the way instead. So I finally got to read it when it was suggested for my graphic novel book club (hey, check it out, this is the first one on the list that's a book club pick!) I LOVED this book, even though many members of the book club didn't. It's a thinly veiled account of the creators of Superman (even though Siegel and Shuster actually exist independently in the book as Kavalier and Clay's chief rivals), told from Kavalier's origins as a refugee from Hitler's Nazis, through to joining forces with his cousin and creating The Escapist, a Houdini-like superhero who uses his powers of escapism to help the downtrodden and persecuted. Other members of our group didn't love the digressions the story took when it left NYC and the actual comics, but I thought the book was a fascinating look at expats during the Second World War, and what they had to go through as they left their families behind in an attempt to make a new life for themselves. And, of course, of the Golden Age of Comics. Great book.

#30 The Escapists by Brian K. Vaughan
This was the companion book to the previous one; in the book club we were asked to not only read Chabon's book, but one of two graphic novels that have been written to go with it. I thought I had bought the one that was actually artistic renderings of the stories that Kavalier and Clay shape and talk about in Chabon's book, but I'd bought the other one; BKV's sequel of sorts, where in the 21st century three young people buy the rights to Kavalier and Clay's Escapist character and try to bring him back to life with their own comic skills. I thought the book was a little dull, and too much of a love letter to Chabon (with Chabon's introduction being too much of a love letter to BKV) and even though I'm a huge, huge fan of BKV, this is not one of his better efforts. I went back and bought the other one, so I'll read that.

I shall halt there, and list the next bunch soon. Whew, that's caught us up soon! What sort of books have you guys been reading lately? Anything you can recommend to me?

The Walking Dead: 4.01 "30 Days Without an Accident"

Hello, all you lovers of walkers and all things gory… it’s time for the return of The Walking Dead posts!! As always, I’m joined by my compatriot in zombie head-smashing, Joshua Winstead, writing all the way from the land of TWD filming: Atlanta, Georgia. And yet, through the magic of the internet, we can make it look like we’re sitting right next to each other. Ooooo…

We do apologize for the lateness of this one. First, Canadian Thanksgiving got in the way of me getting anything over to Josh before Monday evening. And then he’s in one of his busiest work seasons of the year. And, oh right, I have work, too. So this is a rather quick and dirty post, but next week will be better. ;) Until then, prepare thyself for the loopiest, most stream-of-consciousness rundown of the episode you'll read this week. ;) 

In the season 4 premiere, Tyreese has a girlfriend, Beth’s got a boyfriend, and Carl’s got a pig. By the end of the episode, two of those relationships have been forever altered.

Nikki: Let’s start right at the beginning. Six months have passed since the last episode of the show, and I’m thinking they’re showing this in real time, because a period that is possibly about six months has also passed on the show. (They may have said the exact period at one point, but I missed it if they did.) In that time, the new people from Woodbury have been brought to the prison and integrated into the group; they’ve reinforced the fence and built large extra wooden fences with big pointy sticks on them to impale zombies who might get a little too close; they’ve introduced a pulley-system to open the front gate to let people in and out; they’ve instituted some sort of council to decide things for the group; they’ve socialized into hunters and gatherers, food preparers, schooling systems, social groups, and committees; they’ve created a garden; they have a horse and a few pigs… in other words, they’re starting anew inside the walls of a prison. There’s a great scene at the very beginning of the episode where Rick — who appears to have regained his marbles since the dire events of season 3 — goes out to the garden and we see him digging. In order to block out the sounds of the zombies, he wears earbuds, and we hear only the music he hears. (Did anyone else, by the way, think, how the hell did he charge an iPod?) And then, when he finds a gun buried under the dirt, he stops to look at it, and for one moment, removes one of the earbuds. And only then does this seeming paradise turn into the walled hell that it really is, with the snarling, growling walkers pawing the air behind him, desperate to break through the fence. It’s a brilliant set-up scene, showing that time has passed, some things have improved, but at its core, the world is still the same.

Josh, what did you think of the beginning scenes?

Josh: Hi, gang. Welcome back to Badnewsburg! Everyone enjoy their summer vacation? My summer was amazing, aside from one unfortunate beachside incident wherein my daughter sprayed bargain bin aerosol sunscreen into my eyes. Kids, you know? I'm not quite back to 100% just yet, but I feel improvement every day. My wife says it's looking much better, but mirrors are fairly useless to me at present, so I'll let you be the judge:

Not so bad, right? Wish I could figure out why she won't kiss me any more... Ah, well – I'm sure she'll come around in time.

Speaking of which, life has been moving right along at the folksiest prison in Georgia since last we met. The size of the group has grown considerably, both from the incorporation of the Woodbury survivors and the periodic welcoming of other random refugees from outside the fence, and it appears that this increase in the labor pool has led to a boom of sorts. The new systems are keeping everyone safe and well fed, and romance is in the air. It's almost... peaceful. Must be time for things to start going horribly wrong.

I really enjoyed how clearly the new dynamic was established even in so few broad strokes, with big changes detailed in very naturalistic ways. We learn that Rick has not simply given up his gun for a wheelbarrow – he's surrendered his authority entirely, leaving the government of their enclave up to a council of elders from the old core group: Hershel, Carol, Daryl, Sasha and Glenn. The sheriff is focused on raising food and raising his family, content to leave his old ways behind him and try to set a different example for his son moving forward. My guess would be that there is more than a little atonement weighting this decision, too. Rick sees plenty of hands to do the ugly work now, and he's more than happy to opt out. He's recovered from his mental break and doing well, but he's not the same as before.

No one's the same, really. Daryl seems calmer and quieter but still struggling to make peace with the notion of himself as authority figure and role model. Carol continues to mature into the tough, clearheaded veteran we began to see last season, working hard in the camp by day and using her regular evening “story time” to secretly tutor the camp children in the unsubtle art of apocalyptic self-defense. Glenn and Maggie, now married, are grappling with the notion of starting a family amidst the perpetual danger and uncertainty. Carl continues to work at reconciling his age with his experience, but it has obviously left him feeling like he belongs nowhere, with no one. Michonne is slowly combing the surrounding area for any sign of the Governor, still spending most of her time alone but certainly coming across as more personable than the cigar store indian she played most of last year. And poor Beth, once so delicate that she could scarcely be talked out of suicide, has now sworn off emotional attachment in favor of a hardened stoicism.

All in all, pragmatism still rules the day for our old friends, but considering the circumstances, it's a necessary efficiency. And really, when viewed in light of their existence up to now, the present must feel positively dreamy. Even in spite of the buildup of walkers on the fence and Violet feeling poorly, things seemed to be looking up. For a minute there.

What did you think of the new characters we met this week, Nik?

Nikki: Well, there were a lot of them, that’s for sure, and I don’t actually remember many of them. There’s the guy who’s Beth’s boyfriend (who is no more by the end of the episode) and the guy with the glasses (who is no more by the end of the episode) and Tyreese’s girlfriend, and D’ANGELO BARKSDALE!!! (I don’t trust him for a second, especially around Cutty) and I’m sure there were a few others with lines, but instead it seemed to be that previously secondary characters like Tyreese and Beth were given larger roles.

There’s also the woman who lures Rick to her campsite in the woods. Now, I’m assuming everyone watching knew that was a trap from the get-go — the camera didn’t just zoom in on a spider on its web for nothing — but Rick goes along with it. (Before I say anymore, please tell me that you also thought she was a zombie at first. She spoke and I thought, “OMG the zombies can SPEAK NOW!!!” and was entirely freaked out, and every moment after that, as they were walking through the woods, I think she scared me more than any of the zombies on the show.) 

At least Rick had his back up and was ready just in case she jumped him, which she did. She says she’s bringing him back for her husband, but you see this heap under a blanket. Was it a husband or a baby? If it were a grown adult zombie, wouldn’t it be up and walking around and not huddled under a blanket? I was convinced it was a zombie baby under there, but the hump looked too big to be a baby. Maybe it was just the torso? God knows… maybe they blew their budget during the “Don’t look now but zombies are coming through the ceiling at Safeway!!” scene.

This storyline obviously ends badly, and in advance Rick tells her that he’ll ask her three questions. I paused and said to my husband, “What would your three questions be?” and he said, “Bah, I don’t like thinking about these things,” so I threw the remote at him and told him I’m finding a new Walking Dead viewing buddy (not all of this necessarily happened) but in that moment I thought my three questions would be to ask them if they’d killed any walkers, and if they’d killed any people, and then I was stuck on the third. So I was rather pleased when the first two questions he asked were variations on mine. And the third one — “Why?” — was of course the necessary followup to asking if the person had killed any humans. Mine probably would have been, “Are you a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer?” I don’t think I would do well in an apocalypse.

What did you think of Rick’s three questions, Josh?

Joshua: It's funny, because I also paused at this point in the episode, wrinkled up my nose, and said in a crazy voice, “Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three, ere the other side he see!” which sort of broke the mood, because up to that point Clara had been freaking me out, too, and then suddenly all I could think about was Monty Python. (No, seriously; not long thereafter, I was asking myself why her skin seemed to have that greenish tone, wondering whether it was deliberate camouflaging or perhaps anemia, when I suddenly and uncontrollably took on a feminine Cockney accent and crowed aloud, “It's 'cos she's Irish, o' course!”)

Like you, I thought that Rick's questions were fairly perfect. However, their usefulness would be dependent on the interrogator's ability to distinguish honest answers from lies. In this world, I'd have to wonder how often you could count on the truth, and the mere process of judgment is wildly dangerous, as this encounter proved. Rick played things very cautious from the jump, but he still almost got himself killed, and it's no wonder why the council wanted him armed for the trip.

Clara's storyline was a tense, poignant way of further illustrating how the group has begun to try bringing in people from the outside, showing us the vetting process and its unavoidable hazards, but it also effectively sets up what I suspect will be a recurring theme this season: namely, how trustworthy a stranger can be. I say that not only because there are so many new faces in the group, and likewise so much potential for secrets, but also because I have a very bad feeling indeed about the events at the end of the episode. Everything about the deaths of Violet the pig and Patrick the glasses kid, down to all those ominous shots of water throughout the episode, would seem to point toward some kind of natural but wholly terrible contagion that is bound to threaten the safety of their haven far beyond just the havoc wrought by one roving walker in the middle of the night. I'm no epidemiologist, but if what they're facing is a waterborne illness like cholera, then might that not render the prison flatly uninhabitable? And if that's the case, then how can they hope to relocate a group this size?

Ms. Stafford, how did you interpret these portentous developments?

Nikki: Ooh, no you di’int!! You referenced both Monty Python and the Holy Grail AND mentioned water?! Therefore, I cannot resist… I predict this as an upcoming scene:

King Arthur: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. That is why I am your king.

Dennis the Peasant: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

Arthur: Be quiet!

Dennis the Peasant: You can't expect to wield supreme power just ’cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!

Ah, I could keep at this all day. Next week we must figure out how to write our entire rundown using only Monty Python quotes. And also, if Rick’s third question had instead asked the Irish woman what the air-speed velocity of a well-laden swallow was, it would have been epic. (Side note: my six-year-old son now will tell me that if I want him to get his pyjamas on, “You must answer me these questions three.” Then he usually just asks one.)

But back to seriousness and death!! While I wasn’t anticipating any Python, I was half-anticipating a zombie pig, which would have been amazing. (Cue Homer Simpson singing the “Zombie Pig” song.) Wait… I said this was serious times now. Ahem.

I’m trying to figure out how Patrick got sick, and what could have caused it. Out in the woods we saw dead deer that seemed to have just died for no apparent reason. Then Violet the pig was dead. Patrick is sick at the end, but I didn’t see him eating any pork. However, I DID see Daryl eating the pork, but he’s not sick. BUT remember when Patrick walked up to him to fawn all over him? Daryl’s holding pork in his hands, then he licks his fingers and shakes Patrick’s hand. Is it possible he passed something over to him? Or is it just coincidence? And why would Daryl be immune if he was actually eating the tainted meat? It’s unclear at this point, but now there’s a new threat from the inside. What is causing the animals to get sick? Has the original plague that caused the zombie threat in the first place gone airborne somehow? It’s a frightening thought, and now Patrick is locked in with them, and could have passed on his illness to any of them.

In the scene where Carol is reading to the children as a guise to actually teach them how to survive in a post-apocalyptic world, she’s reading a passage from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, the scene where Tom and his girlfriend Becky get lost in the cave and run out of food and water, and worry that no one will notice they’re gone until it’s too late:

Becky gave loose to tears and wailings. Tom did what he could to comfort her, but with little effect. At length Becky said:
   "Tom!”
   "Well, Becky?"
   "They'll miss us and hunt for us!"
   "Yes, they will! Certainly they will!"
   "Maybe they're hunting for us now, Tom."
   "Why, I reckon maybe they are. I hope they are."
   "When would they miss us, Tom?"
   "When they get back to the boat, I reckon."
   "Tom, it might be dark then — would they notice we hadn't come?"
   "I don't know. But anyway, your mother would miss you as soon as they got home."
   A frightened look in Becky's face brought Tom to his senses and he saw that he had made a blunder. Becky was not to have gone home that night! The children became silent and thoughtful. In a moment a new burst of grief from Becky showed Tom that the thing in his mind had struck hers also — that the Sabbath morning might be half spent before Mrs. Thatcher discovered that Becky was not at Mrs. Harper's.
   The children fastened their eyes upon their bit of candle and watched it melt slowly and pitilessly away; saw the half inch of wick stand alone at last; saw the feeble flame rise and fall, climb the thin column of smoke, linger at its top a moment, and then — the horror of utter darkness reigned!

Carol’s going to teach them the instincts they need so they don’t feel as helpless as Tom and Becky in that scene, unless Carl runs off to tell his dad first.

There are so many other things we both want to say, but it’s Thursday already, and we need to have this posted for all of you before the next episode airs! But first, I just wanted to say a few things:

 -When Hershel first walked over to Rick, I said to my husband, “Um… did he grow a leg in the last six months?!” No, instead he’s found a prosthetic so perfect he doesn’t even limp.

-I know that Daryl has gone from redneck to fan favourite to unlikely pinup boy, but the high-fashion model hairdo they had on him was a bit much, I thought.

-The zombies through the supermarket ceiling definitely unleashed a whole new level of disgusting on this show, from the walker hanging from the light fixtures by his intestines to the one whose head smashed like a water balloon to the one whose face D’Angelo peeled off. GOOD GOD.

And if we had more time, Josh says he would have talked about:

-the great Stanley Brothers version of “Precious Memories” they used in the opening

-the Tom Sawyer passage

-Michonne killing the cardboard Frankenstein

-Carol calling Daryl “pookie.” Yeah. What WAS up with that?!

Maybe next week we’ll be able to go longer and find more time. Until then… rawr! (That is the lamest attempt at a zombie growl EVER.)