At least one episode was written by a woman (Secrets) and it looks like episode 1 of season 2 may have been co-written by one.
One thing people forget is that in addition to shooting Otis, Shane took the equipment Otis had been carrying. That’s why Shane had to shave his head, because Otis was clawing at it and pulling Shane’s hair while Shane grabbed the supplies away from Otis.
So if Otis and Shane had split up and Otis didn’t make it, Carl would have died because Otis was carrying the supplies they needed.
If Otis and Shane kept running until Otis got overrun, Carl would have died.
Carl needed those supplies and Shane needed to take them from Otis.
You’re forgetting that Otis helped Shane get up off the ground and go on before Shane capped his ass.
If Shane was so concerned about Carl, why didn’t he shoot himself in the leg and give Otis his gear? He was gonna give up before Otis talked him up off the ground, anyway.
Zombies eating Shane would have given Otis the same opportunity to escape with the needed supplies and save Carl, but no one would have needed to commit murder.
Anyway, what’s done is done.
Nothing of the sort has been made quite clear - in fact, the opposite. We’ve seen Walkers eating a deer, and when they cut open the Walker’s belly to see if he ate Sophia, they found woodchuck. Clearly they DO need to eat, though the nature of that “need” is unclear, and clearly they ARE catching wild animals when they don’t have people.
We don’t need to debate who the more kind-hearted, altrusitic person is. I think Otis wins that contest. Does Shane capping Otis make Shane a worse person than Otis? Yeah, probably. Does it make Shane’s actions wrong? Not necessarily.
I think of them kind of like great white sharks or billy goats. It seems like anything they come across that is edible is fair game.
They just prefer live humans, if offered a choice.
What I am debating is that Otis didn’t leave Shane when he could have. Shane then shot him in return.
Shane could have quit/injured himself and forced Otis to leave him behind, as he wanted to, and taken one for the team. He was going to anyway.
He waited until someone talked him into going on and then saved his own ass. I really do think a good portion of his reasoning was just that.
I think he would have shot Otis (or anyone else) to save his own hide, even if there were no Carl hanging onto life needing their supplies.
Survivor, yes. But not the kind I would want around.
And in S01E01 they ate the horse that Rick fell off of.
I’m not sure if Shane is the kind of survivor I want around or not - a strong, capable young male is very much a benefit to any group at this point. He’s definitely not a “go along to get along” kind of guy, though.
Actually, exactly the kind of survivor I would want around. I’d much rather have a bunch of Shanes than people who can’t make the hard choice in a crisis. I’d know that, in a clinch, he might save himself instead of letting us both die, but he’d know the same thing about me. But I’d also know that he’d probably risk his life to save me if he could.
Zombie times need alpha males like Shane. The poets will have to wait until society is rebuilt.
You are leaving out at least two options:
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Shane walks back into the zombie horde and sacrifices himself, giving Otis time to escape.
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A devil-take-the-hindmost strategy. Shane and Otis split the supplies and then race one another to escape the zombies. Loser of the race is zombie bait. Best case scenario here is they both escape.
Fair enough on one, but it really doesn’t help the argument that Shane is “bad” or made the wrong choice, only that he’s not a martry. There is a middle. As for the second, it’s a little too contrived for a fog of war scenario–maybe not for the twenty-sided die crowd, but for most.
I missed the edit window, but I tihink it’s importnant to point out the possible fatal flaw in your option 2: the supplies were not the sort you “split up.” The main reason they went to the high school was for a respirator so they could put Carl under for surgery. You either have a complete respirator or you don’t.
Fair enough. So just agree in advance that if one or the other falls behind, the person in front takes the supply bag. If the person who falls behind refuses to give up the bag, then they have at least earned a bullet.
We’re contructing rather elaborate scenarios for something that Shane had seconds to decide about. He gave Otis a chance to escape and Otis refused, so he had to make a decisive, fast decision - a decision that resulted in the most people possible surviving the incident.
To split hairs like this indicates you’re solving a hypothetical almost like a riddle, rather than trying to see a world like the characters of this show exist in. I mean, we could argue that Shane could’ve come up with a zombie repellant on the spot out of used underwear, twine, and a respirator tube MacGuyver style, and if we’re constructing the fictional hypothetical how we want, that can fly, but it’s sort of ridiculous to try to apply to a show at least intending to examine the issues realistically.
Edit: I should add that some sort of magic solution that gets everyone home at all times, that results in everyone being happy, and involves no tough choices is bad for drama. For this show to mean anything, life has to be shitty, hard choices have to be made, and characters have to live with it. This would be an even more boring show than it already is if we removed those elements.
Actually, my solution doesn’t require a lot of thought. All it really requires is for them to keep doing what they were doing…trying to get away from the zombies. Instinctive. When one of them falls behind, it would be logical, and more to the point, intuitive, for that person to give up the bag.
Shane’s solution is the one that requires more thought. (And eeevil plotting.)
But you’re right that Shane’s solution makes for better television. (…Although…a literal playing out of the “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you” scenario could have been pretty good TV, too.)
But Otis (who was falling behind) didn’t give up the bag. Shane simply enforced your logical, intuitive rule. I have to ask: Did you actually watch the episode? You’ve said a couple of things now (like suggesting splitting up the supplies and proposing that the one who falls behind give up the bag) to lead me to believe you haven’t.
By the way, this *was *an example of not having to out run the bear, as I noted several pages ago. I have to ask: Have you been reading this thread . . .
Both of them were trying to get away from the zombies, and that plan was clearly failing. If Shane had just kept going and waited till Otis got behind, and then hopefully managed to get the backpack of supplies before the zombies were all over Otis… then Otis still dies a horrible death, only there’s more risk that Shane dies too and the supplies never get back. What’s the upside of this one? Shane sleeps a little easier at night if he manages to make it back?
Not everything has to be tv-perfect everyone has a happy ending. In fact the entire point of doing a show with this setting is that it’s the exact opposite of that - people reacting to extreme environments, not doing the cushy stuff that we as first worlders with no real survival problems can hypothesize about but that we’re completely unprepared for as part of our normal existance.
This very argument is proving Shane right - you all arguing that a TV perfect happy ending solution to the problem was there (even though IMO you haven’t demonstrated it at all, just gave us scenarios in which Shane/Carl are more likely to die but where Shane has to feel less guilty) is exactly the sort of sentiment that Shane is trying to shake out of the survivors so that they can survive. “Just keep going until the zombies overtake Otis, then take the supplies” is in the same anti-survival vein as “keep our dangerous zombified relatives in our barn” - it’s the sort of sentimental shit that the survivors don’t have room for if they intend to keep on surviving.
He wasn’t falling behind until Shane shot him in the frikkin’ knee! 
Yes, it’s just that I find your posts particularly forgettable. 
(kidding…kidding…)
Dude, his fat ass was sweating gravy about to stroke out. Shane didn’t take him down from behind.