Using animals as a distraction is an idea I’d not thought of! But yeah, you’re right, it’s easy to sit back and think ‘stupid, I’d be smarter’, when truthfully my actual, real life, in case of zombies plan is to hide and be* really quiet*…
The whole point, which I think Herschel brought up, was that they were complacent. Until Dale got attacked, the only zombies that were at the farm were the ones in the barn, which the farm crew brought in from the woods.
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I can understand that but I do not see how a virus that infects everyone but is completely without symptoms until you die is any less supernatural than Satan deciding that Hell is full up so he sends all the dead back to Earth. Saying that the virus explanation is truly science fiction. The virus makes about as much real-world sense as Spider-Man.
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I do not understand why a magical explanation for the zombies would present any less moral complexity than a scientific one. Can you explain please?
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I do not see how the supernatural explanation is any more cliche than the scientific one. In the Romero movies there is no explanation at all I think. In 28 Days/Weeks Later there is a science explanation and also in the Will Smith movie I Am Legend.
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I do not think so. How is saying magic did it any more deus ex machina than saying technobabble sciencd did it?
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That might be true.
Complacent, and the farmhouse crew were either deeply in denial or oblivious to what was actually going on with the world.
How do you figure? How uncommon do you suppose that various kinds of viral, bacterial, or other microbial infections are?
A supernatural explanation creates a binary black-and-white good-against-evil moral situation. It makes decision less ambiguous and creates less cognitive dissonance when difficult decisions must be made.
Just because X has happened before doesn’t mean that X is a cliche. And if magic is the cause, we should be told from the start that this is a world in which magic exists.
Is all science “technobabble science”? Scientific explanations have to work harder to create solutions with verisimilitude. And verisimilitude is really the key here. A supernatural cause definitively removes the story from reality; whereas a scientific cause, done well, still can allow for verisimilitude and thus be scarier.
I’m not sure I understand the aim of your questioning. Originally, you asked why people didn’t like the idea of a supernatural explanation for the walkers, but now it seems you want to argue that the virus explanation is unrealistic.
The show says it’s a virus, so it’s a virus. It was shown to be so in fairly exhaustive detail during the band’s visit to the CDC.
Is it realistic? No.
Could there be a virus that does all the things this virus does? No.
But one of the rules of speculative fiction is you get one big cheat. The cheat here is, “there is a virus that lays dormant in humans and causes their corpses to reanimate upon death.” Until someone in the show says, “this can’t be a virus, it’s impossible!” we’re left with that as the explanation.
Question about modern prisons.
Mentioned about is having everybody sleep in their own locked cell, in possession of their key.
Do modern prison cell doors actually have individual keys or are they are electronically controlled and would have unlocked automatically once the last power went out?
I think the virus explanation is equally as unrealistic as the supernatural one but anyway I do not think it really matters because even from my limited viewing it seems pretty obvious that none of the characters really know. Also I don’t think the origin of the zombies changes the moral dilemmas in any way.
It’s unrealistic, but not outright fantasy, which a supernatural explanation would by definition be.
Jenner, the character they met at the CDC in the S1 finale, was certainly in a position to know, and he conveyed that knowledge to the other characters with CT scans and other data.
It’s a virus. They all know it. The only thing they didn’t all know was that they already carry it, which they now also know.
Of interest would be why*, if they already have the virus, getting bit causes you turn without dying first.
*of interest if I lived in the world, not so much of interest as a viewer of the show. I’d prefer they make no attempt to explain it at all, since no explanation short of “god did it and he’s magical” can really cover all the bases and make any sense.
I think getting bit just kills you with a virus, maybe a different strain of the one that we now know they all have. This causes fever and other things that eventually lead to your death. Doesn’t matter how you die, you’re going to turn anyway.
If I’m correct about this, and I may very well not be, the bite kills you. You then reanimate the same way you would if you died from anything other than head trauma.
Getting bitten causes a fever and death, and then you turn.
So … I wonder where they’ll pick up next season. Immediately? I’m thinking they’re going to need to fast-forward a little to make Lori and the baby anything but an eventual thing to deal with. And I’m interested in what old Olive Oyl is going to look like pregnant. I’m all primed to be judgey about how the pregnancy is depicted, along with breastfeeding and nutrition. And of course if the kid comes out with gigantic earlobes, we’ll KNOW who the father is.
Also I wish they’d run by Kroger or some other store. A got a lot of enjoyment out of the descriptions of abandoned stores in The Stand, and I like the episode from Season 1 in the department store. Plus zombies can pop out from clothes racks, maybe with bras or other unmentionables hanging off them. Doesn’t that sound fun?
I liked the season finale, but I’m still really bummed that they killed off Shane. I thought he was the only one who seemed to get that they were living in a different world now, and the regular rules don’t apply anymore.
Rick isn’t a good leader. The big WTF moment for me in the finale was his big “Rickocracy” speech where he took credit for getting them off the farm. What? The only thing he managed to do was burn down the barn and get poor Jimmy et. The rest of them got themselves to safety with no help from him.
Just about every important decision Rick has had to make has been the wrong one. Risking Herschel and Glen to save Randall from the zombies and not being able to make the tough decision and put Randall down when he was clearly a threat show that he’s 1. too soft hearted and 2. unable to foresee the natural consequences of his (in)actions. His dithering over doing the “right” thing is going to get his people killed.
Shane had his faults, but at least he was willing to do what was necessary to protect the group. Like it or not, nice guys now wind up as zombie chow.
I hope next season sees Rick become a little bit more Shane-like, or have another character introduced who can serve as a voice of reason to temper Rick’s goody-goody tendencies.
It’s not that Shane “got” the new rules. It’s that he reveled in them. He relished them. They allowed him the freedom to do what his id always wanted to do.
Obviously. But why? Do you have a different virus once turned? Some other mechanisms that activates the virus already in you? It is just normal blood infection from exposure to rotten flesh?
Like I said, I don’t need an explanation. However, if I were in the group, I be doing a lot more to try and explore the mechanism for things.
Another aside. Just as zombies are as fast as necessary for suspense, they turn as fast as necessary too. Good thing the two guys they killed in the bar didn’t turn as quickly as Randall and Shane did.
Pick up some bicycle locks along with a few cases of .45 auto at Wal-Mart. 
I just think it’s a bad idea to watch them holed up stationary for another season, though I admit a prison does SEEM an ideal fortification to survive something like this.
According to the writers, the state of mind is an important part of why Shane turned so quickly. He was in the middle of a murder, he was full of rage and impotence, and then his best friend knifed him. The flashes were supposed to illustrate the fact that he was turning so quickly because he was full of all those aggressive emotions when he died. The others we’ve seen die (Amy, the guys in the bar, Randall) weren’t.
Rick shot them both in the head, so there was no chance of either of them turning.
You’re right, I forgot that.
And yuck if state of mind at death impacts how quickly you turn. But that’s just a personal yuck. If those are the rules and they apply them consistently, so be it.