The Walking Dead; 2.13 "Beside the Dying Fire" SEASON FINALE (open spoilers)

There’s absolutely no way any prison would have cell locks that default to “unlock” in the even of a power failure. They’d have to manually open each individually door. It’s an open question as to what the staff would do with the inmates. I think just letting them go free is highly unlikely (though I alot of inmates probally would’ve been put to work digging mass graves/open air mass crematiopns for the state before thinks completely collapsed). The warden probally dusted off some Cold War era “In case of nuclear war” plan. I imagine either the inamates were simply massacred or more likely just left to starve to death in their cells ala The Stand.

Great way to work in some product placement too. Home Depot is based in Atlanta.

Regarding the question concerning the cell doors of a prison, my brother is a sergeant at a state prison in Kentucky. I’ve sent him a text message about the question, and will post his response once he answers me.

He’s used to questions like this from me.

Yeah, I don’t know why I was thinking doors might unlock in total power failure. I doubt prisons are designed with total societal collapse in mind.

But I still wonder if they actually have individual keyholes.

That’s right, the doors would default to locked in a power failure (duh on me). So, do you get a generator and plug it in long enough to get the doors you want opened, then unplug it again? Would that work?

The one that killed Dale fell down while going for Carl and later was walking around.

I seem to recall in Louisiana during hurricane Katrina prisoners serving time for stuff like drugs or theft were let free with instructions to contact law enforcement when safe, because the jail or prison was flooding and there was no way to transfer them.

There are at least a couple other walkers that have gotten up but the most obvious dawned on me… walker Shane got up.

They have to be able to get up because no one dies and turns into a walker standing up.

Here’s what my brother has said so far:

“The general pop doors all have keys. The mental health unit is electronic.”

I’ve asked him more detailed questions, describing the situation we’ve discussed, and am awaiting further answers.

Tell him to sign up. If we can’t perform zombie experiments, at least we could grill a prison guard.

I mean, ask questions of a prison guard.

Good clarification! I’m sure some zombie wannabees were procuring BBQ sauce.

takes off his chef’s hat, grumbling

I stand corrected, and offer my apologies to Christopher Robin Davies.

I guess the supernatural explanation is still on the table, potentially.

Really? The regular rules of “don’t hit on your best friend’s wife”, “don’t murder people”, “don’t act like a fucking jerk when you live with people” don’t apply just because there are zombies around?

Quoted for truth. Thanks for articulating what’s bugged me about many of the comments re: Shane, Otis, Rick’s “wimpiness”, etc. On line discussions about this series have been sort of a workshop on why societies need actual armed law enforcement.

“Don’t murder people”, if you’re referring to Randall, as a potential dangerous outsider, is actually exactly the sort of rules you have to re-evaluate because there are zombies around.

For that matter, “don’t hit on your dead best friend’s wife even though you’re experiencing the most primal survival situation that humans have ever overcome, with your world collapsing around you, with her being completely dependent on your protection, with you needing some sort of comfort and normalcy” is another situation in which the apocalypse plays a role.

And… really, “don’t act like a jerk when the group you’re with is doing fucking idiotic things all the time that will get you all killed”… yeah, that’s an issue too.

So yeah, those sorts of things are different in a post apocalyptic world.

I agree. First thing to do, whack folks like Shayne. :slight_smile:

Yeah, no one ever thinks THEY are the maruading band of rampaging psychos.

Yeah, well Rick ain’t been “dead” going on two seasons. Go hit on the blond girl. Laurie Holden is much hotter than Rick’s trailer trash wife anyway.

I actually don’t see Shane helping the situation at all. Mostly he just went around beating his chest and proclaiming they had to “cut their loses” all the time. When you are down to a handful of people, there isn’t exactly a whole lot of losses to “cut”.

Irrelevant - the other group should consider killing a captured member of “our” group too if the circumstances were reversed.

Ah, I thought we were talking about the relatonship before Rick gets back. Shane did get all rapey when he couldn’t let Lori go, which is definitely a problem, although he seemed to have finally let it go until Laurie did her toying with him bullshit that ended up getting him killed.

Well, on specific issues, like Randall, or keeping walkers in the barn, he felt like the group was making stupid decisions that could seriously compromise their survival. Shane lead the group and got them through tougher times just fine - then Rick comes along, starts making stupid decisions, endangers the group - he’s understandably pretty pissed off.

Actually, I thought of – Otis? the guy from the farm – that Shane shot to draw the walkers off himself when they were gathering medical supplies to save the kid. And he did it in a needlessly ugly way. Instead of just killing him and providing fresh meat to divert the walkers from himself he instead shot ?Otis? in the leg, leaving him to be eaten alive. That’s when I concluded that he wasn’t just an opportunistic cretin (for glomming onto his best friend’s wife, which I could understand since it was reasonable to believe that Rick was dead) but a completely selfish antisocial danger to the group.

Yeah, the “selfish antisocial danger” who offered his life first, to let Otis be the one to return with the equipment. I seem to be the only one who remembers this. When Shane realized that they both couldn’t make it, he offers Otis the chance to be the one to get away, to take the medical supplies back to the farm, while he serves as the distraction. Otis refused to leave him. So Shane was forced to make Otis the one to stay.

But Shane offered up to sacrifice himself to save Otis and Carl. And somehow the conclusion people draw from this scene is that Shane is a selfish sociopath.

As far as “needlessly ugly” - the zombies have clearly preferred live targets to dead ones. They’ll leave dead meat to chase a living target. Otis had to be alive for the distraction to be effective.