I thought they were in West Georgia? At least the prison is called West Georgia Penitentiary I think.
Zombie infection and being-bitten-or-scratched-by-a-walking-pile-of-rotting-diseased-meat infection are two separate things. The latter would be deadly even if you were immune to the former.
Remember the dude from season one who received what appeared to be a non-fatal bite wound and died? A bite is a death sentence in zombie land.
In this interview, Robert Kirkman says the time jump was mostly due to the realities of filming in Georgia.
She could change satellite providers. They give good rates when you first start subscribing.
I think that is the entire point of Zombies as a Horror Trope. One by one they aren’t that dangerous but they overwhelm you with sheer numbers and tenacity.
I loved this episode. I thought it was great how the opening scene wordlessly showed us all we needed to see about how the gap and time went. They got better at savaging and fighting to the point where it was routine. The scenes in the prison also were great. I would have loved a two hour premiere because I wanted to see more.
They are trying to travel northeast towards Greenville is the way I took it, although the writers have never given us a WHY.
I think they are supposed to be in northern GA somewhere. But, to your point, it would be hard to imagine finding ammo to be a problem. North GA is kinda heavily armed. 
I really liked the first S3 episode, kept it moving with a little less melodrama, more tire irons through the head action. Didn’t see that ending (non-zombie survivors) coming at all.
I’m not sure why people are objecting to this. They used a lot of dialogue explaining this. There are huge numbers of zombies in the prison. Too many to kill all of them, either with bullets or hand to hand, even through the fence.
The way they cleared the outside area and then the inner courtyard both made sense. You fight your way through to the next gate and close it. Then you’ve cut off the unlimited numbers of zombies that would keep coming in from behind. Then you are clear to kill the ones in the now contained area.
If you just stood by the fence stabbing them then hundreds more would keep coming indefinitely.
I’m not saying this is all plausible, but it was clearly explained.
As to the episode: I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. Very well done. The characters seem to have the stupidity factor dialed way back down too, which is nice.
The one exception is that as others have pointed out, there isn’t any reason to go “in” to find zombies when you could make noise to attract them. However, this would remove so much tension I can forgive the writers for not having the characters use this tactic.
Like why didn’t they go back to Hershel’s farm? They spent a whole season talking about what a perfect place that was for them. Then a horde of zombies passes by and suddenly they can’t stay there anymore. I know it’s because moving them opens up more story opportunities and I’m glad they moved on, but asking why is like asking why they start singing all the time on “Glee”.
Later on, he also mentions that the prison was a constructed set, not an actual (presumably abandoned) correctional facility. If so, they did a very good job of it.
That interview also mentioned something that had not occurred to me: Given the timeline of seasons one and two and the time jump, Andrea has been away from the group longer than she was with it. That will make for an interesting dynamic when they are reunited.
Loved this episode. Well worth the wait and I thought the writing was excellent. I’ve read through everyone’s nitipicks thus far, and I strongly suggest you visit the AMC website, watch the “Inside Ep 301” video and read the details about it as well. It pretty much covers everything and answers most all of your questions.
What I liked most was the first 5 minutes. No dialog - they were a team of well skilled zombie killers. Everyone had a role to play and a job to do and it went off without a hitch. You can clearly see how everyone’s skill set has developed. Even Carl is a vital cog in the machine now.
As for his big gun, I think that was a silencer, which is a brilliant move because we all know how loud gun shots attract more zombies.
Can’t wait for next week - this show is fantastic!
A pregnant woman, convinced her unborn child was eating her, terminated her o
A homemade silencer made from a flashlight casing. Don’t know what the kid’s silencer was made from.
It did seem that the bunch were a lot less stupid this season than last - that makes good sense. The stupidest people died first; now these survivors have (more-or-less) learned what to do and what not to do.
I didn’t like the scene of Rick tossing the dog food at the wall - maybe you’re not hungry enough to eat dog food, but maybe other people would like something more foodlike than not in their bellies.
I have a bit of a hard time believing they can’t find any food or ammo, too, if everyone went zombie quite a while ago.
Something that is sticking in my head - the mention of the helicopter and that someone’s playing games with them. Very interesting!
It was a random helicopter and no one is playing games with them.
I really do not get the confusion about the scarcity of ammo. At this point, we are at least 12 months into a global zombie plague. The majority of the population are now walkers. That didn’t exactly happen overnight… and considering:
[ul]
[li]At the initial outbreak, there would have been a run on ammunition from retailers, gun shops, etc. Ammo shortages are a common enough occurrence now, mostly due to people buying out of fear of losing their guns if’n that Socialist Gun-Hater gets re-elected. Imagine if there was a real threat… with panic buying -and- looting.[/li][li]Although we love our guns here in America, there really is not that much ammo just sitting around in stores. Think about it. I’m in a city of +/- 1.25 million people in the midwest. I know of maybe 3 or 4 places I could buy ammo today if I wanted it. Assuming reasonable business inventory practices, the local stores don’t carry excessive inventory. They stock enough to meet the needs of the sub-set of the population who need to buy ammo on any given day that doesn’t involve a zombie apocalypse. Now imagine that sub-set of customers became 100% of the population of Columbus, Ohio who are afraid of the zombies and now looking for ammo to arm themselves. There just isn’t enough ammo.[/li][li]After the stores run out (through sales and/or looting), what was once a concentration of available ammo (in stores) is now disbursed in small amounts all over the place. In homes, in cars, 70’s era RVs, jeans pockets, etc. The ammo won’t be sitting on the shelves of stores anymore. I’d daresay, well before the zombie to human ration tipped in favor of the zombies - the ammo would be gone from stores entirely.[/li][li]As the outbreak unfolds and society collapses, I’m guessing the rate of expenditure of that ammunition was fairly rapid. Even trained soldiers tend to waste ammunition under fire. Imagine untrained civilians and the rate of wasted fire/ammo they’d go through in this situation in an extremely short period of time.[/li][/ul]
To me, the idea that these people should be able to find ammo easily is ridiculous.
Other comments on last night’s show:
[ul]
[li]I cynically commented to my fiance last night that if this was a smart group of survivors, they’d re-purpose that protective riot gear but since we all know this is The Walking Stupid, we’ll never see it again. A few minutes later, they’re re-purposing the riot gear. :smack: Good to see they actually are getting smarter I guess.[/li][li]Gas-mask zombie facial peel? All kinds of awesome.[/li][li]T-Dog, the only black survivor in the group gets a fire poker while everyone else has knives, guns, machetes, hatches, and cross-bows? Yea, The Walking Racists![/li][li]Anyone else smile with glee at the idea of dead-Lori baby killing Lori?[/li][/ul]
Then I wish the writers would give us some indication of these things. (And fuel would likely have to be siphoned from vehicles, not gas pumps.) If they’re flitting from Wal-marts to 7-11s around the country, hoping it hasn’t already been picked over by other survivors or overrun by zombies, why bother having Carl crack open the dog food almost immediately after finding it? It made it seem like he hadn’t eaten for ages. In that case, shouldn’t have had Lori mention she was worried the baby may die/have died from malnutrition.
I think it’s easy to forget these 10 people (plus Andrea and Michonne) aren’t the only humans left, but beyond using other humans as direct catalysts for the story (the prisoners we saw at the end, the Governor), there seems to be little acknowledgement that others are likely trying to do the same things they are.
I’ve probably read too many zombie books that have covered these kinds of problems (i.e. have we seen a jerry can since the farm?) Kirkland’s been writing the series since 2003, so I would hope he’s given these things thought as well.
Before it sounds like I’m critical about the whole thing, I love the opening credits, love the bond hat has already seemed to develop between Andrea and Michonne, and love the ease that has settled over Carol and Darryl. (‘Carol and Darryl’? Never noticed that!)
Give me a decent fire poker and a grinder, and I can turn it into a decent pointed melee weapon in about 15-30 minutes. The hook is also a nice “stopper” to prevent overpenetration and getting it stuck in bone.
Now I personally have several bits of sharp/pointy objects at my disposal that would work one hell of a let better than a sharpened fire poker.
But in the absence of rapiers or sabers, a sharpened fire poker would give me better results than, say, a baseball bat.