# The Walking Dead; 4.04 "Indifference" (open spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 4, 2013, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018 "2013-11-04T01:09:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2013, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018/81 "2013-11-06T03:38:33Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > I think Rick’s response to Carol _should_ have been to take her back to the group and as a _group_ go through what she did and what the consequences of acting without the council’s approval should be. Tyree would have killed her immediately he knew. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2013, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018/82 "2013-11-06T04:11:19Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Tyree would have killed her immediately he knew. First you put Tyreese in a jail cell - if Carol doesn’t get to kill people willy-nilly, neither does Tyreese. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2013, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018/83 "2013-11-06T05:38:18Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > First you put Tyreese in a jail cell - if Carol doesn’t get to kill people willy-nilly, neither does Tyreese. 🙂 I believe that when you drove up and said, “Lock Tyree up in Durance Vile.” that Tyree would begin killing folks. 🙂 On second thought and in edit mode, locking Tyree up is a Very Good Idea, for whatever reason one can find. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2013, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018/84 "2013-11-06T07:06:24Z")
It’s not like Carol goes around offing people with the sniffles, but as it happened, that one kid came into her knife class and said he didn’t feel well. He died and turned into a walker that very same night. As far as she knew, they were dealing with a really fast acting ebola virus or something. The two she killed would have died, or at least should have. It’s poor writing if everybody sick with the same thing just feels lousy for a few days and gets over it. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2013, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018/85 "2013-11-06T15:25:23Z")
One element I think should have been included is when Daryl angrily confronts D’Angelo about the alcohol, he should have thrown in some racial slurs. I mean, Daryl _was_ a white supremacist at some point, wasn’t he? And to show that his anger was genuine, I can imagine him calling D’Angelo a “stupid drunk nigger”, even with Tyree and Michonne within earshot. If anything, Daryl’s reaction was far too mild under the circumstances, and if the drama in this show is to be character conflict and not zombie-killing, let’s throw some _meat_ in there. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2013, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018/86 "2013-11-06T15:43:58Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > Hmm, so if what you’re saying is that they should kill Rick when he comes back to the group and go get Carol, I’d be on board with that. 😃 Not kill, but reverse the banishment, send Rick (& Carl, presumably) out on the road, and go retrieve Carol. The only think Rick has of value is being the Bland White Male Protagonist, which means he won’t be killed and confers special plot powers upon him from time to time. Carol is much more valuable in-universe, she practical, clever (most of the time, that is, same as everyone else on the show), and mentally stable. > [@YogSosoth](#): > > What Carol did wasn’t simply to take it upon herself to make a decision that should be reserved for the group. She killed two living people, which as Rick rightly pointed out, we don’t know if they were going to survive. The reason she did it might be good, but taken to its logical conclusion, she’s a threat to anyone in the prison that might be sick. Rick, making the decision himself to banish her, doesn’t threaten anyone else at the prison. Plus, he did it so that another prisoner won’t go crazy trying to kill her. That’s not a defense of Rick, though, stating that what Carol did was worse doesn’t make Rick’s actions right. > [@Cat Whisperer](#): > > Yeah, these people need to figure out if they’re living under a council making decisions or everybody just doing what they please, and then stick with it. I think Rick’s response to Carol _should_ have been to take her back to the group and as a _group_ go through what she did and what the consequences of acting without the council’s approval should be. Bingo. Either the council is in charge, or it’s a figurehead. Considering the current crisis, now is exactly the right time to settle this: the council should start to assert its authority ASAP. Stuff like Herschel entering the quarantine zone is the sort of thing that the council should be voting on, and instead everyone’s just doing what they feel is right with no consequences. These people need a Leviathan, stat. ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2013, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018/87 "2013-11-06T16:33:23Z")
Rick was intentionally subverting the council because, to his thinking, offering Carol banishment was better than what the council would do (regardless of whether he was right about what it would do). Tyrese possibly murdering her is one thing, but by Carol’s own logic the council would not be making a choice between banishing Carol or accepting her actions, it would be between killing Carol and accepting her actions and he did not think the group would accept her actions. Carols logic is that any threat must be eliminated as early in the theoretical stage as possible. That is what strength has become to her. And anybody forcefully expelled from teh group is more than a theoretical threat. She knows their defenses, she’ll have to make nice with other groups and offer them her loyalty. She’s already shown that she considered making “hard decisions” that further your survival is something she’s willing to do and there’s no reason to believe that wouldn’t include returning to harm the group if she believed it gained her that. So, having decided that Carol really meant to do what she perceived as best for the group, he did her the kindness of not going to council but offering her banishment. Not saying that anybody did the “right” thing, but that’s my take on why it happened the way it did. ---
**Author:** ![Virgil\_Tibbs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/c4cdca/32.png) [@Virgil\_Tibbs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Virgil_Tibbs)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2013, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018/88 "2013-11-06T20:01:26Z")
When the spin-off starts, they should just kill this show off. It’s repeatedly been shown that the makers have no idea what they’re doing, no interesting ideas, no overall direction… Bring the Governor back? Because he was such a big success before? Christ. This isn’t a show about zombies, it’s a zombie show. I’ve said my piece and I realise that you all enjoy discussing the details of the show, so I’ll make a quiet exit from Walking Dead threads now. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018/89 "2013-11-07T00:10:43Z")
> [@Virgil\_Tibbs](#): > > When the spin-off starts, they should just kill this show off. It’s repeatedly been shown that the makers have no idea what they’re doing, no interesting ideas, no overall direction… Bring the Governor back? Because he was such a big success before? Christ. This isn’t a show about zombies, it’s a zombie show. This is pretty comical considering the monster ratings. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018/90 "2013-11-07T01:29:25Z")
> [@Virgil\_Tibbs](#): > > When the spin-off starts, they should just kill this show off. It’s repeatedly been shown that the makers have no idea what they’re doing, no interesting ideas, no overall direction… Bring the Governor back? Because he was such a big success before? Christ. This isn’t a show about zombies, it’s a zombie show. > > I’ve said my piece and I realise that you all enjoy discussing the details of the show, so I’ll make a quiet exit from Walking Dead threads now. Two points: The Spin off is being made by basically the same people. For what it’s worth, the source material (the original comic) was never really about Zombies. Zombies were a means to an end; that being showing society after the end of society. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018/91 "2013-11-07T03:30:35Z")
They should change the name of this show to The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Rick Grimes. I thought maybe the poor decisions he makes would come back to bite him and he would learn, but not really. So now it is just an exercise in annoyance, it really got going at the start of the third season and continues today. Who was the person? watching Carol do the zombie dissection from the woods back in season 3? We got a creepy viewpoint from the trees of her, like someone was watching her. What happened to the time Michonne went back to the prison with the formula, why did the zombies mostly ignore her? Because she was shuffling and limping? She herself was shocked, Rick saw her at the fence and was shocked, did they not discuss this discovery? Why don’t they all shuffle and limp so they can move unnoticed among the walkers? The other thing that bugs me is in the first season it seemed like there was almost no one left, now in this season more than a year after the end people are coming out of the woodwork. It is just bizarre that society went down SO fast, even stranger that supplies are so hard to scavenge if it did. There should be shit everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018/92 "2013-11-07T04:01:41Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Bingo. Either the council is in charge, or it’s a figurehead. Considering the current crisis, now is exactly the right time to settle this: the council should start to assert its authority ASAP. Stuff like Herschel entering the quarantine zone is the sort of thing that the council should be voting on, and instead everyone’s just doing what they feel is right with no consequences. These people need a Leviathan, stat. I think the council is just some people taking care of boring daily scheduling and waiting for their Rick to take charge again. [QUOTE=obfusciatrist] Rick was intentionally subverting the council because, to his thinking, offering Carol banishment was better than what the council would do (regardless of whether he was right about what it would do). Tyrese possibly murdering her is one thing, but by Carol’s own logic the council would not be making a choice between banishing Carol or accepting her actions, it would be between killing Carol and accepting her actions and he did not think the group would accept her actions. Carols logic is that any threat must be eliminated as early in the theoretical stage as possible. That is what strength has become to her. And anybody forcefully expelled from teh group is more than a theoretical threat. She knows their defenses, she’ll have to make nice with other groups and offer them her loyalty. She’s already shown that she considered making “hard decisions” that further your survival is something she’s willing to do and there’s no reason to believe that wouldn’t include returning to harm the group if she believed it gained her that. So, having decided that Carol really meant to do what she perceived as best for the group, he did her the kindness of not going to council but offering her banishment. Not saying that anybody did the “right” thing, but that’s my take on why it happened the way it did. [/QUOTE] Tyreese is going to find out about Carol, so Rick hasn’t really solved much. Rick could pull a Shane and lie about what happened to her but I don’t see anyone buying it. T could go out hunting C the way Michonne hunts the governor, but that would be creepy and they’ll probably have lots of crises to deal with and he’ll just vow to kill her if he ever sees her again, which he will. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018/93 "2013-11-07T04:07:07Z")
Toss Rick, keep Carl. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018/94 "2013-11-07T04:09:48Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Toss Rick, keep Carl. Carl, Daryl, Carol and Michonne can go off and start their own enclave of people who aren’t complete gits. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018/95 "2013-11-07T04:14:10Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > Carl, Daryl, Carol and Michonne can go off and start their own enclave of people who aren’t complete gits. Can they take along Glen and Maggie? I mean, they’re both just cute as hell. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018/96 "2013-11-07T04:17:45Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Can they take along Glen and Maggie? I mean, they’re both just cute as hell. Okay, fine - Glen has to un-git himself, though. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018/97 "2013-11-07T04:21:02Z")
> [@grude](#): > > They should change the name of this show to The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Rick Grimes. > > I thought maybe the poor decisions he makes would come back to bite him and he would learn, but not really. So now it is just an exercise in annoyance, it really got going at the start of the third season and continues today. He is pretty much a zero, as far as protagonists go. And to think, he shares a network with Walter White and Don Draper. > [@grude](#): > > Who was the person? watching Carol do the zombie dissection from the woods back in season 3? We got a creepy viewpoint from the trees of her, like someone was watching her. IIRC, while it was never formally stated, it’s been inferred that this was Andrew, the prisoner who escaped Rick’s purge of Tomas. Andrew later launched a coordinated attack on the prison using zombies. > [@grude](#): > > What happened to the time Michonne went back to the prison with the formula, why did the zombies mostly ignore her? Because she was shuffling and limping? She herself was shocked, Rick saw her at the fence and was shocked, did they not discuss this discovery? Why don’t they all shuffle and limp so they can move unnoticed among the walkers? She’d been showered with zombie guts in a fight earlier in that episode. Rick and Co. have known about this technique since the show’s second episode, “Guts”, so if Michonne told Rick about it, it was old news to him. As for why they don’t employ this technique routinely…the writers have taken a page from old Superman comics, in which Superman would display a new power to escape a novel situation, and then never use it again. Star Trek was bad about that too, with the various technobabble gadgets they cobbled together. It’s just bad writing. > [@grude](#): > > The other thing that bugs me is in the first season it seemed like there was almost no one left, now in this season more than a year after the end people are coming out of the woodwork. It is just bizarre that society went down SO fast, even stranger that supplies are so hard to scavenge if it did. There should be shit everywhere. Even by the standards of post-apocalyptic fiction, TWD’s apocalypse scenario is wildly implausible. There _should_ be people everywhere, because the zombies aren’t all that dangerous. Instead, we see a handful of people, and very little in the way of supplies. > [@levdrakon](#): > > I think the council is just some people taking care of boring daily scheduling and waiting for their Rick to take charge again. That’s the least interesting way they could spin it, so I suspect you’re right. We must be ruled by the incompetent, indecisive, literally delusional white male authority figure! > [@levdrakon](#): > > Tyreese is going to find out about Carol, so Rick hasn’t really solved much. Rick could pull a Shane and lie about what happened to her but I don’t see anyone buying it. T could go out hunting C the way Michonne hunts the governor, but that would be creepy and they’ll probably have lots of crises to deal with and he’ll just vow to kill her if he ever sees her again, which he will. Good point, if he tells people he booted Carol for her double-murder, that probably won’t sit well with Tyreese, who was out for blood. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018/98 "2013-11-07T04:42:51Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > That’s the least interesting way they could spin it, so I suspect you’re right. We must be ruled by the incompetent, indecisive, literally delusional white male authority figure! The lamest thing was having something called “the council.” What, is this Planet of the Apes? “Let’s go ask the Council of Elders.” I prefer it to just be a meeting once in awhile, so it seems less lame. Now that I’ve said that, they’ll probably have the council convene a tribunal to decide Rick and/or Carol’s fate. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018/99 "2013-11-07T05:09:52Z")
And what was up with the dead hippy chick? Her leg looked cut off, like a clean wound. Then she was being eaten across the street, zombies dismember and drag people now? Why didn’t they hear a shot? She didn’t even try to shoot the zombies? That whole scenario made no sense, and Rick had the NERVE to act like Carol was cold when he left that backpacker to die. Rick is insane to abandon all these chances to add single young healthy adults to his community, there is little risk adding people one or two at a time. ---
**Author:** ![emarkp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@emarkp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emarkp)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2013, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018/100 "2013-11-07T05:12:33Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > The lamest thing was having something called “the council.” What, is this Planet of the Apes? “Let’s go ask the Council of Elders.” I prefer it to just be a meeting once in awhile, so it seems less lame. Your city doesn’t have a city council? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-4-04-indifference-open-spoilers/673018.md?page=6)