I think Joe’s reference to it being New Years Eve was actually just a anecdotal reference to the fact that it turned out to be a “big night” for him and his boys. Not that it was in fact New Years Eve.
And, yes, as a local GA viewer, sure looks like late fall to me. Leaves are still falling, but night time temps probably down into the low 40s.
What is it with the apocalypse and pedophilia? I wondered this when I saw “The Road,” and now it pops up here. I got the impression from what Joe was saying that the whole gang was waiting to take turns with Carl, not just that one guy (although he possibly could have just been saying that for Rick’s benefit). So either this group of hunter/survivalists that found each other all happen to be pedophiles, or something about the situation turns your otherwise run-of-the-mill jackass into somebody who seeks out children. I’m not sure which is more disturbing.
Creepy good points. And Rick smacked the plate out of the other guy’s hand before Carl or anyone had a chance to take a single bite. Glen & Maggie’s group probably got suspicious and asked what the protein was, and got sent to the boxcar. Ew. I’m not completely convinced. Dang those writers! I’m not convinced they aren’t either.
I didn’t express that very well, what I meant is that Rick seems to believe he can either be a peaceful farmer or a blood-drenched fighter, but it must be one or the other. Hence his putting away of his and Carl’s weapons (“They’ll just get in the way”) when he took up farming at the prison. Rick is simply wrong: putting away his weapons for good just isn’t an option anymore, but that doesn’t mean he’s doomed to wander around killing people all the time. He can be a blood-drenched farmer, someone who uses force when necessary but still tries to build a better life for his people. This strange pastoral idealism that, unless he can live without violence forevermore, his life is a waking nightmare, is completely unrelatable. And Rick was a policeman, for Pete’s sake, he should know better than most that one can use force in self-defense and still have a moral center and a meaningful life.
Hmmm, that’s not how I remember it, I’ll have to re-watch that sequence.
Perpetrators of child sexual abuse may or may not be pedophiles. Quoth wikipedia:
It’s safe to say Joe’s gang were non-exclusive, probably willing to rape whomever they could catch and pin down.
Okay, yeah, I see that – it didn’t look like they were making much of a distinction between Carl and Michonne. Still, none of them tried to rape Daryl when they found him.
One reason why I hate gangs so much. I just don’t get that mentality that forms, rape anything that moves the first chance you get. Why? I’m a guy and I’ve been around plenty of groups of guys and no one ever said, “hey, let’s go rape someone!” Where does that come from? I could go without sex for the rest of my life. Just give me some porn once in awhile.
Well, in the zombie apocalypse, pretty sure RedTube is no longer just a click away!! :D:D
Perhaps because adult men are useful as gang members, perhaps because a, what, 13-or-so year old boy is sufficiently feminine that it doesn’t count as homosexual behavior…I’m sure the gang members could explain the distinction if asked.
I’m sure this particular phenomenon of gangs that commit rape has been studied and I am in no way an authority, but there is the phenomenon of unpopular norms…
So, if you’re a member of the gang, even if you’re not so fanatical about rape that you indulge at every opportunity, if you think the other gang members are such people, you’ll partake too, so as to show you’re one of them.
One example of unpopular norms I read about concerned binge drinking in college: when surveyed, the large majority of students believed that a) binge drinking was a bad idea, and b) other students thought binge drinking was a great idea.
In this gang, it could have turned out that none of them were actually that keen on rape, they just thought the others were (after all, isn’t that what scruffy outlaw survivors are supposed to do?)
Personally, I’d rather have spent more time with Joe’s gang (perhaps have them demand only Rick, as vengeance for their man’s death), than another variation on Seemingly friendly settlement has a dark secret!
Yeah, the loss of the internet would be the worst part of the ZA. I’d be like Will Smith in I am Legend. Solar panels and raid the video store. The adult video store, too. 
Ooh, and the video game store. Penthouse apartment on top of a tall building, raise veggies and set up a pigeon coop for squab. Not a bad life!
How could Judith be there when her, Carol and Tyreese are the only members of our trusty band of survivors that haven’t reached Terminus yet? Well, maybe Beth, but chances are she’s already there, in what capacity is anyone’s guess.
I do wonder though: if Beth isn’t there, then we have some other outside group/operator that could seriously impact the plot at some point. I’m trying to figure out how or why Terminus people would operate a former funeral home as a trap to kidnap unsuspecting survivors to bring them back there.
He wasn’t their type. Y’know, there just wasn’t that spark when they met.
It’s interesting that Rick had the sense to reconnoiter first, but Abraham the military guy walked right in.
Maybe Carol will be smart and suspicious enough to properly investigate Terminus and rescue our guys.
Maybe the Terminus folks are just really BAD at foraging and scavenging–i’m just being a little factious. Basically they cannibalize so they don’t have to go out on raids and risk their lives. They honey-trap people. The enclave is clearly traumatized from events (the candle shrine room) and they have taken the whole US vs. THEM attitude that the show has played with for seasons now to heart. Everyone else is fodder to keep them alive.
I think another faction took Beth.
This article on comicbook.com shows a still from a deleted scene and some extra speculation. The Walking Dead Season Finale: Does This Deleted Scene Hint At Terminus's Backstory?
Interesting. “Fight off these Walkers and you have earned the right to join us”?
I’m curious as to why you would assume Carol and Tyrese aren’t there but assume Beth is?
Any or all of them could still be on the road or already be there and just not have been seen by Rick or Glen and their respective crews.
I think that it would be fun to see Carol and Tyreese find Beth, and then have the three of them save the rest of the group.
I also was kind of hoping that they would show Beth escaping / overcoming her so-far-undisclosed captor(s) and then happening upon Daryl’s new buddies at just the right time. She and Daryl could manage to off the “biker-gang-wannabe” dudes just as they were revealed to be truly despicable individuals. But it went down a different way, instead…
It wouldn’t be the first time. I miss at least half of every show I watch.
BTW, I loved that Andrew Lincoln referred to the occupants as “Termites” on TTD.
RE: Beth, I think it’s a lone crazy person/mortician who wants a new friend to play with.
The Termites are hyper paranoid about strangers with a zero tolerance policy. If you don’t immediately seem to fit in, you get stuck in a boxcar. They can’t let you leave, because you might carry a grudge and come back with an assault squad.
So what do they do with you? Eat you? Feed you to Walkers? Maybe when one of their own dies and turns, they keep them around to dispose of their later captives?