I haven’t seen it for a while, but in the first season of The Walking Dead there’s an episode that heavily implies Jim is psychic in some way. He has a dream (or something) and gets a mad urge to dig holes, refusing to stop digging even when various characters ask him to, warning him of the dangers of so much exertion in the hot sun.
Later in the episode, there’s a zombie attack that results in the deaths of the same number of people as there are new holes, which turn out to be kinda grave-shaped. Spines are chilled all round.
Then it’s completely forgotten and never mentioned again. Jim, for some reason, decides to let himself die a lonely and painful death after becoming infected.
So… what happened? Did they plan to introduce some kind of psychic element, then decided against it? Or was the story about something else?
There are humans turned into seemingly brainless killing machines, much like those in 28 Days Later. Then they begin to develop a kind of psychic hive mind that they can use to send messages to humans and even influence their behaviour (if I remember rightly). I suppose it’s this that made me notice the possible suggestions of psychic powers.
I was thinking about this when Lizzie was getting so upset about the killing of zombies. She said something about “hearing” them, or similar. I wondered if the consciousness of the original person was still inside somehow, only able to communicate with certain people, trapped by the zombie instincts and having to experience themselves killing and eating other people. That would be pretty dark, and would make what happened to Lizzie afterwards even darker.
I just refreshed myself with the story on the Wiki, and I gotta say I think the psychic powers is more your theory than the actual intent. He could see what was going to happen - everyone could - and I think it was just his way of dealing with it.
Yeah, I don’t recall any psychic undertones to that storyline. It was more of a “Jim is going psycho” rather than a “Jim is psychic” kind of thing. And the holes didn’t “turn out to be kinda grave shaped” they clearly were intended by Jim to be graves. Jim thought they were all going to die. I also don’t recall any special attention being drawn to the number of graves he dug versus the number of people who died while they were at that camp.
Perhaps I’ll have to watch the episode again. But I’m certainly not the only one who interpreted it that way, or at least considered it as a possibility. I’m certain that Jim dug the graves because of his dream which he couldn’t remember until after the zombie attack. After that he said he remembered why he dug them, which I think was the very end of the episode - there was obviously some significance intended there, and I thought they made a bigger deal of it than “Oh yeah, I remember, we’re in a dangerous place” would justify. I got the impression the number of holes matched the number of deaths, but perhaps I was just seeing what I expected to see.
It does seem clear to me that, whatever intentions there might have been back in season 1, that’s almost certainly not what officially happened now.
Oh, I’m sure there are multiple theories about all the characters and their actions. It’s a damn popular show, partly because they leave so much up to the imagination at times.
I think, (if I recall the episode correctly) Jim was just a guy who had lost almost all of his family, and began to think, and therefore dream, thatthey were all going to die. Well, hell, I might as well pass the time by digging some graves. Later in the episode, a bunch of Rick’s gang dies in a zombie swarm. Hey, cool, we already have some graves ready.
Writers would call that foreshadowing, and on the Walking Dead, that episode qualifies as subtle foreshadowing!
None of that requires Jim to be psychic, just pessimistic, desperate, and beginning to lose it. Check, check, and check.
Agreed that that’s as good an explanation as any. Given what we now know (i.e. no real hints of anything supernatural) it’s probably the best. I just thought they attached a lot more significance to it than seemed appropriate if he was just having a breakdown.
Anyway, thanks for the replies. /thread, I suppose.
Also, so many shows do go for introducing supernatural elements, that it’s reasonable to wonder if that might have been happening with TWD. (Not so far, which is one reason I keep up with the show.^_^)
You’re not the only one who interpreted the scene that way. I interpreted it as Jim going off the deep end rather than developing precognitive abilities.
I think you are attaching way less significance to how disconcerting Jim’s actions would be considered in real life by real people than they merit.
He’s clearly digging graves for all of them. They all know it. He won’t stop, even when they ask him to. That’s some seriously fucked up bad juju. I might have smashed his skull in if he pulled some shit like that at my camp.
What Jim did was deeply, profoundly disconcerting to any reasonable person living at that camp. If anything, the characters in the show downplayed the significance of it.
He mentions Amy swimming and Rick sailing the boat. I thought it was foreshadowing of his leadership and reference to Amy joining the sea or wave of the dead…(mermaid necklace birthday gift). Might be a bit deep but I think the episode could be interpreted either way. Psychic or dehydration/infection whatever.