# The Walking Dead - questions with OPEN SPOILERS **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 9, 2011, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-questions-with-open-spoilers/577783 "2011-04-09T16:52:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-questions-with-open-spoilers/577783/1 "2011-04-09T16:52:09Z")
I didn’t watch this when it aired but I’m watching the DVDs now (just finished the first three episodes). I could search for the old threads but I only have a couple of questions, I’m lazy. Do they explain how long Rick was in a coma, or how long the epidemic was going on before he woke up? Did Rick’s wife and Shane (Rick’s partner) have a relationship **before** Rick was shot? I’m not understanding Walkerdom. Why are there so many Walkers if Walkers are eating everyone? Do people die after being bitten and then come back as a Walker, like the other Dead movies? ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-questions-with-open-spoilers/577783/2 "2011-04-09T17:03:30Z")
Are you asking about the books or the show? ---
**Author:** ![MikeG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikeg/32/4329_2.png) [@MikeG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeG)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-questions-with-open-spoilers/577783/3 "2011-04-09T17:05:28Z")
They have books on dvd now? ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-questions-with-open-spoilers/577783/4 "2011-04-09T17:12:20Z")
> [@MikeG](#): > > They have books on dvd now? Good point. > [@AuntiePam](#): > > Do they explain how long Rick was in a coma, or how long the epidemic was going on before he woke up? They’ll get close - keep watching. It’s vague - they try to keep it vague because it’s not a detail a producer wants to have to hold himself to. > [@](#): > > Did Rick’s wife and Shane (Rick’s partner) have a relationship **before** Rick was shot? We don’t know. > [@](#): > > I’m not understanding Walkerdom. Why are there so many Walkers if Walkers are eating everyone? Do people die after being bitten and then come back as a Walker, like the other Dead movies? Anyone who dies comes back as a zombie. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-questions-with-open-spoilers/577783/5 "2011-04-09T17:18:57Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > Anyone who dies comes back as a zombie. Well… maybe. We haven’t seen anybody die without being bit and come back as a zombie. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-questions-with-open-spoilers/577783/6 "2011-04-09T17:53:16Z")
Thanks! But dang, without knowing more about the timeline, I’m having a hard time being sympathetic to Lori. It makes a difference. Did she wait a week before taking up with Shane, or has it been months? Maybe it doesn’t matter. Fiction would have us believe that stressful situations make us more horny, so I could just go with that. 🙂 I really liked the first episode, especially when Rick went back to the park to kill the half-woman. ---
**Author:** ![Critical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-questions-with-open-spoilers/577783/7 "2011-04-09T17:56:50Z")
I would have to say no to the previous relationship idea, there is a very clearly laid out fight between them where she tells him point blank that she trusted him when he told her rick was dead. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-questions-with-open-spoilers/577783/8 "2011-04-09T18:18:35Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > Well… maybe. We haven’t seen anybody die without being bit and come back as a zombie. True, but the nature of the outbreak and how fast it took civilization as we know it to collapse strongly indicates it’s a classic Romero-style outbreak. If it’s spread only by bites then it can be contained; especially if the infection kills sooner rather than later. In TWD it appears that dead bodies started reanimate in mulitple locations all over the planet at almost simultaneously. My theory is that it is a biological agent of some sort and it is airborne. However the “infection” is entirely asymptomatic, only once the subject dies it somehow cause reanimation. Bites only cause death, not reanimation per se. [This](https://docs.google.com/View?docID=dfxj658_75nfpzxt&revision=_latest) isn’t set in the TWD universe, but it’s still a very good piece of zombie fanfiction that trys to provide a scientific explanation to a zombie outbreak. Airbourne virus which doesn’t effect living people, but renders them carriers who can infect others and become zombies when they die. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-questions-with-open-spoilers/577783/9 "2011-04-09T18:20:31Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > True, but the nature of the outbreak and how fast it took civilization as we know it to collapse strongly indicates it’s a classic Romero-style outbreak. If it’s spread only by bites then it can be contained; especially if the infection kills sooner rather than later. In TWD it appears that dead bodies started reanimate in mulitple locations all over the planet at almost simultaneously. My theory is that it is a biological agent of some sort and it is airborne. However the “infection” is entirely asymptomatic, only once the subject dies it somehow cause reanimation. Bites only cause death, not reanimation per se. > [This](https://docs.google.com/View?docID=dfxj658_75nfpzxt&revision=_latest) isn’t set in the TWD universe, but it’s still a very good piece of zombie fanfiction that trys to provide a scientific explanation to a zombie outbreak. Airbourne virus which doesn’t effect living people, but renders them carriers who can infect others and become zombies when they die. Yeah, I’m not disagreeing with you. I’m just saying that in this show it hasn’t been shown yet. He might be keeping it vague on purpose so he can decide later. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-questions-with-open-spoilers/577783/10 "2011-04-09T20:17:22Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > Well… maybe. We haven’t seen anybody die without being bit and come back as a zombie. What about the late wife of the man from the first episode, the black bloke with a son? ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-questions-with-open-spoilers/577783/11 "2011-04-09T20:39:00Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > What about the late wife of the man from the first episode, the black bloke with a son? Did we know how she died? I thought she was bit too. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-questions-with-open-spoilers/577783/12 "2011-04-09T20:46:29Z")
I’ve read most of the graphic novels since seeing the first series and… damn. Not for those who need a feel-good happy ending are they? For those who’ve read the graphics, do you think that Merle is going to become the Governor of Woodbury? ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-questions-with-open-spoilers/577783/13 "2011-04-09T21:01:02Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > Did we know how she died? I thought she was bit too. I just checked the subtitle files, and you’re right, she got bitten, had the fever and died. The Dad is persistent in making sure that Rick only has a gunshot wound, not a bite, and that indicates that only the bitten rise (after all, you can die from a gunshot wound too), but it’s nothing definitive. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2011, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-questions-with-open-spoilers/577783/14 "2011-04-10T00:29:06Z")
Oh, and about the DVDs/Blu-Rays; what’s up with the lack of audio commentaries? :mad: AMC’s **Mad-Men** discs have at least one and usually _two_ commentary tracks for every episode; these have none. The special features on Blu-ray disk 2 better be really fucking good. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2011, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-questions-with-open-spoilers/577783/15 "2011-04-10T04:06:45Z")
Finished. There were a lot of interruptions – I should know better than to watch a DVD that my husband isn’t interested in, especially on a weekend. I’d like to sit down and watch it all the way through. It feels like a long movie anyway. I thought the horror/gore/shock/violence and the human drama were nicely balanced – not too much of one or the other. I like Merle – or is it Darrel? – the brother with two hands. He’ll be somewhat attached to the group by the time they find his brother, and it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out. I thought Rick should have told Dr. Jenner about the nursing home, and how some people were managing to survive, and even care for others. It probably wouldn’t have convinced Jenner to leave with them, but it’d be better to die with some hope than none at all. On the other hand, Jenner did seem happy that the group made it out of the building before it blew up. I also like that Rick and Shane aren’t openly fighting to control the group – that’s been done to death in survival-type movies. There’s enough macho posturing as it is. And the kids need more to do. Looking forward to the new season. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-questions-with-open-spoilers/577783/16 "2011-04-20T17:14:57Z")
I thought the explanation of how it worked, with the tomography scan, was pretty neat in the last episode. But the idea that only the brain stem is activated doesn’t quite work with what we already know – we’ve seen a mother return to the stoop of her marriage home. We’ve seen that the zombies can interpret sounds as indicating human activity. These seem like higher-order functionality. It may be just that the scientist cut off the observation early for personal reasons, but the show presents it as an actual explanation for what’s going on. I am at a loss to account for where I draw the line for believability for this inherently preposterous genre, but I do have problems with the storytelling aspect of the “everyone who dies rises” premise. If there’s no hope, I’m not that interested in watching people suffer. Of course, without this premise, how do you explain the fact that it broke out worldwide? I do prefer a pathogen-based premise to some hand-waving about Hell being full. Still, Walking Dead is an excellent example of the genre in many ways. It seems to toy with the viewer’s expectations about the kind of stupidity and inhumanity you expect to see in stories of this kind. ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-questions-with-open-spoilers/577783/17 "2011-04-20T17:31:47Z")
> [@Johnny\_Angel](#): > > we’ve seen a mother return to the stoop of her marriage home. We’ve seen that the zombies can interpret sounds as indicating human activity. If you’re talking about Mr. Jones’ wife, that wasn’t their home. The three of them (Jones, his wife, their son) were traveling, I believe trying to either get to Atlanta or to find family, and she was bitten in Rick’s hometown. They holed up in Rick’s neighbor’s house while the wife died. Her continuing presence in that area I think can be explained simply by the wandering randomness of the walkers in general. I think that zombies are simply responding to sounds in general at first, and then use other signals (smell, for example) to determine whether the sound indicates food or not. Granted, the entire zombie genre relies on a lot of suspension of disbelief. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-questions-with-open-spoilers/577783/18 "2011-04-20T20:05:27Z")
Here’s a general zombie question - why don’t they eat each other? “Live” flesh may be tastier, but considering the apparent rareness of it - seems like the zombie next door would do just fine. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-questions-with-open-spoilers/577783/19 "2011-04-20T20:22:32Z")
> [@Folacin](#): > > Here’s a general zombie question - why don’t they eat each other? “Live” flesh may be tastier, but considering the apparent rareness of it - seems like the zombie next door would do just fine. They were attracted by the smell. When they group escaped, they sent two out covered in dead-people blood and intestines to mask the smell living people. It worked until it began to rain. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-questions-with-open-spoilers/577783/20 "2011-04-20T20:26:51Z")
> [@spooje](#): > > They were attracted by the smell. When they group escaped, they sent two out covered in dead-people blood and intestines to mask the smell living people. It worked until it began to rain. I get that - I’m just curious as to why in all of the zombie movies I’ve ever seen, it never occurs to the zombies to eat each other - it’s not like they have to worry about infection. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-walking-dead-questions-with-open-spoilers/577783.md?page=2)