This show is good (right?). I’ve been having a weird experience watching it. On the one hand it’s really entertaining. But on the other hand it seems to just come up short. I’m not sure how to explain it, but certain ideas come up and then they veer away from them. While I actually like the real issue of would be, not so dangerous day to day sicknesses being extremely fatal right now, it makes sense, I’m just not sure we had to make all other avenues obsolete. I’ll explain more in my notes, but essentially it seems there’s only one issue or arc at a time, which honestly wouldn’t be the case. In a more realistic hypothetical apocalypse show I’d imagine there’d be many issues at once. Either way I’m still entertained but I do have some critiques.
In Carl I trust
I’ve come full circle on Carl. Honestly at this point he’s one of the few logical people left. Episode two Rick is so off in his own world he doesn’t seem capable of getting back in the fray, which he inevitably does. I think Carl takes his post apocalyptic learning experiences with the best strides. He seems legit remorseful for his killer instincts before and seems like he legit just wants to earn everyone’s trust back, all the while not being dumb enough to think that he won’t ever need his gun again. He knows he needs it, he knows the group needs him to have it too. And rather than act like he relapsed on crack, he simply just admits he fired a gun again and explained himself and immediately apologized. Rick seemingly goes catatonic the first time he has to spring into action again. I know Rick’s been through a lot, but honestly Carl has been through a hell of a lot more. Sure Rick had to kill his best friend, but Carl had to lose a pseudo father figure there, and cope with his father being the killer. Sure Rick lost a wife, but Carl had to shoot his mother in the head. No matter how you slice it Carl is a prototype of survival. He’s lost that cold-bloodedness he had a season ago, he’s gain some perspective, but at the same time he’s not entertained by the zombies like the other kids. And it kind of makes sense. Kids are adaptable. I remember I moved to Texas for a year in sixth grade. My parents fought more, My older siblings were getting to high school so that wasn’t easy, but I went outside met some kids and was sleeping over and playing video games in the first week. The adults in the show probably have flashes of what the fuckness when they think about what happened to the life they knew, where as a kid like Carl just probably thinks, “welp this is my life.”
Dirty Pigs
So here’s the beginning of my issue with this show. Is no one able to multitask on any level. I get that the last scene in episode 2 is supposed to be heart wrenching but seriously, why completely destroy the farm. Maybe kill the pigs, sure. But even then, why not just cook them thoroughly and have a meal. Is there something I’m missing here that he had to ceremoniously burn everything about farming down. I feel like this would be the equivalent of me just lighting my desk on fire every time something went wrong with a relationship in my life. Well, guess I gotta focus on this single thing over here. And guess what, I’ll just destroy the one thing I did have going well so that’ll be a problem that comes up later for me too. Cause fuck it, if I’m going to have problems, I might as well have all the problems. It infuriated me that since the sickness started they can’t keep the rest of the ship going. Carol is offering to fix the water and Rick claims there’s no time. I’m sorry all you have is time. What is this limited day you have. This isn’t a 9-5 existence. As we saw unclogging the water took maybe 20 minutes. You still have 15 hours and 40 minutes of awake time to get shit done. And that’s if you’re sleeping 8 hours. Take away TV, take away your commute, take away your job, and take away your hobbies, and realize how much time you have left to just work on sustaining life. That being said I like the sickness storyline. It’s something I didn’t even think of but makes complete sense. People with minimal hygiene and almost no medication; of course people are going to get sick. And throw in the level of malnutrition they all probably have yea the common cold would now become fatal. I just think the show could’ve done without literally burning down all other situations happening at the moment.
Burning Bodies
Speaking of burning down subject matters that might defer people’s attention. This whole situation strikes me as odd. I almost feel like they don’t want any competition for the prom king and queen for Maggie and Glen, cause that’s the only reason I see for why they just ended Tyrese’s love affair. Only Maggie and Glen can have a functioning relationship, but there’s bigger problems with this. Firstly, why is this seen as murderous? Why was that the first conclusion? Didn’t we just witness a ton of people who got sick and died and became zombies that everyone just slayed? So wouldn’t we assume that’s what happened first? And with that, if you do have an issue that they were burned afterwards instead of buried; isn’t it possible they were just trying to stop the spread of the sickness. I feel like I’m missing something. And then they really force this situation down your throat with Carol’s tantrum on the water jugs and her cold blooded admission of “killing” those two people. I put it in quotes cause again, unless she killed them before they were dead, then I’m not sure why they’re calling it murder. And if she did it before then, then I have to wonder why. She has no motive to just kill people . All seems very strange.
In the end the how has my attention. There’s a few nuggets of intrigue that I’m really curious to see where it goes. That throw in of a voice on the radio is great stuff. I think they need more storyline movers like that. Ones that aren’t a race against time, but are matters of intrigue. Oh and my final thought is that you know something is wrong when Carl seems to be making the most sense.
About Matt Cargile
Matt Cargile is the Editor in Chief of rookerville.com. He also works in finance, but refuses to read any news printed on pink paper. He is a child at heart with adult means. His childhood dream was to either become a magician or the leader of the next great empire and somehow both these things make complete sense. He's contradictory in nature, but is always consistent.
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