Walkers - threat?

wonderfullife

Anybody else feel that a major drawback of an otherwise strong season is that the Prison/Woodbury storyline has diminished the threat of the Walkers?

We have 2 gated communities here, both of which are just taking pot-shots at walkers when they need to. For all the plus points, the suspense/danger of the Walkers seems lost at the moment. Whereas in Atalanta and at the farm, their threat was always very real and imminent, this season they just seem insignificant.

Kinda makes you wonder, on a broader point, why there isn't many more (and larger) Woodburys in existence. I guess there are ones we have not discovered yet.

Also given how slow and predictable the Walkers are, and given how Ricks group have sussed out "if you die, you turn", why hasn't there been a nationwide return to "normality"? Surely many others figured the same thing out long ago.

I mean, you've got a situation now where you could get every human still alive to get weapons, pick off all the walkers, go back to normal life and with vigilance, it'd be easy to contain the pandemic. Shoot anybody who dies in the head. If they die and bite others who are asleep, shoot them too. You'd contain the situation and be able to resume communications, travel, normal life in 5 or 10 years of hard work burning bodies, clearing roads etc

The only problem i see is co-ordinating such an effort. But i guess every group of humans you bump into, go town to town, working grids on a map, send scouts to neighbouring towns to spread the word, use whatever telecommunications remain. Hell, carrier pigeons, anything.

Probably pondering this too much

AlmightyCushion

They ruined the walkers in the first episode of this season, they are just far too easy to kill. Sometimes they just walk up and poke them in the face with something pointy. The walkers used to be a very serious threat now they are just a minor inconvenience.

MadsL

Gone off the boil in my view, the last episode was dire...as for dragging armless chinless walkers about as decoy...Wut?

wonderfullife

Btw i wouldn't fancy sharing a cell with Herschel or any other old folk!! Sleep with one eye open! Heart attack, bam, wake up a zombie too!

MadsL

wonderfullife wrote: »

Btw i wouldn't fancy sharing a cell with Herschel or any other old folk!! Sleep with one eye open! Heart attack, bam, wake up a zombie too!

I liked that "we are all infected" line -but they need to use it more in the plot.

A Neurotic

It's very much an intentional change over time. The tag line in the trailers for season 3 was "Fight the dead. Fear the living". The point of the comic/show was always more focused on survival in extreme circumstances and the fall of society more than the actual zombies themselves. I think the show has gone to great lengths to show us the group gradually growing accustomed to the Walker threat; I remember the montage in a season 2 episode which showed the group heading out to actively clear zombies and put up fences for the first time, and with the couple of months time jump at the start of season 3 they took the opportunity to develop the group into zombie killing experts.

Penn

Exactly.

Most of the walkers were turned at the start of the epidemic, because no-one knew what was happening. That means that although they decay slower, they're not as fast or strong as they were in the first two seasons (as there's like an 8 month gap between seasons 2 and 3). And in that time they've just become so used to killing walkers that they can kind of predict what they'll do, so they're just easier to kill. The problem is when you're outnumbered by them or taken by surprise. But in cases like when they cleared out the prison when they first arrived, they knew what to do, and they're so used to working as a team that they have each other's backs etc.

The main issue in the show has always been the living, because they're unpredictable. Walkers, they'll walk straight over to you and try to eat you. No problem. The living, there's no telling how they'll take to you. Look at Shane for example. Rick's best friend and the guy who for a while was essentially the leader of the group before Rick showed up.

Like A Neurotic said, "Fight the dead, Fear the living"

As for why all the groups don't just send word to each other to clear out loads of walkers and get things back to normal, it's because there is no type of organisation. Each group or settlement has to fend for themselves. 10 months in to the walker situation, everyone is in their groups or settlements. Making contact with another group or settlement for the purposes of cooperation of any kind is far too risky. People are having to do whatever they have to to survive. If a small group wanted to contact a bigger group for cooperation, there's too much risk that the bigger group would just take everything the small group had and leave them for dead. Each group has to look after themselves. There is no form of government or law any more.

Plus, most groups and settlements are so closed off in order to remain safe that they don't know where any other groups or settlements are. Look how close Woodbury and the prison are, and it was only by chance that one found the other. Same with Hershel's farm and the prison.

Jason Todd

^^^ Great post Penn.

krudler

The Walking Dead aren't the walkers themselves, they're the humans, thats hammered home in the comics. Other people who can think and scheme and plot are going to be more trouble than mindless walkers unless they're in huge numbers. I like how they dont go after walkers now unless they absolutely have to, one of the recent eps had people yakking on a road while in the background a bunch of straggler walkers were shuffling around, shows how things have changed and how people have adapted.

Conmaicne Mara

In the prison, I never understood why they don't pick off the walkers near the fence. They walk right up to it, could poke them with a sharp metal bar from inside the fence.

El Guapo!

I wonder will they make the walkers get a bit more intelligent, like in I Am Legend, and create new problems for the group.
I've never read the comics so I don't know if this is in the pipeline or not.

A Neurotic

Conmaicne Mara wrote: »

In the prison, I never understood why they don't pick off the walkers near the fence. They walk right up to it, could poke them with a sharp metal bar from inside the fence.

Comics

Initially, Glenn comes up with a method for thinning out the many walkers at the fence, by attaching blocks of wood to knives so that the walkers can't fall backwards and pull the knives through the fence.

Later, when the prison community are gearing up for attack from Woodbury, they agree to let the walkers build up outside the gates as a nice buffer against outside attack. Hopefully we'll see something similar come to pass in TV!

Syferus

This would be an incredibly derivative and boring show if The Walking Dead in the title were the walkers and not the living.

It makes more sense that they're less of a threat now too, the people who have survived this long have become more skilled at killing them and with their bodies rotting further they should be realistically slower and easier to rip apart.

Jason Todd

***Comics

As far as I can tell from the comics reviews that are up-to-date, the walkers hardly feature at all anymore. The big villain is some sort of religious nut who has a large encampment. Walkers are more of an unseen threat. That's my reading of it anyway.

Grimebox

A massive hoard of walkers could still roll over Woodbury like the way the farm was overran

Kirby

Grimebox wrote: »

A massive hoard of walkers could still roll over Woodbury like the way the farm was overran

Not really. The farm had old wooden fences. Woodbury has stacked cars, tires, and metal. They would just bunch up.

No, the way a fortified position like that falls is from the inside. One person gets bitten or dies of natural causes and it spreads. Anarchy. Because no matter how safe you feel, you are never safe. A heart attack in the night and bam. Instant zombie. And don't forget about the people who get bitten and don't tell out of fear.

Grimebox

Kirby wrote: »

Not really. The farm had old wooden fences. Woodbury has stacked cars, tires, and metal. They would just bunch up.

No, the way a fortified position like that falls is from the inside. One person gets bitten or dies of natural causes and it spreads. Anarchy. Because no matter how safe you feel, you are never safe. A heart attack in the night and bam. Instant zombie. And don't forget about the people who get bitten and don't tell out of fear.

While your right that its far more likely get corrupted from the inside, it isn't inconceivable that a massive hoard could overwhelm them.

I don't know how big Woodbury is supposed to be but its population is less than 100 right? So with only that amount of people to keep the perimeter, its not all that big. Imagine they were surrounded on all sides 100 walkers deep or even as far as the eye could see, akin to a stadium of people getting infected and wandering around together. A siege like that could last days and ammo could eventually run low. The walkers could eventually clamber over each other and get into the complex. The threat of the walkers hasn't been completely snuffed out yet I don't think.

Conmaicne Mara

I don't see a horde overwhelming Woodbury either. Guns aren't the solution to every walker problem. They're a weapon of last resort. With sharpened lengths of rebar 100 folks could do a lot of head pokin' in a day.

Cantona's Collars

Want to become a walker? Have a look here, http://www.amctv.com/shows/the-walking-dead/dead-yourself

mrbrown69

Good opening post....it's got to the stage where you have a 12 yr old kid in a cowboy hat going on a "run" ...... watch out for walkers could easily be translated as mind the traffic

krudler

mrbrown69 wrote: »

Good opening post....it's got to the stage where you have a 12 yr old kid in a cowboy hat going on a "run" ...... watch out for walkers could easily be translated as mind the traffic

that kid is class in the comic, one of the best characters

Cantona's Collars

Just caught a bit of an episode from the last series on RTE last night,it was the part where the horde of zombies were on the highway & Sophia runs into the woods,Rick finds her & the 2 walkers that are chasing them are fast,they seem to be the 2 fastest walkers in the show.I don't remember seeing any other walkers move at speed & do they get slower over time as they 'decay'?
Every other scene shows them just shuffling relentlessly.Even so Rick could have easily killed them but chose to run????

Grimebox

zerks wrote: »

Just caught a bit of an episode from the last series on RTE last night,it was the part where the horde of zombies were on the highway & Sophia runs into the woods,Rick finds her & the 2 walkers that are chasing them are fast,they seem to be the 2 fastest walkers in the show.I don't remember seeing any other walkers move at speed & do they get slower over time as they 'decay'?
Every other scene shows them just shuffling relentlessly.Even so Rick could have easily killed them but chose to run????

A million and one things like that happen in this program. Its best to accept it and try to enjoy it

Gbear

I don't get why people don't just live on the 2nd floor of buildings, knock down the stairs and just use rope ladders.

Never have to worry about walkers then. If you want to leave, stab the ones close by with spears or have 2 entrances and lure all the zombies to one entrance and leave by the other.

pH

And yet ...

The Gov uses a small truck of walkers (10-15?) to devastating effect by dumping them in the courtyard! And a whole group of reasonably well equipped and seasoned zombie fighters can't deal with them.

And he still considers another 20 or so crucial in his final assault on the prison and is pissed when someone burns them.

No the zombie writing in TWD is just silly now, the writers flip flop between them being dangerous when they need to and a minor inconvenience when it suits them.

El Guapo!

pH wrote: »

And yet ...

The Gov uses a small truck of walkers (10-15?) to devastating effect by dumping them in the courtyard! And a whole group of reasonably well equipped and seasoned zombie fighters can't deal with them.

And he still considers another 20 or so crucial in his final assault on the prison and is pissed when someone burns them.

No the zombie writing in TWD is just silly now, the writers flip flop between them being dangerous when they need to and a minor inconvenience when it suits them.

But the Governor never sent in the walkers as a main point of the assault. He sent them in to be an added distraction while he and his men shot up the place. The group would have to deal with incoming walkers while also concentrating on the bullets whizzing overhead.
I reckon he has the same plan with his next assault --- send in a van of walkers which will help keep the group occupied while he launches his attack.


In saying all that though, I do wish the walkers were more of a threat rather than a minor inconvenience.

I'm still hoping the walkers start to get a little bit more intelligent as time goes by and create more of a challenge for the group to deal with.

A Neurotic

El Guapo! wrote: »

I'm still hoping the walkers start to get a little bit more intelligent as time goes by and create more of a challenge for the group to deal with.

Nope, the opposite is happening. In season one we saw them picking up teddy bears, trying to use door knobs, climbing fences, and using rocks to smash through glass. They've since been dumbed down and haven't displayed any such intelligence in seasons two and three.

El Guapo!

A Neurotic wrote: »

Nope, the opposite is happening. In season one we saw them picking up teddy bears, trying to use door knobs, climbing fences, and using rocks to smash through glass. They've since been dumbed down and haven't displayed any such intelligence in seasons two and three.

I know, and its a bit frustrating. I'm not hoping for them to become seriously intelligent but a bit more would make it interesting.