The Walking Dead: S03 Ep02 - Sick

What happened?

Whilst Hershal recovers from his bite and amputated leg, Rick negotiates a truce with the inmates to help them clear out a cell block of walkers for half of their food and the promise they will never trespass Rick's part of the prison. The operation sees Rick have to take action against some of the more threatening members of the inmate group, ultimately leaving just a couple of them remaining to fend for themselves.

Whilst Carol attempts to get practice on operating on walkers for the moment she may be called on to assist Lori's pregnancy she is observed from someone, or someones, unknown. Hershal does eventually awaken, thankful to be alive. Whilst Rick is quick to praise Lori for her help the emotional fracture that exists between them seems wider than ever with little chance of repair.

Thoughts

Oh if Shane could see Rick now. You may imagine him gazing down from heaven at the irony of it. Only, of course, The Walking Dead has very much posited itself as a world where heaven definitely does not exist. Yet Shane's devilish behaviour in the past season, so castigated and maligned by so many, has now become the kind of action Rick will take without debate and the rest of the group will accept as necessity. Anyone threatens the group - walker or man - they are killed.

That Rick slaughtered the prisoner in the white vest who was clearly becoming a liability to his own people as well as Rick came as little surprise. I did think, however, that he would be considered the one rotten apple in the group and that maybe Rick, once he had removed him, would consider the others as potential new people to join them. But then my thinking is not as merciless as Rick's. Perhaps all he sees are more mouths to feed, more potential dissenting voices, more possible people that may challenge for his crown. So they either step aside or they have to go.

If ever proof were needed about how far Rick has gone, the moment he chased the escaping convict only to shut him out to be fed to the walkers was it. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying Rick was too cruel. What I am remarking upon is the change he has been through. Shane once tried to escape with Otis to return medical supplies to the critically ill Carl; the tough decision he made on the spot was to shoot Otis so the walkers would eat him and let Shane escape so he could save the boy.

Rick shut a man out he thought presented a threat to his people in cold blood. Is there a difference? Maybe, but not much. Only the matter of Shane's dwindling sanity towards the end is the distinction. Rick, for now at least, retains a hold of his senses even though it is evidently taking a toll on his emotional wellbeing.

Last episode I discussed how Hershal's injuries ought to surely see him turn into a walker, if the disease is a virus transmitted through the blood. This episode dwelled on Hershal's injuries and, I think, tried to establish some form of general rule about how the infection spreads through a bite. There was the very pointed difference made with the big man who was injured down his neck and shoulder, areas of his body that could not be removed, which made it clear he was unable to be saved from becoming one of the undead. So, what have we learned?

Well, it was clarified for any latecomers that the infection to become a walker exists in everyone. How that was spread is unknown, and also irrelevant. It's a fact. If a person dies they will become a walker, unless their brain is destroyed. That's that. It's usually the case in zombie-lore that if a person is bitten by a zombie anywhere they will, eventually, become a zombie. I believe The Walking Dead sticks to that principal; if a person is bitten they will, if left untreated, become a walker.

Hershal, however, was not left untreated. He was bitten in the lower leg and, minutes later, that lower leg was cut off. As we eventually saw, this was enough to prevent him from being turned. So the idea that a bite somehow contains a contaminant that is transmitted via the bloodstream seems improbable (since the speed at which blood is propelled around the body is far quicker than any impromptu amputation can head off). I discussed the issue with a friend who has a better grasp of medical matters than I do and he suggested the most likely explanation would be to consider a bite from a walker to create an infection akin to gangrene; a disease of the flesh. If gangrene is left untreated it eventually spreads and kills the host, and this principal would hold true to being bitten by a walker.

At first I didn't like this idea, but as it has stayed with me I actually think I prefer it (and I think it makes more sense). For a zombie bite to infect a person's blood there would have to be some kind of fluid exchange - like saliva. Can we be entirely convinced that every rotten, dried-out carcass zombie that ever bit anyone contained saliva? That a bite from something dead against something alive would create an infected, gangrenous effect in the flesh is actually more agreeable. And so cutting off Hershal's lower limb and thus saving him has, after a week of rumination, become something I find preferable!

I am also glad that Hershal survived, mind. And I particularly liked how he reached his hand up upon waking and Rick was there to clasp it. I believe that whilst Rick makes all the hard decisions and bears the brunt of moral dilemma he will need Hershal more and more to anchor his conscience. Rick ought to, of course, be reliant on Lori for that kind of support but, as I shall speak more of further on, their relationship simply does not exist in that manner at the present time.

Carol had a subplot this episode that served two purposes. The first was to generally create the possibility that Hershal wouldn't survive. Her going out and learning how to perform a cesarean section on walkers was potentially generating a strand of drama that could see an amateur Carol attempt to see Lori and her unborn child safely through childbirth. That turned out to be something of a red herring, though did at least inform us that Carol has been groomed as the group's nurse and doctor no matter what - importantly giving her a role to play.

The moment where it appeared she was being observed was perhaps the most crucial occurrence overall, though. It's tricky to figure out what to make of it as we were given absolutely no idea as to the identity of the observer. I did wonder if they wouldn't have seen Carol performing her bizarre operations on the walkers and think that the people in the prison were serious twisted! If they were benevolent, potentially friendly allies to Rick's group then they certainly wouldn't have been given a good impression. However, the nature of them skulking in the trees and watching from afar and staying that way suggests they are up to no good. I expect them, whoever they are, to represent yet another problem when they reveal themselves!

There's only one small thing marring my enjoyment of this new season, and that's the grey area surrounding the rift between Rick and Lori. I am still unsure if it's due to an event we are not yet completely aware of or whether it's been a gradual drifting apart as a consequence of what happened between those two and Shane. I really want it to be due to something we have not yet seen; some event that occurred during the winter between seasons (ha!) two and three. My trouble is I don't know if I am reading too much into it or whether I am missing something very obvious.

I don't know if the show has created this mystery, or I've created a mystery for myself by not paying the right attention.

It would be a minor bugbear but the episode ended on this very matter and is clearly crucial to the drama. Never-the-less, the reason for the rift felt negligible during the emotional brutality of the final scene. Lori's quiet need felt like a whimper against the hurricane of Rick's adamant refusal to deal with the issue between them. He could tell her she had done a good job with the group but that was the extent of it, and how doubly cruel it was for him to reach out a hand only to give her a basic complimentary touch and then move on. She was left stroking the shoulder where his hand had been, alone, silently devastated.

Lori has never been a particular favourite of mine, quite the opposite really. But even my heart wanted to reach out for her. As I've said, the matter of what went on between them feels pertinent (is there someone particularly in the wrong out of the two of them?) and also irrelevant - it's just a minor annoyance that I might be reading the show wrong about what I am supposed to be expecting. Until I know better, however, I'll stick with the idea that Rick and Lori's fallout is due to something that happened which we are not aware of, and I hope I am right.

What was the best part?

The Walking Dead knows how to eke out tense beats better than any other show I can think of right now. This episode contained one such beat. When the long-haired prisoner, who was clearly displaying psychotic tendencies, wide-eyed and covered in the blood of his former prisonmate, opened two doors instead of one and let a torrent of walkers in the scene was loaded with one inevitability: something was going to go wrong. As it transpired the walkers were dispatched, but one close shave for Rick was all the justification he needed. One protracted Walking Dead dramatic beat of tension ensued as Rick and the man faced off, and then wham! Rick slams a machete down into the man's brainbox and splits it in two. Well, you gotta destroy the brain otherwise they just come back. . .

What do I think will happen next?

I saw the preview for the next episode looked like it was filled with all manner of excitement. Andrea and her enigmatic partner seem to feature prominently, but more eye-catching was the apparent return of Merle. If he is back then it cannot be too long before the long-awaited brotherly reunion between Merle and Daryl occurs. I'd like to believe that Daryl has now become 100% loyal to Rick and the group, so Merle couldn't just show up and rock the boat in that way. However, how Daryl would react to his brother is a fascinating prospect.

Prediction, long shot as it is, is that the person who observed Carol is also a part of the group that Andrea and her partner encountered. This would get all the key cast members within the same area, within the same plot, which would probably suit The Walking Dead better. The fact that Andrea was completely omitted from this episode shows that it is not a show that is well-suited to cutting away to different characters in different areas. It exists better when it keeps things localised, focused, so I do hope we see all major protagonists and antagonists all together before too long.

Fringe: S05 Ep01 - Transilience Thought Unifier Model-11

What happened?

It's 2036, and Etta continues the resistance against The Observers with Peter, Walter and Astrid. Their first course of action is to return to the point where Walter last heard from Olivia, and they realise she must have ambered herself when she was collecting a vital component of Walter's plan to win the war.

Whilst Olivia is found and removed from Amber, Walter is captured by The Observers and his scattered mind is probed and broken down before Peter and Olivia can rescue him; whatever plans he had are now seemingly lost and they may have to hope for an alternative scheme to present itself to save the world.

Thoughts

So this first episode of the new (and final) season kicked off where the episode Letters Of Transit left things before last season headed into its present day finale. We were thrust back into 2036, with Peter dreaming of the moment he was with his baby daughter when The Observers made their brutal assault on the planet. Great way to start the episode, that was for sure (and very important in helping us understand just how The Observers took control; turns out it was with overwhelming force). The end of last season seemingly resolved the matter of there being a parallel universe with the link to 'Over There' being severed, Olivia was apparently now free of Cortexiphan, and pregnant, so a little beat like Peter's dream filling us in on how The Observers took over it seems like there's little reason to 'go back' to the present day timeline since there's not a lot of exposition there to uncover.

Of course we have learned from Walter that he worked with September to devise plans to take back the planet from The Observer shortly after they arrived, but since Walter has already discussed what happened there seems little need to show it. Point I am making is that, with this season starting in the year 2036, whilst the door is still open for the next episode to go back to the 'present day' and pick up plot threads, there's actually very little point.

There are one or two things hanging around unanswered, mind. Like Walter, in Letters Of Transit, only took William Bell's hand because of what he had done. We don't know what heinous act that was, unless it was what we saw in the season finale and the things Belly did in his manipulation of Olivia. If we never hear anything else about it then we can assume that was Walter's motivation - so I suppose that base has been covered.

It didn't take long for this episode to get Olivia back into the show (unsurprising, she already spent the entirety of Letters Of Transit out of the picture so they couldn't very well let another episode go by without the leading lady!), which made up the first half of what turned out to be an episode of two rescues. First they rescued Olivia from the amber thieves, and then they had to rescue Walter from the clutches of The Observers. The upshot at the end of the episode was that the gang were all back together, albeit Walter was 'back' to his more mentally unstable self that we're used to seeing (I suppose that'll put Astrid back on carer duties!) and, more threateningly, Etta had been revealed as a double agent to The Observers so she is sure to be high on their hit list.

I liked Etta, even though she wasn't given very much to do this episode. I said it about her when she appeared in Letters Of Transit and I still stand by the idea that she has been very well cast, and puts on a great performance. Her capturing of mannerisms and expressions that echo Olivia are subtle yet perfectly on point. You can totally believe she is Olivia's daughter, 100%. The scene where Olivia and Etta first met was about as a touching as it could be, but the episode didn't really have the space to stretch out that reunion. Mother-daughter bonding will surely be developed over the course of the season.

If I had a complaint it's that the episode did feel a little rushed into having things to do. Fair enough it wanted to show some hustle to get Olivia back, but then needing to hurry once more to get Walter back meant there was scarcely chance for the characters to establish themselves and their reactions to this horrible new world. Save for Astrid playing some advanced word game, or the apparently unpleasant "eggsticks", we weren't given much of a feel for what life in 2036 is like. Credit to the production design with its graffitti and Observer posters lending this future dystopia a sharp Orwellian feel. All we know for certain is that The Observers' practice of leeching away oxygen from the atmosphere is going to have dire consequences for all mankind so time is not on their side.

The Observers themselves make for a bit of a strange adversary. I am not quite sure what their powers are, and what their limitations are. Evidently they can read minds, fair enough. But then I think of how September was able to predict what people would say before they said it, and happen to be at the right place and time to witness something strange occurring, and it was clear he was capable of a lot more prescience and awareness than just reading minds. And also the matter of them being able to appear and disappear (like how they showed up out of nowhere to capture Walter) wherever they want begs the question of just what kind of measures can our heroes put in place to stop them just finding them and appearing where they are in great numbers and putting their resistance to an end.

I realise that they clearly need the help of humans (enlisting them as part of their army, like Nazis enlisting Jews to run concentration camps) so they are not all-powerful beings - I'd just like to have their boundaries clarified. I want to know the enemy.

The Observers do also rock a very distinct resemblance to Agents from The Matrix with the way they are dressed, their robotic speech patterns and how they operate to enslave mankind. I also thought the scene where The Observer interrogated Walter, trying to break his mind, was very reminiscent of the scene where Agent Smith tried to break Morpheus in The Matrix (and in that movie Neo and the gang infiltrated a large building to rescue him, akin to Olivia and Peter this episode!); with the blood leaking out of Walter's nose and the way the scene played I believe Fringe was paralleling that entirely deliberately.

I can't say I was blown away by the episode, in all honesty. Writing about it, curiously enough, makes it seem slightly more interesting than how it all felt when watching it play out. The rescue operations lacked tension, the reunions lacked emotion and the confounding plot about Walter's memories having been broken up like a jigsaw and apparently unable to be put back together wasn't exactly a tangible mechanic to get on side with.

If I look at the episode as one that's just laying down a marker for where the season is going to go then it's done it's job. The gang are all back in one place. With Walter's original plan apparently lost then there's a clean slate for Olivia and Peter and Walter and Etta to re-gather their strategies and come up with a new scheme that we can be on board with on the ground floor. And there's still the matter of Broyles and Nina hanging around, waiting to be brought back into the fold. Not to mention September, too, who we don't yet know the fate of. So, lots to look forward to - it was just the execution here felt a bit flat.

I really liked the last scene, though. It was totally bizarre. Walter attracted by a strange decoration of compact discs to play an old 80s cover of 'Only You' (by Alison Moyet, I think it was) and then sit in a rusted yellow taxi, spotting a solitary yellow flower. Symbolically the suggestion was that the same way the little flower was growing in unlikely circumstances (an Observer did make a remark earlier on about how nothing can grow in dead earth) it meant hope could find a way. Walter, in the yellow taxi, half-dressed and mind broken, was like the delicate yellow flower: a small chance of hope, but hope none-the-less.

What was the best part?

Peter's dream sequence was hard to top. Nicely edited out of sequence and jarring enough to make an impact. I think it was also the element of Olivia and Peter actually at peace, happy, and not on their guard that made the devastating arrival of The Observers all the more shocking. Clearly Olivia and Peter thought they had saved the world - they, like the rest of the world, just didn't see it coming.

What do I think will happen next?

Viva la resistance! I have to now assume the 2036 timeline is going to be the dominant timeline and we're going to stick with Olivia, Peter, Walter and Etta as they formulate a new plan to try and overthrow their oppressors. I have no idea where that may take us yet, but I hold out hope that the talk of the 'first people' that was present in the earlier seasons may yet become a part of things and that Fringe has more twists and turns beyond a straight rebellion conflict against Fringe Division and The Observers.

The Walking Dead: S03 Ep01 - Seeds

What happened?

After a winter of on the run survival, Rick and his group find a prison that would be a perfect safe refuge for Lori to deliver her child - if they can clear out all of the walkers roaming the grounds and interiors. . . Rick manages to co-ordinate the group into one cell block, but a further exploration deeper in leaves half the group trapped by walkers, with Hershal bitten and amputated in an attempt to save his life. They have also inadvertently stumbled into a small number of other prisoner survivors, who seem surprised to see they made it.

Meanwhile Andrea has contracted a nasty illness but refuses to allow it to be the end of her and so journeys on with her new companion - the mysterious, samurai sword-wielding, zombie-slaver.

Thoughts

The new series of The Walking Dead began with a pre-credits sequence that told us everything we needed to know about what Rick and the group had been doing over a long, tough winter. They moved as a well-worked unit, infiltrating a house and quickly picking through room by room. Even Carl has developed the skills to be left unattended and not flinch about taking down a walker. Note how no one spoke - not a word. This tells us that a) they've done this enough to know what to do without speaking and, b) most importantly, they know speaking out can only alert their enemy to their presence. Make no mistake, Rick and the gang have become a survival force to be reckoned with. Free of Shane's vying for dominance, and Dale's moral debates, this is a group with focus borne out of necessity. Great opening scene. We don't need to have seen the tough winter to know they've been through a lot - but tellingly Rick won't allow them to eat dog food. They're desperate and they do what it takes - but there's still a line of humanity he won't allow them to go beyond.

So, firstly, I suppose the facility we glimpsed at the end of Season 2 must have been something they didn't actually manage to find? (I am assuming it wasn't the prison they have stumbled upon!) I'm not cancelling out the idea that they found it, not yet, because there were a few bits and pieces in this episode that suggested there is a story about what happened in between Season 2 and Season 3 that we may yet be shown. I am speaking mainly about Lori and Rick. Clearly there was a major rift between them, with Lori remarking that Rick hated her and was just too decent to say it, and she also mentioned something about being the one that put the knife in his hand. . .

Now, maybe I am being an idiot here and totally missing the obvious. But I don't think Lori was talking about  anything we have already seen in Season 2. So my opinion is that she is talking about something that happened during the winter and maybe, further in to this season, we'll be shown a flashback moment that explains exactly what went on between Rick and Lori to have generated this hostility between them. Whatever it is, Rick is clearly torn between doing the right thing and coping with the burden of it, as indicated by his breaking away from the group to sit alone for a little while and collect himself.

Aside from Lori and her obvious concerns about impending childbirth the rest of the group have become quite nicely balanced. I enjoyed the interplay between Carol and Daryl, with her showing a more relaxed and even playful side of her character. No surprise we've never seen that before; Season 1 she was a downtrodden wife to an abusive husband and Season 2 she was the mother of a missing girl that turned up dead (to be shot in the head right in front of her). To have come through all that and crack wise about wanting to fool around with Daryl (and even get a smile out of him) shows she's a woman of tremendous inner resourcefulness. Her remarks of praise about how far Rick had got them should also, I hope, quash that horrible possibility of her trying to push Daryl into challenging for the leader role as was hinted at in last season's finale.

Glenn and Maggie also have a much more relaxed relationship, with him no longer a jittery clutz around her and stepping up as a man of action. Fair play as well that Maggie is considered as an equal to the guys, joining them on their ill-fated descent into the prison. She still looks great in a vest, too! Meanwhile Carl and Hershal's daughter look to be striking up a bit of a growing fondness - I suppose at the end of the world in such a small group then both of them have to take what fate has provided. At least Hershal has less of a Victorian dad attitude towards his daughter as well. Indeed, all round (Rick and Lori aside) the group has never looked better. It was only inevitable that something was going to go wrong, though I was surprised that Hershal was the man that got taken down.

Yes, about that moment. Hershal gets a seriously nasty bite to the lower leg and within a minute Rick is hacking his leg off in a bid to save it. (Compare and contrast with Season Two, where this kind of action took a debate to decide what to do.) Now I don't have any actual medical education but I am fairly sure that any virus that is carried through the bloodstream (as the bite of a zombie and subsequent infection must surely be) then I don't believe that hacking the bitten limb off ought to be enough to prevent it. Blood gets pumped from your heart and round your body and back again way quicker than that! So what I am saying is that I don't think Rick's amputation should, realistically, be enough to prevent Hershal from turning walker. In the show? Well, I'd like to see him stick around, and I am certain Lori and everyone else would definitely benefit from his medical expertise, which all the more makes it seem like there's every chance he won't make it because The Walking Dead likes nothing more than making bad situations worse.

The situation was left pretty bad at the end of the episode, of course. Rick and the small band are holed up with a badly-wounded Hershal, stacks of walkers penning them in, and they've only gone and run into more survivors (seemingly prisoners, judging by their clothes). Getting stuck in a prison with prisoners is never a good situation for anyone, really, but when the shit has hit the fan and the world has gone to hell then it's an extremely bad spot!

I am not quite sure what to make of the prison. I don't know if these prisoners were entombed within the walls of the building and stuck there because they couldn't get through all the walkers outside the door, but that's my first impression. The alternative is that they are part of a larger group that exist within the prison walls and Rick and his group have inadvertently come up against them surviving in there. That option seems less likely, purely by how surprised the prisoners were and how the prison had been, up until Rick and everyone else clearing the path, completely surrounded by walkers. No, I'll go with them being the few survivors after the prison and inmates got taken down and they've been stuck there ever since. I guess they'll have been helping themselves to all those lovely food rations Rick's group were hoping to find untouched!

Elsewhere Andrea has had a winter of survival with the cool and mysterious samurai sword black woman (if we learned her name during this episode I didn't catch it). There wasn't much revealed about what they have been doing or what their plan is, and even less information about who this woman is and what she's all about. Seemingly they've survived the winter together as desperately as Rick's group, though possibly they have a destination in mind that only Andrea's illness had put on hold.

What is the function of the armless, jawless zombies the woman likes to drag around with her? Do they serve as some kind of deterrent to the walkers, masking them somehow? Or is it purely as a signal of power to other people they may encounter? Or is it to serve as a kind of symbol the woman lives by - that she won't be enslaved by these walkers but instead intends to be their master? Maybe it's all three. I am certainly looking forward to finding out more about this woman, whatever the case may be!

This first episode of Season 3 was a strong return of the show. I got the impression that it was also responding to criticism from certain quarters regarding the previous Season, about how there wasn't quite enough zombie action and too much melodrama down on the farm (leading to the dismissive monicker of 'the talking dead' the show garnered by overly-critical fanboys). I personally thought the show had got the balance between character drama and zombie horror perfectly acceptable, but I still enjoyed this opening episode that was jam-packed with zombie slaying. The opening shot, a pull back from an extreme close up of a walker's iris to reveal it standing in a room only to be then taken out by Rick storming through the door set the tone for an episode that saw zombies shot and stabbed through the brain more times than could be counted. It got to the extent that they cut away from such things as the episode drew on purely to avoid repetition! Once you've seen one zombie get poked through the eye and stabbed through the skull you've seen 'em all!

What was the best part?

Whilst the climactic exploration of the dark corridors to a fateful end was tense stuff, I thought the scenes where Rick and co headed into the prison yard to try and access the cell block was even better. I particularly liked the moment zombie prison guards entered the fray, bedecked in body armour that made them even harder to kill! Cue Maggie's delight as she jabbed a skewer up a guard walkers chin into its brain, killing it. With a broad excitable grin she turned to her comrades and exclaimed, "Did you see that!?" Yes, Maggie, I did. And yes, Maggie, I was very impressed.

What do I think will happen next?

The matter of Hershal's survival is in the balance. Whilst I don't believe he should manage to survive I am not writing him off. I fully expect Rick and co to get out of the sticky spot they are in, but they may have to enlist the help of the prisoners they have encountered. I don't imagine that Rick will be willing to take them under his wing, mind, which raises the ugly problem of how he handles it if they decide that they don't want to venture out into the wide world beyond the prison walls. We've been down this problem before, and it always results in more dead bodies.

Prediction? OK. Hershal dies. Lori could therefore use some assistance with delivering her baby (particularly if there are complications in childbirth). The prisoners, or at least one of them, will either have some expertise or know someone or some place that does, thus creating leverage to work alongside them. So Rick will have to co-operate with the prisoners in an uneasy alliance and, well, drama will ensue!