In a zombie apocalypse, shoot the children first

(WARNING - if you haven't seen the Walking Dead mid-season finale, don't read this)

Is Lizzie the most dangerous person in the Walking Dead?

In a zombie apocalypse, it’s only right that the adults protect the kids, but maybe the adults need protected from the kids.

Well, one kid in particularly – Lizzie Samuels. Because there’s a pretty good chance that she was the one who killed Karen and David, and Carol’s protecting her.

Here’s why.

Lizzie has an unhealthy obsession with walkers - In 30 Days Without An Accident, Lizzie is seen with other kids naming the walkers outside the prison. Carl tells her they shouldn’t name them because they’re not people and they kill people. Lizzie responds by telling him that people kill people and they have names.

In Infected, the hand of someone is seen feeding the walkers rats using a flashlight to point their way. That’s something a kid would do and it might have led to the illness that the people in the prison suffered.



NOT GUILTY
but did Carol indirectly cause Karen and David's deaths?

Lizzie offers to “kill” her father so he won’t come back as a walker. Would a normal little girl be able to do that? In the end she couldn’t and Carol branded her weak.

After that, David and Karen are found dead.

Could Lizzie have reacted to Carol’s “you’re weak” comment by toughening up and killing the pair? Sounds like a possibility.

If Lizzie did kill David and Karen, and Carol found out about it, she could blame herself for what Lizzie did and take the blame. Carol could also have dragged their bodies and burned them to protect Lizzie.

Her little sister Mika, tells Carol that Lizzie isn’t weak, she’s just “messed up.”

Lizzie cries when her favourite walker Nick dies for good

Lizzie runs off crying when she finds out the walker she called Nick has been killed. Again, this suggests an unbalanced mind.

Carol tells her: “Lizzie, those are walkers. Nick was a walker. You don’t feel bad about that walker dying, you feel bad about your dad. You loved him and he’s gone.”



Natural born killers?

She knows how to kill
Lizzie is there when Carol teaches the kids how to use knives in their makeshift classroom.

Just as we were worried we were about to see the demise of another character, Lizzie save Tyrese by drilling a bullet into Alisha’s forehead and another soldier. And that leads to another prospect – did Lizzie team up with her younger sister to kill Karen and David? The dead pair wouldn’t have seen that coming.

Rick also found a very small, low handprint on the door near where Karen and David were found. A child's handprint.

Daryl knows Carol didn’t do it

Daryl when told that Carol killed David and Karen says, “That aint her.” Nobody knows her better in the show than Daryl.

Here’s the dialogue from the scene -

Rick: Hey, hey, she killed two of our own. She couldn’t be here. She’s going to be alright. She has a car…supplies…weapons. She’s a survivor.

Daryl: I don’t believe it.

Rick: She did it. She said it was for us. That was in her head. She wasn’t sorry.

Daryl: So, she deserved it. Well, that ain’t her.

Did a deathbed promise make Carol cover for Lizzie?

Carol’s promise to the girls’ dad

On his deathbed, Lizzie’s father asks Carol to look after his two daughters. When Carol makes a promise, she sticks to it and the two girls were her chance to be a mother again after losing Sophia.

Would that extend to Carol covering for a pint-sized sociopath or even sociopaths? I think so.

Only time will tell. One thing’s for sure, we can’t wait for the series to return on February 9^th.

What do you think?

Leave your comments below and remember, stay safe and keep aiming for the head.

What next for Walking Dead Season 4?

Stop killing off good characters like Milton and Tiny from the prison

In the case of Milton we never got to find out how he knew the Governor or who or what he was. We'd have liked to have found out. 

Big Tiny could have offered some much needed comedy effect. But, hey, being a black guy he didn't stand a chance. He was killed by fellow inmate Tomas. 

Axel could have brought Carol some happiness, but he got shot. 

Stop ruining women characters like Andrea

Would Andrea really have turned into a starstruck teenager with the Governor? We doubt it. Yet it wasn't until it was too late that she saw the light. It didn't fit the character who was tough and independent. 

Sash the scriptwriters are gonna cock up & kill me.

Stop killing off good characters

Like many members of the Walking Dead family, I couldn't wait to see Merle come back. Then what do they do, they kill him off and make his brother do the deed. Yet, there was more to Merle than meets the eye and we were starting to see that. Merle's death was such a waste. 

Let Daryl be Daryl

He probably wasn't meant to be the star of the show, but he is. So they need to let him be Daryl. That means letting him hunt down the man who made sure Merle turned into a zombie. 

That brings me to the final point...

Kill the Governor

A good character at the start, some of us got bored with him, mainly because the story involving him dragged on so long. He should have been killed by Rick when they set up the meeting. He wasn't. Andrea had the chance to kill him. She didn't take it. Milton also had his chance. He didn't take it. The Governor seems to have more lives than a cat. 

In case you haven't seen it, here's the trailer for season 4 of The Walking Dead

 

 

Do Rick, Daryl & Co have to leave the prison?

Why is Tyreese looking like he's lost something or someone?

Who's the child they have to kill?

Why are they in a store?

Those questions and more will be answered when the show returns on Sunday October 13th.

 

How to save the Walking Dead

The Walking Dead needs to ramp it up in season 4 to keep us watching. And here's 6 ways they can do it -

 

 

1. Flesh out the characters - 27 characters died in the season finale, but apart from Andrea and maybe Milton, did we actually care? Nope. Why? Because we didn't know these people, so how could we care about them? And, in the case of Andrea a lot of us had little sympathy because we found the way the writers developed her character unrealistic and even irritating.

2. We need more Daryl - Let's be honest here, Norman Reedus is the star of the show. He wasn't meant to be, but he is. Yet the Governor effectively kills his brother Merle and he doesn't hunt him down and turn up at the prison with the Governor's head on a stick? Rubbish. They need to stay true to the character.

3. Stop ruining female characters by turning them into unrealistic victims like Carol (battered wife, dead daughter), loose women like Lori and gullible idiots like Andrea (the old Andrea would have killed the Governor, not fawned over him like a love struck teenager). Only Michonne has kicked ass without any of the melodrama.

4. Do something interesting with the Governor or kill him off. For me, every time the action went to Woodbury the show dragged to a crawl. After the initial shock over him keeping his walker daughter and the heads, the Governor character disappointed.

 

5. We need more shocks. It was a shock when Merle died and when the Governor gunned down his own people, but apart from that there weren't enough shocks. Predictably, everybody at the prison survived.

 

If you can bare to watch it, here's the bit where Daryl finds Merle the zombie.
 

 

 

 

6. Up the walker threat. The reason folk love the show is because it's about zombies. But too much of the time in season 3 they were a sideshow. They need to pose more of a threat, to evolve, get stronger. TWD is primarily a zombie show, the writers shouldn't forget that.

Watch In the Flesh to discover what happens after the apocalypse

Meet Kieren Walker, he's a walker.

In the Flesh is a zombie show with a difference. It's set 4 years after the zombie apocalypse and the infected are cured thanks to a wonder drug that keeps their cannibal ways under control and allows them to be returned to their families.

The show focuses on the aptly named Kieren Walker and a volunteer army of people protecting their small town from any rotters (the name given to the zombies).

Naturally, they're not too happy to have the likes of Kieren & Co back and that includes his sister Jem who's turned into a gun totting zombie slayer.

The show manages to do something The Walking Dead often fails to do - it provokes an emotional reaction in the viewer because you care about the characters. Whether its the sympathy you feel for cured zombies like Kieren who are said to be suffering from PDS (Partially Deceased Syndrome), or for the families of the dead who are not coming back who's pictures litter noticeboards.

Show creator Dominic Mitchell is obviously a huge fan of the zombie genre and the result is a well thought out and engrossing drama that would have been great as a movie.

There are some shocking moments, especially at the start and end of the first episode - I won't say what they are - but In the Flesh is a fantastic fresh take on the zombie genre not to be missed.

Don't watch this...if you're expecting a shoot 'em up zombie murder fest.

Watch this if...you want a show that takes place after the zombie apocalypse and makes you care about the zombies.

Check out the trailer here

To find out more, go to BBC3's official page

The twitter hashtag for the show is #InTheFlesh

Understanding PDS (Partially Deceased Syndrome)

The show is available on BBC iPlayer

Andrew Lincoln’s Road to Rick Grimes & The Walking Dead

 From this...

To this...

The actor first came to public prominence when he starred in hit cult British show This Life about a group of 20-something lawyers sharing a house. In the show, Lincoln co-starred with Jack Davenport, who went onto play Lloyd Simcoe in FlashForward.

He played Manchester United obsessed Egg who decided he no longer wanted a legal career and ended up working in a cafe while he was finding himself. Ironically, easy going Egg would have been useless as a zombie slayer - sexy, strutting fellow housemate Anna, played by Scottish actress, Daniela Nardini was much more kick ass. In TWD she'd be Michonne - with a short skirt.

Lincoln's next major role was in Channel 4 show Teachers. Again, he played an easy going kind of guy and you guessed it, a teacher. His character Simon was a bigger kid than any of the pupils he taught and spent a lot of his time smoking cigarettes behind the bike sheds. His character finally left the show to go travelling. Andrew Lincoln met his wife Gael who was working on the show as a runner.

Andrew Lincoln in Teachers

His next big show was another hit called Afterlife where he played a university lecturer and psychologist studying a psychic for his book. A skeptic, he tried to prove that she wasn't psychic at all, so he'd probably have a hard time believing in zombies.

In the end, all roads led to The Walking Dead. And for that we're grateful.


Andrew Lincoln trivia

• His real name's Andrew James Clutterbuck
• His wife's Gael Anderson, is the daughter of Jethro Tull legend Ian
• In This Life his real first name was Edgar. No wonder they called him Egg.
• At one point, he reckons he was being lined up as the new Hugh Grant. Crikey, image Mr. Floppy hair fighting zombies?

The Scottish guide to kicking zombie ass

Scotland legend William Wallace would be the ultimate Scottish zombie slayer

Michonne has her katana...

William Wallace would have his sword...and this is just the hilt of it.

As you know, Dead Bastards is set in Glasgow. Well in Glasgow and in Scotland, we have special ways of dealing with zombies.

Hold on tight for a guide on how to kick some zombie ass (or, as we say in Scotland, arse).

This rancid wretch has just been the recipient of a Glasgow kiss

1. Stick the head in one (also know as the Glasgow kiss, stick the heid in him) this is a head butt with real venom. This is a real Scottish favourite. 

Just move your head back and wham, thrust it forward at high speed.

Pros - Fast and will immediately disable an opponent, including one of the undead.

Cons - It won't kill a zombie. You'll need to act quickly as one of the undead will clamber to their feet quicker than a regular person. Hey, they don't feel pain, remember. 

A chibbed zombie

2. Chib him/her.  
This means assault someone, usually by stabbing them with a knife, but it could also be a screwdriver. 

Pros - A knife can do a lot of damage to a festering walking corpse, if you play it right that is. Aim to stick it right in their eye or split the skull down the middle like it's a melon.

Cons - Close combat aint easy. You need to have balls to put down a walker. 

3. Kick the zombie up the arse/kick him up the bum.
A firm favourite with Glasgow folk this one.

Pros - No weapon required - just a clean pair of shoes.

Cons - You'll need to approach the shuffler from behind, so this is only useful if you’re wading in to help someone under attack. 

All he did was give him a wee slap

4. Give the zombie a wee slap.
 A master of the understatement this one, because in Glasgow a "wee slap" can mean a right battering (beating).

Pros - This involves using anything to hand to hit someone with, so it's perfect for zombies.

Cons - None. This is the real deal.