Yeah, I feel totally destroyed by The Walking Dead. I was not expecting any of that to happen during episode 4! That really felt like a season finale!

RIGHT? What the goddamn shit. As Zack Handlen put it:

It’s a big, bold, vicious move on the part of the writers, because at this point in the season, everyone should be relatively safe. Big changes happen in the premiere, or near the end, or right in the middle. Not in this strange no-man’s land, which on most other serialized dramas would have a lot of piece moving and table-setting. There’s a bit of that here (Merle’s chat with the Governor is pretty much a “let’s introduce a wee bit of tension between these two” moment, and not a lot else), but, well, dear lord. At this rate, I’ll be amazed if anyone’s left standing by Christmas.

Andrew Lincoln was devastating in the last scene.

I thought Joss and many of the people who've crossed paths with him, and TVD, and GoT, etc, had normalised "anyone could go anytime" by now. No, it's not prevalent, but it's also not that unprecedented.

I'm not gonna lie--that last scene read a bit like "T-Boy? Oh, that as a shame. WAHT???? LORIIII????"

It's not that I don't get Carl and Rick being devastated, but nobody seemed to give much of a damn about T and Carol (except to worry if Lori was with them), and then it's 0 to 60 in no time at all for death #3. Couldn't they have spaced them out a bit, then?

No, it's not prevalent, but it's also not that unprecedented.

Oh, of course. But it's not the norm, and this show hadn't pulled it before, so it was surprising.

I'm not gonna lie--that last scene read a bit like "T-Boy? Oh, that as a shame. WAHT???? LORIIII????"

Heh, yeah, I got that too. I mean, obvs he cares more about Lori than T-Dog, but he didn't really seem to care at all about T-Dog. He saw his body and was like, huh, well, that happened.

But it's not the norm, and this show hadn't pulled it before, so it was surprising.

It's really kinda sad that a post-apocalyptic plague-ridden dystopia is getting points for killing people off rhythm. It should be their norm, not a source of brownie points.

"The decision to move up Lori's death was to make sure that Rick was suffering as much as possible, that Rick was at his breaking point, at the exact moment that his most formidable foe [the Governor] was coming right for him," showrunner Glen Mazzara told THR.

Oh, good. As long as the white guy has some deaths of black people and women to move along his story. t rolls eyes

I mean, I think the episode was better than that quote makes it sound. But the gender politics still make me roll my eyes. Better than last season, but.

OK, I get and agree what you were saying (D and I were both wrought over T-Dog! "NO! T-DOG! NOOOO!" and we're not SURE Carol is dead. I mean, we saw her scarf, not her body, right?)

With T-Dog and Carol, they were running and fighting for their lives, adrenalin pumping, no time to mourn. With finding out Lori dies, there weren't hordes of zombies attacking Rick and co. at the moment and it was HIS WIFE. I'll give a little slack for that, esp. since it was the end of the ep.

Although, I was shocked about Lori, but I was kind of like "Adult woman (memfaulting on her name), hand Carl the fucking baby and shoot Lori yourself. DO NOT LET THE CHILD SHOOT HIS OWN MOTHER. He can hold his brother for 2 fucking minutes and turn his back."

I know, character development, blah, blah, but FFS, who DOES that?!

Carol better not be dead. If they killed her off screen I will be seriously pissed off.

Me, too. And you KNOW Daryl will try to find her. And I LOVE her character development, from an abused wife to a woman who will stab a zombie in the eye and then use the corpse to practice a C-section on.

TEAM CAROL!