Overheard At Work: Bombay

I work in a typical office, surrounded by many other workers in cubicles. Although I'm grateful to have a job I like, sometimes the vocal din from the surrounding coworkers is a bit overwhelming. Not to mention odd. Thank the gods old and new for headphones and Pandora.

The following is a 100% true actual conversation I Overheard At Work:

Woman #1: Huh! They're having a sale at my favorite store!

Woman #2: What store's that?

Woman #1: Bombay.

Woman #2: Oh, I love that store! Their name always sounds like a country to me.

Sigh... it's the American education system at work, folks!

The Walking Ed-it

Today the MyNetworkTV TV network, which apparently is a thing, announced that it plans to air syndicated episodes of AMC's The Walking Dead later this year. However, because MyNetworkTV is a regular over-the-air network, it plans to edit the episodes from their current TV-MA rating down to a more family friendly TV-PG.

How they plan to accomplish this without torpedoing 85% of the show's content, characters and plot, I have no idea.

This sounds like yet another monumentally stupid idea to me. If it's necessary to gut a show like a fish until it's rendered virtually unrecognizable, then maybe you shouldn't be airing it on your feel-good Kumbaya network in the first place.

So what would a watered-down TV-PG Walking Dead even look like? The staff here at Bob Canada's BlogWorld managed to get ahold of an advanced, edited sample of the show, which clocks in at just under 90 seconds. Enjoy these screencaps from last weeks harrowing episode titled, The Grove.

Overheard At Work: Tornadoes

I work in a typical office, surrounded by many other workers in cubicles. Although I'm grateful to have a job I like, sometimes the vocal din from the surrounding coworkers is a bit overwhelming. Not to mention odd. Thank the gods old and new for headphones and Pandora.

The following is a 100% true actual conversation I Overheard At Work:

Woman: I just looked at the weather report and it says there's a chance of tornadoes tomorrow. I'm afraid of tornadoes!

How typical. Well not me, boyo! As far as I'm concerned, there's no better time to sit on the front porch and update my priceless stamp collection that during a tornado!

The Walking Dead Season 4, Episode 14: The Grove

Hol-eee crap!

The Walking Dead just delivered the most brutal scene since last year's Red Wedding on Game Of Thrones. And the calm, grimly inevitable way in which it did so made it ten times worse.

BIG GIANT HONKIN' SPOILERS CONCERNING THE FATES OF SEMI-REGULAR CHARACTERS AHEAD! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

The Plot:
While on their way to Terminus, Carol and Tyreese's splinter group finds the perfect place to play house. They even consider staying, until Lizzie's troubling behavior begins to escalate. 

After Lizzie innocently commits a horrific act, Carol has no choice but to go all Of Mice And Men on her.

Thoughts:
• This episode is obviously based on the characters of Ben and Billy in the comic book. If you haven't read the comic (or read it and forgot), the two are twin brothers and the sons of Allen and Donna (who have no analogues on the show). When their parents are killed, the twins are adopted by Dale and Andrea (who were a couple in the comic!).

In Issue #60, Billy catches his brother Ben torturing and killing a cat he found in a barn. In Issue #61, Ben is caught brutally killing Billy, but tells a stunned Andrea that, "It's OK. He'll come back. I didn't touch his brains." The exact same line Lizzie says in this episode. 

The adults then fret about what to do with their little psychopath in training; some wanting to kill him outright (for the safety of the group) and others hoping he can be cured. 

In the end, Carl (!) solves the problem by sneaking into Ben's tent and killing him his own self. 

• Apparently Lizzie and Mika's last name was Samuels. I did not know that.

• This episode thankfully answered quite a few nagging questions that the internet can finally shut up about. Namely who was feeding walkers at the prison (Lizzie), who dissected the rabbit in the prison, which I totally forgot about (Lizzie) and who killed Karen and David (Carol).

• They need to make Judith's Baby Bjorn carrier thing a bit more obvious. It took me quite a while to realize that Tyreese was actually carrying her on his back and that they didn't forget her in the woods or house, Home Alone style.

• I assumed the big cloud of smoke was due to something bad happening at Terminus (yes, the smoke was beside Carol & Co., not in front of them, but the tracks could eventually curve) or the result of something the Terminus people did. 

But apparently the smoke was from the cabin that Daryl and Beth torched a few episodes ago. I didn't make the connection, but everyone and their dog keeps saying it's true, so it must be so.

So how'd all the smoldering walkers get that way? Were they drawn to the fire and just walked right through it? Are they like moths now?

• Speaking of the smoldering walkers, the creators have done their best this season to change things up and give us some unique zombies. So far we've had flu zombies, moss-covered zombies, buried in mud zombies and now torched ones.

• Poor Carol. Seems like she just wasn't meant to have a daughter in the zombie apocalypse. First she loses Sophia, who "didn't have a mean bone in her body." Then she gravitates toward Mika, possibly even seeing her as a substitute Sophia. She even ominously says Mika doesn't have a mean bone in her body either (which should have tipped off everyone as to her fate).

• All the actors are on their A game this episode (even the kids), but Melissa McBride (Carol) in particular knocks it out of the park. She may just be the best actor on the show. When Lizzie freaks out after Carol kills her zombie "friend," watch McBride's expression. A slow look of horror and revulsion crosses her face, as she realizes just how far gone Lizzie really is. Well done!

Similarly, as Tyreese tells Carol about how much he misses Karen, she gets a guilty look on her face and seems like she's right on the brink of telling him the truth. McBride is great at speaking volumes without saying a word.

• Many viewers are grousing that it's never fully explained just why Lizzy is nuts. Isn't it obvious? She's spent a good part of her life watching her friends and loved ones die and get back up. And every day she sees everyone around her "killing" these dead people. What kid wouldn't have a faulty moral compass after all that?

It's also implied that she may have been like this for quite some time. She has a meltdown early in the episode and Mika calms her down by telling her to "look at the pretty flowers." I get the impression Mika's had to do that before. Probably even before we met the characters. 

• The worst part about Lizzie killing her little sister? Her matter-of-fact statement that Baby Judith was next. Chills.

• So how do they go about filming a brutal episode like this with child actors? How much of the script do they let them see? Just their lines and no more? How'd they handle their death scenes?

• Good timing by Carol. When she and Tyreese were having their heart to heart talk in the woods, she came this close to telling him the truth about killing Karen and David. If she had, he'd have probably killed her right then and there. Instead she was smart enough to wait until the end of the episode to tell him, after he tacitly agreed to killing Lizzie.

• Two episodes to go! We'll find out soon enough if my suspicions about Terminus are right.

The Comic Book Movie Costume Inverse Accuracy Law

Last week NBC (yeah, that NBC) released this publicity photo from their upcoming Constantine pilot.

Actor Matt Ryan will play John Constantine, the supernatural detective who's the star of DC Comics long-running Hellblazer comic book.

As you can see here he looks very true to the source material. Same hair, same shirt, loose tie and rumpled trench coat. The only thing missing is Constantine's trademark ever-present cigarette, and I would not be surprised if the network griped that out of existence.

Anyhoo, this is a prime example of what I like to call The Comic Book Movie Costume Inverse Accuracy Law. It's a little fundamental rule of the universe I made up that states:

The odds of a comic book movie or TV series staying true to the source material is inversely proportional to how much I care about the property in question.

In other words-- I'm not a fan of Hellblazer, so of course the TV version of John Constantine will look and act exactly like he does in the comic book. It's just a given.

The same thing happened with The Green Hornet movie a couple of years ago. I've never much cared for the Green Hornet one way or another, so of course the film version looked exactly like the comic. And even though the movie inexplicably starred Seth Rogen, they still got pretty much all the details right. The names, the origin, the supporting cast-- even the Hornet's Black Beauty was perfectly recreated.

Meanwhile, The Fantastic Four is my all time favorite comic. So naturally we got two awful movies in which most of the team was horribly miscast, looked nothing like the comic versions and acted completely out of character. And soon we're getting yet another botched version in which the actors look like high school kids and one isn't even the same race as his comic counterpart.

It stinks, but it's just something I've grown used to.

More World's Greatest Police Sketches

So far 2014 seems to be shaping up to be a banner year for World's Greatest Police Sketches! We just had one a couple of months ago in January, and then this one popped up today!

This time the upstanding citizen in question is accused of urinating on women near the University of Florida campus. I'll just bet everyone on campus is pissed about it too! Hi-YO!!!

At least this perp looks a bit more human than the previous ones, even if he is firmly entrenched at the bottom of the Uncanny Valley. There's still something very wrong about that face, something a bit too Muppet-like. Or a pod person who was interrupted in the process of imitating its host.

I'm eagerly looking forward to another nine months of World's Greatest Police Sketches!

It Came From The Cineplex: Pompeii

Pompeii was written by Janet and Lee Batchler and Michael Robert Johnson and was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson (director of Mortal Kombat, Event Horizon and three of the Resident Evil films).

Anderson and Co. supposedly took great pains to be as scientifically and historically accurate as possible. The filmmakers studied footage of modern volcanoes to realistically recreate the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. They even toured the ruins of Pompeii to get the sets and layout of the city just right.

The two main characters in the film were supposedly inspired by the plaster casts of the "Twin Lovers," an actual couple who were locked in an eternal embrace by the lava flow.

Unfortunately it seems they also used archeological methods to write the script. It's as derivative and predictable a story as I've seen in many a year, following the standard disaster movie template to the letter.

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR A MOVIE ABOUT AN HISTORICAL EVENT YOU READ ABOUT IN SCHOOL

The Plot:
Mt. Vesuvius erupts. Everyone dies. The end.

Ok, I suppose I can do better than that. Young Milo (Kit Harington, of Game Of Thrones fame) watches as his Celtic village is wiped out by Roman Senator Corvus (a strangely cast Kiefer Sutherland). 

Milo is sold into slavery and grows up to become a twenty-something gladiator in Pompeii. He's befriended by another gladiator named Atticus (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), who, due to his sidekick status, is doomed to die. Milo cute-meets Cassia (Emily Browning), the wealthy daughter of a Pompeiian nobleman, and the two begin a forbidden romance that's doomed by the arrival of Senator Corvus and the impending eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.

Thoughts:
• Kit Harington has exactly one expression in his repertoire, which he wears throughout the entire film (it's the same one he's worn in every season of Game Of Thrones). He needs to try and come up with a few new expressions or he's going to become the male Kristen Stewart.

• I'm very surprised that Mila Jovavitch didn't show up in this film, considering she's married to Paul W.S. Anderson. After all, he wrote all and directed most of her Resident Evil movies.

• It's inevitable that a film about an historical event is going to be a bit predictable, but this film gives new meaning to the word. Of course we know the volcano's going to erupt at some point, but the events leading up to it don't have to be so obvious. 

I could see every single plot point coming down the street from a mile off, and accurately predicted every last thing that happened. Am I some kind of film genius? Hardly. The movie's just that predictable.

Case in point: During the eruption, Milo, Cassia and Atticus duck into the colosseum for safety. Atticus says he's going downstairs to the stables to borrow some horses so they can ride out of the city. Cassia tells Milo to go help his friend while she waits patiently for him to come back. 

Now what possible motive could she have for insisting they separate in the middle of the cataclysm? The only reason was so that Kiefer Sutherland could sneak in and capture her while she was unprotected, forcing Milo to have to rescue her and artificially generate some tension in the script (which already featured a deadly volcanic eruption). And that's exactly what happened! The script is chock full of predictable incidents like that. 

• As my pal K.W. Monster pointed out, this is pretty much the exact same story as Titanic. There's a poor boy who falls for a rich girl. There's a rich guy who wants to make sure that doesn't happen. The poor boy has a colorful sidekick who's doomed to die first. The boy and girl have a brief romance that's interrupted by a disaster.

The only thing that keeps it from becoming a 100% carbon copy is the fact that in Pompeii, both leads die at the end. If Cassia had survived and watched as Milo perished, it would have matched every plot point perfectly.

• Speaking of Titanic... supposedly many teens who saw that film were shocked when they later found out it was based on a real event. I wonder if the teens who saw this film know there was a real Pompeii?

• Play the Pompeii drinking game! Every time the camera pans up from the city to show Mt. Vesuvius looming in the background, take a drink. You'll be dead before the movie ends. 

Seriously, no matter how many times we see the city, they always pan up to the mountain before the end of the scene. I assume they did this to remind the dullards in the audience which movie they were watching?

And just like you can see the Eiffel Tower from every window in Paris, you could see Mt. Vesuvius from every window in Pompeii.

• When Mt. Vesuvius starts erupting, we see lightning flashing within the enormous ash cloud. It certainly looks cool, but… does that really happen during a volcanic eruption? 

According to the director, yes! Kudos for getting that right.

• What was that accent was Keifer Sutherland was using? It kind of sounds like he tried to do the Received Pronunciation accent (the standard British one used in TV and films) that everyone else in the film uses, but either couldn't do it or forgot it half the time.

I suppose by now it's useless to point out that people in ancient Rome probably didn't sound like modern day Brits, eh? I noticed that everyone in the Noah trailer is speaking that way as well. Just another one of those movie conventions we all accept without thinking about it.

• Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje reeeeally needs to think about changing his name. I get that it's brimming with cultural heritage for him and he's right to be proud of it, but… can you pronounce it? I sure can't. 

Just think how many jobs he loses in a year because Hollywood producers say, "Hey, get me that guy who was in LOST. Adewale um… Ak… akbar… Abigail… get me Idris Elba!" You know it happens.

• There was a lot of eye rolling dialogue in this film. The most egregious example was Atticus' "We who are about to die salute you!" right before he salutes the lava and dies.

Senator Corvus even says the "Kill them. Kill them all" line that's infested many movie in the past few years.

• I was very surprised by the ending. You don't see sad endings very often in Hollywood these days. I'll give the filmmakers credit for killing off the entire cast.

Pompeii is competently made and reasonably entertaining, but it suffers from an utterly predictable by-the-book plot. I give it a B-.

An Open Letter To Lindsay Lohan Concerning Her "List"

Concerning the "news" about Lindsay Lohan's alleged "list:"

Oh Yahoo, You've Done It Again!

Ahem. Hey Yahoo, surely there was a better way you could've phrased this headline?

What, too edgy? Don't gimme that, you know you're thinking it too!

It's A Gen-You-Wine Fixer Upper

I was doing my decennial house cleaning this week and I found this old photo. It's a picture of my house from several years ago, right before I moved into it.

Looks a bit, er... unkempt, eh?*

You know, this photo reminds me of something, but I can't quite figure out what. Hmm... now where have I seen this before?

Oh yeah. Now I remember. It's practically the same house!

Pity the place didn't come with a hot Hungarian wife though.


* Don't give me that look; I've made a lot of changes and cleaned it up quite a bit since this was taken.

Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1, Episode 15: Yes Men

This is the best episode of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. yet (in my opinion, of course). We finally get some actual super hero action and for the first time in a long time (maybe ever) it feels like the show's actually part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's just too bad it too fifteen episodes for it to happen. 
ASGARDIAN SIZED SPOILERS AHEAD!

The Plot:
Lady Sif of Asgard (and the Thor movies) comes to Earth and teams up with S.H.I.E.L.D. to retrieve the fugitive Lorelei.

Thoughts:
• Why is this episode airing now? It's practically a sequel to Thor: The Dark World. The characters mention Thor and Asgard in practically every sentence. Jane Foster and Dr. Selvig get shout outs too! By Odin's beard, it even stars one of the actors from the Thor films. 

Wouldn't it have made more sense for this episode to air back when Thor: The Dark World premiered (in November 2013)? It would have been a great little cross promotion for both the series and the movie. I don't quite get why this very special Thor-centric episode is airing a couple of weeks before Captain America: The Winter Soldier comes out.

I'm wondering if they originally planned for this episode to air when T:TDW was out, but the Olympics and all the other numerous pre-emptions pushed it back to now?

• Speaking of Thor, wouldn't this episode have been a great time for Chris Hemsworth to stick his head in front of the camera and make a five second cameo appearance? The Avengers and Thor movies have no doubt made him a millionaire several times over; it seems like the least he could do is put in a little appearance on the TV series as a thank you. It would only take an hour or two of his time and think what it would mean to the fans (not to mention the ratings).

• Whenever someone from Asgard teleports to Midgard, er, I mean Earth, they appear in the center of a Celtic knot pattern etched into the ground.

Fitz tracks an Asgardian energy spike and says it's above the exact same place in which Lorelei first appeared. A few seconds later, a bright beam stabs down from the sky and Lady Sif emerges. Sure enough, she's standing in the center of Celtic knot gouged into the highway.

So if Fitz is right and Sif appeared in the exact place as Lorelei, why wasn't there already a Celtic knot in the road? This episode seems to take place a day or two after the previous one. Apparently the road crews in the desert work quickly!

• I very much enjoyed Jaimie Alexander as Lady Sif. She brought a welcome sense of grandeur and royalty to the proceedings. And she probably had more lines here than she's had in the previous two Thor movies!

• Lots of name dropping and mentions of Marvel movie happenings in this episode. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you. Such interconnectivity was always a fun part of Marvel comics, and the same goes for the Cinematic Universe as well.

• Sif is shocked when she sees Coulson's still alive, and suspects sorcery. After she calms down, she says her pal Thor considers Coulson a friend and will be pleased to learn he's still alive. Coulson says he'd rather Thor hear the news from him.

This is obviously a call back to several episodes ago in which Coulson mentions the unlikely fact that the Avengers don't know he's back from the dead. I think it's pretty obvious they're keeping the news from them so they can all find out and be shocked in The Avengers 2.

• Sif knows how to swipe at a touch screen, as they're ancient technology on Asgard. Ha!

• Realizing that Sif has traveled throughout the galaxy, Phil Son Of Coul quizzes her about alien races. Specifically blue alien races. She mentions a few, including Alpha Centarians (who will play a part in the upcoming Guardians Of The Galaxy film) and the Kree! Cool!

Comic readers know that the Kree are a big deal in the Marvel Universe and have clashed with the Avengers on many occasions. Many have speculated that the alien Coulson saw hooked up in the Guest House last week was a Kree, and I'm betting this confirms it.

How awesome would it be if they used the TV series to set up something in the Guardians Of The Galaxy or The Avengers 2?

• Lorelei seeks an army with which to conquer Earth. So why didn't she seek out a military base and get an actual army instead of a small biker gang? I'm guessing cost. It's no doubt cheaper to cast a few bikers than an entire platoon of soldiers. This is TV after all, so like it or not we have to settle for a more budget-conscious alien invasion.

• Simmons examines Skye's blood, hoping to find a trace of the alien healing factor she was injected with last week. She wants to isolate the substance so it can be replicated and used as a wonder drug. She bemoans the fact that Fitz was only able to find one vial of the GH325 drug. Fitz looks uncomfortable and mumbles something about being lucky he got what he did before the Guest House blew up real good.

Fitz is right to look ashamed. When he found the GH325 drug last week, it sure looked to me like there were multiple vials of it in the storage cabinet, but for plot complication reasons, he only grabbed one. 

• Fitz upgrades the ridiculously named "Night Night Guns" and finally gives them a less eye-rolling name: Icers.

Gee, it sure would have been nice to have had some of those in the previous episode, when they were breaking into the Guest House. Maybe they wouldn't have had to slaughter two security guards who were just doing their jobs.

Surprisingly Coulson does acknowledge this event, although he spins it as the guards "laying down their lives to protect the secret of the miracle drug" rather than "we killed a couple guys who got in our way so we could save Skye." Nice try, Phil.

• OK, the Team knows they're going into battle with an enemy who can control men's minds with her voice. Wouldn't it have been prudent to pass out some earplugs to the guys? Fitz could have probably whipped up some that filtered out Asgardian voices so they could still hear ambient noises.

Of course if they did that then they couldn't have used the old "Ward & Fitz are forced to turn against their teammates" subplot.

• May tries to fight Lorelei and predictably gets her ass handed to her (since Asgardians are much stronger and resilient than humans). Lorelei taunts May by telling her that Ward's heart has "always been with another." Yep, even though Ward's been boning May, he's secretly in love with Skye.

Sigh… I'm really weary of this show constantly trying to force Skye down our throats. She's the world's greatest hacker. She becomes part of the team without having to go through the academy. She's got secret latent superpowers. Coulson literally does whatever it takes to save her. We get it, Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. You're in love with Skye. She's Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker and Bilbo Baggins all rolled into one. The hero who falls ass-backwards into success and never has to struggle to win. 

Stop trying to make the audience love her as much as you do, AOS writers. It ain't never gonna happen. The best you're ever going to get from us is grudging acceptance.

• Annnnnnd just like that, Ward and May are through. Seeing your boyfriend make it with an alien seductress is probably tough on relationships.

• Sif captures Lorelei and say she's taking her back to Asgard under orders from Odin himself (even though it's implied she'd rather kill her and be done with it). But, but… Odin is being impersonated by Loki these days, as seen at the end of Thor: The Dark World. It would be very cool indeed if they're using this episode as a setup for the next Thor movie.

• At the end of the episode, Coulson tells Skye the earth-shattering news that she was healed by some kind of alien blood serum. Her reaction? A big fat "who cares?" I was actually on Skye's side for once here, and thought her reaction was very normal. If you'd just been saved from the brink of death by a wonder drug, would you question what it was or where it came from? Most likely not. 

We all like to think we'd take the high road and say, "I'm not taking a drug that's made from ground-up puppies," but when the specter of Death is hovering above our beds, I have a feeling we'd all change our tune.

• In the final scene we see May spying on Coulson and Skye and report her findings to a mysterious someone. Someone who I'm betting is no doubt Nick Fury. 

I doubt if May's turned evil or anything; I'm assuming she's just keeping Fury updated on what Coulson does and doesn't know about his resurrection. But it's probably not going to be good for their friendship. 

News Flash Update

A couple of weeks ago the CW network teased a headshot of the Flash's costume from their upcoming Flash TV series.

This week they're finally giving us a look at the full costume. Well, sort of. It's kind of hard to see the whole thing with him crouched at the starting block like that.

Overall it's better than I expected. I was sure he'd be wearing a kewl red leather jacket (like Clark wore on the later season of Smallville) in lieu of an actual costume, but happily he's not.

This suit's still way too dark for my tastes though. And again with the fiddly, complicated textures. Why do all modern TV and movie superhero costumes have to be formed out of some kind of weird textured polymer? It would not surprise me a bit if the texture here was made up of thousands of tiny lightning bolts, like the one on his chest.

I still like this Flash costume from the 1990s TV series. I get that they probably don't want to (or legally can't) copy it exactly. But why go so overboard with the textures? So everyone will get their money's worth out of their high-def TV screens?

I know, I know. Things were better in the old days, get off my lawn.

Crater? I Hardly Know Her!

In legal news, the Walt Disney Company announced today that they're suing the planet Mercury for copyright infringement.

If the suit is successful, the innermost planet of our solar system will have just sixty days to remove the offending formation from its surface or be required to pay punitive damages to the House of Mouse.

As of press time, the planet Mercury could not be reached for comment.

The Walking Dead Season 4, Episode 13: Alone

 

By now it should be obvious to even the most inattentive of viewers that the second half of this season is nothing but set up for a big cliffhanger (and the big bad for Season 5). Sure, we've been getting lots of good character development (and even a few new faces) the past few weeks, but plot-wise you can just tell that nothing of importance is going to happen until episode 16.

SPOILERY THOUGHTS AHEAD!

Thoughts:

• I enjoyed the scenes at the beginning showing how Bob Stookey was wandering the countryside very much like a walker. I suppose seeing everyone you know die and living in constant isolation will do that to a person.

Hmm. Bob's getting a backstory. Uh-oh... You know what that means.

• The walkers attacking in the fog was suitably creepy (not to mention terrifying), and something I don't think we've seen on the show before. 

• Do you suppose Bob's dried out by now? He had a bit of a drinking problem early in the season, but he appears to have conquered it. Whether through willpower or because there just ain't no booze to be had though, time will tell.

• When Maggie's group sees the Terminus sign, Sasha warns against going, saying, "If it sounds too good to be true..."

Smart girl. They need to listen to her. I have a bad feeling she's right.

Why do I think Terminus is bad news? Because as a graphic designer, I don't trust anyone who uses an uppercase "I" like that in their sign. See the "I" in "SURVIVE?" It's totally wrong! When an I is in the middle of a word you use the serif version; basically a plain vertical line. If you're using an I by itself, as in "I see you," then you use the serif version seen above (with the horizontal lines at top and bottom). 

Obviously whoever printed this sign is of low moral character and downright dangerous.

Nitpicky? I don't think so. If you're a typographer you'd get fired for doing something like that.

• As of this episode I'm pretty sure every one of the splinter groups has now found the railroad tracks and are following them. You could say this show has a one track mind! Wakka wakka!

• How about Maggie's awesome "No Parking" sign weapon? Finally one of those signs comes in handy for something.

• Once again the show's teasing the seamy underbelly of the internet that wants to see Daryl and Beth wallow between the sheets.

• Who's keeping the funeral home well-stocked and spotless? And why are they dressing up the walkers in funeral suits? Out of respect, as Beth said, or is this some new post apocalyptic fetish?

• So Daryl's homemade walker alarm goes off, he peeks out and sees it's a stray dog. The next time he hears it, he forgets everything he's ever learned about survival and boldly flings the door wide open, expecting to see the dog again. Instead he's greeted by a horde of walkers. 

Obviously the dog's working with them.

By the way, is this the first time we've seen a dog on the show? I can't remember. We've seen other animals before-- owls, deer & snakes come to mind. Not sure about dogs though.

Apparently animals aren't infected with the zombie virus. If they were, whenever one died it would turn, and we've not seen flocks of zombie owls attacking anyone.

• During the ruckus at the funeral home, Daryl sees a car speed away, presumably with Beth inside. Most people are saying Beth was at the wheel and ditched Daryl. I thought it was pretty obvious that whoever's been living in the funeral home grabbed her, threw her in the trunk (or whatever) and roared off.

• Daryl chases after the car for miles until he can't run anymore and collapses. Man, where's Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli when you need 'em? He's then approached by the very group that invaded Rick's house a couple weeks ago. "Joe" was the guy sitting on the porch of the house, who Rick came very close to killing.

I'm guessing these guys are up to no good, given Joe's "Why hurt yourself when you can hurt other people" motto. 

Just when Daryl's finally coming out of his shell and believes there are still good people in the world, he's thrust into a gang of Merles. 

• I'm betting that Joe and his gang aren't just a roving gang, but are part of Terminus and are out scouting for supplies (and new recruits). Why do I keep thinking Terminus is bad news? Because this is The Walking Dead, silly! Any time the characters experience even a slight inkling of hope, it must be aggressively snuffed out.

My theory: The various splinter groups will converge at Terminus and find out that it's not a nice place at all. They'll be captured (or worse) and Daryl will be the man on the inside who rescues them.