The Outhouse - The Greatest Comic Book Forum

[Jubilee]

I'm enjoying this show more and more. Before I was watching it purely because I started it and it killed an hour or so, now I'm getting more and more into it.

[Eli Katz]

"Basically" still means "didn't."

If he did confess, which no, he did not, then Dae wouldn't be going around saying, "I think Shane did this..."

No, he'd be saying, "SHIT! SHANE TOTALLY TOLD ME HE DID THIS...!"

So guys, please...PLEASE, stop trying to find different ways to say, "Well...Shane came close to almost probably maybe confessing that he might have basically nearly done stuff."

And I disagree that it is a matter of simple incompatibility of philosophies between the two on apocalypse-survival techniques. Between them, it's not simply a matter of disagreement, but a matter of warring influence. You didn't really see Dale saying shit about Shane's behavior until Dale and Andrea had their falling out, and she started to gravitate towards Shane. And yet, given his incredulous reaction to Andrea last night, he apparently feels that Shane's leadership skills have always been questionable.

Hey, I dunno...maybe I'm merely forgetting, but I can't recall a time during the first season where Dale voices any of these concerns to anyone about Shane. Did this happen? Because it feels like it's something that began with season 2.

And if...y'know...it's part of Dale's survival philosophy to hide all the fucking guns, then...I'm sorry...that's fuckin' stupid. Is that evidence of a more cooperative, "collective effort" type of philosophy? Or is it evidence of Dale deciding, on his own what is best for the group?

Now, yeah, both of them have made mistakes. I agree with that. Shit, just about every character in this show has done something stupid at least once. But Dale does his best work as the calm, rational, practical voice of reason. At least, he did in the first season. He does his worst work as a rumor-monger. I think it goes against what was established in the first season for the character, and makes him look bitch-flavored.

And let's be real, here; despite the mistakes in the first season, they had a pretty solid thing going with Shane in nominal command.

First, Dale has strong suspicions that Shane murdered Otis, and he has good reason to have these strong suspicions because of what Shane himself clearly insinuated and because of the threats that he most definitely made. Dale doesn't know all the gory details. But he doesn't really need to know them. In an apocalyptic world, where there are no courts, no governing institutions, and no enforceable laws, are you going to withhold your suspicions until you have incontrovertible proof that a psychotic member of your group is a murderer? Hell no. Your insistence that Shane would have to fully confess before Dale has justification raising concerns seems rather odd to me.

Second, Shane is losing his mind. That's why he's nuttier this season than last. And that's why Dale is raising the concerns now. Part of Shane's nuttiness has to do with the pregnancy. He has an unhealthy obsession with Lori, Carl, and the baby, and it appears that his nuttiness will only intensify as the pregnancy progresses. It is also suggested in last night's episode that his killing Otis damaged him psychologically. So Shane may have been a very competent leader in the first season, but he is clearly losing his competency in this season.

Third, I agree that Dale was Lori-level stupid for trying to hide the guns. But I don't think that his feelings for Andrea are solely, or even primarily, motivating him now. The story isn't fully told, so the character motivations aren't totally clear yet. But I see Dale as having similar priorities as Rick. He considers the farm a nearly ideal safe haven, and he doesn't want to be forced out of this sanctuary and back into the full-blown zombie world. Remember, when Dale learns about the zombies in the barn, he decides to keep Hershel's secret so that the group can remain on the farm. So Shane's antagonism--ripping open the barn and going all Rambo on the zombies--was really bad politics and strategy. Even Andrea tells him that his methods are alienating him from the group and putting people rightfully on edge. If he were such a sound leader, he would use better strategies than he is employing now.

Shane needs Hershel and the farm, after all, because Hershel is the only one with some medical training. And come six or seven months, Lori will be needing a doctor to manage the delivery. So the way Shane is acting now, given his long-term priorities and his misguided love for Lori, it suggests that the guy is becoming increasingly irrational and self-destructive.

[Chris]

Shane has definitely been getting more and more unbalanced. I don't think you can compare him now to the first season and say their personalities are even remotely similar. Dude's nuts now.

A big part of it is the Lori thing, yeah.. but it's also Rick taking that leadership away from him, and constantly second guessing him (and thus, having the rest of the camp.. the ones that follow Rick, anyway, second guess him too)

[ReturnoftheMack]

They need to make their group bigger to end up with a nice slaughter for the season finale.

[Strict31]

First, Dale has strong suspicions that Shane murdered Otis, and he has good reason to have these strong suspicions because of what Shane himself clearly insinuated and because of the threats that he most definitely made. Dale doesn't know all the gory details. But he doesn't really need to know them. In an apocalyptic world, where there are no courts, no governing institutions, and no enforceable laws, are you going to withhold your suspicions until you have incontrovertible proof that a psychotic member of your group is a murderer? Hell no. Your insistence that Shane would have to fully confess before Dale has justification raising concerns seems rather odd to me.

Second, Shane is losing his mind. That's why he's nuttier this season than last. And that's why Dale is raising the concerns now. Part of Shane's nuttiness has to do with the pregnancy. He has an unhealthy obsession with Lori, Carl, and the baby, and it appears that his nuttiness will only intensify as the pregnancy progresses. It is also suggested in last night's episode that his killing Otis damaged him psychologically. So Shane may have been a very competent leader in the first season, but he is clearly losing his competency in this season.

Third, I agree that Dale was Lori-level stupid for trying to hide the guns. But I don't think that his feelings for Andrea are solely, or even primarily, motivating him now. The story isn't fully told, so the character motivations aren't totally clear yet. But I see Dale as having similar priorities as Rick. He considers the farm a nearly ideal safe haven, and he doesn't want to be forced out of this sanctuary and back into the full-blown zombie world. Remember, when Dale learns about the zombies in the barn, he decides to keep Hershel's secret so that the group can remain on the farm. So Shane's antagonism--ripping open the barn and going all Rambo on the zombies--was really bad politics and strategy. Even Andrea tells him that his methods are alienating him from the group and putting people rightfully on edge. If he were such a sound leader, he would use better strategies than he is employing now.

Shane needs Hershel and the farm, after all, because Hershel is the only one with some medical training. And come six or seven months, Lori will be needing a doctor to manage the delivery. So the way Shane is acting now, given his long-term priorities and his misguided love for Lori, it suggests that the guy is becoming increasingly irrational and self-destructive.

Eli, what seems odd to me is that you are going out of your way to avoid answering this question I posed to you:

Let me ask you; if you had no evidence that someone was a murderer, would you go around telling people, "I think that guy is a murderer" ? Would you feel comfortable doing that? I mean, would that fit with your morals as a guy who is not a dick? What if you were wrong?

If we agree that Dale is a dick, then, yeah, he doesn't need any fuckin' court evidence to act like a dick and spread rumors, for which he has zero confirmation. Dicks do that.

Is it something you would do? Would you feel okay spreading a rumor about something that was that serious?

I'm not sitting here trying to get you to admit to being a dick or anything. I'm asking if you personally think that's anywhere near okay to do. Because, I mean...if we can agree that Dale is engaging in dick behavior, I'm in agreement that he doesn't need any justification to be a dick.

But you're defending Dale's actions as if they're perfectly normal. And even further, you're wondering why I'd find it odd for a person who isn't a dick to do that shit.

Personally, i think it's a failing of the writing, because as i said before, Dale doesn't initially come across as a conniving penis. He initially comes across, like I said, as a guy who reasons things out without jumping to conclusions. But this is pretty much all he's done thus far this season.

In other words, the writers are trying too hard to give the character a drama point. So hard that it seems to go against what has already been established for the character.

With regards to Hershel and the farm, my complaint from their introduction is that there is no reason whatsoever for anyone to feel safe on this property. Prior to the mid-season finale, no one other than (presumably) Otis was assigning to the walkers anything remotely resembling proper respect for the danger they pose. They allow no guns on the property and have no real fences to keep walkers from just rambling on through and falling into one or more wells.

Which happened.

And which caused that particular well to be contaminated.

The farm isn't even far from the highway, where we saw in the first episode, dozens, if not hundreds of walkers just cruising by. It has no physical perimeter against the woods, which, as we saw throughout the first half of the season, are FILLED WITH WALKERS.

This place is not safe by any means, and Shane was utterly, completely right about Hershel being deluded. That delusion led to a bunch of walkers being locked inside an old, run-down ass barn. Now, as the black guy, I may be slightly more sensitive to potentially lethal threats in movies and TV than you, but a bunch of zombies in a run-down old barn is a massacre waiting to happen. It's a clear and present threat to any group that has one child and another on the way.

And the only thing keeping that threat from being summarily eliminated was one man's delusion about the walkers. Killing all the walkers in that barn was the first sensible thing these characters have done all season.

And perhaps ironically enough, it's exactly what Hershel needed to snap him out of that delusion.

Another thing; Rick didn't make the decision to try and stay at the farm out of concern for his pregnant wife; he didn't even know she was pregnant until they'd already been there for some time.

No. The group wanted to stay there because it's the first piece of safety they've encountered. They wanted to stay there because of the resources like shelter and fresh water and food. It wasn't until Rick found out that Lori was preggers that this became the priority.

Up until that point, it was an unsecured place controlled by a man who was rigid and unflinching in his own deluded view of the new reality of the world.

And Shane was right to question and resist it. Andrea was right, to a degree. While not every call Shane made was right or ethical, he was right about a number of things. But his presentation is all kinds of fucked up. While the people are the farm are all good-intentioned, they are fucktarded.

A doctor would come in handy, even if Lori wasn't pregnant, yes. Agreed. But if that doctor is putting your entire group at risk through his own inflexibility and delusions, you're gonna have to determine if his value as a sawbones outweighs the risk he poses through his fucktardedness.

And shit, even when Hershel got a clue finally, he still put them at risk by wandering off to the local watering hole in zombie central, causing someone to go out and find him. That's three people he put at risk (including himself), but it's Shane who's more of a danger to the group?

I think that's debatable.

Sure, Shane is willing to do some utterly fucked up shit for the survival of the people he's decided to protect. And some of his decisions are indefensible. Others are just cold; like abandoning the search for Sophia. or killing the barn-walkers. These are calls that lead to some bruised feelings. But that's something from which a person can recover.

This shit ain't the Justice League, where guys who are bullet-proof can afford to take on greater risk to remain morally impeachable. This is the end of the world as we know it, where the prize for finishing second comes in the form of a radical new diet program; where sometimes, you might have to kill some guys to keep them from taking your resources; where you might have to make a judgment call on the spot and let the fat, slow guy become a zombie-magnet so you can get some meds to a dying child.

We're quick to castigate Shane for leaving Otis to die horribly. We're quick to say, "Oh, he didn't know for a fact that he couldn't have made it back otherwise."

What about Rick? Would it have been so bad for him to actually consider allowing those other survivors onto the farm? Did he know for a fact these guys would have been bad? Or was that another case of the right thing to do being ethically fucked up? And before you say it wasn't Rick's call because it's not his farm, these guys were living human beings just as desperate for survival as anyone on the show who doesn't own a farm with fresh water and food.

In this world, survivors are going to occasionally have to do some genuinely fucked up shit, without the luxury of exploring more morally sound options. Shane's done it, and now, so has Rick. Because for both of them, the stakes are too high.

[Wisdom000]

This is the end of the world as we know it, where the prize for finishing second comes in the form of a radical new diet program; .

This is why you are the recipient of my unrequited bromance....

[doombug]

But even in that regard, I don't think Shane is it.

Because in the comics, that was basically Michonne and there was absolutely nothing wrong with her. She did what had to be done, but wasn't a complete twat about it all the time.

Sadly with the pacing of the show, we'll be lucky if we see her by season 4.

Though Daryl could easily be that person.

[Eli Katz]

I don't think Dale is a dick. As I said, I think he has legitimate concerns about Shane's behavior and I think he is right, under the circumstances, to warn Lori.

You can examine Shane's decisions by themselves and say that he was right in this case or in that case. But look at the combined effects of his decisions--consider his overall strategy--and you see that his approach is counterproductive and ultimately destructive to the group. Sure, he was right: searching for Sophia was pointless. But if the group doesn't try to take care of its own, there isn't much point in having a group. A group needs a certainly level of solidarity. But every time there is a crisis, he advocates the most Darwinian option and harms the group's morale.

Yes, I agree Hershel has been a delusional and reckless man. But Shane's strategy--to do as he pleases without consultation, negotiation, or discussion--encourages divisions within the group. He is an extremely polarizing figure, and that is a huge problem when everyone essentially has to get along and work together. So I am more sympathetic with Rick's and Dale's strategy--to be patience with Hershel--than with Shane's strategy, even though their approach is initially riskier than Shane's.

I also agree that the writing is weak in parts. I think Dale's attempt to hide the guns and Lori's recent car ride were two examples of poor writing. Neither character is, or should be, that dumb. But I think the growing conflict between Dale and Shane is not a flaw in the writing. The first season happened over a relatively short time span, the threats were rather constant, and the group was much larger. Hostilities didn't have an opportunity to breed. Now that the group is smaller and stationed at the farm for a longer stretch, personality clashes are much more likely. That's why I think it's plausible to see Dale and Shane clash. They have very different views on how best to survive, as I mentioned before, and Shane's mental health is seriously in question now. For me, the combination of clashing world views and growing lunacy provide sufficient motivation for the conflict between these two men.

By the way, Strict, I love this back and forth. It is always a genuine pleasure.

[S.F. Jude Terror]

This episode was awesome. I'm not sure why Lori couldn't just flat out tell Rick what Shane said to her rather than acring like she was inferring it... oh yeah, it's because she's a cunt.

Strict, I understand your dislike of Dale's original accusation toward Shane, as there was no real basis for his suspicion, but after he confronted Shane it was pretty much confirmed, so if we must accept the premise that Dale somehow came to this conclusion, his behavior followimg the confrontation is logical... though the confrontation itself was stupid.

[Doc Jon]

But Shane was also right. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that Rick is more dangerous than Shane to the group with the decisions he keeps making. I still have to ask, what would Dale or the others want Shane to have done? Die with Otis and thus kill Carl as well? Without the distraction Otis provided, (dinner), to the walkers, Shane never would have gotten away. With the gear he needed for Herschel to save Carl.

I don't know that SHane is right. If anything, his decisions are expedient. He always looks for the shortcut and is good at making the easy decisions.

Like the walkers in the barn. Good idea to kill them? Obviously. But it's not his farm and what it was going to do was drive a rift with the people who actually own the place. Now you're headed down a road of who is in charge, and one in this world, where having to kill your rivals is the usually the way. That's the road that Shane put them on. Beside the fact that discharging weapons attracts zombies so there's nothing like firing a few hundred rounds to keep everyone safe.

Killing Otis was expedient. Was it the right call? Maybe. We'll never really know.

But SHane likes to take the easy route and he can do it because Rick then usually has to bear the burden. Shane cannot lead people and no one would really follow him, at least not for long.

[Doc Jon]

Of course he doesn't need to be absolutely sure before talking shit about someone; dicks never need evidence, after all.

Let me ask you; if you had no evidence that someone was a murderer, would you go around telling people, "I think that guy is a murderer" ? Would you feel comfortable doing that? I mean, would that fit with your morals as a guy who is not a dick? What if you were wrong?

In our world? No.

In theirs? Sure.

This isn't some act of libel or shit like that. This is about the survival of their group. And Shane is that frat-boy wannabe alpha male that's good in a fire-fight, but may not be good for group morale or survival. Dale knew Shane was sleeping with Lori. And then there was the part where he was pointing the gun at Rick. And then the incident with Otis and Shane kinda acting a bit fucked up after all that.

[achilles]

What happened to Lori in the comic? Never read it. How about the others, apart from Shane?

[Chris]

What happened to Lori in the comic? Never read it. How about the others, apart from Shane?

Lori:

[Reveal] Spoiler: Click to Expand

She and the baby were killed. Shot at the end of the prison arc, and eaten by zombies.

[Eli Katz]

Lori:

[Reveal] Spoiler: Click to Expand

She and the baby were killed. Shot at the end of the prison arc, and eaten by zombies.

That was just a brutal resolution to a brutal series of arcs.

[dairydead]

Shane is out of his mind and has taken a sport out of bullying Dale around like a little kid. He's obviously some sociopath who needs to push people around , so when he couldn't manipulate and rape Lori, he targeted the old man to torment. Dale is obviously the weakest of the group and non of Strict's "logic" proves that he was doing anything wrong. Dale knows Shane is a ticking time bomb and doesn't want the bomb to explode in his face, so he needs to be subtle about it.