Yep I was surprised it was real. Madison was really quite vicious--another side to Madison that we hadn't known. I just don't believe a baby turning in the womb would do much anyway. It has no teeth. Would it suckle her to death? and it's not strong enough to rip her open. It would be a perpetual zombie fetus getting nutrients from it's Mom. Weird. They'd have to surgically remove it. c-section.

 

I was surprised.

 

I was surprised as well. But I liked Madison's approach of screwing with the pregie's mind. It's survival of the fittest and you do what you have to do. Madison knew they were screwed, so might as well be a cold, hard bitch if it works.

 

How could they NOT resist the chance to cut that baby out to see if it had turned! Do they have bait to fish with?

 

I expected it to be fake, too. I did, however, love Maddie's scathing comments to the bitch though. She totally deserved to hear that after what she was doing.

 

It has no teeth, but the mother's blood would be actively circulating with the baby walker's blood. Even if the baby no longer had any circulation, the blood barrier would break down as soon as the baby died, so there would be mixing. It would be essentially the logical equivalent to getting bitten. The active form of the virus would be in the mother's blood. There's really no other way to explain what we see on the show other than the walkers containing an activated special 'walker virus'. Because everyday bacteria in a bite would not kill so quickly, 100% of the time. And they never try antibiotics after a bite, even though they try antibiotics for everything else.

But I did think at first when Maddie asked how far along she was, that she was going to pull out a pillow or something and say "nope, I'm not pregnant".

 

and as we try to make logic out of this scenario I wonder what Kirkman would pronounce on the subject. one can only imagine.

 

He would probably laugh at us. He doesn't like this type of nitpicking.

 

I was expecting the ol pull a pillow out from under your shirt routine!

 

One of the reasons why I've always wondered why bites from a "fresh" walker have enough bacteria to cause such an incurable infectious reaction.

Nick

 

No, I did not expect it to be fake. That would be too much work on the pirates part to make sure it looked real and the realness would last the raft ride to the boat.

 

Interesting... I never suspected it was fake, though that would have been a nice twist.

I took it as showing how people have to use whatever advantage they can in their favour to survive. So, a pregnant woman whom you would think would be a liability in a ZA situation can actually be used as an asset. Also, using a pregnant woman in that way, to establish trust, showed how dark and ruthless that group had become, and how quickly.

 

Honestly I wasn't even thinking "real or fake", I was thinking the entire situation should NOT be happening. Chris was pulling security detail. He was armed. I WAS thinking:

1. Fire a warning shot you stupid ass.
2. Shout commands to the occupants to stop their approach, you stupid ass.
3. Send the girl you're chatting it up with into the Abigail to awaken the crew.
4. Keep the muzzle of that gun aimed directly at the occupants of the approaching boat.
5. IF they ignore your warning shot and verbal commands, treat as hostile.

Since none of that happened, I just had bad juju feelings that everything about to unfold would be a mess.

Pregnant women can't be dangerous?! LOL even medical units right now in the ME have to blindfold some pregnant women before treating them for wounds, because they were picked up in a hostile situation. No way to know whether they were there by accident or by choice.

Again, I can't bring myself to totally blame Chris - blame is shared by Travis the pansy father, and especially by whatever dolt put Chris on a security detail.

Seeing prego actually made me briefly hope that my bad juju feeling was unjustified. But events quickly confirmed them. Stop everyone and everything and asses. FIRST. Trust is always earned, never assumed. Doesn't take the ZA to grasp.

 

I actually thought the initial part of the scene was well done. My very first inclination was that she is faking it and they are storming the boat. But then when Chris started asking whether to shoot them or not I had the same indecision. I thought about how evil they'd all feel if he shot them all and killed a pregnant woman who needed help. Then when they showed that she had cut her thigh as part of the act, I really thought she was faking the pregnancy.

But then the rest of the episode went downhill from there. Every interaction between the group and the three "pirates" was cringe-worthy. The main guy from the group was horrible. Terrible writing and overacting. He came across as a total cliche bond villain (patting Chris on cheek a couple times after putting gun to head... like no hard feelings kid...) even though he was probably working at a Starbucks just a month or two ago. I get that the world has some truly evil people in it that will hit the ground running when the world goes to hell... but this actor in this role with this corny dialogue does NOT cut it.

 

You should have then caught yourself and thought since Chris is a dopey 16 year old kid who likes pushing the limits when he doesn't feel a threat to himself (think videotaping the protest) from a middle-class family who was most likely raised to think of other people's feelings and it just inside a 3 weeks of society falling apart and he is super sensitive, it all makes sense that he wouldn't do anything that I would do.

 

Of course, that umbilical cord could pose a problem. It connects the mother and child directly, so whatever affects the fetus could potentially affect the mother too. She could be tainted even if not bit.

 

Sacrelige! How can you speak ill of Sir Jesse McCartney?

 

Not disagreeing. Just noting that fail boy fails - and that the real ding-dong is whoever armed him and put him on detail.