Boute, she won't do it. It is not that she is a "bad" person. It is just who she is- she utilizes others to fulfill her needs, is naturally lazy and has no useful skills for the current situation and no desire to pick up any. If threatened, she would try- sincerely. But in the end she couldn't stop and would be back to her old tricks. We all know someone like this. In the world we live in today those people are generally reliant upon family and friends- those that love them. Their loved ones, however exasperated they might be, swallow down their anger (think of those who live their lives with hoarders) and go get mama's medicine or drive Aunt Lou to bingo or take Wayne to go cash his check. But in the new close confines of the ZA reality that type of passive-aggressive dependency would chafe the others because everything must be done by only the few people left to do it. A woman like Lori would lead to mutiny and a breakdown of law and order. Think a pretty blonde favored in an office...

 

The group needs I think to focus on skills and who is best at doing what. Some woudl function better as 'outliers' and scouts. These people may not play well with others, but could be sent out to recon, gather supplies, scavange and scout zombie activity. Andrea, Daryl, Shane and the others might go out and do this. Then there are Guards, to guard the camp, protect against raiders, and be on lookout, then there are workers who make the camp run, maintain weapons, arsenals, suppies and look after the dependants, as well as the importants like: doctor, nurse, or others too valuable to raid. Finally, the leader needs to plan the groups outings, moves and regulate disputes, as well as keep the group on course, and initiate new members, as well as being responsible for discipline.

 

Maybe Lori had eyes for Shane before the ZA. Or maybe Lori was knocking boots (as you called it) with Shane before the ZA

 

And they also need a "No drama" policy that is strictly enforced. Those that insist on drama, exile them. Look at what Drama has done to this group? Pit people against each other, dividing them, sowing discord and internal mayhem. All ingredients of an internal break down.

 

Exactly. I can't thank your post Zambi, but I agree.

Problem is a lot of Drama is coming from Rick and his love life. Its tough to be leader, when you can't handle your own bizness properly, and the chieftain's wife is making the biggest mess in the whole group.

 

Wow, Lori is naturally lazy? No useful skills? When you are in the ZA, and you come back from 8 hour guard duty, you can eat your cold soup out of a can and get foot funk cause you have no clean clothes, because of course anyone actually taking care of the camp instead of carrying a gun killing zombies has no useful skills and is inherently lazy.

 

I may not like Lori but I can see what she is doing. She made two huge mistakes. Mistake #1, she hooked up with Shane. That was HUGE and should never have happened. Mistake #2, she thought that she could end the relationship with Shane and yet remain friends like they were before the ZA.

Havent you ever made a big mistake (HUGE) and spend what seems like forever paying for it and cleaning up the mess? She made a mistake when she hooked up with Shane. Her intentions since then are all focused on cleaning up the mess. I'm not saying I endorse all her actions - but she is not encouraging a sexual or romatic relationship with Shane - and has not since Rick returned. I see a LOT of regret in her, but she is not acting like an unbalanced stalker. She has moved on. Shane has not.

As for her being lazy, she participates in cooking all the meals and cleaning up from them, washing all the clothes, handling all the medical issues, working with Hershel's group to keep communication going. Think about it. Shane may be his military second in command, but Lori manages all things non-military. She and Patricia and carol are the ones teilling the guys what supplies they need.

Just as I think Shane is not getting a fair shake, I don't think Lori is either. Neither one is perfect but BOTH contribute to the over all groups success when they get it right. And Both make everything so much worse when they get it wrong.

 

Maggie, that is what we (man) do during war. 14 people One a child. Zombies everywhere. There is literally no time in a day to "play house". When you're not pulling guard duty you're sleeping, shoring up supplies, and devising contingency plans (what to do when 'your name here' dies). Daily. It's not television where they have time to wash clothes (pointless when you consider there is virtually no limit to having new clothes daily. The show gives Lori a false pretense of contribution that it then never portrays. I haven't seen her wash clothes since the quarry- where it at least made sense.

 

I think Lori is doing her share of the work, they just don't go out the way to show it. And I do think those things are necessary. Both Lori and Andrea have their roles and should cut the crap (as much as I enjoyed the cat fight). Andrea is going down a slippery slope with Shane. Rick is the undisputed leader of the group. Not because he proclaimed himself to be but because the group, with out discussion, accepted him as such. Because he's a natural leader and because they agree with his philosophy which is that they'll do what it takes to survive but they won't abandon their humanity.

If Shane and Lori really have that much of a problem with Rick's leadership they should leave.

 

Don't you mean Shane and Andrea?

 

Boute, who has accepted Rick as the "undisputed" leader and what evidence anywhere supports that? Are you just making things up now to support your own imaginations?

The show attempts to show Rick asserting authority over Shane but it laughably does this by having Rick prescribe the knife method toward zombie killing? Seriously? A four inch knife blade penetrates the skull and destroys the brain stem Jenner detailed in his little presentation. I guess this works for viewers willing to suspend not only disbelief but any mental function whatsoever while watching the show.

And we see and hear nothing from anyone in regards to the leadership/direction of the farm except poor little suicidal Beth- who correctly states that the farm is pretty much helpless in the hands of the stooges currently inhabiting it.

But I saw nothing that indicated that Daryl, T-Dawg, Carol, Beth's boyfriend, Herschel, Maggie, or even Dale had even complacently accepted Rick as their " undisputed leader". In fact, I never saw many of these characters at all. But maybe they were all were Rick told them to be? And I don't just say that flippantly; the show does seem to be attempting to establish Rick as the leader but without explanation. It simply happens. And that makes sense to some even though almost everything Rick does in the last three episodes makes absolutely NO sense.

Rick saves a boy only to, a week later, set him free in the middle of nowhere with a knife? Is he really so naive (or worse) that he believes the boy will live? A full week has supposedly passed and now, miracle of miracles, the boy can walk, hop around, and is agile enough to evade walkers all with his hands tied behind him. Hallejuhah! But, when he tells them he went to school with Maggie (a full week later- not over one of the life fortifying meals he'd obviously consumed) Rick has to go back, retrieve him, and think on this shit another day. So, apparently, not ONCE during this boys week long incarceration back on the farm did Rick think to interrogate him- he doesn't even know the boy is local. After the immaculate battle, Rick trusts the boy enough to drive the Hyundai, with Rick hanging out the window, within 5ft of a crowd of zombies. But later it's apparent he doesn't trust him enough to allow him to return to the farm without a blindfold. Rick thinks he'll probably have to kill the boy who just successfully aided him in carrying out a high risk rescue when that guy could have smashed Rick's body into the side of another vehicle or a building and taken off to reunite with his own group- leaving Rick and Shane-both of whom just were going to leave him for dead. Two weeks ago Rick was leading walkers back to cozy quarters in the Herschel Barn Suites, situated smack dab in the middle of the beautiful neighborhood of Survival Camp.

So far, on the show, Rick hasn't led but a single successful campaign. The first two people he meets eschew traveling with him. He runs out of fuel though gas is plentiful. He rides a horse to it's death and has to be saved by others. His one bright moment comes when he uses zombie guts to escape, but the entire situation is so contrived it may not actually count. Following that triumph he loses a little girl and his bid to retrieve her is a failurel. The subsequent search he directs for her is a bust. Rick can't get an old man to accept him or strangers to like him.

But you believe, from what you've seen, that Rick is a clear, "natural" leader?


Okay...

 

Well you can take what you want from all of this but to me it's obvious that Rick is the leader of the group or maybe more accurately, a leader in the group. And you seem to confuse leader with ruler.

 

Carol commenting that Lori is the ipso facto First Lady.
Dale commenting that Rick is the one in charge.
Glenn following Rick's lead consistantly.

I thought he only suggested this because the gunfire attracts zombies.

Carol did, when she said that Lori was the ipso facto first lady. Dale did when he said that Rick was handling negotiating with Hershel for the group so they could stay on the farm. Darryl did when he agreed to the parameters of the search for Sophia that Darryl participated in. In that case Darryl would have been the logical choice, but it was Rick deciding the search grid, and Darryl accepting it, and Shane bitching about it.

OMG!! There is a disturbance in the force... I agree with Greyone on this one.....

they were well established and HE was the traveler in that case. Not a fair example.

He was still learning what the ZA was all about - playing catch up if you will.

that was silly, i agree.

she runs away from the group after being attacked by a zombie from a gigantic herd. his was however, the only one to run after her.

yes, it is. But that was hardly ricks fault. At least he searched everyday, unlike others who wanted to give up.

they like RICK fine... it's SHANE that is alienating the entire group. Not Rick.

Yep. (I need a drink after this post..... hahaha i love debates!!)

 

Thanks Maggie. I'm doing other things and didn't have time to go into a long rebuttal.

 

I have to point out that she's not denying that it could be Shane's. She's choosing who's going to be called the child's father. This is a good thing for the child's sake as well. It very well could be Shane's and the probability of that is higher than that of it being Rick's. But as far as we're aware, Shane's impotent and Rick's extremely fertile. Just because there's a good chance it's Shane's doesn't mean that it is. You're not denying Shane the right to be with his child if it's not actually his child. Without definitive DNA tests all she can do is choose who she wants to be the baby's father.

She said. "Even if it is Shane's it's yours." Meaning she's acknowledged that it may not belong to Rick but she's going to raise it like it did regardless. I hate Lori as much as the next guy but on this I cant disagree with her. Also, in the show, she legitimately thought Rick was dead so it's not as bad as a lot of people make the relationship with Shane appear to be.

 

Wow, I did not know that about Lori in the comics.... makes her seem like a saint in the show....

 

@ Maggie: I love your post. I couldn't thank you for it though since the button disappeared on me again but it was good.

@akurei00: It is not Lori's call to say who is the child's father though. If Shane is the child's bio father he has as much right to be called dad as Rick. She can easily have more than one father. I take issue with Lori insisting Shane will not be involved at all in the upbringing of his own potential child. That's cruel and unfair. both parents have a right and should have the opportunity to knwo their child.

Finally, I personally have never had an issue with Lori sleeping with Shane. I know a lot of folks condemn her for it, but to me it wasn't cheating. I may dislike Lori, but I don't have a problem with that, and never considered it cheating.

 

Agreed - if Shane is the child's biological father.

Not biologically. We might as well throw in Dale and T-Dog for good measure that way she has plenty of father's to look up to. Shane's not exactly stable. Maybe partly Lori's fault but not entirely. I just don't see a need to put a child in an awkward situation where it may have to choose between it's two dad's who are often on opposite ends of things. I'm gonna stop posting on this topic though.

You seem to fully believe that it's Shane's baby and thus he deserves rights to HIS child where as I don't see it so cut and dry. If I believed it was relatively unquestionable (like if she had missed a period before Rick arrived) I would be inclined to agree with you. But people can try for years to start a family and never get pregnant while others can simply have a condom break. With the baby's biological father currently an unsolvable mystery I give right of way to the husband. You want to be known as the father to your child, don't sleep with your living best friend's wife.

 

@akurei00 I don't fully believe that Shane is the dad, but, personally, I would find it anticlimatic if it was just Rick who was the daddy. It would seem sort of anticlimatic to me. =-)

 

I totally agree with this. Shane is acting like a psycho ex boyfriend stalker toward Lori. All Lori is trying to do in this episode is save herself and warn her husband.

Her reaction in the last episode to Shane's actual death and the circumstances is probably a combination of the fact she realizes that she did actually care for Shane, and her horror at the fact Carl was involved in shooting him (as Walker-Shane). She has been trying to shield her son from trauma thus far, and says in an earlier episode she is afraid Carl has gone "cold" inside. Lori must assume that Carl shooting Walker-Shane will traumatize him further, hence her overreaction to Rick's confession. I think she did also care for Shane, but that is secondary to her feeling 1) Guilty for apologizing to Shane and thanking him for saving them initially, which probably pushed Shane over the edge into planning to kill Rick to be with her; 2) Horror and shock over the fact her son witnessed part of Rick and Shane's confrontation, and that Carl was the one who shot Walker-Shane; 3) Shock that Rick actually killed Shane; 4) Fear that Shane would actually go so far as to devise a plan to murder his best friend - I don't think Lori knew he was that devious and dangerous; 5) A tiny bit of grief for Shane as she might've actually cared about him, though I honestly believe this is a very small reason for her reaction.

Also, Rick's confession is pretty shocking. I bet Lori never in a million years thought Rick capable of killing his best friend.

Anyway, that got a bit off-topic. I just don't understand how people say "Lori clearly wanted Shane to win!" or "Lori secretly didn't care about the outcome of a fight between Rick and Shane". She wasn't warning Shane or planning her husband's murder with him; no, Lori went to Rick and told him what was going on, and that Shane was a danger to Rick and their family. If Lori had been double dipping (ie plotting with Shane and tipping off Rick at the same time), then I could see how one could argue how Lori is an evil manipulative bitch.