It is all about planing in the long run. Shane is off the cuff with, like you said, no real forethought. I agree 100% that had Rick or Glen gone with Otis, things would have been different.

 

Genius OP. I didn't think of this, but you're absolutely correct.

 

That's not as good for the plot though. If you back through the series there are lots examples of this kind of thing. The CDC for example. All they needed was some diesel. How hard would that be to find?

 

^ They were kinda sealed off, though, and they were out of fuel. We are to assume that all the fuel had already been used up.

 

Also, Rick led them to the door of the CDC and kept them there until it was too late to escape. Unless those doors open they all die. Rick didn't leave Carl with T-Dog in the RV and tell them "If we don't get in, and things get hot- you come up there and drag our asses out!"

 

Absolutely correct, Bassman. But as I read once: in a good show, the characters NEVER know they're acting for an audience. In a bad one, they NEVER forget that they are.

Its up to the writers to pen events that makes sense FOR THE STORY and not just throw in inplausible situations and characters for the sheer hell of it- that tactic has crippled and killed many promising series: Heroes, Jericho, and very soon True Blood. TWD has (had?) the opportunity to be MUCH better than these if it resists the urge to turn itself into a caricature.

 

Bassman, have you seen The Wire? The Corner? Or any number of Korean action/suspense movies? NO mistakes. There's even a lot of cartoons that are had to pick apart, accepting their premise. TWD just makes it easy. But Season 1 Episode 1 was damn near flawless. I think it might have set the bar too high...

Writers have to remember, very often less is more.

 

No plan no matter how well thought out, survives the intail contact intact. Something else would have gone wrong. For right now it works and we have to let the characters deal with it. Safe and sound we can think of many ways to do things. It real life, it all changes quickly.

 

Well, I think it's possible they both just thought "Hey the zombies will probably stay distracted by the shiny things for awhile". Isn't that possible?

The problem with a lot of their actions in this series is that they don't understand zombie behavior - why some hang out in "herds" and roam around, what motivates the zombies, whether zombies just walk around randomly, or if there's some sort of a pattern, the level of zombie intelligence, zombie ability to climb certain things (stairs are doable but not ladders?), what will cause a couple zombies to break off from the main herd to go after food opposed to something that will cause MOST of the herd to turn around and run after aforementioned food, etc.

Someone should really hang around the zombies and study their behavior! That information could be incredibly useful. Just sayin!!!

 

Zombies are just like people. When you finally figure them out, they do something different. Their minds are now hardwired differently, so you can never tell for sure.

 

The OP has a solid point, but as discussed I think it surmised exactly Shanes mentality when he's faced with a situation. He's a "do now, think later" type of guy for sure. Look at the barn incident for example. How did he know what they were up against, how many, would they manage the situation without risk? He just blew the door open and forced everyones hand.

The writing for this show in excellent. Like Bassman said, this show isn't a how-to-guide on surviving a zombie apocalypse... often its acted as a how-not-to guide. Again, some people aren't happy to just let their imagination take control... if you really want to start debating on the actions of a character and how they were wrong to do something, you'd might as well just have a debate on whether we should have the show at all.

 

When Shane crept up and opened the cop car door, I was sure he was going to do the lead-them-away strategy. Hell, if you led them away you could hook up a truck to the FEMA trailer and haul it all back to the farm - lots of useful stuff and no chance you'd miss that vital piece that Hershel needs to treat Carl.

But Shane is a shoot-from-the-hip sort, and Otis was too guilted out to say anything. Dumb waste of ammo and manpower.

I agree that it was about developing Shane's character. What there is of it.