By: Walker Yates

The Walking Dead

Assignment One

Rick Grimes- Working as a cop was Rick Grimes everyday life before the epidemic, but his day-to-day activities honestly haven’t changed in the aspect of morality. He is the protagonist and is usually in charge of anything major such as search missions, or scavenging missions. He has a wife and a son both of which he has unconditional love and would do anything for, as you will see throughout my observations. Ricks attitude throughout the series reflects on his caring morality. When carl gets hurt, he worries so much, to the point of tears. He is one of the characters with the biggest heart in the show and would do just about anything for anyone. Ever since the apocalypse has occurred, ricks demeanor has changed from very open about people in the world to a very protective state of mind.

Actors

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Shane Walsh- Shane Walsh is Rick Grimes partner/ best friend. He has a jealous personality that makes him seem like an ass at times. Shane is very hard headed and thinks he is right 105% of the time. Walking around with his chest out is his usual persona. Although he is pretty stuck up, he does have a big heart for Carl, Rick’s son.

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Lori Grimes- Lori grimes can be identified as Rick’s wife or Carl’s mom. Lori is a very caring mother and husband and she doesn’t let anything get in between that. The best reference of her is a mother bear.

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Daryl Dixon- A down to earth, courageous, and sympathetic, but rugged man is Daryl Dixon. He’s the backbone of this group. He walks around with a crossbow as his weapon of choice, and rarely uses anything different. He has one of the biggest hearts out of all the characters but tries to play tough and portray himself differently. He has a soft spot for Carol and her daughter Sophia. Daryl is an impressive man with a good shot and a big brain. He’s one of the biggest assets the group of survivors have

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The Walking Dead is a television show based on life after the outbreak of a zombie apocalypse. The first season of the show starts with Rick Grimes in a coma, and waking up to the epidemic already underway. Rick Grimes is a police officer and his best friends/ partner is Shane Walsh. Ricks first reaction is to find his wife and son, Lori and Carl. He finds nobody in town but a few zombies and a man and his son named Morgan and Duane. He then sets off to Atlanta to find them. He meets up with a smaller group that is scavenging for food in the city. Little did Rick know, his wife, son and best friend are in that same group but at base just outside of the city. After meeting back up with his family the audience finds out that Lori and Shane has been having a relationship but only because Shane had told Lori that Rick was dead. Once Lori saw that Rick was very much alive, there was no doubt that she wanted to be with him. Rick and Lori was officially a happy couple again. Shane on the other hand is not too pleased with the facts.

Background

The figured world I have chosen to observe is the Walking Dead. I think this figured world is the best fit for me because it’s my favorite show on Netflix and I’ve already watched all the seasons twice because I love it so much. I don’t see me having trouble staying invested and focused on this show just because it’s so appealing to me to watch it.

        My figured world is The Walking Dead. The main objective of this world is to stay alive. In this place there are, zombies, murderers, thieves, rapists, and pretty much anyone’s worst nightmares. This figured world is so big that there can be anything happening at the same time and often times there is always something happening whilst something else is going down as well. For example someone could be scavenging a grocery store while someone else is on the lookout killing zombies and risking their life. There could be a group cooking dinner for their camp and another camp that’s 20 miles away planning to raid another campsite. Some of the rules and conventions are as follows; it is acceptable to carry a weapon on you at all times in case of an emergency. It is acceptable to break into abandoned houses and take food that you may found left behind. Communication is usually done verbally. Loud noises are not acceptable because they can cause attraction of attention. They shouldn’t be expected but only on a rare occasion may one occur. While some behaviors are tolerated and accepted in this figured world that may not be elsewhere, there are also some that are not appropriate. For instance, walking in somewhere unaware of the inhabitants is not acceptable. Stealing someone’s personable items is just as big of a, “no, no” as it is in todays everyday life. You also don’t want to travel alone a lot of places because a lot of times it’s not safe. Some communities of practice I expect to find in my figured world are groups of survivors staying together to keep each other safe. There could be a gang of really bad people that are out to take all your belongings.

Figured World

Shane’s jealousy- Shane’s jealousy over Rick and Lori’s relationship plays a big role in the show. We find out that Shane and Lori had an intimate relationship when rick was supposedly dead. Now that Lori is back with Rick, it feels like Shane will do almost anything to get what he once had back. But will he?

Weapons- Weapons in this show could be considered the key to life. Guns, knives, pointy objects, and even a good brain can be considered weapons. They symbolize both safety and power. If you don’t have a weapon out in the open with a bunch of zombies about to attack you, you can pretty much say goodbye. They will protect you against anything that may be trying to harm you. You have more control over people if you have a gun in this figured world. Using a gun to persuade someone may be wrong, but it will get the job done.

Artifacts

Group of survivors- Shane, Rick, Carl, Lori, Glenn, Daryl, Dale, T-Dogg, Carol and a few other random survivors that have teamed up to try and survive. Surviving alone is near to impossible, but with a large group? This group will serve as the basis for the whole show with some characters going out and new ones coming in. They stick together and they argue at times but they always end up coming back together. A group decision can turn out to be the smartest decision a lot of times.

The Dead- The zombies as a whole. Each and every zombie will not stop at anything to taste your blood. They travel in swarms at times and other times alone. Swarms of them are harder to escape because they will circle up and you will have nowhere to run.

Communities of Practice

Finding a safe haven- A common goal of the entire group is to find somewhere that everyone feels reasonably safe. They would all like things to go back to normal, and the easiest place for that to happen is somewhere they can forget about all the traumatizing events that happen out in the wild such as massive swarms of zombies trying to eat you or another human being tying to take what’s yours. A good safe haven could include a good resource to food, such as a farm, access to water, and a bountiful amount of trustworthy people that you know wants the same things you do. At first Rick thought Atlanta might be a safe haven, but it turned out that it had been ran down just like most of the other cities. They will keep moving until they find a place that is reasonably safe and try and make it feel like a home.

Scavenging- The people in the survival group have to go looking for food in various abandoned houses and stores. They will team up in smaller groups and scope the place out. They have to be very careful most of the time because you never know when a “walker” is waiting behind the door. This is how they supply the group with food and water. This feeds the show by giving it some action and tension.

Practices of the Community

Ricks Courage- Rick's expertise of courage carries the whole group as a team. They feed off of his fearlessness weather they accept it or not. It pushes them to do things they probably wouldn’t do if Rick didn’t push them. Without rick they wouldn’t be nearly as successful at surviving the harsh conditions that the world now has to offer.

Killing of the dead- All characters seem to have some kind of expertise in this throughout the show. This Domain drives the show; it's what makes it run. Without this domain, it wouldn’t be a show.

Domain

Radio- Rick's radio is used to communicate to Morgan and to leave him messages about where to find him.

Walkers laying on the ground dead- Whenever anyone comes upon a group of dead walkers, it serves as some kind of communication pattern that this place has been occupied and people have killed all of these zombies.

Face to face interaction- Talking serves as the most common form of communication in this series as cell phones don’t really work out in the wild. They inform each other of where zombies. Sometimes they yell directions on how to kill a zombie an easier way. A lot of times they talk face to face just like we do in our everyday lives.

Literacy Practices

Observation Notes

3:00- Rick and the group have given up on Atlanta because of the massive amounts of herding zombies that overtook it and now they are moving on 125 to Fort Benet where they hope is safe and Walker free. They have been losing some of their group lately and this could be the only chance they have to save the rest of them. Rick leaves Morgan and his son a message on his radio hoping that he will hear it and in excess, try and find them to live with them. Morgan helped Rick get on his feet after waking up in a hospital after the apocalypse had begun. He had no idea what was going on but Morgan was the first human he came in contact with. Morgan taught him the basics on how to survive out in the “new” world.

10:00- Rick and Lori talk about their trip to the Grand Canyon with Carl that they never finished because Carl got so sick. They are on the road to Fort Benet and all of a sudden they come up on a large pile of cars on the freeway and are trying to maneuver around when the radiator hose on their RV busts forcing them to come to a halt. While the RV is broken down, some of the members decide to go look for water, food, and other items that may be of assistance to them during their trip. Siphoning gas out of cars is what T-dogg decides to do. The gas stations no longer dispense gas so this is one of the only options to obtain fuel.

Season 2 Ep. 1

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20:00- Shane finds a huge truck full of big plastic water bottles like the ones you can find at an office with the Styrofoam cups on the side. They can take it as a helpful resource to use when they run out of water. While the team is scavenging for items, rick is on the lookout and spots a huge mass of walkers. They quickly hide under cars and anywhere they can get out of reach of the zombies. Meanwhile, Andrea is stuck inside the RV occupied by learning how to put together a gun when she doesn’t notice all the walkers approaching, and one intrudes on her and walks onto the RV. She struggles to get the gun put together, and trying to give herself more time, run to the bathroom and tries to hold the door shut. Dale happens to be on top of the RV and hands her down a screwdriver through the vent, which ultimately saves her life, as she is able to use it to stab the zombie. T- dogg has cut his arm open pretty bad on the side of a car door, which attracted all the walkers to him, but he manages to stay alive with the help of Daryl. He shot it with his crossbow.

30:00- While the last of the walkers are dissipating into the distance, the team is still hiding.  Two walkers smell Carol's daughter, Sophia, who was underneath a car and she runs off into the woods. Rick follows her and tries to hide her and diverge the walkers away from her. Unfortunately Sophia in a worried daze, thinks the coast is clear and tries to run back to her mom for safety. She gets lost on her way back. Rick kills the walkers and then comes back to find Sophia gone and suspects that she just ran back up to the road. When he gets back she’s not there. The crew winds up getting the RV running again. Rick and Daryl decide to look for Sophia by following her tracks, which seem to have veered off the path Rick told her to follow.

40:00- Shane tells Lori that he is secretly going to slip away from the group to get away from her and Rick. He is having trouble accepting that rick is still alive after he left Rick for dead at the hospital. He assumed that if he didn’t come back he could be the one to take care of Lori and fall in love with her. Daryl and Rick continue to look for Sophia off the beaten trail. They find a walker that was walking along the path her footprints led to and killed it. They had to find out if it had eaten Sophia so cutting the stomach of the walker was necessary to find out if the inevitable was true. The results weren’t too satisfying to say the least. They couldn’t find any circumstantial evidence that the walker had eaten Sophia. Carol, Sophia’s mother, was very upset when she found out that her daughter couldn’t be found and was appalled that they weren’t going to continue searching. Meanwhile carl finds a bag full of weapons. Rick and the other men decide to teach everyone weapon safety and awareness with these guns and knives since most of them are basic and easy to use.  

50:00- The team goes looking for Sophia the next day and on their way to find her they found a tent, which raised some suspicion. They found nothing in it except a dead man. They then hear ringing bells at a church believing it could be people that have found her or even her herself ringing the bells so that they will hear her. Excited, they then run towards the sound. They find the church, burst in, and kill two walkers. Still no sign of Sophia and the whole group is let down. Come to find out, Glenn finds a box and figures out the bells are on a timer. It wasn’t Sofia ringing them and they are now just as lost in their search as they were before. The whole group is very distraught that they cannot find her and exhausted from looking.

40:00- Shane tells Lori that he is secretly going to slip away from the group to get away from her and Rick. He is having trouble accepting that rick is still alive after he left Rick for dead at the hospital. He assumed that if he didn’t come back he could be the one to take care of Lori and fall in love with her. Daryl and Rick continue to look for Sophia off the beaten trail. They find a walker that was walking along the path her footprints led to and killed it. They had to find out if it had eaten Sophia so cutting the stomach of the walker was necessary to find out if the inevitable was true. The results weren’t too satisfying to say the least. They couldn’t find any circumstantial evidence that the walker had eaten Sophia. Carol, Sophia’s mother, was very upset when she found out that her daughter couldn’t be found and was appalled that they weren’t going to continue searching. Meanwhile carl finds a bag full of weapons. Rick and the other men decide to teach everyone weapon safety and awareness with these guns and knives since most of them are basic and easy to use.

50:00- The team goes looking for Sophia the next day and on their way to find her they found a tent, which raised some suspicion. They found nothing in it except a dead man. They then hear ringing bells at a church believing it could be people that have found her or even her herself ringing the bells so that they will hear her. Excited, they then run towards the sound. They find the church, burst in, and kill two walkers. Still no sign of Sophia and the whole group is let down. Come to find out, Glenn finds a box and figures out the bells are on a timer. It wasn’t Sofia ringing them and they are now just as lost in their search as they were before. The whole group is very distraught that they cannot find her and exhausted from looking.

60:00- While tensions rise between Lori and Shane, Shane is furthering his idea to run off from the group, but Andrea overhears him talking about it to Lori and then wants go with him. He feels as if it would just be an extra person to take care of, but she argues that she could help him by, “saving his ass” if his ass ever needed to be saved. Rick tries to talk to Christ someway in the church. He argues that he tried to put his faith elsewhere before this, such as his family, job, friends, etc. He tries to ask god for a sign to help him along the way. Maybe he will be answered. The group decides to head back to the RV. On their trek back they spot a deer in the distance of the woods. A moment of silence and tranquility occur. Carl slowly walks up to the deer in hopes of touching it. Pretty soon the quiet landscape is shattered by a gunshot. Both Carl and the dear are pierced with the bullet and fall motionless on the ground. The episode ends with him falling on the ground.

3:00- The scene opens with a flashback from before the epidemic outbreak. Lori is chatting with her friend on a bench while waiting for Carl to get out of school. She states that she doesn’t know if her love for rick is still present. While in the middle of conversing, two police cars drive up and Lori instantly realizes that they are there to speak to her. The two cops are Rick’s best friend and partner, Shane, and an unknown officer. Shane hesitantly reports to Lori that rick has been shot on duty and is currently in the hospital. At the same time, the bell rings at the school and Carl comes out to meet his mom.  Lori explains to him that his dad has been shot. Carl is uneasy about this and breaks down into tears.

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10:00- The flashback ends and a new scene is brought into play. Ottis, the man who was tracking the buck and shot the bullet that went into Carl's chest is explaining that he lives at a farm where there is a man named Hershel who can help them with Carl’s wound.  Rick, who is running with Carl slumped in his arms is obviously distraught about the whole situation Ottis is in utter dismay about the tragedy he has caused. He is regretful no doubt, even to the point of tears. As soon as they make it to the farm, Rick quickly introduces the story to Hershel and they are rushed inside to the room in which the operation will take place. The room is a small bedroom with a single bed in it. The first step to be set in action to save Carl’s life is to find someone with the same blood type. Fortunately Rick is a perfect match. Rick still in shock, is asked to leave the room, but not to stray too far because they don’t know when they will need to replenish Carl with blood. Rick, being the father he is, doesn’t want to leave his son's side but precautions must be made. While all of this is going on, the rest of rick's group continues to look for Sophia in the woods off of the highway. They all heard the gunshot that Ottis took for the deer, but are unaware that it actually hit Carl. Some of the group debates on weather to go back to the R.V. on the highway or not, but Daryl reassures them not to worry.

20:00- Dale and T- dogg are keeping an eye on the R.V. T- dogg has a really bad cut on his arm and dale explains that he is worried he may have a bad infection or blood poisoning. The scene then switches back to the farm where Hershel is beginning to operate on Carl. He awakens after being unconscious and suddenly freaks out and screams in pain from being dug into by the tool that’s being used to find the bullet fragments. Shane is ordered to hold Carl down to keep him from squirming and rick is told he needs to start giving blood. Carl goes unconscious once again, and almost simultaneously, Hershel retrieves one of the six fragments. Rick is very worried about his wife not knowing their son is battling for his life. He desperately wants to go find her and bring her here. Shane takes him aside and sternly tells him that his only obligation is to stay by his son’s side and be with him through the whole thing. After Carl is stable, Hershel explains that he needs a respirator and several other supplies to get the remaining five fragments out. Ottis, the man responsible for this, and Shane, agree to drive to the local high school in hopes to find all the supplies they need.

 

30:00- T- dogg and Dale are shown sitting next to the R.V. waiting on the others to return from their search for Sophia. T-dogg seems to be flustered by his own idea that the reason the group decided that Dale and himself stay at the R.V., was because they were the weakest links of the entire crew. He proposes the idea that the two of them should just take the R.V. and leave everyone else behind to fend for himself or herself. Dale is quick to explain that he opposes the idea of deserting the rest of the group by telling T-dogg he isn’t thinking straight because he’s running a very high fever due to his wound. Whilst Lori, Daryl, Glenn, Andrea, and Carol continue searching for Sophia, Andrea gets sidetracked and doesn’t notice a walker coming up on her. Before she knows it, the zombie is running her down. Stunned by terror, she trips and falls on the ground. As she is about to get torn apart by this zombie, Hershel’s daughter, Maggie, comes out of nowhere on a horse like a bat out of hell, and slams the walker over the head with a baseball bat. The crew, in dismay, quickly straightens up and takes mandatory action to find out who this girl is that came riding in on a horse and saved Andrea’s life. Before they could even get a word out, Maggie asks for Lori Grimes to come with her. She explains what’s happened to her son and tells her that Rick is waiting for her. Daryl is hesitant to trust this woman because they have never seen her before. As soon as Maggie explains where the farm is, and how to get there by the highway, Daryl gains assurance and everyone parts ways. Lori gets on the horse with Maggie, and everyone else rushes back to the highway for the R.V.

40:00- Lori, very emotionally upset, gets to the farm and becomes exasperated when she finds out that Hershel, although a doctor, he is only a veterinarian doctor, and has never performed this type of surgery on a human. Meanwhile, Shane and Ottis are shown trying to sneak into the overly zombie infested high school to get the required supplies for Carl’s surgery. They are successful in distracting the zombies with a flare and sneaking by them to get inside. They found it fairly easy to obtain all the supplies they came for, so they grabbed them and ran. On the way out, they find that the flare does not amuse the zombies anymore and that they have spread out in a dangerous way. When Shane opens the door, it attracts their attention, and they are forced to run for their lives around the outside of the high school. With the exit gate not accessible, they’re forced to find another option. Shane and Ottis find a door into the school but it's locked, so Shane shoots out the glass. They find refuge inside after they close a gate to prohibit entry into the shot out glass doors. But who knows what’s inside. The scene ends.

4:00- The introductory scene starts off by Rick telling Lori and Carl a story about Shane when he was a young boy. The story was about how fast Shane could run. At the same time as he was telling the story, the audience could see Shane and Ottis in the high school trying to run away from the zombies. They keep running into locked doors and it looks as if there may be no escape. Ottis’s facial expression signifies that he’s tired and very winded.

Season 2 Ep. 3

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10:00- The scene is switched back to the R.V. on the highway. Carol is incredibly distraught over losing her daughter, Sophia in the wild and not being able to find her. Daryl seems to have some sympathy for her because he notices how upset she is, and decided to go look for her by himself in the dark. While leaving, Andrea shows some courage and decides that she too wants to go and help. On their way out of the R.V., Dale warns them that it might not be safe to go searching at night, but Andrea and Daryl seem to think that desperate times call for desperate measures. Shane and Dale are then shown on top of some bleachers in the school's auditorium and they devise a plan to escape. Dale was going to run to the locker room and try to find some windows that were big enough for him to get through while Shane was going to go out of the ones in the auditorium because he could fit. Dale then jumps down off the bleachers and hurts his ankle and falls to the ground where is almost bitten by a zombie before Shane shoot it, giving him enough time to get up and run for the locker room. Shane then proceeds to go towards the window and almost gets bit before he gets out safely.

20:00- Hershel is worried that something has happened to Shane and Dale and tells Rick that if they aren’t back soon then they may have to make a choice on whether to do the operation without him being on a respirator. Lori is having troubles with the situation that’s going on. She even thinks that maybe this is how it’s supposed to happen, that maybe Carl should die because this world isn’t meant for children. Shane is shown at the high school still trying to escape. Him and dale planned to meet on the football field outside. Shane had no sight of Dale and all he could see was walkers, but suddenly he spots him after Dale shoots a walker that was blocking his sight. They recollect and keep moving. The scene then switches once again and displays Lori and Rick watching over carl when suddenly he awakens. He is a little disoriented and doesn’t know where he is. Carl then explains to his mom how beautiful the deer was that he was watching. While he was in the middle of telling her about the serenity of the deer, he breaks out into a seizure. Rick calls for Hershel and he quickly explains that he’s going into cardiac arrest and that the surgery is going to have to happen right away.

30:00- Carol can’t sleep over the fact that her daughter's missing and decided to keep watch with Dale on top of the R.V. They are both worried for Andrea and Daryl, for they know how dangerous it is to be out at night. While searching through the woods, Daryl spots a walker hanging from a tree. The sight is so unsettling that it makes Andrea puke. Daryl isn’t going to put the walker out of his misery simply because he doesn’t think it's hurting anyone by letting him hang there. Andrea has been having some issues lately considering her life. Daryl has been sensing Andrea’s emotional problems involving her life and asks her about it. She tells him that she will give him an answer if he agrees to put an arrow through the poor zombies head. He agrees, and she tells him that she doesn’t know if she wants to live or not. He then shoots an arrow through the zombie’s head. While they are still off in the woods, Dale is getting very anxious about them returning. His anxiety gets the best of him and he leaves Carol on watch so he can go help search. Meanwhile back at the farm, T- dogg is getting his arm bandaged up. Glenn and Maggie have a very deep conversation about religion on the front porch. Glenn is trying to pray for his first time. Back at the high school Rick and Dale are struggling. They are running low on ammo and only have four or five shots left each. They are both injured to the point where they can hardly walk.

40:00- Right before Hershel was about to give up hope for the respirator, Shane shows up in the truck but without Ottis. He explains that he told Shane to just go and that he would cover him and when Shane looked back he didn’t see Ottis anywhere. They all agree not to tell Ottis’s wife until after the surgery is over. Maggie is taking Ottis's death pretty hard. On the brighter side, the surgery goes very well and Carl seems to very stabilized. The closing scene replays what actually went on in the last few moments with Shane and Ottis at the high school. They were both down to only one bullet and Shane made a decision to use it on Ottis to prevent him from walking. While Shane got away, the zombies attacked Ottis, giving Shane the freedom to get out with the medical supplies. Shane’s decision is haunting him and he can’t stop thinking about it.

*Alex Butler is the interviewee for this session. I have chosen Alex because he is an avid watcher of The Walking Dead. He really enjoys the show and was very excited about me giving him an interview about it. Since he like the show, I figured his input would be substantial information for me to put in an interview. His favorite season was season two as well, so considering I did my assignment on season two I figured he was a perfect match.

Interview

[1]Interview Questions- 1.              Can you please explain to me the role of Rick Grimes in the

Show the Walking Dead? A- He’s a sheriff and the leader of the group of survivors. 2.              How do you think Rick qualifies to be the leader of the

group? A- He has certain qualifications that make him a good leader such as

strength, wisdom, and courage. 3.              Tell me what concerns you about Rick becoming the big man

in charge in this group that’s struggling to survive. A- The other people have issues with him becoming the leader because

they may not want him to be “more important” than them. 4.              Reflect on how you think Shane feels about Rick and Lori’s

relationship. A- He’s very jealous and may even consider taking evasive action to get

him out of the picture. 5.              What different options do you think Shane has on become

complacent with his self? May he have to leave the group in order to fulfill his wants?

A- He could run away from the group and try to survive on his own. He could kidnap Lori to make himself happy and live the rest of his life with her. Or he could kill himself.

[1] Each of these Questions are based on season 2 analysis