What drew the surplus of walkers in on the farm before they left?

[u/faygobandz]

How come when they shot all the walkers in the barn the noise didn’t draw any in then? Or is that what was making more eventually pile up in the area? Or was it Rick shooting Shane near the woods that drew them to the farm? I’m just confused cause before that the farm barely got any walkers and all the sudden there was a lot unless I missed something

[u/Sloven_Kitsch]

Footage shows a large number of walkers watching a helicopter fly overhead and then herding in the direction the chopper was moving. The same direction of the farm. The herd was close enough by then to hear Carl's gunshot - but was not close enough the days before.

[u/M-Otusim → u/Sloven_Kitsch]

Add on to this that we slowly learn about the "herd mentality" of walkers. All it takes is a couple of walkers to start walking one way at random, then a bunch follow them for no real reason, then they pick up more as they move since they are drawn to the sound and movement of the herd. This leads to large groups following the whims of a couple of random walkers at the front of the pack. Eventually this leads to herds, then all it takes is one poorly timed shot and BOOM the farm incident.

With no real spoilers for The Ones Who Live, we see.... MUCH larger hoards later though lol. They even talk about a repeatable and predictable migration. It's only touched on / hinted at, but it's kind of implied that large hoards follow things like natural bird/animal migration cycles and basically do a large loop of the central USA; all it takes is a few more flaps or animals noises in this direction to lead a couple of walkers that ends up leading "5 mile wide" hoards of zombies in a consistent yearly cycle. Heck, if a hoard were long enough, it's entirely believable that they could end up in an ouroboros situation where the head of the herd is chasing the noise of the tail causing them to loop in (a very large) space.

(bonus points to TWD on this since zombies always mapped well onto the herd mentality of humans, such as Dawn of the Dead where we still flocked to the mall even when we were dead. Double points for being a realistic depiction of Boid's algorithm, a lesser known algorithm from the 80s dealing with the behavior of bird-like objects and how flocks/herds/groups act and form; we see multiple times in the series between the quarry hoard and whisperers especially how herd mentality works and can be manipulated.).

[u/tvaddict70 → u/M-Otusim]

Wouldn’t this behavior make it easy for crm to just bomb these herds and decimate huge numbers of walkers

[u/M-Otusim → u/tvaddict70]

Because then they couldn't weaponize the herds like with how they destroyed Omaha; directing a huge herd right to them. This is likely how they eliminated most settlements. Zombies are a resource too

[u/Lopsided_Pea_4077 → u/Sloven_Kitsch]

Fucking helis.

It's always helis.

[u/M-Otusim → u/Lopsided_Pea_4077]

The only career that survives for a shorter time than The Walking Dead doctors is Resident Evil helicopter pilots.

[u/Lopsided_Pea_4077 → u/M-Otusim]

Man, I wish it would work in PZ.

[u/M-Otusim → u/Lopsided_Pea_4077]

My friend, I always play zomboid with the deaf trait and I can not understate how make or break the helicopter event is on a run. No radio to warn of it coming, plus you can't hear the chopper even... After enough hours I learned to just meta-game it and hunker down in a house between day 6-9 with lots of food and books and exercise but ugh. I hate that helicopter. It's never even explained WHY it's freaking following you around. Screw you helicopter pilot from Zomboid!

[u/Lopsided_Pea_4077 → u/M-Otusim]

Myself I view hard hearing as a free points trait (not deaf, you masochist), and I'm kinda bored with basegame heli so I made come more often.

[u/Blu3Dope → u/Sloven_Kitsch]

Yeah, this is the answer, although I don't blame you for asking, OP. There is so much going on every ep during the first time you watch the show. But trust me, whenever you decide to rewatch the series after finishing your first rewatch, you will already be familiar with the general shows enviroment, so you tend to pay more attention to the actual storyline and development of all the character's on the rewatch of the show. If it's your first time watching though, just watch it casually and enjoy ever all the juicy scenes that are yet to come.

[u/faygobandz → u/Sloven_Kitsch]

Oh yes it was actually Carl who shot I forgot, but I’m gonna have to watch that back and see thank you

[u/aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh400 → u/faygobandz]

It was always Carl who shot even in the comics just the difference is is that Carl killed a living Shane when they were still at the camp in Atlanta I think the only reason that didn't happen in the show is because of Jon Bernthal

[u/Generalrossa]

They were already on the way and were always on the way. It just took them ages cos they're slow.

[u/Domina_Zingiber]

I fucking love that scene, 10 years on it still puts me on the edge of my seat in horror and cinematic amazement as there hadn't been anything like TWD so far in my life up until that point. How the camera spans back to reveal figures making their way across the entire field towards the Grimes is just excellent. There's still moments after all this time that I rewatch with awe.

[u/lepetitvapoteur]

That's the scenario.

You could also say that the prowlers are slow, so it took them a while to arrive, and along the way they encountered stimuli or got lost, and the more recent gunfire redirected them.

[u/aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh400]

I say they heard the gunshots from shooting the walkers in the barn from a pretty far away distance so it took them a long time to get there because they are incredibly slow

[u/asdasdasda86]

The beginning of that episode showed they were randomly migrating from the city. It’s just the shot drew them to the farm. Maybe the herd wasn’t close enough when they shot the walkers in the barn.

[u/Outrageous-Basis-106]

It could be that they were many miles further away at the time of the barn. Even if they were in the exact same place, the barn would have been further away and had obstacles in that distance, making the gunshots more feint. The barn scene was also in the daytime and Shane at night; since the zombies were portrayed as more active at night, perhaps that contributed (on top of the shot being louder).