Number 1 was what I thought at first except they're not resistant it's just not active yet.

2) Kirkmanian Zombie virus can be latent in people. It's airborne and is in your system but won't become "active" until you die. So someone who has not been bitten and killed by a zombie can spontaneously reanimate. So I figure Mad Scientist guy said "You're all infected."

...The same sort of " rule" holds true in the Romero mythos, one doesn't have to be bitten to become a zombie, anyone who dies...unless they die of head/brain trauma, will reanimate, and I suppose the Doc could have told Rick something along those lines...but, why would he stay quiet about it? seems to me that would be something he'd let everyone know as quickly as he could...plus it doesn't seem like a big enough " surprise" to spring on the viewer...

He got some freaky car sex

Sophie's a zombie...

*I actually like Shane right now. I wouldn't want to share a camp with him but on the show I'm loving how his character is coming apart at the seams. He's having his donkey-cave moments but at the same time really consider what's been going on with the guy. He's forced to leave his best friend in the hospital, likely to die either to die due to lack of care or from becoming a zombie snack. Winds up falling in with said "dead" friend's wife. Takes over responsibility for her and her son and finds the role something he likes. He also becomes the leader of this group. Then Rick shows back up and the woman who he'd been involved with suddenly won't have anything to do with him, the boy who was becoming his sort of son suddenly spends all his time with someone else, and his leadership of the group is transfered almost instantly to Rick. It was a huge feth up to his world. Then it just keeps getting more and more fethed up as time goes on with Rick making choices that lower their odds of survival from his perspective. Things just keep happening and he feels largely helpless to correct them and get the group back onto the "correct" path. With a type A personality like his this just messes with him until we get what happens last night. As a final, "feth off," the woman he cared about who is carrying his son tells him it will never be his and Rick shows up with a walker in tow. It's not hard to see how he might finally go off the deep end. The best part of it all is that through it all they've managed to keep Shane at a point where it's hard to argue with him. Most of what he advocates is, while dickish, the moves most likely to help them survive. Even his breakdown at the end forces the group to resolve some serious issues they are having with this situation. He's very interesting right now.

*Daryl's interaction with Carol in the barn was good. I've seen him get some gak for it other places since he forgave Andrea for shooting him but calls Carol a dumb bitch for what she said. Really think about it though. When he forgave Andrea it wasn't just him being nice, he specifically says she was trying to defend the camp and that's why she was forgiven. Carol is abandoning the hope of finding her daughter, the thing that Daryl has been doing all this time and nearly got killed doing, and she's giving up on it. I'd be pissed too if I'd had to pull an arrow out of my side for this woman's cause only to have her turn around and go, "Whatev's, LOL."

*Is T-Dog still even in this show anymore. I think the random twenty something guy that lives on the farm has had as much screen time and as many lines as T-Dog this season.

*What the hell possessed Dale to do that? I've been on Dale's side, sort of (blowing off Andrea almost killing Daryl and Rick or Shane in the process, WTF?) but taking the group's weapons and going to bury them in a swamp, most likely ruining them? What the hell man? This is taking his busy body tendencies WAY overboard. Yeah, Rick wants to try and work things out but Dale KNOWS the barn is full of walkers and they aren't really safe. So he takes most of the weapons and buries them? His lines about this world not taking his humanity like it got Shane's were good but I was thinking, "Yeah but apparently it got your sanity," the entire time.

*Glenn/Maggie is a lot of fun. It's playing out in a reasonable way and not in a vacuum. Maggie's coming around to seeing walkers as dangerous is being handled well and Glenn's admission that sick or zombies the walkers are dangerous and he's not going to tolerate them endangering Maggie was well played. I really liked how Maggie turned things around on Herschel and during the breakout I liked having Glenn give her a look and she just nodded, allowing him to help finish off the zombies and do what he was promising too, keep her from danger no matter what. Glenn even went a little caveman, taking the shotgun when Shane told him to, "Defend what's yours." Hmm, what could that mean I wonder?

*It's nice to see Carl on his feet again. Really sad that as he determinedly states they must find Sophie and can't leave until they do and then not even 30 minutes of screen time later his father has to put zombie-Sophia down right in front of his eyes. I think Shane slapping the pistol in Carl's hand and telling him to do whatever it takes to keep his mother safe was a great one and them loading a Chekov's Artillery Piece.

*Rick is losing it every bit as much as Shane, he's just doing it in a much quieter manner. The guy is in the middle of fighting for his marriage with his wife, the life of his son, and to keep this group of psychotic's from killing each other or getting themselves killed due to their own stupidity. It's slowly tearing the guy apart. Now add in Lori being knocked up and he's finally snapped, doing whatever it takes to get Herschel to let them stay, even going so far as to help lasso a pair of walkers and bring them back to the barn that's a quarter mile from where his pregnant wife and son live. It's one thing to put up with the danger that exists already, it's another to actively bring more to live next to you. However this is all brought to a head at the barn where it's now obvious to him that playing nice with Herschel is over.

*Herschel got a tremendous amount of growth this episode. Which is amazing given how much was going on but then again that shows great writing and direction that this episode got everyone involved in a meaningful way and advanced their characters, except for T-Dog. Anyways, his reasoning for doing things is more obvious. However we also get to see exactly why Herschel is clinging to this reasoning. He's never seen the reality of the walkers up close. You can see it in his face as Shane starts to pop that female zombie. He's watching that walker take shots that would drop any sick person, then kill anyone instantly and she keeps on coming. As Shane put it, "Can a sick person take this?" The only conceivable answer to that question as the walker is still snarling and coming after then with three gut shots, both lungs shot through, and her heart destroyed, is that no they're not just sick. All of which hits him when he makes the connection to his wife and son in the barn. If they're this then all his hope of a cure and getting them back is gone. They're just monsters, and he collapses, offering no resistance as Shane tears the barn open. Amazingly the actor manages to take this a step further as his wife and son are gunned down in front of him.

*The zombie massacre was so well done because it brought all these plot lines and character development moments together in one huge scene. Andrea not running or worried but calmly drawing her weapon. Daryl getting ready with the shotgun, seemingly eager to kill some walkers and get this bitchfest over with. Glenn and Maggie with Maggie finally letting go and Glenn stepping up. Herschel manages to have a total breakdown mid gun battle. Rick watches as Shane finally torches his hopes of peaceful settlement and possibly any chance of peace between them personally. Carl is introduced to the ugly reality of life, that often the bad guy's win. Carol finally gets to see Sophia again but Daryl is the one to have to hold her down. It was this gigantic car crash of plotlines that left me screaming, "NO YOU BASTARDS!" as the credits rolled and I realized I'd be waiting two to three months for this plot trainwreck to start to solve itself.

*I know I've said that I thought Daryl should be the one to kill Sophia if she was a walker and that just having Rick do it is uninspired. I'm going to retract that. Rick went schizo in this episode, doing whatever it takes to no be tossed off the farm. All his peace making and hope was wadded up, doused in gasoline, set alight, and had they're ashes pissed on. The culmination of this all was zombie Sophia. He was the one who left her in the woods. She's a walker because of him. After everything he and everyone else did to find her he had to put a .357 mag between her eyes. It's an opportunity to shatter Rick. I can only hope they take it. I like that you have at least one person trying to stay good, and sane, and cling to the morality of the pre-walking dead world, but if this person is going to be the leader of a group like this they need him to temper that with some practicality. They have the chance to do that now that Rick's been put through this. So they have an opportunity to use this moving forward. If they do or not will ultimately determine if they wasted a perfect opportunity for Daryl or not.

...Shane continues to be one of my favorites and I really " get" what motivates him, seeing him take charge of the situations that all of the other characters were just dancing around and attempting to be " diplomatic" about was great.
Shane isn't a " bad guy" IMO, he's just looking at the situation realistically and making decisions that , from a " safe and sane world" perspective might seem vicious or cruel, but from a zombie invested/ your ass is on the line world perspective make complette sense.

Wasn't a big surprise to see zombie Sophia come staggering out of the barn, but it was well done, Crew cut mom's reactions seemed a bit flat ,actually wish she'd made it past Daryl and gotten to Sophia and been bitten, as I think that could have added to the overall vibe of the scene and really driven home the point Shane was making.
I like that it was Rick that stepped up to destroy Sophia, seems only right since he was responsiable for her being turned and also because he was so sure she was still alive and put everyone at risk looking for her, you could really see how discovering everything he believed and had risked lives for was a waste of time effected him, should make for some interesting conflict ( both internal and external ) when the show comes back.

I'm also really interested in seeing how Herschel reacts to what happened , he just watched a barn full of "people" he knew and cared for gunned down by a group of folks he was trying to get rid of, and I wonder if he will accept that it was the right thing to do or if he'll go bat gak.
Also interested in what Dale will be getting up too as well, The old dude seemed to be loosing it a bit by endangering the whole group by attempting to bury the guns ( in some shortsighted attempt to restrain Shane and "keep the peace").
I really think his tenacious grasp on the " old world" could be his undoing ( still like Dale as a character though).

Looking forward to the start of the next batch of episodes, I have a few predictions as to what's going to happen and will be interested to see if I'm correct.

Throughout the season I was one of the ones who had a problem with all of the soap operaness of the character's interactions but looking back over the season and seeing last night's episode I can see why they did it...Last season was all about introducing hte setting , the characters and of course the zombies. there was confusion and death and generally a lot of stuff going on to acquaint the viewer with the rules and standards of an undead world, hence why there were so many zombies then compared to now...

This season was a lot more about the survivors realizing not only in their minds but in their hearts that the old world is gone, that the old standards of compassion and politeness and other socially demanded behaviors have since been thrown to the walking dead. I think Rick and Hershel represent a desire for things to go back the way they were and Shane represents the realization that that won't happen.

I couldn't help but feel a relief and a sense of "its about time" when Shane started his crackdown...he's the character that understands the "whatever it takes" aspect of their survival...too bad he's probably going to end up dead soon...

I think Rick's decision to shoot Sophia was a good one. Not only was it him taking responsibility for his decision to leave her out there, it was an act of mercy, doing it so nobody else had to. It was also an acceptance of sorts of Shane's way of thinking...

In this episode more than ever I think some of the actor's lines rang true. Shane and Dale's conflict finally came to a tipping point with Dale saying "this world was made for you." Personally I think that's got some truth to it but I really don't think Shane was like he is now before the outbreak, I think its more of a mater of the new world forcing him to adapt to survive, the others are just taking longer to get over matters of the heart.

Glen's statement that "Out here, secrets get you killed." Is definitely true. by the end I was glad nobody else was keeping secrets, it was annoying and petty. I think by now that grown adults should be able to realize that in this situation, if people aren't on the same page, they could die. But I guess its part of the whole "hoping everything can go back to the way it was." desire of most of the survivors.

For these two seasons I've tried not to pick favorites but I gotta say now that I'm liking Shane's "get stuff done" approach...it might be d-baggery in the highest calibre but hey, he's still breathing in the end and that's all that matters.