I really liked the episode but the hermit bothered me...
A) He's about a mile or less from Woodbury. How has he gone unnoticed by THEM? They seem to have a pretty good perimeter set up around the outskirts of the town itself... limited walker activity and all, the wind chime trap thing (maybe multiples of them, if they're wise), and so forth. So how did a survivor in a cabin get past them all this time?
B) How'd he survive? I got the impression he was maybe living off a dead dog... maybe... but really how did he survive the whole time without getting eaten, even if he could avoid the town? He's a little off kilter it seemed, and maybe not the best state of mind to make good decisions.
C) He didn't appear to have much in the way of gear besides his shot gun... Again, how did he survive?
Maybe he was delusional from lack of food? Maybe the dog was his pet and he was just laying there waiting to die? Weird weird weird.
Couldn't agree with you more, Bill, on the redshirt feeling for Otis (I think that's his name, they've only mentioned it once or twice so I keep forgetting he and the little weasly guy's name). He even ran slower and killed sloppier... Dude's definitely NOT on the same page as the other 3 attempting to infiltrate Woodbury. I like that he's clearly not as adept at this as they are, but at the same time it gives little hope to him to survive going against the living, much less the dead.
Also agree with you Tracy, on Andrea. If Twitter's any indication I'd say we're in the vast majority with that opinion on her and the direction her character has gone, as she addressed it today saying there's payoff and she's good, blah blah blah. We'll see. She's not the writer and it's my understanding their scripts and future aren't really known much beyond the episode they're working on.
I'd love to see a map of the area to know where the major landmarks are... From Atlanta outward, kind of like the Middle Earth map for LOTR/Hobbit, it'd be a nice point of reference to let you know where Woodbury is in conjunction to the farm, to the prison, to the military convoy, to the CDC, and so on. It would be interesting to me anyway. I like knowing where I'm at.
I'd also like to know, what is around the entire town of Woodbury, that keeps it safe? There can't possibly be one small road into the town and the entire town is tall building upon building side-by-side and around in a U shape. Kinda curious what the rest of the town looks like, how big it is, etc. Curious how Rick & Co. are going to get in.
Darryl's presence is an interesting point of contention going forward... he's built a definite family-type bond with the group, but now seeing true blood relatives in the opposing group is a huge bump in the road. The preview hinted at it, but it's something I guess completely foreign to even the comic fans since Darryl's not in them from my understanding. It'll be very interesting to see how that plays out. Darryl could break some hearts coming up I think, haha.
I hate thinking about who's dead meat before the mid-season break... I have my picks though. Two in particular.