The Walking Dead Season 3 Episode 1

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This post is about the AMC show The Walking Dead.  If you have not seen up to season 3 episode 1 this post will contain spoilers.
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Tonight was the Walking Dead Season 3 premiere.  The gang finally made it to the prison.  There was a time jump between seasons 2 and 3, from the looks of Lori's belly, I'd say it was a four or five month time jump.  I think when season 2 ended Lori was 3 months pregnant and she looks about 7 or 8 months pregnant now.  Though they said she would give birth soon, so maybe even more.

Hershel gets bitten by a walker and Rick has to hack off his leg to prevent the disease from spreading, he is the only doctor around to help with the delivery after all.  And the gang finds humans in the prison!  That out to make next week's episode interesting!  Andrea spent the winter with Michonne and her zombie pets.  It seems like those two have gotten close.

I think in this episode we saw elements of old Rick, but he has definitely changed from the seasons 1 and 2, especially in his behavior towards Lori.

It was interesting to see Carl, Maggie, Carol, Beth, and Lori more involved in the zombie action.  Though maybe Lori not as much, Lori has always been one of the tougher female characters.  Carol, inarguably the weakest female character of the past two seasons, started to come out of her submissive battered wife shell in late season 2, after finding Sophia as a walker.  Now, Carol is picking off walkers like a seasoned pro.  Carl too, has definitely lost his innocence, Beth is almost there.

Seasons 1 and 2 were definitely about innocence, both in the adults and the children.  Their innocence was lost when their haven, Hershel's farm, was over run with migrating walkers, (what was up with the chopper, will we find out soon?) and the group was separated and reconnected (minus Andrea and Hershel's people).  And, just to put the last nail in the coffin of their innocence, in the last scene of season 2, Rick admits to killing his best friend, Shane, for the good of the group and snarls, "If you're staying, this isn't a democracy anymore".

Season 3 looks like it will be all about them accepting this is their life and there is no cure and no hope for the world and they better just adapt as quickly as possible.  Even the opening scene of season 3 throws the audience into this new loss of innocence, with little Carl busting through doors, clearing corners, and taking out a walker in the kitchen without batting an eye.  And how does Lori feel about her young son becoming a seasoned walker killer?  In season 2, Lori was opposed to the idea of Carl even taking shooting lessons from Shane, now it seems Lori, and the others, has accepted the inevitability of their new existence.