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Barney between the eyes:stone cold killer

posted 12 years ago by iguaca_falls
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The decision to kill Barney was a comic display of judicial ineptitude like no other. Slapstick in its absurdity.
Firstly, they neglected to get to the bottom of why* Barney mentioned wendy's death. That was the only issue. The other pieces of evidence were purely circumstantial - in fact they barely form evidence at all. They blithely ignored this.
Secondly, the democratic decision to conceal tom's guilt was the equivalent of taking a spray can to Barney's tombstone. After murdering him in cold blood because leaving him to fend for himself was too inconvenient a moral sacrifice they then allow his friends to continue to belive in his guilt!
Thirdly, they protect Tom after discovering his guilt because he's "too useful". One can infer that they killed Barney because he was of no use to them.

Only great tv can rub one so vigorously the wrong way. Brilliant suspenseful show this notwithstanding.

[–] iguaca_falls 12 years ago

The next epsode clarifies things. "Calamity jane" mentions that when one wolf gets sick the other's turn on it. This is precisely what happened. The writers were trying to make a point about the cruelty and barbarism and the breakdown of moral norms.
The fact that Abbie referred to him as a "sick animal" said it all quite succintly. They judged him to be a sick animal as opposed to a sick child (which he essentially was). You euthanise a human and "put down" an animal as arbitrary as the distinction may seem.

[–] Darth_Ferior 11 years ago

The problem was that they were all certain that Barney did it, and none of them had any experience of running a trial. All it needed was for one of them to act as an advocate for Barney, to respond to Greg constantly saying the trial was a waste of time. Had someone stood up and spoken in Barney's defence, they may have discovered who the real killer was.

The point about Survivors was that none of them were farmers, doctors, lawyers etc, they were secretaries, housewives, engineers etc, and were suddenly thrust into running a community, having to learn to grow crops and keep animals, other people attacking their community etc. just to show the hardships and hopelessness of life after a plague.