RED MEAT

Kimmet#1, "Get a task force scrambled! I wanna know what's going own out there!"
Puck, "Want me to send someone to check it out?"
Kimmet#2, "Don't jump to conclusions. They might just have communication problems. Wake the engineers. Put the chopers on stand by."
KIMMET!!! Shit or get off the pot!

Uhura, "Hey, there's a secret Sat Phone!"
Michael, "Really? Where does it go?"
Kimmet, "Uh, I gotta go." I just knew he had Kelly on speed dial listed under Booty Call.

We finally get an account of strength of the military at Kimmet's disposal. Assuming the Irwin and deployed numbers are constant..
  1. 8500 in Boulder
  2. 2000 on Post in Irwin
  3. 200 in the Box
  4. 180+/- deployed.
  5. 10 to 11 thousand.


We learn from Spc Robins:
  1. Communincation and power are the first to go.
  2. Command staff and mayor are probably dead.
  3. They tried radioing Ft Irwin but Michael says they never received any communications.
  4. Solidiers that are not killed are turned and turn on others.
  5. Mentions that they seem like 'soldiered versions of them.' This gets Michaels attention.

#5 on the list is interesting. Is Michael surprised by the fact that they're like soldiers? As in, they're smart zombies retaining soldier traits? Could this be reason that Little Ones move funny because they were babies turned before/while learning to walk? Or was Michael responding to what Robins said about the zombies being difficult to take down, as in an Inkling?

#4 on the list adds a crazy new dynamic to combat. In reality your enemy can kill, capture or wound you. Here, the enemy either kills you or turns you into one of them. Putting up a brave and gallant fight to the death might hurt your side more. The enemy's method of killing, maiming and turning are all the same. When you take away the soldier's advantage of superior firepower (or just firepower, period, in this case) then you have a case simillar to the House Advantage in a casino; in favor of the zombies. During an engagement, the zombies numbers are likely to be sustained or INCREASED. Soldiers will have to kill the zombies and any wounded commrads (screaming for help and mercy) at the same time.

We meet up with Datu and Hope and get our first view of Boulder.
Datu and Hope live together and Pegs and Kelly live in another part of town but we don't know if they live together. Say what you will about Datu's punk-ass-bitchness but he's taken out zombies with things you'll find in a garage. TWICE! Yes, he may be the bane of coyotes and have trouble shooting zombies at point blank range but when push comes to shove he starts swinging. Everyone forget Datu bashing several zombies with a broken chair leg? A B.R.O.K.E.N. C.H.A.I.R. L.E.G! in the arena when they came to get Samantha.
Datu Pacquiao took down an Inking in one swing. Even while missing the head. I didn't hear very much gurgling or strugle after he hit the thing. Sounds like he took it down rather quickly. I would expect a normal person to present some strugling if s/he were wounded only in the throat. He could have severed nerves too, however.

Kimmet reveals the nukes and proves to be the anti-Michael. Anti-Micheal as in he rambles on and on until we all cheer when Michael cuts him off. Kimmet goes on and on about Boulder's medical training facilities like he's a college recruiter instead of focusing on telling Michael his friends will be shipped to Boulder. Here, he goes on... about Pantex during all-hell-breaking-loose. Of course this is for story purposes because not all fans are frum participants. It doesn't take away from the story but from Michael's perspective it's annoyingly irrelevant.

Now back to the nukes.

Listen at 17:00 minutes Kimmet say that there was a time when the whole thing started they were losing whole cities. BEFORE we lost contact with other bases IT WAS DECIDED we would have a (failsafe.)
Now back to my nagging feeling that it would be strange to nuke a city if the whole world were over-run. If Boulder is over-run, why nuke it. L.A. was over-run and it's still there. If the shit hit the fan all over the U.S. and they know it (Which Kimmet states that he doesn't know for sure in part two of Beyond our Borders) then now is too little to late to contain things. It sure wasn't to contain the possible 150,000 Inklings. They were not even imagined when the failsafe was in place.

Ah ha! Failsafe. Everytime I listened to that chapter I kept thing about the Cold War film. Now I know why. Not only because of the title and the nukes but because I kept wondering HOW Boulder was the failsafe.

This brings me back even further to my suspicion that there are other safe zones and maybe there is some sort of world-wide communication blackout. Kimmet wants access to the Pacific? For what? Could be any number of reasons.

Also, he wasn't the sole decision maker in the failsafe. Of course he could have just as easily meant his command staff as he could have meant other base commanders. This is what I like about this story. One nugget can point into so many directions.