Alternately, it was written by Clint Eastwood.

I'm midway through watching it—Rick just told everybody that they're all infected—but I had such a gross thought that I had to crawl out of bed to share it:

ding ding ding

It also gives the writers more leeway (although I guess not really, because pretty much anything can be scientifically explained to the extent required by pop culture). But yeah, it would be a nice throwback.

This made me laugh, and imagine a Hulk-zombie ala the sublimely underrated 2003 iteration of the green machine.

Good point. But it doesn't really reduce the show's credibility so much as make the whole thing an utter clusterfuck for the survivors. Before, they could at least take some solace in the possibility that zombism was scientifically explainable (indulge, please), whereas now there's simply no possible explanation other…

Dying=zombies would make sense given the wave approaching the farm at the episode's close. It would be a fairly simple pandemic-genre crossover, and also could explain the suicidal doctor's whisper in Rick's ear during season 1's final episode: "It's gone airborne! It's latent in everyone, and activates in the…

Well, I'm guessing this has been covered in depth somewhere in the five pages that precede this comment, but: for those annoyed with Rick, there may be light at the end of the tunnel.