The Walking Dead - Episode 2.08 - Nebraska - Robert Kirkman Interview

Okay, first things first. There’s a bar near to Hershel’s farm? Couldn’t Rick have organized the search for Sophia from there? That would definitely have been my plan. I mean that’s where they keep the booze!
ROBERT KIRKMAN: Obviously, their priorities were not in order.

No kidding.
Look, if you’re just going to poke holes in the show, this interview is over. [Laughs] No, you’re right. They should have been at that bar the whole time. I think Hershel was keeping it a secret. He didn’t want them to drink up all the booze.

When AMC recently released a clip which briefly showed the two new cast members coming into the bar we put up a post asking readers to guess their identity. Frankly, given how quickly they got killed, that now seems like a colossal waste of everybody’s time.
[Laughs] Well, hopefully it wasn’t until the very end of that scene that you thought they might not last a long time. With the casting of those two guys and everything involving that scene we were really trying to convince the audience that they were going to be new regulars, so the end would be that much more shocking.

One of my colleagues wanted me to tell you he “couldn’t believe they got that f—king great guy from Terriers on the show just to shoot him.”
[Laughs] He’s a huge fan of the Walking Dead. Or at least he was.

Source: Full interview @ Entertainment Weekly