The Walking Dead: S03 Ep08 - Made To Suffer

What happened?

Rick lead an infiltration of Woodbury to rescue Glenn and Maggie, which proved successful though came at the cost of one of their number and Daryl getting captured. Michonne went alone and encountered The Governor in a fight after she killed his 'walker daughter' - only Andrea appearing stopped the fight.

The Governor lost an eye, and apologised publicly to his people. But then he surprised Merle by naming him as the traitor, and then presented him with his brother. In front of the baying crowd the two estranged brothers were left to an uncertain fate.

Thoughts

There were quite a few elements of this episode that I didn't particularly take to. Overall, of course, I thoroughly enjoyed it - but I thought by The Walking Dead's own high standards it wasn't quite attaining its own precedent. And for an installment that served as a kind of mini-cliffhanger before the break I was hoping it would raise its game a tad.

The scenes at the prison were a case in point, feeling like they were were shoehorned in to dangle new people and problems for our heroes that would tide over for the second half of the season. The episode opened with a small gang of unknowns hacking their way through the woods, clearly desperate, and stumbling upon the crumbled wall of the prison for an easy access point. I got the impression that this glaring break in the perimeter could pave the way for a serious problem in terms of the prison's fortitude against outsiders. Not so much from walkers but from the likes of The Governor and his men, deciding to take their revenge.

So the new people meeting up with Carl didn't really capture my interest, aside from one of them being that guy from The Wire who I liked. That they came lumbering in already encumbered with a person bitten that they weren't instantly killing just made them look weak, and problematic. Carl, as with his group, was well-versed in the need to put a bullet through the head of anyone bitten or dead, but these new guys aren't quite there.

It's not that I have a particular problem with the new people, but The Walking Dead is starting to feel slightly cluttered with many faces and not enough in-depth characterisations. Splitting the action between Woodbury and the prison has already shortened that feel of really living with these characters and getting to know them, so further populating their ranks is not going to alleviate things. It's a small complaint, really and, I suppose, if the reverse was the case and the cast was smaller I may find the show less fast-paced and interesting.

Carl has certainly grown into a mini-Rick, which feels a tad unbelievable but is still interesting to see. As we've already seen how much Rick himself can mentally unravel then there could be a terrible price for a small boy to undergo the same burdens and responsibilities. So there's that going on. And otherwise, at the prison, the new convict guy wasn't exactly charming the group by making sleazy overtures towards the females in the group. You'd think a guy would be smarter than that. Barely a day with the new group and the moment all of the alpha males have left he is sniffing around the girls. I suspect he's not going to last long.

The other new convict sure didn't last long, shot on the exit out of Woodbury. To be fair, the odds of them all getting out of there unscathed with that much gunfire being laid down wasn't great. Smoke bombs or not, the chance of not getting shot on that street with bullets being sprayed all over the show had to be minimal. Credit to the music during the shootout sequences. Rather than going down the route of trying to make the action more rousing, the music opted for a repeated, minimalist tune that created a real sense of dread. With the smoke suffusing the street in a white haze there was a surreal, otherworldly quality to proceedings. It was stylish. It didn't feel real, which might have affected my reaction to it. But it was definitely enthralling and that sense of dread really gripped tight.

You just knew something, with someone, was going to go bad. And the moment Daryl elected to stay behind you knew he was going to be at the centre of it, especially after Rick took some moments to make it absolutely clear how much he needed him. Yeah, the moment anyone becomes essential on this show is the time when you can bank on them being rendered powerless. Or dead.

It did feel a little contrived that Daryl got captured after he and Rick and the rest had near-effortlessly (too conveniently, if you ask me) managed to infiltrate Woodbury and locate Glenn and Maggie and - just in time, no less - get to them and get them free. Not that I am complaining that Glenn and Maggie did escape; I would have been totally devastated if either one had them had been executed. Yet, you know, I still like my much-wanted rescues to feel well-earned. Rick to the rescue just didn't quite feel authentic. Again, another minor quibble in an episode of minor quibbles.

Michonne is another of those quibbles. I could have used just a little more explanation about why she chose to go rogue and investigate The Governor's room. Oh, I realise it's because she got a whiff of something rotten about the place the last time she was there and was fuelled by a feel of unfinished business. I get that. But why not tell Rick? If she was rocking a totally independent woman vibe I'd buy into it, but at the end of the episode she was back at Rick's side and making a clear plea for why she was still a necessary part of his group and deserved a place. She's sending out mixed signals, which does complicate her as a person but, for me, it wasn't a good kind of complex character shading. It was just confusing.

Nothing to quibble about when it came to Michonne's dust up with The Governor, though, in what was the standout scene of the episode. I definitely feared for her survival the moment she hit him where it hurt and killed his 'walker daughter' (still not sure what the deal is with her, either - I assume she was his real daughter all along). I didn't see The Governor being killed off at this stage so I was glad to see Michonne managed to just about get out of there, and even had a face off with Andrea to boot.

Andrea has certainly nailed her colours to the mast. I felt for sure the moment she saw the fucked up world of The Governor, with his walker daughter and the tanks of heads she'd realise this guy wasn't anything like how he portrayed himself. And yet she stayed. I think she stayed because she wanted to believe in him, in Woodbury. He tells her that he set up the walker heads in tanks to make him face the atrocities of the outside world (I don't believe that - I think that's the product of a sadistic monster, pure and simple) and that he couldn't bear to part with his daughter and it's good enough. Quite how she'll react when she learns that the people she had been shooting at were Rick and the rest, and that Maggie and Glenn had been captured and kept secret from her. . . Well, time will tell. That all depends on if that particular secret ever reaches her - and right now the only person likely to spill those beans was standing with his brother, surrounded by an angry mob all cheering for his death.

Daryl, at the episode's end, certainly looked to be in a bad spot. One possible out could come from Andrea, who might plead with The Governor to not go ahead and have him killed. Otherwise it could be that Rick may return to help him, though that seems even less likely. I actually thought that the episode was going to end with the two brothers being pitted against each other, made to fight. But The Governor (seeing even less now down to just one eye) has decided that Merle had to have been the traitor. Again, that's a curious one. It's an explanation that would make sense to everyone else, but The Governor is no fool and he knows Michonne was part of Rick's gang so it ought to have occurred to him that she was the one that got the group in unseen. . .

Maybe. Maybe this set-up of accusing Merle houses a few more twists as part of The Governor's design. The one thing I find impossible to believe is that the next episode will start with either Daryl or Merle or both of them getting killed off. Somehow, some way, they'll survive and then have to deal with each other and the rest of Woodbury. The prospect of having yet another person captured and tortured has been well-covered now, so hopefully the resolution will be as refreshing as it is unexpected.

A final hint at where the second half of the season may go reared itself in the shape of Shane. Rick imagining his one-time friend appearing to shoot at him clearly displayed that the mental strain isn't gone. Rick was a man that had a conversation on a telephone with figments of his guilty conscience just days earlier - now he's seeing dead friends attacking him. This paves the way for his mental state to be questionable going forward. And with an enraged, one-eyed Governor no doubt seeking payback he's going to need all the faculties he can muster.

What was the best part?

As I mentioned, Michonne and The Governor scrapping was the clear highlight. The brutality of the well-choreographed fight was blunt and brutal. The savage grunts and growls as the two of them worked to gain the upper hand totally sold it for me, and I liked the extra layer of black humour as rolling heads of snapping-mouthed walkers littered the floor for added peril. With these two big characters it would have been tough to have either one of them taken down, but Michonne won on the technicality of jabbing The Governor's eye out. Credit to him, though, he took it like a man and could still sob about his dead walker daughter. He's not the type of guy to let a gouged out cornea get in the way of his emotional turmoil.

What do I think will happen next?

Daryl and Merle surely won't be killed. Andrea is perhaps their best chance at some salvation, having made a connection with both of them, so she may plead for a more fair trial. Beyond that I can't see an obviously easy exit, but then it wouldn't be much of a cliffhanger if I could, would it?

Rick's return to the prison will have him discover the new people who will tell him about the gaping break in the fence at the rear of the prison that will certainly get his concern. Will he leave Daryl in Woodbury? I don't see that he has much of a choice, but there's no question he can bank on The Governor coming after him now he's got his attention. . .

The Walking Dead: S03 Ep07 - When The Dead Come Knocking

What happened?

Michonne tells Rick about how Glenn and Maggie have been taken, and so they and a few others venture to scope out Woodbury and see about reclaiming their people. Meanwhile in Woodbury, Merle and The Governor employ interrogation methods to eventually learn that Rick's people are holed up at the prison. Andrea also oversees an experiment to try and determine if the walkers retain any semblance of their former consciousness after they have turned - the results seem to conclude that they do not!

Thoughts

Season 3 is shaping up to be, by a clear margin, the strong outing yet for The Walking Dead. Whilst I thought the first season felt a little tame in places it served as a strong introduction. Season 2, carried the sense that it dragged a little too long at the farm and had a little too much moral debating but still, for me, kicked ass. But this season has taken things up another notch. Every episode has something cool and the lulls in the action are usually timing devices before a surprise or action beat kicks in. And what has really been good is that all the tension has slowly been winding us up to the point where this episode ended - with Rick and The Governor at the threshold of crossing swords.

Merle's torture techniques opened the episode, and right from the get-go it was clear we were supposed to hate the guts of the man for hurting our lovely Glenn! Having Maggie able to hear her love getting the snot pounded out of him only generated further anger. But if The Walking Dead has been toying with the idea of presenting The Governor as a horribly flawed but righteous man then that was tugged loose when he decided to take a crack at breaking Maggie for himself. Rather than go for violence, as Merle did with Glenn, he went for something altogether worse.

Making Maggie undress and threatening to rape her showed us that there is a distinct lack of compassion in his heart and a ruthlessness to do whatever it takes to get what he wants. In truth this wasn't anything that came as a surprise - his assault on the soldiers, or sending Merle and his men to get Michonne after she had left already indicated he was a nasty, untrustworthy piece of work. But I did get the feeling that The Walking Dead has been making some efforts to get us, the audience, on his side, identifying with him. However, by the end of this episode, I don't believe we're supposed to feel any kind of conflict about who we're rooting for.

When it comes to the showdown between Rick and The Governor, we're with Rick all the way. When Glenn told Merle that his people would be coming for him we wanted it to be true, and to result i  Merle getting his ass handed to him by a Rick-shaped size 10 boot.

Getting Glenn and Maggie out of Woodbury won't be easy, yet there are one or two uneasy alliances in The Governor's ranks. He did check that Merle was still to be counted on despite the fact that Daryl, his brother, is effectively the enemy. Whilst Daryl has come a long way in proving his loyalty to Rick ("It's what we do," he remarked, when Rick thanked him for getting baby supplies whilst he was going out of his mind) I didn't get a matching sense of allegiance from Merle to The Governor. Mind, I don't see Merle ever finding a warm welcome from Rick's group, either, so he'd be just as well to stay true to Woodbury.

Quite how the two brothers will react when they meet is just as interesting as to how Rick and The Governor will square up. Fingers crossed Daryl doesn't do something stupid, but with Carol back in the fold then it's hard to imagine him turning his back on Rick and the rest now. No, I suspect it's going to come down to a more straight out piece of brotherly squabbling with deadly results. If Merle is going to be taken down by anyone then, yeah, I'd say Daryl will be the one. 

Meanwhile there's Andrea, who I figured would become queen to The Governor's king, and there's little here to dissuade me from that view. Only Michonne could really be the one that might be able to bring Andrea around to Rick's side of things, but then Michonne is hardly a fully paid up, card carrying member of Rick's clan either.Yet. There were small beats that suggested Michonne would be converted. Like how she witnessed the group's joy at finding Carol was still alive, and also how she watched Rick's well-drilled group take out the walkers in the woods. There was admiration in her expression. Probably he didn't realise it, but Rick telling her they would patch her up and send her on her way was precisely the kind of reception she could trust (as opposed to The Governor's false warm welcome).

As the fun scene in the cabin showed, she's an able and dependable asset and she slotted right in with the group. She took down the gibbering man with the shotgun in the cabin and didn't flinch when Rick came up with the bright idea of feeding the fresh cadaver to 'the alamo' of walkers at the front door so they could escape out of the back. Michonne fit right in, no question.

The small subplot with the terminal patient- Mr. Coleman - willing to die under controlled conditions and try to replicate the behaviour he had been taught after he turned did make me think there would be some evidence to support the theory. I didn't like the idea, however. But I thought that since the show was taking time out to present this, and doing so in some detail, I didn't feel like it was possible that it would just go without some new revelation. I'm glad it didn't. I'm glad that Andrea simply had to step in and put the walker down, proving her opinion that the moment they turned they become monsters.

It's not that I wouldn't have found it believable - the personality and memory of a person is all found in the brain, and it's fundamentally brain functionality that powers a walker, so it would make a certain sense that the same brain, re-activated after death, could retain some trace personality and memories. I do just prefer the walkers to be these instinct-driven 'monsters'. Going down the route of the walkers retaining humanity is never going to be a good move - other zombie movies have done similar things (Day Of The Dead with the 'Bub' character and rather a lot of Land Of The Dead, for anyone interested in my source references) and it is always, always a weakening of the premise.

No, keep the walkers as the mindless, ever-hungry, ceasless horde, thank you very much.

What was the best part?

Showing just how far he has come, and how much the winter has shaped him, Glenn's battle against the walker unleashedin the room whilst he was strapped to a chair was gripping stuff. Merle scarcely gave Glenn much of a fighting chance, which is what made the scene work even better. The zombie was let loose and Glenn had to think and act fast to get out of it alive. Dodging its lunges, using a bare mattress as a shield and then eventually shattering his chair to use as a weapon. Boom. One chair leg through the skull later and a bloodied, animalistic Glenn was a fully-fledged zombie-slaying hero. A superbly choreographed and shot scene with a satisfyingly enjoyable end. A small triumph in a rather grim episode.

What do I think will happen next?

Here's an interesting concern. Whilst The Governor sends people out to the prison to see what's what, Rick and the gang may have their best chance yet to get in to Woodbury and get back Glenn and Maggie. Will it be a totally stealthy, clean in and out swipe? Maybe. But probably not. A worst case scenario could be, however, that whilst Rick and the rest are away then the prison is infiltrated and The Governor's gang get their hands on Rick's baby daughter. In trying to imagine the most awful thing that could be done, my mind latches on to that. And I also fear for Maggie's safe return. Whilst the two new convicts are the most likely to get killed (on account of being new and barely known) if any more of the core group are at risk, she's the one I think. I really hope I am wrong on that. As well being a major blow to the group, it would be just about the cruellest thing to hit Hershal and Glenn. Even for The Walking Dead that would be a step too far, right?