What happened?
The decision Rick
initially took, to agree to terms with The Governor and trade Michonne for a
truce, was taken out of his hands when Merle kidnapped her and seemed bent on
getting it done because he knew Rick wouldn’t. However, Michonne managed to
walk free and Merle went alone to ambush The Governor and his men at the
meeting place. Daryl, tracking his brother, found him – now a walker after The
Governor had caught up to him – and had to kill the undead Merle.
Thoughts
This episode started
out with a decision by Rick that felt very disingenuous to what we had seen
before. The opening scene had him speaking about how he was agreeing to go
along with The Governor’s suggestion and trade Michonne for a potential truce.
The fact that the deed he was plotting didn’t actually get spoken outright made
me think the episode was going to try and pull some kind of twist. Like this
scene was setting us up to make us think that Rick was planning to hand
Michonne over but really he was never going to do such a thing and his true
plan would be revealed to the audience towards the climax.
The lack of outright
specificity regarding Rick’s discussion about his intentions for Michonne were
what made me think this is what the episode was cooking up, but it was also the
fact that after his meeting with The Governor he didn’t at all seem like he had
been fooled. Rick returned to the group after his meeting and declared that they
were now at war, clearly having not been taken in by The Governor’s empty
promises. That, to me, seemed to be the end of it. Rick had no more trust in
The Governor’s bargain than he would trust his life in the hands of Merle.
That, for me, was the end of it.
When it eventually
transpired that no such plot twist ruse was being cooked up, that indeed Rick
had made a sudden about face on his previous convictions and decided that
trading Michonne was a potentially useful course of action, I felt rather
cheated. I felt like this episode had shrugged off the learnings and set ups of
what went before so it could spin the plot threads regarding what became,
ultimately, Merle’s last hurrah.
What was annoying,
really, is that for plot purposes there was no need for Rick to have had his
dark moment where he considered giving Michonne up. She returned to the prison
at the end of the episode so there appears to be no consequences or bad feeling
from her that she was being used. Indeed, she all but acknowledged that she
doubted, just like Merle, that Rick would have had the guts to do it. So that
was that. Pointless.
If Rick hadn't begun the episode planning to hand Michonne over then the only thing that needed to happen was for Merle to take Michonne; that could have easily been shown to
happen by Rick announcing what The Governor’s bargain had been but telling
everyone he hadn’t been interested in taking it up. All Merle would have to do
is what he did anyway: snatch Michonne away without anyone else knowing and try
to seal the deal himself.
It would have worked
just as well that way. Better, actually, as then we would not have had the ugly
indecision Rick displayed here where he flip-flopped from committing to it and
then in a matter of an hour or two concluding otherwise. It all felt like
clumsy plotting and a betrayal of Rick’s character and it really irritated me.
Sigh. Breathe in.
And relax.
The mess of Rick’s
decision-making aside, the rest of the episode was in fine form and served as a
good farewell to Merle. He was a character that I knew could not possibly
survive for too long in the show. He’s such an overbearing character, one whose
presence is felt off-screen, that having him camped up with our heroes was not
a situation that could sustain. He was a nuclear bomb in their midst. That he actually went out on a heroic note is not something I
expected. I did anticipate he would die either trying to turn the tables on
Rick or, as happened, striking out and trying to take The Governor down. I just didn’t
expect he’d do so on what turned out to be a one-way ticket, suicide mission.
Did Merle really
believe he was never coming back when he let Michonne out of the car? Did he
make his mind up there, after her suggesting that it was possible that they
both could go back and pretend like nothing happened? I always had Merle pegged
as a survivor – one that would claw and bite his way to living through whatever
was thrown at him. I didn’t envisage him as the sacrificial type. It’s
debatable that he thought he might just be able to take down The Governor and
all his men after he unleashed a stack of walkers and took up his sniping spot.
Were it not for one stray henchman The Governor in Merle’s sight would have had
his brains blown out, so who knows if Merle might have battled through such
insurmountable odds?
Whether he believed
he would live or otherwise, there’s definitely no question that he went down
fighting. The reduction of him to a walker, as The Governor cruelly knew, was
the most ungracious fate he could have been granted. No brain-death for Merle
as The Governor could have easily provided (and for anyone else, for the sake
of preventing one more walker, he almost certainly would have done). Instead it
was left, as I actually also thought might be the way of it, for Daryl to find
his brother and be the one that put him down permanently. His stricken reaction
to seeing his brother as a hungry walker (one that seemed to carry the menace
of Merle’s character, somehow, but maybe that was just me) was crushing stuff.
Their final scene
together as living people was given greater impact. Daryl’s last words to Merle were that he
just wanted his brother back, and those words alone seemed to choke Merle up
and made him turn away. I can’t help but wonder if it was that sentiment, and
Merle’s confession to Michonne that he had become a killer since he took up with The
Governor and been made into something worse than he ever was before, were what
caused him to reach the conclusion that he could not just return to the prison. He realised that something in him had fundamentally changed,
that he could never be the brother that Daryl knew, and it was this more than
anything else that saw him try and take down The Governor and his men in one
last hurrah.
Rick gave an
inverted speech to his declaration at the end of Season 2 that he was no longer
leading a democracy. Now, having seen The Governor’s dictatorship and question
his own judgment, Rick has been forced to re-evaluate his leadership and
decided that it wasn’t him alone that has dragged everyone through. Their strength has been their group solidarity. The question the episode
left open-ended for the group to decide was whether they thought that strength and solidarity was good
enough to take on and win a battle with The Governor.
The answer's got a season
finale written all over it. . .
What was the best
part?
The scene where
Michonne had been tied up to a post whilst Merle messed around trying to
hotwire a car was great stuff. Seeing the usually rock solid Michonne have a
glint of concern in her eye when she saw the advancing walkers sold the sense
of peril. Not that she was entirely helpless, booting a walker that got near
and delivering the coup de grace of wrapping her bonds around the neck of
another walker and throttling its head off. Meanwhile, throughout, there was
Merle in a similarly dicey predicament, pinned down in a car footwell whilst
walkers descended upon him. Curiously, despite Merle being a real boo hiss
villain at that point, Michonne was in such a tight spot that we the audience
were rooting for him to get out of the car and help Michonne out rather than
become a meal for the pack of walkers. If Merle had gotten killed in that car then there was little hope Michonne would have been able to survive for much longer.
What do I think
will happen next?
I don’t think The
Governor is going to be taken down in the next episode. I foresee him being a
force for at least another season. I do, however, have trouble with the idea of
The Walking Dead continuing this situation where there is Rick’s group at the
prison and The Governor has control of Woodbury. One, or both, of these safe
havens have to go to keep the show vital. The prison seems likeliest to go,
unfortunately, but it may be that Rick and his people could find a place at
Woodbury if they can usurp The Governor. . .
I have to consider
the people of Woodbury, and Andrea still held captive. Milton could be a
defector in their midst already, and Tyrese and his girlfriend/wife are also
potential candidates to turn against The Governor the moment things go ugly. So
Rick’s group may be stronger than it appears to be.
This sense of unfair
odds and/or stalemate between the two factions could always endure an
intervention from a third party. There’s always the prospect of a herd of
walkers showing up, at either the prison or Woodbury, and absolutely destroying
the place. And there is always the outside chance that some other force, a
higher power (like those that are in the helicopters we have occasionally seen
during the first two seasons) could appear to make life complicated.
Most of all, then,
my prediction is that the status quo between the prison and Woodbury will be
broken and at least one place become untenable.
