This is an entry in the Walking Dead Recap series. If you're curious why I'm writing recaps of episodes
which aired up to a year and a half ago, check out this post.
We open on Merle interrogating a bound Glenn. It's made clear that Merle still harbors deep resentment toward the group for leaving him on the roof in Atlanta, and as Glenn refuses to talk, he applies a little sample pain by pressing his knife1 below Glenn's nose and applying pressure up and back. He backs off, and as he leans in to talk closer, Glenn headbutts him in the face, reopening the existing wound. This amuses Merle, and he starts beating Glenn as Maggie listens in the next room.2 Intro.
Hey Michonne, where's your "I'm fine all by myself, I don't need anyone" mentality now that you're shot and surrounded by walkers who just caught your scent? You'd better not accept Rick's help because he might slow you down like Andrea. After you showed up at the fence with formula practically begging for help, I think the walkers might have just caught the reek of hypocrisy over the scent of your wound. As she puts up a token fight and is about to be eaten, Rick has the make the decision of whether to help her. A few days ago without Carl and the rest watching, Rick would have walked back to the prison and gone out that night to retrieve the basket of formula. After the conversation with his dead wife and with an audience, Michonne gets a ticket through the gates.
We're inside the prison, and Rick and others have basically carried Michonne in. Her first instinct upon regaining consciousness is to reach for her sword, which is understandable. Daryl comes in and tells Rick he needs to see something in the other room. Rick makes it clear to Michonne that they mean her no harm (they just killed a dozen walkers and carried her in) and will treat her would when they come back. She replies by almost literally spitting out "I didn't ask for your help." REALLY? She showed up at the fence of the prison obviously begging for help, maybe with the hopes of bartering with them for formula, then gets pissed at them for not allowing her, a stranger with a deadly weapon, to walk around when there's at least one child present? I hope she goes back to Woodbury and Andrea turns her in.
We're treated to a hopeful scene which continues the feel of the ones from the end of the last episode as Rick sees Carol for the first time since the incident. It's touching how much Rick obviously cares about her, but of course, it's tough to watch her figure out that Lori is dead when she sees the baby. We pan away to see Michonne observing the scene through the bars, likely enraged because she can't ruin the moment somehow.
We pan back up one of the external walls of Woodbury as a setup for the interrogation scene. Nitpick: the guy walking the wall has a rifle whose barrel is cocked about 15 degrees after it leaves the stock. He'd be lucky if it didn't blow up in his face when he fired it. But I digress. We continue panning and pause on Main Street, almost as if to say, "Hey, look at this idyllic place. You're about to witness some very un-idyllic things."
The scientists visits the Governor to let him know the patient is ready. The Governor closes the door, and we get a bordering-on-gratuitous scene of Andrea pulling her pants up over some fairly skimpy underwear. I'm not saying there won't be thongs after the zombie apocalypse, just that the show has almost seemed to go out of its way to minimize the sexiness of most characters (females especially). Given that, it's kind of weird to see some skin onscreen in that context. But enough about Andrea's ass; the Governor says he needs something important from her.
Back in the prison, Rick, Hershel, and Daryl visit Michonne to tend to her wounds and get some answers. She mentions Glenn and Maggie were taken by someone, and Rick gets a bit overaggressive, grabbing her wound to try to get her to talk. She gets away and yells at him, but Daryl is there with the crossbow. She knows she has information and dares them to find the missing people themselves. Everyone calms down a bit, and Rick points out Michonne came to them for help, not the other way around. She realizes he called her on her crap and describes Woodbury, including the detail that the Governor is a "pretty boy." Now I understand Merle might be the alternative, but I think calling the Governor "pretty" is a bit of a stretch. She fills in some details and says she thinks she could help them slip through the perimeter defenses.
Short scene between Glenn and Merle where Glenn defiantly says his group will come and get him. He starts listing how many people they have and includes Andrea's name. This brings a smile to Merle's face as he gets confirmation Glenn is exaggerating his group's numbers.
Hershel is stitching up Michonne, but the notable thing about the scene is Carl standing at a distance. He's shown with his hand just off his pistol, looking like he almost wants her to try something. Carl seems to be veering from "confused teenager making sense of this crazy/brutal world" to "borderline sociopath" pretty quickly. The rest of the group decides to head off to get Glenn and Maggie. Good to see the prisoners volunteer for the mission; they seem to be trusted members of the group now. Pretty cool scene as father and son get a moment alone for Rick to talk about what Carl had to do to Lori. Rick also tells him he'll have to take over if the excursion group doesn't come back. Carl brings up the baby's name again, but instead of one of the dead, he wants to use a name from someone he knew before the outbreak. The optimist says he's moving on, the pessimist says he's getting detached from everything he's held close. By the way: hey Rick, would it kill you to hug your son before leaving for a dangerous run?
Andrea is escorted into a room with an old, sickly-looking man in a bed. The scientist (Milton; managed that without spoilers) takes a seat next to the bed and instructs Andrea to play a record on a nearby turntable on his mark. At that command, he rings a circular bell and starts asking the old man questions about him and his family. The old man answers by raising his hand, apparently incapable of actual speech. He answers all the questions, then is left to rest. Milton explains to Andrea that the man has cancer and has volunteered to be part of a project to see if the undead retain any of their previous cognitive faculties. He's been going through this same test with Milton dozens of times, and after he dies and turns, they will do it again. Andrea and everybody watching knows how this is going to end.
Down in the underground, Merle has apparently had his fill of trying to get information from Glenn the old-fashioned way, so this time, he comes in with a walker on a leash. He lets it get close to Glenn, but Glenn doesn't crack. Somewhat surprisingly, Merle makes good on his threats and lets the walker off the leash as he shuts the door. Merle is officially a son of a bitch for releasing that walker on Glenn, and my "Merle is a really a good guy deep down" theory is officially on life support. Glenn manages to ward off the walker long enough to smash the chair he's bound in and eventually breaks enough furniture in the room to get something to put through its brain.
While talking with Merle, the Governor indicates he will be interrogating Maggie. He walks in and plays the gentleman, even asking if he can sit down with her. He starts out with the nice guy act, saying if she tells him where their group is, he'll have his men go get them so they can all live happily ever after in Woodbury.3 After she refuses, he goes into full creep mode, telling her to strip and threatening to kill Glenn if she refuses. She eventually gets topless (with some strategic arm/camera work; again, this isn't HBO) and he forcefully bends her over the table. She still won't talk. If there were any women left in the "The Governor might we weird, but he's not actually evil group," they have officially burned their membership cards after this scene.
As Rick and the group go on foot for the last couple miles to Woodbury, we get a good old fashioned walker swarm scene. After the the focus was transitioned to the prison and Woodbury, the walkers are portrayed as more of a contained, distant threat than an ever-present guillotine waiting to fall on everyone. Walkers descending on the group out of the woods in numbers hearkens back to the fight for bare survival shown in season one, and I find myself almost wistful for those days.4
With the walkers on their heels, the group finds and goes into a small cabin in the woods. As they secure the door, the horde catches up and start pounding on the structure. Safe for the moment, they check the cabin for signs of life and find a few animal carcasses. Rick eventually checks the bed, and an old man jumps out pointing a shotgun at everyone. Everyone yells at each other, and Rick eventually makes a move and takes the shotgun. The man runs toward the door, oblivious of the dozens of walkers waiting outside. As he's about to pull it open, Michonne runs him through with her sword. After a few grim looks, they throw his body to the walkers and escape through the back door. This scene highlights again how jaded the group is to death and how actions which would be deemed morally reprehensible before the outbreak can be accepted under the right conditions afterward. We're even given a nice contrast as Oscar seems horrified at the prospect that everyone else came to the same conclusion and seemingly acted without regard/respect for the man they'd just killed.
Andrea and Milton are sharing what I can only assume is an awkward time with the old man as they wait for him to die. Andrea asks Milton if he's ever seen someone turn, and he nervously replies he hasn't. The patient breaths his last, and they both restrain him to the bed using leather cuffs with Andrea having to steady Miltion's hands on the last buckle. After a minute or two5, he comes back, and they start the questionnaire routine. As anyone with half a healthy brain predicted, the old man shows no recognition when he's asked to confirm his name and the picture of his family. In a show of true naivete and self-delusion, Milton says the man simply can't raise his hand and moves to remove the restrain. Andrea rolls her eyes and says the guy will lunge for Milton as soon as his arm is free, but he moves to unclasp the buckle anyway. As predicted, the hand shoots up for Milton, but a squishing sound is heard and we pan back to see Andrea's knife already in the old man's head. I'm thinking the Governor wanted Andrea there during the experiment to both act as security and to impress her with the kinds of things they're doing behind the scenes.
The Governor is tired of all the banter, so he simply takes a still-topless Maggie to Glenn's cell and threatens to kill her if Glenn doesn't talk. He breaks and gives the up the info. After this, the Governor still gives her a little hug and caress before he leaves. See, this is where it's no good to be a nutjob. If Maggie would have simply told Glenn what happened (or, more aptly, didn't happen) between her and the Governor, Glenn would have just loathed the Governor, but because of that little show he will now officially take the first opportunity to kill him. Hey Governor: you won, you got information, just let her go.
Andrea comes by the Governor's place (no ass shot this time) to let him know the experiment was a failure. She knew it would be a failure from the start and seems to take it in stride, but he seems stricken at the news, realizing it's one more piece of evidence on the mountain of proof saying he will never get his daughter back. Cut to black.
Episode Prediction: Merle and the Governor will get information regarding the prison and its location from either Glenn or Maggie, probably by threatening to harm one unless the other talks. Seemed to work when Merle needed a ride earlier in this episode.
Result: Glenn eventually gives up the location of the prison after Maggie is threatened. Yes, this was an easy one.
Grade: B+
Next Episode Prediction: Rick and the group will make a small incursion or none at all once they realize what they're dealing with, most likely running back to their vehicle once they see a convoy going out of the compound.
Season Prediction: Skipped since I accidentally forgot to do it before watching the next episode.
1. I've had my suspicions for a while, but the closeups of Merle's appendage seems to confirm the knife on it is a military bayonet made for Mauser rifles sometime around World War 2. As long as he wasn't unlucky enough to get one made in Germany right before it fell, that thing is about as solid of a weapon as you could hope for. It's possible I own one.↩
2. OK, my "Merle is actually a good guy at heart" prediction is has lost some footing in recent episodes, but it's about to fall off the ledge with the amount of damage he's doing to Glenn. My only defense will be to point out that Glenn knows where Daryl is, and it's obvious Merle cares more about finding him than anything else.↩
3. The actor who plays the governor has the role of a psychopath down. He even licked his lips when he talked about finding out where Maggie's group was.↩
4. A few weeks after the series finale of Breaking Bad, I caught the first episode during an AMC marathon. I was amazed at how simple everything was, but I didn't pine for it; during its five seasons, Breaking Bad never resorted to the kind of comic book characters The Walking Dead has already introduced in season three. Yes, I'm aware it was a graphic novel.↩
5. 3. What is the normal time it takes to go from death to undeath? I'm too lazy to go back to previous episodes but it feels fairly variable. I think Shane changed in less than a minute once he actually died, but it seems like it took a lot longer for Amy.↩
No comments:
Post a Comment