Walking Dead 306
This week’s Walking Dead was all about…well, I don’t know what it was all about. Some people died. There was serious gore. Plot lines were entangled. We found out who called Rick on the phone. Merle was Merle and Michonne was Michonne.
Let’s start with the situation back at the prison. Rick talks to the the mystery girl on the phone and finds out they live in a dreamy safe place. He wants to go to there. She says she’ll call him, maybe. Later, Hershel ambles over and Rick tells him about the phone call. This is the moment (and remember, I’ve not been reading the comics) when I realized Rick was hallucinating the phone calls. I probably should have realized that last week, but I was a little slow last Sunday. Hershel picks up the phone, puts it down and gives Rick a look, then offers to stay and wait for the next call. Because, duh, there’s no dial tone. Why would the phone system be working at all?
So it’s not exactly a shock when Rick has a trippy, seemingly supernatural phone conversation with his dead wife. She asks him to promise he’ll take care of Carl and the baby, and he seems to realize he’s hallucinating and hangs up. It was actually pretty creepy when the guy on the phone suddenly asks him to talk about losing his wife, or when they know things about Rick they ought not to. I kind of wish some supernatural elements would creep into this show. Might liven things up a bit (zombie pun, 100 points!).
Meanwhile Daryl finds a walker with Carol’s knife stuck in its throat, and assumes she’s (un)dead. He doesn’t take this terribly well, then kicks open the door where he assumes zombie Carol is, only to find her alive. Who was kicking the door though? That was weird.
The more meaty plot developments (zombie pun combo, 500 points!) involve Michonne and Merle. Merle and some dudes from Woodbury are out hunting Michonne. She violates bushido by ambushing them, taking two out before running off. Merle grazes her leg with a bullet. The next fight ends up with some walkers involved, and some mega gross moments as zombie guts spill all over Michonne (and she even pukes a little). Merle reminds us that he’s a stone cold killer.
Maggie and Glen are on a run to find more baby supplies. Maggie – you look insanely hot in the black tank top with your black boots and all armed to the teeth, but you live in a world where one bite wound is a death sentence. Find yourself a leather jacket. Please. Anyway, funny story, both Merle and Michonne randomly show up at the same supermarket M & G are looting. Michonne hides out, Merle pulls a fast one and kidnaps Maggie, forcing Glen to drive them all back to Woodbury.
Tangential to all this, Andrea hooks up with the Governor. He takes a little time out from drawing tiny lines in his notebook to drive home his point about how Andrea should stay (sex pun, bonus 1,000 points!). I imagine Andrea did the same semi-puking thing Michonne did when the zombie entrails fell all over her. Gov is mad that Merle didn’t bring back Michonne’s head and sword, though – because, of course, Merle was too lazy to actually kill her.
Last season, each episode was sort of loosely focused on an underlying theme. Family bonds, sacrificing for the greater good, letting go of the past, that sort of thing. This season has been mostly plot plot plot. It felt like they tried to get some themes working this week, but there were too many of them. “Live for today.” “The constraints of civilization.” “Letting go of…” oh whatever. Michonne’s zombie slime bath makes her invisible to walkers. How’s that for a theme?
There were a couple of cool little details in the midst of some terrible writing this week that I want to point out. But first, speaking of terrible writing, Andrea’s conversations with the Gov were incredibly awkward. She did this weird little recap of last week’s episode (“So yeah, that fighting arena thing, where people punched each other? In an arena? I didn’t like that. Too barbaric. Like I said last week.”). Then we were hit over the head with how much Andrea likes violence. Girl just wants to stab zombies in the head all day, to hell with your damn rules! The lady doth protest too much (about Zombie Fight Club)! In case you didn’t get it, she literally tells the Governor that exact thing.
Cool thing #1: The Red Zone. The Woodbury Guard Unit has named an area known to be overrun with zombies. Hope they have a good field goal kicker.
Cool thing #2: Oscar likes his slippers.
Cool thing #3: The Gov revealing that he was pretty much a nobody in the past reminds me of Will Patton’s character, General Bethlehem, from The Postman. And yes, I love that movie. To hell with your damn rues!
Cool thing #4: Maggie in a black tank top.
Cool thing #5: Carl’s response to the story about Daryl’s mom dying in a fire. “That’s cute, I shot my mom in the head myself so she wouldn’t turn into a zombie. Sorry about yours though.”
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Posted by Ed Grabianowski
on Sunday, November 18th, 2012. Filed under Dark TV, Headline.
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Tags: guns, walking dead, zombie, zombies
