Blogging Dead continues!
When we last left the group…
* Rick and the alphas of the group returned from battle at Woodbury sans Daryl Dixon.
* Daryl left the group to stand by his brother, Merle. The group hit the REJECT button on the one handed ball of trouble.
* Andrea is still in Woodbury despite knowing Rick and Company are at the jail and attacked the town trying to rescue Glen and Maggie.
* Glenn and Maggie are drifting apart on rough waters. The Governor’s torture is getting to them.
* Rick meets with Tyreese and his small band of survivors. He sees Lori standing in her wedding dress looking down on him from an upper level of the jail and loses his mind.
Tyreese and his group have been ushered out and Rick is now wandering outside. He is peering around the perimeters with some binoculars and spots Lori again. She is standing over the makeshift graves of their fallen comrades in the prison yard. Now, Rick is nuttier than squirrel poop, but ‘The Walking Dead‘ creator, Robert Kirkman has noted that Lori is NOT a ghost. This is a projection of a vision of her from the mind of Rick.
Rick starts running to Lori, but she disappears as he approaches. They begin a game of tag as he chases her outside the protective fences surrounding the jail. Michonne watches from the grounds and a clear look of WTF? is plastered across her face. She know he is unraveling, but I think it is also obvious she also knows she needs him and the group.
Back in Woodbury, Andrea lets the Governor into her apartment. He feeds her several lies as she continues to question his side of things. He promises that as long as Rick leaves Woodbury alone “there is no problem.” She believes him and I facepalm. The Governor then asks her to “take over” as the leader for the people. It just seems like bait to keep her there and focused on anything but her former group.
In the woods, Daryl and Merle aren’t getting along very well. Merle rains down the facts…the Governor is going to try and kill Rick and the group. He theorizes that they are all already dead. You can see Daryl is conflicted, but they return to petty arguments about their location.
Inside the jail, the group tries to agree on a plan. Beth wonders if the Governor will even attack. Michonne promises that “he is coming.” Glen wants to take Michonne and sneak back into Woodbury and try and assassinate the Governor and “end it tonight.” Hershel, who has pretty much adopted Glen, is trying to talk him out of it and wants to make a run for it and hand over the prison. Glen has been operating under the desire for retribution and refuses to roll over. The discussion ends with a decision to make a stand.
The Governor is quiet. Eerily quiet as he approaches Milton. He startles him while he is trying to meditate and then becomes sugary when praising him for standing by his side. This is just a buttering for the babysitting favor he asks…Andrea is to be watched as he doubts her loyalty.
Outside, Andrea is searching for the Governor only to be told “he is on a run.” Milton is a terrible liar. She might as well have caught him with his hand in the candy dish and a chocolate ring around his mouth as she questions him. Once again, she gets no straight answer and a weak assertion that the Governor is “on a run.”
Rick is still wandering around after his visions of Lori outside. He is pretty useless and dripping with sweat at this point. The group struggles to function without a clear leader. They address the fact that the tombs have been refilled with walkers. This means that the entire backside of the prison is open and defenseless.
Glen and Maggie finally start to duke it out. She is super pissed at him and I am a bit lost as to why she is resentful. It could be one of many things, but it is just clear that she is retreating into herself. After giving a brief detail of what the Governor did to her, she literally pushes Glen away.
Carol and Axel begin to try and fortify the jail. As they put up crates and anything they can shelter themselves from the coming gunfire, Axel details his arrest. He robbed a joint with a toy gun because he doesn’t even know how to use a gun. Later, they police tracked him down to his brother’s house and found a gun that was close enough to the description. Boom arrested. The entire time he is wooing her and it’s sorta adorable.
Back in the woods, Daryl and Merle continue wondering the woods. Their argument over their location also continues. The younger Dixon believes they are nearing Yellow Jacket River while the oldest brother thinks they are nowhere near it. Their repartee is interrupted by a sound that Daryl recognizes as a baby crying. Merle, on the other hand, thinks it is two racoons humping.
Daryl springs into action. Two men are cornered by walkers on a truck bed while a woman and a screaming baby are trapped in a car that some zombies are trying to break open like a flesh filled pinata. The arrows of Dixon’s crossbow shower through the walkers’ brains. Merle stands back and watches with an almost amused smile as Daryl plays the hero. While hiking up to the bridge the older brother whined about helping strangers while Daryl looks at him with growing disgust.
After the walkers are all taken out, Merle helps himself to scavenging the car. The disappointment and disapproval in Daryl’s face reaches a boiling point. He draws his bow on his brother and demands he get out of the car. The onlooking Mexican fellow he rescue are confused, but he tells them to get in the car and go.
There is a huge shift here. The burning question was what would have to shift to make Daryl leave Merle behind is finally answered. Snub a baby in distress. It’s more than that really. Perhaps a culmination of things or just a breaking point emerges, but Daryl begins to walk off across the bridge over the Yellow Jacket River.
Merle follows like a puppy. The roles are reversing and it is incredibly interesting. Desperate, Merle starts bringing up any issue to guilt his brother into staying. He throws an old plot to rob the camp and run back in his face. Affronted at the thought of betraying his friends, Daryl responds with, “It never happened.” Merle fires back, “Only because I wasn’t there to help you.”
The crack is complete and Daryl begins to leave, refusing to endure his brother any longer. In a last effort, Merle grabs at Daryl’s shirt which rips to reveal large, long scars covering his back. Merle is stunned and looks at him with regret as Daryl scrambles to cover the marks his father left on his back. They have a vague discussion about their father and Merle weakly explains he had no idea the man was beating Daryl too. He states that if he hadn’t left he would have killed the abusive parent.
The excuses don’t matter to Daryl. He walks off stating that he might be the one walking away now, but Merle is the one leaving. The look on Merle’s face is really the first moment of fear and vulnerability I think we’ve seen and it is perfect. He stutters as he yells to Daryl that he cannot go with him back to Rick and the group because he almost killed Michonne and “that Japanese kid.” Daryl stops, looks back and says, “He’s Korean.” It’s a fantastic moment of loyalty and a sign that Daryl has really changed. Some might have said the Dixon brother was one dimensional, but I hope that keeping true to that dimension while making a powerful point will shut the critics up. Bravo Norman Reedus!
Glen is stir crazy and returns from checking out the tombs. They are full of walkers again. Another pivotal point occurs here. I’ll just let Glen preach it, “With Rick in Crazy Town and Daryle gone – I’m the next in charge.” The hierarchy has come down to him and he so desperately wants to fill the void, but the fuel of vengeance is clouding his better judgement. Hershel pleads with him as he leaves to run some mystery errand.
Back in the jail, Beth tries to reconnect Maggie’s pieces. She has her feed Judith so she can make some food for the rest of the crew. It’s an easy moment that I might be reading too much into, but it appears to remind Maggie that hope still exists and good still somehow thrives.
Rick is still wandering around outside the fences. Scared, Hershel hobbles down to the boarding fences to try and talk him back to sanity. Rick tells Hershel he can’t help right now because he is out taking care of “stuff.” The old farmer is delicate with him and offers to help. The crazed leader finally breaks down and admits he is seeing Lori and he is out looking for answers. Michonne continues her watch from an overturned bus she appears to be calling home for now.
Axel and Carol are in the prison yard. He continues to try and woo her with amusing stories from his past. It’s a sweet moment as they appear to be connecting, but it is cut short as a bullet drives through Axel’s head and sprays Carol with blood. The Governor is smiling as he stands outside of the fences.
All hell breaks loose. Gunfire litters the prison yard from several different angles, including a spray from the top of a watch tower. Beth and Carl dive behind some barrels, Carol uses Axel’s body as a shield, Hershel dives down into the grass near the fence while Rick is exchanging gunfire with one of the Gov’s henchman. Maggie surfaces with some guns and tries to provide backup. It’s a storm of bullets and Michonne is trying to provide cover to get to Hershel.
The constant stream of bullets is interrupted by the sound of a engine. It’s loud and coming fast. The Governor smiles maniacally as a large delivery van busts through the fences and into the yard. It stops in the middle of the grassy area and pauses. The group looks at it with a collective WTF? as the back opens and a sea of walkers pours out. At least 20 zombies provide cover for the drive to make an escape as the gunfire starts again.
The Governor is thrilled and shooting into air with an almost orgasmic look on his face. The display of power was designed to instill fear, test their weaknesses and promise further vengeance. Satisfied for the moment, he leaves as Glen returns in a truck unaware of all that went down. Rick is out of ammo and is pushed to the fences by several walkers trying to get a bite. Michonne finally breaks free from and starts slicing through the walkers and she and Glen manage to pluck Hershel from the field and get him into the truck.
Everyone, sans Axel, makes it, but Rick is about to become zombie Crunch N’ Munch. An arrow passes through the head of the walker about to taste some Rick flesh. It nearly touches Rick’s nose and the other walkers are quickly taken down by Merle. The look on Rick’s face is perfect – it’s a shocked and relief filled nod to Daryl and a mental FML eye roll for Merle.
The episode ends with Merle, Rick and Daryl looking into the weakened prison as walkers fill the field between them and the rest of the group.
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