Blogging Dead – The Walking Dead, Episode 304 ‘Killer Within’

Warning:  This blog contains major SPOILERS!

The latest episode of Rick Grimes’ Series of Unfortunate Events was compelling and depressing, simultaneously. It seems like it doesn’t matter how hard Rick tries, things just always get worse for that man. The ending scene was heartbreaking, and I’ll get back to that in a minute, but first I want to talk about some other memorable moments from the episode.

First of all, on a much happier note for me personally, Axel finally said his catchphrase! “We can’t sleep in there another night, you follow me?” I screamed to myself with joy, geeking out bigtime over such a silly saying. It was weird to hear it spoken with that Southern twang, but I was incredibly happy. The key now is for Axel to utter it a few more times before the season’s end, and I’m going to giddily shriek each time.

I want to say that Rick’s group should trust Oscar and Axel, allowing them into the fold, but you can’t deny the danger. I trust Axel, obviously, but who knows about Oscar? Admittedly, he seems nice enough. He’s got a level head and seemed concerned about his family on the outside. That said, we don’t even know what Oscar’s in for, and the phrase, “It’s the quiet ones you need to watch,” comes to mind. I do like the character though, and I hope he’s okay, but I am definitely getting less trustworthy of people as this show goes on.

I love Michonne. She’s a badass and she’s great. I enjoyed seeing her shoot holes in the Governor’s phony story about the military convoy. It isn’t good, though, that ol’ Gov now knows that Michonne is onto him. He is just as aware of how deadly she can be, so that makes her a liability.  It’s going to get ugly.

Oh, and I KNEW it was Andrew who cut the fence in the beginning, letting the undead inside. They didn’t show his face, maybe to keep things ambiguous or to make us think it was perhaps Axel or Oscar, but the blue prison overalls were a dead giveaway. “That son a bitch!” I thought. At least his death brought about a way for Oscar to show his worth to the group, but it was unfortunately at heavy cost.

I am still upset about T-Dog getting bitten. I was honestly shocked when that walker took a chunk out of T’s shoulder. I mean, I know that deaths can happen at any time, but that bite was so sudden. It was nice that he got to go out as a hero and save Carol’s life (who, yes, I am sure is still alive). Still, I thought they were always keeping him around, saving him for a confrontation with Merle. I didn’t forget that it was T-Dog who dropped the handcuff key on the roof in Atlanta, so I’m sure Merle didn’t either.  Of course, without T-Dog to worry about, this means that Merle can focus all of his anger on Rick Grimes.

I knew Lori’s days were numbers, but seeing her go got me a little sad. It seemed Rick and Lori were starting to progress with mending their relationship with one another. It struck a chord when Rick looked at Carl and completely fell apart at the end, but what was most heartbreaking for me was thinking about their new child. That poor baby can’t even nurse, and she was just born! How can they even take care of her now? It really adds a strong sense of urgency to figure out this new major problem without leaving us really any time to even grieve for Lori and T-Dog.

Let’s see what happens in the next episode. I am sure they are going to keep up the pace as so much crazy stuff has happened so far already, and we are only four episodes in.

Blogging Dead – The Walking Dead, Episode 303 ‘Walk With Me’

I loved the third episode of the third season of The Walking Dead.  Walk With Me offered an intriguing change of pace from the previous two episodes, taking place almost entirely in Woodbury.  By taking a break from the chaos at the prison with Rick Grimes and his pals, the show was able to get back to the drama with compelling storylines.

Andrea and Michonne finally find a way off the empty streets and out of the woods by way of kidnapping at the hand(s) of Merle.  Merle, by the way, lived up to all expectations by being as big of a hot-headed dick as ever, but still seemed to show a small sense of compassion towards Andrea, kidnapping aside.  It turns out they now have something in common; both were abandoned by Rick and Daryl’s group.

There were some questions as to how evil the show’s adaptation of the Governor was going to be.  Fans of the comics will know his character as the most vile, reprehensible human being there ever was.  I am sure it will be argued that he does the awful things he does merely as a means to survive, but the Michonne from the graphic novel will tell you that the man has definitely gone way beyond that.  I am curious to see the lengths in which the governor will continue to go in forthcoming episodes.

The Governor has a wannabe-scientist lackey named Milton, who is attempting to learn about the zombies by studying them.  I have heard a lot of praise of this character, but he did not seem very special to me.  I saw him as a cliche character who is in nearly every zombie movie.  I am not saying he shouldn’t be there; I think that there should and would always be someone out there trying to learn more about these things.  I just didn’t know why everyone was all like, “Yeah, that Milton!”. He’s just some geek.

The viewing audience gets to see the true colors of the Governor start to show when he and his men, including Merle, launch an assault on an unsuspecting military convoy.  Without warning, all of the men are massacred, starting with a shot fired by the Governor himself.  When he sees the man he shot still breathing after the gunfire has died down, the Governor bludgeons the poor guy with his own rifle.  If all that wasn’t cold enough, it almost seemed like ol’ Gov really enjoyed himself afterward, showing signs of intense pleasure bordering on orgasm.

I didn’t know if it would get weirder than that, but it did very quickly when the Governor retreated to his quarters for the night.  We could see he was staring at something as he sipped on a drink and relaxing.  I thought the camera was going to pan over and reveal his daughter, Penny, zombified and shackled, but instead we see the Governor’s collection of dead heads.  Both images are in the books, but I think I expected Penny because of that glimpse of the Governor’s family photo outside of the doorway.

Obviously I am very excited for the next episode.  While I liked the change of pace, I miss Rick and Lori and Daryl, and I am dying to hear Axel say, “You follow me?”  Let’s check back in at the prison and see what is happening.  We know that these two worlds are going to collide eventually and it is going to be intense.  No matter what terrible events may occur in the meantime, it is still just all going to be the calm before the storm.

Blogging Dead: The Walking Dead, Sick (Season 3, Episode 2) Review/Thoughts

These are my thoughts on The Walking Dead episode, Sick.  This blog contains MAJOR SPOILERS, so don’t read any further until you’ve seen the episode!

Sunday night’s new episode of the Walking Dead, Sick, was one hell of a show!  Keeping up the pace of the premiere, the mass-slaughter of the undead continued into the depths of the dark prison.  It picked up right where it left off with Hershel’s new leg amputation, leaving a group of confused prisoners to try and make sense of the situation.  Despite some initial trust problems between Rick and the inmates, the group overall decides to work together to clear out some more of the walker-filled prison, upping the bodycount to nearly astronomical numbers.

I didn’t hear if they actually spoke his name, but it seems Axel indeed made it as a character on the show.  I’m assuming it is him as he does have a beard and long hair, but I was very disappointed not to hear him say his catch phrase (that’s, “You follow me?” for those who haven’t read the comics).  Still, other than Andrew (the little guy who Rick left for dead outside with the walkers), all of the other prisoners were completely new characters, so I should still be happy Axel made it onto the show.  I don’t know why I enjoyed that character so much in the books.  Overall, he was pretty insignificant and probably forgettable for many other readers.  For some reason, though, he just had a charismatic vibe, and I’d get a kick out of him ending every sentence with, “You follow me?”  My hope is that now that things have calmed down a little bit, Axel will be more relaxed and may have more dialogue, so there will still be plenty of opportunities for him to say it.  I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

Rick’s rivalry with the leader of the prisoners, Tomas, ended just as quickly as it began with a machete to the skull, Jason Voorhees-style.  I knew that guy was going to be a problem and it looks like Rick Grimes did, too.  After Big Tiny took a zombie wrist-bone to the back, and Tomas eagerly bashed the big guys head into a million pieces, I thought, “You know, he seemed to enjoy that a little more than he should have.  Better watch that one.”  Not too long after, when he shoved that zombie at Rick, that pretty much confirmed all suspicions.  Thankfully, Rick survived, but I knew there was going to be hell to pay.  Next thing you know, Tomas gets his brain split in half.

When Tomas’ right hand man, Andrew, took off outside the prison, Rick gave chase.  Again, I was reminded of Jason Voorhees, stalking his prey.  I thought it was a little cold, though, how Rick slammed the barred-door shut in Andrew’s face, preventing reentry into the prison.  I definitely supported the decision to plant that blade into the skull of Tomas, but I wasn’t sure if Andrew swung at Rick because he had planned an attack against the group with Tomas, or if he was instinctively scared after seeing Tomas’ body drop.  I didn’t know, but I thought Rick was going to capture him and maybe throw him in a cell while they figured out what to do with him.  Then again, last season, Rick tried the whole, “Let’s keep somebody prisoner until we figure something out,” thing and it didn’t exactly work out so well.

I think that maybe by killing Shane, the reality of the horrendous world they all now live in had sunk in Rick’s mind.  Once he had to kill his own best friend, I think he figured out how important it was for them to survive at any cost.  Leaving Andrew outside to die is definitely not something Rick would have ever done before the end of the second season, and while it was a bit cold, it was good for showing us the rapid evolution of Rick’s mindset.  At heart, he’s always wanted to be the good guy, but you just can’t do that anymore in this world if you expect to survive.  Tough choices must be made and terrible things must be done, and since Rick is not an evil person, I think these things are starting to eat away at him inside.  We saw from the end of this episode that he can’t even have an intimate conversation with his own wife anymore.  Maybe Rick is slowly losing his mind as he becomes this completely different person than he was before.

I was saddened not to see the continuation of the story arc with Michonne and Andrea in this episode, but there was a hell of a lot of stuff going on.  It seems they’re going to get quite a bit of screen time if next week’s preview is any indication.  I’m really excited to see them meet with the Governor in Woodbury.  And I almost forgot, it showed none other than MERLE DIXON in the preview, which means in the next episode, he will be back!  With Merle’s return, I’m very scared for T-Dog’s life, as well as Rick’s right hand.  I’ve got a funny feeling that Merle is going to off them both.