The Walking Dead: Season 4, Episode 2 (Infected)

WARNING: This is as much of a RECAP as it is a REVIEW, so here there be SPOILERS!  You have been warned.

I've been very hard on The Walking Dead at times, but only because I thought the show was truly top-notch during the first two seasons and I positively treasure the source material.  Season 3 was lackluster, and the Season 4 premiere was good but not great.  With that in mind, I'm glad I get to rave about it again, because I thought this week's episode was a fantastic outing that really boosted my expectations for Season 4.  There was suspense, terror, action, and drama, and most importantly, Rick started acting like Rick again.  Praise Jesus!  I know the dude has been through a lot, but he is the centerpiece of the program, and the show faltered when he lost his way.

Early on, we learn that someone is feeding the zombies surrounding the prison rats, and that's definitely not cool.  We get a tender moment with Tyreese and his girl.  Tyreese serenades her with Cole Porter's "I've Got You Under My Skin" but that isn't good enough to get her to spend the night with him.  She departs, unknowingly leading zombie Patrick (the kid who died in the shower at the end of the premiere last week) back to her cell block.  We think he's going to make a meal out of her, but he hears a sound and eats this dude in a nearby cell instead.  This was gory, and gory is good. 

Early the next morning, Michonne is getting ready to go out again and Rick and Carl are getting ready to do some farming.  Carl wants his gun back, Rick changes the subject.  Then we hear gunshots and the shit really hits the fan.  Michonne turns back and has some difficulty getting back in the prison.  She winds up twisting her ankle, but Carl snags a rifle and he and Maggie come to the rescue. 

Meanwhile, it's an ugly scene in the prison.  Rick and Daryl lead the charge, taking down walkers and trying to herd survivors to safety.  There's a tough scene with Carol and this dude with two young daughters who was bitten during the attack.  He asks Carol to take care of his daughters and she agrees.  The oldest of the two girls says they should be the ones to finish their father off after he passes, but she can't do it so Carol scrambles dude's brains with a knife.  That's motherhood in the land of The Walking Dead.  There's another tough scene where Rick and Daryl go around finishing off anyone who is set to turn.  It's not an easy job, but someone has to do it.

Rick, Daryl, Hershel, Bob, and some new doc discuss what's going on and decide that everyone who was in the cell block needs to be quarantined.  After examining Patrick's corpse, they believe they're dealing with a deadly flu strain and they don't want it to spread.  Tyrees'es girl is coughing, which worries the team.  They advise her to go with the others who are being quarantined (on death row, no less) and she mentions that David has been coughing too.  So they both get to be quarantined.  Tough times at the prison.  Carol and the girls have a little chat by the fence, with Carol basically telling the older daughter she has to toughen up or she's not going to make it.  The older girl doesn't seem too receptive, mostly because she's upset that a walker named "Nick" has been killed.  She says he was "special" and we have to wonder if she was the one who was feeding the walkers.  Maybe she's just batshit crazy.  Time will tell.

Shortly thereafter, Rick is digging a grave when Daryl thanks him for helping out.  Rick says he wasn't that helpful without his gun.  Daryl disagrees.  "When the shit hits, you're standing there with the shovel," he says.  That's when Maggie hits the scene, screaming that the walkers are taking down the fence.  Sure enough, a growing cluster of walkers is threatening to bring the fence down.  Sasha spies a pile of rats on the ground and realizes that someone has been feeding the walkers at this spot, but there's little time to dwell on that.  The fence is coming down.  Rick tells Daryl to go get the truck.

Back in the prison, there's a tender scene with Beth and Michonne.  Beth asks Michonne to hold baby Judith, and Michonne says "No!" in a sharp tone, yet she relents and takes the crying baby.  She begins to cry too, and though it's never stated, we sense that Michonne was once a mother.

Back at the fence, Rick and Daryl come up behind the cluster of walkers in the truck.  Rick has all the piglets from his little farm.  He takes one, slices it open, and tosses it to the ground.  Walkers converge on the fallen pig.  They repeat this a couple of times, and here's another tough job for Rick and Daryl.  Andrew Lincoln was off the charts in this scene.  While Rick and Daryl draw the walkers away, Glenn and Sasha use beams to reinforce the fence.

We get a scene with Carol and Carl, where she asks him again not to tell his dad about the knife-fighting lessons she's giving the kids during story time.  We get a scene with Carol and the girls she has taken under her wing, Lizzie and Mika.  Carol tells Lizzie, the older of the two, that she's not upset about this walker named Nick, she's really upset about her father.  Carol puts a flower in Lizzie's hair and gives the girl a knife for protection.  This was kind of creepy.  That girl doesn't need a knife, she needs help.  Maybe she'll get it now that Carol is going to be taking care of her, but I've got a bad feeling about that girl.

Carl tells his dad about Carol's knife-fighting class, but encourages his dad not to tell the parents or prevent Carol from continuing with the lessons.  Rick agrees and gives Carl his gun back.  He also puts his gun back on, and that's when we really start to believe that Rick's back.  I guess he needed his little break--it was well-deserved, but it lasted too long and the show really lost some serious momentum as Rick grappled with his situation.  The group needs a leader and the show needs a stronger Rick at the forefront, so this is good news all around.

Tyreese is going to visit his girl in quarantine, but all he finds is a trail of blood.  He follows it outside and finds the remains of both his girl and David.  They have been burnt to death.  Zombies don't kill people like that, so we've got more trouble at the prison.  That's how the episode ends, and as you can tell, a lot transpired in Infected.

It was a strong episode, and it differently raises a number of interesting questions.  It also seems to place Rick back in the driver's seat where he belongs, and that prison is starting to feel more and more like a deathtrap.  For the first time in a while, I'm really excited to see where all of this going.  Maybe I'm overselling, but when you consider the horror and action that we saw in this episode, as well as the drama and character development, I think the end result was a really good episode that generated a lot of intrigue.  The season premiere was pretty good, the second episode was really good, and I'm eager to see what next week's show will bring. 

The Walking Dead: Season 3, Episode 15 (This Sorrowful Life)

Warning: this is as much of a recap as it is a review, so here there be SPOILERS.

With only a pair of episodes remaining in what is shaping up to be an epic season, The Walking Dead put Merle at the center of another solid hour of nerve-wracking horror.  I think last week's episode was a little leaner and the narrow focus produced one of the best entries to date.  "This Sorrowful Life" wasn't quite as polished and it didn't shine quite as brightly as a result, but it was a very good episode that continued to build momentum heading toward this week's big finale.

First off, let's start with the bad, since that's how the show kicked off.  Rick decided to hand Michonne over, and I don't think this worked for anyone.  This felt like a plot device from the very start, and it was a lazy attempt to advance a fine show.  I'm not sure how they could have set this entry up without that development, but leading off on a false note definitely cheapened the episode.  To make matters worse, Rick then approached Merle and told him about his decision while keeping everyone else aside from Hershel and Daryl in the dark. 

Merle knew Rick wouldn't be able to go through with delivering Michonne to The Governor, and he told Rick as much.  Though the scene painted Rick as a buffoon, it was compelling stuff, and little did I know that Michael Rooker was just getting started.  In truth, if you have a guy like him in your cast, you should definitely use him, and "This Sorrowful Life" gave Rooker a wealth of material to play with.  He excelled, which is no surprise to those of us who love his work.  Whenever he was on the screen last night, The Walking Dead was absolutely riveting, and he was the centerpiece of this episode.  If not for Rick's baffling decision at the onset and the latest installment of the Glenn and Maggie soap opera, this would have been an instant classic.

Anyway, recognizing that Rick didn't have the stomach for the job at hand, Merle put his own plan in motion.  He subsequently captured a surprisingly gullible Michonne and set off for the rendezvous with The Governor without Rick or his brother.  Things really picked up from there.  A fantastic scene found Merle trying to boost a ride while Michonne was tethered to a nearby column.  Merle accidentally set the car alarm off, attracting a mob of walkers, and Michonne showed that she doesn't need her hands free to kick some serious ass.  Merle also showed his mettle, and this setpiece continued a recent streak of rousing action scenes.

There has always been a lot of violence on The Walking Dead, and the execution is typically sound, but I feel like the makers of the show are at the top of their game this season.  They've given us a wealth of bloody mayhem that rivals anything you're apt to see on the big screen, and they should be applauded.  It should come as no surprise that horror heavyweight Greg Nicotero was in the director's chair when "This Sorrowful Life" was filmed. 

Back at the prison, Rick (thanks in part to another sighting of Lori's ghost) realized he could no longer stomach the notion of giving Michonne up.  He came clean with the rest of the group and demanded that they become a democracy so he no longer bears the burden of making all of the decisions for them.  Of course, he soon realized that neither Merle or Michonne were on the scene, and it wasn't hard to put two and two together.  He was going to go after them, but Daryl took responsibility and reminded Rick that he needed to be at the prison just in case The Governor moved on them and the shit really hit the fan.  He also noted that Rick had little chance of tracking Merle and Michonne, and we all know that tracking is one of the zombie-killing badass known as Daryl Dixon's specialties. 

Meanwhile, Michonne appeared to be biding her time.  I got the feeling that she was so confident of her ability to turn the tables on Merle that she elected to devote herself to talking him down first, earmarking a struggle for freedom as Plan B.  Maybe that's just me being entirely too enamored with her character, who is one of the best heroines out there in 2013.  I thought it very unlikely that Merle would release her, but the dialogue between these two outsiders was enthralling.  As good as Michael Rooker was in this episode, and he was utterly fantastic, Danai Guriri was nearly his equal despite playing a smaller role.  In the end, Merle shocked me by stopping the car and setting Michonne free.  He made it clear that he wanted to see the group at the prison survive because that's where his brother wanted to be, but he didn't see any way that he could ever become one of them. 

I think he was wrong about Rick and our merry band of survivors; I believe there was a place for Merle at their table.  That's why I'm also willing to recognize that maybe Merle felt that they didn't stand a chance unless someone did something to try and put a dent in the numbers game working against them before all hell broke loose.  Merle did just that, leading a pack of walkers to the rendezvous and unloading on The Governor's troops while they tried to contend with a zombie horde.  I think Merle had a good idea, though getting drunk beforehand wasn't his finest moment, and he did rush things a bit.  Regardless, he took several of The Governor's fighting men out before the bloodthirsty villain Merle once hailed as leader took him down in a vicious fight. 

This was a big moment for The Governor, and it was damn impressive, but I'll admit that it also hit a sour chord with me.  I mean, I know that this character is now a far more frightening rendition of the comic book villain I know and love, and I know that Merle was drunk and winded, but I still think the one-armed man would have won the fight.  I guess that while I'm truly enamored with the direction David Morrissey has taken, particularly in recent weeks, I'm still not completely on board with AMC's version of the character.  Again, I know this was necessary to keep the plot moving, and it was a great way to make The Governor look strong, but I just can't wrap my head around seeing him take Merle out with relative ease.  I think that Merle wins that fight at least seven times out of ten.

Now, to be fair, I was dreading Merle's inevitable exit from The Walking Dead, and I've made my affection for Michael Rooker clear, so maybe that last sentence is just the homer in me talking.  Either way, I'm sad to see Merle go, though I do think the show benefited greatly from bringing him back in Season 3 and devoting so much screen-time to the rowdy rascal.  Merle Dixon, you were an asshole, but you will be missed.  The conclusion of "This Sorrowful Life" found Daryl catching up with his big brother, and we were witness to a gut-wrenching display of emotion as zombie Merle advanced on fan favorite Norman Reedus, forcing Daryl to kill him.  That was almost as powerful as anything we've seen on The Walking Dead, and it was a great way to cap off a nice entry in one of television's most compelling shows.

Yes, there was a fumble on the first snap, and whether you dig the Glenn and Maggie stuff or not, it seemed out of place here, but this was another winner.  Season 3 has produced a lot of those, and as we head toward the finale, many questions loom large, though it is fair to wonder how many of them will be answered.  I think most everyone who follows the program is eager for the big finish, but I also think we all realize that we're approaching a massive cliff-hanger.  I have a feeling the wait for Season 4 is going to be nothing short of agonizing.  I'll be sure to share my thoughts in seven days, but until Episode 16 airs we'll just have to wait and wonder. 

Who will live?

Who will die?

Will the season finale be able to capitalize on all the momentum the show has gained in recent weeks, or will AMC drop the ball?

Will people really riot if Daryl dies?

The Walking Dead: Season 3, Episode 10 (Home)

Thank you, AMC!  Last week was an unusual hiccup for a great show that was poised to capitalize on a superb mid-season finale, but this week we witnessed a remarkable return to form.  In fact, this might have been one of the best episodes we’ve seen.

Now, I’m not going to lie: the first ten minutes of this show were designed to piss me off.  Everything I was lamenting about Episode 9 was magnified as “Home” teed off with Rick chasing ghosts and The Governor playing mind-games and looking sore, while Andrea continued to do whatever the hell it is that she’s doing this season.  Honestly, I was thinking that this show might be losing some of its considerable luster.  Then Daryl Dixon saved the day as he and Merle offered up one of the best sequences this series has provided.  Then, as the episode drew to a close, we were treated to a thrilling battle that should set the stage for a harrowing close to the season.

Early on, it was all about Rick chasing Lori’s ghost around a creek (I didn’t think it was any better than it sounds) and The Governor continuing to abuse Andrea’s newfound (and inexplicable) stupidity.  Things were going nowhere.  We were given a scene where Maggie and Glenn were both angry at each other.  We don’t know why they’re so mad at each other, and the scene made it clear that they don’t really know why either.  Another scene revealed that Hershel wants to leave the prison, but Glenn wants to stay and is determined to make hasty and irrational decisions.   Also, Axel suddenly became very endearing and seemed to be winning Carol’s affection, effectively signaling that his death had drawn nigh.  Tyrese was nowhere in sight. 

I kept thinking that it was really bizarre that Rick is the heart and soul of the show, and as the writers elected to lead him further and further astray, the show itself seemed to lose direction. 

As soon as Daryl came to the rescue of a Hispanic family with a screaming baby, The Walking Dead found its footing.  The bridge was an excellent setting for a showdown, and the show delivered a taught sequence that highlighted Norman Reedus and Michael Rooker to terrific effect.  I positively loved the Ry Cooder-esque twang (let’s just call it “Daryl’s Theme”) that punctuated every shot from Daryl’s trusty crossbow.  I loved the way he was recycling his arrows, and the interaction between the Dixon brothers was incredibly tense.  Bonus points must be awarded for the trunk-slamming zombie kill, which was epic. 

Then we were back in Woodbury, where The Governor and a few of his trusty soldiers disappeared.  Andrea couldn’t figure out where they were, but I think the viewing audience had a pretty good idea.  At the prison, Hershel begged Rick to come back inside and get some rest, while Carol and Axel were strolling around and sharing a few laughs.  That’s when The Governor made his presence at the prison known, taking out Axel with a headshot.  He and his crew were positioned at various points around the prison, and they let loose with a barrage that had all of our favorites running for their lives. 

Suddenly, a truck hit the scene, plowing through the gate before unleashing a horde of zombies on the prison gang.  A mysterious driver clad in a bodysuit and a helmet (was this one of The Governor’s minions, or could this be someone who was with Tyreese?) sprinted away as The Governor sprayed the scene with lead, too badass to take cover.  Rick and his brood managed to fire off a few rounds here and there, but I don’t think they hit anything.  I think Rick was shooting at the clouds. 

Anyway, Hershel was in a bad way and Rick was being overpowered when the greatest strengths of the third season (and perhaps the series) hit the ground running.  Michonne was on it, carving up zombies left and right.  Glenn came back and acted like Glenn, which was awesome.  And just when it looked like Rick was toast, out of ammo and overpowered by a pair of walkers, an arrow through the head of one of the walkers announced the arrival of the Dixon brothers.  It was Daryl and Merle to the rescue, and after the start of the show left me cold, the end had me smiling and itching for more.

I think Rick’s back, I think The Governor is finally starting to resemble the menace that he should be, and I think Season 3 has set the stage for a grand finale.  I’m expecting big things in the weeks to come, but if “Home” is any indication, The Walking Dead is truly going to rock in its third season.  This episode easily atoned for last week’s misstep, and I’m all in as the third act of the third season gets underway.