Who’s going to crack first? Glenn? Maggie? Neither?
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**SPOILER ALERT** If you have not watched Season 3 Episode 7 “When The Dead Come Knocking” of The Walking Dead and don’t want to know what happens, stop reading here as it is a re-cap and kill count. (Kill Count is being updated)
Shit just got real. As in real interesting.
Michonne tries to survive outside the prison gates.
We left off last week with a wounded Michonne standing at the fence of the prison with Maggie and Glenn’s basket of baby formula. Covered with walker blood and among a group of about ten walkers, Michonne stood at the fence as still as possible, silently begging for someone to let her in. Her gunshot wound is bleeding very badly and one of the walkers starts to get a sniff of the blood. When the walker starts to creep up on her, Michonne puts on a clinic with the katana while hopping around on one leg. Rick and Carl see her and try to figure out what to do. As Rick is adjusting for the correct wind and temperature, Carl sarcastically quips, “Should we help her?”, as he opens the gate and starts popping off walkers. Michonne passes out and as two walkers are about to have lunch, Rick and Carl save the day.
Merle wants to know where Glenn’s camp is. But Glenn ain’t talkin’.
As this is going on, Merle is interrogating Glenn like he’s a POW in the Vietnam War (no racist intentions there). Glenn now looks like he’s just gone 12 rounds with Mike Tyson. He decides to tell Merle that his friends are coming for him, boasting of the group’s size and strength: “Rick, Shane, Dale, Jim, Andrea,” he says. “Is that right?” Merle replies, smirking at Glenn’s bluff. This scene plays out like every bad war movie from the 1980’s. Take the POW to a remote metal shack. Check. Tape the POW to a chair. Check. Beat him till his face is a bloody mess. Check. POW escapes the chair. Check.
One of the greatest scenes in the history of The Walking Dead
But back in the 80’s, there wasn’t a deranged racist with a modified stump with a walker on the end of a “reacher”. You know, that thing you get as a free gift that is like an extended arm that you get just for calling about your Power Chair? When Merle locks the walker in the room with Glenn, I thought there was a small chance that Glenn was going to get eaten. I really did. But Glenn has sacked up this season and has become a man now. So with his hands taped to the chair and a walker closing in on him, Glenn puts on a fantastic display of speed and strength. After thrashing around for a bit, Glenn finally decides to smash the chair against the wall and gets his hand free. Night night zombie. Glenn deposits the arm of the chair through its skull and out the right eye socket. Just fantastic. 
Maggie gets a first hand experience with how big of a scumbag “The Gov” is.
But unfortunately for Maggie, the Governor wanted to talk to her. While Glenn was getting beaten to a pulp by Merle, Maggie could hear it going on. Naturally you could see her heart breaking with every punch that connected. But while Merle beat the crap out of Glenn, we never expected what almost happened. Merle reported back to the Gov that Glenn wasn’t cracking and that he was about to talk to Maggie, but the Governor decides to “talk” to her as Merle locks the walker in the room with Glenn. The Gov starts sweet talking Maggie by telling he this is all a misunderstanding and that if she tells him where her camp is, he’ll driver her and Glenn back to be with their crew. Maggie isn’t giving up the group that easily. But when the Gov ain’t gettin’ what he wants, he gets as scummy as he’s gotten. After banging Andrea no more than 20 min ago, he tells Maggie to stand up and take her shirt off. When she tell him to eff off, he tells her to do it again and she obliges. But he’s not done there. He tells her to take off her bra as well. The Gov creeps up on her with more demands and then finally takes off his belt and bends her over the table. Everyone watching this probably had the same look on their faces. Is The Walking Dead really going to go down this slippery slope? No. They don’t, thank god. But Maggie is clearly petrified about what has happened.
Back in the prison common room, Rick tends to Michonne and asks her name, but in her robotic way, she keeps quiet. Rick lets her know that Herschel will take care of her wound. Daryl interrupts Rick to summon him to the cell block. Before he leaves, Rick locks Michonne in the room. Back in the cell block, Rick is reunited with Carol. Daryl explains to Rick that Carol was dehydrated and passed out. Beth brings over the baby and Carol realizes that Lori didn’t make it. Cue the waterworks. But after all, that’s all Carol has brought to the show since the beginning. While this is going on, Michonne watches through the bars and for one of the few times, doesn’t have that Terminator look on her face.
Michonne has now decided to offer up some info about how she got the baby formula to Rick, Darryl and Herschel. She describes the two people she saw and Merle. Now they know it was Glenn and Maggie. She tells them about Woodbury, a town of 75 that’s “run by this guy, calls himself the Governor. Pretty boy, charming, Jim Jones type.” She offers to lead them back to Woodbury and how to penetrate the perimeter.
Rick, Daryl and Oscar decide to rescue Glenn and Maggie. As they load a car with weapons, Rick pulls Carl aside to give him the “if anything happens to me” speech. This leads into what they are going to name the baby. Carl tells Rick that Darryl has been calling her “Kick-Ass” and Rick doesn’t seem to thrilled with that name. Rick asks Carl what he think her name should be and he comes up with this gem. “Remember my third grade teacher, Mrs. Blah Blah Blah? Her first name was Judith. Can we call her Judith?” Is that serious? Honestly, who the hell wrote that into piece of garbage into the script? Whoever it was should be fired. Honestly. “I think Judith’s a fine name,” Rick says. What else is he supposed to say after that comes out of his kid’s mouth?
Back in Woodbury, Andrea has been dropped off at Milton’s Lab while the interrogations are going on. The Gov thinks Andrea will be the perfect person to help him out. Milton is basically trying to see if after a person has died, if when they turn, they still have any sort of brain function. He’s got this old guy who’s dying from prostate cancer in a bed, about to die. Mr. Coleman had volunteered himself for this. So when he dies, they strap him down for when her turns. Naturally he turns and Milton can’t get Mr. Coleman to answer the question by raising his hand. Milton thinks that the restraints are causing Mr. Coleman to not be able to raise his hand and against Angela’s orders, he removes the restraint on his right hand. Now, Milton has never actually seen a person turn into a zombie, so when he gets up close to Mr. Coleman, Mr. Coleman immediately goes to grab him and bite him. Andrea dives in and drives her knife right into Mr. Coleman’s dome. Personally, I would have preferred it if Andrea was a split second too late. But Milton survives another episode.
Michonne, Oscar, Rick and Daryl are making their way to Woodbury
The group of Michonne, Daryl, Oscar and Rick have left the prison and have now pulled over on the side of the road. Michonne tells them that it’s only about a mile or so to Woodbury from where they are. They head into the woods and naturally a horde of walkers sees them. They square off with the walkers but soon realize there are way too many and start running. They find an old shack in the woods and “hide” in there. Now that there are like 20 walkers outside, they notice a real bad stench in the shack. There’s a dead dog on the floor but that’s not the smell. There’s a big blanket on the floor that stinks. They surround the blanket and lift it up. Up pops this homely looking guy with a shotgun. The group all draws on him as he’s pointing the gun at Rick. The man tells them that he’s going to call the cops and Rick lets him know that he is a cop and to put the gun down. This guy clearly has lost his marbles and ask’s to see Rick’s badge, which Rick is”going to get out of his pocket”. Rick tells him he is going to reach in his pocket to get it out and then tries to wrestle the gun away from the guy. A shot goes off and every walker for miles can hear it. The man bolts for the door and Michonne catches him from behind with her blade and puts it right though his back. To escape from the cabin, they open the front door and chuck the dead guy’s body into the horde for a distraction. They all escape out the back door as the innards of the man get the full on zombie treatment.
Back at Woodbury, The Gov, Merle and the henchmen have had it with Glenn and Maggie. Merle brings Maggie, who’s still topless, into Glenn’s room. “We’re through with games,” the Governor says. “One of you is gonna give up your camp.” The Gov raises his gun up to Glenn’s face and Glenn swells up as to dare him to do it. Personally I think Glenn was preparing for the bullet in the head since he’s the most loyal one of everyone. But of course Maggie spills the beans and gives them all the info.
The Gov and Merle go back to his apartment to discuss the next step. Now The Gov is getting testy with Merle. “This group, with your brother at its core, has done something you told me couldn’t be done,” he says, questioning Merle’s allegiance. Merle insists that his allegiance is with Woodbury. The Gov sends Merle and Martinez to go scope out the prison. I find it fascinating that each group is now scouting the other one’s camp.
As night has fallen, Rick’s crew has reached the perimeter we keep seeing. The one that Michonne walked out of when she left.
Andrea returns to The Gov’s apartment and immediately pours herself a drink. Is she going to turn into an apocalyptic drunk? That’s like the tenth scene that she’s having a drink in. She tells Gov that Mr. Coleman didn’t make it and slides into his arms. He tells her, “It’s alright, it’s over now.” OK. Whatever you say Creepy McGee.
I’m really looking forward to next week’s Mid-Season Finale. Will Merle and Darryl finally meet up once again? Will one side with the other? Will one kill the other? Who’s more equipped to take on an attack? Lots of questions, probably not enough will be answered.
Here’s the tally for this week’s KILL COUNT:
Rick-7, Michonne-3, Carl-2, Oscar, Daryl, Andrea and Glenn-1. This week’s total is 16.
