If I had to sum up the midseason finale for the Walking Dead Season 3 in one word, it would not be enough, that's how fantastic it was. If you do not watch this show, this will probably serve as little relevance to you as Honey Boo Boo does to me. However if you do watch the show, I hope you do find my review and prediction insightful. Also if you are a fan of the show and have not seen the indicated episode I suggest you stop reading right here, because I am about to spoil it for you.
Personally, they could not have done this show as a whole any better. I, sadly, have not read the comics but I'd be so far behind in those that I would probably lose track of reality. That being said if you have read the comics and are upset with the route they have gone with the show, get over it, we fans of the tv show do not care how it should have been done to you, all we care is the direction of the show now and why the writers continually send us into cardiac arrest with these cliffhanger endings, among other things. Which brings me to this most recent episode.
When we last Rick and Company they had just sacrificed a deranged hermit of a man, to a pack of very hungry walkers, and are now planning their search and rescue of Glenn and Maggie, who are being held captive at Woodbury by the Governor and Merle. Andrea is unaware that Glenn, her former groupmate, is being held captive and tortured by Merle. But I have ultimately decided she is completely unaware of anything at all, except the next time her and Phillip are going to, (in the words of my dear friend Landon) nananananana.
Our episode picks up outside of the prison where a new group of surviors, lead by comic fan favorite Tyreese, is seeking shelter for him and his peers. We already get a good vibe from Tyreese by the way he leads his group and makes life or death decisions in the best way possible. I for one can not wait for him to be a bigger part in the show. I have heard through out the course of the comics him and Rick become pretty close. I believe Rick needs a shoulder to cry on, it beats hallucinations 9 times out of 10. While tending to the duties of the group leader while his Dad is gone, Carl hears a scream and goes to investigate. It turns out that it is Tyreese and his motley crew, and they are under heavy walker attack. Carl helps them out and then leads them to the cell block and locks them in. Tyreese, at the disgruntlement of his group, willingly accepts this and seems to understand why. In my opinion, Carl has gone from annoying pipsqueak who always inconveniently showed up at the wrong time and never listened to his parents, to this certified walker killing bad ass, who has been forced to grow up faster than he should. His character has evolved so much and has actually grown on me, and proven he can role with the big dogs and lead the group when necessary.
Meanwhile back at Woodbury, Michonne leads Rick, Darryl and Oscar into the town and into a room where the street is visible. While in hiding a guy on patrol comes in and is subdued by Rick and the dos amigos. Maggie and Glenn plan their escape by using Walker bones as knives and Glenn proceeds to puncture a guys jugular with a zombie fibula. This is just simply awesome, not only did Glenn take down a walker while he was strapped to a chair, but now he's channled his innovative inner Asian and decided that a bone is just as good of a prison shank as any. However Glenn and Maggies escape comes to a screeching halt when they're outnumbered by Merle and the rest of the Woodbury PD (figuratively). Gun shots are fired and this helps Rick discover their location, and he comes in with flash bangs and smoke grenades to save the day. After rescuing the battered Asian and his lady friend. Glenn tells Darryl that they were tortured by none other than his own flesh and blood, Merle. Glenn, thinking all along that Merle is dead, tries to tell Rick to let him talk to him, to which Rick responds, no I need you here, and Darryl reluctantly agrees. In this moment I felt that Darryls allegiance to Rick finally became blatantly obvious. I was always skeptical that Darryl, who is my favorite character, would be reunited with his brother, and they would run off and die in a hole. In this moment though you can really tell that Rick is dependent on Darryl and vice versa. They both need eachother and they both realize that.
In the midst of all of this, Michonne runs off to the Governors house to wait for him, and kill the jerk who stole her friend from her. Upon her arrival she discovers a secret room, in which the infamous wall of zombie heads in fish tanks is. Also in this room, The Governors undead daughter is chained up, and with her discovery, Michonne shows some remorse, but not much, on the Governors behalf. Phillip arrives at the room and draws on Michonne, and begs her not to kill his zombie daughter. To which she shows no hesitation running her sword through the back of the girls head. A massive brawl ensues between the Governor and Michonne, which ended with some eye popping (pun intended) results. The Governors fish tanks full of zombie heads are shattered, and from that glassy mess, Michonne shoves a shard of glass into the governors eye. As Michonne collects herself and begins to leave, Andrea arrives right on queue, with a gun pulled on her old pal Michonne. No shots were fired and Michonne left a little battered and bruised, but in her mind she had accomplished what she thought needed to be done. Andrea tends to the one eyed governor, in disbelief to what has happened between Michonne, and to the random wall of walker heads that were now spread all over the ground. This fight scene has to be the most edgy confrontation of the show, second to only Shane and Ricks showdown. I was holding my breath the whole time praying that Michonne would at least get out alive, and she did, barely.
While the showdown of the season was afoot, Rick and the gang had to firefight their way out of Woodbury with a mixture of gunfire and special grenades. In the process of this Darryl says he will lay down cover fire to aide their escape. While trying to get out, Oscar was shot and killed attempting to help Glenn get out. This is fairly significant blow to me, and in not the way you would think, because this just further proves my theory that the Walking Dead allows one black guy at a time in Ricks group. T Dawg, was their for the longest stint, until he made a very honorable sacrifice play, Oscar had only just begun to prove his worth to the group before getting booted to make room for the now inevitable inductee, Tyreese. Personally, I think two sassy black guys could add some form of comic relief in this otherwise humorless world, but I also don't write for the show. I just hope and pray the same rule doesn't apply to Glenn, because I am going to become real nervous for Glenn's life when another Asian male makes an onscreen appearance. But that is for the future, now back to the story at hand.
Glenn, Maggie and Rick make it out and seek shelter in the bushes near the gates of Woodbury, and begin to wait for Darryl. While waiting Michonne limps her way into the picture, and Rick takes her sword and accuses her of taking them into a trap, to which she says you got your people and you are going to need my help to get Darryl back, or get your wounded back to the prison, so you need me. When she says this, I got the sense that Michonne finally found a group that's strong, dependent and trustworthy and she does not want to be on her own anymore, and will do whatever she can to win herself a spot under Ricks leadership.
The story then shifts back the our dear friend the one eyed governor who is uberpissed that he was, A. Lied to by Merle, because he said he had killed Michonne and, B. Upset that he's going to have to get an eyepatch and endure snarky comments until the end of his days. He stares down Merle (to the best of his ability), and you get the sense that he is done with Merle. Now we are in the area where the staged zombie fightclub took place. The people of Woodbury are more than a little confused as to why their town was being shot up in the middle of the night. The Governor begins to explain that it was a terrorist attack, and that they were betrayed by Merle. He claims that Merle was who lead the terrorists there, and among those terrorists was Darryl, Merles baby brother. Upon hearing this Merle, who we could always tell did not like being the Governors dog, immediately becomes disgruntled and I feel that his allegiance to the Governor is no more. At this point the WPD (Woodsbury Police Department), bring out the captured Darryl (insert frowny face). The Governor basically ends the midseason finale in a standoff between the Dixon brothers and it seems all to apparent he is going to make them fight. And thats where they end it, like I said on the edge of your seat, with numerous unanswered questions as well as broken TV remotes at an all time high.
But I must ask you to ask yourself, would you have it any other way? We may loathe those endings but that is what keeps us coming back for more. I personally feel that without the way the writers write this show, and the way they end almost every episode, people, myself included would be way less inclined to see what is next. With that said I'd like to move on to my predictions for where they will go from here.
In exchange for the way they write these endings, they give us just inklings of clues to draw up conclusions on our own. They do this with thirty second clips after every episode showing what is going down. They don't give away anything to dastardly, but I got enough out of it to come up with these predictions.
I think that both Darryl and Merle make it out of Woodbury. I say this because a few tiny things happen in the clip that indicate this. In the clip we get a glance of the courtyard that they ended the episode in, and it is blanketed in smoke, by some sort of foreign object, now who do we know that has those items in their possession. If you said Rick, then you are right and you can pat yourself on the back. I believe that Rick, goes back into Woodbury alone to go after Darryl, and ends up with both Darryl and Merle. Now before you ask why I think that, A. He goes alone, and, B. He gets Merle too, let's look back at the clip. In the clip, there is a half of a second in which we see Darryl running through the woods, so our favorite boondock saint lives. Now for Merle, and Ricks going back alone, there is a fragment that suggests this as well. It is outside the prison and Michonne and Glenn are running towards someone and Glenn yells, what the hell is he doing here. Before you say that could be anyone, remember that Merle is probably the least popular person among Michonne and Glenn, aside from the Governor, and why would Rick have the Governor with him, let's be realistic. So I believe that both of the Dixon brothers will escape, and Merle will willingly succumb to Ricks leadership, because he sees how well him and Darryl are and he wants a shot at the Governor who just blamed him for everything. As for Tyreese, I feel at first there might be bad blood, but eventually he and Rick will join forces, and prepare for an all out war with the Governor, which I feel will end with some casualties to our heros, but the downfall of Woodbury and the Governor, and I feel the deciding blow won't be delivered by Rick and Company, but by an overabundance of Walkers that swarm at the sound of a firefight. And lastly on my predictions, I believe Andreas allegiance will change once again when she sees Rick and the group, but she will be walker food as soon as she is accepted by the group again.
I would like to Thank You for reading, and hope you enjoyed my opinions and predictions, as much as I enjoyed writing them. I had to get this off my chest because it was killing me, so I figured I would turn to the blogs, because let's be real, this was a long and thought out opinion. Feel free to leave any comments or your personal opinions on the matter at hand and I am looking forward to a great second half. Also, this is my first blog entry, and it will not be the last, it is also not subjective to the Walking Dead. I will post about numerous different things from sports opinions and predictions to music and movies. So feel free to follow this blog, or look for my links on Facebook and Twitter for those who know me personally. Thanks again for reading, and I hope you enjoyed.
