Wednesday, December 5, 2012

The Walking Dead: Made To Suffer, 12/2/12


It’s a foggy, rainy day. Random Black Dude is walking through the forest, takes out two zombies, and runs back to his group, two guys and two girls busily killing zombies. Tyreese, the black chick calls him. He tells them he thinks he saw a tower through the trees. Zombies are closing in; the group takes off running. The other girl is bitten. They get to the tower which, it turns out, is a rear entrance section of the prison. The black chick, Sasha, wants to kill the bitten girl, but the dudes are all opposed. They enter the prison.

Back at Woodbury, Andrea looks at a photo of Guv, his wife, and now-a-zombie-daughter Penny. Then she and Guv cuddle for a bit, and she leaves to go help Milton cremate Mr. Coleman. Guv visits Penny. He plays some music (Oh, knock it off with the ineffective music therapy, already.), unlocks the cage door. She runs out, tries to bite him, but she’s straightjacketed, hooded, and chained. He removes the restraints and tries to talk to her, but she has eyes only for the bowl of guts (which I hope are from an animal) on the table, so he re-restrains her and locks her back up. Elsewhere, Maggie and badly beaten Glenn sit on the floor in the room with the zombie he killed. He’s given her his shirt. (I repeat: Glenn is shirtless. *pleased*) He asks her—twice—if Guv raped her, she says no. He tears off the zombie’s arm, breaks the bone in half, and gives a piece of the sharp fragment to Maggie. To use as a weapon, I presume. In his office, Guv tells Merle that he (Guv) plans to kill the group staying in the prison. Merle asks, to move the Woodburyans there? Guv says, nope, just cuz. (Evil son of a bitch.) Guv assures Merle that nothing will happen to Daryl, suggests Merle make Daryl their “inside man.” Then he instructs Merle to take Glenn and Maggie to … I think he said “the screamer pits.” Outside, Michonne shows Rick, Daryl, and Oscar a way in … to a building where Glenn and Maggie are not. Rick, Daryl, and Oscar are annoyed. They decide to split up and go look. Just then, one of Guv’s goons enters. At gunpoint point, Rick demands to know where “our people” are, but the goon is clueless, so they gag him and knock him out.

Back at the prison, Beth sits holding Judith. Axel tells her she’s really good with the baby, asks her how old she is. (Seventeen. Ha! If she hooks up with Carl, she’s totally a cougar.) Carol pulls Axel away, tells her to stay away from Beth. He apologizes, says he didn’t mean any offense, but his options are limited since Maggie’s with Glenn and Carol’s a lesbian, as clearly evinced by her short hair, LOL. She tells him she isn’t, then walks off when he tries to put the moves on her, ha ha. Goofy bastard. He should maybe try shaving that ridiculous mustache and changing out of that prison uniform. (Not that even then he’d be any competition for Daryl.)

Merle and Some Other Guy open the door. Glenn and Maggie rush out with their bone shards and go for the throat. Glenn and Merle fight. Maggie kills Some Other Guy; he fires off a few shots as he dies. (Rick, Daryl, and Oscar hear it.) Merle bests Glenn and is about to slit his throat; Maggie grabs SOG’s gun and makes him back off. “Shoot him!” I scream; then more goons enter and take the gun. Dammit. They put hoods on Glenn and Maggie and are leading them away, presumably to the screaming pits, when Rick, Daryl, and Oscar burst in, throw smoke grenades, grab Glenn and Maggie, and run off. YAY. More shots are fired. Out on the street, Guv bumps into Andrea, who’s heading to the gunfire to investigate. He says don’t worry, it’s probably zombies, he’ll check it out. Just then, knocked-out goon wakes, reports to Guv that “six or seven” armed guys have invaded. Thanks for that unintentional and beneficial exaggeration. Guv calms the frightened Woodburyans, tells them all to go home and lock their doors and wait; he’ll sort everything out. Rick, Daryl, Oscar, Glenn and Maggie hole up in an empty building. Michonne runs off. Glenn tells Daryl that Merle’s here, Merle did this. Maggie tells Rick they told Guv about the prison. Daryl wants to find Merle and talk to him; Rick tells Daryl no, I need you, are you with me? Daryl says yes.

Guv, Andrea, Merle and goons are planning what to do. Which is hunt the invaders down and kill them. Guv asks Andrea to go check on the Woodburyans. She argues that she should be helping hunt the invaders. Guv says just do what I ask. She says ok. I roll my eyes. Michonne sneaks into Guv’s office, unsheaths her sword, and just sits, waiting. Eager to pay him back for sending Merle to kill her, no doubt. Outside, Rick et al. throw smoke grenades, leave the building, draw heavy gunfire, get pinned down. They throw more grenades, make for the wall. Glenn, Oscar, and Maggie make it. Rick and Daryl stay behind to shoot cover fire. Rick hallucinates, through the smoky haze sees Wolverine I mean Shane approaching with a shotgun. “Shane” fires; kills Oscar. DAMMIT. Rick shoots, kills “Shane.” (And just like when Rick killed him the first time, I’m glad.) Rick checks the body to be sure—nope, not Shane. Maggie shoots dead Oscar in the head (Yes. Do him the courtesy of not letting him turn, at least.) and starts screaming for  Rick. Rick joins them. He yells for Daryl.

Nighttime at the prison. Hershel tells Carl Judith’s finally asleep, and there’s at least a month’s worth of formula. Carl says at the end of the week, he’ll go with Carol to look for more. Beth says his Dad and the others’ll be back by then; Carl says they don’t know that. That’s right, Carl. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Suddenly, they hear a scream. It’s from inside the prison, so it can’t be Carol and Axel, who are out in the guard tower. Hershel doesn’t want to let Carl investigate, but Carl says, “My father would go.” Hershel relents. Carl wanders toward the screaming, pausing when he passes the boiler room—Moment of silence.—then finds Tyreese, Sasha, et al. desperately fighting zombies. He shoots one. “Come on!” he screams; they follow. He tells them to leave Bitten Chick; they refuse. *SIGH*

In Guv’s office, Michonne hears thumping and bumping coming from the side room. She investigates, find his heads-in-fishtanks collection. Then she finds straightjacketed, hooded, and chained Penny. She removes the hood, sees that Penny is a zombie, and is about to kill her. “No!” Guv screams. He puts down his gun, begs Michonne not to kill Penny. Michonne swords the little girl through the skull. HA HA HAAAAAAAAAA! (Note: laughing when the already-dead children of evil SOBs are killed is perfectly ok.) Guv screams in fury; he and Michonne fight. It’s intense. They punch, choke, kick, beat, and bite each other. Knock over some of the tanks. Michonne grabs a glass shard and gouges out Guv’s eye. AWESOME. I’ve seen prison brawls less violent than this. Michonne gets her sword and is just about to send Guv to go play with Penny for all eternity when, “No!” Andrea screams. She enters, holding a gun on Michonne. There’s a standoff. Michonne leaves. (Merle is so dead for telling Guv he’d killed Michonne!!!)

Carl leads Tyreese, Sasha, et al. to the outer cell area. By the time they get there, Bitten Chick is dead. Carl starts to shoot her; Tyreese says they take care of their own; he’ll do it. Carl leaves—and Sasha realizes he’s locked them in. She’s angry. Carl says it’s safe from zombies and there’s food and water. Sasha screams at him to let them out. Tyreese tells her to calm down, points out that this situation is better than they’ve had it in weeks. She backs off. “Shouldn’t we help them?” Beth asks Carl. “I did,” he says. Yeah. Man, Carl is such a little bad ass now. Like!

Doctor chick tries to examine Guv; he says no and hobbles to his feet. Andrea asks why he was fighting Michonne; he pretends not to know why she’d want him dead. Andrea asks about the heads; he says he made himself look at them to be reminded of the horrors outside. Andrea asks about Penny; he doesn’t answer. Milton rushes in, asks what happened, Guv says he was attacked. Merle rushes in, says the intruders made it over the wall; he’ll go after them in the morning. Guv glares at him (If looks could kill!!!), but of course with Andrea right there, he can’t say, “You told me Michonne was dead!”

Outside the wall, Rick, Glenn, and Maggie are waiting for Daryl. Michonne arrives. Rick pulls his gun, takes her sword, asks where she went, if she got what she came for. She asks where the others are. Glenn says  Oscar’s dead; Maggie says Daryl’s missing. Rick’s (quietly) ranting; Michone shushes him by pointing out he needs her help, whether to get Glenn and Maggie back to the prison, or to go back in for Daryl. Inside the walls, Woodburyans are gathered in the zombie-fighting arena, awaiting word from Guv. He comes out … and blames the whole thing on Merle, says Merle’s a traitor who led the terrorists to Woodbury. Then he has tied-up Daryl brought out.  He and Andrea see, recognize each other. Guv asks the Woodburyans what to do; they start screaming for blood.