Mr. Harvey & Mr. Adair Watch The DEAD Suffer

Season 3 Episode 8 “Made To Suffer”

[photos: Gene Page/AMC]

Well Ghouls and Ghoulettes, we are here at our mid-season finale, and once again, your Misters Adair and Harvey, along with our studio audience (this week including Mr. Smith, offline for the evening), venture forth to bring you the trials and tribulations of Team Zombie. As always, the following is chock full of inappropriate opinions, inappropriate language, general inappropriateness, and, of course, SPOILERS. Many, many, spoilers.

This is your only warning. We… what are you doing?

Watching Once Upon a Time with Curtis before anyone else shows up… Is it wrong that I want Hook and Regina to make out really badly? Nah.
Holy crap!! Cora is like the most evil villain in Fairytale-ness. I kind of love it.   
Although I don’t know if they want us to like Hook or hate him.

Are we recapping Once Upon a Time now?

No.

So…

So this is the last The Walking Dead until next year….

Yes indeed.

It’s been too good. I’m actually going to miss it.

I… I think I am too.

It feels really weird, doesn’t it?

It’s almost… a dirty feeling. I mean after last season, this season has been so good…

Yeah.

…

…

Moving on?

Yes. That would be best. Predictions?

Predictions.

• There will be a FIGHT, but we won’t lose anyone important.
• Alliances will be tested, but none will change.
• There will be less focus on walkers this week.
• Andrea will not notice that the people attacking Woodbury are her very good friends. She will continue to be the worst.

You know, those are sorta vague.

Hush you. I’m recapping here. Morning, and a dewy one at that, well, except for the screaming.

Ah, the screaming.

A walker trudges through the forest towards the sound before she is felled by a dude with a machete.
He runs through the woods to a woman with a shovel, whom I will be calling Shovel from now on.  They are part of a small group who has been attacked by the walkers. They are using melee weapons to fight off a group of walkers, they are doing okay, but they are about to be overrun.  
They decide to flee, but not before a girl in a tank top is bitten. I guess she didn’t get the memo  about proper zombie wardrobe. (Always wear sleeves.)
The group arrives at a burned out building where Shovel tells them that the bitten girl can’t come in. They have a short conversation about what to do with her, and finally decide to take her in to the burned out building with them.  
Turns out, the building is the prison, just the other side of it.  
THEY’RE TAILIES!!
(Look it up)

It’s a LOST reference, for those of you playing at home.
Well, there’s where all our walkers are coming from. What caused that, I wonder? Interesting group of people here… and our first look at Tyreese! Great character from the comics, mysteriously absent until now, although Daryl has some of his qualities. These guys seem to be pretty committed to each other, just like Team Zombie, only not as beaten down.

In Woodbury, Andrea is doing her hair. She sees the picture of The Governor’s dead family and is instantly jealous. “@#$% you, Dead Family. He’s MY man now.”  
The Governor comes up and hugs her. She says that she is going to help the Scientist clean up Mr. Coleman for burial.
The Governor tells her that she doesn’t have to do that, but she’s all like, “We’re a community “ and 
“Hands Across America”  and The Governor tell her to go just to shut her up. She leaves and The Governor goes to look at his weird zombie daughter. He has a bowl of gross meat to feed her. It’s gross. She runs out and tries to attack him.
You guys, he is so the King of all the Nut Jobs.

I think they’ve been trying to make him more, sympathetic is sorta the word… maybe layered? Anyway, this version of the Governor is seemingly less an outright monster than his comic version. At least that’s what it seems like they’re trying to do. To me, it isn’t working. He’s awful.

He takes his weird zombie daughter into his arms and takes her out of her little weird bonds. He sings to her and she seems to calm down, but she just eyeing his meat.
Why does this little b__ still have teeth?

Because she’s his daughter, and he still thinks she’s in there? And he’s crazy?

He yells at her to look at him, and when she doesn’t he kicks the meat away and throws her back in her cage.

In a separate cage, Glenn and Maggie have a conversation about what a seriously creepy @#$% The Governor is and how humanity is the real danger and all that jazz.
They hug and cry and have a mini-Hallmark moment.
Glenn goes over to the walker. Everyone in this room assumes that he is going looking for trinkets, but what he is actually doing is so much more awesome.
He rips off the walker’s arm. And breaks it and takes out a bone. Now them bitches is armed with plague on a stick. PLAGUE ON A DAMN STICK!!

OK, seriously, Glenn is the king of badasses at this point, but, um, wow, I hope neither he or Maggie have any cuts or anything on their hands, because otherwise? Cool, yes. Smart no.

Rick and Team Zombie are discussing how to get over the wall. Michonne sneaks off without telling anyone to find a place to get in.

Great. Finally get Carl to behave, and now this.

The Governor and Merle talk about moving Woodbury over to the Prison, but The Governor thinks this is a bad idea. He suggests that they kill Team Zombie and let the walkers take the prison back over.
Merle pleads Daryl’s case, saying that he needs his brother and The Governor says that they will work something out. I don’t think Merle believes him.

Michonne and Team Zombie break into the room where she and Andrea were originally held. They look out the windows and see that there are still people on the streets.
Rick kind of freaks out on Michonne a little but she doesn’t know anything more than he does really. There is a little argument about where Glenn and Maggie might be.
Daryl and Rick have a little aside where they discuss leaving Michonne behind if things get too hairy.  
A guy enters the room from the Woodbury side and yells that he know people are in there and they ain’t oughta be in there and is really kind of annoyingly southern until Rick and Daryl jump out and hog tie him. Rick asks him where their people are, but this gut is just a day player, so he doesn’t know anything.

At the prison, Hillbilly is chatting up Daughter Fodder until he is pulled out by Carol. Incidentally, Daughter Fodder is seventeen. I can’t remember how old she was supposed to be in season 2, but I am not letting go of the idea that she has been de-aged a little.
Anyway, Carol pulls Hillbilly aside and they have a little conversation about how it’s not appropriate to hit on teenagers. Hillbilly bemoans the fact that all the good ladies are taken and Carol is a lesbian.
Carol informs him that she is in fact NOT a lesbian and Hillbilly say that he was not aware of this, since she has the tiny pixie cut. He kind of smarms at her a little, but she just kind of laughs and walks away.
IT’S HUMOR PEOPLE!!

Oh, the look on Carol’s face… Anyone other that me having a uncomfortable feeling when Axel was talking to Beth? A “Hey, remember what happened to the Greene daughters in the comic, right about this time?” feeling?

Merle shows up at Maggie and Glenn’s cell to, I’m sure, give them milk and cookies and read them Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban until they fall asleep, but Glenn and Maggie ruin everything by running out and attacking them with the walker bones.

Yes, they are clearly not the best of guests.

Maggie takes on another day player, and stabs him in the throat, while Glenn tangles with Merle and does considerably worse. Maggie gets the guy’s gun on Merle just as Glenn is about to shiv him, and she has the upper hand for about 3/4th of a second before reinforcements show up and they are captured again.

Team Zombie heads to the sound of the ruckus and they arrive just in time to see Glenn and Maggie bagged.
Rick throws out a smoke bomb and in the ensuing confusion, they are able to get Glenn and Maggie and make an escape.

OK, did I miss something? Or is it just incredibly convenient that Rick and the crew break into Woodbury right next to where Glenn and Maggie are being held? Not that I’m not happy to have them back with the group.

Andrea is out on the street (so much for the much touted curfew) when all the stuff starts to go down. The Governor tries to get her to go inside, because, duh, but Andrea doesn’t want to because again, duh.
The Governor sends his militia men out to quell whatever is going on and then he takes Andrea and they head to a strategy meeting.

Team Zombie find a place to hide, and Michonne runs off on her own.

But of course she does. Any bets on where she’s going?

In the room, Glenn finally finds a shirt. He tells Daryl that Merle is the one that brought them to Woodbury. Daryl is ready to run out into Woodbury to find Merle but Rick talks him down, telling him that he needs him and they will try to figure out the Merle situation later.
Daryl takes this much better than Merle did.

Because Daryl is awesome.

In the mini war room (the scientist’s lab) The Governor, Andrea, Merle, The Scientist, and some other guys discuss what the next course of action needs to be.
The Governor sends Andrea off to make sure people are safe in their homes, of course Andrea wants to join the fight, but The Governor insists that the First Lady of Woodbury needs to be checking on her people.
Meanwhile, Eleanor Roosevelt is watching this all from The Beyond, grumbling that she was the Secret President for nearly two years.

Heh. Nice how the Governor just steamrolls right over Andrea. Great guy you’ve hitched up with there lady.

Meanwhile meanwhile, Michonne arrives at The Governor’s apartment and sets up shop in what I have now decided is her Murder Chair.

Team Zombie prepares to break out of Woodbury. They throw another smoke bomb and head out. There is a lot of smoke and confusion. Andrea just so happens to be on the same side of town as Team Zombie, and she takes up a position and tries to get a couple of shots off at her former friends.
Of course in the smoke and confusion, the only person she sees clearly is Medium Tiny.

Of course.

The Governor arrives and tries to shoo her away again, of course this time it doesn’t work.
Other things happen, but it’s all so amazingly chaotic, I seriously can’t tell you what happened. Here are my original notes on this section:  

Ahsd rehr eh sirhe ssirhe aide hrther sis stuff happen sih a
TG aeinjd er sah freh shear he saw rthe aisn reh shre reallt did swihre ahde rrher teapahere in a vestibule
Mrerlyt arrive had rther is shootind tg tells her ei srhe iss fhe steree tihzad egth
Moer sirhesnh eoihche and runint adhre shootinds ahrr esmieahd rehafirh shootiand rena dhr  fucnerrheh shane ahsd rI and reiuliteh tinie is down ahd wsit want shae after all
 Ahd rhtierh scremaind rick ien rhe strepoe and Maggie take ladhherknc setin4 ouafdh rhsaft rdarly is kind of left behind
All I can say for sure is that Medium Tiny is shot, Rick shoots a guy that looks like Shane, and Daryl is lost in the confusion.

You know the sad thing? I can read that.
And farewell to Medium Tiny, whose real name is Oscar. There’s a meme out there about being the Black Guy on The Walking Dead, and some of the pictures are pretty funny, but it seems to be true. We meet the guys at the prison, exit Theodore. We meet Tyreese, bye-bye Oscar. Good thing that rule doesn’t apply to the women on the show. I mean we have Michonne and Shovel, and so far… uh oh.

And Rick clearly has some issues left, because after our audio hallucinations, now we have him seeing Shane.

Oh and I just hate Comic Book Men SO MUCH.

For good reason. Moving on.

Meanwhile at the prison, Judith is finally asleep. Carl makes plans to go for formula the following week. Hershel tries to tell him that Rick and the others will be back soon, but Carl says he doesn’t know that for sure. He says that until proven otherwise, he is going to operate under the assumption that Judith is the only family that he has left.
There is a scream from somewhere in the prison. Carl decides to check it out. At first, Hershel says he can’t go, but that lasts about 3 seconds.  

OK, that bit? Really awkward writing.

Carl heads off the to the dark side of the prison towards the sound of the screams. He passes the boiler room and gives it a soulful look before cracking open a can of whoop-ass on some walkers.
He finds the group and basically pulls a T2: Come with me if you want to live.

Still not Carl’s biggest fan, but that was pretty cool.

Meanwhile, in Michonne’s Murder Chair, she hears some sort of rattling, and decides to go check it out.
She busts down the door to the room with the heads in tanks in it (which is right off the main room, and Tim is making faces and waving his arms around) and is appropriately disgusted. She hears the rattling of the baby zombie in the closet and opens the door. So… what’s on your mind mister?

In a minute.

Ok… Baby Zombie comes out with her little head covered and Michonne assumes that it is a living child. I would think after nearly a year in this world, she would be done assuming anyone was alive until proven otherwise.
She freaks out a little and takes the little abomination into her arms. She coos that everything will be okay and unhooks the chain off her neck. She takes the hood off her head and is shocked SHOCKED I TELL YOU that the little girl is no longer among the living.

Has anyone else noticed that all the child zombies we have encountered have been little girls? Does anyone else wonder why that is?

Michonne decides to end the little monsters unlife, but The Governor arrives just before she can do the deed.
He begs her to spare the little creature and Michonne looks at him like he has just entered a new level of insanity.

Then she stabs the little creep in the neck.

The Governor attacks her and they fight. It’s pretty brutal. The Governor smashes her head into the fish tanks and she pulls the tanks off the shelf. The both avoid walker bites on the floor until Michonne pulls a piece of glass off the tanks and stabs The Governor in the eye.

In The Eye.

Michonne stands and is about to cut The Governor’s head off when Andrea arrives.
The two former lovers look at each other over their respective weapons for a second before Michonne drops her blade and wordlessly walks away.
Andrea goes to where The Governor is cradling the body of his daughter in his arms with glass in his eye. Even with all of this before her, she doesn’t seem to see the truth.

OK, if you hold it in anymore, you’re going to explode.

Oh my god, the degree of stupid here is so big. I am flashing back to Season Two, and with as good as this season has been I am just appalled.

The tank room/zombie kid room is right off the living room? Seriously? Where anybody could come in and say “Hey? What’s behind this door?” Someone like, say, Andrea? It’s right off the living room? Gahhh!!!

But worse than that, worse than that, is the completely stupid writing of the scene between Michonne and Andrea. Because instead of saying, “Andrea, this guy is crazy, and he’s had your friends Maggie and Glenn, you know, the friends you told me about in our months together, the ones you weren’t sure were even alive anymore, those guys? Yeah, he’s had them held prisoner, and I went to the prison and brought back Rick and Daryl and the disposable Black Guy, and we saved them! Oh, and Merle? Yeah, he tried to kill me, and you know he did it on this jerk’s orders, and have you seen the tanks of zombie heads in here?”

But she doesn’t. Say. Anything.

Anything.

Which makes no damn sense at all. It’s only there so the writers can stretch this out, and that was death on Season Two, and to have that kind of crap writing  show up again… damn it Walking Dead.

Feel better?

Oh, I’m not done. Because Michonne doesn’t say anything, she makes the Governor look sympathetic. All Andrea sees is what Michonne has done, without any explanation. Breaking in, trying to kill him, killing Zombie Child… Michonne doesn’t explain any of it. So Andrea, bespelled by her soft sheets and hair care products and regular sex, sees the Governor as the victim.

Because the writers decided to blow a season’s worth of really good writing on a stupid, stupid, stupid moment.

Better now?

Not really.

That said, it was a really cool fight scene, very brutal. And the sword through Zombie Child’s mouth was a pretty cool effect. Oh, and the answer to why child girl zombies? Programming. As a species, we’re wired to protect children, girls especially. One of the recurring things you see in horror films is that small children rarely are killed… when they are, it resonates big. We’ve seen a decent number of kid zombies, and our heroes have had to kill a few… it’s a bigger impact when it’s a little girl. Psychology.

Moving on?

Please.

At the prison, Carl leads the new arrivals into a safe room they all survived, well, most of them. The girl who was bitten, of course, dies. Carl gets ready to put a bullet in her head, but Tyreese stops him, saying that he will do it, because his group takes care of their own.

I’m liking Tyreese a lot already.

Carl is fine with that, so he locks them in their area. Shovel kind of freaks out for a second, but Tyreese talks her down.
Wow, I guess Carl needs to be in charge more often.

In Woodbury, The Governor is in the med center, and is not happy he lost an eye.

Go figure.

Andrea asks for a minute alone with him so she can ask all the wrong questions about Michonne and listen to The Governor justify all the heads and is additionally the worst.
Everything about them is the worst thing.

She not only asks the wrong questions, but listen to his answers! They all should be making Andrea head towards the door, but noooooo…

The rest of the leaders of Woodbury arrive to find out what they should do next, including Merle. The Governor is not happy to see him considering that he told The Governor that Michonne was dead.
Team Zombie is making their escape. They decide to wait for Daryl. Michonne arrives and Rick takes her sword. He is about to abandon her there when she says that she brought them here to save the others and she tells Rick that she is a needed and vital part of the group. There is a need in her voice that speaks to Rick. Welcome to Team Zombie, Michonne.  

Of course, she leaves out the whole “Hey, that friend of yours, Andrea? Yeah, just saw her. Oh, and the Governor who knows where you came from? Yeah, I just really ticked him off. Sorry about that.”

This is all kinds of dumb.

At the gladiator dome, The Governor arrives and is all hurt and scarred and he declares war on the prison. He speechifies like he’s Barack Obama. The Governor calls Team Zombie terrorists.
Andrea and her stupid face are both there.
I just hate everything about you, Andrea.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Political Theatre 101. Note the long grey coat, with the upturned collar. Very Southern military uniform. Check out the way his Southern accent has gotten thicker, which, is it just me? Makes him sound like Elvis. Listen to the buzzwords. Terrorists. They Hate Us. They Want What’s Ours. Wow. I think we’re supposed to be impressed, but I’m rolling my eyes. It’s so obvious. But only to us. Woodbury’s residents eat it up. Guess that civilized layer wasn’t that thick.

Then he calls Merle out as a spy!! Merle is in trouble now.
Daryl is pulled in, captured by the Governor’s men.
Does Andrea have a reaction? Sort of.
But Oh God!! I am freaking out!!
I really hope Andrea is finally opening her eyes.
Annnnnndddddd CLIFFHANGER!!

This show is back to making me angry. Great.

But you have enjoyed the other episodes, and we have Tyreese now.

These are true things. Sigh. OK, let’s do this. Your predictions.

I did pretty well, I must say.

You did indeed. There was a fight, and the only death we had was Oscar, who wasn’t long for the world now that Tyreese has arrived anyway, and aside from the slipper thing, we didn’t know long enough to get attached to. And while Andrea may have some questions finally forming, and Rick clearly doesn’t trust Michonne, with good reason I might add, the alliances did stay the same. Well, sort of. the Governor did turn on Merle, but we saw that coming.

I am, after all, Dusto the Magnificent.

Yes, well, as for there being less focus on walkers this week… no, I think you missed that one. From the opening, to the fight in the prison, and to the Zombie Child, I’d say they had a pretty strong presence this week.

Ah, but then there’s Andrea.

Yes, there’s Andrea. Horrible, horribly written Andrea. 3 out of 4. Not bad.

I know. And our lesson this week?

Don’t trust the writers on this show. They will betray you. They will lure you in with well written characters and dramatic and exciting situations, where irrational behavior even makes sense in context, and then they will screw it all up.

That’s what you’re going with?

Sigh. Fine. When confronted with a room full of floating zombie heads, and you hear noises coming from a dark caged space which, when opened, reveals a small child chained to the wall, bound in a makeshift straitjacket, with a sack over it’s head?

Yes?

Leave.

Can’t argue with that. See you in February!