Series Dissect: The Walking Dead S03E03 -- Walk With Me

SPOILER ALERT

Watching zombie porn  seriously fucks you up, kids

The third episode from season 3 of TWD, Walk With Me, Michonne finally gets some screen time. But not just some screen time. The entire episode is dedicated to the blade-swiping adventures of Andrea and Michonne, whom I’ve now dubbed Midrea, which is only befitting of their power couple status.

But enough of that. On with the show.

Pro:

We open with Midrea are taking a stroll; when they witness a helicopter go down. They decide to go investigate, taking Marley and Marne (their pet walkers. Not their names but I thought it was cute) with them, obv. This is important because it’s the first real military presence we’ve seen in the show since the very beginning.

Pro:

While amid the rubble of the helicopter, two cars pull in and they hide, watching the men get out and scavenge the wreck. Also Midrea doesn’t know that when people die they turn into walker regardless of being bitten, so they seem shocked when one of the men we’ll come to know as the Governor, stabs the dead bodies in the head.

Pro: 

Marley and Marne get a little rambunctious in the bushes, which leads Michonne to do this from fear of being discovered by the head stabbing men:

Pro: 

However they are discovered by… guess who… that’s right Merle!!! Merle is back. Hi Merle. Merle is Daryl’s brother, who was left on top of a roof in season 1 handcuffed to a pipe and inevitably had to saw off his own arm to escape (just realised how dark that was. I miss that darkness). Anyway Midrea turn around to see this face:

Pro: 

Obv Merle knows Andrea so they have some catch up time. Merle seems pretty together considering he now has a metal stump where his hand was.

Con: 

Andrea passes out for reasons and both are taken, blindfolded, with the men, where she receives medical attention and both are persuaded to stay the night. This ep is quickly loosing its edge. Come on, people.

Pro: 

Midrea discover they are in a walled town where the people have been living as a community, known as Woodbury. It’s all very calm with lots of vegetable growing. Michonne doesn’t trust these people, which leads to lots of these looks (which I love) but Andrea persuades her to give it a couple of days.

Con:

Andrea's lady parts like the Gov.

Pro:

There’s a lab and science stuff with electrodes and science things. Very important. Milton, the science guy, is impressed with Michonne’s ingenuity with her pet walkers, as she removed their arms and jaws so they cannot eat people. Milton has discovered that if you take away a walker’s ability to eat they become almost sedate. Milton wants to ask Midrea some questions and discovers that Michonne possibly knew her pets before they were walkers. Andrea expresses that she knows almost nothing of Michonne.

Pro:

After talking to a survivor of the helicopter crash the Governor, who no one knows his real name for reasons, goes to where the man said the rest of his military gang are waiting for him. The Gov goes to meet these men and we discover that the men of Woodbury have been killing military for their supplies. They ambush and kill them all. The Gov then lies to the townspeople, telling them they were already dead. How convenient. 

Pro:

That night, the Governor opens a secret door in his room and goes inside, where he sits in a chair and stares at aquarium tanks filled with decapitated heads, one of which belongs to the pilot, implying that the Gov had him murdered as well.

Pro: 

My powers of deduction tell me these people are stuffed full of secrets. How do I know? Merle told me.

The end.

Okay so we’ve seen a complete change of tone in this episode, not to mention not a hint of Rick and the gang. I’m assuming that the two groups will at some point merge together for one big blow-out.

With the Ricktatorship becoming so dark recently it’s good that the show has presented an even worse alternative, or perhaps even a destination of where Rick’s road could lead him, but at least this keeps the audience on the side of Rick and the gang for now.  

Wow, not many cons in this episode so I guess it was a good one. I like that we’re beginning to get a wider sense of what the world now is, instead of just the perspective of one group. Keep it up TWD. More next week, walking dead bitches.

Series Dissect: The Walking Dead S03E02 – Sick

If Sex and the City was set in a prison with zombies and the girls were all dudes, sexy Latin guy would so be Carry

Okay, so I know this one is late… and I’m sorry. I had a really bad few days trying to stop my clammy fingers impairing the use of my new Samsung Galaxy S3. It was a really stressful time for me, so I know you understand.

So by now you’ve probably watched episode 3 of the new walking dead. Well I haven’t so it doesn’t exist yet. You’re going to get episode 2’s dissect and you will like it.

Imma do it Pro and Con style, as is my way.

So EAT IT!

Pro:

We immediately establish that the prison people clearly have no idea of the hell that is going on outside, as they’ve been locked up for months. Also they are not even trying to pretend to be friends, which is good. Also this guy seems like a serial killer, therefore I think he’s hot.

Pro:

Prison guys are all “This is my prison” and Rick is all “No, this is my prison”. They decide to each take a separate cell block, and in exchange for half the food supplies the prisoners have been hoarding, Rick offers to help de-walker their new cell block home.

Pro:

Rick gives the prisoners a lesson in killing walkers, e.g. aim for the head. It doesn’t take, leading to this mess:

Pro: 

Rick knows it would be easier and safer to just kill the prisoners, rather than try to live with them, as sexy Latin guy has classic serial killer looks and long hair. Lori lets him know that if he thinks he should kill them, she will support him. Super dark.

Con:

Hershel, left legless from last week’s episode, is touch and go on the death front. Also we still don’t know if he’s infected. Just die, already!

Pro:

With Hershel unable to deliver Lori's demon baby, Carol knows it will fall to her to perform a c-section (why a c-section?)when she goes into labour (or if the thing starts to eat her from the inside out), so she asks Glenn to help her catch a female walker she can practice cutting up, which leads to this necrophiliac's wetdream:

Pro:

Maggie has a touching moment where she tells her Pa that it’s okay for him to let go. She knows he’d be better off dead. Yes, Hershel, let go. Let go!

Pro:

As suspected, the prisoners are a rebellious bunch and don’t do anything Rick tells them, which leads to walker madness.One of the prisoners gets bitten and sexy Latin guy smashes his head in without hesitation, showing Rick he is a killer like his hair suggests. Sexy.

Con:

Also, this guy gets this amount screen time. Who is he again? 

Con:

Sexy Latin guy is trying to bump Rick off on the down low. Not cool sexy Latin guy.

Pro: 

Which leads to sexy eyefucking...

Pro: 

Which leads to Rick doing this. This was basically the entire point of the episode, so that we knows Rick no longer has qualms about killing his fellow man in order to survive. Shane would be so proud. Bye sexy Latin guy.

Pro: 

Rick runs after another of the prisoners and traps him outside with the walkers to feast on him. Who is this Rick? I like him. Remember when Shane would do shit like this and Rick would be the one to then save him. No one's saving this one...

Con:

Annoying kid (Lori's brat) goes to get medical supplies for Hershel on his own. Lori cares that he could have gotten hurt for some reason. 

Con:

We think Hershel might die. Alas, he doesn’t. Lori saves him.

Pro: 

Rick decides the other prisoners are good enough to live because his judgment scale is super sensitive, so he sets them up in the other cell block. 

Con:

More marriage estrangement confusion.

The end.

So we saw none of black ninja badass and her bff Andrea this week and the episode moved the story on so that we now know the group are living under a Ricktatorship. Things are still dark, but where is the intensity?

More of Zombie Prison Break next week.

Series Dissect: The Walking Dead S03 E01: Seed

SPOILER ALERT

Moody: is it me, or has The Walking Dead suddenly become sexy?

The first episode the long (well a few months) awaited season 3 of The Walking Dead finally aired earlier this week and with it we revisited a few of our favourite friends: suspense, darkness and gore.

Like everyone with eyes, I was blown away by the first season of TWD, in every respect; the edge, the story, the impeccable effects and the fact that underlying everything was the sense of dread that sooner or later they will all become “walkers”.

Season two, which I’ve dubbed Zombie Farm, took place on… a farm full of herding zombies grazing on the human meat situation that held up there. What pissed me off about season 2 was that they killed off Shane, which was basically fifty percent of its edge.

I didn’t want S3 to become another series about the crusade of keeping “humanity” alive. I wanted a Shane-style kill or be killed attitude to engulf the group. I wanted death to rain down on them and for it to become the norm to slaughter zombies, as one would casually flick dust from one’s jacket.

So did I get what I wanted? Or has TWD S3 done the inevitable thing of laming down to cater to its increasing audience?

I’ll break it down pro and con for ya’ll.

Con:

They changed the title credits. One of the creepiest parts of the show was seeing the photos of people and being reminded of their lives before the dead walked. Now the credits features this, and gives away that the whole season will be heavily set in a prison, which may cause me to name this season’s show Zombie Prison Break.

Pro:

Carl now shoots stuff, and he’s good at it.

Con:

Carl’s new (and only since he's three years old) love interest is Hershel's daughter Beth. Boring.

Pro:

The show is set after a presumably slow winter, since no one died, and Lori is now about to pop with a baby (possibly the now dead Shane’s).

Pro:

This badass needs to feature more than the two seconds they gave her this week. She and Andrea are now BFFs. She has a samurai sword and keeps walkers as pets.

Pro:

The gang perform mass murder on some walkers after finding a prison that could be a safe place for Lori to birth. Not only do they slaughter the walkers but also on occasion you actually think they’re getting off on it.

Pro: 

This face

Pro:

Zombies wearing helmets. This kind of feels like we’ve just entered a new level of a videogame where the zombies are now harder to kill.

Pro:

Rick pulls the face off a walker. Gore. Classic. Faceless chic.

Con:

Rick and Carl are now angry with Lori for reasons that aren’t clear. Either they’re really slow and have just realised the baby may not be Ricks, or something has happened during the winter. Anyway there’s tension.

Pro: 

Lori might have a zombie walker baby inside her that wants to eat its way out. This would be awesome. MAKE THIS HAPPEN!

Con:

Weird back rub time between Daryl and Carol. Obviously there will be some exploration of these two hooking up. Clearly things are desperate.

Pro:

The gang decides to enter the creepy prison for reasons.

Pro:

Hershel gets his leg chewed by a walker. Side note: He makes his girls sing to him and represents wholesomeness. I WANT HIM DEAD.

Pro:

Rick hacks off Hershel's leg with an axe to try and stop the walker infection from spreading. Rick is almost dead inside. I love it.

Con:

Then the gang are trapped in the prison surrounded by walkers. Will they escape? The first two seasons were done in such a way that we just didn’t know whether Rick would survive and it was intense. Now I have no doubt he will survive, which kind of makes this pointless.

Con:

Then these people show up. Prisoners still alive. Not more people with ambiguous intentions, I hope? Also, how have they survived?

The end.

So, darker than the inside of a pig’s belly, but do we care about these people anymore? 

I Can’t wait for next week to see if old man pray-a-lot dies and whether Lori needs to perform a Prometheus style c-section. So I guess I’m hooked already.

Check back for next week's TWD Series Dissect.