I think that director suffered from a techie’s knowledge of the work. I have done that, where you work on something you know really well and focus on the fine details, only to stand back and watch people look at the overall thing you did and point out a major flaw, making you realize those fine details were actually irrelevant to what was needed.
walTer
2942
Well, the certainly set up next week to be one hell of an episode.
One thing kind of weirded me out, Rick looking so clean. Not just that he wiped off his face and hands, that’s not so weird. More that his clothes even look new. It’s like they had to have the costumer from Revolution do this episode for some reason.
tgb123
2944
On Talking Dead, it was suggested that Rick’s cleanliness was as much a product of his imagination as the phone call. Speaking of which, I would think that Hershel’s realization that Rick is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs (I assume the phone line was dead when he listened to it) would be important enough for him to share with the others. And did my eyes deceive me, or was that a rotary phone? Do they still have those in prisons?
My question is this: Merle wanted to return and tell the Governor that Michonne was dead because we wasn’t sure he could take her on (I assume). He even killed the Hispanic guy to protect the lie. So why was he still following her?
Yeah, that was a rotary phone.
If you’re talking about the incident with Merle in the shopping center parking lot, remember how Merle said he was going to boost a car and go back to the town? I thought that’s why he ended up there, not that he was still after Michonne.
The phone being rotary is just one more little detail added in to confirm Rick’s psychosis – no way that such a device would work on today’s phone systems. I guess you could make the argument that a prison’s internal phone network might still be analog, but then it wouldn’t be connected to the outside world either. I liked the creepy “static” that crept into the conversation towards the end; nicely done effect.
Merle’s showing up in the parking lot threw me for a second too, as he must have gone further into the “red zone” that he was so afraid of to get there. But yeah, his throw-away line about nabbing a car explains his presence.
What I don’t totally buy are his actions. He’s already shown that he is hell-bent on reuniting with his brother, so I’m not clear on why he wouldn’t take Glenn up on his offer to meet back in a day. Sure, Merle’s got trust issues and he’s more of a man of action than a long-range thinker, but he wouldn’t have any reason to think that Glenn would not bring back his brother. Kidnapping them seems to get him further from his goal rather than closer.
I did like the Governor’s rather incredulous expression while he was telling his story though. We’ll see something come to a head between those two in the next few episodes, I reckon.
And if the show hews to the comic in any slight way then next week will be disturbing. Poor Maggie and Glenn.
Oh, another thing that I really liked about the episode was the little Garguilo mini-arc that they had. It was a cool, five-minute duration coming-of-age story for a character that who was for all intents and purposes a red-shirt. I also thought that the Governor remembering his name was a nice touch.
Finally, I was impressed with how what seemed initially to be gratuitous gore scenes turned out to be something more… a nice change from the masses of truly gratuitous gore we saw last week.
First you’ve got Merle wrestling with a walker and black goo oozes from her/its mouth… prompting me to roll my eyes at the meaningless spectacle of it. But then it becomes clear that it is the previously-useless Garguilo, saving him. Then you’ve got Michonne uselessly slashing open the other walker’s belly to be hosed down with its entrails… a scene that I was sure (at the time) was simply having $500 of special effects goo left over from last week that they wanted to get rid of before it went bad. I was pleased to see that the entrail-shower played a much larger part later on.
Menzo
2948
Rotary phones work just fine on today’s phone system. In fact, most automated answering systems have workarounds for folks with rotary phones.
Not that it’s a key element or anything.
tryte
2949
Merle has a grudge; he even says to Glenn, something along the lines of having forgotten all about Atlanta, which shows he feels the exact opposite. Allowing them to return and meet back in a day allows them a measure of control and power, Merle isn’t having any of that. Kidnapping them and extracting the location of their group from them keeps the power on his side. He wants his brother back, the rest can burn.
Loved the final scene of Michonne outside the prison fence surrounded by Walkers, covered in zombie guts and clutching the red shopping basket of formula. Great stuff.
I thought about that as I was watching. I thought that as Rick held the baby and returned to reality there’d be a dissolve or something and we’d see them as they really are, grimy and gritty.
The problem is that Maggie and Glenn were clean. Maggie especially, in town, looked like Rick, scrubbed and freshly outfitted. If it was in Rick’s head, why would that be?
On a separate isssue, I think it makes perfect sense Merle wouldn’t let them go. First off, I don’t think he wants to hang around exposed needlessly, I wouldn’t. Next, he does need to return to the Woodbury at some point, does he want to do that empty handed? No. Third, why would Merle trust anything Glenn and Maggie say? They pointed guns at him at first opportunity and kept guns on him, that’s not a friendly “take our word for it” attitude they have towards him.
It makes more sense to take them back, have a trophy to present, and extract any info you need from them with them powerless to resist.
walTer
2951
I figured once Lori’s voice faded on the phone, he realized that it wasn’t real and that he went out and basically scrubbed off his madness and returned to the “real world” as much as one can.
Yeah and remember, Merle is pretty mad at the group- I assumed that he would eventually get their location out of them and be allowed to lead a group from town to take care of them.
Last scene what so awesome.
Merle’s credibility with the Governor is going to be shot when Michonne turns up alive. I suspect however that Daryl will be the one that kills Merle, not the Governor or anyone else, because Daryl has transformed this season. His scenes with the baby, with Carol and especially last night with Carl all convey that he’s finally accepted this group as his own. He’s gone from living in a little camp at the edge of the farm in the beginning of season two to caring about these people and being involved in everything they do as a group, even leading them while Rick was “indisposed”. When Merle shows up, he will undoubtedly threaten that, hell he’s already kidnapped Maggie and Glenn, and if he hurts either of them Daryl is going to be pissed. Their reunion is something I am really looking forward to.
Andrea has taken over for Lori as the manager of the stupid decisions department. First she ignores Michonne’s instincts (which could be understandable given the fact that she so desperately wants the promise of Woodbury to be real), but then she goes over the wall, breaks the rules, and gets out of it by throwing herself at the Governor. Wow.
I guess it wasn’t Dog on the phone, but close enough. I like how they used the voices of Amy, Jim and the others who died in Season One, then finished up with Lori. With all the talk of “we’re in a better place, with no walkers” and Lori’s mentioning Carl and the baby I seriously thought for a minute that when Rick returned and picked up the baby he might do something sudden and final to send her off to be with her mom. I was relieved when that didn’t happen.
Loved the whole bit with Merle and Michonne, then with her showing up at the fence. This is shaping up to be all kinds of awesome!
The more I think about it, the more I think Merle’s plan is to usurp the Governor’s position. He’s planning to do a Sith Lord thing where he and his brother rule Woodbury. So he lulls(he thinks) the Governor into trusting him, until he finds his brother and together they overthrow the Governor and take over.
This would be consistent with him not chasing Michonne, since really that’s not relevant to Merle’s plans. He couldn’t care less what happens to her, as long as the Governor never sees her again. Considering the situation, Merle has no reason to believe she, if she survives, is going to remain anywhere in the their area. That whole thing about bringing her head and sword back was strictly the Governor’s need, it wouldn’t help Merle one bit. In fact, it would be counterproductive since Merle really doesn’t want the Governor looking anymore badass in control that he is now.
Warning
2954
I must have missed something but how did Michonne know to go to the prison and know where it was?
Good question! I too wondered this, and it didn’t even seem that long from the time the 2 were abducted, maybe 2-3 hours? So the prison must have been close to that road side pit stop / mall. Maybe she followed the walkers that passed her by?
corsair
2956
I believe Glenn mentioned the prison when Michonne was listening. With that, walk to a hill in the direction they came and look. Unless you have rolling hills that it is further hidden beyond, you’ll probably spot it. So, it’s implied that she figured it out and that it is probably not too far from the market they were at since Glenn already knew where that was.
jason
2957
Given what we don’t know about Michonne, she might have already known where the prison was.
Glenn and Maggie were discussing how good it is to get away for a bit and Maggie mentioned specifically how she disliked seeing all the walkers through the fences all the time. Michonne was listening, so she probably put two and two together and realized they had come from the prison. I think she wasn’t that far from it originally when she rescued Andrea, so she probably knew roughly where it was located. Alterantively, she could have juts followed the walkers there since they were ignoring her.
“A kid growing up in a prison could use some toys”
“It’s a straight shot back to the prison from here.”
MrPerson
2960
I didn’t think it was as strong as some of the episodes this season, but 3.6 continues the trend of being MUCH better than season 2. In particular, I LOVED the closing scene with Michonne at the fence.
Woodbury scenes bore me to tears (well, not so much tears as doing laundry or browsing the web until they end), and are only getting worse.
I am not a fan of the “bad guy shuffles forward to get into lunging range” scene in shows. It’s too obvious to the audience, and should be obvious to the characters. This particular execution of that isn’t particularly bad in any way, it’s just not compelling because it’s such a stale scene.
