“…little ass kicker…”
After last week’s double crotch kick of Lori and T-Dog’s deaths, there’s no way the show could continue to run on such high emotion. Instead, this episode focused on the despair and rage that comes afterwards.
Rick has lost the final thread of control he’d been holding onto so desperately. We see it in the camera work when it focuses on him, and we see it in his face as he rises from the ground and grabs an axe. He doesn’t go to comfort either one of his children – he hasn’t even looked at the baby yet, much less held it. He seeks solace in destroying walkers, ripping through the cell block a fury with no back up, no plan, no retreat. Everything he preaches to the others is lost. The carnage eventually leads him to the mechanical room Lori died in.
Her body is missing – if you look at the long shots, you can see the blood trail where a walker had dragged her away to consume. Rick finds the bullet Carl put his mother down with and puts it in his pocket. (The director of the episode mentioned that Andrew Lincoln always carries that bullet in his pocket now while playing Rick.) And then he finds the walker who took Lori, belly distended in a horrible parody of pregnancy, so full it’s unable to threaten Rick and just reaches for him out of instinct. Every horror in this world finds a way to be topped – not only do you lose your wife and the mother of your children, but monsters literally consume her, so all you’re left to bury is meat. How can anyone go on?
Rick destroys the zombie and takes a knife to its belly. I thought, for sure, that we were going to see Rick ripping open its guts and looking for her wedding ring, but it seems he just needed to expend the rest of his grief. And then it’s just Rick and a couple of corpses in this terrible prison, and a bleak future stretching out in front of him.
Over in Mayberry, they’re having a summer social. My daughter, who doesn’t watch the show, happened to be in the room, looked quizzically at the screen and asked, “Is this a flashback?” Which is exactly the Governor’s plan. Woodbury is playing dress up. All the barbeques and beer doesn’t hide that this world is rotten to its core and the town is infected too. It just puts on a little makeup and pretends.
Michonne senses this and she gets her proof when she breaks into the Governor’s apartment to steal her sword back. She misses the show with Penny, the Governor’s walker daughter that he keeps in a straightjacket and hood, but she hears and sees enough. That’s before she finds the pen of captive walkers the town keeps out back. She dispatches them with the first smile we see on her face since she was introduced. They catch her, of course, and the Governor manages to threaten her a bit, but Michonne gives no fucks what these corrupt mofos have to say. She’s not going to be won over by being lied to.
Andrea tries to convince her friend to stay and be less aggressive towards the perfectly nice people who have walker fight club as a way to blow off steam but are otherwise totally, you know, sane. Michonne is firm in her desire to leave and take Andrea with her, but eight months of being together doesn’t win out over the dreams that Andrea still believes are possible. Some place safe to live, where she can have a man and maybe a family, and breathe, and not worry about dying every second of every day. She wants the illusion. She desperately needs the illusion. In the end, that’s the choice she makes, and Michonne leaves Andrea behind.
Andrea’s speech was the first understandable glimpse of why she wanted so desperately to stay. It’s completely and totally reasonable to want safety and security in this or any world. I just wish the writers hadn’t led up to the scene by having Andrea make googly eyes and barely concealed “get in my pants” conversations with the Governor. Where’s the marksman? Where’s the woman who was so determined to be part of keeping the group safe? Why is she surrendering?
Let’s be honest. It’s both a totally reasonable development of the character – did anyone think that Daryl was not going be the kind of guy who was good with babies? – and total and utter fan service. “Hey, ladies, you know your dirty boyfriend Daryl? Imagine him holding your baby!”* [Meh. ~PoM] I know that millions watching the show went, “Awwwwww,” and their eyes went wet and distant, and everyone forgot about poor Lori’s jailhouse c-section.
We also must note the obvious and glaring hole the show danced around teasingly. There are three graves dug in the prison yard. We have to assume one of them is empty because there is zero reference to the group finding Carol’s body. Which either means that Carol is alive or the show cares so little about her character they couldn’t even be bothered to toss in a throw-away scene where we get confirmation of her fate. Now, if this was season 2 WD, I would totally believe that. But I think she’s kicking around, even if Daryl seems resigned to her being dead.
Which begs the question – why fill in an empty grave, jackasses?
*Not mentioned, you will not be around to see Daryl lovingly cradle your infant daughter because in this world Carl can survive a gun shot wound to the chest, Daryl can survive a punctured lung, that dude who fell on the spiked fence can be up and walking around in a couple of days, and Hershel can have a limb amputated and not even come down with a fever, but you will be dead, because you were pregnant.**
** If Carol is still alive, maybe she needs to rethink her plan to get Daryl in the sack.
20 replies on “Recap: The Walking Dead, S3.E5 — “Say The Word””
I’m laying money on Carol being on the phone, some sort of interior line system, and wherever she is she’s just been dialing random numbers and hoping for an answer.
I had issues with the graves too, though I guess digging them and filling them in as a matter of respectful ceremony leaves a lot more closure than leaving open holes gaping like a constant reminder that even with their dead they can’t always do right by them with a proper burial.
I’m still not loving the Andrea/Michonne bits. Had a big ranty rant about it on my blog review for the episode, but they’re painting her like her gun-toting badass days were nothing more than a bratty phase, and I hate that.
There’s no way Carol is dead. I refuse to believe that T-Dog died in vain. So, yeah, I was wondering why they filled the graves if Carol’s body wasn’t found as far as we saw and Lori was in some walker’s belly. Also, my baby factory shut down a decade ago but my uterus still twitched when Daryl was cuddling that baby and calling her “li’l ass-kicker.”
That Governor is one sick dude. I don’t like him at all.
It’s basically the worst misdirection on television.
I’m currently having major baby crazies (we’re talking about trying for another one) so when Daryl picked up that baby, I fell right into the trap. Let me have your baby, Daryl!
If you convince Norman Reedus to come to town and start impregnating bitches, I’D even get in on that.
I’m going to be so upset if T-Dog died like that and they killed off Carol anyway. SO MAD.
I, of course, don’t think this is going to be the case. I think she was just forgotten. Forgotten by the characters because Rick went crazy and the baby was crying. Forgotten by the show because they had too many story lines going? I don’t know. They better fix it next week.
I refuse to believe Carol’s dead until we see a body or a walker. I don’t get the empty graves thing, either. Two out of three were empty, so why bother digging them at all?
And I definitely could have lived without Daryl holding the baby. So pandering and annoying, and while, yeah, he probably would be the type to secretly be good with babies, I just wasn’t feeling it.
And Rick? Back your crazy ass up off of Glenn. He’s just trying to help.
They were so obvious about dancing around the Carol question, she has got to be still alive. Especially since at no time did anyone suggest they go look for her.
I imagine there had to be something left of Lori — bones or something — for them to bury, but I guess I’m glad they didn’t bother to show it. Or you’re right and they just filled in the grave, which means no one went to look for Rick, because he’s still in the mechanical room. It’s all stupid. It would have made sense if the survivors were digging the graves as a way of dealing with the tragedy, but Glenn turned that over to the prisoners, so they were just.. making holes and filling them back in again.
One of the things this show is just really awful about is mapping out its own timeline. Andrea keeps insisting they were on the road for 8 months, but Lori is clearly 9 months pregnant when we see her, and she had to be further along than a couple of weeks when she finds out she’s pregnant on the farm. So does that mean the two timelines aren’t synchronous? Are Andrea and Michonne getting to Woodbury months after the group finds the prison?
The timeline confused me too and I wondered if maybe Andrea and Michonne just hadn’t really kept track of time/date…? Hell, I have a hard enough time trying to remember what today is and the zombie apocalypse hasn’t even started.
They did make a one-line nod to the fact that Lori was already at or fast approaching overdue in the first or second episode, but I agree it’s super confusing. Maybe there’s a time rift? Jenner would know.
It is ridiculous how little effort they have put into looking for Carol. Daryl was going to ride back to try to find Andrea among thousands of walkers, but for Carol he sees a scarf and her gun and that’s all she wrote?
Apparently they cut a scene while Daryl and Maggie are on the road, where Daryl has Feelings about Carol being dead. Which isn’t the same as, you know, looking for her. I mean, I’m pretty sure they didn’t even go through the door they found her scarf at. That’s just lazy.
I wasn’t feeling Daryl and the baby either. I personally would have found it humorous if the kid spit up all over him…especially since they gave the kid an 8 ounce bottle. :)
I had a pretty fierce Meh about it myself. I love Daryl and all, but Man With Baby is not something that just gets me going. I’d sooner get aroused by him with a bottle of bourbon.
When Daryl and Maggie were in the daycare they briefly showed a wall with supposedly children’s hand prints but those hand were massive for a place that seemed to be for the preschool and under set.
I wondered about the graves too, like why was it filled in already I mean rick is still with the zombie that contains Lori so? Next weeks teaser trailer said something about finding Carol’s knife so I’m thinking she’s still alive deep in the prison somewheres.
I was waiting for there to be a zombie toddler jumping out of a closet or from behind a door.
I kept yelling “ZOMBIE BABY ZOMBIE BABY.” Sadly, no zombie babies.
ME TOO. I am the most obnoxious person to watch tv with when I have feels.
Hah. I didn’t catch that. I bet it was the set designers tracing their own hands.
I have a theory that Lori’s death by childbirth was the secret factor that gave Obama his win, because boy did it remind everyone how dangerous pregnancy can be.
That does seem plausible. Maybe if the zombie angle had been explored further, it wouldn’t have been a contest.