The Walking Dead 3-7: Brought to You by KFC!

It’s a really rough episode for Glenn and Maggie this week on AMC’s The Walking Dead. “When the Dead Come Knocking” is full of dread and excitement as the group at the prison learns what happened to Glenn and Maggie, and we see their fate unfold. Though this was a gabby episode, it wasn’t full of the filler conversations of season 2. Far from it. These were intense conversations, and the scenes left me feel more invested in a TV show than I’d felt since… the previous episode of The Walking Dead. Oh, and as a final note, next week’s episode should be epic.

Before we get into the recap, let’s check in with Dale.

Things are good around here, Action Chick. Cooked myself a nice Thanksgiving turkey. Scorched the heckfire out of it, but it smelled nice. The turkey, not the resulting fire or the smoke that filled my camper. Let me tell you, if you’re ever cooking something in the oven, don’t toss back a couple of brewskis and then start up a Storage Wars marathon- you’ll go right to sleep in a heartbeat and your turkey will end up black as night.

Thanks, Dale.

Here’s what happens:

In Woodbury:

Merle torments Glen for information, demanding to know where his camp, and Daryl, are located. Glen responds with a head butt, which pushed Merle’s mostly mental torture into the physical department. He beats Glen into a bloody pulp, then brings in a walker and lets him loose in the room. In an action sequence that would make Jason Statham blush, Glen fends off the walker, smashes the chair he’s duct-taped to, and kills it, impressing the hell out of everyone at Woodbury and me. Glenn freakin’ stepped up!

The Governor informs Merle that he’ll take care of questioning Maggie. He starts off politely, but when that doesn’t work he seems almost eager to switch to the more malicious stuff, forcing her to take off her top and threatening to rape her. Maggie keeps her crap locked up tight and tells him, “You do whatever you’re going to do and go to hell.” Thankfully, he backed off. Team Glaggie are reunited, although The Governor threatens to kill one of them if they don’t fess up, and Maggie finally gives up their group’s location to save Glen. During all this, Andrea helps the town doctor perform an experiment to see if people retain any semblance of memory once they die and turn into a zombie. The short version is that they don’t, and Andrea ends up having to stab the undead patient before he takes a chunk out of Doc.

At the prison:

Michonne kills several zombies, then passes out, so the group brings her in and helps her out. Michonne tells them what happened and they prepare a rescue mission for Team Glaggie. Daryl lifts everyone’s spirits by showing off Carol, who is very freaking alive. Rick and Carl decide to name the child Judith instead of Ass-Kicker, though I’m partial to the latter.

Hershel patches up Michonne’s leg and the rescue squad takes off. Carol, Carl, Judith, Herschel, and Beth stay behind. The Rescuers walk through the woods and scrap with a few zombies. Michonne keeps to the back of the melee, sizing up these new people as potential foes or allies.

Eventually, though, the number of walkers becomes overwhelming, so the Rescuers hide in a house which turns out to be the home of a crazy guy. Rick tries to be diplomatic in not killing him right away, but after crazy guy freaks out more and more, Michonne takes it upon herself to stab him. It’s not really clear if he was dead or not, but Rick and Daryl don’t hesitate a second before pushing him out the front door to feed the zombies while the humans escape out the back. The episode ends with them outside the gates of Woodbury, ready to kick ass and take Team Glaggie home.

Likes:

• Carl’s turned tough as nails, and he and Daryl have a newly formed bro-dynamic.
• Rick and the group don’t even waste a minute before taking off to rescue Maggie and Glenn.
• Glenn stepping up and being a badass!
• Maggie staying tough against The Governor.
• Right after showing the zombies munch down on crazy guy from the house, after it showed the guts and chunks of human flesh hanging out of the zombies’ mouths with pools of blood everywhere, it cuts to a commercial break and the very next thing you hear is “Brought to you by KFC.” Love it!
• The music in the last scene was so intense!

Dislikes:

• Glenn getting tortured.
• The Governor’s creepy almost-raping of Maggie.

This is the Action Flick Chick, and you’ve just been kicked in the ass!