Marina’s Zombie Report: The Walking Dead, Season 3, Second Half

This post is dedicated to romance novelist Julia Barrett, who is mad at The Walking Dead since Shane died, but who wants me to write about the show, anyway.  And to short story writer Kelly Shew, who’ll be with me Sunday night with a blanket over her head because she doesn’t understand that you have to WATCH the violence to become desensitized to it.

The Walking Dead is baaaaaack!  No more mid-season break gloom and suspense and marathons of past seasons.  Daryl survived his fight to the death with his brother Merle, so no Facebook riots, either.  Actually, Merle survived, too.  Obviously, it was a fight to the nobody dies. 

The Governor, you see, couldn’t stand that his plan was working, that Merle was being forced to kill Daryl to show his loyalty to Woodbury…okay, damnit.  I didn’t understand why the Governor sent the zombies into the fight ring.  The Governor is a cruel, cold bastard.  It would have been far crueler and colder to let Merle kill his own brother than it was to send the zombies in.  Unless… the Governor sent the zombies in because the show needed something to unite Merle and Daryl because they had to not die and to kind of get along in future episodes.  There.  I said it.  The whole messing up of the fight to the death so the boys wouldn’t hate each other later pissed me off, although it didn’t piss me off as much as any given episode of The Walking Dead pisses off Julia Barrett since Shane died.

Rick and his fellow survivors rescue Daryl and Merle, who wander off into the woods together because nobody wants Merle around.  Soon, Daryl will feel the same way but, for right now, he doesn’t.  The rest of the survivors return to the prison, where Rick goes insane again, shrieking at Dead Lori, who looks much nicer in her white gown than she ever did in any other costume on the show.  The new survivors, who were hoping to stay on at the prison, take Rick’s screaming fit to mean that he doesn’t want them there.  Or maybe they realized that you can’t be a black actor and last long with Rick’s group.  In any event, they are gone.  (Oh, crap.  Michonne.  Michonne has lasted more than half a season.  But, to be honest, she says so little that I keep forgetting that she exists.)

The next episode was actually better than the mid-season opener.  Andrea is becoming the heart and soul of  Woodbury because she annoys me and she won’t go away.  We learn a little about Merle and Daryl.  Daryl gets tired of wandering around with Merle, and back he heads to the prison, with Merle following because ain’t nobody really wants Merle.  I can only assume that Merle is going to become Carol’s new love interest, considering her taste for convicts.  Back at the prison, Rick is following Dead Lori around outside the fences, Glenn is trying to take charge in a very I’m-Taking-Charge-Although-Nobody-Seems-To-Be-Following-Me way, and the Governor attacks.  Talk about your timing. 

In spite of being seasoned fighters, Rick’s group can’t hit shit when the Governor and his forces attack.  Maggie finally kills the sniper in the guard tower.  Daryl and Merle (has anyone besides me noticed that their names kind of rhyme?) arrive in the nick of time to rescue Suddenly Sane Rick from the truck full of walkers that the Governor’s men crash through the prison fence.  Glenn returns from his risky and lone (remember, no followers) mission to the back door of the prison in time to rescue Hershel.  More timing.

In spite of the fun I’ve made of the second episode of the second half of Season 3 of The Walking Dead, it was actually a better episode that the mid-season premiere.  I thought that Season 2 gained steam as it went.  I’m hoping we will get some steam going, this season.   Although I’m sure that Julia Barrett might not agree.