The Walking Dead; 3.08 "Made to Suffer" (open spoilers)

It’s not the deaths so much as the timing. An old black character must be killed as soon as a new one is introduced so that we always keep to our quota.

The more I think about it, the more I think the Epic Climactic Mid-season finale battle could’ve been great but ended up being stupid. It’s like they spend 5 minutes figuring out the fight choreography. I mean, there are dozens of writers, stunt choreographers, armorers, etc. and they came spend some time to come up with a better execution of the big battle? It was almost nonsensical.

They should’ve either emphasized the previous theme of our group = hardened, woodbury = soft, or at least had our people come up with a clever plan using their initiatve. The smoke grenades were on the right track, except smoke grenades make no sense (why would a prison have those?), and they weren’t even used correctly (you don’t stand on the middle of a street in the middle of the smoke and fire away). They would’ve showed our group to be both clever, explained how a small group could take on bigger numbers, and used their environment better if instead of smoke grenades they used teargas, and they used the gas masks from the prison. It could’ve even been fairly organized and planned rather than the ad-hoc “throw smoke on the road and stand on it” plan that we actually saw.

We had a chance to make our group look badass, make the situation more plausible, and make a more interesting fight, but instead we got basically violence vomit all over the town.

Tokenism.

That scene drove me nuts. You’d think that Michonne would WANT Andrea on her side and against The Governer and that she’d want to expose Andrea to what a psycho the Gov. really is. Instead she just scowled and took off. What the hell.

I actually liked that prisoner until he started leering on Beth, now I’m all skeeved out by him.

Did anybody else notice Andrea accidentally refer to Penny as “Patty”?

They make Beth seem like she’s a 14 year old, and the guy has a natural skeeviness about him, so it definitely skews skeevy, but the idea of a 17 year old in a post apocalyptic world where you might only encounter a handful of women being off limits is kind of silly. I mean from an audience reaction standpoint - if the group wants to use social pressure on skeevy mcskeeverson, that’s fine.

I hope that they don’t kill “Mr. Skeevy” off too soon. I find him amusing!

I don’t think Axle came off as skeevy. He was very honest with Carol about what his motivation was. If he denied a sexual interest and tried to camoflage it with some bogus “just want to make friends” defense; that would be skeevy.

Another thing that occurs to me about the Axle character is that he’s been written to be an ironic counterpoint to Carl.

Carl (the child) is a dangerous cold blooded fellow with prolonged exposure to violence and a clear understanding of the new world around him.

Axle (the criminal) is naive to both the situation outside the safety of the prison and to even pre-apocalyptic social mores.

I don’t think Michonne knew it was a zombie girl until she took the mask off. If she had, she wouldn’t have bothered even taking it off, and she especially wouldn’t have freed the child or put her sword down. She’s have just killed it.

Yes, and despite the zombie like sounds she heard, the girl was wearing immaculate clothing. That’s just not something you see on a zombie, ever. So I assumed that’s what made her think it was a normal child.

She could’ve interpreted the girl, I suppose, as feral - like if she were a real girl locked up by the evil governor for some reason. But yeah, kind of ridiculous.

I’m not sure if it’s written that way. It seems to me sometimes that sound guys go off on their owns to add elements to a scene that would betray the writers intent. The scene would make a lot more sense without the zombie noises, and it’s plausible that the girl/zombie would keep quiet for a few moments, so why not portray it that way?

It seems obvious to me that Michonne thought that Penny was an imprisoned, living girl until she yanked off the hood. I’m not sure why that’s ridiculous.

It’s ridiculous because of the obvious zombie sounds playing when that happened, which is why it makes the character look stupid. The scene clearly called for silence. I have a hard time believing the writer actually called for the zombie sound (which ruins the suspense, since we’re expecting Michone to figure it out before she gets in danger), so I suspect the sound guys were being dumb.

As for some zombies retaining a hint of their former selves, wasn’t that established in the very first episode of the series? Rick was taken in by a man and his son, and the man’s wife was zombified and wandering around outside. She wouldn’t leave the area because she was somehow drawn to the house, and when he went to shoot her she stopped and stared quizzically at the house as if trying to remember something.

On the other hand, the doctor at CDC showed them the MRI that indicated that the entire brain was dead except for the tiny part that regulates a few base instincts like moving and eating. So it’s a contradiction. But I’m sure they at least hinted that some zombies retain a part of themselves right from the beginning.

I think you’re right. I’d chalk that up to a production error. It’s clear the writers wanted Michonne to think that it was a live little girl in there, and the zombie noises totally worked against that. I’ll bet the script just said something like “Michonne hears scraping noises and investigates”, and in post someone said, “okay, scene with little zombie girl. Needs some noise for Michonne. Cue our standard zombie breathing and grunting!”

She went further than that, actually coming to the door and turning the knob. There are other indications like that, but all but one are from the Frank Darabont era of the the show. Under the Glen Mazzara regime, the only occurance like that was a walker trying to avoid Rick’s revolver in “18 Miles Out”, which was much more ambiguous than the other instances. I’d like for the idea to be portrayed on the show going forward.

It’s not out of the question that in some zombies, a bit of the remaining electrical activity could “light up” a part of the higher brain functions.

Yep, the sound mix really harmed that scene. You’d think more attention would be paid to these matters, on a show with the ratings TWD gets.

Indeed, upon revealing the zombie-Penny, Michonne immediately raises her sword to kill her, before being interrupted by The Governor.

I though he was refreshingly honest and human about it, though my girlfriend found him creepy. The lesbian/short haircut exchange with Carol added some much needed levity to the episode.

Yeah, I’m hoping for more scenes like that. The series can be pretty grim and dark – why not have an occasional laugh? A little variety is a good thing!

Huh. I seem to remember her being shocked/disgusted after removing the hood, but I could be wrong. But my impression was that her reaction to the whole room (the heads in tanks, the little girl) was one of incredulous shock, like “Oh my God… The Governors even more crazy than I thought!” when she herself has done similar things.

Here’s a thought about the floating heads: have we ever seen the Governor kill a zombie? Is it possible the heads represent the zombie’s he’s had to dispatch? He seems to have a soft spot for people who’ve turned, and is determined to find out if/how they can be cured. Could it be that he keeps them to assuage his guilt over the wholesale massacre of beings that he seems to believe are simply very sick human beings? Perhaps he considers himself the one person with faith in them surrounded by a sea of people who think they’re beyond help.

…or maybe the reason he gave Andrea is the full truth (that he kept them on hand to desensitize himself to them, to control his fear).

His zombie head display explanation to Andrea actually made me go “That…sorta makes some sense”.

I’m not sure it’s entirely fair to say that she has done something similar. She kept her two traveling companions in order to ward off other walkers. That’s a very practical purpose. And not really comparable to what the governor was doing.

Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. She was just doing what she had to do to survive.