Great episode for character development. I loved Michonne in this episode. She has the same traits as Carl - “I don’t know you, I don’t trust you” and they bonded over that in some strange way.
Ignoring the hitchhiker was a great example of how unsympathetic everyone has to be now. They can’t take in more people because it’s just too risky. Oh, you were ripped up by a walker? Well then, we’ll take your backpack because we need all the supplies we can get.
Michonne: Carl, stay here.
Me: Ooh, Michonne, Carl’s not good at listening…
But I was wrong, the kid’s grown up 
It can’t be that hard to find a serviceable car somewhere- certainly easier than trudging through woods and down abandoned roads with a heavy backpack. Why would anybody be hoofing it?
I see it mostly as Rick’s character development as he is the one who would be really good at convincing others that if they do not help they would lose their way. Which means – as is shown in other scenes – Rick is losing it. That whole change is capped by his inability to reach to Morgan and change him. Or, maybe he didn’t want to try too hard… but the depression keeps sinking in for the whole group… it’s only going to explode in some very spectacular way, I think.
The hiker running down the road reminded me of the videogame Day-Z. If you’ve never played it, it is a common sight to see newly spawned and inexperienced players (given the derogatory nickname “bambis” by the general community) hauling ass as fast as they can down the middle of the main road with no idea where they are going. They are usually quickly shot by a sniper, swarmed by zombies or run down by a car.
I would assume they grabbed a mixed bag of M4, M16s, AR15s that all use the same STANAG magazines and ammo. Plus some handguns and scoped rifles for reaching out and touching people at a distance.
Honestly, assuming the Governor doesn’t have tanks or heavy equipment for breaching the walls (which he may), a half dozen people with hunting rifles could hold that prison against a lot of people with nothing but small arms.
And introducing a stranger this late in the game might be more risky. “Hi! Welcome to our prison! By the way we are about to go to war with an army 10 times our size!”
Great episode. Another vote for letting Michonne speak more often. I had a feeling Morgan was going to show up as soon as I saw the “Previously, on TWD” scene with Rick and the radio. I loved the idea about the animal traps too. I didn’t understand at first why there were caged pigeons and then it was made very clear. Though, I feel bad for them XD
As for Morgan not coming along, that’s fine. Because if he joins the group, we lose Tyreese. Remember the rule about only one main black guy in the show? I’d rather not lose either of them really, but I do love me some Tyreese.
But I want to comment on the scenes for next week. W.T.F. Andrea. When I thought you couldn’t get any more fucking annoying, you go and pull that shit. Omg :smack: Can she please die soon? Please?
Actually, I was sure it would end with them passing the hitchhiker on the way back and Rick insisting that they stop to pick him up.
I thought.the message of the episode was the value of saving one another and the importance of being there for one another. Morgan seemed quite emphatic on this point. Without others, the isolation of the zombie apocalypse makes one go crazy, and while Morgan was too far gone to be saved, Rick was not quite there yet, and others are still out there to be saved.
I was wrong.
Can we have a moratorium on the insane characters, please? We’re at, what, 4? Rick, the Governor, the hermit in the cabin, and Morgan? It’s more than enough lunacy. Insane characters lead to bad, lazy writing, and it’s much harder for their actions to have any real meaning or thematic weight.
Glad to see Michonne’s syllable budget has been increased. I am puzzled as to why Rick is happy to let her hang around and go on runs, when she supposedly betrayed them by leaving the team during the Woodbury infiltration. Meanwhile, folks who’ve done nothing to anger Rick, like Tyreese’s group or that poor bastard on the road, are brushed off. Seems like if you can stand near Rick for at least five minutes, you become acceptable to him and can stay. If you can’t make that connection, you’re left for dead.
Rick and the Governor are both such wretched people that the Woodbury vs. prison conflict is basically like the ape fight in 2001: beast fighting beast. There’s no humanity in either of them.
Will they find anything useful in that backpack? Weapons, medicine, maps to the locations of other survivors? I imagine it’s full of clothes, camping equipment, photos, books, and granola bars, which they could easily scavenge from houses…nah, I think picking up the backpack of the dead guy just made a tidy statement at the end of the episode.
I was sure that was going to be the message and I was wrong too.
I just can’t figure out why Rick refuses to help anyone who appears sane but is always willing to risk everything to save someone who is clearly bat-shit crazy. Maybe he feels a kinship with the crazy. Watching Rick wrestle with his conscious every time when he makes the worst possible choice in every single situation is getting tiresome. That device is worn out.
I had no idea they were so close to home. For some reason, I though the Grimses were from Kentucky.
I saw the backpack at the end. I didn’t see the dude. Are we sure he’s dead? I kept expecting to see him run out of the woods, screaming “Hey, what the fuck! You took my backpack? You bastards!”
It was implied by the massive pool of blood and meat strewn about the road.
Pretty much. The guy was such a human skidmark that my first reaction was that he was nailed by some semi, even though that wouldn’t have made much sense.
Given my anticipated end to the episode and the message I had been working up in my head, the fact that they just swiped the guy’s stuff after letting him get killed was very darkly comic. Especially the manner in which they showed them backing up and grabbing it without even getting out of the car.
Yeah, the “I need to go off by myself” thing is just incredibly stupid.
Other than that, I did like this episode a lot.
I thought this was one of the best episodes of Season 3 and up in the top for overall. Lennie James delivered big time with Morgan, both in Season 1 and now in last night’s episode.
I generally agree with Human Action on crazy characters but I exclude Morgan and to some extent Rick. Morgan has been a mystery since early in Season 1 - what happened to him and his son Duane? Well, in the many months that have passed in show-time we see the result of Morgan’s decisions. His son dead as a result of his weakness/emotional attachment we saw in Season 1. The long isolation and despair and probably unending guilt wearing away a man’s sanity. This episode was full of comparisons between Morgan and Rick.
This is why I also exclude Rick. It has been a mystery with Morgan. We’ve seen where he was in Season 1 and now we saw that he has changed dramatically for the worse. With Rick, we have been seeing the week to week pressures, horrors, loss, and guilt slowly erode his ability. Maybe in the end, if Rick (or anyone) does not get eaten he/she will end up in the same way as Morgan by eventually mentally collapsing from the horror of it all. Maybe it just happened to Morgan faster due to the isolation.
I also thought the hiker was just a really powerful device in this episode. As they drove back, I kept wondering to myself that with what Rick just saw about isolation would he stop for the hitchhiker now if he was still alive?
Way too depressing. Why is Rick a total prick now? Seems like we’re going the Breaking Bad route… this story has lost all sense of hope.
It seemed like an episode from an alternate dimension got mixed up with the regular show. We had a whole lot of 2 dudes yelling at each other to little effect (as per normal), interspersed with a subtly comic, winking at the camera adventure/caper show starring Michonne and Carl. The bookends were excellently bleak and would probably fit nicely with the bizarro-world adventure of the week version of the show.
The bit with them carrying the playpen down the street was comedy gold. Why didn’t they fold it up? Because it’s funnier that way.
Carl: Why won’t it fold? It says portable right on the tag!
Michonne: Why are you looking at me?
One clarification: Breaking Bad totally works for me. A character goes dark in a world full of other characters with varying morality. (particularly the contrast with Jesse Pinkman)
This show is not going to work if it’s a character/group going dark in a world gone to hell.
Well, they were using it to carry a bunch of stuff, which seemed like a good idea. What I wondered is why Michonne was carrying the back end when they showed clearly that it had wheels on her end.
Yeah, I laughed out loud at that scene.