The Walking Dead: When the Dead Come Knocking, Review

The episode starts out with Merle antagonizing and interrogating Glenn, who is duct taped to a chair. Maggie is in the next room listening to the whole thing. Glenn head butts him and then Merle kicks the crap out of him. Merle wants to know where Rick and Daryl are. Glenn is in rough shape–he’s bleeding from the ears and nose and his eye is almost swollen shut. Merle brings in a walker and closes the door, leaving Glenn trapped in the room with the zombie. In a valiant effort, Glenn kills the zombie, via a broken chair arm through the eyeball–easily zombie kill of the week, possibly zombie kill of the month!

The Governor takes care of Maggie’s interrogation after Glenn’s proves useless. The Governor removes Maggie’s handcuffs.  He then instructs Maggie to take her shirt off, then her bra. He takes his belt off and walks over to her. He acts like he is going to rape her if she doesn’t tell him where the group is. Luckily, he is just bluffing. He then brings Maggie into Glenn’s room and threatens to kill one of them. First, he holds a gun to Maggie and then holds a gun to Glenn. Maggie gives up her group’s location,and the Governor leaves Maggie and Glenn together in the room. 

Michonne thinks she is safe among the walkers at the gate. However, because she is bleeding from the bullet hole, the walkers realize she is not one of them and attack.  Michonne passes out shortly after from loss of blood. Rick and Carl come to her rescue. They lock her up for safety, but tell her they want to help her. Michonne tells Rick about Woodbury and the abduction of Glenn and Maggie she witnessed. Herschel stitches Michonne up. 

Rick, Daryl, Michonne, and the two inmates set out for their trip to Woodbury, leaving Carl behind. They get to within a mile of Woodbury and then decide it is safer to walk through the woods. They are attacked by a swarm of zombies. The crew finds themselves retreating and hole up in a house in the woods. Within the house, they find a man alive. He is too loud, so Michonne decides to kill him to save everyone else. The crew then decides to use the man as a buffer between them and the zombies surrounding the house and so feed him to the zombies while they make a run for it.

The Governor brings Andrea to see a man named Michael Coleman. This is an eerie scene–we don’t know what is going on here. It appears that the old man is dying. The scientist asks Andrea to play the first song on the record. Then starts asking a series of questions about the old man. The scientist reveals to Andrea that he is trying to determine whether or not there is a conscious mind after the transformation. Andrea warns the scientist 

Carl decides to name his baby sister after his third grade teacher, Judith. However, writers didn’t include why Carl is fond of his former third grade teacher. This would certainly have been sn “interesting” little detail for all of us. While probably not direly important to the story, I would still like to see a flashback to explain why Carl named the baby after his third grade teacher. 

I’d like to see some more character development with Beth. As of now, she really hasn’t had much of a role within the group or on the show at all.  ’d like to see her step up, now that we have seen some characters die off this season (r.i.p. T-Dog and Lori). 

I noticed a  recurring theme each week during the AMC’s story sync–which I love, by the way.  Each week, the question is asked, “Who kills the most walkers this episode” and the winner is always Michonne by a vast majority; clearly viewers think she is the most vicious.

I am predicting that the war between team prison and team Woodbury is going to leave us with the death of a character–but who?  Hmm…it won’t be Herschel or Carol, because they both recently had brushes with death. I don’t think it will be Michonne either because she was just introduced this season. It obviously won’t be Rick, as he is the glue that holds the show together.  It won’t be Carl, either, because the writers have already done the whole kill-a-child-to-shock-the-viewers thing.  The Governor won’t be the victim because, like Michonne, he is too new to the show so it really wouldn’t deeply affect the audience. That leaves the following characters:  Daryl, Andrea, Glenn, Maggie or Merle. I could see one of two scenarios playing out. First, I really don’t see Maggie or Glenn being killed off, because it would be the most obvious scenario–they showed them both at gunpoint in next week’s episode trailer. It is possible that  Daryl and Merle meet in battle and one of the two kills the other (my money would be on Merle dying in this scenario). It is also possible that the show plays off the Governor’s newly found closeness with Andrea and kills her off. I think Andrea’s death is the more likely scenario, as Frank Darabont (creator) has focused more so on Andrea and the Gov than he has on Daryl and Merle.

Overall, tonight’s episode was a great buildup to next week’s mid season finale. The episode was filled with some memorable zombie kills and fast paced progression of the story; it was hard to keep up–almost. Tonight’s episode is well deserving of a  9 out of 10 rating,and definitely leaves us on the edge of our seat for next week’s mid season finale. 

Gore Meter:

8/10 for gore this week.