by Bowie Ibarra
Thank you for taking a moment from icing your crotch from the severe Krav Maga-style kick to the nads delivered courtesy of 'The Walking Dead'. This season has been pretty amazing so far, and this one takes it to the limit and then goes further than anyone expected. Here's the ZombieBloodFights.com take on one of the most horrifying episodes yet.
THE LATEST WOODBURY NEWS
Meanwhile, back at the secured town of Woodbury, very much like the
secured town of Beeville in '
Down the Road: On the Last Day', Michone
takes a closer look at the vehicles and resources brought into town the
day before. She notices the bullet holes and blood on the vehicle when
The Governor appears, trying to keep her and Andrea from leaving. But
he also pitches her a position as a recruit into his fire team/death
squad, appealing to her survival and fighting skills. She's not buying
in, and walks back to her room with Andrea.
Michone takes a map and tries to form a plan with Andrea to run to the coast. But Andrea is not sold on leaving.
Andrea leaves Michone and finds Merle, sharing the location of the farm where his brother is at. She asks him if the Governor is to be trusted. Since the Governor saved his life, his answer is yes and he leaves.
But he goes to visit the Governor and asks permission to go out and find his brother with Andrea's info. Merle wants to take a team or go alone, but the Governor says he is needed here. In fact, he puts the whole safety of the town on his shoulders. But he says if more concrete info is found, the Governor would go with him.
Andrea visits the Governor back at his place and talks about her plans for leaving. They share some whiskey and talk about themselves. Andrea talks about the family she had lost. The Governor reveals his wife died in a car accident before the zpoc hit, and his daughter survived. Sounds fishy to me. In the end, the Governor makes goo-goo eyes at Andrea and tries to keep her there with his silky voice and subtextual language. Andrea is lured in by his snake charm, but pulls away and bails on the meeting. Andrea leaves, but not before the Governor reveals his name as Phillip.
Also, no kiss out the door. Now why would he do something like that with that kind of golden ticket for some sugar?
That's when Andrea returns to Michone and recommends staying just a few days more. Michone is not happy with that.
THE HUGE DEVELOPMENT AT THE PRISON
The show opens with a mysterious person breaking out of the prison, setting dead deer as some kind of bait to lure zombies into the prison. It looks like one of the prisoners.
While that's going down, members of the WD Crew are fortifying the prison. Well, apart from Glenn and Maggie, who have spent the night and early morning banging it out in the guard tower. After joining their friends, they find the two prisoners, Axel and Oscar, who were given a cell block have moved from their cell, claiming they hate being there. Rick says they'll give them some supplies for a week to give them a start in the zombie wasteland. One of the prisoners tries to make friends with Daryl to no avail and to the ridicule of his fellow prisoner.
Good old Herschel has grown tired of laying in bed and wants to go for a breath of fresh air. The girls take him for a walk outside as they see the men come back in from gathering supplies and resources outside the prison. Both groups are separated from each other by the series of prison gates, but are still close enough to share a moment, including Rick and Lori.
But a peculiar camera pan of Herschel, Carl, and the ladies begins, starting with Lori and an empty background. And as per that suspicion, by the end of the pan with Carl, the zeds have somehow returned to the interior of the prison, and the panic sets in. Herschel and his daughter find a secure spot, Lori, Carl, and Maggie are cut off and find another spot. Rick and his team have to negotiate the locked gates to get to them.
But even inside the prison, Lori and gang find the interior to be overrun.
That's when the alarm goes off. Rick and the others think the prisoners
did it, but they're just as stumped as well, even with a gun to their
faces.
As Rick and the others make their way in, T-Dogg gets bit trying to resecure a section of the prison. Carol follows for an assist. But it doesn't take long for them to get cornered. In a final gesture of courage, T-Dogg sacrifices himself to give Carol a chance to escape. And we get a great shot of some of the work of Greg Nicotero.
Lori, Maggie, and Carl find a hiding spot in a boiler room. It's a pretty urgent need as Lori is having contractions from the stress. It's baby time.
Rick and his team reach the alarm room and are jumped by the little guy that Rick locked out two episodes back. He survived and caused the mayhem. After a struggle, Rick and the little guy are held at gunpoint by Oscar. Just when Rick thinks he's going to be blasted, he takes out the little guy and passes the gun over.
Lori knows she's going to have to have the baby, and the only way she will be delivering the baby is by c-section. Maggie is going to have to use Carl's dirty knife for the procedure, and after she says a heartfelt goodbye to her son, powering him up one last time for the future, Maggie digs in with a great shot of the cut featuring more great work from Nicotero. Maggie takes the baby from Lori's stomach into her grimy hands as Carl chooses to stay behind to put her mom down. There's a great piano and violin-laden flashback back at the barn where daddy Rick tells Carl the shits going to get real and he's got to be ready for it.
And with that, he puts down his own mother and follows Maggie back out.
Rick and his team find the remains of T-Dogg, and also Carol's scarf. When they return outside, they discover the news of Lori's birth as Maggie and Carl arrive. With no Lori in sight, Rick and the WD crew know the answer. And in a powerful moment, Rick, the backbone of the WD Crew, breaks down. Rick had been distant from Lori, and they hadn't got along as best as they could. They never had a chance to work things out.
But the big news now is how are they going to feed the baby and keep it quiet?
If there was one episode that highlighted how much you should tell those you care about what they mean to you, this was it.
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Bowie Ibarra is the author of the 'Down the Road' zombie horror series
from Permuted Press and Simon and Schuester. His latest zombie story,
The Fall of Austin, tells the story of military, police, convicts, and citizens of the Texas capitol as they deal with the zpoc.
You can network with Bowie and read about his Tex-Mexploitation stories at his personal website,
ZombieBloodFights.com.
