Sunday, October 28, 2012

the walking dead season 3 liveblog! episode 3: walk with me!

8:30 - heya!

do you like the walking dead?
and hallowe'en?

and super scary gory fun?
will then hot diggity, do we have an hour of fun for you.
(eww, we said hot diggity. we're sorry.)

this week on the walking dead:
will rick slay more people for fun?
will everyone just kill for fun?
hey, michonne. what's up with her?
helicopters?
merle?

join us after the cut for all this and more, on episode 3: walk with me.

neil young is always appropriate.



8:35 - well, you're early. that shows enthusiasm! we like enthusiasm. unforunately, there are very few ways for us to reward that. but grab a seat and say hi, and maybe we can make some friends. 
(ed. note: the staff of prettymuchamovie liveblogs, reviews and party planning in no way seek to establish actual friendships.)

8:45 - anywho, as we sit around and wonder what everyone's favourite zombie thriller has in store for us, we're somewhat worried about the [fuck you, it's not a spoiler if you watched the end of last week's episode] return of merle will mean to the citizens of this crazy walking world.

i hope he's like... inspector gadget, and has appendages for different situations. maybe even like, a crack pipe, for his crazy crack-headed racist-ass rants. also, he makes that face a lot.

 8:50 - in the usual rundown we'll remind you that today's episode is brought to you by james ready beer, hakutsuru sake, and david's teas. yum yum, so little of this would still be around.


 or maybe there's still liquor.



9:00 - hey, do you remember last week? or hell, even the part where merle went missing?
andrea went missing too, but she met michonne.

we start with the sound of a helicopter fading in. it's whiskey 12. but it's a helicopter. that's pretty neat. the sound is quite nice.

these guys are obviously army, cause they're loaded up and wearing fatigues. they're encountering problems and going down.

"mayday, mayday, mayday," the pilot says.

everyone braces for impact as the chopper goes down smoking.

"we're going in hard!"

aaand then the chopper smacks up a tree.

 
(seriously, this shit is bad.)

9:02 -so andrea, michonne and the boys saw this.

andrea gives michonne a look, and in that direction they go, michonne dragging her walkers and others following along.

these two are a real team now. very communicative.

oh, hey. it's a commercial. aren't we lucky.


9:05 - and we're back. the ladies come upon the wreckage and andrea's still real sick, vomiting all over the place.

michonne chains her mules up to the tree and takes a closer look at the crash site.
we get a good look at her character here.

woooow.
one of the army fellows is cut properly in half, presumably by the blades.
he's on the outskits.

oh boy.
a few cars have pulled up!
michonne runs back to andrea as even more cars arrive.

gee. wonder who this is.

9:07 - armed men survey the scene.
their leader barks

"fan out."

there's a really nice music cue.

walkers are close, but the leader of this group urges his men to "save those rounds 'til you you need them."

here we meet another dude with a bow and arrow.

there's some slow and steady walker clean up as michonne and andrea hide.
andrea looks reeeeally sick.

9:09 - it appears andrea and michonne are safe, they're happened upon by a walker, but it passes by.

"over here, chomper!" one of the governor's crew remarks (yeah, it's him). they arrow it.

andrea wants them to show themselves, but michonne seems interested in hiding.

dude that was cut in half on the ground gets loud, and he's turned. the governor gets his first (to us) kill here, snapping a blade through his skull.

9:10 - these people are methodical and equipped.

michonne's walkers grunt and pull, and andrea coughs as the men check the chopper.

the sounds of michonne's walkers unforunantely draw them over, and she beheads them herself, likely knowing the fate they faced.

everything gets quiet, and the crew at this crash seemingly doesn't suspect them.

"let's roll out, " the governor says.

9:11 - "uh-uh-uh, easy does it girl. mine's a lot bigger than yours."

 

ohhhh, fuck. it's merle. and he recognizes andrea.
drink for merle, and knifey spooney

"oh oh oh, blondie. and you look good."

he kills a walker that comes upon him with a stump bayonette.

give him time, he'll get there.
(link)

"how's about a hug for your old buddy merle?"

9:13 - there's some interesting dialogue on the radio about infirmary space required for andrea and michonne as they drive through woods filled with hanged walkers. nice spooky music cues, and creepy shots.

"michonne?" andrea asks
"right here," michonne responds.

we go to commercial with merle making one of his quiet. shhh faces.

9:16 - well, now andrea is being treated by a nurse. her and michonne want to leave, but can't.
told so pretty cryptically. but hey, here's merle to prove that he's real and whatnot.

"i guess this old world gets a little smaller at the end, right?" he asks.

he explains he was near bled out and starving, near suicide when these folks found him. he mentions daryl, and asks about him.

andrea says she hasn't seen him for a long time.
but she tells him rick and daryl went back, and he was already gone.

then he laughs and says, "not all of me" and flashes his stump.

"yeah, rick. he's that prick that cuffed me to the rooftop," he says, fastening his bayo-fist back on.

there's conversations about who's tried, and who's dead. jim, dale, jackie, sofia, amy.

"your sister?" merle asks
"she was a good kid. i'm sorry to hear it."

this feels genuine.
andrea gets all nostalgic and  talks about the farm and daryl's leadership there.
how she got left behind after.

"i know what it feels like," she says.
"i doubt that," merle says.

michonne hasn't spoken yet.

andrea wants to know what they want, and merle wants a thanks.

"there she sits, four walls around her, roof over her head, medicine in her veins, and she wants to know what i want from her."

he calls michonne mutie before she says "you had a gun on us."

she's ferocious.  we love her.

merle asks who hasn't had a gun on them in the last year, says he'd be pissing his pants at the hypothetical guy that comes ambling up with his hands in his pockets.

"thank you," andrea says.

michonne is pissed.

the governor walks in, authoritatively shuts the door, and silences merle.

9:22 - the women want their weapons back.
the governor says they can have them back when they're done.

oh, shit. andrea and michonne don't know people turn regardless.
they have a lot to learn.

the governor is keeping their weapons to protect his people.

"it doesn't matter.  however we die, we all turn.  i put them out of their misery."

he explains this must be hard to take.

he explains they're guests, not prisoners, and they're free to leave later.
they simply don't open the doors after dusk.
he offers food, extra ammo, their weapons back, and extra food for the road (so to speak).

... all in the morning.

he leads them down a hallway and opens a door.
this is all very a boy and his dog

9:23 - "welcome to woodbury," the governor says.

he then tells them to come with him.

they walk through the streets of this city/town to a wall.

"are you military?" andrea asks

"hardly," he tells her " a couple of vets, but by and large we're self trained."

there's a lot of heavy artillery here.

the whole town is blocked up that way.

ooop, now they call them creepers here.

 

merle wants this one.

"governor? they call you that?" andrea asks.
 he explains some nicknames just stick.

freshen your drink, guv'na?

more walkers/creepers are dispersed, and we learn this 'burg has a population.

9:26 -  the governor welcomes them to a nice room, with water and clothes. but he still isn't giving back that sword.

andrea is asking about the pilot of the helicopter, but the governor is done. he has work to do.

"my man will be outside the door if you need anything else," he tells them, and leaves.

then we go to commercial.

9:30 - we're back and it's morning.

their guide is quite proud of their city. discussing their lack of casualties and amount of commodities.

andrea wants to know why dead ones are strung up like ornaments.

"...everybody copes in their own way... " the lady explains it away, or attempts to.

the guard from outside the door is trailing behind.

9:32 - the pilot is with the governor, and he's telling a horrible tale of infection spreading quickly through their base and ranks.

his group was small, but well equipped. they still didn't make it though.

"my guys?" the pilot asks.

the governor offers to go find the rest, bring them back and make them safe.

"they're out there. waiting for you, exposed. tell me where they are, and i promise you. i'll bring them back alive."

well, they sure do want you to think this governor fellow is a legit nice guy.

9:33 - and just on time he kicks his way into some laboratory/garage thing, where merle is being made fun of by scientists. or, a scientist.

governor wants info on "the girl"
clearly that can't be michonne, because, you know, racism.

he explains they're from the atlanta group that left him on a roof, and "forced him to mutiliate himself". merle wants him to talk to her again.
he wants to know about daryl.

9:35 - it turns out the scientist was dissecting/analyzing michonne's walkers/lurkers/creepers. apparently her mods are great. they don't want to eat if they have no jaws, because not eating decreases their appetite.  but their heads are still alive!  pretty unnerving.

the governor thinks they're camouflage.

"walk with biter, they think you're a biter."

it's interesting, how many questions, and how inquisitive these people are about the walkers and whatnot. and how smart michonne obviously is. that logic works very well with both the basic canon of the z-word, and even more specifically with that of this show in particular.

"they are starving.  they just do it slower than us."

9:36 - they discuss that letting merle go speak to the women alone could be a bad idea as the governor looks over a cardboard model of the town. huh. interesting.

9:37 - now we're eating at the governor's house. michonne, andrea, the governor and his scientist.  i love andrea and her consistent challenging of sexism!
they discuss walkers and how they'd like to be offed while plating food.
michonne sees her sword.

"no one believes there might be a trace of the person they were, trapped inside" they governor says.

the scientist won't use gendered pronouns, and only refers to walkers as it.

then he asks about michonne's friends.

"you did know them, didn't you?"

"let them eat," the governer commands.

9:38 - andrea asks if this place can hold up against a herd.  does she not realize the internet has been calling it a "horde?"  jeez louise, andrea!

"what's your secret?"

"really big walls."

she points out the soldiers had walls.

"the real secret is what goes on within these walls. getting back to what we were. who we were."

apparently they have schools, and jobs, etc.  structure.

 
(link)

"with a lot of guns and ammunition."

obviously the governor has appointed himself head of this whole deal.

"looks like you're sitting pretty at the end of the world," andrea says.
"do i strike you as the kind of man that sits pretty?" he asks.

he says people are the earth's seed, blah blah blah, and it's time to harvest, and they will rise again, and blah blah blah they won't eat each other.  christian dominionist thinking is reeeeeeally scary.

nobody acknowledges michonne.

9:41 - governor is excused, a man appears to discuss something.

the scientist asks how andrea's tea is.  clearly there is something going on with this beverage.

"we want our weapons back," michonne replies/demands, like a boss.

 
(link)

the governor reiterates they can have their weapons back when they leave.

"but you should relax... take a look around, who knows... you might like what you see."

and at that we're being told about hyundai, and presidents, and ewww

hey, as a point. the walking dead social media facebook game is dumb. like all facebook games.

9:46 - michonne and andrea are walking.

"i don't trust him," michonne says.
"why not? have you ever trusted anybody?"
"...yeah!"
"then give him a day or two, some time to get our shit together."
"my shit never stopped being together."

hahaha i love them
i need a romantic buddy comedy starring these two in the seven or eight months we didn't get to see.

 but less racist than this!  i mean, it is 2012.

okay, andrea wants to know a bunch more about michonne. because they've been together for 7 months and blah blah.
wait, no blah blah!  tonight's bloggers disagree, because i am all over this shit.

"we were with those walkers all winter and you just took them out."
"it was easier than you think," michonne retorts. because she is awesome.

she walks off, and that guy follows them in the distance.

9:48 - an army base appears... it's approached by the governor, waving a white flag from the driver's window of his car.

"we found your guy! wells.  lt. wells?  his chopper went down."

he says he's hurt, and the other guys didn't make it.

the men are happy.

"they got wells, they found him."

"sure did," the governor says. "and we found you too!"

then he shoots the front officer,  starting off a brutal ambush wherein this entire group of men is murdered. the last one living (whom the governor shot first) is beaten to death with his own weapon after the governor cuts it off of him, terrifying spit dripping from his chin.

"never waste a bullet, son," the governor informs a young underling, as they begin taking weapons from the dead (at the governor's command).
the subtle music cues underneath are awesomely tense.

a straggling soldier runs off in the distance... the governor takes aim and shoots him, then hands a knife to the man he spoke to earlier and says "go put a merciful end to that young man's days."

he turns and addresses the rest of his ambush team, who've emerged from the surrounding woods.

"let's see what uncle sam brought us."

commercial time.

this split up between groups for episodes is pretty awesome.
so are these trailers for life of pi. we should probably review one, no?

9:54 - back at woodbury, the gang returns from their raid. merle's stump is lacking blade at the moment.

the whole town gathers around, excitement in the air.

"we brought in three new people yesterday,"

the governor begins.

"i promised i'd bring them back here alive. but they didn't have our walls, or our fences. biters got there before we did. now, the men had trucks, and the trucks had weapons, food, medicines, things we need..."

ha! he tells the people to honour the men's sacrifices, and that dark is coming, so go to bed.  be thankful for what you have (ie, the governor himself).
andrea is eating this shit up.  first shane and now the governor?  andrea!  you are terrible at detecting egomaniacal bullshit!
...also, i can't keep letting this go.  when did andrea take the time to stylishly slash the back of her shirt like that?  it is ridiculous, and also cool-looking - and so distracting on two fronts.

she and the governor have a bullshit conversation (see?!), and she asks for his real name.

"i never tell," he says.
"never say never," she responds.

he stops smiling and takes three, menacing steps toward her.  "never."

9:59 - later reveal to his house.

brown-haired tour guide from earlier is naked in his bed.

he was once married to someone else though, and had a daughter? there's a picture of a family with him?

he pours himself and goes to sit in a room with fishtanks full of walker/biter/lurker/creeper/people heads. michonne's friends where there, as was the pilot it would seem. this reveal was very slow, and very, very creepy.  and some of them are alive maybe?  wow!!

that's it for this week's episode.
this tension in the andrea/michonne dynamic is interesting, given how new and relatively fresh it is to the show. they've established the governor and woodbury to be a very frightening place with relative ease, and merle himself is pretty darned scary... but compared in no way to the governor. throw in a helicopter crash and some fun kills, and this continues the run of awesome episodes. next week looks great though. will the two groups finally meet up? i miss daryl... and umm, well, maybe none of the other characters, which is a little off-putting.


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