The Walking Dead Season 3 Liveblog! Episode 5: Say the Word

hey! you're back, and so are we!
it's sunday again, and so we'll be here liveblogging The Walking Dead.

Today's episode is called "Say the Word", which inspires further musical references.

The Beatles are well aware of the word, and its implications.

What does this week's episode have in store for us?

How will Rick cope with Lori's death?

hint: not well. probably about as well as the writers? who's the lady trope now?

How will the deaths of two members (and a potential third?) affect the group?

How will Carl adapt to having a little sister?

...will they name her?

How will Daryl find formula or baby food out there in walker land?

Daryl is by far the most stylish of Rick's group.

Oh, right. Stuff will also happen involving Woodbury, and Merle, and Carol, and Andrea, and Michonne, and the Governor, and this will all eventually intersect. Spoiled!

Hop, Skip, and Jump along with us to find out all about what happens this week, and how many walkers get beaned.

8:30 - sooo, this is like the beginning of a party, when the cool kids haven't showed up yet. you've clearly misjudged how long transit was going to take you. you're here early, basically. the host invited everyone for this time, but, seriously... who's punctual these days? well apparently you are. and we commend that. thanks a lot for coming out. we're busy running around, preparing all the little gadgets and doodads required for a liveblog so talk amongst yourselves. there's chips and pop, and you can put on some cds if you want.

yummy.

 8:45 - not to keep harping on the food business, but we get really thirsty during these liveblog dealies. as a result, we tend to drink a bit.

today we're drinking some Tankhouse Ale from Mill Street Brewery, some La Fin Du Monde from Unibroue, and as per usual a bit of the leafy from David's Tea. Not sure what you drink, but you better get it lined up. We hear there's a bit of a party in Woodbury tonight!

merle gets silly when get drinks.

9:00 - of course they want to show us what happened last week. of course it was quite dark, and pretty sad. of course we wonder how they'll top it this week.

9:01 - more a boy and his dog references as we open up. a little girl plays fetch through a party at woodbury town centre.

scientist boy, looking all 50's and pleasantville brings andrea a drink.

i bet you these people live down the block from the governor.

andrea wants to know what's on tap for tonight.

"few words can describe the festivities ahead for tonight," she's told.

in the background, michonne struggles with the locals, bumping shoulders with one in a group of men. nice.

9:02 - shit. in the next scene we meet the governor's daughther! drink.

we were psyched for this. glad the writers decided she exists.

he was combing her hair, all domestic style, classical music in the background and her scalp ripped.
they struggle, but he puts a burlap sack over her head and calms her down.

"hey, hey. i'm here. daddy still loves you. you know that, right?"

this is fun and creepy.
the music cues are great.
but does that mean zombies can feel pain?  and why were her arms untied in the first place (she appears to be wearing a straightjacket)?

9:04 - just as the governor finishes subduing his daughter, he sees michonne out his window, looking in. presumably having seen everything?

good job, buddy.
leave the windows open.

i don't see this ending well for anyone.

and while i appreciate michonne's detective work, her stalking, spying and peeping tom propensities are, well, not seeming so wise.

anyway, commercial time.

9:07 - we come back to nice sound cues, rick not being able to hear much but low frequencies and a high buzz.

he comes back to, and everyone's discussing the emergency and need for food.

"not this one, not another one."

daryl starts shouting orders and organizing the crew.
 it's quite a good character development.  yay daryl!  he also leaves instructions with beth to look out for carl, since he just lost his mom and his dad seems to be coming unhinged.  dear writers: please do not advance a carl/beth storyline.  my stomach cannot handle it.

rick freaks out, grabs an axe and heads inside the cell block.

maggie and glenn are going with daryl to decide who accompanies him on a mission to find baby formula and supplies.

maggie wants to go. her and her great sweater.
glenn resists, but ultimately respects her decision.  yay glenn!
it's all very the dark knight, and the moment that made my heart break for harvey dent and the depth of his love and respect for rachel.

"trust me, harvey...bruce's penthouse is now the safest place in the city."

(link)

they share a cute kiss before daryl and maggie take off.

we cut back to rick, and he's cutting through walkers and making his way through the prison.

9:10 - back in woodbury, the governor discusses how far they've made it. coming from nine people holed up in an apartment with "spam and saltine crackers."

they toast their successes.

meanwhile, michonne and her crazy serious walk are in the governor's house, stealing her sword back.  heavy footsteps, don't you think?

she eyeballs some family pictures, and then goes through some important looking pages in a notebook. the last legible page is a list, the last (underlined, shakily-printed) name upon which is penny. then there are pages, and pages and pages of little lines. very the shining

look! another axe. the similarities are striking.  except the governor is way more hardcore, because longhand.

michonne closes the book and turns around, looking to pick the lock of the door behind her.

she's interrupted by science guy (sadly not bill nye), the governor and merle coming back, arguing about wasting resources with this party. science guy needs electrical resources for his...research.

the governor needs cases of hoplanta ipa.

the science guy wants to delay the party, but the governor says no.

9:12 - there's some tense moments, but the men leave, and michonne has already made her way out a window and into a very messy, bloody back alley. there's a bunch of guts, and pieces of walkers (or people) in a little cleared out area near a wall.

she's drawn by the sound of walkers to a fenced in area where dozens are kept.
why does every little group keep walkers on this show?
what do they hope to gain?

why doesn't michonne talk?

anyway, she opens the gate and unsheathes her sword.

they come at her, but there's just an awesome, awesome scene of arms and legs and heads coming off. torsos split in two, and heads stomped.

she's quite pleased with herself, as is everyone in this world where they seemingly kill for entertainment, but hey. happy michonne!

9:15 - there's a shot of a person with umm, slops? coming out, and we don't see who they are, but they go to commercial anyway.

9:17 - uh oh! someone's in trouble.

michonne is in a room with merle, and in comes the governor and out goes merle.

"you get off on that?" he asks. "poking around in other peoples things?"

"we got nothing to hide here," he tells her.

whoa! she breaks her silence.

"people with nothing to hide don't often feel the need to say so."

 "we all have our secrets."

"like penny?"

go-go gadget governor hairbrush!

(link)

so here's a pretty serious conversation. governor claims he's trying to do right by everyone. andrea wants to stay, michonne wants to go. it's tough.

he was totally going to give her sword back, though (yeah right). but now he's not.  waah.

he starts pacing around her with the sword.

governor's got a problem with michonne. she broke the rules. he can't have people breaking the rules, or else everyone will. he proposes a deal where she joins the research team in exchange for his silence.

"merle'll take care of ya, and ya ain't afraid of biters..."

she responds by tearing her sword from his grasp, placing it against his neck and backing away very slowly.

she storms out and merle comes back in.

"how'd it go?"

"she's a whole other personality that one."

merle asks if there's a problem, and the governor wants andrea.

9:21 - we cut back to glenn, and he's digging in the yard. axel and oscar stop by to talk.

glenn asks about the perimeter, and the men offer help.
glenn just wants to dig.

yes, even though they live in a reality where they don't know the word zombie, these people totally had minecraft.

 
oscar tells glenn how the group is obviously more than friends, more like a family. he's sorry they lost some.

glenn sees hershel at the fence, and gives the guys a shovel.

"we need two more".

we go over, and glenn and hershel is pissed. hershel calls andrew an "asshole" and glenn laments the loss of a third of their group in a day. he tells about how t-dog drove around with a church van picking up seniors when the evacuations were declared, just in case they needed rides.  and hey writers, these are really beautiful details and all.  but it sure would have been nice if you would have let t-dog showcase some of them himself, instead of revealing them after you already killed him off.  but whatevs.

he tells hershel he wishes they had killed all the prisoners, so that this wouldn't have happened.  he confesses that he'd sacrifice any stranger in order to keep his own safe.  oh, glen.  this makes me so sad.

anyway, he offers to go into the prison to bring rick out.

9:24 - we cut to andrea and the governor, and some he-said-she-said and michonne and her sword, and the biters they keep locked about.

the governor says they aren't barbarians.

what's that, lassie?  is racism stuck in the well again?

(link)

andrea goes back to michonne, who's freaking out and packing their shit. they have another throw down, and michonne points out that nobody leaves.

"nobody leaves unless they make you."

michonne then goes on to talk about the little girl in the house.

andrea says they need to try. michonne says she tried, and andrea points out that breaking into houses isn't trying.  except that this makes andrea sound reasonable, when we all know that the real reasonable thing would be to listen to michonne!

"this place is not what they say it is," michonne tells andrea.

9:26 - cut to glen tracking rick's rampage down the halls, following all the broken, halved skulls.
he comes upon rick who's in shock, staring down a bloodstain on the wall.

"rick? rick. i was worried about you. you shouldn't be in here."

glenn tries to convince rick that he doesn't need to do this on his own, and they can clear the cell block.

 a deranged rick is more interested in tossing glenn against a wall, wordlessly staring him down for like 30 seconds, and then tossing him away before we go to commercial.

9:30 - back with the woodbury boys and their fancy army trucks, it seems.

merle and some men approach some sort of solar powered turbine noise-maker dealy?
it looks like maybe it was a walker trap?

merle's excited.
he wants to kill some things.

the scientist is more interested in getting one of them out. merle makes him try it, and when they release the flock, one breaks free and starts biting the scientist. luckily, he's wearing some fancy biteproof shit that looks like duct tape.

(link)

it's quite interesting the pseudo-science these woodburians are getting up to. i wonder about the ramifications it will have down the line.

merle breaks and and clears the scene out rather sadistically with his hand-sword before knocking the last biter down and gleefully removing its teeth.

9:33 - maggie and daryl arrive at what appears to be a school? a building near a playground with cribs, any way.  probably a daycare.

maggie wisely breaks a window loudly and starts grabbing gear without assessing the scene.  spunky!

daryl jumps in and looks at a wall.
this wall has little kids' hands  on it with their names, y'know all traced out?
one was sofia and he gets emo.

some sharp tense synths start the next shot out, as our two friends eerily march down a shadowy hallway, arriving at one last room. there's a bit of noise coming from inside.

daryl walks around with a flashlight in his mouth and its funny and he's a pro.

9:35 - so anyway they pop the noisy closet open and it's a possum.
daryl shoots it.

and yay, now they have dinner!  thus ends the anticlimactic scene.

9:36 - back in woodbury, angela and michonne are trying to leave, and merle is having none of that.
"it's late it's near curfew, and the party's still on. i'd have to arrange an escort."

merle turns to talk to one of the guards about the kerfuffle.

"the governor told us we were free to come and go whenever we like," andrea says getting up in merle's face.

"sweetheard, nothing personal here, but you're going to have to take a step back."  and so she...does?  i don't know, man.  andrea.

"see, always a reason we can't leave," michonne tells andrea as she returns back to her.

suddenly there's a loud unlocking noise, (yay!) and a guard calls out "clear."

merle opens up the gates

"now if i was y'all, i'd find some shelter before nightfall," he tells them

"they knew we were coming, this is all for show!" michonne is still skeptical, but andrea is having none of it.

michonne wants to go. andrea says she begged to governor to let michonne stay - albeit, against michonne's wishes. she doesn't want to live on the road, or in meat lockers, eating twigs.

"and you -"

"- what about me?"

"i'm afraid you're going to disappear."

andrea goes on about how they always wanted a place like this. a refuge.  but michonne sticks to her proverbial guns.

"are you coming?"

"don't give me this, don't give me an ultimatum."

there's a bunch of lip-twitching and sadness, and then michonne turns.

(link)

"you just slowed me down, anyway," michonne tells andrea, and walks away.

merle quickly closes the gates as runs toward them, calling after michonne. the scene ends with michonne walking away and andrea watching at her through slats in the fence, perhaps already regretting her decision.

andrea needs to wisen up. this lady kept her alive through her fever/flu, whatever. she's not taking off or freaking out for no reason. anyway, commercials.

9:43 - back in woodbury, andrea sits sadly on a bench.
the governor comes over to console her.

"sorry things didn't work out with your friend. weird to lose someone by their own hand. thought those days were gone."

now he offers her a drink. he always wants people to drink, it seems. interesting.

"something to take your mind off it."

apparently you can drink on the streets in woodbury.

9:44 - night has fallen completely now, and maggie and daryl return to the prison, blasting their way through walkers with precious, precious formula.

daryl walks in and takes the baby from carl, and begins feeding it with his pre-set bottle with formula ready to go. daryl's got this situation on lockdown. when the baby stops crying, daryl asks if it has a name yet.

"maybe sofia..."

carl starts off. then he names literally every woman on the show that's died, ending with lori.
 everyone gets sad.

daryl suggests asskicker as a name.

"you like that?  huh, little asskicker?  you like that, sweetheart?"

aww.

9:46 - shiiii

so rick finally gets to the boiler room that little asskicker was birthed in.

but umm, the body's not there. some guts are, but not the body.

rick finds a bullet casing on the ground, and a path of blood and stuff the ground that obviously leads to a fucking walker that's eaten lori.

because rick is crazy he shoots the walker in the head and then goes back to get the birthing knife for little asskicker.

of course, he comes back to the walker and starts stabbing the hell out of its huge, bulging stomach with the knife that carl carried around that ultimately dealt what would have been a fatal wound to lori.  i guess that's marginally less gross (but also way less interesting!) than my prediction, which was that he would attempt to carve out lori's remains.

the parallells between the shots, walker belly, lori belly, were quite umm... creepy? but hey, that's a show about zombies/pregnancy body-horror for ya.

any way, yeah, rick goes stabby and we go to commercial.

9:53 - nighttime at woodbury, and there's a real party, with real (what would have been licensed) rock and roll music that i frankly, can't really remember the name of.
edited to add: apparently it's lynyrd skynyrd's "mr. saturday night special."  and we are choosing not to link the video due to their recent decision to keep representing themselves with racist iconography.  clearly, it's their loss.

"little loud," andrea says.

just then, the music starts blaring, and the lights go up.

apparently merle and another man are going to murder up some chained-up walkers.

andrea looks on horrified as the citizens literally cheer on merle who's going to kick some biter ass
"no-handed."

a man lifts a child up on to his shoulders so he can watch.
oooh, i see. this isn't the men fighting the biters. the men are fighting each other, with the biters at ringside? like wrestling? like a lumberjack match, mixed with mma?

(link)

it seems like as the rounds go on the referee extends the biters' chains?

andrea tries to leave.
the governor stops her.

he asserts this is simply to blow off some steam.

andrea calls it barbaric and crazy, but the governor stops her yet again, misunderstanding the nature of her reaction.
oooh, it turns out this is staged, and fake like wrestling.  somehow the governor thinks this will mitigate andrea's feelings?  super creepy.

these are the walkers that have their teeth pulled out.
okay then.

the governor explains this is about making people not scared of the biters.
not sure he gets the point, but hey, his daughter is a biter.  maybe he would know.

merle pins the other guy for the 1-2-3 (which he counts in spanish, because merle is racist), just like in 'rasslin'

9:58 - we cut to morning, with shots of the sunrise over razor wire.
daryl is is paying his respects to a grave, one with a 'c' of rocks in front of it? probably carol's? maybe lori's? who knows?

9:59 - back inside, rick is going crazy, and hearing a baby crying. then a phone ringing... but the phone is actually ringing? the phone?

andrew lincoln is great.

"hello?"

aaaaaand, that's the show.

okay. that was pretty good. lots of gory walker kills. development in terms of some stories, mostly michonne and andrea and the woodbury business. they also developed a bunch of the creepiness that is science and politics of woodbury.

they've introduced the governor's daughter, which is great.
they've introduced the phone which is great.
michonne got to speak, which is great!
but they over-used cliff-hangers.  which is not great.  and also i got bored sometimes.