Happy Birthday

Recapped by M. Giant · Aired 11-04-2012 · S03E04

If I didn't know better, I'd think this was a season finale. In fact I did for a while there. But let's start with the boring stuff. Andrea's already going soft after her short time in Woodbury, giving Merle a map to Hershel's farm so he can go look for Daryl, and then allowing the Governor to charm her into staying a while longer. Michonne's staying too, despite being the opposite of charmed, including by Andrea. Merle wants to follow up the lead Andrea gave him, but the Governor seems resistant. And that's about all that's going on there.

The real action is happening in the prison. It looks like it's going to be a good day, with Glen and Maggie engaged in baby-making and the cars being organized and firewood being gathered and even Hershel back on his foot. The only problem is that the two surviving prisoners Rick banished to Cell Block D are pretty unhappy with their lot. Oh, and also the fact that a herd of walkers somehow gets in and everyone gets separated and goes into panic mode. Rick figures this is the work of the inmates, Axel and Oscar, but there's no time for recriminations; on top of everything else, the prison alarm is sounding and walkers are starting to line the outer fence. Hershel and Beth make it to safety inside a cage, while Lori, Carl, and Maggie seek refuge in their cell block, only to find it overrun as well, forcing them to flee into the corridors. While shutting the gate, T-Dog is bitten hard on the shoulder, and spends his last moments trying to guide Carol to safety, with a big, self-sacrificing finish. Rick, Daryl, Glen, Axel, and Oscar proceed into the prison to look for the others and shut down the generator, which is when they're suddenly attacked by Andrew, the Littlest Inmate, last seen being locked out in a tiny courtroom full of walkers by Rick. Turns out he was the perp all along. But despite surviving walkers, he can't survive being shot by his former fellow inmate Oscar, who appears to have picked his side.

Worst of all, however, is what befalls Lori, Maggie, and Carl. Lori picks the worst possible moment to go into labor -- while fleeing zombies. As you always knew she would. The three of them hole up in the boiler room and Maggie does her best to deliver the baby, but Lori's going to need another C-section, and they all know she won't survive it. Still, she insists that the baby needs to live, and Carl has to watch while Maggie cuts his mom open and fishes the baby out, alive and breathing. And then of course Carl has to blow his mom's brains out. So when Rick sees Maggie and Carl emerge from the prison with a totally different Grimes than the one they went in with, it's fair to say he takes it pretty hard.

Outside the prison on some foggy morning, somebody's got a gas can and a hacked-up deer carcass. The animal is dragged to a smashed-open gate, where it's used to distract a couple of walkers inside the courtyard. While they feast, the faceless figure uses an axe to smash the chain off the gate leading to the main yard, then sets the deer's heart down in the open gate. We never saw who was doing that, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't Rick.

After the credits and ads, Rick's leading the effort to get their cars inside the fence. They're also going to have a corpse-burning today. Carol, rocking a chemo-chic headscarf, figures this is too much work for her, Rick, Daryl and T-Dogg, so she wonders where Glen and Maggie are. They're up in the guard tower, of course, where they've been apparently spending a lot of time lately working on repopulating the earth. With some mocking from Daryl, they're persuaded to come down. The jovial mood is quickly spoiled, however, when the other two inmates come wandering up from Cell Block D, where Rick banished them two episodes ago. Rick doesn't make them feel any too welcome, but they whine about how their cell block is gross and haunted and filled with the bodies of their friends, plus the fence being down on their side means they have no place to burn the bodies. Everybody can find something to bitch about if they try hard enough. The twangy southern guy, Axel, says they had nothing to do with Tomas and Andrew (thanks for telling us their names two weeks after I needed them, dude), and begs to join the group. Rick tells them they can like it in D or lump it. The taller inmate, Oscar, gets upset and says they've paid their debt and they'd rather hit the road than go back. Rick looks around his group thoughtfully.

But then we cut to the inmates being locked back on their side by Daryl, who then rejoins the others. They seem to be debating allowing them in, if you can call it a debate when T-Dogg's the only arguing in their favor. Daryl remarks that he grew up with guys like this; "They're degenerates, but they're not psychos." But he still doesn't agree with T-Dogg. Rick shares the story of a bad guy he arrested who got acquitted after selling a whole sob story and then killed someone else, and insists that their deal stands.

In Woodbury, Michonne skulks around near one of the gates. She investigates the bullet holes and the deck gun on one of the trucks the Governor brought in during the episode, and the fresh blood under the gun. The Governor pops up out of nowhere, saying it's too bad she and Andrea are leaving. "Seem like you're holding your own," Michonne says. "Even the National Guard was overrun." She also points out the bullet holes, which the Governor chalks up to bandits. As for Wells, the deceased helicopter pilot, the Governor says the doctor couldn't revive him so Merle shot him in the head, prior to a quiet cremation. "I figured, thank God, at least no one knew him," the Governor says. "Thank God," Michonne agrees suspiciously and stalks off. No wonder the Governor wants her to stay.

Rick sends Glenn to move the cars so they're facing the road, out of the way but ready to go. The inmates are to be given a week's worth of supplies for the road. T-Dogg tries to guilt Rick that they might not last a week, but Rick snaps at him about whether he'd rather have the inmates' blood on his hands or Glenn's or Maggie's. "Neither," T-Dogg says. He's a pretty poor substitute for Dale. As the vehicles get moving, Axel helpfully offers to tune up Daryl's noisy bike for him, but they ignore him and head off as Oscar tells Axel to have some balls.

Inside the prison, Lori, Beth and Carl help Hershel up onto his new crutches for the first time.

Michonne is laying out her plans to Andrea for them to get to the coast, preferably a boat, ideally an island. Michonne clearly has never read World War Z, in which zombies can live underwater indefinitely and come shambling out of the surf at their leisure. Fuckers don't have to breathe, remember? Andrea's not entirely on board and wonders why they're bailing on Woodbury just because Michonne's gut tells her something's off. "It's kept us alive this long," Michonne reminds her. Andrea agrees that that's true. I'm sure she didn't contribute much to the effort.

Glenn leaves the two inmates penned in near a guard tower with a box of food, saying they'll cut them loose when they return. "Thank you, bro," Axel says, earning more mocking from Oscar. There are so many fences and gates in this episode, all right where they need to be at just the right time.

Glenn, Daryl and Rick exit the hole in the outer fence, and Rick alludes to how the prison armory was picked clean and that they're going to burn the bodies in the dog run rather than risk burying walkers in soil they'll want to plant crops in. I realize it's not a terribly interesting conversation, but those might be pertinent facts later in the season. Also, I'm glad to know that the narrow passage between the inner and outer fence is called the dog run instead of the hog chute. I wasn't too far off, I guess.

While the cars are being moved around by T-Dogg, Maggie and Glenn, Hershel comes outside on his crutches, surrounded by Lori, Beth and Carl. Hershel is glad to see the bodies already gone and the place looking like somewhere they can live. Rick and Glenn step inside the outer fence with Daryl armloads of firewood, and Glenn happily calls out encouragement to Hershel, only to attract a few walkers outside the fence. "Can't we just have one good day?" Glenn sighs. You don't know the half of it, buddy. Carol, T-Dogg and Maggie pause in moving the cars to watch Hershel up and about. So the ten of them are scattered around the grounds, in distant groups of three and four, all looking happily at each other across the yard. Even Rick and Lori share a smile, probably their first in months. Enjoy this special moment, everyone, because it's all going to go to shit in three... two... one...

Right on cue, a crowd of walkers wanders into view between the buildings behind Carl, Lori, Hershel and Beth, the most vulnerable of the three groups. But Carl and Lori seem up to the task of shooting down the attackers until Maggie gets there and joins in. Rick and Daryl sprint for the gate in the inner fence while Glenn rushes to reclose the outer one. Beth leads Hershel to safety in yet another small, fenced-off area and it turns out he's already able to use his crutches not only to walk, but beat back a couple of walkers along the way. Rick, Daryl and Glenn are locked inside the dog run, and there's some fumbling with the keys while Carol and T-Dogg join the fight in the central courtyard and start taking down walkers. Maggie, Carl and Lori make it safely inside, only to encounter numerous walkers inside Cell Block C, too, so they duck behind a grate into the corridors beyond. Outside, T-Dogg manages to get an open gate closed, but not without a stray walker coming up from behind him and taking a big, meaty bite out of his shoulder. He shoots it, and then follows Carol past more walkers towards safety, like it's not moot for him now. That'll learn him to argue in favor of the prisoners.

In Woodbury, Andrea gives Merle a map circling where the farm was. Merle seems fascinated with their progress and suddenly also with Andrea's boobs. "How come we never hooked up?" he suddenly asks out of nowhere. "You called me a whore and a rug-muncher," Andrea reminds him, as though otherwise she totally would have. Merle asks why she's doing this and she says she'd want the same if it were her family. I'm still waiting for her to mention to Merle that she shot his brother in the head once. Merle wonders if she wants to come with and look up the old gang, but quickly reads that she got ditched too. "Ain't that a big ol' pig-sack," he marvels colorfully. He says they got left behind by the same people, "and saved by another." She asks if he ever thought about leaving, but Merle maintains that the Governor's a good man. "I wasn't in the best of shape when he found me. He should have just kept on going." And if you can't trust Merle Dixon as a judge of character, whom can you trust?

Rick, Daryl and Glenn finally get past the two confused inmates and into the main yard and while killing zombies, Rick gets an update from Hershel and Beth, who are still safely inside that fence. Glenn slashes a walker's head in half with his machete and reports that somebody cut the chains allowing the zombies in. "You think they did it?" Glenn wonders, looking at Axel and Oscar wandering up. "Who else?" Rick spits, but his move is forestalled by the sound of a loud alarm. Yeah, that's the one feature of a prison you don't want in a zombie apocalypse. Rick and Glenn start shooting out loudspeakers, but not enough of them. Besides, the dinner bell's already been rung and walkers are starting to gather at the outer fence. That alarm can probably be heard for miles and it's not hard to envision a scenario where the walkers show up in sufficient numbers to push the fence over. Rick waves his gun at Oscar, who babbles an explanation about how the backup generators must have kicked on. But how could that happen unless somebody had a can of gas somewhere? Rick's main concern is whether it's possible to open the main gate electronically, but Oscar's not sure. They drag the prisoners off to go investigate.

Fleeing through the prison's catacombs, T-Dogg is giving Carol directions back to their cell block. Good thing he was along on Rick's zombie-clearing expeditions and knows the way. Carol is offering to help him out with his little problem; "It's the pact, remember?" but T-Dogg maintains that God will take care of him. "He always has." Well, until a few minutes ago.

Lori, Carl and Maggie are also fleeing through the halls, and they're confronted by an oncoming herd of zombies and, for maximum inconvenience, the beginning of Lori's labor at the same time. And of course their retreat is cut off by another herd behind them, as it always seems to be. Carl leads them into a room with a door he has trouble shutting, which turns out to be the boiler room. They hole up there and wait for the herds -- and Lori's latest contraction -- to pass. It must have been pretty hard for the writers to come up with a horrible place to have this baby that sitcoms hadn't already done before.

The Governor is up on one of Woodbury's walls, hitting a bucket of golf balls out into the trashed part of town beyond. And beaning the occasional walker for good measure. Merle comes up and The Governor idly suggests a field trip to Augusta. "Take only the women and let them play. It'll be historic." Merle isn't so sure about ditching tradition, because he thinks some things are worth holding onto. Okay, but that? He asks the Governor for permission to lead a scouting mission to look for his brother, using the map Andrea provided. The Governor has objections, saying he can't risk someone else getting hurt and that he can't spare Merle, either. Clearly this are only cover for whatever his real reasons are. Merle's not willing to let it go, so the Governor offers to go with Merle himself if he gets more concrete info. Which means Merle's probably going to be losing more than his hand soon.

Rick kills what must be the last walker in C Block, and Glenn, Daryl and the inmates join them, figuring that Lori and the others must be deeper in the prison. "Somebody is playing games!" Rick says furiously and says they'll split up to search. "Whoever gets to the generators first, shut 'em down." They all take off running.

Because labor on TV is always less than an hour, Maggie tells Lori that she's going to have to deliver the baby here and that Carl's going to have to help. She gets Lori onto the floor with her pants off, which is probably more than Rick's accomplished in months, and Lori starts pushing. At least until Maggie tells her to stop because something's wrong. Lori screams and Maggie holds up a hand covered in blood.

By M. Giant

Rick kills what must be the last walker in C Block, and Glen, Daryl and the inmates join them, figuring that Lori and the others must be deeper in the prison. "Somebody is playing games!" Rick says furiously and says they'll split up to search. "Whoever gets to the generators first, shut 'em down." They all take off running.

In an area of the prison where the lights keep strobing on and off, T-Dogg and Carol come upon a pair of walkers. Maybe even the same ones from the beginning of the episode, if I'm not mistaken. Carol raises her gun, but she's out of ammo. So T-Dogg rushes the walkers, grappling them against the wall and giving Carol cover to escape through an adjoining door while they tear out T-Dogg's throat. Sucks to be the black guy in a zombie story.

In Woodbury, Andrea's at the Governor's house for a little farewell visit. The Governor asks about their plans and Andrea mentions Michonne's plan to go to the coast. But when he asks what she thinks, she doesn't answer. She declines his offer of a drink, not having touched any in a while and figuring she's probably quite the lightweight by now. The Governor brings up Merle's quest, and they agree that Merle probably won't find Daryl, but he's got to look. That leads to the subject of what Andrea's looking for and she says she lost her parents and sister. Too bad about her parents, but Amy met the same fate that awaits anyone foolish enough to go camping in white pants. The Governor mentions his own wife, killed in a car accident eighteen months pre-apocalypse. "It's my daughter and me." At that, Andrea agrees to drink to better days. She admits that she doesn't know what she's looking for, after so much time just worrying about survival. After more unnecessary chatting, Andrea says she'd better go and the Governor says Merle will see them out and their weapons will be waiting outside. "Thank you Governor," she says at his front door. "Phillip," he quickly corrects. Andrea thought he never told anyone his name, so he sheepishly says somebody told him to never say never. She tells him to take care and he takes a step toward her -- but only to open the door and let her out. You know, the Governor is probably a lot like Shane would have turned out if Rick hadn't survived. No wonder Andrea finds him dreamy.

Maggie's decided that Lori needs to get back to Hershel -- there's too much blood, which she figures means Lori isn't fully dilated. "I know what it means. And I'm not losing my baby. You've gotta cut me open," Lori says. Maggie argues that she can't without anesthetic or equipment. "Carl has a knife," Lori reminds her, like that's a perfectly reasonable solution. Maggie says Lori won't survive, but Lori insists that her baby has to. And besides, Lori kind of sucks anyway.

In Woodbury, Andrea has just told Michonne that they're not leaving today -- maybe tomorrow or the day. Michonne seems pretty disgusted. And who can blame her? All this zombie-killing going on upstate and she's stuck in Pleasantville instead of getting her slayer on.

Maggie lifts Lori's shirt to see the old C-section scar that ultimately led to so much of the misery and heartbreak of the season, and Lori tells Carl to take care of his dad and his little brother or sister. "You are going to beat this world. I know you will. You are smart and you are strong, and you are so brave, and I love you." She makes him promise to always do what's right, because it's so easy to do the wrong thing. And she would know. "So if it feels wrong don't do it. If it feels easy, don't do it. Don't let the world spoil you." Shit, even this world does that, sans zombies. But take off the stupid hat already, kid. They hug and exchange I love yous while Maggie watches and cries, and then Lori tells Maggie that she has to take care of her when it's over. "It can't be Rick." Carl hands Maggie his buck knife, and Lori breathes, "Good night, love. I'm sorry." And in this deeply tragic and traumatic moment, Carl has managed to put his hat back on.

Maggie slices open Lori's belly. Mercifully, if not conveniently, Lori passes out after only a few seconds of screaming and with Carl's help, Maggie manages to slowly fumble the baby out alive. Carl gives Maggie his outer shirt to wrap the squalling baby in, and Maggie says they have to go. Carl reminds Maggie that they can't leave Lori here like this or she'll turn and pulls out his gun. "She's my mom," he insists when Maggie protests. While Maggie turns away, Carl flashes back to a moment with his dad in the hayloft, where Rick gave him the gun and told him, "No more kid stuff. People are gonna die. I'm gonna die. Mom. There's no way you can ever be ready for it." Back in the present, Carl kneels and hugs Lori's body. At the door, Maggie looks and sees the walkers leaving, because they've gotten either bored or deaf and turns back just in time to hear the loud gunshot echoing in the room. Well, that should bring them back. Carl walks past Maggie, not looking at her or his new sibling, his face stony. If he turns back into an asshole I'm going to be so pissed.

By M. Giant

Rick, Daryl, and Oscar are searching the corridors. They hear someone coming, but it's only Glen and Axel. The reunited splinter group comes around the corner and shoots down the two walkers feasting on what's left of T-Dogg. Which is bad enough, but Daryl also finds Carol's headscarf just inside the open door to the area and they assume the worst. About Carol, that is. They're unaware that the worst just happened in the boiler room.

All five of them come back out to the yard, where Beth and Hershel are still waiting, but at least they aren't behind the fence any more. They were hoping the others might have come back out, but they haven't, and Daryl has to tell Hershel that T-Dogg and Carol "didn't make it." Rick insists that doesn't mean the others didn't and is about to lead Daryl and Glen back in there to search some more until he's interrupted by the sound of a cooing infant. Maggie and Carl come back out into the yard, looking miserable. Rick stumbles over to them, dropping his axe as he sees that this is not quite the threesome he was looking for. "Where is she?" Rick asks drunkenly, but Maggie can't bring herself to answer, more traumatized than she was when her sister was eaten out from under her. Rick cries and wails, "Ohhh, nooo," while Carl stands there woodenly, leaking a tear or two, and Glen holds Maggie while she continues holding the naked, messy, unusually large baby. Rick ends up sprawled on the ground sobbing. Maybe now he'll finally absorb the lesson he should have gotten with Shane, which is that when you kill a guy, you make goddamn sure he's dead.

M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, or just e-mail him at m.giant[at]gmail.com.

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