The New Girl

Recapped by M. Giant · Aired 11-25-2012 · S03E07

With Glenn and Maggie as prisoners of Merle and the Governor, they're heroically resisting saying a word about where their camp is. This even as Glenn is tortured and locked up with a walker, and Maggie is threatened with rape by the Governor. But they're not going to be able to hold out forever. Fortunately, we also know that Michonne has made it to the prison. She doesn't exactly make fast friends with the group in these troubled times, but after Hershel patches her up she agrees to lead a party back to Woodbury to help spring their friends, and maybe get herself a little revenge on Merle while she's at it. A party consisting of Rick, Daryl, Oscar, and Michonne proceeds to the town while Carl, Hershel, Beth, Axel, the reunited Carol, and baby Judith stay behind. On their way there, they come upon a large crowd of walkers, which they escape only by ducking into a hunting cabin and throwing its occupant to the zombies after he gets himself killed by Michonne by being stupid. So their journey is safely completed, but when Rick gets a load of Woodbury's walls from the outside, he realizes that was probably the easy part.

In the meantime, the Governor has assigned Andrea to a special project. Milton is presiding over the death of an elderly research subject from prostate cancer, and he plans to test whether any of the man's memories or consciousness remain after he zombies up. Of course none do, and Andrea efficiently dispatches the newly undead man. Upset by the experience, she seeks comfort in the arms of the Governor. Who, unbeknownst to her, has finally succeeded in coercing the location and disposition of the prison from Maggie and Glenn, and is secretly girding for battle against a powerful group that includes the brother of one of his most trusted lieutenants. Looks like it's on week for the midseason finale.

Glenn sits duct-taped to a chair in a basement, with Merle dragging the point of his bayonet attachment along a tabletop. Merle is giving Glenn a hard time, not only for not lowering his gun when Merle lowered his in the episode, but for leaving Merle on the roof in Atlanta in the first place. Glenn points out that they all went back for Merle, including T-Dogg, and at the mention of that gentleman's name, Merle suddenly remembers he's a racist and refers to him as a spear-chucker. And when Glenn says T-Dogg didn't make it, Merle hopes he went slow. Merle asks about the others in Glenn's group, namely Daryl. "You can't tell me he's alive and then hold off where he is. Or maybe the farmer's daughter will help me out?" Sounds like Merle already has some info he shouldn't, if he knows Maggie's origins. Speaking of Maggie, she can, in fact, hear Merle taunting Glenn about her in the room. Merle recalls that Glenn's "sneaky" and doesn't scare easy, so he presses the flat of his blade hard against Glenn's mouth, demanding to know where his brother and "the sheriff" are. Glenn just head-butts him and Merle starts punching in earnest, repeatedly shouting his questions while Maggie looks increasingly upset on the other side of the wall. I'm sure she's wishing Glenn had shot Merle when he had the chance. In Atlanta.

At the prison, we pick up where we left off, with Michonne standing among a small crowd of oblivious (at least to her presence) walkers outside the outer fence while Rick, Hershel and Beth stare back at her. Carl comes running with the keys, but in the meantime the fresh blood from Michonne's leg wound seems to be attracting the attention of the walkers around her. So while Carl's asking Rick if they maybe should help her, she starts taking them down. Obviously she's off her game with only one working leg and a fair amount of blood loss, and she collapses flat on her back after only eliminating a couple. But Carl shoots two more just as they're about to go in for a bite and soon he and Rick are outside the gate, shooting down the rest in the immediate vicinity. Of which there should soon be more, given that Rick appears to have his service weapon's volume set to "naval cannon" for some reason. Rick sees that the hole in Michonne's leg is from a bullet rather than teeth and soon they're all inside the prison building doing triage on her. Rick's also retrieved her sword for her, but she says she won't be allowed in their cell block. He revives her by splashing water on her (although given that she probably still reeks of zombie, a full shower probably would be in order) and she goes for her sword, which Rick kicks away. Daryl comes wandering in wondering who the new girl is, but Michonne isn't feeling friendly at the moment, and Daryl calls Rick on into the block to show him something. Before he goes, Rick says they'll keep Michonne's weapon safe and they can help her, which must seem pretty familiar to her after her time with the Governor. "I didn't ask for your help," she hisses at Rick, but he doesn't care: "Can't let you leave." And they leave her locked inside the outer room.

Inside the cell block, Rick sees what Daryl wanted to show him: Carol, who gets a warm welcome from everyone. Seeing the baby and not Lori tells Carol all she needs to know about what happened there, and Rick and Carl get sad all over again just seconds into this joyful reunion. Michonne watches the whole scene from behind the grate, her expression inscrutable. As usual.

In Woodbury, Milton knocks on the Governor's door to tell him a Mr. Coleman is ready and the Governor, in his robe, says he'll meet Milton in the lab. In the Governor's bedroom, Andrea (or at least Laurie Holden's body double) is slithering into her clothes, saying she'll be back, but the Governor wants her help with something that might change her mind. We can only hope.

Rick, Hershel and Daryl return to Michonne, and Rick says they can patch her up, but first he wants to know how they found her and why she had formula with her. "Supplies were dropped by a young Asian guy with a pretty girl," Michonne explains, going on to say that the people who dropped them were then taken "by the same sonofabitch who shot me." Somehow she still isn't being forthcoming enough for Rick, so he grabs her wound demanding to know what happened right now. As she jumps up, justifiably pissed, Daryl sticks his crossbow in her face and she spits, "Find 'em yourself." Rick decides to calm things down and Michonne says she figures they were taken to Woodbury. "It's run by this guy, calls himself the Governor. Pretty boy, charmin', Jim Jones type." Heh. That sounds about right. Probably in the casting notes, in fact. She tells them about the "paramilitary wannabes" on the wall securing the place from walkers, "but we could slip our way through." Nice of her to offer. Rick asks how she found the prison and Michonne explains how she overheard directions, which is still pretty convenient, not to mention the fact that this all went down within less than a day's limp. Rick introduces Hershel as "the father of the girl who was taken" and says he'll tend to Michonne's wound. Assuming no zombie guts got in there, of course.

Merle tells a bloody and beaten Glenn he's tougher than he remembers, which must explain why he's lasted this long. "Shoot, I figured the way Officer Friendly abandoned people, he would have left you behind by now." Glenn says it's only a matter of time before Rick and the rest of the group come for him and Maggie, and claims there's a lot. "We've been on the road, not hiding in some dungeon," he boasts. "Rick, Shane, Dale, Jim, Andrea..." Oops. Merle chuckles at this last name and Glenn somehow senses that he may have made an error.

Hershel is stitching up Michonne's wound through the hole in her pants while she alternately pouts and eyeballs the gun at Carl's hip. "Thank you," she says when he ties it off. Pretty convincingly too, all things considered. In the cell block, the rest of the group is debating not whether to go after Maggie and Glenn, but how many of them should go. So far the volunteers to join Rick include Daryl, Beth, Axel and Oscar. They load up the Hyundai (which I guess will effectively limit their numbers) and on their way out, Michonne smirkingly asks Beth how they cleared out an overrun prison all by themselves. "There were others," Beth says in such a way as to shut Michonne up pretty good. Looks like Hershel's staying back with Carol, Carl, the baby and, after all, Beth. Rick takes his leave of Carl, saying he's sorry for what he had to do for his mom. "I had to," Carl interrupts. Rick tells him to get everyone locked into the cells and keep them safe if anything happens. Normally I'd assume we'd be seeing the last of the contingent at the prison if Carl's even temporarily the man of the house, but New Improved Season Three Carl might just be up to it, as long as nothing happens. "Take care of your sister, all right?" Rick reminds him. Carl informs Rick that Daryl christened her "Ass-Kicker," and suggests naming her Judith instead, after his third-grade teacher. Well, okay then -- so much for naming her after one of their fallen. Daryl tells Carol to stay safe. "Nine lives, remember?" she murmurs back, holding the baby. Hershel tells Rick, "Bring 'em back." Axel opens the gate for the car to exit and then closes it behind them, so I guess he's not in after all.

The Governor leads Andrea into Milton's lab, where a record is playing, paintings hang from the ceiling, and Milton is spoon-feeding a sick old man in a bed. The Governor leaves Andrea with Milton and Mr. Coleman, and for now Andrea just runs the record player at Milton's instructions while Milton works a singing bowl and then interviews the old man, who is so far gone he can only answer by raising his right hand in response to correct statements, which include, in their entirety, the fact that the man is Michael Coleman, once married with two kids. He whispers to Milton, asking if they can keep the record playing while they wait.

Glenn is trying vainly to loosen the duct tape binding his arms to the chair when Merle returns, now leading a walker in a neck-snare, inviting Glenn to put himself in Merle's shoes back in Atlanta as he lets the walker slaver away at Glenn. He asks one more time where the group is and when Glenn still doesn't answer, he releases the snare and leaves the two of them in there alone. "You know what they say, he's gonna be hungry again in an hour," he quips on his way out. From the chair, Glenn manages to kick it away and get on his feet, using the chair he's still taped to to fight off the walker, before finally smashing the chair against the stone wall and using a splintered armrest to skewer the walker through the skull. And then he gives a roar that I'm sure must be very reassuring to Maggie in the room.

In Milton's lab, Andrea is still DJing as Milton explains that they'll await Mr. Coleman's death and reanimation, at which point Milton will re-ask the questions and Andrea will "end the subject's reanimated state." Andrea's up for it. Milton explains that he's trying to determine whether any trace memories or identity remain, and here's this guy dying of prostate cancer willing to help them out. Apparently they've been through this interview ritual several dozen times, which he hopes will cue memories in Mr. Coleman's subconscious mind post-zombie. Andrea lectures that there's nothing left of them. "We'll see," Milton breezes, at which point Andrea realizes he's never seen this before, being not only an orphan and an only child, but a telecommuter. As a telecommuter myself, I'm somewhat offended by the show's portrayal of Milton as representative of the type. He's far too well groomed, to start with. Suddenly he realizes that Mr. Coleman is no longer with us, and he and Andrea uncover him and fasten the restraints, a process that seems a little tough on Milton. I don't think Mr. Coleman would care for it either.

Outside, the Governor gets the update from Merle: Glenn knows Andrea, but not that she's here and he also knows that Glenn knows Daryl. He doesn't know about Maggie, who he's never seen before. "Their people may come for them," the Governor warns, and Merle agrees, even pointing out that Andrea and Glenn both said they came back for Merle, which is a surprisingly generous remark. They even said it independently, which goes without saying because of course neither of them knows the other is in town. "[Glenn's] a tough sonofabitch," another guy says. "Picked that walker apart in minutes." That same guy also says they'll need him for leverage and wonders why Merle tried to kill him. "He pissed me off," Merle explains. The Governor asks about Maggie, and Merle says that was his appointment, but the Governor's got that covered, which will soon prove to be an unfortunate choice of words on my part.

He enters the room where she's tied to her own chair. She looks up fearfully as he silently draws his knife, but of course he's just cutting her bonds. He even politely asks if he can sit down across from her. Now, with the good-cop shtick established, he offers to drive them back to her people and explain. She would rather talk to Glenn, but the Governor refuses, saying they're dangerous. So it would seem they're at a stalemate. Except that they're not. The Governor asks her to stand up -- politely, the first time -- and then tells her to take off her shirt. "Or I'll bring Glenn's hand in here." Maggie angrily complies, including when he says, "Go on." Now that she's topless, covered only by her own hands, he removes his gunbelt and comes around the table to her, taking his sweet old time. And then he pushes her head down on the table and holds it there, asking if she still won't talk. "Do whatever you're gonna do and then go to hell," she invites. He stands over her a few long moments, but then releases her. Jeez, that was harrowing.

The Hyundai pulls off the road somewhere and out pop Rick, Michonne, Daryl and Oscar, loaded for bear and barely spring a glance at the lone walker coming up the road toward them. Michonne says they're about a mile or two out. While cutting through the woods, Rick says to Daryl, "I know what you did for me. For my baby, while I was... working things out. Thank you." "It's what we do," Daryl shrugs. That loyalty's probably going to come in pretty handy soon. A crowd of walkers appears in the path in front of them and Rick orders, "Formation. No gunfire." He and his people go to work while Michonne mostly watches respectfully, until Daryl says, "There's too many of 'em." Rather than staying to fight them all, they cut a path through the ring closing around them and run for a hunting cabin, where they're soon safe inside but locked in with a bad smell. "Looks like Lassie went home," Daryl remarks over the rotting corpse of a dog. Soon a baker's dozen of walkers are beating at the front of the cabin. Rick spots a human-shaped mass hidden under a blanket and pulling it off reveals an actual human, who jumps up with a shotgun yelling at them to get out of his house and threatening to the call the cops. How out of the loop is this dude, anyway? Is he just waking up from a ten-month bender? And how long has he been tripping over his dead dog on the floor? They need to shut up his yelling before the walkers tear through the walls, and Rick makes a grab for the gun, which leads to a hole getting blown in the side of the house. The hermit goes for the door and Rick yells at him not to open it, but Michonne simply runs him through before he gets there. So at least one of their problems is solved. Daryl looks out through a crack in the boards and asks, "Remember the Alamo?" But Rick has a better idea: he and Daryl throw the newly dead man to the walkers in front while he and his group dart out the back. And back around the front, but by this time the walkers are too busy chowing down to notice.

Mr. Coleman's eyes are open, but now with the unnatural coloring of a walker's although the rest of him looks pretty fresh. Milton makes with the singing bowl and Andrea starts the record, and Milton begins the interview again. But this time the only movement of Mr. Coleman's hand is the convulsive grabbing at the bedclothes while he tries to get free to bite Milton. But Milton thinks the restraints are "tethering his consciousness, "and wants to cut him loose. Andrea refuses, so Milton undoes it himself. He starts talking, but Mr. Coleman's undead hand grabs him by the shirt and Andrea sticks her knife through the top of the world's newest walker just before it eats Milton's face off. "I think I'd like to record my findings while they're fresh," Milton says, trying to maintain his composure. Not for nothing, but do you think he'd be interested to know about Andrea's vested interest in the outcome of this experiment, given the way she dealt with Amy?

Merle comes back into Glenn's dungeon. Glenn makes to defend himself with the broken armrest, but the other guy comes in with a weapon leveled, followed by the Governor dragging a still-topless Maggie. Enraged, Glenn raises the armrest again, but drops it when the rifle is pointed at Maggie instead. "We're through with games," the Governor says, producing his own pistol. "Now one of you is gonna give up your camp." Glenn shakes his head and when the Governor puts his gun into Glenn's face, Maggie blurts, "Prison!" They know about its existence, but were still assuming it was overrun. "We took it," Maggie says, which raises the question of how many of them there are, and Maggie says there are ten now. She must be counting Rick, Daryl, Hershel, Beth, Carl, Axel, Oscar, Glenn, herself and the baby, because she can't know about Carol's return. The Governor seems skeptical that ten people could clear a whole prison even without knowing that one of them wasn't born at the time, and looks like he's about to shoot Glenn anyway. But then he lets it go, though not before grossly "comforting" Maggie as he leaves her and Glenn alone in the room. Well, at least they're together again.

At the Governor's house, he confers with his research team. Milton points out that the prison is deep in the red zone. "So she's lying?" the Governor demands. "Cause if she's lying, that means a pretty sizable force has moved into our backyard. But if she's not, this group with your brother at its core has done something you told me couldn't be done." This last is directed at Merle. "They did it." Well, they were clearly a lot more desperate than you, Phil old buddy.

And they're about to do more, as Rick, Daryl, Oscar and Michonne make it to the outer perimeter in the night and behold the wall unseen from behind an abandoned car. Inside, the Governor says Daryl's group might be searching for Maggie and Glenn right now. "Blood is blood, right? Makes me wonder where your loyalties lie." I've been wondering the same thing about Daryl when he realizes who he's up against. "Merle insists to the Governor that his loyalties are here. Satisfied but still worried, the Governor tells Merle and the other henchman to take a group to scout out the prison. Uh-oh... that means it's going to be Merle versus Carl. That will be a short fight.

Outside, Rick contemplates the wall and looks pretty hopeless. Inside the ramparts, the large man Michonne made eye contact with on her and Andrea's first day there descends the wall with his bow and walks past Andrea as she heads back to the Governor's place where he's sitting pensively and alone when Andrea comes in without knocking. "You kept your word. That you'd be back," he says, and they get right to macking. "Everything all right with Milton?" he asks. Andrea pours herself a drink, also without being invited, and explains that Mr. Coleman died. "And did Milton find what he was looking for?" The Governor asks. Andrea says no, getting emotional and accepting comfort from the Governor much more readily than Maggie did. "It's over now," he says, stroking her hair while his face tells us that it's anything but. That'll have to wait for week's midseason finale, duh.

By M. Giant

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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