So Much for Safety in Numbers

Recapped by M. Giant · Aired 02-10-2013 · S03E09

Picking up from the fall finale's cliffhanger, the Governor forces Merle and Daryl to fight to the death in front of the whole population of Woodbury. Merle seems about to oblige, though he hints to Daryl that he has a plan. But before he can put it into action, Maggie and Rick come in shooting to rescue Daryl. In the chaos, Merle comes along, which makes for a pretty tense moment when the four of them meet back up with Glenn and Michonne. Both of whom understandably want to kill Merle on the spot, but Rick talks everyone down. Unfortunately, he's less successful at talking Daryl out of staying out in the wild with Merle when he understandably refuses to bring the elder Dixon back to the prison. And thus we witness the genesis of Angry Glenn.

Back in Woodbury, things are falling apart in the wake of the attack, not to mention a minor zombie incursion that is the result of Merle tearing a hole in the wall on his way out with the others. The townspeople are panicking and on the verge of rebellion, the guards are getting hostile, and the Governor is totally checked out. Andrea tries to make him get his act together and feel bad about lying to her about her friends, and is unsuccessful on both counts. But she ends up being the one to pull Woodbury back from the brink with the kind of cheesy inspirational speech I didn't think anybody could listen to with a straight face any more, let alone deliver.

At the prison, the newcomers are hoping to stay long-term. Ben and Alan want to do that by trying to take the place by force while they can, but Tyreese and Sasha insist on catching more flies with honey. When Rick and the away team return sans Daryl and Oscar, but with a re-wounded Michonne and a young couple who are no longer talking to each other, discussions ensue. Rick doesn't want to let the new people in, but Hershel manages to make him see sense. Unfortunately, that's when Rick sees something else: the ghost of Lori. Rick promptly flips out and angrily expels the new people. What's more, he does it in a way that seems to make the people in his current group wish they could follow. Nice one, Lori.

Seconds later (meaning seconds after the end of the fall finale), the Governor glowers with his one good eye at the helpless, unarmed Dixon brothers standing in the middle of the crowd of angry Woodburians howling for their blood. Andrea fights her way free of Milton toward the circle and tries to appeal to the Governor, only to find herself at gunpoint as well courtesy of the Governor's thugs. "He's my friend," she protests. "It's not up to me anymore," the Governor tells Andrea, saying that the people have spoken. He raises his voice and publicly challenges Merle to prove his loyalty to Woodbury, right here and now. "Brother against brother. Winner goes free. Fight to the death!" The crowd roars its approval, because you should always listen to a guy who has blood leaking down one cheek from behind the fresh bandage over his recently-ruined eye. While Andrea continues to beg vainly for a stop to this, Merle commences a speech to the crowd which he interrupts with a sucker punch to Daryl's gut. But then he finishes the speech while kicking Daryl across the dirt, which is good because I hate it when someone leaves a thought unfinished. Some goons with neck-snares herd a couple of zombies into the circle and hold them in position at the perimeter while the brothers hold onto each other's throats. "You really think this asshole's gonna let you go?" Daryl says. Merle tells Daryl to follow his lead and he'll get them both out of this. I'm sure that's true, but Daryl will be getting out of it feet-first. Daryl hauls Merle to his feet and they stand back to back against the encroaching walkers, fighting them as well as they can with bare hands and boots. Andrea keeps whining, "Phillip, stop this!" Suddenly the heads of one of the zombies explodes: Maggie's shooting from behind a Dumpster, which is cool. The one to go down is the girl who tried to train Andrea on wall duty, though, so I guess Maggie's just shooting anyone. Rick throws a couple of smoke grenades into the center of the crowd, and the people panic as he and Maggie keep shooting. The Governor draws his automatic and grins while Andrea makes a run for it. Soon the whole courtyard is filled with smoke. The Governor stalks through it, casually shooting a walker while barely looking at it. Andrea kneels over the young woman Maggie just shot. Daryl reclaims his crossbow from the large, bearded and increasingly familiar local who was using it until that moment, and they vanish into the night. And the Governor just slowly walks through it all, looking cold-blooded and bad-ass, but not actually accomplishing anything.

By M. Giant

Rick, Maggie, Daryl and Merle make it to the wall together. Merle tries to lead them away from the crowd at the arena, but Rick isn't ready to make nice yet. "You really wanna do this now?" Merle yells before hacking through the wall at ground level while Rick, Maggie and Daryl cover the still-empty approach from the street inside town. Soon all four of them are in the street just outside the wall and after killing just a few zombies, Merle screams, "We ain't got time for this!" "Let's go!" Daryl agrees. They run for cover outside the wall while the first of presumably many walkers peels aside a chunk of wall Merle left hanging and peers inside. So that's just about the end of Woodbury, right?

Early the morning, Glenn and Michonne -- the two most battered members of Rick's party -- are hanging out by the car. The other four come out of the woods and Glenn's pretty relieved to see Rick. He can't say the same for Merle, though. In fact, both Glenn and Michonne draw their weapons on him, forcing Rick and Maggie and Daryl to stand between them and try to cool things down. Eventually the weapons are lowered, but there's still plenty of tension, especially when Merle tells Michonne that the Governor's "been puttin' the wood to your girlfriend Andrea, big time baby." Michonne raises the sword again and Rick angrily yells at her to drop it, though she doesn't obey this time any more than she did the first time. "You know Andrea?" Rick asks her. She's a little slow to answer, so Merle answers for her -- as grossly as possible -- and brings Rick into the loop on Michonne's former walker pets that she led around in chains. "Kind of ironic, now that I think about it." "Shut up, bro!" Daryl yells at the man who seems intent on being killed by the four people in the immediate vicinity who hate him. Merle teases Rick about his move, now that he's surrounded by "liars, thugs and cowards." And that's just Merle. Daryl again yells at him to shut up. Merle screams it back at him until Rick pistol-whips him into unconsciousness. "Asshole," Daryl grunts. And I don't think he means Rick.

At the prison, Carl is supervising while Hershel attends to the wounds of Alan, one of the four new visitors. Hershel confesses to Tyreese that he was bit, but nobody pursues it any further because it's not like that would be an interesting conversation or anything. Beth comes in carrying baby Judith and if everyone but Carol and Axel is going to be in here with the newcomers anyway, I don't know why Carl is keeping them locked out of the cell block in the first place. The visitors are kind of amazed to see a baby and after some incorrect assumptions are made about her being Beth's, Sasha asks where the mother is. Carl's sad look is all the answer she gets... or needs. "Man, you people have been through the mill," Tyreese remarks. He adds that it's getting worse out there, "And it's only making the living less like the living." He tells Hershel about his neighbor Jerry, the doomsday prepper, whose shelter they stayed in until they ran out of food. Presumably Jerry didn't make it, because the whole point of preparing for the apocalypse is to get killed by the people who didn't, which is why I don't. Then they met Alan and Ben, the surviving father and son in the group, outside Jacksonville. That marked the genesis of a group whose numbers at one point peaked at 25. Then their camp was overrun a month and a half ago. Sounds familiar. I still say people who go camping during the zombie apocalypse deserve what they get. Especially people who camp in white pants under any circumstances, Amy. Hershel promises to make sure the recently departed compatriot Donna -- Alan's wife and Ben's mother -- will have a decent burial. They're all glad to have met some nice people and Tyreese says, apropos of nothing, "I must be the first brother in history to break into prison." Serving food around, Axel agrees, "Makes me the first white boy that didn't want to break out." Hershel mentions that his own group is larger than what Tyreese sees now, and close-knit. "I wouldn't get too comfortable here," he warns. Stumping out of the room, Hershel says it's not up to him, and Carl locks them back inside on their own.

Out on the road, Rick, Daryl, Glenn and Maggie are debating their move. Daryl is arguing that Merle could be useful, with his knowledge of how the Governor thinks, but Rick, Maggie and Glenn are understandably opposed. "So you're gonna cut Merle loose and bring the last samurai home with us?" Daryl complains, indicating Michonne. Rick doesn't want to bring Michonne back either, but Maggie and Glenn argue that she's wounded and helped them get in. Merle agrees with Rick that they don't know anything about Michonne, "But Merle... Merle's blood." The others argue that their family is here and at the prison and that Daryl's part of it. "And he's not," Rick concludes. Daryl stops arguing the point and gives in, but it's not what you think: "We'll fend for ourselves," he says. Glenn and Maggie and then Rick try to talk him down, but he refuses to leave Merle. "I already did that once." Even when Rick reminds him that some shit got started last night and they're going to need him, Daryl insists, "No him, no me." Even so, he leaves amicably, telling Rick to take care of himself and his kids. He disappears into the woods with a smug-looking Merle. Rick throws the rest of their stuff back into the car, telling Michonne, "We patch you up and then you are gone." Michonne nods, because as bad-ass as she is, she's still smart enough to recognize No Mood when she sees it.

Tyreese and his group are carrying Donna's shrouded body out to the courtyard to add her graves to those of the others. Putting her down to take a break, Alan spots Carl and Carol pacing outside one of the guard towers and declares it a "golden opportunity." To overpower them and take their weapons, that is. He figures a kid and a woman will be easy targets, apparently forgetting that this was the same kid who just saved their asses mere hours ago. Tyreese and Sasha are horrified, but Alan and Ben argue that its survival of the fittest now. So the Ricks and the Shanes are evenly matched in this group. They're still arguing when Beth and Axel come out of the prison -- oblivious to their discussion -- to lend them a pickaxe and shovel. Tyreese and Sasha quickly step in front of Ben and Alan to take the tools before they can and there's a long, awkward moment before Axel and Beth head back inside. The tools in hand, Sasha and Tyreese stare down their soon-to-be-former compatriots.

The Hyundai has reached a spot where the road is blocked by a fallen tree and a wrecked pickup. Rick assigns Glenn to deal with the vehicle's breaks, because he's still all weak from his ordeal. As we see when Glenn opens the truck's door to find a zombie slavering at him, Grand Theft Autos the ghoul out of there and stomps its skull into pulp on the pavement before either Rick or Maggie can make a move. Glad you're feeling better, Glenn! But Rick looks at Glenn like it's time for him to talk about his feelings now. "You didn't kill him," Glenn complains, looking betrayed. "That's not why we went back," Rick reminds him. Glenn agrees: "That's right, you went back for Daryl, and now he's gone again and the Governor is still alive." Glenn wishes he'd been there and is angry at Rick for taking his girlfriend with him. There's some more yelling, but Glenn is still disgusted at how Daryl took off after all the risks they took. Rick asks Glenn what he wants from him, Maggie says they should get going and talk it out later. Glenn says they can talk because he's done. Yeah, what does she think this is -- Season 2? At this point, the walker sloping up the road toward them from a hundred yards away barely registers as backdrop.

Andrea comes out of Woodbury's makeshift hospital (with nine people apparently hurt inside) and meets Milton outside. He tells her the Governor's holed up in his apartment and won't come out. Meanwhile, out on the street, people are trying to leave, crowding up against the wall and driving overloaded cars right up to the barricade. The guards have turned their weapons inward against the growing mob, one of whom gets kicked to the ground. While the guards turn around to deal with a half-dozen walkers approaching from without, Andrea tries to calm down the situation, but it's rapidly escalating, with car horns blaring and guards getting increasingly threatening with their guns. But it all becomes moot as -- up the street -- a couple of zombies are attacking in the middle of the main street in broad daylight. Andrea and one of the guards run up and take out the walkers, but it's too late for their victims. Including the one who's still alive, lying helplessly on the ground. The crowd gathers around Andrea while she's standing over him, and a woman begs Andrea to help him. She just stands there, until the Governor comes out, puts a bullet in his brain and turns back around to go right back inside. Like he was just coming out to get the paper. Of course, there are no papers in Woodbury, but if there were any, today they would consist in their entirety of a banner headline screaming, "WE'RE FUCKED!"

Back at the prison, Carl and Carol are still hanging out at that guard tower. Carol delivers an unsolicited lecture about how noisy the world used to be and how much she misses it now. Carl, meanwhile, is thinking about how mean he used to be to his mom. Cheer up, kid, Maggie's the once who sliced her open. Before this can get too maudlin, the Hyundai pulls into view and they hurry to open the gates for it. Rick gets out just inside the outer one and tells them to drive on ahead and he and Carl hug happily. Carol, though, is upset to see Daryl missing. Rick hastily explains that he's alive, but went off with his brother. She's pretty wounded -- not to say in denial -- about his not coming back. "And Oscar?" Carl asks. Nice of someone to remember. He closes the inner gate while Rick hugs Carol. You know, they had to know that not everybody was going to be returning from this rescue mission. Otherwise how did they expect to bring back six people in a car that seats four?

Andrea storms into the Governor's apartment to yell at him, saying he needs to talk to his people before they panic and knock down the gates. "So let 'em," the Governor says, saying he's done taking care of everyone. While he goes through his weapons stash, Andrea asks about Daryl and why he was here. "He came for his friends," the Governor says. "The other people you know. Glenn, and Maggie? Mere's scooped them up on the run. Was holding them to find out where his brother was." Considering the pains the Governor went through to keep Andrea in the dark on this, he seems pretty unrepentant about it now. Perhaps, as is common with a maiming injury, he's already developed some better perspective to make up for his sudden lack of depth perception. "My friends are still alive and we're shooting at each other?" Andrea says. If Daryl were here he'd ask, "What else is new?" Actually, what's funny about that is that as of last night, when she was firing blindly into the smoke-filled streets, the "we" she's using isn't even metaphorical. The Governor says her friends killed six people and rattles off their names like an actual leader. "That man out there, Rich Foster, he makes seven. So that, that's what your friends did." Andrea is pretty disgusted at him for keeping his prisoners a secret during all their fucking. "You're just a visitor here. Just passing through. So why should I tell you?" he asks coldly. Right here is where a normal person would be done with his ass and feel great about it, but stupid Andrea tells him not to drive her out, as though that's not the best thing for her right now and forever. Milton comes into warn the Governor that things are about to get ugly again, but the Governor just keeps doing whatever he's doing, which isn't much.

Inside the prison, Hershel's surviving daughters reunite, and Beth even gives Rick a hug and a kiss as he joins them. The rest of them (including Carol and Carl) head on inside so Hershel can give Rick a report. "He came through, like always," is Hershel's lede, presumably referring to Carl. Hershel asks Rick about their new enemy. Rick describes the scene at the arena and asks, "What kind of sick mind does that?" Rick sees that something's still bothering Hershel and it's not the baby.

Carl is standing guard over the newcomers in the anteroom, his handgun with the giant silencer in his lap while he stares at them like a cold-eyed killer, but with a stupid hat on. In comes Rick with Hershel nimbly hopping down the stairs behind them. Both of them head on into the cell block without a word, Carl following. "Not exactly a chatterbox, is he?" Alan. Tyreese tells him to be patient, and "Let me do the talking." That seems wise.

Inside Block C, Rick takes the baby from Beth and she immediately starts crying. Smart kid. Listening to her wailing, Rick quickly goes into a fugue state and starts looking around desperately for someone to hand her back off to. Glad to see he's getting his dysfunctional relationship off to an earlier start with this one.

Milton and Andrea head out onto the street to try to address the restive crowd themselves. Milton claims it's all taken care of and makes excuses for the Governor's conditions. This doesn't seem to be calming anyone down, so Andrea takes over and makes her own lame version of an inspirational speech about strength and rebuilding. It's transparently ridiculous, of course, no less hackneyed than any of the absurd speeches Jeff Winger gives on Community. However, it works equally well and soon everyone is smiling and hugging because Andrea made it all better. The Governor has been watching this all from his window above, an inscrutable look in his remaining eye.

Carol and Beth bond a little over the baby. "She wouldn't have made it if Daryl hadn't been here," Beth says. "He couldn't stand to lose anyone else." Beth doesn't get why Daryl left for Merle, but Carol thinks she does: "Men like Merle get into your head," Carol says. "Make you feel like you deserve the abuse." She says she'd like to think she'd tell Ed to go to hell if he showed up here alive, but even now she's not sure. "We're weak without him," Beth says, meaning Daryl. And she was right about the farm, so they should probably listen to her. Carol points out that they'll get through this too, maybe with the help of Tyreese and his friends. She even tells Beth not to be mad at Daryl for leaving. "Daryl has his code. This world needs men like that." Beth hands the baby to her and they put her in her new bassinette: a mail bin that has sweetly labeled "Lil Asskicker."

Hershel examines Glenn's wounds in one of the cells and comments on his injuries. "Courtesy of Daryl's brother," Glenn says bitterly. Maggie hovers briefly in the doorway, and Glenn just glares at her until she moves on. "You two all right?" Hershel asks, and thanks Glenn for looking out for her when there's no answer from him. Leaving to go check on her, he adds, "If anything worse than this had happened to you? You're like my own son, Glenn." A pissy, grouchy son as of today.

Hershel moves on to Maggie in a different cell and invites her to go see for herself that Glenn is all right. "You two seem to be holding something back," he obviouses into the increasingly oppressive silence. When he asks what happened, there's still nothing forthcoming from her. She doesn't seem to be willing to open her mouth even to eat. "Hey, don't disappear on me," he says, and hugs her comfortingly. But secretly Scott Wilson is hoping they stay mad at each other so he can continue to have all the lines in scenes like this.

That evening, it's dark in the cell block as Rich watches Hershel check on Michonne, who's crashed out in one of the cells. "You look pretty shot yourself," he observes to Rick. Rick just wants to know how soon Michonne can be out of there and Hershel gives her a couple of days. As Hershel crutches out of the cell, Rick locks her in there. At the other end of the block, Carol offers Axel some comfort over the loss of his friend Oscar. "He went out fighting," Rick assures Axel as the rest of the group congregates at that end of the block. They move on to the subject of the Governor. "We could use some reinforcements," Hershel points out. Rick takes a look at the gate to the room beyond.

And then he leads the entire rest of the group -- Hershel, Carl, Glenn, Carol, Beth with the baby, Maggie and Axel into the anteroom. He faces Tyreese, who introduces himself and extends his hand. Rick ignores that and just glares coldly into Tyreese's face while Hershel introduces the rest of Tyreese's group. Rick quizzes Tyreese on how they got in and hears for the first time about how they lost someone getting in and how Carl brought them here. That last factoid makes him pretty snippy, until Hershel puts in, "He had no choice." Rick seems to accept that. Tyreese tells Rick that he and his group can get their own food and stay out of the way. "You got a problem with another group, we'll help with that, too. Anything to contribute." Rick can't maintain the full Manson lamps in the face of that simple appeal, but he mutters, "No." Sasha begs, but Rick doesn't budge. Hershel says they should talk about this, but Rick shoots it down. "We've been through this with Tomas and Andrew. Look what happened." Carol defends Axel and Oscar. "Where's Oscar now?" Rick snaps, and tells Tyreese he can't be responsible. "You turn us out, you are responsible," Tyreese says, sounding like Rick talking to Hershel during the entire second season. Hershel asks Rick for a sidebar. He quietly tells Rick that he's done so much for them and they owe him their lives, "And I'm telling you, you're wrong on this. You've got to start giving people a chance." Rick seems to consider it and after a weary face-palm, he seems ready to give in, even giving Hershel a grateful clap on the shoulder for straightening him out. It's all going to be okay.

By M. Giant

But then he glances up at the mezzanine level behind the rest of his group, because someone's up there. A woman in a long white nightgown -- her face entirely in shadow -- seems to be looking back down at him. In a slightly tighter shot, she's only barely recognizable as Lori in the darkness. Rick starts cracking up on the spot, stalking across the room to demand, "Why are you here? What do you want from me?" These are both excellent questions. I asked them myself when I spotted Sarah Wayne Callies' name in the opening credits. Everyone wonders what Rick's major malfunction is now. "I can't help you, get out!" he finally yells, as a longer shot finally reveals that of course there's no one actually up there. Rick's group tries to calm him down, even as he pulls out his gun and waves it at Tyreese and his group. Under the circumstances, Tyreese and his group allow themselves to be bustled out, leaving Rick there with his group. Who are clearly thinking they just chased out some nice, reasonable people so they can be locked up in here with a crazy person. Rick glances up back up at the railing, but the fact that it's no longer occupied doesn't seem to do much for his agitated state of mind. Or anyone else's for that matter.

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.