Red Undead Redemption

Recapped by M. Giant · Aired 03-24-2013 · S03E15

Rick has decided to hand Michonne over to the Governor as per the deal, but he's not telling everyone about it beforehand; just Hershel, Daryl, and Merle, because he's going to need the Dixons' help getting the package wrapped, if you know what I mean. During final preparations, however, the ghost of Lori shows up at an opportune time for once, and he decides to call it off. Unfortunately, Merle has already put the plan in motion and is on the way to deliver Michonne himself, because he knew damn well that Rick was going to flinch. Merle has apparently decided that it's his job to do the group's dirty work, and if that's what it takes so he can hang with his brother, so be it.

But not everyone is about to let it happen. Rick wants to go after Merle and Michonne, but Daryl insists on being the one to do it. And Michonne is waging an effective psychological campaign on the emerging outlines of what can only be Merle's conscience. While Glenn takes advantage of the lull at the prison to propose to Maggie (successfully), and Merle & Michonne survive a few waves of zombies together, she eventually gets through to him. He returns her sword and lets her go, but won't go back with her, saying he's got something else to do first. What that turns out to be is gathering a herd of walkers and leading them to the meeting place where the Governor and his men are waiting for Rick to show up with Michonne. Between those walkers and his sniper skills, Merle manages to take out a fair number of the Governor's henchmen, though he ends up losing a fight with the man himself and getting shot.

At the prison, Rick assembles what remains of the group and not only tells them the truth, but abdicates the throne, reinstating their democracy and saying that it's up to them whether they stay or go. By the time Daryl catches up with Merle, it's too late; the Governor and his men are long gone. And so, effectively, is Merle, even though his dead body's still walking around. Yes, Daryl has to re-kill his own brother. It's sad for Daryl, to be sure, but let's face it; this was just about the best-case scenario for the whole Dixon situation.

Out by the inner fence, Rick has apparently just told Hershel and Daryl his plan to turn over Michonne to the Governor and tell the others later, after it's too late to do anything about it. Daryl doesn't like it, especially the part where they're going to have to trick Michonne into coming with them; "Just ain't honest, man," he grumbles. Rick says no one else dies if they do this, so Daryl reluctantly agrees. Rick says they'll need someone else, and Daryl offers to recruit Merle, or at least help Rick do it, but Rick insists on doing it alone.

Inside the otherwise empty cell block, Rick finds Merle shredding mattresses on the upper level and strewing the wreckage all over. Looking for drugs, of course. "This place must have been no fun at all," he's finally forced to conclude. After Rick offers Merle a little unsolicited therapy in the form of asking Merle whether even he knows why he does stuff, Rick asks for Merle's help with Michonne, and with keeping it quiet. Merle sarcastically says he's honored to be in the inner circle, and then drops some Gubernatorial knowledge on Rick, telling him that his old boss used to bash skulls and cut throats, claiming he didn't want to waste bullets. As for Michonne, "He ain't gonna kill her, you know. He's just gonna do things to her. Probably take out one of her eyes .Both of them, most likely. You'd let that happen for a shot? You're cold as ice, Officer Friendly." But he's not about to try to talk him out of it, either. He tells Rick he'll need wire rather than rope that Michonne can chew through, and admits that Rick is right. "I'm a damn mystery to me." Poor Michael Rooker, having to ask the director his motivation every week and being told, "The hell if you know, nutbar." He steps out of the shadows and adds, "And I know you, Rick. Yeah, I thought a lot about you. You ain't got the spine for it." Rick says they have until noon, and goes off to leave Merle looking evil on his own.

Rick rushes outside to see his people carrying out a minor tactical operation in the outer yard. Carl and Maggie are busy making noise in the dog run, trying to attract as many of the walkers as they can. Meanwhile, Hershel drives the pickup into the yard, and Daryl and Glenn unload a big coil of concertina wire nailed to a spiked plank while Michonne slashes a few walker skulls on her way to meet them for the ride back. Hershel drives the pickup on in through the inner gate, which Rick opens. Apparently this was all to prevent the Governor from driving up to the gate again and risking severe tire damage -- Michonne's idea. Michonne says they don't have to win, just make themselves more trouble than they're worth. Yeah, considering what the Governor went through last week to get Andrea, they're going to add a lot more layers of trouble. Carl & Maggie join them and they all head inside, Daryl staring guilt-beams at Rick.

Merle has been watching this all from the window inside, and he muses, "Ain't no way." Carol asks him what's up, but he's suddenly come over all discreet, wondering if there's any booze around. Carol asks Merle if he's with them with them, and says it's time to pick a side. Merle notices the change in her since he knew her at the camp, and her lack of fear. "You're a late bloomer," he observes. "Maybe you are too," she says. Let's hope.

Outside, Glenn is securing gates when Daryl wanders up looking for Merle. Obviously that's not Glenn's favorite subject, and Daryl assures him that Merle is sorry and is going to make it right. "I'm gonna make him. There's gotta be a way. Just needs to be a little forgiveness is all." Daryl probably should have stopped talking one sentence earlier. Glenn tells Daryl, "He tied me to a chair, beat me, and threw a walker in the room. Maybe I could call it even. But he took Maggie to a man who terrorized her. Humiliated her. I care more about her than I care about me." Daryl leaves it at that, rather than pointing out that Merle's not exactly working for that guy any more.

Inside the prison, Daryl finds Merle down in the generator room, still looking for drugs, supposedly. Off Daryl's look, he says, "Yeah, I know, I shouldn't mess my life up when everything's going so sweet, right?" He says he's down for Rick's plan, but doesn't expect Rick to actually go through with it. Daryl doesn't seem too upset at the prospect, and tells Merle, "Whatever he says goes." Merle questions Daryl's balls, and Daryl brings up Glenn and Maggie. "I've done worse," Merle says. "You need to grow up. Things are different now." Daryl doesn't say anything, and Merle goes on, "Your people look at me like I'm the devil...now y'all want to do the same thing I did. Snatch someone up and deliver them to the Governor. Just like me. People do what they gotta do or they die." Daryl says they can't do things without people any more, and Merle says maybe they need him to be the bad guy and do the dirty work." Daryl says he just wants his brother back. Merle tells him to get out of here, clearly embarrassed. When Daryl leaves, Merle picks up an old phone and carries it around behind one of the generators, where he's been gathering a secret stash of kidnapping supplies. Well, nobody ever said he wasn't a self-starter.

Hershel is leading a little Bible study for Maggie and Beth, reading Psalm 91 in voice-over while Rick does some scavenging among the debris in the courtyard and finds a loose length of Ethernet cable. Wrapping it around his wrist to hide it, he suddenly comes over all emotional, and looks up at the catwalk overheard to see Lori, backlit by the sun and cradling a pregnant belly as she looks down at him. "You're not there. She's not there," Rick tells himself, but she still is, and even if she weren't the symbolism of her pregnancy, indicating innocence and hope for the future, is impossible to tune out. So Rick unwraps the cable from his wrist and leaves the cable on the ground. Back in the prison, Beth notices that Hershel is a little upset, and he says, "What I wouldn't do to keep you two safe." Rick comes in and Hershel starts to say something to him about the plan, but Rick just says, "I can't. I won't."

But Merle hasn't gotten the memo, and he's not about to wait around for it, either. So he's brought Michonne down to the catacombs on some pretext of clearing an area so they can barricade an open breach against the Governor. They use their respective blades to take down some walkers, and while more are coming, Merle gets behind Michonne and clonks her on the head, dropping her unconscious before taking out three more himself. That done, he grabs her katana and drags her down the hall. Soon he's got a pillowcase over her head in the generator room and tying her wrists with phone cord. Not bad knot-work for a guy with one hand, either.

There's a parental discretion warning just coming back from the ads, so this should be good. Or just good and gross. Merle is leading Michonne down a suburban street, telling her the truth about what happened. He says he agrees with Michonne that Rick would have blinked. "But not you," Michonne observes, not exactly impressed. Merle claims he's being straight with her, but admits that he wasn't so much when he led her into the tombs and put a bag over her head. "I got it done. He wouldn't have. Keep moving," Merle grumps. He has at least come to appreciate Rick coming back for him on the roof, and figures he's found his purpose in Rick's group: the dirty work. Speaking of which, seeing a walker in a raincoat approaching across a yard, he draws Michonne's katana -- he's been wearing it in its sheath as they travel -- and goes to meet it, then beheads it. Merle turns back to Michonne, mildly surprised to see her still standing there. She got away from him once before, after all. "Wanted my sword back before I get away," she smiles at him. Merle laughs, sheathing the weapon without wiping the blade, and advising her not to get her hopes up. She's not the only one, Merle.

Rick finds Daryl in the yard to call it off, and Daryl seems glad to hear it. Except now Rick can't find Merle or Michonne, so they hurry inside. Daryl leads Rick to the generator room, where they find the evidence of Merle nabbing Michonne. Rick says he's going after them, but Daryl insists on being the one to go, since he's a better tracker. "Plus, when we come back here, you need to be ready. Your family, too." Yes, give Judith a gun and have her lock and load.

On the road, Merle explains his motives to Michonne: he wants to be with his brother, and his brother wants to be in the prison, so if he can pull this off, maybe he saves them both. Michonne seems doubtful, but Merle says we have to play the hand we're dealt. "Only got one," he puns. Except he pretty much drew this hand himself, didn't he? He checks an abandoned minivan in a driveway, but deems it useless. Michonne remarks to Merle about his going on about how he has to handle the bad stuff he has to do and adds. "A bad man, someone truly evil? They're light as a feather. They don't feel a thing." Merle confesses that he's killed sixteen men since the start of the zombie apocalypse and orders, "Let's go." And since there's a crowd of zombies approaching from the adjoining woods, they'd better hurry.

By M. Giant

Glenn finds Hershel in a cell to talk about bad men -- whether he means the Governor or Merle, I'm not sure. Hershel says there will always be men like that, and Glenn agrees that it's like the walkers, and there's nothing they can do. Cheery. Hershel notices that Glenn's got his watch in his hands, and Glenn admits that he didn't understand what it meant when Hershel first gave it to him, but he does now. "I know what it takes. I want to marry Maggie. And we don't have to have a wedding. I don't even know if it'll last a week. But I want her to know, before... who knows." Hershel gives his blessing, and Glenn thanks him for it, then leaves Hershel alone to smile to himself. So at least the day's not a total disaster.

Merle and Michonne seem to have gotten clear of the walkers, at least for now. He ties the loose end of the wire around her hands to a support column outside a handy motel and quickly breaks into one of the cars parked outside. He gets to work hotwiring it, lying awkwardly (and vulnerably) on the floor under the steering column, with Michonne's sheathed weapon on the seat above him. He gets the engine running, but for some reason this boxy, 1980s POS has a car alarm, and it starts going off with a vengeance. Walkers start swarming out of the woods and even out of the motel at the noise, with Michonne still tied to the column while Merle stays in the car, oblivious and trying to get the alarm shut off. Michonne takes care of the first walker in range by kicking it over and stomping its skull like a rotted melon, and the second by running around it and the column, wrapping her cord around both its neck and the support column and then garroting it until its head comes off. So even tied up, she's not really as helpless as an ordinary person would be in this situation... for example, say, I would be.

Glenn goes out to the dog run and lets a few zombies get up close on the other side of the fence. He takes out his knife and leaves one of them, an ex-woman, missing a few fingers. Clearly he's just harvested a ring for Maggie, but it's actually a lot easier to watch than most jewelry commercials.

Remembering what Merle said earlier about having killed sixteen men since shit went down, Michonne asks him if he killed anyone before that. He says he didn't, and in fact, he admits that he never killed anyone before Woodbury and the Governor. "So he saved your life, cleaned you up, fed you a line of bullshit... why would you kill somebody else for him?" She says they can both just go back right now, but Merle insists that he can't. In fact, he stops the car and cuts the wire around her wrists. "You go back with him," he tells her. "Get ready for what's ." He leans across her and opens her door, saying, "I got something I gotta do on my own." She gets out, accepting her sword as he hands it out to her, and watches him drive on. Clearly some major change has come over him, as he bothers to divert around the camera tripod in the middle of the road rather than driving over it.

Daryl's spectacular tracking skills have already led him to the still-slavering head that Merle removed from that zombie earlier, using Michonne's sword. The head meets that blade again as Michonne reaches it and pins it to the ground with her sword, and Daryl comes up and demands to know where his brother is and whether she killed him. Michonne says merle let her go. "Don't let anyone come after me," he tells her, and runs off in the direction she came from without so much as a hug.

Merle is sitting in the parking lot of a roadhouse with the windows cracked and the radio blasting, drinking out of a bottle in clear violation of open container laws. So this is his big plan? Actually, it's not. Soon the car is surrounded by walkers, and Merle just laughs, turns up the radio, and starts driving ahead, just a few yards at a time, letting the walkers follow. In this mode he goes all the way to the meeting place, then quietly rolls out carrying an assault rifle. This all occurs out of sight of Martinez and his group of armed goons positioned around the areas, per the Governor's orders. Martinez leads his men to check out the noise while Merle sneaks into the building. All they find is a car swarming with walkers, which they start shooting at with a remarkable lack of curiosity. While they're busy with that, Merle quickly gets himself set up in window and starts using his rifle to pick off the guys in the rear. With all the other shooting going on, nobody notices at first.

The Governor himself comes out and joins the fight against the walkers. Finally Martinez points out Merle's window to one of his men. Merle has the Governor in his crosshairs, but just as he fires, stupid Ben wanders into the shot and stops the bullet instead. Alan's not going to be happy about that. Before Merle can take another shot, a walker grabs him from behind, but he kills it all the way through a door, which was a bad move because it ends with him on the ground in front of Martinez and another henchman, who promptly kick the crap out of him before he can get up. The Governor, enraged, wades in and hauls Merle out of the fray, screaming, "You leave him to me!" and drags him back inside to continue the curbstomping personally. Merle doesn't make it easy on him, and soon they're at each other's throats. But the Governor doesn't yield the advantage, biting off a couple of fingers on Merle's one remaining hand and then spitting them out, leaving poor Merle with a grand total of three digits to his name. The Governor almost chokes Merle out, but then releases him and steps back. "I ain't gonna beg," Merle finally says. "I ain't begging you!" "No," the Governor decides, levels his hand-cannon, and fires toward the camera. Hard to see how this could be good news for Merle.

Glenn goes and finds Maggie in the inner courtyard and tells her that Rick 's called a meeting, but first he takes her hand and gives her the diamond ring he cut off that walker earlier. Presumably he washed it, which in the zombie apocalypse is the equivalent of "He went to Jared!" Without his having to say a word, Maggie simply says, "Yes," she says, and they kiss in the sunlight. Man, she didn't even make him ask? And here I thought he was brave.

They go and meet Rick and the rest of the reaming group -- Carl, Carol, Hershel, Beth and Rick. Without preamble, Rick tells them about the deal the Governor offered him for Michonne, and how he was going to take it to keep them safe, but he changed his mind. "But now Merle took Michonne to fulfill the deal and Daryl went to stop him and I don't know if it's too late. I was wrong not to tell you. I'm sorry. What I said last year, that first night, after the farm?" You mean the part where it's no longer a democracy? "It can't be like that. It can't. What we do, what we're willing to do, who we are? It's not my call. It can't be. I couldn't sacrifice one of us for the greater good because we are the greater good. We're the reason we're still here. Not me. This is life and death. How you live, how you die, it isn't up to me. I'm not your Governor. We choose to go. We choose to stay. We stick together. We vote. We can stay and we can fight, or we can go." And having made his address, he goes and leaves them to chew on that for a while, just like he used to way back when he was a dictator.

By M. Giant

I know I don't get a vote, but up until now I've been on the side of those who wanted to stay and fight. But now, with no Dixons and no Michonne? Leaving Rick, Maggie, Glenn, Carl, Carol, Hershel, Beth, and Li'l Asskicker to repel an invasion from Woodbury? Leaving looks pretty good to me right now. Especially now that we've seen how easy traveling cross-country can actually be this whole half-season.

Rick heads up to the watch tower. Seeing a figure approaching the prison, he raises his rifle and looks through the scope. He's surprised to see Michonne returning alone, but then we can see the wheels turning in his head as he slowly figures out what must have happened. Which doesn't take that long, given the well-documented ability of this show's non-Andrea characters to know about events that occurred in their absence.

Outside the meeting place, the Governor and his forces appear to have abandoned the place to the walkers. Daryl finds a few undead stragglers bent over their fresh meal of unlucky Woodburians, and puts an arrow into one's head. One of the corpse-eaters looks ominously fresh, and it looks up at Daryl. Yes, it's the immortal remains of Merle, his face gray and lumpy, his eyes livid, and blood on his chest and back where the Governor must have shot him through the heart, specifically so he would come back. Daryl starts crying as zombie-Merle stands, looking for a moment like his old self with his shoulders thrown back in his usual fuck-you stance. Or maybe that's just the weight of the blade attachment still dangling from his right arm. The Merle-walker comes at Daryl, who pushes him away before finally being forced to knife him in the shoulder and then repeatedly in the face, crying throughout. Shit, man. Not a good day to be a Dixon.

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.