Summary: Winter has passed and the group are surviving by going house to house. They come across a prison overrun by walkers. Rick wants to take the field outside and the group is successful in doing so. Rick continues to push forwards and the group find a habitable cell block. Rick continues to push forwards into the depths of the prison with a smaller group. The group is attacked and separated by walkers. Hershel's leg is bitten. The group get back together and find a safe room. Rick amputates Hershel's leg. The group finds survivors in the prison. Andrea and Michonne travel on their own. Andrea isn't well.
The Good: This was an excellent season premiere. This kind of episode is exactly what I've wanted from "The Walking Dead" and it has made for the best episode since the pilot. The opening scene was fantastic. The total silence in which the group did their job was terrific and did a wonderful job of conveying how much better they have become at surviving in this world. The efficient way in which they cleared the house was really fun to watch and there were loads of small moments that I appreciated. Seeing Carl's growth with a gun was great, and I also appreciated him looting the cupboards to see what kind of food he could find. I also liked Daryl with the owl. He finds the owl but instead of appreciating that it wasn't a walker, he quickly kills it so the group could eat it. It's a lovely moment to highlight the change in the group's morals as nobody complains while they eat the owl. Lastly, I loved how quickly the group reacted to the arrival of a herd as they rapidly took the loot they needed, jumped in their cars and drove away. This was such a fun scene to establish a timeskip while also including a lot of intelligent details to make it plausible that this group could survive in this world. Everything after this opening scene lived up to the expectations as well. I really enjoyed the brief planning sequence as it highlighted how cooperative the group is now with no hostilities towards each other. I'm extremely glad that we don't need to deal with more infighting melodrama within the group and hopefully this can lead to proper character development and a more exciting season. Adding on to that was the idea that the group was keeping track of walker herds that they discovered and trying to predict their movements. This was a fantastic detail to let us know that the group was being restricted by walkers throughout the winter with few places to actually go. It makes it more plausible that the group hasn't encountered any other survivors or safe zones if they have been in the same area just looting and pillaging different homes. The taking of the prison was equally excellent. The teamwork that everyone exhibited as they cleared the field was really impressive and the skillful direction made it clear how impressive of a feat it was to just take the field. I appreciates Rick's hungry desire to get more of the prison as he didn't settle on sitting around, forcing the group to push forwards to loot more of the prison. Once again, it was the details which impressed me the most as the group started pushing into the prison. The walkers wearing prison suits and riot gear were really good threats and obstacles for the group, and I really liked seeing them figure out an efficient way to kill them. Furthermore, I loved how Daryl used the walkers' clothing and a dose of logic to decipher that there was likely a breach in the prison wall somewhere in the facility. The details here made this even more impressive to watch. The final five minutes of the episode were fantastic. As tense as everything was before it, the mission inside the depths of the prison hit a new level. The claustrophobic, maze feeling created by the prison created an escalating sense of fear and put me on the edge of my seat in tension. Then Hershel got bit (the walker just sitting silently for so long was pretty contrived but I'll let it slide considering how good the rest of this sequence was). Hershel's bite was a big surprise because I wasn't expecting a major death this early in the season and a bite has been a death sentence in previous seasons. But then we got the epic twist of Rick trying to save Hershel by violently amputating his leg, which was a signature "Walking Dead" moment. There were many signature moments in this episode which made it even better. I appreciate the irony of a prison, the most violent place in a civilized world being viewed as a symbol of hope and safety, and a cell block of all places being a safe sleeping place. I was also grossed out by the idea of Lori's baby killing her from the inside out, which was a horrific and terrifying thought that did a tremendous job of highlighting how scary it would be to just live in a world with walkers, not knowing when you may next be bit. This episode in general made the idea of a zombie apocalypse terrifying again and I greatly appreciate that. As a final note on the taking of the prison, I loved the idea of spray painting arrows so the group can find their way back. As I said before, the details were impressive in this episode. There were some good hints of characterization too which is refreshing. Daryl and Carol's relationship has progressed as the two of them seem more comfortable with each other. Beth and Carl have developed a friendship which is nice. Rick has turned on Lori after what happened at the end of season 2. I can't lie, I was pretty happy about this because of how poorly Lori was presented last season. She does seem to be a little improved this season so we will see if her character can win me over. I was also pleased that Beth and T-Dog got lines and an increased presence in this episode. While there wasn't a ton of character development for them, there are 15 other episodes this season to give them something to do. I hope that the extended season length will lead to more character storylines as opposed to the meaningless arguments we got last season. The few scenes with Andrea and Michonne were good. I'm interested in learning more about Michonne and her relationship with Andrea, and I think there is potential to tell a good story which is isolated from the main storyline. The cliff-hanger was very good as well and excites me for the next episode. It more than did its job. The Bad: It's a shame we didn't get to see more of the group's time on the road. For us, the group only just left the farm an episode ago, so everyone's happiness in the prison didn't really have an emotional impact. I'm also a little disappointed that we didn't see a lot of the development that the characters went through. I've always hated timeskips for that reason. They seem like a lazy way to get characters from point A to point B without showing us any of it. There weren't many things wrong with this episode. The only other things are nitpicks. I would have liked that the group had learned to stab the heads of dead bodies as well as we have seen that walkers have a tendency to lay around for... some reason. Let's hope that the group learns from Hershel's bite and adapts this into their survival strategy. Scratches have been confirmed to still be a threat. If that's the case, it seems stupid that all of these characters aren't wearing full sleeve shirts to protect their skin. Also, the riot gear should really be used more by the group, regardless of what Daryl says. Surely they would at least want to take the gear from the walkers for further use. Again, none of these issues are that big, but seeing that this episode included a lot of excellent details, I would have loved for these things to be addressed too. The Unknown: Who are the men in the prison? How long have they been there? Were they prisoners? Are they a threat to the main group? Will Hershel survive the amputation or will he die? Is he still infected or does an amputation work to save the victims? I noticed Michonne's walkers have no arms and their mouths have been smashed to render them harmless. Does she use them for strategic purposes? Perhaps to help mask her scent from other walkers? Also, does this confirm that walkers don't need to eat to survive? Best Moment: The opening montage is what I'm going with, but there were a number of great moments here to pick from. Character of the Episode: Rick. Conclusion: This was a terrific way to start season 3. The episode was tense, fast-paced, exciting to watch and detail-oriented which improves on a lot of my complaints from season 2. If we can get some good character development in the next few episodes, "The Walking Dead" may finally live up to its full potential. This is certainly a step in the right direction. Score: 75
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
March 2024
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