The Walking Dead, Episode 3.07: "When the Dead Come Knocking"

Since I'm still recouperating from the long Thanksgiving weekend, I'll keep my remarks brief tonight… and to be quite honest, I don't have much profound stuff to write about, because this was very much a setup episode for next week's Woodbury action extravaganza. When even the inevitable Rick-versus-Michonne face-off takes a backseat to the quest to find Glen and Maggie, you know we're in too deep to slow down.

With the very first scene of the episode - the "Merle interrogates/tortures Glen" setup - I was afraid that this whole thread tonight was going to be kind of rote… and I say that having watched 8 seasons of extravagant torture as a 24 fan. :-) But then, here comes Merle later on, tossing a walker into Glen's room with Glen duct-taped to a wooden chair… and I was enthralled. That's the beauty of a show like The Walking Dead: that its writers can take old tropes and infuse them with a unique zombie-laced mentality. As for the Governor's strip-based torture of Maggie, as disturbing a scene as it was, I probably should've been more creeped out than I was… but that's because I was too distracted by the blatant continuity error involving Maggie's bra straps. (Seriously, how that made it past post-production, I don't know…)

Back to Rick versus Michonne: This could've been an entire episode's worth of juicy story material, and I had almost expected it to be that way. But, with Maggie and Glen in danger, the show had to work to distill pretty much every "Can we trust her?" bit that the show's flung at us the past two-and-a-half seasons into as the first third of the episode. At least we got that initial scene of Michonne proving her skills to Rick… even though, just like the Governor, Rick had to deprive Michonne of her sweet, sweet sword. The Hyundai-sponsored trip to Woodbury felt a little bit like filler, especially the trip to Token Old Guy's Random House In The Woods. But I guess they had to pad it out, just so that they could tease us with the shots of Rick and Company hiding just outside the Woodbury patrol wall.

The science experiment sidebar, in which Milton (with Andrea's help) attempts to see if a person retains their human memories after turning into a walker, was intriguing (in that Lost-like mysterious way). But I loved how it quickly turned into a way to flesh out Milton, who, as we found out, hasn't really had that much exposure to walkers to begin with… and whom certainly got a taste of it when Andrea saved his butt. Even if it wasn't much of a revelation, it was still nice to burrow into the inner mechanisms of a walker, albeit briefly. (And it saved us from another episode full of Andrea/Governor lovey-dovey stuff… so that's a plus!)

And now, we wait for next week's big midseason finale, which I can only assume will be a big action-fest like Season 2's "the farm goes down" season-ending extravaganza. If nothing else, we've got a pretty clear plan of action, so hopefully AMC will break the piggybank to let us see Woodbury turn to toast. :-) See you then!

Random notes:

• Tonight's director: Longtime TV director Daniel Sackheim, who made his Walking Dead debut this week. His credits include early episodes of Law & Order and The X-Files. He has no film directing credits to his name, although he has a producer credit on the first X-Files movie.
• Tonight's kill count: 1 human, 15 walkers. Rick won tonight with 7 walkers to his name.
• Kill of the night: I'm going to have to give it to Andrea's takedown of Mr. Coleman. That was insanely swift… and a fun way to cap that plot.
• Tonight's movie ads: Django Unchained, The Expendables 2 on Blu-ray, Jack Reacher, and Zero Dark Thirty.
• So, umm, Freakshow, huh? Way to stay classy, AMC. And here I thought that they couldn't get any more bizarre than Small Town Security…
• I'd like to have Merle bake a cake for me… with pink frosting! That machete arm would come in pretty handy in the kitchen (pun not intended).
• As brief and rushed as it was, it was beneficial to get a good Rick/Carl scene before Rick took off to Woodbury… complete with the naming of our newest Grimes, Judith. The Rick/Carol reunion was a nice touch, too.
• Rick and Carl should've listened to Daryl: I personally think "Ass-Kicker Grimes" would've been a great baby name.
• I loved the wide shot of Rick's vehicle driving away as Carl, Hershel, and the others watch them depart. Yay for striking camera angles!
• Next week: Here's a casting spoiler for next week's midseason finale. And below, you'll find your AMC-sanctioned preview clip!