When it comes to blood, guts and drama, no show does it better than “Walking Dead.” The cable hit, which airs on AMC, has taken the nation by storm and has slowly turned the world from vampire fascination to the zombie craze.
Season One introduced us to the grimy main character Rick, who went on a wild goose chase to find his family and lead his new group to safety. The second season threw in a major twist in almost every single episode, almost to the point of ad nausea. Now, in Season Three all the dominoes are falling into place to set up the most dramatic season to date.
In the fading moments of Season Two, we were introduced to what appeared to be a giant castle or jail lurking just a short walk away from Rick and the gang. In the first episode of Season Three, the group finally enters into what actually is an abandoned prison. They break in through the fence and go on their usual bloody massacre to clear the field. Once in, they realize that their troubles have just begun. Yes, they have a safe room at night, and, yes, they should have a place for Lori to have the long awaited baby, but they’re still many steps away from being secure. At the end of the episode Hershel is attacked by a Walker, forcing Rick to chop his leg off before the disease spreads, and a few stray men are discovered hiding in the prison.
In typical Rick fashion, he takes no time whatsoever to establish himself as the alpha dog with the new group. The men in the prison seem edgy and tense, led by a rebel named Tomas. The groups agree that if Rick and his men help to clear out another cell block, they’ll split half their food supply with them and let them be. During the clearing, Tomas starts to show signs of insanity and Rick is quick to take him out. They leave two men stranded in another cell block and go along their way. In the meantime, Hershel barely survives from his bite and Carol is trying to prepare herself to assist in the birth of Lori’s incoming (zombie?) child. The climax at the end consists of an unidentified person watching Carol in the prison yard.
****SPOILER ALERT****
Episode Three, or “Walk With Me,” is the first time that we are introduced to the infamous Governor character. That recurring helicopter that always seems to be flying by finally finds its resting stop in an abandoned field. The crash prompts Andrea and her newfound partner Michonne to explore the wreckage. During the exploration, the Governor and his team pull up to the crash and start to kill the already dead soldiers before they come back as Walkers. Just when it appears that the duo is safe, an ever too familiar voice threatens Michonne to drop her sword. The voice turns out to be the long awaited return of Merle, the estranged brother of the folk hero Daryl.
Andrea and Michonne are soon brought to an undisclosed location. The two wake up to find that they are being treated for but still are taken under “hostage.” Meryl and the Governor walk in to lay down some guidelines for the travelers: If they want their weapons fine, but they can only get them once outside the gates of the town. Outside the front door the Governor pronounces, “Welcome to Woodbury.” The women are soon given the rules and general info of the town by a member of the small oasis. While Andrea seems all too eager to thank whoever she can for the hospitality, Michonne remains mute and barely says anything besides, “We want our weapons back.”
At the halfway mark, it’s obvious that Rick and the usual group will not enter into this episode and that all of the drama this time is coming from the Governor. First he enters into a secret lab in the town to talk to a scientist-like character. This man has discovered that when Michonne chopped off the arms and mouths of her prisoners, she killed their desire to eat. This appears to be the first step in finding a cure or maybe something else that the Governor intends to do.
The Governor then speaks to the rescued captain of the helicopter crash and discovers that he has left men on the highway. The Governor makes a sincere promise to the ailing man that he will return these stragglers to Woodbury alive. He races up to the area where the men are and waves a white flag, declaring proudly to the men that he has found their captain and is here to save them. Just when it appears that the show may have a new hero, the Governor pulls out a gun and shoots down the first soldier in front of him. Meryl and the rest of the men in Woodbury gun down everyone else in the area. It’s evident now that the Governor has lost his mind, just like the rest of the world.
When the Governor announces to the citizens that the army men were dead long before they reached them, it eerily brought back how Shane convinced everyone that Otis sacrificed himself to save Carl. Andrea makes a bold attempt to try and win his affection, but the Governor has no part of it and soon retreats to his room. He opens up a door in his room and sits in a leather couch, turning on a fluorescent light that may be some type of old film reel. He sits, sits and sits, the tension’s thick enough to cut with a knife.
Soon the camera moves from the steel gaze of this strange leader to what his attention is so transfixed on. Heads, real zombie heads, sitting in tanks of water; the farther the camera pans out, the more heads that sit slowly dying in the water. The top tank holds the head of none other than the defeated helicopter pilot.
What we’ve learned is that the world is a much more demented place than ever before. The safety of an individual group has now taken precedence over trying to save any remaining humans. It’s hard to imagine sometimes that the conventional wisdom in the real world doesn’t exist when 99 percent of the world has been transformed into soulless killers. The blood will continue to be spilled, the guts will continue to be shot out, and the drama now has no end in sight.
