Welcome to Walking Dead Weekly! As the title implies, each week (bearing a new episode of course), we’ll be taking a look at the latest episode of the AMC series. I’ll let you know how I felt about each weekly offering, and will also compare it to what Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard were doing with the comic at the same time.

Last week’s When The Dead Come Knocking was an awesome return to form after the lacking (in my opinion) Hounded. Merle started things off by giving Glenn a nice beating in an attempt to learn the location of the camp, and subsequently, his brother. Glenn is tough as nails, so The Governor takes to Maggie in an attempt to do the same. Back in prison, an injured Michonne is brought inside and quickly reveals that Maggie and Glenn have been taken. Before the episode closed, both parties would know the location of the other. In other words, this is what we’ve all been waiting for all this time, and shit is about to hit the fan.

Tonight’s episode of course, serves as the midseason finale. After this evening, we won’t see a new The Walking Dead until February 10th. After how fantastic this season has turned out so far, it’s going to be a long wait.

Let’s get to it! As always, there are plenty of spoilers below, so don’t read until you’ve watched!

Episode Thoughts – ‘Made To Suffer’

February can’t come soon enough.

Made To Suffer opens with an awesome moment that we’ve all been waiting for since The Walking Dead premiered: Tyreese. It was first revealed just a few weeks ago that the character would be making his way into the AMC series, and Chad Coleman does not disappoint. Based on the source material, Tyreese is bound to introduce plenty of intriguing twists and turns. Let’s just hope he fares better than his paper counterpart!

Tyreese and his group look like they’re in some big trouble. They’re tired, and there are walkers everywhere. One of their own is bitten just a few minutes into the chapter, and we know then that these folks know even less about what’s going on than Rick and the gang: their group member is bitten on the arm, yet no effort is made to remove said arm, which could have easily saved her life!

Tyreese and friends turn out to be faster than the walkers, and just before the opening credits roll they make their way into the back entrance of the prison. YES!

Back in Woodbury, The Governor is as creepy and misrepresented as always. He begins with a quick romantic exchange with the unknowing Andrea, but once she leaves it’s time to give Penny a visit. Remember Penny? That’s his zombie daughter that he heartbreakingly keeps alive undead incase things start looking up in the future (whether the walkers begin to remember their old selves, or a cure for the infection is found). When Penny doesn’t reciprocate Governor’s loving gestures, he puts her back in her cage without feeding her. That’ll teach her.

Everyone’s favourite couple, Glenn and Maggie, are still (unsurprisingly) being held captive somewhere in Woodbury. Understandably, they’re not happy about it: Glenn decides that it’s time to do something about it, and in a short, but gag worthy scene he rips off a walkers arm (the same one he had to kill last episode), and fashions it into a shank. Sick, yet effective.

Just outside the Woodbury walls, Rick, Daryl, Oscar, and Michonne make a plan to get inside. Michonne is more familiar with the layout of the town, and as Rick and Daryl plan an all out assault, she instead leads them through a back entrance: much sneakier, much quieter.

As this conspires outside, Merle and Governor plan to take the prison: they’ll surrender, and as Rick and friends lower their guns, all of them will be killed (rehashing the same tactic they used on the National Guard). I’m sure they know full well too that the prison camp is full of children, they just don’t care.

Back at the Prison camp, Axel (who it turns out didn’t go on the rescue mission) reveals that he’s just a little bit creepy (or maybe just really lonely): when Beth reveals her age (17), he seems just a little too interested. Carol pulls him aside and he explains that the only reason he didn’t hit on her, was because he thought she was a lesbian! I chuckled here, it was a hilarious anomaly in an otherwise very extreme episode.

Just as Glenn and Maggie are about to be executed, our rescue team bursts in with smoke grenades and guns blazing. Woodbury is sent into a panic, as they’re used to only peace and tranquility in the town, and most have no clue what Governor Phillip is actually like. He spins the rescue mission into being an attack by terrorists, who simply want the peace and happiness that the townspeople have. What a dick.

The last half of the episode spends its majority following the rescue team on their attempt to escape the now-aware town. Everyone wants these ‘terrorists’ dead, and they’re going to do whatever they can to make it a reality. Of course, these are townspeople and not trained militants, and as we witnessed a few episodes ago, can’t aim worth shit. We end up spending a rather large chunk of the episode watching people not shoot anyone. It seems as though our lovable Oscar is one of the very few who actually took a bullet, and as I predicted last week, instantly succumbed to the injury.

Michonne breaks herself off from the group to go confront the Governor (remember, she had to leave Woodbury because she learned too much about the man and his true nature). She arrives at his home, and while waiting for him to return finds his zombified daughter. Just as she’s about to put an end to Penny’s suffering, Governor arrives and the two duke it out in the midst of Phillip’s walker-head fishtanks (after Michonne puts a sword through Penny’s head of course). Phillip ends the encounter with the brunt of the injury, as he takes a rather large shard of glass to the eye (cue eypatch!). Andrea hears the commotion, and is the only reason that Michonne didn’t kill The Governor then and there. Michonne leaves and eventually rejoins the others (who unusually, don’t really ask about her obvious injuries).

Back at the prison Carl takes charge, and runs to the aid of Tyreese’s group upon hearing them calling for help. He leads them to a separate block, where he intelligently locks them in, not ready to immediately trust these unknown survivors. I wonder how long it’ll be before they merge? Rick’s gang is beginning to get rather sparse!

The final scene of the episode reveals a very neat twist, and shows just how quickly someone like the Governor will turn on one of his own. The battle is over, and Woodbury needs someone to blame it on. Turns out that Merle will be our fall guy. The governor spins a tale of betrayal to the angry crowd: Merle was working with the terrorists all along, he let them in, and one of them is his own brother! A hooded Daryl is then brought out and revealed. When the Governor asks what should be done with the traitor and his terrorist sibling, the most extreme answer is also the only answer heard from the crowd: kill them. Cut to black.

How did you feel about Made to Suffer? I’ve read some mixed reports on twitter: people saying that it was a mediocre end to an otherwise great half-season, to people stating that it was the best ~42 minutes of television ever produced. I’m obviously not on either side of those extremes, but I’m interested in hearing what people thought of the finale.

The episode was intense and extreme, just as we’ve come to expect this season, and just as we anticipated for the episode. The introduction of Tyreese was borderline perfect. As I mentioned above, Chad Coleman looks fantastic in the part, and seeing him swinging that hammer within seconds of the episode opening was both a great first impression, and an awesome beginning to this midseason finale.

I was impressed with most of what the episode offered: things like Michonne’s battle with Governor and Carol telling off Axel were great, but there were a few scenes that felt as though they dragged on simply too long. A good few of the scenes in Woodbury felt like this, specifically the battle in the town: smoke grenades meant that we were essentially watching people yelling at fog, and though I heard lots (and lots) of shooting, none of it really went anywhere!

Just a few shortfalls however, doesn’t really do much to detriment the episode. From the moment it opened to the second it closed, it was an intense, extreme and surprising romp through the town of Woodbury (with some brief and affective moments inside our favourite prison). The cliffhanger at the end was a fantastic one, and it’s going to be a long 2 months before we finally get to see what pans out!

Of course, AMC didn’t leave us completely hanging. As always, the episode ended with a short peek at what comes next. It’s just too bad that what comes next isn’t until February. Here’s a preview of Season 3, Episode 9 – The Suicide King.

 Comic Comparison

Overall, Made to Suffer is a tough episode to compare to Kirman/Adlard’s work. As I’ve mentioned before, we’ve seen substantially more of Woodbury here than we ever did on paper, and this is a good thing. I’ve been loving the town and almost every second that we’ve been able to spend there: Woodbury could honestly get its own spinoff, and it would be more popular than a lot of other currently airing shows!

However, there are a few key scenes that we can directly compare. First would be the very opening scene of the episode, the much anticipated introduction of Tyreese. AMC had his group running through the forest in search of shelter before finally stumbling upon the inhabited prison. On paper things went much differently: Tyreese, his daughter, and her boyfriend were all introduced way back on the snowy pages of issue 7. The two groups simply came across each other on the road, and almost instantaneously merged together. Tyreese was already a well established member of the group when the prison was discovered, and would be there until the day Rick and friends were forced to leave. In the show, Rick of course has just left Woodbury, so it will be interesting to see how he reacts to Tyreese’s group upon returning to the prison.

Another big difference between each version is the loss of the Governor’s eye. Both media have the event take place in an interaction with Michonne, but the context and reasoning for each is much different. On paper, it’s revenge. As I’ve mentioned in previous iterations, The Governor spent nearly a week brutally raping and torturing Michonne in an attempt to learn the location of the prison. Upon escaping, she (understandably) feels the need to teach him a lesson. She goes to his home and knocks him out, and when he wakes up, she begins the fun. First, she nails his genitals to a board, ensuring that he won’t be quick to move. She then proceeds to drill into his arm. Just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, she uses pliers to rip multiple fingernails out before slicing off his arm and digging his eye out with a spoon. Sick.

Of course, the TV version was much more tame. Michonne received no torture, so there was not really any basis for revenge. She simply stabbed him in the eye with glass as a means to escape the situation (in which she may have otherwise ended up dead). The scene was still intense on TV, but there was no doubt in my mind that it wouldn’t have been able to top the comic book.

Those were the only really comparable sequences here. The comic has an escape happen from within Woodbury (which turns out to be staged), while the show had a group come to the rescue (which of course was the basis for this episode). Each was unique, and each was uniquely good in its own way.

For those of you that have been following this past eight weeks, thanks! I’d love to hear any feedback you may come up with during this long Winter break. Of course when the show returns, so will I for eight more iterations of Walking Dead Weekly! If the zombie apocalypse happens while I’m gone, remember to double tap!

Happy holidays!