Walking Dead: Season 3, Episode 10 “Home”

Last week’s episode was pure silliness.  All of the characters were forced to make horrible decisions in order to set up conflicts for the second half of the season.  This week’s episode wasn’t any better written.  But it benefits from being comparatively less ridiculous. 

Rick is still seeing Lori walking around in a white dress looking positively stunning.  On the “crazy” scale, Andrew Lincoln is dialing in about an “8″.  He’s not shaking and twitching, but his hair is unkempt signaling that Rick is unraveling.  Lori walks around outside the prison just long enough for Sarah Wayne Callies to make her flight.

Rick wanders around outside the prison walls.  The other members of his crew see him walking around where a zombie could easily get him.  And yet, they just let him walk around in his stupor.  How long was he out there?  As always, it’s hard to tell on The Walking Dead because they make no effort to keep track of time.   

Eventually, Hershel comes down to the gate for a heart-to-heart with Rick.  Hysterically, he tells Rick he wouldn’t have hobbled down there if it wasn’t important.  When Rick admits that he is chasing Lori and that he has been speaking to her on the phone, Hershel doesn’t bat an eye. 

Hershel is concerned with Glenn who has appointed himself as the new leader of the group without telling anyone.  Glenn does Rick proud by huffing and puffing and generally acting like a jerk.  Glenn and Maggie have a melodramatic scene in which they basically confirm that Glenn is overreacting. 

Meanwhile the Dixon brothers are hunting squirrels.  Because The Walking Dead is a simplistic show, Daryl gets to be right about everything and Merle is just a jerk with no redeeming characteristics.  But since Norman Reedus and Michael Rooker are incapable of being uninteresting, they make their scenes work.

Daryl saves a family with a baby from zombies.  Merle attempts to rob them, I guess.  Daryl decides on the spot to reverse his equally impulsive decision from last week.  He heads back to prison presumably leaving Merle on his own.  Only, obviously not.

Back at the prison, Axel has a few lines of dialogue which is a sure sign that he’s not making it through the episode.  During his scene the Carol, I actually said “Axel’s had too many lines.  He’s got a backstory now.  He’s a goner.”  Sure enough, Axel got shot in the head.

The camera pulled back to reveal that the shooter was The Governor.  A shoot out broke out between Rick’s crew and The Governor’s men.  This conflict should be the season finale.  But instead it played out limply here.  The Governor made no effort to shield himself from the bullets presumably because he is protected by a shield of pure evil.

The Governor looked very pleased with himself as a truck knocked over a gate and unleashed about a dozen or so zombies into the prison.  But in such a big space, a couple of dozen zombies are no threat to anyone.  At most, it would take about an hour or so to fix the broken fence.  As evil schemes go, it was more like a prank where the payoff wasn’t worth the effort that went into setting up the gag.

The shoot out gets broken up when Glenn, Daryl and Merle all return at the perfect time.  So it looks like we’re back to where we were before all the faux drama introduced last week.  Only we’re down one mustache.

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