The Walking Dead, Season 3, Episode 15: This Sorrowful Life
The confrontation in this episode was excellent, and honestly, everything regarding Merle from his first meeting with Daryl to his final end is extremely well-told. The thing that doesn't make it well-told? The same reason why I can't give a shit about Andrea last episode... though the Merle story is a lot more consistent than the Andrea story by a huge margin, of course.
The first, biggest problem, is Rick being a bit of a wishy-washy idiot regarding the whole Michonne thing. The thing is, he has absolutely no reason to really trust the Governor, and if the Governor ended up deciding to betray them anyway it's a bit stupid for Rick to hand over one of their better fighters. And Rick goes from 'okay, I'm going to do it' to 'okay, Michonne made friends with my son' during the Clear episode, to 'shit, I think we have to do it but we're going to keep it a secret' early in this episode only to change his mind and go 'no, wait, let's not' around the halfway mark. This makes Rick really hard to respect, and at the end of the episode he kind of understands that, noting that his little attempt at dictatorship is over since he sees that, well, basically he's become the Governor.
The thing is, Hershel agreeing with Rick seems a bit out of place considering he's the voice of sanity among all this, and the lack of Glenn in the proceedings is a bit jarring (though Glenn's probably going to make an argument against trusting the Governor and that would change Rick's mind early on). I don't understand why the show doesn't just have Merle overhear them discussing it without Rick actually going through with it, and have him bugger off on his own accord. Or something. I dunno. It all seems so rushed and there's a lack of cohesion between Rick's train of thought ever since the Governor gave him this deal, and why he would include the loose cannon Merle as part of his plan is a bit suspect.
Still, the stuff between Merle and Michonne is great, and honestly Merle is fun all throughout the episode. From ripping mattresses apart in search of meth to the conversation with Daryl noting that Rick's too much of an officer friendly to pull it off, to him conking Michonne in the head, and the conversations they had in the car. Merle apparently hasn't killed anyone prior to the zombie apocalypse, or even prior to meeting the Governor, and Michonne questions how Merle is just being everyone's errand boy. There's a cool bit that Merle decides to go on with Rick's plan before he pussies out, and his observations are pretty spot-on... that Rick needed him to do the dirty work, and that's his role in the community that pretty obviously rejects him. Granted there's all the stuff about torture and everything, so Merle is someone who'll never belong... but he does make his train of thought very clear: his brother cares for the prison, and he cares for the brother. Ergo, he'll have to make things right with the prison for the sake of his brother.
They get into a couple of nice, introspective moments down their little trip, and in addition to that we get a very badass moment as Michonne, tied with wire and bound to a post, manages to still murder two zombies when Merle is dealing with another one. She straight-up garrottes a zombie with her hands still tied, and that's awesome. The dialogue exchange between Merle and Michonne aren't very straight to the point, but Merle eventually has a change of heart after Michonne points out that the Governor is the creature that made Merle a killer, cutting Michonne loose as he buggers off to murder the Governor on his own.
Why that manages to shake Merle off his funk is a bit hard to say, and why Michonne returned to the prison where a couple of hours ago Rick was perfectly happy with turning her over to the Governor instead of running off (as Merle points out, she's an outsider as much as he is)... but I don't really care all that much because the sequence of Merle drinkin whiskey in his car as he lets the music blare loudly and attract zombies... before it's clear that he's not suicidal, just luring the zombies towards the meeting point, dealing a pretty significant blow against the Governor's men as they are forced to do battle with them. I'm not sure if Martinez or one of Tyreese's group was among those who got fucked over by the zombies, but a couple of soldiers definitely went down, and Merle using the chaos to snipe a couple of the Governor's soldiers in the midst of it all was pretty awesome.
And honestly, Merle had the Governor in his crosshairs as he took aim from the building if not for a zombie attacking him. The battle between Merle and the Governor was very brutal and physical, with the two of them just on each other's throats and at one point the Governor bit off two of Merle's fingers, what the shit. Merle's final line is "I ain't begging ya!" as he stands in defiance while the Governor draws a gun on him, and exit Merle.
Merle isn't a wholly likable character, and his presence after Daryl drags him back to the prison is a bit questionable since he's just around to be abrasive while not really doing much, so it's a bit strange that he would have this change of heart, but I guess the conversations with Daryl and Michonne manages to make him... die on his own terms? Try to solve this dirty problem for the sake of his brother, without having to hand over a woman for the Governor to torture? A realization that he'll never fit with the prison group, yet knowing he has to do something to help his brother? Get revenge for all the Governor's done to him? Whatever the case, it's a very cool scene, and what truly gets me is when Daryl arrives, too late to participate in the chaos, looking at the dead bodies in desperation...
Only to find zombie Merle feeding on a random body. Daryl's despair as he pushes zombie Merle away, before being forced to tackle him and stab him in the head many times to put him down, before breaking down crying, actually made me far more emotional than Rick's reaction to Lori's death, simply because of how Daryl was so desperately trying to catch up with Merle throughout this episode.
Meanwhile, in the midst of the Merle/Michonne story, and Rick being a bit inconsistent in characterization, Glenn proposes to Maggie with a ring he stole by snapping off the fingers of a random zombie. I really hope he washes that ring before that proposal.
But Merle's dead, the Governor's crazy, Daryl's grieving, and the next episode is the final one of this season and is poised to at least bring a conclusion to the Governor/Rick conundrum. Sadly, this probably means that Andrea, imprisoned by the Governor in his basement, will come to play, which isn't something I look forward to.
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