The Walking Dead – “Home” and “I Ain’t a Judas”

MAJOR SPOILERS!

Ok, so I’ve been getting really behind on these reviews. Because of that, this review will be a review of the last two episodes. “DON’T BE CRAZY JACK!” I hear you all shouting. Well, we’re doing this.

The first episode in this double bill is Home and it begins with more crazy Rick! He is again hallucinating, seeing Lori again. Even after her death she’s screwing with Rick’s life. Michonne looks on at Rick gesturing in the air and talking to himself, the group is starting to worry. Meanwhile Merle and Daryl are having their own adventures. They come across a family on a bridge being attacked by walkers.
This scene is more or less just a showcase for Daryl, showing how badass he is and just why he has so many fan girls. Merle tries to rob the family but Daryl stops him. They head back into the forest and Merle starts to fight with him, ripping Daryl’s shirt and revealing scars from his childhood beatings. Merle apologises. This is a great moment for Daryl and Merle and makes a nice change from them arguing all the time.

Back at the prison some of the group are talking about leaving. Glenn and Maggie argue some more as well when Glenn tries to confront Maggie on what The Governor did to her. It seems like Hershel is holding the group together at this point, trying to talk Glenn down and trying to get Rick back on his feet. There are also a few good scenes with Axel and Carol, with Axel telling Carol about his life and how he ended up in the prison. It’s just a shame that as soon as he suits up and starts to become more interesting, he dies. The Governor attacks and murders him mid-sentence.

Hershel hides in the long grass, whilst Rick is in trouble outside of the fence. The Governor and his men shoot at the group and then crash a truck through the fence. In the back of the truck, you guessed it, ZOMBIES! The Governor overruns the prison with walkers, leaving them trapped. Rick is in more danger than anyone else, and on top of that he runs out of ammo. Then Rick re-discovers his inner badass that has disappeared in the most recent episodes. He uses his python revolver as sort of make-shift knuckle dusters, smashing in zombie face after zombie face. Soon even he gets over-encumbered with walkers. But Daryl and Merle comes to the rescue in the nick of time! The episode ends with Rick staring into the now overrun prison yard.

The second episode is I Ain’t A Judas and lucky us, it’s an Andrea episode! Yay! What, no one? Ok, ok, so Andrea isn’t most people’s favorite character so to speak. In fact, I think the majority of The Walking Dead  fan base wants Andrea dead in the most gruesome way possible.  I never really hated Andrea as much as a lot of other people, but she was getting on my nerves on the last few episodes. But I really liked this episode. REALLY liked it. It was a slower episode, but it was a well-shot character driven episode.

The episode begins with the group in the cell block, with Merle locked up. Rick goes out to the catwalk which leads to a father and son moment with Carl, who asks his father to stop being the leader. This moment was nice if only because Carl hasn’t had any real dialogue for a few episodes.

Meanwhile at Woodbury, The Governor is raising an army to take on the prison. Using similar tactics to those he used in the comics, he tells the people of Woodbury that the group at  the prison is dangerous and that they need to take action. After finding out about what the Governor did to her friends, Andrea wants to travel there to defuse the situation. The Governor doesn’t want this so she confides in Milton who rats her out anyway. The Governor tells Milton to help her and he does. In one especially cool scene Andrea takes a leaf out of Michonne’s book and gets herself a pet walker. This involves her and Milton cutting of a walker’s arms and curb-stomping the zombie to shatter its teeth and break its jaw. It’s a really gruesome scene in an otherwise walker-light episode.

Andrea reaches the prison and it was so great to see her catching up with the old gang. Of course she hasn’t seen them since the farm went up in smoke at the end of season 2, so she had a few questions to ask. Such as “Where’s Shane?” Actually now I think about it, Andrea took the news that Rick had killed Shane rather well. Andrea goes on to catch up with the group but it is Carol who gives the best advice, give the Governor the best sex ever so he lowers his guard, and kill him whilst he sleeps. Y’know, the old fuck him and kill plan. Classic Carol! The group gives Andrea a gun and a car and lets her go back to Woodbury.  Rick plans to go on a trip the next day with Michonne and Carl. My guess – they’re going to find Morgan à la the comics. When Andrea gets back to Woodbury, she has sex with him but can’t go through with the second part of the plan. Silly Andrea.

Overall, these episodes were two very strong episode. Home was heavily action based whilst I Ain’t a Judas is heavily story based. I can see some of the hate at Andrea, hate which is just going to get worse after her failure to kill The Governor. She’s not my favourite character, but I don’t dislike her. Anyway, these episodes were much stronger than the slow series opener. The Walking Dead is still going strong and the next episode looks like one of the best yet.