The Walking Dead - S03E09 The Suicide King (2013)

Review

The good folk of Woodbury, braying for blood in a decent Roman style, are happy to see the Dixon brothers pitted against each other in a fight to the death, much to the distaste of Andrea. Milton warns her to leave well enough alone. The festivities are broken up by Rick and Maggie who manage to disrupt things with gun fire and smoke grenades, rescuing the Dixons, and making their escape in the confusion as some of the Governor's pet zombies run amuck.

Rick is faced with an unacceptable situation, the group doesn't want Merle around and everyone's favourite redneck Daryl isn't leaving his brother to fend for himself. Daryl and Merle head out on their own, which leaves Rick wanting to patch up Michonne, and then send her on her way after she did the disappearing act in the initial invasion of Woodbury. Back at the prison Rick has to make a decision on Tyreese's group staying, Herschel and most everyone else disagrees with his call, but not helping is the re-appearance of Lori! Is Rick going insane?

The episode starts right after the end of the previous outing with Daryl and Merle facing each other as the Governor fires up the good folk of Woodbury to do their best Roman impersonation. All that was missing was a few Christians that could be thrown to the lions or zombies in this case as the Governor introduces the flesh munchers to festivities. Naturally Rick arrives in the nick of time, causing massive confusion, deaths result, and the Dixons are out of there. Glenn, Maggie, and Rick are having nothing to do with Merle but Daryl has a personal code which requires him not to abandon his brother, something that Merle takes advantage of. Glenn and Maggie are having problems post torture, Glenn found himself impotent in the situation and following on from his freezing during the barroom confrontation last season is starting to question his man card credentials. For mine it's a striking piece of character development that underlines just how good the scripters have been on this show thus far.

Both Daryl and Glenn have moral codes that are at odds with the world they find themselves in

Back at the prison Herschel is offering succour to Tyreese's band of happy campers, a situation a couple of them want to take advantage of but which Tyreese nips in the bud. Interestingly Herschel informs Tyreese it's not up to him about whether they can stay, he doesn't make the decisions, which reinforces the idea that the survivors are still toiling under a Ricktatorship, something brought to light in the final episode of season two as Rick got sick and tired of being second guessed by everyone in sight. The pressure is starting to grow on Rick and he's now seeing visions of Lori in flowing white dresses, and naturally Lori ensures Tyreese ain't staying even though the team desperately need reinforcements with Daryl having left the group. We know a showdown with the Governor is coming; Rick needs all the help he can muster.

Has Andrea finally worked out the Governor is a lying psycho or will she once again turn her lonely eyes to the dude with the plan, regardless of how insane that plan may be? During the episode Andrea finds out the marauders are her last crew and that Glenn and Maggie were being held by Woodbury, now surely this would be enough to have her scrambling to get out from under, in more ways than one, the Governor. But, once again proving the character is nothing like the one found in the graphic novels, Andrea hangs around knowing war is imminent between the two survivor groups. She even lends a hand to pacify the townsfolk who want out of Dodge as they no longer view Woodbury as a safe haven, and who can blame them considering they have lost people to recent incursions by armed "terrorists" and just recently zombies. The Governor is planning a raid on the prison; just how much does it take Andrea to come up to speed on what is going down?

While only touched on we do get updates on other characters that aren't central to the episode. Axel appears to have integrated fully with Rick's people, Carol seems to have gotten over her ordeal in the prison corridors, and Karl is finally coming to terms with his mother's death. Beth Greene may be getting more airtime but she is filling the role of mother to Judith rather than being developed as a character in her own right, going to be interesting to see what her position is when the whip comes down and Woodbury pay a visit.

The episode focuses squarely on Rick's inability to accept new people into his group as he views all outsiders with mistrust, on each of three occasions this costs him and his people in terms of being a more formidable foe for the forces of the Governor. Rather belligerently Rick decides they should patch Michonne up and send her on her way, okay the Amazon warrior did do a disappearing act at a crucial time but equally she was fundamental to rescuing Glenn and Maggie, strike one, Rick where's your head at Bro? Secondly Daryl is gone as he is not going to leave his brother, difficult one there, while wanting Daryl on board, dude can motor, no one in their right mind would want Merle about. And finally Rick simply loses it leading to Tyreese and his group exiting stage left before the insane former police officer starts going postal. If the Governor was to launch a full scale attack any time soon the Prison would be overrun within an hour. Rick needs to get his mind on the survival game and start building his people up to something to give the forces of Woodbury pause in their militaristic stance.

Okay slight deviation here, a reader wrote in to ask why the Governor is hell bent on attacking the prison. The point here is the Governor wants to remove Rick's group as he sees them as a threat to his megalomaniac rule over Woodbury, no he doesn't intend to move his survivors into the prison. In short the Governor has a few Roos bounding around the top paddock, which I guess reflects Rick's current state of mind, though even at his worse Rick isn't in the business of wiping out other survivor groups. Yeah slightly ironic that Rick went with a mantra of "we don't kill the living" and has since left a trail of bodies behind him in this brave new world.

I guess this is one of those episodes that isn't going to appeal to teen males wanting zombie mayhem and things going boom. Sure the episode starts with some cool action but after the initial foray into confrontation between Rick's ram raiders and Woodbury things quiet down to a series of dramatic moments. I can dig that, there's some subtle inferences going down, but if after more bite in your zombie fare then check out something else. Clearly the season is moving toward a major confrontation between the opposing forces, in The Suicide King the prison group is reaching a nadir, they are low on people and low on ammunition. I enjoyed the episode, though Rick's continued mental deterioration is getting slightly old now, and would recommend it to anyone who has been following the series from whoa to go. Once again the show writers demonstrate they have a firm grasp on the underpinnings of a zombie outing. Only question I'm left with is what did the title mean, I couldn't pick out who it referred to. Any ideas, write in and we'll mention it next episode review.