The Walking Dead keeps on surprising, but the timing of the surprises can drive a man insane.
In episode 7 “When The Dead Come Knocking”, the survivors have a choice at the beginning on whether they should save a stranger (Michonne) who is surrounded by walkers, or if they should just let her die. Luckily for Michonne the group has a heart and decides to save her.
Unluckily, Glenn and Maggie face harsh interrogations by Merle and the Governor. The Governor wants to quickly get information on the survivors location before Rick comes looking for the two. Merle interrogates Glen with a barage of punches, but Glenn refuses to reveal the location of Rick and company — a valiant refusal that shows his character actually having some depth and is not just a sidekick.
Frustrated with Glenn’s silence, Merle launches a vicious walker into his cell. Previously known for his calm composure amidst hordes, Glenn unleashes his inner beast.
In one of the more original scenes of pure suspense, Glenn desperately breaks the chair, cuts the tape off, and kills the walker with a sharp broken piece from the chair. The scene ends with a wide shot of Glenn — cathartically screaming. Similar to Rick’s transformation after Lori’s death, Glenn appears to be transforming into something darker.
Then comes Maggie.
Maggie — in a room next to Glenn’s cell — hears his grunts and moans as he gets tormented. Unlike Glenn though, Maggie must deal with the Governor. He releases her from the clutches of tape and treats her kindly. But after she fails to reveal the location of the prison, the Governor creepily forces her to remove her shirt and reveal skin. While he creepily hovers behind a shirtless Maggie, the Governor reveals a moment of strange sexual perversion. Although he does not rape her, he acts like an abusive rapist and returns the shirtless Maggie to Glenn — further tormenting Glenn’s transformation.
Meanwhile at the prison, Rick and the others learn Glenn and Maggie’s fate from Michonne who coincidently observed their capture. After Michonne’s wound heals, Rick, Michonne, Daryl, and Oscar go to Woodberry to rescue their friends. En route, a horde ambushes them deep in the woods. In efforts to save their lives they seek refuge in a cabin that appears to be empty as they enter. Surprisingly, a hermit hiding under blankets surprises them with a shotgun. Rick eventually overcomes the man before Michonne finishes him by putting a blade through his chest. To distract the walkers as they sneak out the back door, Daryl and Oscar throw the body outside.
Andrea, who seems to be under a spell that many other people are under in Woodberry, assists Milton with an experiment to measure if human thoughts still last in the human brain after a person turns into a walker. With a local person volunteering to be the test subject because of prostate cancer, Andrea and Milton use Pavlovian conditioning to ensure a set number of responses from the subject as he neared death. Once he died and turned into a zombie, Milton repeated the conditions, but the experiment failed when the zombie almost ate him. Milton had hoped that there could one day be a cure, but after the walker tried to lunge at him, it became apparent that there was nothing that could be done.
To end the episode, Mazarra does not get away from his genius resolutions. He leads up to right before the survivors enter Woodberry. The conclusion almost forces you to watch next week’s episode. Although this weeks show was a little dry with the killing and zombie brains, the next one should provide plenty of action as we finally see the confrontation between Rick and the Governor.
