When The Dead Come Knocking
- When The Governor captures Glenn and Maggie, Rick mounts a rescue mission.
The episode begins with Merle torturing a bound and bloodied Glenn in a room in Woodbury, repeatedly asking where the rest of Glenn's group is. Glenn tries to throw off Merle by telling him about the group's rescue attempt in Atlanta, but refuses to give up their location, just before headbutting the latter. Merle becomes enraged and continues beating Glenn, while a horrified Maggie listens from the adjoining room.
At the prison, Rick, Carl and Michonne watch each other warily. Michonne's blood loss worsens, and walkers begin to come towards her as she attacks them, eventually passing out from blood loss. When it looks as though the walkers will eat her, Carl shoots several of them down, and he and his father assist in bringing the unconscious Michonne inside. Rick lays her down in the room outside Cell Block C and asks for her name, but Michonne is unwilling to answer. Meanwhile, Daryl calls Rick over and reveals to him that Carol is alive. They have a brief reunion, although bittersweet once Carol realizes that Lori didn't make it. Michonne watches this conversation from behind the bars.
Back in Woodbury, The Governor is informed by Milton that one of the residents is ready. The Governor approaches Andrea, and asks her if she would be willing to help Milton with something. Andrea agrees immediately.
Back in the prison, Rick and the others listen as Michonne tells them that Glenn and Maggie were kidnapped. She then informs the group about Woodbury and The Governor, before offering to help them assault the town and rescue them.
In Woodbury, Glenn tries to call Merle's bluff by telling him that others will be coming for them, only for Merle (who knew about Andrea's presence in Woodbury and the deceased survivors Glenn mentioned) to smirkingly ask if that's right. A short while later, Merle becomes fed up with Glenn and lets a live walker loose in the room with him. Glenn barely manages to keep the walker at bay before managing to stab it in the head with a severed piece of the chair he was chained to.
The prison group gears up to rescue Glenn and Maggie. Rick takes Daryl, Michonne and Oscar with him, while leaving Carl in charge of the rest of the group. Rick and Carl have a brief conversation, where Rick apologizes for his son having to kill Lori, and Carl deciding to name the baby Judith. With that, the rescue group leaves.
Andrea and The Governor head to Milton's lab, where they find him tending to an elderly man named Mr. Coleman. The Governor thanks Coleman for what he's doing and leaves, while Milton has Andrea play a record. After asking Coleman some questions, Milton tells Andrea that he is trying to discover if human memory exists when a person turns into a walker. Andrea counters by stating they are monsters and nothing more.
The Governor goes to Maggie's room and takes off her restraints, then offers to take her back to her group if she tells him what she knows. After refusing to answer, The Governor orders Maggie to remove her shirt and bra, then pushes her onto the table between them. After insinuating that he is more than capable of raping her, Maggie tells him to go to Hell, and he leaves.
The rescue group is driving when they encounter a herd of walkers, and are forced to seek refuge in a nearby cabin. Inside, the group discovers the remains of a dog - and a wild man who threatens to shoot them. Upon questioning him, they realize that he has no knowledge of the outbreak, and has survived for the last ten months as a hermit. Although Rick tries to talk him down, the hermit dashes for the door - only to be killed by Michonne. The group throws his body outside for the walkers to feast on as they make their escape.
In Milton's lab, Coleman passes away and reanimates. Milton and Andrea tie him to the bed he was laying on and try to ask the same questions for a response, but Coleman is non-responsive. Milton mistakes Coleman's arm moving as sentience, and undoes his restraints. When the walker grabs him, Andrea stabs it in the head, and they realize the experiment was a failure.
In Glenn's room, The Governor and Merle bring the still-topless Maggie in, and threatens to shoot Glenn unless one of them talks. Maggie tearfully reveals that the rest of the group is at the prison before The Governor releases her to Glenn. Outside, Merle and The Governor express disbelief that the prison was taken over, and that he's unsure of Merle's allegiance. Merle swears he is loyal to The Governor.
Later that night, Andrea and The Governor are at his apartment, and she expresses regret that the experiment didn't work. The Governor comforts her. Meanwhile, at Woodbury's perimeter, the rescue team makes its way through...
Tropes:
- Badass Boast: One that Maggie is able to stop the Governor immediately with.Maggie: Just do what you're gonna do and go to hell.
- Chekhov's Gun: In a previous episode, Milton realized that enough duct tape wrapped around one's hand would stop a walker from biting a person's arm. Glenn unintentionally uses this when he blocks the walker Merle lets loose in his room with his duct-tape wrapped arm.
- Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Aside from a brief "thank you" to Hershel for patching her up, Michonne never thanks her rescuers, and seems more concerned with going back to Woodbury and killing The Governor.
- Devoured by the Horde: When Rick, Daryl, Michonne, and Oscar are fleeing a herd of walkers into a shack, they encounter a hermit who threatens to shoot them. After being disarmed, the hermit tries to leave the shack but Michonne kills him before he could let the walkers in. They throw his body to the walkers as a distraction and escape through the back door.
- Duct Tape for Everything: Used to restrain both Glenn and Maggie, and is discovered to be a life-saver for Glenn when the walker attacks him.
- Fan Disservice: Maggie has a strip scene - only it's a Shameful Strip and The Governor threatens to rape her immediately afterwards.
- Forced to Watch: Well, forced to listen. The rooms Maggie and Glenn are kept in are only separated by a thin metal wall, meaning that they can hear everything happening in the other's interrogation. Maggie in particular seems to be deliberately subjected to the psychological torture of having to listen to Glenn be beaten.
- Hoist by Their Own Petard: Subverted. Milton is almost gnawed on by his own experiment after he undoes its restraints, but Andrea saves his life. As a result, Milton realizes his experiment was a failure, and is shaken by the experience.
- Impairment Shot: Michonne as she drifts in and out of consciousness outside the prison.
- Improvised Weapon: Glenn uses the wooden leg of the chair he was strapped to in order to kill the walker attacking him. He also uses various items in the room to impede the walker's attacks while he's trying to break the chair, including a pile of suitcases, the table, and a box spring mattress.
- Just in Time: Carl and Rick rescue Michonne just as she's about to be eaten by walkers.
- Near-Rape Experience: The Governor threatens that he can do whatever he wants to a shirtless Maggie bent over a table, but when Maggie angrily tells him to go to Hell, he realizes the threat won't work and leaves.
- Only a Flesh Wound: Michonne's bullet wound is sewn up by Hershel, and she's no worse for wear a few minutes later.
- Rescue Arc: Along with the next two episodes.
- Shameful Strip: Maggie during her interrogation by The Governor.
- Underestimating Badassery: Both The Governor and Merle are shocked to discover that the prison, a location which they deemed overrun and inhospitable, was cleared out by just 10 people.
- The Governor is stopped dead in his tracks when his attempt to rape Maggie is answered with a cold Badass Boast.
