Writer: Nichole Beattie
Director: Billy Gierhart
The Story: Rick and the others encounter a group of prisoners holed up in the Prison. An uneasy alliance is formed between the two groups, whilst the others struggle to save Herschel’s life…
The Verdict: Not as epic as last week’s opener, but ‘Sick’ is still a great piece of TV drama, which wisely keeps things firmly focused on the prison storyline (Michonne and Andrea get a whole episode to themselves next week).
What’s most interesting about ‘Sick’ isn’t the ‘Will Herschel live?’ dilemma, but is in fact the focus on Rick, and his continuing loss of compassion. No second chances for anyone is his new motto, something that may ultimately come back to bite him on the behind. Andrew Lincoln is superb as the grimmer and less cautious Rick, and if this is how the character is going to continue this season, then I welcome it with open arms.
If there’s anything that stops this week’s episode being less then excellent, then it’s only because it lacks the fast pace and relentlessness of last week. Fair enough, not every week can be an action-packed spectacle of gunshots and gore, but the slow pace here only helped to lose the nail-biting sense of threat of last week’s scorcher of an episode.
Best Bit: Rick murders Tomas, the leader of the Prisoners, in cold blood! What one was expecting was for Tomas to be the Season’s growing background threat – instead, he’s offed straight away. Somehow, methinks Rick will live to regret this one.
Something in my Eye: Anyone else cry at Lauren Cohan’s tear jerking performance, as Maggie tells an unconscious Herschel that he doesn’t have to wake up if he doesn’t want to? Anyone? No? Liars.
Speculation: Who’s watching Carol from the trees? Perhaps some other prisoners who somehow got out? Or maybe it’s someone associated with a certain Governor?
Great Gore: The handcuffed Walker pulling his hand out of the cuffs, in the process ripping off his skin, genuinely made me want to puke! More please!
Join us next week for part three of THN’s THE WALKING DEAD Season 3 Blog!
