When the going gets tough, the dead come knocking.

After last week’s shock kidnap of  Glenn and Maggie by Merle this episode sees the two worlds of Woodbury and the prison nearly coming together. Merle tries to get information out of Glenn by beating him. Glenn has grown into a hero, ready to put his life on the line for his friends safety. Merle is still harbouring a lot of anger at being left to die on the rooftop in Atlanta which is understandable but his savage beating of Glenn is uncomfortable to watch.

At the prison Michonne is let in by Rick and she tells them what happened to Glenn and Maggie. Daryl found Carol last week and when the rest of the prison gang find she is alive they are all happy to see her. There is a subtle moment of realisation from Carol that Lori is dead and she embraces Rick with a simple “I’m sorry.”  Michonne has got back on her feet and she tells them about Woodbury, The Governor and also mentions Merle. The group are suspicious of her at first even perhaps over hostile towards her but soon they assemble a rescue team of Rick, Oscar, Michonne and Daryl who wants to see his brother. Rick finally has a moment with his son expressing his regret that he had to shoot his own mother. They settle on Judith as a baby name a touching moment between father and son.

The Governor asks Andrea to assist Milton in his lab to conduct an experiment. A dying elderly man is asked questions and when he passes the same questions again but he is unresponsive. Andrea ends up knifing the zombie in the head after Milton desperate for results takes his restraints off. I’m guessing these experiments are being conducted because The Governor is hoping his daughter can be saved. Milton is quite an interesting character and we learn that he was all alone at the start of the outbreak. I see him as a selfish person who’s sticking by the Governor because he fears him but also is safe at his side.

Glenn is interrogated by Merle further and after he still refuses to talk he throws a walker into the room whilst Glenn is strapped to a chair. This is an excellent scene and extremely tense as Glenn struggles to keep the Walker from biting him. He manages to kill the walker using the smashed chair leg. Merle knows he won’t get anything out of Glenn so The Governor says he’ll try to get Maggie to tell him where the others are hiding out. This scene shows us the really horrible side of The Governor that I’ve been wanting to see for a while. He asks Maggie to remove her shirt and bra and positions himself behind her. He then leaves the room leaving Maggie terrified. Maggie and Glenn are brought together and Merle asks them one final time where the others are. Maggie tells them that they are at the prison and there’s ten of them. The prison gang make it to Woodbury but getting in and rescuing Glenn and Maggie will be pretty tricky.

The Walking Dead rarely disappoints and this week was no different. There was great character moments between Rick’s crew, The Governor finally giving us a good reason to hate him, gruesome Walker action with the hermit in the cabin and my favourite scene was Glenn fending off a Walker whilst strapped to a chair.

The next episode is the shows mid season finale and although I feel it’s been building to something each episode of series three so far has been fantastic in it’s own right.