The Walking Dead: Season 3 Episode 12 Clear Synopsis and Review
The Walking Dead: Season 3 Episode 12: Clear
Review and Synopsis
The Walking Dead kicks off again this week with a more isolated
but a very well worked episode. In my review of the last episode I talked about
how Rick’s madness is becoming slightly tedious but after watching Friday’s episode
I can understand how cleverly written the story off Rick’s madness has been and
how it’s needed to happened in order for the events of this week to
unravel. In this episode we are homed in
and focused on the characters of Rick, Carl and Michonne as the Woodbury dramas
are left back at the prison for this episode and Rick is reunited with an old
friend.
(SPOILERS)
The episode begins with Rick, Carl and Michonne driving back
to Rick and Carl’s neighbourhood in search for weapons. Before the opening
credits we witness silence inside the car as the car bypasses a hitch hiker
screaming and chasing after them to help him out. The silence shows the awkwardness of their
trip, going back to where Rick, Carl and Lori played happy families before the
breakout is an emotional trip at any given time, but with the venture taking
place at this point where Rick is borderline wandering crazy town you can see
how this trip could further push him into his madness.
The car continues to travel down the road until it hits a
roadblock. The car is surrounded by a few Walkers (not too many to be off any
trouble) and once they are taken care of their journey continues.
Once they arrive at Rick and Carl’s old neighbourhood they
discover someone else’s presence nearby, as they run into a small settlement
with traps in the middle of the road made for fending of the Walkers. Rats are
caged around the spikes to lure the Walkers in to spring the traps. I thought
it was quite ironic how they came across booby traps when they arrived because previously
you can see this trip back home being full of psychological traps that could
trip them up, tear and twist their emotions.
As they proceed a Walker comes up behind Michonne and is
shot from an unknown person on top of a roof above them. He cannot be
recognised as his face is covered but he warns them to leave or he will open
fire upon them.
Rick as rash as he has been lately, tells his son to run and
fires at the man on the roof, which initiates a gun fight. He continues to fire
at Rick behind cover but before Rick jumps up to fire at the masked man, Carl
steps in and shoots the man straight in the chest where he is wearing body
armour. This showed to me how quickly Carl is developing and soon enough he
will probably be capable of leading the group.
The shot hit the man in his bullet proof fest and knocked
him out cold. When unmasked his identity is revelled as Rick’s old friend Morgan
Jones. Morgan saved Rick a while back in episode 1 of season 1. I was wondering
if we would ever see Morgan again after his extremely brief presence in the
show very early on. But his son on the other hand is nowhere to be seen.
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Michonne is very wary of the situation and her sense of
being able to read people kicks in again as she says he isn’t the same person
as Rick knew and she thinks he is dangerous. The house has clearly been
redesigned as well, to keep out any unwelcomed guests with traps and what looks
to be an armoury containing the whole town’s arsenal.
Rick also stumbles upon the walkie talkie that Rick gave to Morgan
and told him to use any day at dawn if he wanted to find Rick. When he awakes
he is less friendly as Rick remembered claiming that he doesn’t “know anyone
any more” and stabs Rick in the shoulder. Morgan is dealing with the loss of
both his wife and son and clearly suffering with a more severe case of
craziness than Rick. He finally recognises Rick when he brings up the walkie
talkie but then blames Rick for not being there when he called for help.
Ricks craziness over the last few episodes has been building
up to this and ultimately the only thing that could snap Rick out of madness is
another crazy friend. Rick’s presence on Morgan calms him slightly as well. We
finally see a glimpse of the old Rick we first saw. One that looks after his friends
took people in with open arms and trusted the people he came into contact with.
Rick is talking to Morgan to try and snap him out of his madness. For the whole
of this scene I just saw Morgan resembling crazy Rick. I found it ironic that
Rick who has been suffering from a premature stage of what Morgan is experiencing
is telling him that he “can come back from this”. Realistically Rick is saying this
to himself at the same time and I think this may begin the road to recovery for
Rick that began when he killed his best friend. Though Rick is able to talk to
Morgan he isn’t able to get him to come back around and refuses to go back with
him to the prison.
Rick is the only person present after Morgan wakes up as
Carl wanders into town with a very simple excuse that by passes his farther and
heads off into town with Michonne (that he unsuccessfully tries to lose). This
is a very emotional trip for Carl as well and he is trying to achieve a certain
goal by being back at home that he wants to do alone. He wants to get a framed
family photo that’s current whereabouts is a café infested in Walkers. When they
enter Carl retrieves the family photo of him Lori and Rick after leading the
Walkers all around the café.
Once they all reunite Carl and Michonne arrive carrying a
pram for the baby. They load up the car with their fair share of Morgan’s stash
of weaponry and leave the isolated Morgan alone. As they go back a reminder of
the dramas they are returning to is brought back when they see the remains of
the hitch hiker they saw earlier scatted at the side of the road.
Rating 9/10 - Overall I thought this to be a very good episode with
an old returning face that looks to have put Rick possibly back to track to the
smart and decisive leader the group need to survive this attack by the Governor.
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