‘The Walking Dead’ season 3, episode 5 review: Woodbury’s sideshow

“The Walking Dead” is a show stuffed full of risks, and we are not just talking about some of the blood and gore here. The producers behind the AMC creation made some incredibly bold moves during Sunday night’s new episode, the primary one being shifting away from the prison just one week after we saw the end of Lori, T-Dog, and possibly Carol, and bringing us to Woodbury instead. (With that being said, how awesome was Rick’s walker headshot?)

What was strange here was that this episode was actually the slowest of season 3, yet it may have also been the best in setting up this town as a very, very messed-up place. Inside of this town, we had such craziness including secret journals, zombie brutality for entertainment, and as much manipulation as humanly possible. Michonne was the only person to see directly through The Governor immediately, and thus she made the move to leave rather than try to deal with whatever nonsense this guy would have thrown at her. (This is what happens when you read a man’s journey!)

Meanwhile, Andrea had to find out the danger in a different way, by saying that The Governor was really teaching his residents that zombies were something to laugh at, not something to be feared. Not only does this set a pretty dangerous precedence, but you could also see it as a pretty bold indicator that this is a man who is up to far more than he is letting on to anyone right now. Should we remind you of the name “Penny”? We should, since it’s going to be coming back at some point.

There was wonderful violence, strange as this term is to use for this show, all through this episode, and what may actually be lifting season 3 above the others here is that there is much more of a sense of danger now. Even though this was a slower episode, you still felt as though every scene mattered; for much of season two, there were moments when we seriously wondered if we were just spinning our wheels.

What do you think about this episode? Be sure to share some of your thoughts below!