The Walking Dead Season 3 Episode 9 ‘The Suicide King’ Recap

We’ve waited so long for this… So long for the return of The Walking Dead, a time where zombie fans—hardcore purists and the new-biters—can sit down and watch all the flesh-eating goodness.

I shaved off my mid-season break beard and now I’m at peace with the world.

After waiting so long…the episode finally arrived and!… turned out to be a bit disappointing.

After all the previews, I was expecting a huge action packed story dripping with adrenaline but that is not what we got in this episode. The episode started off with a short lived fight scene, but after the intro finished—with that ominous, weird music—we don’t see a lick of action for the rest of the show. Instead, we get The Young and the Restless with zombies occasionally showing up in the scenery. The lack of zombies in this episode was a real downer. Literally, during a scene where Rick and Glen are talking on a dirt road, we see a few zombies listlessly stumbling in the distant background, probably put there to remind us that this show DOES include zombies at some point; besides a useless scene where Glen stomps a zombie’s head into brain-specks. Also, there was a dramatic scene where a portion of Woodbury’s fence was compromised and the Undead noticed it…later on, some poor sap gets killed by these same Walkers and The Governor puts him out of his misery—this annoyed me, they finally had a part of the show where the zombies could actually have an impact on the goings-on, and then they get killed in a few seconds, causing no real harm and leaving me with a bit of a…”well, that was pointless” moment.

This episode focused way too much on the drama, people yelling at one another—well, 95% of that was Rick, being all Ricktator-like and stuff—and completely deviated away from all of the tension built up from the previous episode.

Sure, we get a lot of insight into the motives of some of the show’s new characters, but all in all, the episode was a let down. Maybe I’m just getting my zombie-panties in a bunch because it felt like I’ve waited forever to see this episode and it wasn’t as Rambo-esque as I hoped, but regardless, it was pretty annoying. I really hope the next episodes starts ramping up the tension. I don’t care so much about the action as long as there is good tension to lead up to it, but this episode completely destroyed a lot of the tense air with hissy fits and emotional drama.

We do get a better look at Carol and how she has some emotional attachment to Daryl, and how Rick might not in the best shape to lead the group, especially with some of the decisions he’s making.

Not one of the better episodes, a little disappointing considering the wait, but I have a good feeling about next episode. Don’t worry fellow fans, I’m sure it’ll get better!

Tags: The Suicide King, The Walking Dead

Category: Zombie News