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Made to Suffer is the eighth episode and the mid-season finale of Season 3 of AMC's The Walking Dead. It originally aired on December 2, 2012 at 9/8c on AMC.
Plot Synopsis
The Prison
A burly survivor, Tyreese, his younger sister Sasha, and their fellow survivors Ben, Allen, and Donna, fight their way through a walker herd in the forest. Donna gets bitten, but Tyreese has enough compassion to bring her along until her husband Allen and son Ben are psychologically ready to let her go. The group seeks refuge in a crumbling building that is revealed to be the back side of the prison.
Inside of the prison, Axel flirts with Beth, and Carol warns Axel to stay away from her. "Maggie's with Glenn, and you're a lesbian," he replies, noting the lack of available women. Carol clarifies that she's not a lesbian, then leaves when Axel gets flirtatious.
At the prison, Carl and Hershel hear screaming coming from the tombs. Hershel attempts to stop Carl from investigating the noise, but decides to let him go. Carl investigates and finds Tyreese's group fighting walkers in the boiler room. He urges them to follow him.
Carl leads Tyreese's group into the prison common room and insists that Donna be killed since she was bit in the arm by a walker before entering the prison with the others. "We take care of our own," Tyreese says. Sasha objects when Carl locks them in the room, but Tyreese points out this is the best living situation they've had in weeks.
Woodbury
Andrea tells The Governor she wants to help Milton cremate Michael Coleman. He hugs her and says, "Woodbury's starting to grow on you." In his secret room, The Governor opens Penny's cell. She runs out but is stopped short by a chain around her neck. He sings a lullaby and caresses her as she snarls at him. He then realizes that Penny is staring at the meat in the bucket and not him, "Look at me, baby," he says. Getting no response, he yells in frustration and thrusts her back in the cell.
In the interrogation room, Glenn and Maggie huddle several feet away from the walker that Glenn killed. Maggie confirms that The Governor didn't rape her. Glenn yanks off the walker's arm, snaps the forearm in half and hands Maggie a shard of bone to use as a weapon.
At Woodbury's perimeter, Rick and the rescue team deliberate their next move. Michonne disappears but soon returns, having found a point of entry.
The Governor tells Merle about his plan to wipe out Rick's group and let walkers repopulate the prison. He suggests Merle enlist Daryl as their inside man. "Nothing happens to Daryl," Merle clarifies. "Of course not," The Governor reasurres Merle, ordering him to bring Glenn and Maggie to the "screamer pits" before Andrea finds out about them.
Merle goes to collect Glenn and Maggie but the two stage an ambush. Maggie stabs one of Merle's men, Warren, in the throat but before they can overpower Merle, a group of Woodbury soldiers enter and take them hostage.
Rick and the rescue team follow the sound of gunfire into the warehouse where Glenn and Maggie are being held. Rick releases a smoke grenade, enabling the group to escape with Glenn and Maggie. As gunfire erupts in the street, The Governor tells residents to hunker down at home. He tells his men "We are under attack, don't take chances, try to take prisoners, but shoot to kill."
The rescue team regroups in Woodbury's distribution center, where Glenn tells Daryl that Merle is alive and working for The Governor. "He was gonna execute us," Glenn says. Daryl wants to find Merle to try and convince him to let them go, but Rick insists that he stay by his side.
The Governor confers with his men and tells Andrea to check in on the residents. She wants to fight, but he ignores her request. Meanwhile, Michonne sneaks into The Governor's apartment and waits for him to return.
The rescue team makes a run for the wall. Andrea, disobeying The Governor, shoots at them, not knowing who they are. She tells The Governor she spotted a man in a prison jumpsuit."Black guy, young" she says "Escaped convicts," he tells her.
As they escape, Rick hallucinates Shane emerging from a cloud of smoke. Momentarily stunned, he watches as "Shane" shoots Oscar dead. Rick guns him down only to realize that it wasn't Shane, but in fact a Woodbury resident. After yelling to an unresponsive Rick, Maggie shoots Oscar in the head to prevent reanimation. The group climbs over the wall and hides in the bushes to plan their next course of action, although Daryl and Michonne are still missing from the group.
Back at The Governor's apartment, Michonne discovers his secret room and unchains Penny, thinking it's his daughter and he locked her up, before realizing she's a walker. As she positions her sword to kill Penny, The Governor comes in. "Don't hurt my little girl!" he pleads. Michonne, disgusted, stabs Penny through the head (meant to hurt Phillip). The Governor, overwhelmed with grief and anger, then attacks Michonne in a rage. As the two grapple, Michonne smashes his walker head aquariums and pulls them off the shelf. The Governor is choking Michonne as she manages to grab a shard of broken glass and stabs him in the eye.
The Governor reels as Michonne prepares to finish him off with her katana. But then, Andrea walks in and draws her gun on Michonne. The two face off, but ultimately, Michonne flees. The Governor cradles Penny's body, devastated.
Dr. Stevens places gauze over The Governor's ruined eye. Andrea demands an explanation for his fight with Michonne, the walker heads in the tanks, and Penny. He tells her he forced himself to look at the heads to prepare him for the outside world, but evades her other questions.
Merle and Milton check in on The Governor, asking what happened. "I was attacked," The Governor says, glaring at Merle. (Merle had previously lied to The Governor about killing Michonne).
Just outside Woodbury, Michonne rejoins the rescue team as they wait for Daryl. Rick demands to know why she disappeared and threatens to kill her. She reminds him that he still needs her help rescuing Daryl and getting Glenn and Maggie back to the prison.
In the arena, The Governor addresses the town's citizens, declaring that Woodbury was attacked by Rick's group (whom he calls, "terrorists") and accuses Merle of betraying the people of Woodbury. His men drag Daryl into the arena as proof of Merle's complicity. "Kill them!" the crowd chants. Andrea stares at Daryl, stunned.
"You wanted your brother," The Governor tells Merle, "now you got him." The bloodthirsty townspeople cheer as the episode fades to black.
Other Cast
Co-Stars
Special Guest Star Uncredited
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Deaths
Receptions
Ratings
Upon its initial broadcast on December 2, 2012, "Made to Suffer" was watched by estimated 10.48 million viewers,up slightly from the previous episode.
Critical Response
Zack Handlen, writing for The A.V. Club, rated the episode B+ on an A to F scale. Eric Goldman at IGN gave the episode 9.3 out of 10. Forbes magazine's Erik Kain said it was "a strong episode overall, even if the addition of new characters was a bit much to pack into the hour". Time journalist Nate Rawlings felt that "Made to Suffer" was a great work of Glen Mazzara's crew, whose "greatest feat" for this season is in bringing the different stories of Woodbury and the prison together through the brothers Merle and Daryl finding each other "on opposite sides of a war—a story as old as stories themselves," thus propelling the audience to "an amazing climax to end to the first half of this season."
| A.V Club | IGN |
|---|---|
| B+ | 9.3 |
Trivia
- First appearance of Tyreese.
- First appearance of Sasha.
- First appearance of Allen.
- First appearance of Donna.
- First appearance of Ben.
- First appearance of Ms. McLeod.
- First (and last) appearance of Warren.
- Last appearance of Oscar.
- Last appearance of Penny Blake. (Zombified)
- Last appearance of Shane Walsh. (Hallucination)
- This episode marks the first time a character from Rick's group is killed by an unnamed survivor (Oscar, who is shot to death by a Woodbury guard).
- This is the only episode of Season 3 written by Robert Kirkman.
- This episode also marks the first time that Merle and Daryl have appeared on screen together physically. They had previously appeared together in, "Chupacabra," but that was later revealed to be a hallucination.
- The lyrics to the song that The Governor sings to Penny are from the old nursery rhyme, "Bye, Baby Bunting."[1]
- This is the second episode to share the same title of a Comic Series volume. The others being "Days Gone Bye", "This Sorrowful Life", and "Too Far Gone".
- This is the second of three times where a character who is a little girl died in the mid-season finale.
- In Season 2, a zombified Sophia died in the mid-season finale, "Pretty Much Dead Already".
- In Season 3, a zombified Penny died in this mid-season finale.
- In Season 4, Meghan died in the mid-season finale, "Too Far Gone".
- This episode marks Chandler Riggs, Steven Yeun, and Laurie Holden's 25th episode on The Walking Dead.
Goofs/Errors
- When The Governor addresses the town, the steadicam's shadow is briefly visible on The Governor's shirt, as the camera passes between him and the rigged floodlights.
- When The Governor enters the room where Maggie is, you can't see Maggie's bra strap. The next time you see Maggie's back, her bra strap is visible.
- One of the shots of the Woodbury residents gathering at the arena is actually from "Say the Word", when Merle and Martinez fight.
References
- ↑ Darren Franich, 'The Walking Dead' recap: Can't Take Chances With These Terrorists, Entertainment Weekly, (December 2, 2012).