Walking Dead “My Sorrowful Life” Review

Sometimes the title of a Walking Dead episode shines a little light on what you can expect.  In this case, I didn't think too much of the title of the episode until I realized we were talking about Merle.  I was surprised that the writers made me actually feel sorry for him and his life... I didn't think it was possible.

A lot happened in this episode without much really happening.   Rick decides against giving up Michonne, but Merle already takes things into his own hands and kidnaps her to bring to the Governor.  Daryl takes off after them.  Merle has a change of heart and lets her go and decides to take on the Governor himself.

But filling in the gaps of this rather cut and dry story is the revelation that Merle is a victim of his own "Sorrowful Life."  Poor upbringing, drugs, crime and everything before the apocalypse happened made him a bad guy.  But we found out he wasn't a murderer until The Governor took him in.  The Governor played Merle, made him do some nasty things that he regrets.  He knows he can't go back to the group, there will never be forgiveness for the things that he did.  In Merle's only compassionate action in the entire series, he lets Michonne go and says he has to take care of something... (The Governor.)

What followed was probably the most creative and exciting scenes we had seen in a while.  He blared out the music while drinking a bottle of booze and leading the biters to Woodbury.  In the mass confusion, he starts picking off the Governor's men one by one.  He was doing pretty well until the biter almost got him and his presence was discoverd.

The Governor bit off his fingers and then shot him and let him turn into a walker.  That's when Daryl showed up and saw his brother Merle eating a corpse.  Poor Daryl.  It was tough to watch.  Norman Reedus showed off his acting depth, because you could really seen the pain in his face.  He kept pushing Merle away because he didn't want to have to do it.  Finally he puts down Merle and collapses.  End of episode.

I think this was as good as any way to wrap up the Merle storyline.  We all knew that there wasn't going to be a happy ending with Merle in the group, but we didn't want to see him hurt anyone anymore.  He ends his life as an outsider, just like he always was.  At least he had a moment of redemption and could go out helping the group.

So next week the battle will take place.  We'll see what happens.  Merle helped out Rick and the gang a lot by taking out 8 of their soldiers.  What's happened to Andrea since we saw her last?  Is Milton going to stay on The Governor's side.  Who's going to make it to Season 4?  The longer the show goes, the harder it is to lose people.