So, we get to see Merle VS. Daryl Sunday night! I also am 99% sure what the outcome will be*, though I admit The Walking Dead (S3) hasn’t been as easy to second-guess as I thought it would. Such as the below spoilers, hi-lite to read, skip if you haven’t seen S3 and care about what happens being a surprise. Let’s see if I can name ten off the top of my head that made me involuntarily shout, “HOAH!”. (bullet – point spoilers for Season Three Part  begin here)

• T-Dog,, who I was sort of concerned about but figured hey,  they wouldn’t be jerks and use the “one black guy in the group dies” cliché. Guess what? They used the “one black guy in the group dies” cliche (goddamnit)! But that zombie just came out of nowhere. One minute he’s securing the gate, next second a zombie suddenly enters the frame and CHOMP!
• Lori dying in childbirth (especially in the same episode as T-Dog)
• Rick finding the bloody spot where her body had been dragged off to and following it to a zombie who ate so much of her he looked like he was 9 months pregnant (maybe with really lumpy twins) including HAIR sticking out of its mouth.**
• Rick taking a huge knife and stabbing that zombie very specifically in the zombie’s big gut, where his wife’s remains were. He looked really angry when he did it. Unless he was looking or some non-digestible item, like a necklace, that had sentimental value …or had gone completely batshit insane with grief, I had no clue he’d do it… who knows what someone would do when faced with that fucked-up set of circumstances, though?
• How quickly and gruesomely Michonne killed the Big G’s undead little girl. Speaking of the little girl, I also inhaled sharply when he was brushing her hair and a big clump of hair, scalp, and maybe even some bone (the Foley art was really crunchy and nasty-sounding)
• Rick suddenly burying that machete in the big Hispanic inmate’s head (in the group that they discovered in the prison). For a second, I thought they were going to shake hands, then fleetingly thought that Rick was going to punch him in the teeth, then HOAH!  Greg Nicotero said on The Talking Dead after-show that the effects department couldn’t believe  AMC didn’t give them any “notes” on censoring or toning down the scene.
• The fact that  the prison inmate —who Rick decided not to kill personally, but toss him to be the zombies (not only escaping, but also apparently without even one zombie bite) turned out to be the guy was the one to open the gates of the prison and cause all hell to break loose as revenge
• The zombie-head channel on 24/7 in the Big G’s “rec room” contained heads that hadn’t been put out of their misery (the comic doesn’t get that specific, I thought they were some kind of dead zombie-head trophies he liked to look at to relax) and…
• …That one of his men was among them.

(End Spoilers for S3) There, 10 surprises off the top of my head… so to speak.

So I’m hoping to be surprised (though personally speaking, can we have just one that’s not either totally depressing or very bad news?) during the premiere. We didn’t watch the Super Bowl, but as soon as we heard about The Walking Dead commercial, we were all over that (especially the guest star, who has a ton of female fans that want to be all over him). Click the big red link below to see the commercial and the latest new promos from Part Two of Season Three!  If nothing else, check out the Super Bowl ad, which is funny whether or not you’re a fan of the show.

Watch The kick-ass  ‘Walking Dead’ Super Bowl commercial +five Fresh promos for mid-season return (Global Dispatch)

Don’t forget, “Talking Dead” has expanded to an hour, which should be cool since the 1/2 hour shows seem kind of rushed, especially the past year. Glad they’re giving it some room to breathe… and I want Greg Nicotero as a guest (bringing props used for gruesome practical effects with him as often as possible) Until then, remember to aim for the head!

*our official prediction: Daryl and Merle will, within the first minute of beating the shit out of each other (if it gets that far) mutually decide you know what? Fuck these people, and especially fuck Phillip/The Governor – Merle is feeling betrayed and pissed off after all his…what’s it been, a year? Years? What ever amount of time is was, he was fiercely loyal to the Governor, maybe even thought they were buddies, and even though Merle. is a shitty human being, probably did some things that he really didn’t want to. All he did was lie about Michonne getting away alive (oh, and killing one of his own men, though the Big G was WAY more upset Michonne returned, “killed” his daughter, and took his eye out, among other things). I think somewhere is Merle, there is a tiny pinch of humanity left in there, and he loves his brother. We know why Daryl hates the G. So after a fake-out, they both make eye contact, nod grimly, and both attack the G. and whoever his goons/security staff is. Then they’ll both be on the run back to the prison… but I don’t think the ones back at the prison are going to take too kindly to him. Especially Glen and Maggie…

**I’m curious what happened to the bones. I understand it was probably too nasty for AMC to show a pile of bones with a ragged scraps of gore clinging to them (though there could have been something suspiciously looking like a pile of bones a few yards back from where the gorged zombie, but out-of-focus), and I could even see a zombie being so hungry it just crunched up most of the bones in her arms, legs, and possibly even part of her ribcage, backbone, but zombies can’t unhinge their jaws like giant pythons (thank God, they’re enough trouble) and swallow an entire skull. Not like the zombies on this show are smart enough to use tools; he couldn’t pick up a hammer or other blunt tool/object lying around and have the knowledge to use it to pound her entire skull (or pelvis, and I’m dubious about femurs, too) into bite-size bits. Why would it want to eat bone, anyway? Suck out the marrow, eat whatever it could from the skull, maybe, but after a year, I doubt the zombie’s teeth are strong enough anyway. My friend Carol and I had a long discussion about the topic; wish I could ask Nicotero because I know he’s smart enough to come up with an explanation.

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