Movies
‘The Walking Dead’ 3×07 Review: Glenn Embraces His Inner Rambo While Maggie Shows Us Her Naughty Bits
We’ve spent plenty of time covering the consistently fantastic third season of ‘The Walking Dead’, but we haven’t really dug too deeply into it. That’s what I want to do right now. I want to open up that zombie’s rib cage and dig my hands real deep into its gut. I want to probe around, figure out what makes it tick, then I’ll take out the organs one at a time, but be careful not to touch the edges! If you touch the edges the buzzer goes off and you lose, and in a zombie apocalypse, losing is dying. Today we’re going to take a look at “When the Dead Come Knocking” which premiered last Sunday. It was a doozie, especially if you’re a fan of Glenn and Maggie.
This isn’t really a traditional review, with all that score nonsense. Think of this as a recap — a safe place where fans of the television series (as well as a few trolls who will undoubtedly shamble in from their parents’ basements to stir things up) can gather around and talk about this lovely show. Now prepare yourself, because we’re about to go so deep that you’re pretty much guaranteed to get so claustrophobic you’ll ask to leave, but guess what? No one leaves this ride, oh no sir. Just ride it out. I promise it’ll be worth it, and after it’s over, you can join in on the discussion.
You might be asking aloud, “Dearest Adam, why are you only now starting to review/recap The Walking Dead when we’re nearing the mid-season finale?” to which I’ll reply, because I’ve been playing far too many video games. The unhealthy amount of gaming that has taken place in the Dodd household over the last two months has left me unable to do anything but get my sweet, sweet game on while I watch as my friends replace me and my family wonder where I went off to.
If you’ve been keeping up, this season of The Walking Dead, or TWD, as the hip kids call it, hasn’t been moving at the glacier pace the previous season did. I loved season two, but there’s no denying that it often found itself balancing on that fine line between being a gripping, violent post-apocalyptic TV show and an endurance test. This season is considerably better paced — the writing is tighter, the characters more thoughtfully constructed (except Andrea, but more on that later), and the action is more deliciously violent than ever.
The last episode left off with Michonne meeting up with Rick and Friends (side note: that would be a fantastic name for a Justice League style TWD spin-off series) The series’ resident katana-wielding badass does what she does best: brood deeply while emitting an intimidating aura of don’t fuck with me, I know how to use a katana. Unfortunately, Merle shot her in the leg during their last encounter, forcing her to walk gimp-legged and covered in zombie giblets to Rick’s secret prison hideout.
Rick’s gone through some shit over the last few episodes — or rather, the entire series — so he’s understandably not quite as willing to help an armed stranger. Thankfully, his son Carl, who has become an alarmingly good shot this season, clears out a few walkers before they can get to making a nearly unconscious Michonne their lunch after her smelly zombie giblet shield wears off.
Too bad Michonne didn’t come a couple episodes earlier, when Rick might’ve been a little more welcoming, because when they bring her into the prison after she passes out, she refuses to speak. Instead of being patient or making friends with her, Rick takes the bad cop approach and grabs her wounded leg. Ouch.
Just before Michonne drops word on Glenn The Badass (more on that later) and Maggie The Uncomfortable (again, be patient), Daryl, the Crossbowman Extraordinaire, comes to the rescue with some good news: Carol is alive. There’s a short and deeply touching scene where Carol sees Rick’s new daughter Judith but no Lori (quick recap: she died giving birth to her earlier in the season, then she stayed dead after her son Carl shot her in the head) where Carol realizes Lori’s dead. As soon as she recognizes this, you can see Rick’s weary crafted emotional wall shatter. It’s amazing.
Michonne sees this, her heart grows three sizes larger, and she drops word on Glenn and Maggie’s whereabouts. She doesn’t mention who took them — that would be Daryl’s asshole and permanently left-handed brother Merle, who took them to Woodbury.
Also, and fucking finally, Rick has a real talk with his son about that whole killing his mom thing. I’ve been waiting for this to happen, so I’m glad it finally did.
Back in Woodbury, Merle is interrogating Glenn. Well, not so much interrogating him as he is beating the ever living hell out of the poor guy in an attempt to find out where his brother Daryl is. This is where we realize just how intensely badass Glenn has become over the last two seasons. He can take a beating, and when Merle tosses a zombie into the room where he’s been taped to a chair, Glenn goes full Rambo on that unsuspecting walker. There’s a very brief moment after Glenn’s dispatched the walker where he lets loose this brutal howl of anger and triumph, the latter of which is short-lived when he realizes his situation is no less dire.
Meanwhile, Andrea and the wholly uninteresting scientist Milton are trying to figure out if the undead retain their memories after they convert. Well, Milton is wondering that, but Andrea, having seen her sister convert not two feet away from her in season one, already knows the answer. It’s a boring scene that doesn’t offer much substance, basically reflecting my thoughts on Andrea right now. She’s banging the governor in every other scene, but we can see that relationship developing further, so that should lead to a pretty great scene in this Sunday’s mid-season finale where Andrea may have to choose which group she stays with.
On their way to saving Glenn and Maggie in Woodbury, Rick’s group get surrounded by a horde of zombies, forcing them to retreat to a cabin in the woods. Once inside, we’re introduced to the cabin’s owner: a man who has no fucking clue what’s going on. I feel sorry for this guy. First, he’s awakened by a bunch of people breaking into his house, then he’s stabbed in the back by Michonne, before his body is used as a tasty distraction to keep the undead away from the side of the cabin Rick’s group escapes from.
I can’t decide if Glenn’s scenes are my favorites, or Maggie’s. After Merle not-so-subtle interrogation technique fails to get any information from Glenn, the Governor take matters in his own hands. This is one of the most uncomfortable scenes in the series so far, as the Gov makes Maggie take off her top, then bends her over the table as if he’s going to rape her. He stops, but fuck me was that a brutal scene to watch. It’s proof that in this world, zombies aren’t the real threat: humans are.
Also, the Governor is a total dick.
After that, Maggie and Glenn are briefly reunited when Maggie’s brought into the room where they’re holding a bruised and battered Glenn. The Governor only briefly threatens Maggie’s life before he decides it’d be easier to put the gun against Glenn’s head. Maggie immediately tells them their friends are in the prison, almost definitely saving Glenn’s life.
This is something I love about The Walking Dead. This series has proven more than willing to off any of its main characters at any time. T-Dog, Shane, Lori — sometimes in the same episode. It makes me care about the characters more than other shows, where a lead can be killed off, only to be brought back a few episodes later (I’m looking at you, Supernatural),
This was a great episode, and more than that, it built an excellent foundation for this week’s episode, where we’re guaranteed to have lots of gunfire, potentially a few explosions, a tough decision for Andrea, and the inevitability that someone I’ve grown to love will die. What did you think of this episode, and what are you looking forward to in the mid-season finale?
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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