'The Walking Dead' Season 3, Episode 8 Recap - 'Made to Suffer'

Gunfire seems to be the running theme for the midseason finales in "The Walking Dead." Lots of it. But people weren't firing at a barn full of walkers this time around.

The Prison

Most of the action happened in Woodbury, but there were some interesting happenings at the prison, too. The cold open introduced us to a new group of survivors that happened upon the prison while fighting off a small herd of walkers. They're in dire straights in the corridors of the prison until Carl finds them and bails them out.

The purpose of this seems to be setting Carl up as a man instead of a boy. He's already showing better judgement than Rick usually does, as he locks the survivors up for the time being.

As one of the survivors says, "His house." Wait. Carl's in the house? CARL IS FINALLY IN THE HOUSE!

Woodbury

Rick's quiet infiltration goes off pretty well at first, and they even manage to grab Glenn and Maggie without any injuries. Side note: Glenn's idea to use zombie bone as a weapon was as brilliant as it was disgusting.

Getting back out of Woodbury is more of a problem, as Glenn's scuffle caused some gunfire. Darryl heroically offers some surpressing fire while the rest escape... though that might be because Glenn told him that Merle is here.

Oscar gets killed in the escape. Poor Oscar. Rick sees Shane for a minute, which means that he's clearly not totally sane again yet. More phone calls with ghosts in Rick's future?

Meanwhile, Michonne ditches the group to go kill the Governor, but finds the heads and the chained up zombie Penny when she breaks into his office. The Gov finds her just in time to watch her shove her sword right through Penny's head, which starts one of the best, most painful brawls we've seen on this show between the Gov and Michonne.

The result: the Governor gets a shard of glass shoved in his eye, and Michonne escapes after Andrea, the Queen of Bad Decisions, stops her from killing the Gov.

Andrea realizes her error later, though, when the Governor pins the infiltration on Merle and reveals the captured Darryl, whipping the crowd of Woodbury residents into a murderous frenzy. Will the bros be executed just after being reunited? Considering Darryl's popularity with fans, probably not. Hopefully not.

We won't know until 2013 what happens next, but you can bet that the Governor will be taking the fight to the prison. He certainly has the gunpower, but will he have the manpower if he executes Merle?

Place your bets now: Rick vs. The Governor!