The Walking Dead: 7 Scenes That Were Too Extreme For TV
1. The Torture of Michonne (Vol. #5: The Best Defense)/The Governor Gets Mutilated (Vol. #6: This Sorrowful Life)
The top spot goes to two moments split in time, but intrinsically bound to one another by depravity, vengeance, and a makeshift torture chamber.
Woodbury soldiers captured a small group of The Prisons occupants as they attempted to investigate the crashing of a helicopter in the woods nearby. The soldiers brought Rick, Glenn, and Michonne back to Woodbury to be sacrificed to a horde of zombies in the name of sport and spectacle. It appeared the citizens of the city had developed a very warped sense of entertainment following the collapse of society.
The leader of Woodbury, known only as the Governor, believed that the survivors had a camp nearby, as theyd been captured while walking and were without many supplies. Determined to procure any possible resources, the Governor began an interrogation that quickly escalated to the severing of Ricks right hand. Glenn shrank into the corner while Michonne mounted a retaliatory act, biting off the Governors left ear.
What happens next is perhaps the single most grotesque act Ive ever seen in comic book history. The Governor has Michonne bound in what appears to be an abandoned garage. He proceeds to torture her in ways that, frankly, I feel wholly uncomfortable writing about.
Periods of torture are bookended by medical aid from a third party. The Governor reveals that he has no intentions of killing Michonne. His hope is that shell figure out a way to kill herself between one of his little sessions. A concession.
Eventually, Rick and Glenn are broken out of their separate confinement by a Woodbury defector named Martinez. They free Michonne, though she refuses to make an escape with the group, Ill catch up with you or I wont. I just cant leave without doing this.
There is a brief struggle in the Governors apartment. He wakes up a little bit later, bound and gagged at the scene of his most unspeakable crimes. Michonne narrates what the next few minutes will be like for him. A pair of pliers. A hammer. An acetylene torch. A spoon. A power drill. A sword. All of them will be used. There will be no concession.
The Walking Dead has been the subject of much criticism. Some viewers write off the boundless violence depicted on the show, as the most common recipient of it is a brainless monster, groaning and stumbling around some dark pit. Indeed, the furies that befall zombies are constant and grotesque, but the worst of all fates are reserved for and committed by human beings.
As the body count rises, as the actions intensify, we, the audience, continuously savor moments thick with retribution. We crave the flesh and blood that we are born of, just like those we hope to separate ourselves from most, of those we fear.
Dont you get it?
We are the walking dead.