The smartest decisions in The Walking Dead: Part I

The Walking Dead Smartest Decisions: Season Three

Merle ambushes The Governor’s ambush

I’ve got to hand it to Merle: He was a clever S.O.B..

As season three reached its climax, and war between the prison and Woodbury seemed inevitable, the Governor offered an ultimatum: Michonne be handed over to him in exchange for peace. With Rick not so keen on the idea, Merle, hoping to protect Daryl, took the initiative, snatched up Michonne, and prepared to march her over to the Governor to make the deal.

Michonne, not having much else in the way of escape, began trying to convince Merle to let her go, trying to appeal to his humanity and good sense, and, eventually, succeeding. The closer they got to the meeting place, the more Merle confessed his regret at the person he’d been for so many years, and subsequently, the more reluctant he was to carry out the deal, before finally letting Michonne go, and telling her to ensure the rest of the group prepared for Woodbury’s retaliation.

Merle then led a gang of walkers to the meeting place and, using them as a distraction, took out a good portion of the Governor’s army before being caught and murdered by The Governor.

I suppose what makes this so smart is the fact that Merle thought about what he knew about the Governor and realized what would happen to Michonne and, on top of that, that even after the horrible fate she would suffer, the Governor would re-neg on the deal and just attack the prison and kill everyone, anyways. Merle was seeing a couple of moves ahead and realized that he had an opportunity to throw a wrench in the Governor’s schemes, and took it, depriving him of many of his more capable soldiers, and making his later attacks that much more ineffective.

If you know your enemy, and know what they want to do (To you), that means it’s something you can (And should) prevent. Obviously, the smart move to make is to prevent such things from happening.