The Walking Dead

[Defence21]

While watching, I wasn't thrilled with it. Maybe that's just a result of me waiting for them to cut to the prison to see what's going on...maybe it's my dislike for the Governor. Either way, as I look back on it and discuss with co-workers, I'm realizing I like the episode more than I realized.

For starters, it's humanizing the Governor. He's on his own, was abandoned, and now has found a family to replace his old family. He's realized that the power went to his head and he's a nobody in this world. Then again, that could be a ruse.

I am wondering if him standing outside the prison last week wasn't a revenge thing, but a peace offering, hoping to get the little girl and her family into s safe environment. He's now got someone who he "loves," and I think that might reign him in. Would he put her in harm's way? No way. The question is, though, how long until something happens to her and he goes nuts?

Anyway, I'd have preferred to have the Governor play a small role before being killed off, but this certainly is a much better way to reintroduce him than what most expected. If he's going to be around, his character needs to be interesting and believable. I see it going that way with the new show runner.

Worst episode of the season, but we may come to love it after everything unravels and wee see where the story takes us.

[shmenguin]

the characters they put him with were andrea-level terrible. the details of their story and their acting/writing were enough to derail the entire episode on their own.

i admit i like the idea of converting him from a carnival goofball into a downtrodden loner, but i only needed the montage at the beginning for that. from there, big whoop. he bonded with a little girl and her mom. that's not even new territory since we already knew he had a soft spot for his own little girl. not to mention that the idea behind woodbury was still based on good intentions.

overall, it's disappointing that they abandoned the main characters right at the moment where they started to really develop. and the governor isn't interesting enough to warrant this spin off. it was lousy, and will continue to be so until they get the main story back on track.

[PensFanInDC]

the characters they put him with were andrea-level terrible. the details of their story and their acting/writing were enough to derail the entire episode on their own.

i admit i like the idea of converting him from a carnival goofball into a downtrodden loner, but i only needed the montage at the beginning for that. from there, big whoop. he bonded with a little girl and her mom. that's not even new territory since we already knew he had a soft spot for his own little girl. not to mention that the idea behind woodbury was still based on good intentions.

overall, it's disappointing that they abandoned the main characters right at the moment where they started to really develop. and the governor isn't interesting enough to warrant this spin off. it was lousy, and will continue to be so until they get the main story back on track.

To your first point, I agree. How does that family survive alone for that long without knowing that people turn when they die no matter how they die, or that you need to kill the brain? I know they had a lifetime supply of slim jims but you need to get water. How do you not figure some of this stuff out? Poor writing IMO.

The prison story line reached an impasse. They have meds for the virus and Carol was banished after admitting to the murders. The only thing left to deal with that can be taken care of in 1 episode is telling Tyrese and Darrell what happened and the ensuing crap storm. Then you have to deal with Rick's "Things wont ever be the same again...will they?" comment and the Docs confirmation of it. That's a multiple episode arc though and will probably have a solution forced upon it by the new group the Gov is shacking up with.

[shmenguin]

The prison story line reached an impasse.

so this is just a way to break the monotony of the main plot? that would be just about the most pathetic thing a successful tv show has ever done.

i don't really agree with this premise anyways. the prison is a little stale, yes. but it's still a story about a group of people trying to survive the zombie apocalypse. this show has no excuse to run out of ideas of how to infuse drama into their story line.

[Defence21]

The prison story line reached an impasse.

so this is just a way to break the monotony of the main plot? that would be just about the most pathetic thing a successful tv show has ever done.

i don't really agree with this premise anyways. the prison is a little stale, yes. but it's still a story about a group of people trying to survive the zombie apocalypse. this show has no excuse to run out of ideas of how to infuse drama into their story line.

I don't buy it. If anything, it's a weak attempt at delaying the drama and building up anticipation for the inevitable Darryl vs. Rick situation.

[shmenguin]

The prison story line reached an impasse.

so this is just a way to break the monotony of the main plot? that would be just about the most pathetic thing a successful tv show has ever done.

i don't really agree with this premise anyways. the prison is a little stale, yes. but it's still a story about a group of people trying to survive the zombie apocalypse. this show has no excuse to run out of ideas of how to infuse drama into their story line.

I don't buy it. If anything, it's a weak attempt at delaying the drama and building up anticipation for the inevitable Darryl vs. Rick situation.

or amc wants to save money and excluding high-priced actors from multiple episodes is a good way to achieve that


any way you slice it, it smells funny

[relantel]

I liked it. The entire episode left me feeling like "What kind of person is he going to be?". The fight in the pit was a great metaphor for what a father would do for a child. Looks like next week is all Gov too. Not too happy about that and it looks like, yes, it's going to be Gov v. Rick again.

It may not have been the same story arc, but I thought it was a good episode. It made one keep guessing whether the Governor would snap or not, be out for himself or not, and turn on the people that took him in for the night.

[shmenguin]

I liked it. The entire episode left me feeling like "What kind of person is he going to be?". The fight in the pit was a great metaphor for what a father would do for a child. Looks like next week is all Gov too. Not too happy about that and it looks like, yes, it's going to be Gov v. Rick again.

It may not have been the same story arc, but I thought it was a good episode. It made one keep guessing whether the Governor would snap or not, be out for himself or not, and turn on the people that took him in for the night.

i don't think that was intended. they established pretty definitively, right away, that he wasn't a threat to anyone.

[Spangler]

I actually thought the episode was really good. Not the direction I expected them to take with the Governor. This episode no longer made him one dimensional by actually deciding to do character development. I thought that's what people wanted, and now people are complaining about it?

The Governor's redemption made sense to me. He was in the ultimate position of power, and then he lost everything. He realized the power turned him into a horrible human being. He failed to protect his family in the past, and now he's in a position to get another shot at it.

There were a lot of subtleties in the episode like when he put the oxygen guy in the bed, and the guy was talking to him. He was talking about how being a dad made him a real man by protecting his kids. They cut to the governor like the guy was unintentionally rubbing salt in his wounds, and I imagined the governor thinking about how he couldn't save his family.

The prison was getting stale, and I thought this was a welcomed change of scenery. There's only so much you can do with the prison that hasn't been explored yet.

I'll take this over the crap we were getting in most of seasons 2 and 3.

[Hockeynut!]

I actually thought the episode was really good. Not the direction I expected them to take with the Governor. This episode no longer made him one dimensional by actually deciding to do character development. I thought that's what people wanted, and now people are complaining about it?

I like the character development episodes more than the action driven episodes. But I want to care about the character. The Gov killed a lot of innocent people last year. I don't see how you can redeem that. I'd have much preferred to see Carol off on her own than an entire episode dedicated to turning a sociopath/murderer into a cuddly teddy bear who just misses his family.

[shmenguin]

I actually thought the episode was really good. Not the direction I expected them to take with the Governor. This episode no longer made him one dimensional by actually deciding to do character development. I thought that's what people wanted, and now people are complaining about it?

I like the character development episodes more than the action driven episodes. But I want to care about the character. The Gov killed a lot of innocent people last year. I don't see how you can redeem that. I'd have much preferred to see Carol off on her own than an entire episode dedicated to turning a sociopath/murderer into a cuddly teddy bear who just misses his family.

a choice between a carol episode and a governor episode. talk about a catch 22.

but to the point above...the governor's character was largely responsible for how bad season 3 was. it should be implied that character development is only good when said character hasn't already ruined an entire season.

i also want to come back to this idea that the prison has gone stale. we've just seen the best 3 or 4 episodes since season 1. so no, it hasn't gone stale. you just want new scenery.

[Spangler]

To me he seemed pretty disgusted with what he did, and in the end found a way to try to do good again. But who knows what he'll end up doing by the end of the season.

Maybe it's me always trying to find the good in people.

[DelPen]

Well Andrea and Michonne wandered around for almost 9 months and didn't know that you need to destroy the brain. These people were only isolated for a few more months after the couple weeks that season 3 took place.

Kind of spoiler from the governor books if they keep this part of his backstory:

Spoiler:

When he came to Woodbury it was run by some nasty national guard troops that murdered a resident because he spoke out at a meeting. That justifies his distrust and killing of the troop he found

What has the governor done though from his persepctive besides killing his own people that was really that wrong?

1) the national guard troops could have been a threat and he got supplies for his people.
2) Michonne held a sword to his neck, sending his guys out to kill her wasn't unjustified
3) Merle screwed up by kidnapping Glenn and Maggie and forced him to hold them captive at that point. he knew the prison was over run and it would take dangerous people to clear it and needed to know more about them. He never hurt Maggie and it was Merle, again, who screwed it all up by sending the walker in at Glenn.
4) Michonne killed penny and then took his eye out after Rick came in and shot up his town. Of course he's going to try to get revenge.

Now granted, the heads in the fish tank and some other character flaws make him not a nice guy but most of his actions were justified especially in this world.

But...

Spoiler:

in the comic he was just a sadistic **** with no redeeming qualities from when Rick met him and on

[shmenguin]

He never hurt Maggie

his scene with maggie was definitive proof that he was a piece of crap

[PensFanInDC]

Well Andrea and Michonne wandered around for almost 9 months and didn't know that you need to destroy the brain. These people were only isolated for a few more months after the couple weeks that season 3 took place.

Maybe it's cause we live in a world where the zombie genre exists but if I shoot a walker over and over again in the body and they keep getting up I might try a different tactic. Also, I'm pretty sure Andrea knew to destroy the brain.

[shmenguin]

andrea knew about the brain. maybe not in the comics, but she spent about a million years on that farm head-shotting zombies.

[DelPen]

andrea knew about the brain. maybe not in the comics, but she spent about a million years on that farm head-shotting zombies.

Crap, meant that everyone is infected.

[DelPen]

So another entire issue of the comic that could have been accomplished in 3 pages. This is getting boring.

[Staggy]

The story line of the Governor's redemption would be more compelling and believable if he didn't just murder 30 people in cold blood. I enjoyed the episode but the redemption aspect is somewhat tainted due to this. It was the previous show runner who had the Governor slaughter those people for no real reason, but it's the current runner who's attempting to clean up that mess in a questionable way. I'm intrigued by what's going to happen, I just don't find it believable that he can "come back" from his past, as the season theme goes. Of course it could just be a bit of misdirection before he starts doing Governor things again.

[canaan]

This was the best episode of the season by a country mile. It wasn't obnoxious, recycled crap.

[nocera]

The prison story line reached an impasse.

so this is just a way to break the monotony of the main plot? that would be just about the most pathetic thing a successful tv show has ever done.

i don't really agree with this premise anyways. the prison is a little stale, yes. but it's still a story about a group of people trying to survive the zombie apocalypse. this show has no excuse to run out of ideas of how to infuse drama into their story line.

I don't buy it. If anything, it's a weak attempt at delaying the drama and building up anticipation for the inevitable Darryl vs. Rick situation.

Breaking away from the main story to set up new characters (or in this case returning characters) is nothing new. LOST did it as well. I'm fine with it as it reintroduces the Governor in a more interesting way than if he just showed up again.

[Hockeynut!]

I think it could have been accomplished in 15 min rather than an entire ep (or 2 or 3). He's such an annoying character and I don't buy him being redeemed. It's like redeeming Bashar Al-Assad, I'm not buying it. And the whole "failed father finds redemption through a surrogate family" subplot is pretty cliched. When he grabbed the little girl, I kept hoping he'd throw her to the zombies to facilitate his own escape. That would have seemed more believable than what they were feeding us last night.

[SolidSnake]

Yea, we had Rick vs The Governor last season, so I can't see that happening again, I think the Governor was coming back to the prison for a peace offering as well. From seeing next week's previews how The Governor and company are captive or under Ramirez whatever you wanna call it. It showed what looked like Ramirez wanting to take over some camp and the Governor looked reluctant about doing so.

[PensFanInDC]

Maybe he was coming to warn the prison.

[Sigwolf]

What has the governor done though from his persepctive besides killing his own people that was really that wrong?

Really? That's the standards to judge a character? Other than needlessly slaughtering 20-30 people for absolutely no reason, what has he done wrong? I, uh, well, no... I got nothing. I'm truly dumbfounded someone can not only say that, but then go on to try to justify his other erratic actions, all while essentially saying, "Oh, and ignore the heads in the fish tanks". If this ep had been centered on a new character, it would have been compelling. Centering on the Gov?... f him.