Original air date: November 24, 2013
Review (with SPOILERS): Yeesh… What an episode… Last week’s installment showed us a possibly reformed Governor who was going to try to start a new life with a new family and a new name. Even if it wasn’t a very good episode, the creators deserved some credit for realizing that if they were going to keep the Governor on the show, he needed a total character makeover.
I take back any faint praise I gave this show last week. By the end of this episode, the show’s creators had circled the Governor right back to where he was at the end of Season 3. These creators must have watched David Morrissey ham it up as the psycho-violent Governor and said, “We need more of THAT!” But instead of just having the Governor show up, guns-blazing, they decided that he was such an interesting character that they wanted to give him his own saga.
In a vacuum, there is nothing wrong with a tale of reverse-redemption. One of the interesting things in apocalypse fiction is that it provides for storytelling opportunities where real-life morality goes out the window. In a story like TWD, you can show how people may have to behave horribly to ensure the survival of the group. You can’t do it forever because nobody enjoys a story about totally miserable people, but it isn’t a totally horrid idea to show a man trying his best to be decent, and then getting pulled back into the darkness. The apocalypse sucks, you know?
But we’re not interested in seeing this story about the Governor now. Perhaps there would have been a place for it before Season 3, but the Governor has already had his story arc. He started out as the odd leader of Woodbury who did some weird things (zombie daughter, zombie aquariums, zombie gladiator matches, torture rooms), but basically seemed to be harmless. That all changed when Michonne killed zombie daughter and the Governor went nuts. He lashed out at Rick & Gang, murdered his own people and generally screwed everything up. THAT was his story arc. It wasn’t a great story arc, but it was his.
Now the show’s creators want to show us how he rediscovered his humanity just because he met a girl who looked like his daughter and slept with her mother? He even tried to get away, but found his path blocked by zombies stuck in quicksand. And then he descends from there until he’s right back where he was at the end of Season 3. Sigh… What’s the point of it all?
From a comic-centric perspective, there is more reason to be frustrated. The previews for next week seem to suggest that one of the BIG events from the comic series might be going down for the mid-season finale. That might be kinda cool, except it is hard not to be frustrated that we didn’t get that event in Season 3. This show really has a hard time doing things right. Just because you’re the new show-runner and you’re upset that the last guy didn’t do something last season that you thought was important, that doesn’t mean you should just run in a big circle to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.
If you wanted to pile on, you could point fingers at the overly long beer drinking session in the cabin or the overly long “gunpoint + cigarette” conversation between the Governor and Mitch. Or you could suggest that we’re getting to (barely) meet new characters like Alicia just so we “care” when she gets killed in a few weeks and feel badly that her gun-banter fueled romance with Fist-Bump Tara wasn’t meant to be. And was there a point to the drippy ceiling in the RV? Or could they have been more heavy-handed during the intro when Meghan is saying to the Governor, “It’s your turn now, Brian.” Get it? She was talking about the game of chess they were playing, but it really meant that he was getting to be the nice guy for a change. It’s just insulting when you can see the poor writers of this show attempting to lead you by the nose.
If you’re looking for a silver lining, the zombie effects are all pretty hot still. I mean, how nasty was it when the zombie was trying to get Meghan and Fist-Bump was pulling on its leg and the meat is just stripping off in her hands? The underwater zombie was also kinda cool (except if the Governor is going to recreate his zombie aquariums from Woodbury, he should probably do it somewhere less visible). But the best were the quicksand zombies, because I wonder if they may represent some kind of subversive meta-commentary from the zombie effects crew.
Writer: Hey, zombie dude! We’re going to do this totally awesome two-episode storyline that circles the Governor right back to where he was in Season 3. LOVED that guy! I could write that guy FOREVER! What can you zombie-guys come up to block his path when he tries to get away from his dark past?
AMC administrator: [Sticks head in] Oh, and try to avoid using zombie make-up because we’re trying to keep the budget down.
Zombie effects guy: How about a bunch of zombies that are stuck in quicksand? You know… They’re trying to move forward, but they can’t because they’re stuck in quicksand and they will never ever escape from the quicksand.
Writer: SUPER idea guys. Do it. You guys are the BEST!
Zombie effects guy: [Makes wanker sign as writer leave the room]
*Sigh*
Conclusion: Really, really bad. Even by the standards of this show, this was bad.
Grade: D
– Dean Stell