Summary: The Governor stabs Milton and leaves him with an imprisoned Andrea. Milton slowly dies and turns. Andrea tries to escape before he kills her. The Governor's men attack the prison but they get sent off. Carl kills somebody he didn't need to kill. The Governor angrily kills all of his men. Rick goes to Woodbury after seeing what The Governor did and they make peace. The Governor is gone. Rick finds Andrea who is bitten and dies. Rick lets the Woodbury people live alongside his group in the prison.
The Good: I appreciate that this episode started off with the exact same shot as "Seed". Only this time it isn't a walker that provides the threatening visual, but The Governor who has become the main threat. I liked the developments for Carl. It was genuinely shocking when he murdered the scared Woodbury citizen, and his new take on how to survive is genuinely chilling. I was pleased that the show treated this development as a big deal, since it is downright horrifying to see a child turning into a psychopathic murderer, and both Rick and Hershel seem genuinely concerned for his mental wellbeing. For a show that has done such an abysmal job of handling its characters, it's refreshing to see somebody actually develop a little bit. The Bad: Unfortunately this episode was no good and it was a huge anticlimax. This half season was chock full of bland set-up that really tested my patience, and I needed a big climax here to make me feel like it was worth going through tedious episode after tedious episode. But that just didn't happen at all. This episode gave us absolutely no resolution for the central conflict of the season, and I was left scratching my head with all of the loose ends that were left hanging. In no regard was this a satisfying season finale. This episode had hyped up a big action sequence to take place. Everything felt like it was building towards a huge blow-off, but it never came. The sequence we got was donwright terrible. The Governor took his men into the prison but the moment some gunfire came, they all ran away like headless chickens. I don't know what was worse: the fact that everyone from Woodbury panicked and ran away from two people with guns, or the fact that Glenn and Maggie were somehow so incapable that they didn't kill a single person from Woodbury. The plan that Rick's group came up with was pretty awful too. Apparently just chasing off the attackers was enough to declare a victory. Why would that be the case? In the last few episodes it was made crystal clear that the only way to settle the matter was to kill the Governor. But now they thinkt hey have won even though they literally killed nobody and accomplished nothing. Furthermore, the follow-up attack plan was stupid. Why on Earth would they think that three people would be enough to attack Woodbury? Also, the timing of the attack was nonsensical. Rick gave the Governor just the amount of time he would have needed to fortify Woodbury before he sent out an attack. That's just idiotic. Furthermore, Rick is really lucky that the Governor decided to kill his own men or they would have been utterly screwed. Speaking of which, the Governor killing his men was another part of the episode I didn't like. The moment made sense and I could understand that story that the writers were telling. But the big issue is that the direction is not one that I'm interested in. To have the Governor be reduced to just an insane guy feels lazy and it isn't very rewarding in terms of interesting character work. The Governor has been oversimplified, and I don't think that the show is better for it. The episode "Walk With Me" promised us a character who was morally grey; a man who was willing to do horrible things as long as it was the right thing to protect his people. Now all we are left with is a crazy guy who just wants revenge. That's much less interesting than the character we had before, and I can't say that I'm excited to see more from him. And then we get to the Andrea storyline. Oh man. The character of Andrea has been mishandled to an unbelievable degree. Her sudden pacifistic nature has come right out of nowhere and unfortunately the writers have decided to make it her defining characteristic as she dies. When she dies, all we hear about is how she wanted to help everyone. This doesn't work at all because it is completely at odds with the character who we had grown to know for the past 3 seasons. It appears that the writers thought that inserting a random new character trait onto this character with zero explanation was acceptable. Well it wasn't, and it completely alienated me from everything Andrea was involved with. So in the end, I didn't care at all when she died. The moment was wasted. Furthermore, the show tried to play up the Andrea/Michonne relationship which is laughable considering how little we know about it. The rest of the episode had other little things that really bothered me. I found it hard to believe that Tyreese and Sasha would agree to go to the prison with Rick, especially considering how he screamed at them in a previous episode. I can't believe that Tyreese didn't bring that up when he was speaking with Rick. Another little thing that bothered me was Chandler Riggs' acting. He's just not at a high enough level to make me fully understand Carl, and that is taking me out of the show. Lastly, the vanishing of Lori's ghost was a stupid moment. Apparently all Rick needed to do was to let other people into the prison. But this makes zero sense because Rick's guilt towards Lori's death was because he wasn't cold enough when dealing with the prisoners. So how the hell does softening up resolve Rick's inner struggles? It doesn't, but for some reason the show thinks it does. It made for a really stupid moment. The Unknown: Where did the Governor go? What's he going to do next? What happened to Woodbury? Why did everyone abandon it? Why didn't Rick choose to go there instead of staying at the prison? Best Moment: Carl telling Rick that he couldn't risk making a mistake that gets somebody else killed was apretty scary moment. It made sense that Carl would think this way because of everything he has been through. Character of the Episode: Carl. Conclusion: It's ironic that the show finally found something worthwhile to do with Carl as it botched everything else. This season finale was in no way satisfying, and it ended off the season on a very disappointing note. This season dropped off in quality in the second half. The first half had some really solid television and I enjoyed it. But this second half was a trainwreck. Outside of "Clear", nothing really worked and the overall story was a complete mess. Nothing paid off, there were no memorable moments, characters continued to make no sense, and the direction the story took was disappointing. This second half was a huge failure and it's going to be hard for the show to recover from it. Score: 40
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
March 2024
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