4.06: The Walking Dead - Live Bait

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Group members struggle to find their humanity while being constantly threatened.

 

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David Morrissey gives a little bit more detail on what we'll learn about the Governor in upcoming episodes:

What you see at the end of this last episode is that he's fit, he looks well, he looks healthy — so he's ready for confrontation in whatever form that takes. So our questions are piqued at the end of episode 5 and that's where we'll go in episode 6. We'll see a bit more of where he's been in the ensuing months. I think it's fair to say that at the end of season 3 we left him in a very difficult space. He had turned on his own people and he didn't do that with any pleasure. He's not somebody who was doing that in any premeditated way. It comes out of him in a quite spontaneous anger. It's like a red mist has descended on him and I think what we'll see in the coming episodes is someone who is coming to terms with that new person that we saw at the end of season 3 — whether he's embracing that person or fighting that person. That is what we will see. He's changed. He's definitely changed. That is fair to say. And what we will see is where that change has taken him.
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'Walking Dead': David Morrissey says... | Inside TV | EW.com

And Scott Gimpley explains what the Governor's mindset is going to be from his point of view:

EW: So what can we expect to see in the next episode?



GIMPLE: We will be really getting into who this guy is, to further define this guy. He did something very pronounced at the end of the season that defines him a certain way that affected him a great deal. That's changed him a great deal. So we will see who this man is now. There will absolutely be a flashback element to filling in some of those blanks. More so, I would say, than we did with rejoining the prison.

The Governor truly went off the deep end last time we saw him. What can you tell us in terms of where his head is?


GIMPLE: We know what he did. He killed those people. We know that Rick welcomed basically the remaining people in. That town did very much make up that man's identity. And his purpose. And everything he was fighting for. And asking the question, what's left after that?— we're gonna see. We're gonna answer that question. We're gonna show that.
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'Walking Dead' boss on Governor return | Inside TV | EW.com

 

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*** Spoilers ***
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There is something to be said about the Governor, as we see him dragging his feet across the devastated towns of South West, and we hear Ben Nichols singing: "... and I ask for no redemption. In this cold and barron place ..."

By judging from the growth of his beard he's been on road for several months*, and yet he hasn't been able to cast away the ghosts from haunting his mind. What he did was regrettable, at least to us, and in some ways we should be believe he was so devastated, at the evening after the shooting, he couldn't put a bullet in the brain of a campfire zombie.

In fact that same pattern continues till a horde catches him and his new companions on a road. And there he couldn't but to give in to his instincts and catch the girl, which looks in so many ways look like Penny.

Would the Chalmers family had allowed him to go back in the road, after he had mashed Grandpa's head in, he could probably had ended dead in some very lonely place. But no, there is no rest for the wicked, because the devil likes keeps his own live and well. And I have no doubts he will soon take the leadership off from Caesar's hands.

After all he was named as a King piece by Megan. A one-eyed king that has no army. Nothing, but the countless number of zombies around him. Maybe someone could even claim they are his pawns, while Caesar and Shumpert present the knights.

But is the Walking Dead a chess game?

Can the producers really claim that there are two sides on the board, one on Rick's side and another one on the Governor's side?

Is that what you see?



* 4.7 months = 6 cm / 1.27 cm per month

 

[Dave]

I can see that his earlier madness was a result of losing his family, especially his daughter. He thought he was keeping her alive, and I assume that all the heads in jars and the experiments were an attempt to bring her back. That all fell apart and he was broken.

So, his burning of the photograph was significant, and the young girl has become a replacement for his daughter. He is a man renewed.

I expected this little detour to conclude this week, but it appears to continue next week. And it looks like getting even more complicated.

 

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Kirkman's villains often get very complicated and when you look under the surface, you see them being humans not demons. And if you take out Rick and his posse, you'll see they could replace him as a start. But you, as a royal you, cannot believe after all that you've seen that the governor is a good guy. Not, when he left Miles bleeding on the floor at front of Andrea and certainly not when he slaughtered all his people, because the assault didn't go his way.

The Governor has glimpses of real human in him and in the times you can see him almost like a good guy. In this episode he didn't really hesitate to go fetch the backgammon board from the upstairs guy. And he put a knife through his skull, you could see he was sorry for the guy. Sorry for him ending up like that in the bathtub, and missing a chance of doing a real damage with that small .38 service revolver.

In think in that point he was kind of wanting to die, as he gave away his chrome 1911 and slotted the smaller gun before he hit the old people's home. In there, he almost looked like a hobo, a man that had lost everything. But the way he shoved the wheelchair zombie away just briefly brought back the real governor. The man who would give a f*** about the undead kind.

So yeah, burning of his family-graph was really significant, because that was the life he couldn't have. Yet maybe that was also one his most sane moment, where as the zombie-head television was certainly one his most deranged one.

 

[paranoid marvin]

It shows him to be a psychopath. One who can control himself, but who would kill you with no hesitation if he felt you had betrayed him or were a threat in any way. I think he was with the family to get what he wanted; the girl. He obviously sees her as a replacement for his own daughter, and possibly the woman as a substitute wife. I wouldn't put it past him getting rid of the other sister when no-ones looking though. Don't trust him an inch; a wolf in sheep's clothing is still a wolf. Rick knows this. and will put him down the first chance he gets.

At the moment though, he is amongst the blind; those who do not have the vision to survive and thrive in this new world. And you know what they say about the one-eyed man...

 

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Would you believe he's going to betray the mother and her lover for the daughter?

 

[paranoid marvin]

Would you believe he's going to betray the mother and her lover for the daughter?

I think he'll do whatever it takes to get what he wants. What he wants at the moment is a second chance with his new daughter, and if that means forming a relationship with the mother then so be it.

What's the sister going to think when she sees him sleeping with her, a little jealousy perhaps? She's an inconvenience and we've seen what the governor does with inconveniences. Also if the mother/his lover tries to leave him, do you think he'll let her take her daughter as well?

 

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What's the sister going to think when she sees him sleeping with her, a little jealousy perhaps? She's an inconvenience and we've seen what the governor does with inconveniences. Also if the mother/his lover tries to leave him, do you think he'll let her take her daughter as well?

Were they sisters? Man, I thought they were lesbian lovers as the acting so strongly pointed they were having a bit more action in the bedroom department than just being mere sisters. But taken that all women except Michonne seem to want to have some hanky panky with the Governor, I wouldn't be surprised if he would end up shoving his bowie knife in the middle of a domestic disturbance, and end the matter that worries him most.

However, and to answer your last question, I don't think he will ever give up on his new baby, not as long as there's even breath left in his chest. And if there's not, I'd imagine him ending his days before he would clutch his dead cold fingers around her shoulders, and open his mouth to release a ghastly howl.

 

[Culhwch]

Pretty sure they were sisters. I'm almost certain they both referred to the old man as 'dad'.

I haven't yet seen the next episode, but I thought this one was very sedate and actually a little boring. Especially while he was the unshaven Hoboverner. After he shaved it picked up a little.

I could have believed he'd done some significant self-evaluation and changed his ways... if he hadn't run into his old 2IC at the very end. If he'd just remained with the women and the girl, he may have stayed reformed. But it was almost inevitable that he'd run into a group at some point, I suppose, and in a group I get the feeling he has to be leader - at any cost.

The next episode should be interesting, though I'd prefer if they revisited the prison first. Oh well.

 

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A little boring with Hobonator? I loved him trodding through the towns and villages, and generally not giving a rat's a*s about the zombies falling left and right behind him. It was almost as if I was watching crash-landed Darth Vader walking through Tatooines desert, with his cloak full of holes and armour falling in pieces. The scene was just brilliant and there is no precedent act in the comics.