What They Say:
Live Bait – Group members struggle to find their humanity while being constantly threatened.
Content:
Teasing us with the Governor at the end of the previous episode gave fans a look at the big bad from the third season and reminded us that he’s definitely still out there even after all that happened. We knew it since Michonne was out looking for him, and we knew he’d come back, but it was a matter of when. Admittedly, I’d prefer him not to come back this season at all and just be a looming presence down the line, but that’s not going to happen. Getting what we did there with him watching the prison and having obviously bided his time, his intensity and calmness is all rolled into the prologue here as we’re reminded of how things ended for him last season and where things stand now. There’s something very dead about him inside now after the loss of his daughter, but you know there’s also something far more inside that could come alive at any time with some real brutality.
Thankfully, we do get a good if brief montage style look at the fallout from the Woodbury event and it just paints him in such an interesting way since he brought things down himself and then moved on in a kind of listless way. Seeing where he went, how he was, compared to what we saw of him at the end of the previous episode really does make it clear just how far gone he was. The kind of emptiness that can truly consume someone who had so much only to have it lost. We saw so much of his downfall in the third season, and seeing how he handled it from there, makes his rebirth all the more interesting to watch since he can become a very different man. It’s a hard world at this point that can drive you in any number of directions, but someone like the Governor who had so much, every new opportunity is just another chance to rebuild stronger, if he can find that proper spark. Not surprisingly, the spark is a little girl survivor who brings back memories of his own little girl.
Giving us an episode devoted to the Governor definitely makes it a worthwhile experience, since a show me don’t tell me aspect can work well with a character like this, and having him end up with a small family that’s holed up together with a woman that was an Atlanta cop gives us a clue as to how they survived so long. They’re almost a little comical in that they’ve been there since everything went to hell and have kept to themselves as people left and the walkers dried up for the most part. That they’re still waiting for the National Guard only adds to it, but there’s something to be said for people deluding themselves. They’re all quite talkative overall though with a new person there, though the Governor, using a fake name he saw on the road, keeps largely to himself. It makes for an awkward dynamic, but watching how the Governor reacts to things, and from seeing glimpses of himself in the mirror, you can see how he’s changing because of the interactions with others, something he’s not had for months after being on the road.
In a way, the episode works to rehabilitate the Governor as we see him slowly but surely helping the people there, even going so far as to go to an old folks home to get oxygen for the elderly man they’re caring for. That gives us our fun with the walkers, but it’s just a way to show that he really does care in a way, even after all that’s happened. It’s easy to view him as the simple villain that he could be viewed as for wha the did in Woodbury – and even more so for those that are trying to reconcile their comic book version of the character as well – but he’s coming across as both simple and complicated here. He’s human in the end, suffered as everyone has in this disaster that has happened, and his reactions. While he wasn’t a cardboard one dimensional character in the third season, here we’re getting more of the nuance from him that will turn him into a very different character with how we view him as he returns to dealing with Rick and the others at the prison. Or what few people really remain.
There are some very good and powerful moments in here as it goes on, with the Governor dealing with his past in a small but significant way, his cleaning up of himself and the way he ends up taking care of people even though he’s not quite sure that he should. In a lot of ways, he’s just a different version of Rick in how he has to survive and is caught up in making sure others are all right. There’s even a moment of real sensuality that comes into play that’s great to see because it’s a human and connective aspect that shows that he is alive. But even more so, it’s seeing him with the child, Megan, and how he’s doing his best to ensure she survives. Though he’s broken with his past, he still can’t help himself as he sees his own daughter in her. His intensity in protecting her is fantastic as it reminds us of what kind of brutality and survival instincts he has in himself, especially after the way he started out here so early on.
In Summary:
While I see a lot of people hating on this season so far (and honestly, I’ve seen that for just about every season, though the first got it less overall), I’ve been enjoying the show a lot as we see how things sussed out after the events of the Woodbury season. We all knew that the Governor was going to come back and that tease in the previous episode set things up nicely for where it’ll all go. What surprised me, in a very good way, is that we get an all Governor episode here and it looks like next week as well, which the show definitely needs. The smaller episodes where it focuses on the characters may not be entirely what some fans are looking for, but they’ve been some of the best episodes in each season and this one is no exception. I’ve never been totally a fan of the Governor as I admittedly wanted more of what we had in the books, but I really like what they did in the third season overall with him. Here, he becomes a real character that I can’t wait to see more. Which is good, since the next episode looks to be a lot more about him.
Grade: A
