What They Say:
Dead Weight – Something new unfolds at a camp outside the prison, and the addition of new members may threaten peace.
Content:
The Walking Dead did some seriously great material in the previous episode and it made a character that I was lukewarm about in general during season three and made him compelling. Bringing the Governor back was a given how they ended the third season but I’ll admit I would have been fine with him not coming back until season five. But here we are, after episode six, working with him again and getting some strong character material. Every character in the series obviously goes through their pivotal moments and he’s had a couple in the third season The changes he went through on the road, which leaves us wondering how Carol will turn out when we see her again, has given him a new life, one that has a different focus than before. But how will that change in him stand up to when he does eventually come across Rick and the others again? Therein lies the big question as to how much has truly changed in him.
Ending up with Martinez is doing going to be a challenge, but not because of the power dynamic change between them. More that you have the Governor protecting what he has to protect now and looking to secure that as much as possible. And with it made clear that they have to carry their own weight, he certainly has incentive to be more like he was once before because that does produce results. I do like that Martinez is willing to play along with calling him Brian considering the past they have, particularly since Martinez shouldn’t even allow him to stay there after all of that. But just in the opening here, we see a good bit about how things are going to go with the expressions and dialogue out of the Governor, who will always be known as that no matter what name others call him.
Not surprisingly, there’s some tension with others in the encampment about bringing in a new guy like this and three women, and some of the taunting is almost comical when you consider who they’re taunting. Some of this comes up when a group of them head out to check a survivalist cabin that’s nearby that was found and we get some grisly material along the way for others who survived but were dealt with harshly for various crimes, such as lying, raping and murder. This eventually gives us a good bit of tension as they stalk through the house trying to find out if anyone is in there and it’s definitely interesting to see how this group does a sweep, even with the Governor in the forefront, compared to how the prison group does a sweep. It’s certainly not as professional and the only thing that really saves it is the Governor with the way he deals with it. It’s an area where the group definitely isn’t what Martinez would hope for, though they get the job done.
While we do see how the Governor is coping with everything, you can see the cracks coming in too, especially since Martinez is talking about the past at times and there’s things coming to surface that he doesn’t want to talk about. He’s come back from the edge in a way few do after something like Woodbury, but he’s still fighting what he once was as he doesn’t want to be like that anymore. His goal is all about protecting the family, one that is starting to feel safe where they are in a way they hadn’t before. That stings him a fair bit to be sure. But we also see that he has an option to gain some power while talking with Martinez, and that’s what the Governor doesn’t want in the slightest. So much so that the barest whisper of it has him killing Martinez in a quick and brutal fashion. It’s no different than killing the walkers in a lot of ways with how he does it, since he simply sees Martinez as a threat.
Interestingly, as time goes on in this camp, the Governor does recognize that things are going to go south quickly without Martinez. And the fact that there are others out there in the area that will roll over on a camp to gain supplies. The new leader of the group, Pete, is one of the good guys to be sure but he’s going to be hard pressed to do the necessary thing at the right time because it will feel wrong by the old moral code. And for the Governor, that just means things will not work well in the long run here. It’s not easy to leave though, as they find out while heading out into the night, as they discover that one of the main roads is just filled with sunken walkers that are desperate in their usual way. With his goal to protect the girls, he realizes that the only way he can truly do that at this point is to become like he was, albeit in some different way. And that means taking over the camp here, which he does pretty effectively in just a couple of simple moves. It’s a bit disappointing in some ways as I really liked who he was becoming after the previous episode, though a lot of it will stick. This is admittedly just an expansion of his main goal now of protecting those that he cares about, and that he can care again.
In Summary:
Things start to come full circle here with what we see going on back during the whole prison arc of the season so far and that offers up some interesting ideas about how the two sides will meet. The Governor is definitely a complicated character in a lot of ways and he’s become a lot more engaging with this two part arc that humanizes him in a way that all the Woodbury material didn’t. A lot of who he was then was just superficial to what he was trying to do elsewhere in the community. Here, even if we don’t agree with what he’s doing, we can empathize with him and that makes him a lot more accessible. I can’t say I’m rooting for him, but I’d love to see him just going on and exploring his world – away from Rick and the others. He could certainly make a compelling spinoff, not that it will happen. As much as I enjoyed this episode, it’s not up there with last weeks but it definitely does some good stuff.
Grade: B+
