The Walking dead

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Can't you get the pliers and talk at the same time?

We were saying the same thing!

Yeah. I know what some of you wanted to happen, but I was hoping it worked out different.

And I'm with the kid. Drop it and get real close to me with a gun are two different things.

And screw Allen. Yet another ******* who didn't do what he should when he should.
 
Yeah , I totally thought Allen should have shot the gov when he was shooting everyone else !!!! Then I think it woul be cool if they stayed in wood berry to ambush the gov since he made it out .!!!
 
Worst season finale - ever.

They spent better than half the hour on commercials and Andrea's feet. Very dissatisfying.

And what was with that 'epic' final clash between the Gov'ner and Rick at the prison? They blew some stuff up, walked around inside and then got run off by some flash grenades. It's almost like they spared most of the Woodbury troops so the Gov'ner could slaughter them. I didn't even see Rick throughout the whole battle - was he even there? That was what they've been building up to all season? Weak.

You know an episode is bad when even Andrea tasting gun metal isn't satisfying.

I agree - they better get things back on track or this show could be finished.
 
Yeah. That chic who said it was a slaughter, we were like, what slaughter? I was hoping for some mass chaos in the prison and they shot each other in the confusion. Didn't see that.

But...

Remember the helicopters? It takes fuel and maintenance to keep those things going. Maybe we'll see more of them and the party goes to find them, and finds the governor along the way.
 
I thought it was a weak finale as well. I've wanted Andrea dead for so long but this wasn't satisfying, they painted her a "failure with good intentions", even though she never once did the right thing. And to top it off, they could have at least given Michonne and Andrea a lesbian moment, but nope we'll just let Andrea shoot herself.
 
The whole thing was too convenient. They wrapped up a few things, but did it unconvincingly. The most well-armed group we've seen on the whole show gets run off by a couple of zombies and a few flash grenades? Stupid.

And I totally agree: drop the shotgun or get shot. Cops don't say "hand me your weapon!" for a reason. It's "Drop the Gun!" Carl did the right thing, without question.

My big question is why stay at the prison? Why not keep Woobury? Very strange.
 
Airborneguy said:
The whole thing was too convenient. They wrapped up a few things, but did it unconvincingly. The most well-armed group we've seen on the whole show gets run off by a couple of zombies and a few flash grenades? Stupid.

And I totally agree: drop the shotgun or get shot. Cops don't say "hand me your weapon!" for a reason. It's "Drop the Gun!" Carl did the right thing, without question.

My big question is why stay at the prison? Why not keep Woobury? Very strange.
Click to expand...

I totally agree, I felt like given what we have to be willing to forget about reality, this episode still tried to feed us **** and call it meatloaf. I thought Carl did the right thing, but based on the reactions of other characters I'm not sure if they're supposed to be "soft" or if Carl was supposed to have done something animalistic. If it's the latter, then I feel like the scene could have been shot to show that. The way I saw it, there was the suspense that the teenager might have shot Carl but Carl made like Han Solo and shot first.
 
dudius said:
I totally agree, I felt like given what we have to be willing to forget about reality, this episode still tried to feed us **** and call it meatloaf. I thought Carl did the right thing, but based on the reactions of other characters I'm not sure if they're supposed to be "soft" or if Carl was supposed to have done something animalistic. If it's the latter, then I feel like the scene could have been shot to show that. The way I saw it, there was the suspense that the teenager might have shot Carl but Carl made like Han Solo and shot first.
Click to expand...

It's not that the kid could have shot Carl (Carl would doubtlessly get a shot off first), but that moving close enough to hand it over, especially with the size advantage, could allow the kid to physically overpower him. For that reason, it immediately seemed to me that Carl did the right thing. You don't continue approaching, especially gun in hand, and expect to not get shot.
 
I actually didn't the episode was that bad except that all the buildup to the war only resulted in the group killing nobody (except a wandering kid), but rather just the governor mowing everyone down.

But my biggest issue is, where does the show go from here? They're still in the prison, only now with a few dozen useless, dependent extra people. And the governor's not dead... so why didn't he go back to Woodbury? Where DID he go?
 
geez, Andrea... think maybe you can talk AND monkey-grab at the pliers at the same time?

save you the trouble of finding out you lack decent foot-eye coordination at such a critical moment?
 
Dudius said it better Re: Carl.

The writers' intention was to show that Carl may have jumped the shark on the side of viciousness, but they set up a scene where most people would agree that Carl made the correct choice. If they wanted to make the viewers question Carl's actions, they should have had him fire either much quicker or maybe even after the kid dropped the gun. I told my wife that in real life, I'd have been justified shooting that kid at work. It wasn't questionable at all. Drop the gun, period. Gun in hand and approaching me equals you get shot, apocalypse or not.
 
Alright you answered my question, I was going to post last night and ask but didn't want to spoil it while asking the question. I thought I blinked and missed the Governor's demise or something, or his "big escape." But neither happened, right? He killed everyone on the road, but Rick and Company beat him back to Woodbury and they brought folks back to the prison. And the Governor sort of just vanished til next season.

I thought for a second he was one of the zombies when Rick and his crew came upon the scene of the massacre on the road.

Pretty un-epic, eh?

In regards to Carl, I still maintain what I said back at the beginning of this thread, that had the zombipocalpse not happened, pets in his neighborhood would start being found tortured and mutilated, and decades later when they finally caught him, all his neighbors would remark that he was such a "quiet man." And no one suspected that he was responsible for the death of 30 prostitutes.....
 
I opted for Game of Thrones last night. Here's the thing... while I wont read Walking Dead spoilers, I keep missing episodes. I dont care enough to watch but I care too much to find out what happened...
 
I guess I'm in the minority, but overall I liked last night's show. Yeah, there was some stuff that I thought was pretty clumsy but overall, I liked that some issues were resolved and new ones created.

When does the next season start?
 
Wait, so they moved the people of Woodbury into the prison? Why didn't Rick's group move to Woodbury if the Governor wasn't there? Did I miss something?
 
andrea-walking-dead-meme.jpg
 
lustreking said:
I'm not sure that I follow. The Governor's group got in the prison twice, and Tyreese's group got in
Click to expand...

1st time they were unprepared

2nd time they were lured in

Tyreese should let them know there's a breech and take corrective measures

of course, this is the Walking Dead, where they search the woods for a missing child in a single file
 
lustreking said:
I'm not sure that I follow. The Governor's group got in the prison twice, and Tyreese's group got in
Click to expand...

The governor's group got into the courtyard once, and then were permitted to take part of the prison as a defensive tactic. Not the same thing.
 
GrogNerd said:
1st time they were unprepared

2nd time they were lured in

Tyreese should let them know there's a breech and take corrective measures

of course, this is the Walking Dead, where they search the woods for a missing child in a single file
Click to expand...


Woodbury:

1st time they were unprepared

were there any other times?
 
I was referring to the prison, but IIRC, Woodbury was attacked twice and Darryl was captured the 2nd time

I would guess a town would be tougher to secure & defend than a prison, depending on the numbers involved
 
Not a very good season finale. Glad Andrea is gone although she took her sweet time getting to the point. Not sure if I like where they're taking Carl. All the sudden he is this dark sociopath? Maybe if they presented that idea earlier in the season. Seemed a bit shoe-horned in at the last minute. I like Revvy's description of Carl assuming the zompocalypse never happened.

Now I can go back to counting down the days until Breaking Bad is back on the air.
 
Woodbury's security is totally based on defense against walkers and it requires a large staff to uphold. The prison is relatively good holding back humans and walkers if they would just take the time to clear and secure more areas. You'd think they'd work on getting some solar panels up on the roof to get some lights working in that damn place.
 
I like how they thought it was important to clear the yard of walkers when they first arrived, but after one breach they say screw it and leave it open. I know they were concerned with snipers from Woodbury and all, but it's time to take the yard back and start growing some food.
 
My question is, why is this the first time we see Glenn and Maggie using the riot armor? If I remember correctly the first time the Governor showed up it was a surprise, so if that's the case I'll forgive the lack of riot gear. But there have been a number of times the group has attempted to clear walkers inside the prison and the gear was never used. And before anyone suggests the gear was found after Rick and Michonne took gear from Morgan, someone (I think Maggie) killed a walker who was wearing the riot armor back when they took the prison. I refuse to believe that this is the only body with gear they could have taken, and I don't understand why it wasn't ever used earlier.
 
This is a great Review of the final episode from Io9 (major spoiler action you record/watch later folks.)

The Walking Dead season finale replaces its epic confrontation with some epic bullsh*t

Well, I can’t accuse The Walking Dead of being inconsistent. The season finale perfectly encapsulated the entirety of season 3 — a lot of padding, a few great character moments, and most of all, SOME TOTAL BULL****.

Let me say that season 3 is still the best season of The Walking Dead, but in no thanks to “Welcome to the Tombs,” a finale that pretty much completely squanders the whole Prison-vs.-Woodbury storyline that the show has been focusing on all season. Were you expecting an awesome showdown between the two factions? Were you perhaps expecting it to be extra awesome, since the show kept delaying **** until the finale? Well, too bad. Because you know who singlehandedly defeats the Governor’s forces? THE ****ING GOVERNOR.

Yes, after a incredibly lengthy search of the prison — which I actually began to think Rick and crew had actually abandoned because 1) the prison sucks, 2) fighting the vastly superior, better equipped forces of the Governor is a terrible idea — it turns out Rick has funneled the Governor’s forces into a trap, which Rick transforms into a slaughterhouse, killing countless people (many of whom are not the Governor’s goons, but merely regular townsfolk who believe they’re hunting down the terrorists who keep killing their people). The Woodburians run like hell, and I don’t think any of them even manage to get a shot off at Rick or his people.

So naturally the Governor is perturbed when he finally catches up to his fleeing soldiers, hightailing it home on an armored bus; he cuts them off and asks them what the hell they’re doing. One woman, not unreasonably, points out most of the Governor’s forces are not soldiers, that the Prison people are obviously willing to kill to defend their horrible home, and maybe everybody should leave everybody the hell alone.

The Governor takes this badly, and when I say “badly” I mean he guns down 42 or so of his own people. It’s shocking, certainly, but not because the Governor is a crazy bastard, which whe knew, but because it negates the entire conflict of the whole goddamn season. Which, in all honesty, would have fine — awesome, actually — if this had been a conflict that had lasted for weeks, or been an actual war which occurred over several episodes; instead, we get 15 episodes of build-up only to have the have the Governor call the game after five minutes on account of being a psychotic bastard. It’s bull****, is what it is. And, although season 3 is certainly stronger than season 2 (by a long shot), this season 3 finale is definitively worse than the season 2 finale. Period.

The Governor drives off with his two remaining troops, accidentally leaving one woman (the one who asked if everybody could go home, quelle coincidence) hidden under another corpse. Eventually, Rick, Michonne and Daryl, who are travelling to Woodbury to “finish the job,” come across the massacre and the woman, who tells them that Andrea had escaped and left for the prison several days ago. Rick knows she didn’t obviously make it, and they head to Woodbury to figure out what’s up.

What’s up is two things: 1) Tyreese and Sasha have bowed out of the Governor’s mission, offering to help protect the children, the elderly and the infirm while all the able-bodied people go off to war; and 2) The Governor has stabbed Milton many, many times in the gut and left him to die in the room where Andrea is tied up, effectively sentencing her to death by zombie (the Governor’s favorite). Milton did sneak her a pair of pliers before his stomach got aerated, but it becomes a race to see if Andrea will manage to free herself before Milton dies and turns.

Once at the prison, after brief exchange of fire, the Woodbury Person Rick Found manages to explain what has happened to a shaken Tyreese, who lets them into Woodbury. They all head to the Governor’s dungeon (they remember where it is, having helped rescue Glenn and Maggie from it previously) and find Andrea sitting next to Milton’s zombie corpse… but also missing a part of her neck.

Yes, Andrea is no more. She dies as she lived, having done the right thing but still being really annoying somehow. She talks about how all she wanted to do was keep anybody from being killed, even the Governor, whom she had the opportunity to murder a few times after she returned to the prison. She seems a lot more satisfied with herself than observant of how completely she failed, but since she has to blow her own brains out while being held by a sobbing Michonne, so it’s difficult to be too hard on her.

In the very beginning of the episode, Milton and the Governor have an important exchange: Milton asks the Governor what his daughter would think of him now, and he hisses, “She’d be afraid. But she’d be alive.”

It’s been a key theme this season — how, in the new zombie-filled, ex-civilized world, one has to be brutal to stay alive and to keep others safe. Andrea is clear proof; if she’d killed the Governor when she had a chance, she’d be alive, Merle would be alive, and all the Woodburians Rick and the Governor killed today would be alive. We all remember how Rick let that prisoner go, who came back to back to bite him metaphorically (and getting T-Dogg bitten more literally). And the season has shown us again and again how the Governor’s hardcore kill-anyone-who-might-possibly-be-a-threat-in-any-way policy worked out quite well for Woodbury, at least until Rick started messing with things and the Governor decided his vengeance was a lot more important than his townspeople.

It’s a lesson that Rick himself has been espousing for the entirety of the season, ever since he established his Rick-tatorship at the end of season 2. Which is why it should surprise no one, especially not Rick, that Carl finally guns down someone — a non-Walker — in cold blood tonight. We’ve joked about the tiny psychopathic angel of death Carl has become, but tonight finally gave us a consequence of The Walking Dead’s post-apocalyptic world that’s more than just being eaten by zombies.

Rick may have been keeping his group safe, but at what cost to Carl? Is his life worth more than his humanity? The Governor, having lost his daughter, clearly thinks so; but here we have the flip side of the coin. It’s the best moment from the episode, but man oh man, does it not make up for the complete non-ending to the season. At the end of the episode, Rick brings back Tyreese and all of Woodbury’s kids and old people to the prison, so it looks like he’s recovered his humanity (the absence of Ghost Lori seems to confirm this). This sets up a conflict — and a question — that could power the entirety of 4, if done right (and could have made season 3 awesome, if they had done it right this time).

• I was going to be so impressed that Rick and everybody actually left the prison, a decision that would make made so much sense. Then the killing began, and I sighed.

• Then at the end of the episode I was worried they were leaving the prison, after all the horrible bull**** they’d done to keep it, but it was just Rick bringing in a bus full of children and old people.

• One of my biggest problems of this season is how unlikable Rick has been, so I very much welcome his return to being a decent human being by accepting the Woodburians — although it does seem weird that he and his people just murdered a great many of their family members and friends earlier that day.

• The two guys who got in the truck after the Governor gunned down 42 technically innocent people on his own side are the stupidest ****ing people ever.

• It’s nice to finally get Tyreese on Team Rick, although that whole business about Rick psychotically screaming at him to leave effectively throwing him, his sister and his compatriots back to the zombies isn’t addressed). Hopefully it’ll come up next year; I’m not looking for needless squabbles between the survivors, but TWD introduced the goddamn problem, so now it needs to address it.

• Speaking of, Michonne does talk to Rick about that whole “being given to the Governor as a blood sacrifice”-thing from last episode, and she doesn’t blame him for what Merle did, and she understands Rick had to consider it. I think it addresses that conflict nicely. Although her forgiveness his much more about her being human than looking out for her best interests.

• I’m actually glad the Governor’s alive — and I’m glad he’s gone completely off the reservation, which should make his next appearance as terrifying as the Governor’s first appearance in the comics.

• No one likes a tattletale, Herschel.

• Zombie Kill of the Week: I was thinking about giving it to Michonne’s double horizontal head separation, but I think I’ll award it to Carol's efficient, by-the-book machete to the head. Carol doesn’t get enough credit.

• Hey. Andrea. Glenn took out a walker while completely tied to a chair. Sure, your chair was bolted down, but both your arms were free. Just sayin’.
Click to expand...
 
The problem with the finale is that it didn't bring a close to the Govenor/Rick conflict. If it had been first raised an episode ago, it would have been a nice cliffhanger to leave us on, the upcoming confrontation! But it was like the entire damn season spent losing people over this upcoming battle and then nothing. Well, we did get 2 minutes of sun flares on fields of zombies at the end with some uplifting music. WTF? What a terrible way to end a season. What am I looking forward to? They brought in a ton of people who I don't even know and expect people to be excited about that? Where's the closing shot of the prison in the distance to end the season like last time?
 
Good write-up Revvy. This one from the AVclub sums up my feelings pretty well:

This whole season, The Walking Dead looked like it was heading for yet another apocalypse. With a narrative as straightforward as this one (in the sense that “surviving” is the main, and often the only, objective) and the show’s heavy serialization, the arc seemed predictable. Rick and friends got set up in the prison, but just over the horizon was the lovely, seemingly idyllic town of Woodbury, where the charming Governor held sway. Even if you hadn’t read the comics (and I have, which I think colored my expectations somewhat), it looked like these two groups would have to deal with each other, and as the Governor became more and more blatantly threatening, that confrontation was inevitably going to be violent. There would be some sparring here and there and maybe a tenuous sort of peace, but eventually, someone would go too far. Which the Governor pretty much did when he kidnapped Maggie and Glenn last fall. Now all that was left was to determine just how many regular cast members would drop in the finale. Maybe all those years of watching Buffy and playing video games have rotted my mind, but I was expecting a boss fight, with explosions, small tragedies, and zombies.
Well, that’s what we got, but “Welcome To The Tombs” was smarter than a simple fight to the death, and while that meant sacrificing finality (the Governor surviving is something of a mixed blessing), it also meant telling stories that veered dangerously close to optimism. For once, the show ended on a not-entirely-despairing note, finding a compromise between utter despair and naive stupidity that helped to alleviate the unending grimness in a way that doesn’t come across as cheating. It wasn’t a perfect hour, and once again, there are characters behaving in ways that should’ve have been better established over the course of the entire season, rather than just randomly getting pulled out of a hat in the last hour. But it still holds together, and it makes the arc of the season seem cleaner in retrospect. And hey, Andrea’s dead, so I guess that should make everyone happy.

Might as well start there, as it’s the best part of the episode: The Governor, having realized that Milton betrayed him, decides to kill two birds with one stone and stabs Milton in the stomach, leaving him to bleed to death locked in the torture room with Andrea. It’s a nasty piece of business, as the Governor first tells Milton he can walk out of the room alive, but only if he takes Andrea out first. When Milton refuses, he finds out that all his choices are gone, even his moral ones. As the Governor explains, “In this life now, you kill or you die. Or you die and you kill.” Over the rest of the hour, intercut with scenes from the prison and around Woodbury, Andrea tries to free herself from her handcuffs with the pliers a pre-stabbed Milton left under her feet. This is about as rudimentary as suspense gets, but in a good way; the situation is stark and uncompromised, and it gives us a chance to spend a little more time with Milton and Andrea before the inevitable. Of the two, I think I’ll miss Milton slightly more, mostly because it feels like he died just as he was getting interesting. After seeing this episode, it becomes obvious that his arc was supposed to be “man of science turning a blind eye until he realizes there are some lines he can’t cross,” which wasn’t really clear for a lot of the season. At first he was just a polite, slightly creepy guy, and then he disappeared for a while. He had a few good scenes overall, and it was nice to be surprised by someone acting in a positive manner for once, but now, he’s dead, and a lot of potential has been lost. (Plus, Dallas Roberts was really good. Viva Rubicon!)

As for Andrea, she’ll be missed less, but the last couple episodes managed to make her somewhat more sympathetic. While I’m not sure I completely buy her assertions that she stuck around Woodbury because she was just trying to save everyone, it’s interesting how the idea fits back into one of the show’s main themes: Compromise kills. The Governor was a broken, evil man, and no amount of negotiation or pillow talk was ever going to set him right. Because she couldn’t accept that, Andrea dies, and points to the show (and Glen Mazzarra, who scripted this episode) for having it happen in a way that doesn’t make her or the Governor look like an idiot. Milton may have provided her with a way to escape, but the door was still locked. So Andrea got herself free just in time to fight back, but it wasn’t enough, because a lot of the time, that’s what happens. So she dies. Her final scene is a fine grace note for a character who never quite came into focus over the course of the series and fits in, oddly enough, with Carl’s lecture to Rick: If you leave the monsters alive, they will come back and kill you. Andrea couldn’t take out the Governor when she had the chance, and now, she has to pay the price.

Also paying the price: nearly everyone in the Governor’s armed attack on the prison. The show does a decent fake-out by making it seem like Rick and the others have left before the fighting starts, but it was all a clever ruse to lure the Governor and his people in, freak them out with zombies, and then attack them from on high. The ruse works, maybe a bit easier than it should, but when the Governor tries to order his people to go back, they refuse. So he snaps and starts shooting them. Given the show’s willingness to undercut any theme more complicated than “You will die” if it will lead to an effective shock, it’s hard to know exactly what to make of this beyond the very obvious: The Governor is a bad guy. But what drove him to this point? And what makes him different from Rick? On the one hand, this seems to confirm Carl’s speech, because if somebody had done the smart thing and killed the Governor when they had a chance, much of this would not have happened. But on the other hand, the problem with being ready and willing to kill anyone who becomes dangerous, or even suggests the possibility of becoming dangerous, is the same problem you get when you’re holding a hammer: Every problem starts to look like a nail. The Governor opened fire on his people because rage overwhelmed him and because he’s decided that the only way to survive is to take out anyone who stands in his way. It wasn’t a logical decision, and his victims weren’t posing a threat, but maybe if he wasn’t so inclined to kill outsiders to save himself the trouble of having to deal with them, he might not have gone so starkly mad. And maybe Carl, who shoots one of the Governor’s men even after the guy has surrendered, is heading down the same road.

But I mentioned optimism, right? Well, Glenn and Maggie are still with us, despite both seemingly offering themselves up for the slaughter last week by daring to share a happy moment. Michonne is cool with Rick considering giving her over to her worst enemy, so that’s nice. When Rick, Daryl, and Michonne head to Woodbury to try and take care of the Governor problem once and for all, they find Karen, the lone survivor of the Governor’s massacre, who provides them with an easy way to convince Tyreese and Sasha of their good intentions. (It helps that Tyreese and Sasha had both already decided they needed to get out of town soon.) And in the end, Rick takes all the Woodbury survivors, i.e. all the folks who were unable to fight, back to the prison. It’s a moment freighted with symbolism, contrasting a life of unearned peace built on lies, with a life of dread built on the truth, and while we don’t really know the Woodbury citizens well enough for this to really work, it’s a decent twist. The biggest problem with “Welcome To The Tombs” (and the flaw that makes it a mostly good episode, rather than a terrific one) is that even with Andrea and Milton’s death, it doesn’t really feel like a finale. While the Governor is temporarily stripped of his power, he’s still alive, out of his mind, and presumably very angry at our heroes. The Woodbury experiment is done for, but it’s been so long since that was relevant that its ending doesn’t come across as all that important. Another year dealing with the Governor running around sniping folks doesn’t sound all that promising. But who knows what next season will bring. It’s a lovely gesture of Rick to bring over all those people, for him to decide that he needs to try and help people, that he can’t just close everyone out. Yet these are still mouths he’s going to have to feed, and more bodies means more enemies, lurking behind a heartbeat.

Stray observations:
It hadn’t occurred to me, but Alan Sepinwall asked on Twitter why Rick didn’t just choose to bring his group over to Woodbury instead of locking everyone in a prison that arguably doesn’t have enough room (at least, not enough clean room) to support them. I don’t honestly know. I guess the prison is more defensible if the Governor decides on a surprise attack.

Speaking of Twitter, apparently this episode upset some people. I liked it for the most part, but it really doesn’t seem like much of an ending. And the Governor should have died; this is not a show that can really handle long, drawn-out conflicts.

It’s been fun. This season has been a significant step up from the last two, so let’s all pretend it will keep getting better next fall.
Click to expand...
 

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