Hershel’s alive (for now), Merle’s back, Dumb Bitch is ready birth her zombaby, we get to see Woodbury, and find out about the helicopters.
Gotta say, so far this season is far more compelling than than the last.
Of course, whether or not there was evil in Woodbury was pretty easy to suss out right from the git-go. I guess anyone who would use Merle as an enforcer wouldn’t be entirely on the level, would they?
Little help here, if someone could: I was a bit confused by the ending shot…
Whose head was floating by itself in the fish tank?
I think it was the helicopter pilot.
The pilot’s.
I hope Michonne’s not getting paid by the word… Her expression most of the time looks like a moody teen girl, so I’m not getting badass from her too much on this one.
Great episode!
In other news, it’s now known what caused the zombie outbreak:
I now forgive him for killing Fred…and Anya…and Wash…
All in all a very good episode. I was wondering how long they were going to allow the Governor to be ambiguous. I’m not surprised that he showed his true colors in this episode. There’s been enough buzz about his character that I’m sure most of the viewers already knew he was a villain, regardless of whether they’ve read the comic or not.
I liked Merle’s interaction with Andrea. Begrudging, uneasy, but not altogether hostile. It was well acted. However, I agree that the fact that the Governor is using him at all should be a huge red flag as to the quality of his character. I’m not predicting a happy reunion between him and Daryl, should they cross paths again; their relationship seemed antagonistic, judging from Daryl’s hallucinations.
The Governor’s speech about the fate of the military convoy was also well done; he made sure to speculate that they died because they didn’t have “these walls” to protect them. Good way to make himself out as the caring leader while reinforcing the fact that the residents need him and what he built.
This season has got me excited again! I thought they were going to stare at walls in the prison for two more seasons before anything interesting happened. I’m glad I was wrong.
I don’t think helicopters crash like that.
They auto rotate beneath the rotors, like those seeds from trees.
See the book “Chickenhawk”.
It’s my understanding that it depends on what’s wrong with the helicopter.
If it’s just the engine that cuts out, it maybe possible to auto-rotate, using the descent to build energy in the rotors, and then flaring quickly at the end right before crashing.
If it’s damage or failure in the control or hydraulic system, then there may not be sufficient control to the swashplate to allow auto-rotation.
On tonight’s episode, they didn’t appear to be flying very high, and a helicopter flies by balancing conflicting forces, somewhat precariously, and if something goes wrong, there may not be time at lower altitudes to build momentum in the rotor system to allow auto-rotation.
I’ll buy that.
ETA (missed edit): Plus, it really depends on the skill of the pilot. There’s nothing to indiciate the pilot in tonight’s ep. is the helicopter equivalent of Chesley Sullenberger.
The Whedon on Romney video was hilarious. Do things have to be “perfect” to be OK? I mean I would settle for a leader who was a little off if I had running water, a bed and food, and CLEAN! I don’t really think the Governor is really so much worse than Rick and he’s having more success than Rick with the organization and protection.
I mean how can anyone live through those circumstances and be “normal”? You do what ya gotta do.
Good episode. If I wanted to be nitpicky I’d wonder how 8-10 guys with no military training surrounded a squad-sized (?) group of National Guardsmen and then massacred them. But I also get the arguments of how it could happen.
I wish I remembered how to do spoiler boxes b/c I have a theory on the connectivity of the heads in the Gov’s private room, but I know some folks don’t want to see that.
Was the girl in the Gov’s bed the tour guide from earlier in the episode?
Then keep some trophies floating in fishtanks::eek:
Did anyone else hear gunshots hitting the helicopter before the crash? Was it suggested anywhere in the episode that the Woodbury militia had shot them down?
I was surprised to see Andrea warm up to the Governor so quickly. She shared some of Michonne’s skepticism at first, but seemed taken in by his charms at the end of the episode. It looked like she had a school-girl crush on him when he was giving the speech to the town, and her exchange with him afterwards made it clear she is trying to get close to him. It’s hard to tell if she just has a thing for strong, morally ambiguous men or if she has more cynical motives.
I was sure I heard gunshots or shrapnel hitting the helicopter, but I suppose it could have been the sound of some other mechanical failure - the way they sort of ran into some turbulence/trouble for a few seconds, then recovered, then crashed made me think that perhaps the aircraft wasn’t maintained very well (I know helicopters require pretty rigorous maintenance). On the other hand, the gang from Woodbury were at the crash site pretty quickly… I paid attention to see if we got any clues on this later in the episode, but didn’t notice anything.
Another thing, do we have any new ideas/info on who might have been observing Carol at the end of last episode? Last week I assumed it was Merle, but that doesn’t make sense given his apparent ignorance of Rick’s group and their whereabouts (unless he’s keeping that information to himself for some reason). It obviously wasn’t Michonne or Andrea either.
I have no clue. I don’t think it was Carl; he wouldn’t have to hide. Someone in Rick’s crew noticed “civilians” among the prison dead. Is that a clue?
Anyone who’s watched Twilight Zone would know not to trust the Governor or be comfortable in Woodbury. But hell, I’m old and feeble – I’d stay.
To her he hasn’t shown himself to be morally ambiguous. He’s given her medicine, treated her well, and offered to let her go freely - although it’s unclear whether that’s a real option.
Their horror at the fact that they killed the downed helicopter crew was pretty silly. You could see the soldier that had been split in half moving around. But even if she didn’t see that - it’s silly to assume that they’re being sadistic dicks when you’re living in a world in which the dead re-animate and brain damage is the only way to kill them. At most, they could assume the governor’s guys were incorrect about the nature of the walkers, not that they were getting their rocks off on stabbing corpses in the face.
Woodbury appears to be a functional society where people have a reasonable amount of freedom. It’s certainly not like she showed up and it turned out to be rapeville.
If anything, their cynicism about the situation may be a little overdone. They should feel some relief. That also would be more dramatically interesting I’d think - if they thought their hopes were fulfilled only later to have them crushed.
So yeah, nothing wrong with Andrea reacting positively to him.
Yeah, I thought those were gunshots at first, too. But after the crew reacted to it as mechanical problems, I figured that’s what we heard. They’d have probably just explicitly showed someone shooting from the ground, if that’s what it was. Not much reason to be ambiguous about that.
I have a tenuous theory on that, and I have absolutely no extra-series knowledge, so don’t worry…
You know how they’re starting to insinuate that the Walkers might, in some cases, retain fragments of their former selves? Well, help me out here: who is there, that the main crew has left behind for zombie bait, but not killed with a head-shot? Could this be a semi-sentient zombie that they’re familiar with?
Even if it’s not someone they were familiar with, I still get that vibe that it’s gonna be a semi-sentient zombie. Now that they’re seemingly safe from zombies while tucked away in the prison, the only way the zombies can continue to be a threat to them is if there’s a “smart” zombie out there to rally the troops and figure out how to break in. Unless of course, one of the prisoners, or other human outsiders (like the Governor and Merle’s crew) break through the perimeter and let a zombie herd in.
But my money is still on the hidden observer being a smart zombie, and maybe even a *familiar *smart zombie. The zombie threat is starting to get too boring and easy to deal with - they need Walkers 2.0 to keep this thing interesting, IMO.