Well, I don’t think Michonne had a lot to go on. We know the Governor is a bastard because we’ve seen things she didn’t. The doctor is obviously experimenting on walkers, so them having a bunch of them locked in a pen somewhere isn’t necessarily a red flag. The biggest thing was that Michonne just felt that something was off about Woodbury, but she couldn’t articulate it and she didn’t have much to go on other than instinct and conjecture. She has a lot of ideas as to what’s behind the roses, but no proof.
To Andrea, the allure of the relatively normal life she sees in Woodbury is very strong, and she’s not going to give it up unless she’s given a good reason. Until Zombie Fight Club, she didn’t have one.
She saw him doing something in his house when he was bagging up his daughter that was very suspicious. The bulletholes in the army trucks. The fact that he had their weapons in his display when he claimed they’d be ready for them when they left. There were probably some other concrete clues I’m forgetting.
Incidentally, the solar powered noisemaker surrounded by a ditch was some clever shit.
That’s true. I suppose she could have given Andrea everything she had or suspected and possibly enlisted her help in uncovering more. Instead, she just says “this place is bad news, we’re getting out of here” and gets annoyed when Andrea refuses to blindly follow her. Fair enough. I do get the feeling that Michonne has difficulty expressing herself verbally, though. They could be intentionally playing on that as a character flaw, rather than her behavior being a contrivance to enable the story.
I’m wondering exactly how long it will be before the Governor sends people after Michonne. There’s no way they were going to just let her leave, no matter how they’ve made it look.
I think Michonne had half-convinced Andrea to leave. They talked off-screen, Michonne shared what she’d seen. Andrea says “Okay, let’s try to leave, see what happens. If Merle won’t open the gate, I’ll know for sure that the Governor is lying.”
Merle argued with them just enough so it wouldn’t look too easy – Andrea might have been suspicious of that – but then he opened the gate.
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
Why did they have the two new guys dig and fill in an empty grave? Hazing?
[/QUOTE]
Probably because they’re desperately trying to fit in and be accepted as valuable members of the group. So any kind of good will they can show toward Rick and Co. will win some brownie points.
I love Daryl and he just killed me in this episode. First with the hands on the wall at the day care that gave him pause. Then, he was so awesome with “the little ass-kicker”. And finally, the rose on Carol’s grave. He is more my favourite every episode.
When the phone started ringing, I said, “Is that crazy calling?” The teaser just showed it ringing more, I think. I can’t wait.
The other remaining prisoner that Rick chased into the yard and then locked out with the walkers. He somehow survived and wreaked havoc in last week’s episode.
Did anyone else notice the way Michonne changed once she got the sword back in her hands? She went from tense and sulking to much more confident. Her whole body language changed and relaxed, her head came up, her mouth untensed. That was some spectacular acting.
I too was pissed off about Glenn’s little eulogy. I mean, I was glad to see the character development for GLENN, but FFS, writers. You couldn’t give us any of that while T-Dogg was still alive?
The Darryl stuff this week skirted right up to the edge of fanservice. It was squee-worthy, but seemed a little too deliberate.
As for the Formula and ‘why havent they been stockpiling’ - throw away lines in the beginning indicated that
a) lori had asked Maggie to be watching for it
b) they specifically mentioned lots of shopping centers and stores had already been picked over
So, its obvious that they have been trying but largely unsuccessful.
So, basically - the Governer is just a more realistic Herschell - keeping his family of walkers alive - experimenting and building a cult like following - all to protect his ‘clan’.
I was really surprised they didn’t show a sniper taking out Michone about a 100 yards from the gate, but that would have been too obvious now.
I don’t know that the Governor is a bastard. He is adhering to my own zombie apocalypse philosophy pretty closely, which I articulated in the first episode thread this season: Groups with only males have to go, groups with males and females can be assimilated.
Keeping zombie daughter around is 100% fine; Herschel did the same thing in his barn.
The heads in tanks and fight club? Big fat meh from me; none of that rises above “he’s quirky.”
Experimenting on zombies? Good! That’s actually a checkmark in the “sane, reasonable leader” category.
Everything I’ve seen so far says to me that the Governor is the good guy, in that he’s no better/worse than Rick’s gang but the Governor has at least managed to found a safe, livable community. Likely because he was more ruthless than Rick, which for a leader is an advantage to be coveted in the zombie apocalypse.
Lazy writing to promote suspense as far as I’m concerned. They couldn’t find a single itty bitty bit of formula during the previous six months but then after the baby was born they go out and find some immediately?
I think my suspension of disbelief would have survived the apocalypse better if the excuse was that they all just expected Lori to nurse the baby so weren’t preparing for the worse case scenario of needing formula. Denial is more believable to me than the excuse they used. I know, it’s really a nitpick but the little things add up.
Oh…this explains the kind of non-look MrTao gave me when I saw Rick stabbing the zombie stomach and said "Oh man, he is feeling guilty about not being the one to deliver the baby and is cutting the zombie open to make himself go through it’
MrTao obviously knew what was really going on and just didn’t think I needed to know the icky details.
There’s only a few more episodes before the season break, and my guess is that what exactly makes the Governor “bad” will be revealed in a cliffhanger at the end. So far I know he’s supposed to be bad because of how he’s portrayed, and because people familiar with the comics (many on this message board) have basically said “he’s a baddie,” but I’m waiting for the terrible secret that they seem to be building up to.
So far we know he’s willing to kill those that might threaten his group or his power base. Not necessarily a bad quality in a leader given the circumstances. We also know he’s experimenting on zombies, with developing a cure his implied intention (he obviously wants to cure his daughter, not have her be part of some zombie army). Again, nothing too sinister about that. As others have mentioned, at this point he more resembles Hershel than Rick, and honestly I think I’d rather bump into the Governor than Rick. At least the Governor would likely give me a shot at joining his group. Rick would just tell me to fuck off, and then probably end up murdering me anyway.
On The Talking Dead, the director/producer stated that the zombie Rick cut open had dragged Lori’s corpse away from where it had laid, and that the thing he picked up and looked at was the bullet Carl had put in her brain. I’m not sure if they specified what he was looking for, but I assumed it was her wedding ring.
Among the details they mentioned that I didn’t notice in viewing were bloody drag marks and a fistful of long dark hair.
No reason it couldn’t be both; they looked for formula, but didn’t go out of their way for it since they expected Lori to nurse. Maggie mentions they didn’t see any on their runs but didn’t go into detail, so there’s no reason to assume they exhausted every possible avenue.
