The weird thing is that both the prison crew and the governors men were acting like it was a huge ass kicking. We saw NOBODY die on the attack besides the kid Carl shot, i’d like to watch it again to compare the numbers before and after the attack.
Really? I hope you’ll elaborate, because I’m not seeing it.
Any themes about community were, in my view, negated by later events, or muddled into incoherence. The only thematic statement I can deduce is “The Governor is a Bad Guy”.
The importance of developing community groups?
- Only sorta. The groups exist alright, but do we ever see how the group benefits the individual? The show’s emphasis on poor leadership of various types, the willingness of individuals to betray the group they are in, and the completely baseless central conflict of prison vs. Woodbury argues as strongly for the idea of rugged individuals as it does for the need for community. Heck, remember the poor hermit: he was doing just fine and surviving somehow, once other people show up he dies messily.
Tensions between enhancing the safety of one’s social group versus the potential threat of strangers?
- The trouble is that the tension only exists because the characters involved are either morons, or Pure Evil. A more plausible, naturalistic conflict that implicated both sides in some sort of moral compromise in which they both choose their own people even when in the wrong might serve this idea, but that isn’t what we got.
I like what they’ve done with his character for all those reasons. “I did what I had to do”, was such a great line. Coming from a kid, it really hits home about what it must mean to be his age and growing up in that kind of world. Loved that.
But I was disappointed with the whole Governor goes nuts-o, shoots all his own people, and then rides off into the great unknown. Plus, looks like our band of hardy travelers just took on a lot of old and young people-- not what they really need, but I guess there wasn’t any other good choice.
Andrea… well, if you hadn’t farted around and just got the damn pliers, you’d probably still be alive. Adios!
I see what you did there. Easter and all.
A not surprising spoiler about the upcoming season that nonetheless makes me say “Well, shit!”
I think Carl grows up to be Jack Bauer in another life.
Imagine that scene with Jack Bauer in it. What would Jack have done?
He just wanted to make sure they were dead. At this point he doesn’t care wether they reanimate or not; several of them did and were eating the others. I find it really odd that Martinez or Bowman just stood there while the Gov was shooting everybody; then they went with him afterward. There’s loyalty, and there’s insanity. And did neither of them have any kind of personal relationship with anyone else in Woodbury?
Wasn’t he the boy with asthma, and also Karen’s son? 
Things could be really awkward between her & Carl. It just occured to me that the gang finally has a proper doctor; Dr Stevens and whatever medical staff she has. I sure hope they stripped her clinic bare when they evactuated.
Carl’s had a good season, actually. I think he’s realized that he’s smarter and (in the narrow sense of being willing to use force when it’s needed) stronger than his father is. I don’t know if the show will have the stomach for it, but I’d expect a young teen in Carl’s exact situation to seek more of the trappings of leadership and adulthood, leading to being sexually aggressive toward Beth. We shall see.
…with two henchmen who are seemingly cool with taking orders from a guy that casually murders those who disappoint him, even though the Governor is no longer in a position to reward them for their service in any way. Apparently the Governor is something between a Bond villain and a cult leader.
There’s a consistent choice they could have made: loot Woodbury and leave the old folks and kids to fend for themselves. It’s no different than leaving the backpacker to die on the road, and stealing his gear.
She died how she lived: stupidly.
At least she didn’t try & fuck Milton.
I’m trying to understand the kinesiology of zombies.
If I hack off somebody’s legs and they die and become a zombie (I won’t be cruel and say walker), then obviously their zombie can’t walk, because they don’t regenerate legs. I can understand also that zombie heads are the most dangerous part and that the sorta-kinda consciousness they have (the “piranha brain”) is centered in the head and obviously anaerobic and can live even without a body or blood.
However, Milton is beaten to a bloody pulp and stabbed repeatedly and and he’s incapable of doing anything as he dies other than remaining propped against a wall because of bloody loss and pain and perhaps other damage to his nerves and tissue and all, yet his zombie is mobile. I can understand a zombie not being deterred by pain, but it wasn’t just pain that rendered Milton immobile; wouldn’t damage to bones and muscle and wstill prevent a barrier to mobility for his corpse?
Or are zombies being controlled by a mother ship that works them like marionettes and it doesn’t matter at all what condition their body was in when it died?
Probably picked up on the gay vibe.
So let’s see:
Andrea dead (about time, and good riddance), but not before breaking out of hardened steel handcuffs with a pair of fucking True Value pliers. :rolleyes:
Carl still a snotty, moody little shit, but now entering his golden age of psychopathy, which at least ought to make him more interesting, if not more endearing.
Rick takes on a busload of useless mouths to feed and protect, while gaining no advantage by doing so, along with a wheezing bus. Another brilliant decision by the most inept leader ever. These mutts can’t even keep themselves fed and medicated, but now they have a bunch of geezers, cripples and kids to take care of: well done, Rick. What happened to “we now make decisions as a group”?
Hopefully they’ll replace the tires on the Hummer, and put that 50 cal to good use, but I’m sure doing anything sensible will be beyond this bunch.
If I gave the impression that I thought the show did this very well or very consistently, that was not my intention.
However, these themes were elements from last year (in terms of Rick versus Shane’s styles, and in regards to the group co-existing/ruining everything that Hershel had going on) that seemed somewhat ambiguous, so it was good to see them continue to try to tackle them. Is it better to expel all outsiders for survival, or is part of the point of survival trying to ultimately resurrect (yes, I did just go there) some kind of society as we once knew it.
So, elements of this that I thought were nicely done:
Daryl & Merle – the clear tension between types of family, and between doing things for oneself versus some greater good. Played out in terms of Daryl’s sense that they should help the family fight the horde on the bridge and not steal from them in the end. To the degree that Merle’s character was redeemed, it was that his last acts were done to try to help the group rather than to serve himself.
The episode with Morgan - showing how non-functional it would be to have near total security at the expense of any social group. Morgan leads a WALL-E like existence, without WALL-E’s longing for something more. In fact, everyone else is just a false face at this point to Morgan.
Also from that episode, the dismissing of the live hitchhiker versus the stopping to pick up his stuff at the end. (Which was, I admit, inconsistent with the short arc of that story, since it would have made more sense thematically for the hitchhiker to still be alive when they went back by.)
Carl – Carl’s character is interesting. His life and to an extent Michonne’s life is worth risking just for a reminder of what his family was like. The act of helping him save that photograph makes Michonne part of the group, but the value of others being brought in at the end is worth an eye roll. He also clearly argues for a shoot first don’t bother with questions strategy because of the past consequences.
Rick & Lori – Rick loses a core member of his innermost circle (Lori) and the innocence of his son due to the arrival of a “stranger”. When Rick’s psychotic break is causing him to reject the values and strength of interpersonal connection, Lori is represented by an idealized image of beauty and desire (in contrast to family) in a flowing white dress, which he chases around to the detriment of himself and the rest of the people around him. When instead he is returning to a belief in the values of other people (such as not selling Michonne out), she is seen more plainly as she was, pregnant (yes they did go there) with hope for the future. When he’s actually acting in a way that serves the broader hope for humanity by bringing into the group a bunch of new people – even if they may be of questionable value to the immediate security of his group - she doesn’t even “need” to be there anymore.
(There’s even a little bit of this in the discussion Rick and Michonne have in this last episode. He says that he wouldn’t have let her in if she didn’t have the formula (i.e. her value was only in how her arrival served his daughter); Michonne counters that he actually brought both her and the formula in.)
Even Woodbury versus the prison is interesting in terms of the issues of community versus security, although it’s a little bit jumbled. Woodbury has superficially done way more to re-establish community, whereas the prison is all about security. However, in the end, if there was any value in Woodbury as a community for the Governor, it was only to serve a very selfish focus on his own dead family. The people were ultimately dispensable or so useless that they could be left sitting around in a room without a second thought. I think this is probably why they have everyone come back to the Prison rather than relocating to Woodbury. The former was an artifice; the latter is the true community.
GAAAAAH!!!
Please be an April fool’s joke…please be an April fool’s joke…please be an April fool’s joke…
Torture the kid and kill Herschel.
He was making sure they don’t turn (“we don’t let our own turn”), then decided that fuck it, they’re not his people anymore, let the fuckers turn. You can see it on his face when he decides not to headshot any more of them after the first few.
That’s even more upsetting that the news that season 4 will also be 16 episodes; this season had way too much filler.
I thought he just ran out of bullets.
Yep. His pistol was empty; the slide locked back.
We don’t know that.
Maybe that’s how she ended up getting bitten after all.