I think this has been a good season overall, but I think they missed some really good opportunities with the prison. Two of the best "WTF" moments from the graphic novel are set in the prison and they have basically burned their opportunities with low-yield, short-term type of stuff (in my opinion). I think they rushed through the prison a little too quickly and never made it feel like "home."

Two WTF moments (GN Spoilers):

I think this is probably the right answer.

To this point, the only purposes Michonne has really served was to get Andrea out of her jam & to (re)introduce walkers as camo. Otherwise she's basically a drone with a cool sword.

That might all have been better served by using Star Trek redshirt to do at least the former, with the idea of walkers as cover being "discovered" by a regular character (or even a random character) based on the use of walker guts as cover in Season 1.

It's not the same universe & these are not the same characters, I get that ... but to this point all they've really done with them is to create an opportunity for real-world issues about the dopplegangers.

I had been confusing Axel with Thomas, so I experienced a lot of tense anticipation watching his scenes. All for naught, of course.

I dunno -- I think the Walking Dead universe is pretty conducive with letting some characters stick in the background for awhile and then step up when the storyline/opportunity allows for it.

I was thinking the same thing...lol

Looks like the show will have a new show runner for season 4. After AMC and Darabount couldn't get along, the guy after him seems to have run up against the same wall with AMC and is out.

Any truth to the rumor the guy started talking about his personal life and was immediately fired?

I didn't see that mentioned in the article I read.

Talking about his personal life where?

I just thought it was company policy to fire expendable employees when they start to show some back story...probably shouldn't post when I'm drinking.

More & more accounts seem to indicate the tensions aren't between AMC & the showrunners but instead are between Kirkman and the showrunners.

That very well could be it and would not surprise me at all. "AMC" could just be the generic catch all for "Kirkman" and they don't want to air out too much dirty laundry.

I thought it was funny.

Ultimately it's Kirkman's characters and reputation at stake. I heard some theory that there was some decision making by Mazarra that just pushed the powers that be over the edge. I wonder if he made some decision and then got into fuck you creative control mode.

And this is all old news about the showrunner, right? Nothing new has happened in the last couple days?

Me too!

I think so. I think the news about Mazarra came down a while ago.

Everyone fretted when Darabount left and the show was fine. Hopefully, the same will be true regarding Mazarra's departure.

If AMC is truly just dicking around it's most popular show ever, just to dick around with it, they are pretty silly.

It was announced pretty early after the midseason break started.

Yesterday was the confirmation of his replacement, as well as the promotion of two others to executive producer status.

No comment.

Except maybe to say that the writer of this week's episode is the guy named as the show-runner.

Almost on cue perhaps, Michonne uses a different voice than we've heard in previous episodes & maybe begins the transformation into a meaningful character.

Or not.

edit to add: A couple of nice touches (especially the final scene) but tbh I'm feeling a bit bludgeoned by the point that it's a hard changed world.

I liked this one -- it flew by for me.

Good contrast between Rick/Carl and Morgan/Duane. Some good tension (I thought getting "trapped" in the car was kind of a good scene (compared to how the situation may have played out just after the outbreak) and I really liked the bookend scenes with the backpacked traveler.

Agreed - I really liked the stuff with Michonne and Carl and it finally showed something from both of them. A great, great episode...and holy crap, the rest of this season is gonna be nuts...

Yep, was pleased with this episode in terms of a "not core plot" one. Thought there was meaningful plot development from each of the three characters. Getting a chance to narrow in on three players instead of serving a cast of ... well, I guess dozens ... certainly helps that cause.

Also enjoyed the level of detail that went into Morgan's quarters and the town. Definitely helped create a creepy atmosphere that was different than most of the other city scenes over the past three seasons.

Let's see

No governor, no andrea, michonne has words....suddenly it's a fantastic episode.

Kudos to whomever called them spoiling Morgan's return in the opening credits. That was groan worthy.

Huh, I expected a bit more gushing praise here I think! I think that may be my favorite episode of Walking Dead ever. That was an absolutely brilliant hour of television by any standard. The defense Morgan had put together to survive was simply awesome, the dialogue in the episode was gripping and moving, the scenes with Michonne and Carl were entertaining, tense, and meaningful. Michonne all of a sudden has a couple solid one liners for comic relief ("hey, the mat said welcome"). Morgan describing how his son died, and how he didn't have it in him to kill his wife as a walker, his despair about the state of the world... just an incredible scene.

agreed with all of this

Next week's episode, with a healthy dose of the Governor and Andrea will probably be a giant turdball

Didn't catch the "Erin we tried for Stone Mountain -J" sign and the one walker that had the "Erin" name bracelet. Neat detail.

Was I the only one, when Carl started to go off on his own again, that groaned, "Shit, 2nd Season Carl is back...grrr"

No, you were not alone on that.

I entirely agree.

Morgan remains my favorite character to ever be on the show - Lennie James has been brilliant with that limited role. You can't help but feel for his character and I wish he was on there full-time. Two of the best episodes are the two he was in and that's not a coincidence.

Combine Morgan's return with Michonne and Carl turning into Actual Fucking People and the episode bloomed into something awesome. Plus, Rick looks like he's come back to the world of the sane and that helps - having the main character go off the deep end didn't help the show.

I noticed the Erin thing - nice touch.

I had a slight twinge of that, but not too much. The motivation was totally different. This wasn't "Carl as a bored kid just wandering around to see what the world is like and create some plot contrivance." This was Carl trying to take some responsibility for his sister and his attempt to deal with what happened to his mother, knowing full well that his father isn't in a place to do it. He certainly was feeling more competent than he actually is/was, but I found it to be a pretty good slice of the character and it showed some growth, as opposed to just being some random walk about.

Definitely hoping Michonne starts to open up more. It was a really nice change.

Morgan's traps were pretty eingenious. I am not sure if I have really seen their like before.

The bookend with the backpacker was great.

Just brilliant. Loved every second of it. I think this gives us fans of the novel hope for what is too, finally, come of Michone.

Pretty good episode and it did fly by like it was only 20 minutes. I like how it ended with them backing up and picking up the backpack. Tough, cold, cruel world.

yeah, that was great. the only way it could have been better is if they'd accidentally run over the Governor and Andrea on the way home

This episode is what the show should be, traveling around to different cities and meeting different people. The show drags when they get stationary like at the farm and now in the prison. Wrap up the Governor storyline, have a war at the prison and get back on the road.

Agreed, but gotta be honest here. It was the guy playing Morgan (Lennie James) that made this episode. Not sure those lines could have been pulled off with your standard actor and this episode would have been average without his intense delivery of that dialouge. Gotta be one of my favorite TV actors since seeing him in Jericho years ago. Other than that, yes, it is nice to actually see Michonne and Carl develop as a characters. Carl has actually been coming into his own way before this, but it was nice to see he and Rick still carry those pieces of humanity left despite what they went through.

supposedly Lennie James has a show in the works for AMC that debuts in the fall. I'm there.

You called it.

Yeah, I would have been more content to have this governor nonsense if there had been another season spaced out after the farm. I feel like going back to back with stationary sets is nothing more than money saving.

What kind of show is this? Do you have a link? Inquiring minds want to know. Well maybe at least me.

Hopefully it is about surviving in a post apocalyptic world full of zombies?

I ended up watching this episode again last night because Lady H_B turned in early on Sunday.

Lennie James has killed it in both episodes he's been in. Absolutely killed it. He was really fantastic.

Carl has definitely one of the Most Improved Characters on television from Season 2 to Season 3.

Very glad to see Michonne finally come out of her shell and show her personality. I really hope that she continues down that path and doesn't regress back to glowering and mumbling a few words here and there. The character has some great promise.

I agree. Now that I think about it more, I'm not really impressed with the governor character...just another typical post apocalyptic dictator, like General Bethlehem from The Postman.

I wish shows in general would stop with the "bad-guy-that-people-think-is-really-a-good-guy" stuff. or at the very least, speed the discovery along a lot. even if you hadn't read the comic book, you KNEW he was going to be a bad guy in the end. so all these stupid, drawn-out scenes with Andrea and the Governor turn out to be sooooo fucking boring. and now we get to repeat it all over agan with the new folks. just let him complete the transformation to bad guy already.

I think he's pretty much been a complete bad guy since the first episode we saw him. Zombie daughter in the closet, butchering the national guard unit, etc. I don't think the audience is supposed to believe that he's actually a good guy, but rather that he can be very charismatic and charming, which makes his role as The Governor all the more believable and makes him all the more menacing.

I much prefer his protrayl on the TV show, which is more subtle and believable, but as equally brutal and evil, than what he was in the comic, which was a much more transparent, mustache-twirling villain.

I think the actor has nailed the role. I found it damn creepy to see him slide back into the "good guy" governor role so easy with Tyrese and his crew, even after he had "gone off the rails."

Andrea does suck.

I agree, after a couple or three episodes, we as the viewers, know that he's a bad guy. We don't need any more exposition or build up even if the characters in the show don't know yet. Don't get me wrong though, the actor that is playing the Governor, is doing an outstanding job. Just let him be a bad ass 100% of the time now, as that would throw a whole new wrinkle for everyone at Woodbury and how they try to handle it. "Well, he did organize us and protect us, but...".

But, that's me and my opinion and that's why I sit behind a keyboard and write stuff on a message board. :)

Info here: hxxp://www.deadline.com/tag/low-winter-sun/ and here: hxxp://www.freep.com/article/20130211/ENT03/130211043/AMC-s-Low-Winter-Sun-nets-7-5M-in-Michigan-film-incentives

What are the odds that (spoiler based on the fact that im not sure whether it's speculation or a true spoiler)

I would not be surprised at all if something like that goes down.

The casting for other shows that has been discussed make it seem less likely to me. If there was a chance for him to become a season 4 regular, maybe.

It occurred to me, but I sure hope it doesn't happen. that story ran its course really well and I hope they just let it be what it was

PS man, that Morgan sure did manage to find a LOT of guns

Oh yeah, he got a cache of weapons. I would have snagged those grenades.

Eh, I had a friend point it out when they spoiled/telegraphed Merle's return. I know they don't make TV shows for the "hardcore" viewers, and they want to embrace their larger audience, but have some respect for the audience.

My gripe this week (not really a spoiler, but it kind of ruined the episode for me)

Kirkman answered this in his weekly interview (not too "spoilery"):

I would say this is the odds on favorite...maybe 3-2? I doubt they brought Morgan back for just 1 episode.

I wish they would have used real life geography. It wouldn't be that hard, instead of inventing places.

I guess it wouldn't be that hard to speculate based upon the respective locations of Stone Mountain and Atlanta.

Just finished watching. Lennie James turning in the very first, what I would consider, "Emmy-worthy" performance on this show. This week as a whole was absolutely riveting. I remember at the beginning of this show how people were complaining that there wasn't enough "supplies gathering" going on and that it didn't show enough of the mundane "day-to-day" stuff of how they are surviving. This episode shows that all of that stuff could easily be just as riveting as this manufactured "Woodbury vs. Prison" conflict, that honestly seems a little bit forced to me. Not saying I don't like it, but this was easily the best episode of the season, if not of the entire series.

As I understand it, that "manufactured conflict" is a rather large chunk of the source material. Enough so that -- best I can tell from the various detailed summaries I've read of the comics -- it could probably have provided more than a full season of TV.

It may feel contrived to you, but it seems kind of harsh to blame the TV writers for that.

Not really blaming the TV writers so much as whoever is responsible for the storyline to begin with.

To be honest, I think they could have spent most of this season at the prison and put together a pretty good 16-episode season. I feel like they have really rushed through and missed out on a lot of great source material from the prison. I think they could have waited and introduced the governor at the end of this season and done well to focus on developing the (false?) hope that the prison could become a permanent settlement for Rick's group, where they start to become too comfortable in their setting.

I feel like a big part of this story is about the group's hope that they can somehow get back living life similarly to how they did prior to the outbreak (both Rick's group and the Woodbury group). I think they have glossed over it a little too much in the show, whereas in the GN there are (sometimes brief) periods of time where the group begins to feel like things are getting back to where they can settle again. And then we have the fun of them getting jolted back to reality in creative ways. :)

I'll admit that the thought of "is this Emmy worthy?" did cross my mind as well.

I can see why there is more manufactured conflict in a graphic novel... that format needs to be more action-driven than suspenseful or eerie. I'm not a GN reader, but I can't imagine a scene like the S2 opener where the zombie horde slowly went past as they lay under/in the cars would work nearly as well on paper.

I spent some time this afternoon reading through synopses of the comics, and I would be perfectly fine if they completely diverged from the comic story line after the prison.

I hope they have Negan on the show. He makes the Gov'ner look like a good guy.

I found it interesting that Rick uttered the line "I am sorry this happened to you" to Morgan. IIRC the last time he used that was in the pilot in response to the "bike walker" who was crawling on the ground with no legs. Perhaps Rick has regained some humanity?

It was 930 when I looked ... expecting it to be 940.

That's not necessarily a good sign.

And the :37 break felt like at least :45

Literally fighting off sleep during this episode. Should have had lots of great back and forth with Rick and The Governor. This episode feels like the writers wanted to do that, but couldn't think of anything so we get lots of pointless filler-scenes with the rest of the characters. The only semi-interesting thing was seeing the underlings getting along rather well rather quickly. The stuff at the prison is completely unnecessary.

EDIT: and continuing Jon's posts, :47 felt like the end of the episode...

If I'm not mistaken they added extra commercial breaks this week. At least one extra in the 2nd half, plus an extended break on the last one.

AMC...more bottle (episodes) than a wine cellar.

wow, did they really make Melissa McBride (Carol) come in and go through makeup for ONE 3 second reaction shot?

How about Amy's one shot (literally in this instance)

What a bunch of complainers. I thought it was a great episode for what it was. Enjoyed it a lot.

So all that came out of that episode is that Rick and the Governor are at war, which we already knew. And we know that Rick will eventually kill the Governor. They need to get this over with and get back on the road like they were last week.

Yeah, it was a great way to waste a half hour listening to morons talking in a fake southern accent.

That felt like an episode the writers put together to try and earn Emmys for the actors that play Rick and the Governor, but neither have/had the chops to really stand out.

Is it possible for a female to be a douchebag? If so Andrea has the market cornered. I'd love to see her just get randomly eaten by a walker one of these times when she unnecessarily goes hand to hand with them for no good reason.

when they were leaving and Andrea was trying to decide on which car to get into, I was kind of hoping that both groups would just take off and leave her there.

oh, and whenever Merle or Daryl says "because he's my brother", all I hear is Michael from Lost yelling "they've got my boy"

There was no point to the episode, except to introduce the tension of the idea of sacrificing Michonne to save the group (which we know to be pointless)... and maybe to show the Woodbury and prison citizens getting along outside the confines of the "war". But they could've done that in 10 minutes. It felt artificially padded to add length to the season, not to advance the story. Not a big fan of this one.

That would have made the whole episode worth it.

A pretty slow episode. It had some nice little moments, but not really enough to justify the lack of nothing. I was glad to see Michonne continued to find her words and looks as if she's stopped her glowering/mumbling routine for the most part.

I have a faint memory of reading somewhere that one reason that Mazara was let go as the showrunner was the lack of focus and direction of season 3.5. It's definitely showing.

I didn't realize there were three episodes left. That means the seaon finale will be on March 31st, which is also the premier of Season 3 of "Game of Thrones."

Sweet sassy molassy!

Here is my current plan:

1. Watch Game of Thrones, while "The Walking Dead" is recording.
2. Watch "The Walking Dead" as soon as "Game of Thrones" is finished.

I would prefer to do it the other way around, but this way gives me the power to fast forward commercials.

This could have been a great episode but, for me, was just moderate filler.

The writers kind of phoned this one in. It made no sense to me that Rick didn't shoot the Gov in the face 3 seconds into their meeting. They could have devised a scenario where it would have been sensible for Rick not to shoot his face off as soon as he saw him. Instead, it just seemed that the Gov is still alive because they don't want to end the story line just yet.

And it made no sense that the gov doesn't just shoot rick in the face since he plans on doing that anyway (as he mentioned when he got back to Woodbury). He could just storm the prison and capture them all and kill 'em all. Why go through these pointless steps? They could surround the prison and he could easily capture Michonne (sp?) or at least kill her. Makes no sense for him to risk his life like that just for this.

Is it just because the Gov is insane? I think there are better ways to show us this. The reason this show works for me is, for the most part, there are lots of "ahhh, that makes sense" or I could at least buy why they did what they did. This is beginning to venture into the Chewbacca defense zone.

The one thing that stuck out to me was the gun taped under the table.

You show us the gun taped under the table on the Governor's side. Then when he gets the whiskey, he sits on the side of the table, away from the gun. They have their little talk and then they all leave.

WTF happened to the gun? They just decided to leave it there?

I don't think the governor has as much man power as he lets on. I don't think he could have taken the prison that day. Once the guy in the tower was shot, it turned the tide.

Last night's episode was kind of lame, but I have hope that the rest of the season will be good.

I thought it did a good job of building up tension, as well as the 90000th "Oh Rick you stupid shit" moment. I mean, there's...




...episodes total this season and last night's was episode 13. It's fairly obvious when we're going to see the 'big event' go down.

What are you talking about? He's got the dark haired woman, the hispanic guy with the baseball bat, the bushy haired black guy, Martin, that old lady, and the 13 year old kid with asthma!

They are essentially a modern day version of the Spartans from "300".

For all the time they've spent / wasted on the Governor, they really haven't done a good job explaining what makes him tick. Is he crazy? Is he power hungry? Is he simply driven by vengeance? Does he want to be remembered as a founding father for the next generation? I mean, nice story about the wife and all but...uh...:confused:

And he won't let anyone from Woodbury leave because....:confused:...he wants more mouths to feed? Because he's a social person? Because they need that many people - many of whom seem to have no combat training - to man the defenses?

did the black guy who the camera kept lingering on early on get killed in the Daryl rescue? or is his big part still to come?

Ooops.

They're down a man!

The story about his wife seemed more to be told to get a reaction out of Rick, because the Governor knows he is unstable and about what happened to his wife. After he told it he looked at the way Rick reacted and grabbed his whiskey.

His motivation from what I've seen so far is to be a 'king'. The way he always says that Governor is a name people call him, yet at the same time no one knows his real name. There's definitely more to him than they've shown IMO re: his motivations, but power-hungry "win at all costs" wacko seems to fit the bill pretty well.

He is definitely crazy. I think he might have started off a decent, but some what ruthless person, but the moment his daughter got bit he pretty much lost it.

That first time Michonne was sneaking around his apartment, he had that list of what appeared to be people who died and/or were bitten. Once he wrote his daughter's name (Penny?) his notebook turned into a bunch of slashes over and over again. That's a sign of crazy.

So, he's been holding it together, just enough, keeping his zombified daughter in a closet, watching zombie heads in jars, but still has some sort of malevolence deep in him. Then Michonne shows up, kills his daughter and then he's pretty much over the edge there. He's got his original crazy brewing under the surface fueled by a jet fuel of vegeance towards Michonne for killing his daughter.



Initially, I am not sure how many people would really want to leave. So, I am not sure if that came up. When all of those people wanted to leave post-Rick attack, I don't think he was really in charge then, but it would make sense he would want to keep people there at that time, to have more meat shields/possible people for defenses. They started training them after that, if I recall.

I just see the governor as your basic cult leader megalomaniac type.

FWIW, there is official canon about the Gov, who he is, how he came to be,etc. etc.
Wiki link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wal...f_the_Governor

All of those stories are 1000 times more interesting than what we've seen of him on TV.

I never read the novel, but I've been much more impressed with the Governor character in the show than in the comic.

‘Walking Dead’ Season 3 Delays & Comic Creator Behind Showrunner Firing

I know this is old, but the part about production delays due to the lack of material to film has certainly shown over the past several weeks(with the obvious exception). Hopefully they can break the cycle of hand to mouth filmmaking and create a more cohesive and less padded vision.

Thinking aloud, or maybe just briefly pondering something if you will.

I almost wonder if there's too many characters for the writing staff to handle. They've got a handle on Rick, I think they've got a handle on Carl. I even think they've got a handle on Andrea (annoying though she may be). They write Herschel well enough. Maybe, just maybe they've finally figured out what to do with Michonne to keep her from being an attack robot. I honestly suspect that they feel stuck with Darryl & Merle, I totally expect them to kill off one or both any minute now (they aren't written horribly, I just get a sense of obligation with them).

But Carol? Or Maggie's blonde sister? Or anyone in Woodbury that isn't the governor or his geeky henchman? Introduced Tyrese & crew only to conveniently write them off-screen?

What started me down this line of thought was the notion that the Carl/Michonne photo recovery sequence felt like a standalone piece, like a mission in a video game. Same with meeting up with Morgan, it was like a (quite good) larger quest from the overall storyline. They tell the story, they resolve the situation, they move on.

But when it comes to figuring out what to do with half the characters on the show, it's as though they either have no interest or simply lack the ability.