I am curious then if that other culprit (presumeably a group) will suddenly show up in next week's finale, during the presumed firefight to come. What if this new threat is greater than the Governor to the prison or the prison to the Governor, and then they then need to join forces to fight off this new threat? How odd would that be?

I can completely see them doing that.

Another thought, but not really about last night but about current humans in the world at this point.

I am just thinking of time since the outbreak.

Just going back through the series in my mind, I think it is, at minimum, 14-15 months since the outbreak. Only reason I am not sure it is longer is because I don't think we have reached a second winter yet (first one the group spent "wandering" after Herschel's farm in Season Two and before the prison in Season Three).

So we reach Season Four and look at who we meet. Most of the refugees taken in at the prison seem to be fairly untouched by the outbreak, or still pretty innocent. Not just talking the Woodbury types, but "the Decatur group", other refugees, etc. Then we get the two yokels Rick and Carol met on their supply run. Then we get this seemingly untouched, little affected family the Governor has found, and Martinez's group seems to have some innocents as well.

My thinking is, how on Earth can such humans still exist in this world at this point? I am thinking every living human you now meet in this world should have been tried and tested survivors. People who have killed numerous zombies and probably humans as well, and who are doing what they can to survive. This is Darwin's theory at its finest. The fittest survive.

So how are we still running into people who don't seem to have a clue how to live in this world? This is a disconnect for me I have not been able to put together.

Last thought that came up while typing my last post...

...could that unknown encampment killer group be in some way connected to Carol?

For those of you who read the comic and watch the show (and are up to date on both....)

I think this goes to Rick's "three questions" point.

I think there would still be people who aren't really "tried and tested survivors", especially those in a large group who sort of follow the pack and rely on a select few to do the really dangerous tasks.

Those two doofuses, for example, that Rick and Carol ran into said they were with a group that got wiped out. They acknowledged that they got lucky in surviving, while the others got wiped out. Eventually those people will be thinned, but so will the "tried and tested" folks, because they will be the ones who are doing the more dangerous jobs and will have a higher chance of getting hurt, infected or killed.

It's been about a year, year and a half, since this whole thing went down? I think you'd still have some folks who aren't quite hard core yet.

Bingo - I think hawk just nailed it! I never thought of this and now I can see the story going in that direction.

I think my answer has to be spoilered as well ..

How spolierish is it? I am up to date on the show and always enjoy speculation but would rather not have something straight out of the comic strip that will happen spoiled if I click on the links.

Hawk's is speculation about a possible comic storyline they could be about to introduce.

My reply to that is completely different speculation about next week's episode that is fairly detailed & makes very specific reference to events/deaths straight from the comic, including how I think they may sub TV characters into certain situations played by others in the comic.

Thanks. Won't read. :)

I thought this too, the reason is that they seemed to do a very slow pan across the first few faces in that crowd in a way that made me think I was supposed to recognize them. I didn't recognize any, so I was hoping I'd see it mentioned in a review or on here, but apparently that wasn't it at all.



Agree.

Yep...and the issue for most people is...what is the difference between old Gov and new Gov? Nothing much? Well then why did they waste our time for 2 DEDICATED episodes to show us the Gov is psychotic? We knew these things already and when he gets to the prison showdown...he is ultimately the exact same Gov we all knew & hated from last season. :banghead:

I was curious how much damage the Gov mini-arc might have done.

18-49 Ratings down about 8% vs the last episode with the regular cast ...
but the same demo was already down nearly 10% from the ep before that; i.e. the end of the prison saga dropped more viewers than the Gov arc did

I'm in the minority in that I don't mind the governor coming back. Shit at the prison was getting boring and dumb. There's only so long I can see them raid a vet school to magically cure some unknown infection.

I hope there is some resolution to this story line in these final ten minutes.

Not the degree of ending I expected frankly, I feared much worse.

I liked the episode. Looking forward to how the 2nd half plays out without the prison.

While I'll never get the time back wasted on trying to make the Governor even remotely interesting or believable, they pulled off the ending really well. I like how the scene of Rick and Carl walking away at the very end looked just like the comic (or at least how I remember the comic). Looking forward to seeing how things progress from here as the show needs a change of scenery. Wish I could remember more about the comic

did anyone catch the zombie right towards the very end? it was the woman who tried to lure Rick to the camp in the first episode of the season. Nice little touch there.

So much whining in here about the last two episodes. Tonight's was just awesome and really great to see them take the comic to life... Wow... Intense.

Jam packed with red meat without an overwhelming amount of casualties.

It will be interesting to find out if that was the last we see of the folks on the bus (I don't think there were any key players on it?). Would be a decent way to thin the herd without having to kill everyone off.

I liked the nod to the comic with Rick and Carl on the hill above the smoldering prison.


Glad you caught that -- I couldn't figure out the significance, but figured it meant something since they held the scene on her for so long.

Wasnt Glen on the bus?

Pointing out that a show capable of being quite good at times is, at least temporarily, being *very* bad, is far from whining. :P



Looks like everyone got what they wanted tonight, no more prison, no more governor, hooray!

I assume he was driving, definitely on the bus the last we saw.

Agreed...I had the bar set very low for this episode but they managed hop it pretty well.

Nothing terribly unpredictable, especially as the events unfolded. As a matter of fact, the most unpredictable thing for me was that there wasn't 1 or 2 more mainline characters gone.

Good episode though & definitely has me wanting to see the next half season.

I thought Glen and Beth left the bus to go look for Maggie? It all got pretty chaotic there at the end, so I can't remember for certain.

They wrapped things up nicely.

It will be interesting to see what happens going forward with so many different groups of people scattered about.

At least you guys don't put spoilers in the subject line of topics. Some jackass on another forum started a topic with what I'm guessing is the main thing that happened last night as the subject.

:facepalm

Looks like we are definitely going to get some wandering episodes next half-season where the groups try to hook back up and have some of their own adventures.

I think the baby is still alive, and Glen was on the bus.

I wouldn't be surprised, but I would be quite disappointed. I'll just quote a good bit of Alan Sepinwall's review:




Baby needs to be dead. I would expect we get some Rick/Carl wandering scenes next year built around the fact that she's dead, and we already got this huge emotional moment where its being presented as though the baby is unequivocally dead (Rick doesn't have a single grain of hope that she may have survived, even though there were people whose job was to look after her and get her on to the bus and to safety). To have that be a trick would be really lame of the show. Its been willing to be that lame in the past, but its good enough at times that I always hold out hope it'll be better, which is basically what I'm doing here in hoping/assuming that she is indeed dead.

If it's a major character and it didn't happen on-screen, it didn't happen. I don't think it's that major of a faux pas as both you and Sepinwall seem to think. I also think that her body would probably still have been there if she were dead, unless zombies are eating the bones now.

Well you could say the same thing about Lori...

I don't Judith died, since during Talking Dead they specifically mentioned that the straps were undone. A zombie wouldn't have undid the straps...

I disagree with the writer above that Judith's death was impactful in any way whatsoever. There was no emotional attachment to her whatsoever - heck, she was barely ever mentioned on the show, let alone seen or heard (kind of a waste, considering how much effort they put into her birth). The loss of Sophia and Megan was much more traumatic, IMO.

and I do believe she's dead. A baby really does add a lot of logistical difficulty to the show. And as others have mentioned before, this show hasn't been one to do the whole deep mystery type of thing.

That's true. I guess either way wouldn't surprise me, but I do think she's alive.

The baby is alive afaic. Kirkman & Gimpel have been too coy in their comments about it for me to believe otherwise right now. Notice that we didn't technically see the bullet hit the Governor either but we saw him in the death credits on Talking Dead. The baby was not in the list of the dearly departed.

We're not attached to Judith in any way, but we are attached to Rick, or at least we should be. Rick and Carl 100% reacted as though Judith was dead, and these kinds of emotional turning points for Rick have been what drive the entire show. I believe they presented this and one of those emotional turning points that will change Rick in some way, and if Rick is acting like she's dead, she needs to be dead, or I'm going to accuse the writers of using an easy out to try to manufacture drama instead of making it feel real in any way.

I dunno, that's my view of it at least. After the episode (and before reading any reviews) I assumed the kid was dead even though I couldn't see her, because of Rick and Carl's reaction. Maybe I should have a different complaint here... why are Rick and Carl 100% sure she's dead instead of assuming that people did their jobs and got the kid on the bus and feeling resolve to go track them down and catch up with the group? Maybe that's the hole here that makes it uncomfortable to me, I dunno.


I say this a lot here, but I am not meaning to just complain, sorry :) The action in the episode last night was outstanding, Herschel's death definitely made an impact, and I was thrilled that Michonne got to off the Governor. Definitely a number of positives, and as someone who felt the Governor was the only serious weak point of the first half of the season, I'm hopeful that getting rid of him allows them to get back to the very good story they were turning out in the first 5 episodes.

This I can see.

So, I was trying to figure out all the different "groups" out and about now. I have not yet watched Talking Dead by the way so don't know if it is covered there.

Here's my list:

1. Rick and Carl
2. Tyrese chasing the young kids, who ran off
3. Maggie, Bob and Sasha
4. Michonne on her own (somehow didn't stay with Rick)
5. Daryl and Beth
6. The bus (with Glen on board)

Does that sound right?

I thought the kids left Tyrese in their dust (didn't he go back toward the bus while they headed in the other direction?)

I don't think we saw Tyrese do more than call after the kids.And I'm pretty sure he didn't make it to the bus.

But good point those kids took off fast.So maybe we have Tyrese and the kids each on their own, too.

I lost track of some of these, but I think this is about right.

I would definitely be interested in seeing Rick and Carl survive on their own some, and of course Michonne or Daryl (+Beth) by themselves would be good. Tyrese by himself would probably be good but I don't know about Tyrese + 3 little girls. Maggie/Bob/Sasha *could* be good if it lets them develop Bob a bit past just an alcoholic.

They frequently skip over periods of time between seasons but I don't' think they have at any point during a season before, so I'm definitely curious to see how they choose to handle this... do we get some of those individual stories or will we see most of the group together (except for rick/carl and maybe michonne) right away?

Fans of the comics: Do we have a new expected/hoped for destination for them, or do you expect them to be roaming for awhile? Or have they deviated too much to even be able to guess?

I think they are pretty much right back on track with the comic. IIRC, Hershel, Lori and Judith died in the attack so that's more or less lined up now. Some characters were dead at this point in the comic but are still alive in the show, and some others were alive in the comic but are dead on the show, but for the most part they are mostly at a checkpoint in the comic

So, if we figure they don't go backwards and grab something from earlier on ... if they go to the next major storyline in the comic, there's maybe a season & a half (through the end of 5, maybe stretching with some one-off installments to fill) before the TV show has reached the current issues of the comics?

Or am I missing something?

I think it might have something to do with ALL THE BLOOD.

Honestly I'd say there is much more than that. We are basically through the first 48 comics at this point. 48 is the comic they leave the prison.

But many people say she's alive. Can't be both.

I'm specifically answering your question.

ah ok, gotcha, my bad :)

I was really just thinking out loud with that post and the one before it... basically something just didn't feel right to me about the idea that the kid might still be alive, but I couldn't really place why at first.

it'll be interesting to see what they do here as the economics of producing a show (even a mega hit like this one) might not gel with what happens in the comics

mild comic spoilers follow, but trying to be as vague as possible...



there's a lot of really interesting stuff coming up in the comics so it'll be interesting to see just how much they change because of economics

Has she been auditioning for any pilots recently? That's usually a tell if their character is about to get killed in the show.

I think the older sisters that were with the Gov are still alive as well.

So with the degutted rat and the little girl saving Tyrese with two direct head shots are we heading back to Jon's earlier theory that the little girl actually killed the people and not Carol?

I think so.

Toy Story/Walking Dead Plot similarities (lol) http://imgur.com/a/qIIsm#0

That has been my belief as well.

On board here as well, will be interesting to see if/how they develop this and if it leads to storyline with Tyrese, the girls and Carol running into them.

I actually believe the rats and the two murders are separate. I still believe Carol did that, but that another prison inhabitant (probably the older girl) is responsible for the rats. Although I do think the story line between Carol and the girls is there to lead us (wrongly) to believe that the psychopath girl (hypothetically) is responsible for the murders.

I just struggle to believe that Carol would hide the presence and nature of a potential serial killer in the prison with those she has grown with, survived with and loved, and on top of that would also willingly accept blame and banishment instead for herself. That takes several massive logic leaps to accept.

I thought about this when The Governor rolled up on the prison with his new group. Most of these people seemed to be unsure of themselves and didn't appear to be battle tested for the most part. I guess it is possible they have gotten lucky and missed out on run ins with other factions but it didn't seem likely.

Given what she has been teaching them and the bond she has seemingly grown with those girls, though, leads me to believe that she could justify the girl doing it - and then help her out with disposing of the bodies. It's far-fetched, but I still feel that Carol's blind acceptance of the banishment still felt funny. She wouldn't want to put that girl in harms way by exposing what she did.

I agree with this part especially, Carol promised to take care of those kids. I could see her initially trying to deflect blame from them, but if she's forced out of the group, then she can no longer take care of them, and the truth will likely come out anyway the next time psycho kid does something else.

well I think Tyrese is running with lil ass kicker -- it's the scene right after Michonne walks away from the gov'ner, we see him running like he's tooting the rock and his gun is on his back...

I guess to me it's difficult to think the girl did it because she was the one that was drawing a personal connection to the zombies and giving them names, that doesn't equal killing people.

I settled in this morning with my coffee and dog to watch last night's "Agents of Shield", but apparently there was no "Agents of Shield" last night, so I re-watched the last episode of The Walking Dead again.

This is right:


I also paid more attention to the pre-fight interaction between Rick and The Governor. Rick's last plea to him was that they had all done some pretty horrible things to survive, but that they were still alive and that they could "come back from this" and "change" and, therefore, the two groups could live together peacefully in the prison. The Governor says "Liar" and then hacks at Hershel's neck setting off the battle.

I think that's the payoff from the prior two episodes focusing on the Governor. He had sort of given up after Woodbury, was pretty much willing to die, found that family and thought that he could change. He had a new "wife" and "daughter" and thought he could start anew. The problem was that he just entered the exact same vicious cycle that led him to where he was at Woodbury. He got attached to his new "family". He then was driven to protect them at any means. They join Martinez's group. He tries to hang back, not really be in control, but is slowly pushed in that direction. Despite trying to avoid the same pattern of behavior - by bludgeoning Martinez to death after he offered part of the leadership to him and trying to run but getting stopped by the zombies in the mud - he really can't. He realizes that Pete is too weak and soft to lead, so he kills him. He believes he understands what it takes to survive in this world. Once the zombie got into the camp, he realized that the only way to keep his "family" safe was to take the prison with its fences and walls.

On the flipside, you have Rick who, also, tried to change. He tried to give up any leadership, farm not fight and all of that, but wasn't at all successful. He couldn't really "comeback" from what happened and couldn't really change either despite trying to.

So, the Governor having lived through that knew, at his core, that there was no coming back from what they had done and that people can't change, particularly in that world.

I don't know but I'd swear I saw it while room surfing here last night. It was definitely AoS, looked like they were about to meet The Human Torch best I could figure. Was that a repeat/encore maybe?

Must have been a repeat. There was an earlier episode about a guy who could control fire and a drug that amped his abilities.

I agree with everything here. I look at the governor's killing of Hershel instead of Michhone as the post-apocalypse version of "suicide by cop". He knew he wasn't going to make it out of that one alive.

I felt the Governor was far simpler in that moment than you guys are making it out to be. He was always a control freak. He could see Rick's speech was having its effect on his group. They were all looking sideways at one another, questioning. The Governor was losing control and he knew it.

So he did the only thing he thought could keep himself in control--he stopped talking and started the fighting. Pure desperation.

I tend to agree here as well. He seemed to hesitate for a moment himself when he pulled the sword away, then it hit him that he was losing control of the situation so he escalated it as he always has, with violence.

I think this interpretation discounts the prior two episodes and his "liar" that he spoke right before the first cut.

That being said, I don't think the two interpretations are really at odds. Part of his inability to change and that he had come to realize that there is no "coming back" from what they had done was, in part, that despite his efforts to the contrary the only way for him to keep his people safe was for him to be in control and the way he kept control and, in turn, his people safe, was through violence.

Rick, more or less, came to that very same conclusion a few episodes earlier, but either was deluding himself or still hasn't given up hope that there is another way in that world.

Or maybe he was just grasping at straws, trying whatever strategy he thought had the best chance of working, whether he believed what he was saying or not.

Went out to eat last night at a nice restaurant for my anniversary. Is it wrong if this is the mental image I had at the restaurant?



It's the restaurant's check holder, btw.

Just a reminder that this starts back up tonight.

Man - Rick is in a tough way.

Hopefully this is a half season of fat trimming. Let Rick/Michonne/Carl/Glenn/Maggie/Daryl and like Carol join up and everyone else can be zombie concentrate

Development for two characters, useful & necessary. Not sure there's an option from a practical standpoint other than doing this in isolation, I mean basically 3 characters (plus an animatronic head) is all they had to pay tonight, along with the extras. Next week, presumably we get the rest without our mini-group from tonight.

I'm fine with the episodic nature stuff, I think that's a good change of pace but I'm slightly nagged by the fact that it's a decision that was probably made for financial reasons as much as storytelling reasons.

Loved "the door" scene on the porch, that was awesome. Like the fact that the apparent catch phrase for Carl faded away, a sign that he kinda got the message reality was sending him. Rick's last line was, maybe cheesy, but fun. And I think we need an occasional bit of that just like the characters do, I imagine that dark humor would be even more commonplace in that universe than what we're shown.

I was just glad to see that the Governor was deader than dead and that the prison was useless. :)

The Carl deal is typical growing pains...and eventually I could see him turning against his dad but it would probably be a temporary insanity thing....not to far fetched as it seems to run in the family. :)

All in all, good start. Glad to see Michonne character development, if she's going be a main character, she needs that.

LMFAO ... "If Lori had one of these Shane would still be alive"

One of the best Talking Dead lines ever.

Uh-oh, Talking Dead next week includes "a surprise cast member guest"

Somebody is getting the redshirt treatment :(

Maybe a zombie can eat Chris Hardwick.

Was I the only one yelling "bite him!!" when the little shit was fighting the zombie in the house? I'm glad he came around at the end, but I was done with his attitude 10 mins into the episode...

(Yes, I have teenage kids...) :)

I thought the timing in his showdown with 3 zombies was awfully convenient. The zombies took turns rather than converging on him at once.

Nope - I was too! Plus, for such a "smart" kid he sure made some dumb decisions in that episode.

Really enjoyed that episode - and really excited to see where things go the rest of this season.

I thought this last episode was pretty weak.

Over the last season or so, I've considered Carl one of the Most Improved Characters on any television show. He had gone from an annoying, little brat who wandered off and did stupid shit, to a maturing kid, who really became more of an asset than a liability.

Sadly, he decided to revert to annoying, little brat this episode. I know what they were trying to do, it was just handled very poorly. Carl's speech to the passed out Rick, bringing up Shane (Carl was there when Shane tried to kill Rick), the "I win" and all of that was lamely handled and didn't really resonate. Instead of showing Carl maturing and handling in a nuanced way - they just had him revert back to what he was and then (apparently) circle back to the more "mature" Carl at the end. Pretty pointless.

The Shoe Stealing zombie was pretty terrifying. One of the more tense single zombie encounters we've seen in a while. I did like the touches at the BBQ place and the house and what not. It's nice to see a little more of the landscape.

The Michonne dream was quite jarring. I thought it was a commercial for a second. I don't mind seeing a little more of her back story, but, again, it could have been done a lot better. Her stuff was better than Rick/Carl, but not by too much.

It was a down episode. I saw that Kirkman wrote it. He's not the best writer in the world. Carl's speech to the passed our Rick is very indicative of the types of odd speechifying you see in his comics sometime.

Let's hope the next episodes are better!

I agree the Carl stuff was kind of pointless in the sense of "didn't we already see this evolution? Why do we want to see him revert back just to then again revert forward again?"

But I liked the Michonne piece & also didn't know wtf it was at first (if I had DVR'd it I probably would have gone past it).

Nicotero described the episode as "a straight lift" from two comic book installments.

Black dude from Leverage needs to get on a new show. Really like that dude. I imagine they'll have several more Michonne flashbacks this half season

I think that Carl reverting is very indicative of showing his age. Like all teenagers they are capable of moving from smart to stupid in the blink of an eye and the aura of invincibility is pervasive. So in that regard, the development of his character shouldn't be strictly linear.

Having said that there were a number of logic jumps where something happened that seemed counter intuitive to what someone in that situation would actually do, but I understand that reality doesn't always make good tv.

I was stunned by the number of commercial breaks. Seemed like 30 minutes of show sandwiched in between some commercials.

Happy to see some of Michonne's back story. Looking forward to the direction they take things with the other characters.

I'm still holding out hope that they'll bring out a new version of Leverage with Hardison, Parker and Elliott leading the way (basically have Nate and Sophie move on, maybe a guest spot or two).

I could go for that. I wonder what the Netflix numbers look like for it. It couldn't be that expensive to make especially if you retire the highest paid actor(Hutton). The show basically can have whatever larger arc you wanna give it

Loved Leverage, and loved seeing Aldis Hodge.

As happy as I was with last week's episode, I think this one might go the other direction & be arguably the most disappointing episode of the series to date for me.

Waaaaay too much crammed into one episode, the Maggie-crying-on-the-bus scene felt incredibly forced (and seemed to fail to account for us seeing the previews). I thought Glenn's storyline was a dream sequence for several minutes before figuring out what happened. I still don't know who Daryl & Amy found being zombie chow.

And then the bus? ....

IMO it was that young dude Amy liked. I think their sequence took place after the big zombie fight. That was the same place, right?

I disagree. I loved this episode.

Same here. I was so-so on last week but enjoyed this one. The only issue I had was them spoiling the bus scene because of the previews showing that Glen was alive and elsewhere.

There's way too many speaking roles going on right now. I think they have something like 14-18 main "named" characters. Even something like the Sopranos, which had a huge cast, never really got that audacious. Game of Thrones probably effectively writes more characters than TWD, but they're also dealing with 4-6 distinct groups and settings.

I think you really see the lack of a budget on display here when the writing tone is wildly inconsistent from week to week. The show is always saveable but it needs more direction and they need to nail down POV characters better.

I liked the episode last night well enough, and am hoping they'll nail down the pecking order Of the characters better.

+1

Non dola-
If you're going to attempt to service this many characters you need to go to like 1:15-1:30 like Sons of Anarchy(imo which is as similarly hamstrung with tonal shifts from minute to minute) or we need a helluva lot more episodes than simply 8 and 8. At least give us 8 in the fall and 13 in the spring after NFL is done

That was my son's theory ... but what was up with the small shoe then?

Okay, I finally found it, I think -- I'll treat it as non-spoiler since I believe Beth (who I've called Amy for the last 24 hours) said the names early on, I just failed to catch them.

comicbook.com recap says they were looking for "Luke & Molly" ... I guess I never knew their names, thinking of them mostly as "extra kids".

edit: If you as vague about them as I was, those are the other two kids that were with Psycho Girl & her sister when they saved Tyrese back at the prison.