The Walking Dead Series Blog Update

It has been several weeks since Tanika Patel’s previous blog post on the new series of The Walking Dead … and a lot has happened in the interim… 

Episode Five: Internment

In the fifth episode of the new series, the flu situation has become a major issue, and Hershel is almost single-handedly keeping everyone alive until the medicine arrives. In a contrast to previous instalments, this episode provides a lot of action and intensity for such a self-contained setting.

Poor Glenn looks like he’s on the verge of death, and Hershel and Maggie are keeping their hopes up even though it seems everything is going wrong with him. One of these things is Lizzie, the resident zombie lover, who tries to lure a walker away from Glenn by treating it like a dog. To add to her eeriness, she is shown to have an unnatural interest in a pile of guts found lying on the floor. You’d have to say, loving zombies and being easily hypnotized by blood aren’t great attributes for a zombie apocalypse survivor.

Someone who could’ve been keeping an eye on Lizzie is Carol, who we hear very little about in this episode. Rick confides firstly to Maggie about what he has done; her and the others do agree that he did the right thing. However, Tyreese and Daryl have yet to find out, and it’ll be really interesting to see how these two react, especially with Tyreese’s explosive temper.

Meanwhile, it seems that Rick has accepted that Carl can’t be his little kid anymore, as he allows Carl to help him deal with the zombies. After all, nothing says father and son bonding like stabbing zombies in the face together. Even though Carl has matured a lot through the seasons, there is still a sense that he will do something reckless soon if he keeps wielding that gun.

The group rarely get a break, and with the flu ending, another problem arises – the governor has returned. The governor dominated the last season and it was good to get a break from him to allow a focus on the group. If he was planning his revenge on the prison during this break, the prison will have to build themselves up again for another fight.

Episode 6: Live Bait

We are dragged back to the end of season three in this episode to follow the Governor’s journey, and finally get to see a fleshed-out side to him that isn’t the psychopath of the previous series.

He starts off alone, rocking a creepy beard and clearly dealing with the trauma of Woodbury – I felt no sympathy watching him walk around in a zombie-like manner. Not alone for long, he finds a family that desperately need him, and in that family a girl who reminds him of his daughter. He begins a romantic relationship with Lily, the mother, which seems to change the Governor back to who he may have been before the apocalypse. Megan looks like she will be the replacement daughter for him, and now this family has become so important to him, it seems he will do anything to keep them safe.

It’s refreshing to have an episode away from the prison and the primary characters, especially since David Morrissey, who plays the Governor, plays him so well and with all the depth that you’d expect a complex man like the Governor to have. The ‘new’ Governor is not just a black and white villain anymore – you can see his true motivations and intentions, and how much the whole ordeal of the apocalypse and losing his daughter has affected him.

Former Woodbury member, Martinez, abandoned the Governor and set off to lead his own group. He returns and welcomes the Governor into his group; however these two temperamental leaders are sure to clash.

Episode 7: Dead Weight

In the penultimate episode of the series four’s first half, Governor 2.0 is crumbling away; his true colours have been uncovered through his fight for power with Martinez, and all supposedly  to protect his new family.

A drunk Martinez decides hitting golf balls with the suddenly reformed Governor is a good idea, and he ends up being hit over the head by a club and then fed to a pit full of walkers. No one seems to suspect that it might be the brooding new member of the group that killed him, and instead, they blame it on the alcohol.

He isn’t done yet. After taking out Pete, a member of the group who disapproved of the Governor’s ‘kill or be killed’ attitude, he dumps him into the lake. Even now, as the new leader of the group, the Governor still wants to find a safer place for his ‘family’ to live, and I’m guessing it’s the prison – his next stop.

We end with the episode’s central character stalking around Rick’s group, first looking at Rick and Carl, and then setting his sights on Michonne. The end shot of his raised gun suggests that he’s getting a new addition to his walker aquarium in the mid-season finale.

Episode 8: Too Far Gone

The first half of this season has been building up to the two opposing forces – the prison and the Governor – finally colliding. Whilst the prison has finally settled down, the Governor moves in for the attack.

He hatches a plan to convince his group that they need to invade the prison, putting the blame on them for burning down Woodbury to sweeten the deal of the raid. He has kidnapped Hershel and Michonne as bargaining chips, in order to, as he tells his group, make sure nobody gets hurt.

Even with this separation, the Governor tells Michonne and Hershel that he’s doing this for his family. They realise that, even though he loves Megan, he’s still a stone cold killer (he tells them he doesn’t care if he kills anyone at the prison since they’re not his family.)

Back at the prison, despite Glenn’s perpetual weakness, the victims of the flu are recovering, and the relationship between Maggie and Glenn seems stronger than ever. Daryl finally discovers what happened with Carol.  Whilst he is expectedly furious at Rick for expecting her to be able to survive alone, he deals with the revelation in a much calmer manner than the hot-headed Tyreese. (It was quite disappointing not to see a full-blown argument though.)

The pair don’t get a chance to tell Tyreese before he shows them a dissected rat on the wall, believing that the same person who burned Karen did this. Chances are that it’s Lizzie, who is appearing crazier by the episode.

The Governor arrives with his group and a load of ammunition, supposedly just wanting to talk to Rick. However, he places Michonne and Hershel on their knees besides two armed members, which seems to suggest otherwise. He gives them an ultimatum – get out of the prison by sundown.

Back at the Governor’s camp, his one ray of hope, Megan, is killed when she is grabbed by a walker hiding in the mud she is playing in. Meanwhile, Rick and the Governor are still negotiating whilst the other members of the group are gathering guns and getting ready to evacuate.

Then, all hell breaks loose. The Governor has been holding Michonne’s katana, and slices Hershel’s throat after becoming tired of the negotiations. Shots are fired from all directions, Michonne miraculously dodging all of them even with her hands tied. To add to the emotional trauma, the Governor begins attacking Hershel with the katana again until he is decapitated, in front of his daughters, Maggie and Beth.

Lilly brings soon-to-be-walker Megan to the Governor, who promptly shoots his replacement daughter in the head. With all his hope lost, the Governor directs his team to kill the entirety of the prison. This ruthless all-out war results in the long-awaited brawl between Rick and the Governor. Rick appears to be losing, until the Governor is speared by Michonne with a katana. Being the kind person she is, Michonne allows him to writhe in pain and eventually get shot in the head by Lily, probably blaming him for Megan’s death.

Rick heads back to search for Carl, who is unharmed – unlike his wounded father. They assume the worst upon discovering a car seat covered in blood, but we can’t be certain that it is Lydia that has perished. Carl cries in grief for what is probably the first time in a long time, showing how hard this ordeal has been.

With the crew now divided into smaller groups, the show might split their episodes between each group until they find each other, but it’s unsure how likely it is they will all reunite.

The second half of series four kicks off on February 9.