The Walking Dead - Season 3 Episode 11 - Recap Video and Review - I Ain't a Judas

Recap video and review of The Walking Dead - Season 3 Episode 11 - I Ain't a Judas:

So everybody hates Andrea (Laurie Holden) right? Can we agree on that? Of course, I imagine she has her fans somewhere within the fandom of The Walking Dead, but this is a character who seems to serve no other purpose than to make questionable decisions or to make ridiculous statements. Whether it's sleeping with Shane, or entertaining the notion that The Governor (David Morrissey) -- a character so transparently evil that Ray Charles could have seen through his smarmy facade -- could possibly be a good option in which to invest one's confidence. It's as if she has no driving force beyond being annoying. "I Ain't a Judas" attempts to tell a story centered on Andrea's dual conflicts of conscience and loyalty, and while there are definitely parts of this episode that work astonishingly well, the sizable majority of it asks us to engage with a character that we haven't been given much reason to care about, independent from our main group of prison survivors.

Credit: AMC

Andrea's narrative follows her conflict with The Governor, who is unapologetic about last week's raid on the prison. Not only is he unapologetic, he's upping the ante and preparing for total war. He conscripts all able-bodied men and women in Woodbury for armed service, even arming the children as soldiers. The Governor gets a deliciously villainous line through his response to Milton's hesitation at using children as militia, saying that adolescence is a twentieth century invention, implying that these "kids" would be considered adults by the standards of any other era. Andrea stringently objects, and decides that she needs to meet with Rick's group herself, asking Milton (Dallas Roberts) to cover for her, not entirely realizing just how deeply committed to the Governor he is. Milton reports Andrea's intentions to the Governor, and the Governor tells Milton to help her out. And he does, for a time, as he and Andrea wrangle up a walker and turn it into a Michonne-style pet in one of the most gruesome scenes since its midseason return, with Andrea curb-stomping a walker jawless. However, things quickly get out of control, and it looks like the end for Andrea and Milton before Tyreese (Chad Coleman) and his crew come to the rescue. Learning of the presence of Woodbury, Tyreese and his group are all-too-willing to join up with The Governor. Milton offers to take them back to meet with The Governor, who accepts them almost immediately once they reveal that they've been inside Rick's prison and might be able to give him details about the layout. This conflict would be better if we'd gotten to know Tyreese's crew better, but it will have to suffice as it is for now, as both sides of the conflict shore up numbers for the coming war.

At the prison, Andrea has a tense reunion with Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and the others. This is one of the scenes in the episode that goes over like gangbusters, as Andrea, who has neither seen nor heard from these people in well over a year, asks where Shane, Lori and T-Dog are. No one answers, and their silence tells her all she needs to know. It's a simple moment that really brings home the heartbreak of loss, even though I can't say the losses of Shane or T-Dog were all that powerful (Lori's death is a different story, however; which is peculiar, since I don't think I liked her character any more than the other two of our dearly-departed). In fact, the entirety of Andrea's visit to the prison is well-done. She is clearly an outsider to this group, and the onus is upon her to make a case for why she shouldn't be treated as such. Andrea clearly wasn't expecting this kind of cold reception, with Carl (Chandler Riggs) recoiling from her touch or Rick frisking her and questioning her motives in coming. And so her time at the prison plays as a sort of grim campaign, as she ventures from one party to the next, trying to turn the tide of opinion in her favor. Michonne (Danai Gurira) has no interest in hearing Andrea out, still feeling abandoned by her. Andrea insists she's only trying to prevent bloodshed between Rick's group and The Governor's, but she immediately kills whatever progress she's made in sounding reasonable by suggesting that Michonne has poisoned Rick's group against The Governor. It's a total credibility-killer for Andrea, who breaks down when Michonne responds with the truth: that The Governor sent Merle (Michael Rooker) to kill her, and that if Andrea had left with Michonne, he'd have sent Merle to kill her too. She accuses Andrea of choosing a warm bed over a friend, and Andrea has a hard time coming face-to-face with the plain facts of The Governor's duplicity. Michonne leaves her former friend to ruminate on what she's learned.

Credit: AMC

Things fare a bit better for Andrea with Carol (Melissa McBride), who is among the only prisoners to openly welcome Andrea. It's also among the best moments of the episode, as Carol explains what happened between Rick and Shane, along with how T-Dog died. Andrea also gets to hold baby Judith, while reflecting about the change in Rick's demeanor. Carol insists that Andrea has to do something about The Governor if she really wants to end this conflict, since she's in the unique position to do so. She tells Andrea to give The Governor the best night of his life, and to also make it his last, cutting his throat in his sleep. It's a powerful suggestion coming from Carol, who really has come quite a long way from her early portrayal as a meek, weak-willed wife. She's a much stronger character now, to the point where other characters find strength through her support, such as Daryl (Norman Reedus), who is conflicted over Merle. Carol tells him not to allow the presence of Merle undermine all the progress he's made, and in that moment, we get a sense that these are two kindred spirits who could, feasibly, work as something more than just platonic pillars of support - moreover, it's to the point where I don't think I'd mind seeing that happen. I find myself slowly growing to love Carol as the kind of well-reasoned, sympathetic, empathetic character Andrea has't really been at any point in the show's history. That said, to Andrea's credit, she takes Carol's advice under consideration, returning to Woodbury and recommitting to The Governor in order to get him into bed.

The Governor's dark trajectory this season comes to its aesthetic apex as he adopts his iconic eyepatch after seeing his gaping eye socket in the mirror with only a single lighted match, and it's a chilling scene, brief and to the point. The "Angela's decision" scene, however, is the real marvel, in my opinion: it's beautifully filmed and edited, intercut with Beth (Emily Kinney) singing in the prison in one of my favorite moments of the season, even though the music video quality of the entire sequence was kind of jarring, since I can't remember very many scenes like that, if any, in the series. But Emily Kinney has such a gorgeous singing voice, and the song was a perfect evocation of the moment, as Andrea stood poised over a sleeping Governor, a knife in her hand, and we're momentarily held in a moment of high tension, even though there was no way, from a narrative standpoint, that Andrea was going to kill The Governor. That was never really the goal of this scene of Andrea's decision, I don't feel. It's to provide a more visual representation of her inner struggle, since we can't get inside her head. The well-edited sequence almost accomplishes the work of getting us to really feel the pull of Andrea's internal conflict, which wouldn't really resonate without these stylish tricks to help it feel weightier than it otherwise would.

However, when Andrea ultimately can't bring herself to kill The Governor, I didn't feel it was as powerful or as tragic as it probably should have felt, because Andrea isn't a strong enough character within the world of the show to pull off a storyline like this. It's not Laurie Holden's fault, really (at least I don't think it is), but instead a problem of the writing dating back to the first season. It's to the point where I almost feel like it's too late to salvage the character in any realistic sense. Or, at least, it's too late to salvage her to the point where she can have her own independent storylines, away from the primary group we actually do care about. Then again, who knows? Andrea could have a legion of devoted fans, and I'm in the minority. But it's problematic when an episode about one character's emotional journey is handicapped from the get-go by virtue of being about that character.

Credit: AMC

There are some other decent moments in the episode that don't really have anything to do with Andrea, such as the continued conflict between Glenn (Steven Yeun) and Rick over Merle's presence among the group. There's also a pretty insightful moment between Merle and Hershel (Scott Wilson), as they recite Bible verses together, and we learn that the only part of Woodbury Merle really misses is its library. I love these small, human character moments. Taken with the good of the Andrea storyline, it's enough to save this from actually being a bad episode. In fact, it elevates it to where it's actually quite good. However, I just can't get invested in Andrea, personally. Others may well disagree, and more power to them, as she's a pretty divisive character in her own right. But I feel she hampered this episode more than she helped it. Hopefully, next week's episode better integrates the ensemble, independent of the issue of Andrea's conflicted loyalties.