The Walking Dead - Season 3 Episode 3 - Recap Video and Review - Walk With Me
Much like Michonne (Danai Gurira), or perhaps even more so than our sword-wielding badass, The Governor (David Morrissey) is the one character whose reputation from The Walking Dead graphic novels truly precedes them. It's hard to really describe The Governor and really capture the totality of his various nuances as a villain, other than to simply say he's one sick man. And he runs a tight ship. At least, that's what "Walk With Me" would have us believe. In our "Rick and the Gang"-free episode, Michonne and Andrea (Laurie Holden) are the wanderers acclimating themselves to their new surroundings, and what we have is the introduction of an exciting new narrative device for this show to tackle in its the third season, crafting two separate narratives that run parallel to one another. "Walk With Me" really does feel, at times, like a pilot to a completely new series, a spin-off from The Walking Dead. It isn't that the tone is different, but the construction of the characters in relation to Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and company. This, coupled with the very narrow focus, provides the makings for the most fascinating episode yet.
Credit: AMC
Michonne and Andrea (Laurie Holden) stumble upon a roving band that appears to be executing the non-walking dead. Michonne kills her two pet walkers with her sword to avoid getting spotted. However, they ultimately wind up face-to-face with The Governor himself, who explains what Rick and company already know, that you come back as a walker (here referred to as a "biter") no matter how you die. And so they're stabbing the dead through the brain in order to nip that particular problem in the bud before they become a human Golden Corral. The Governor takes the pair back with him to Woodbury, a beatific little town that seems relatively untouched by the zombie apocalypse, owing to its high walls and fortifications, and the well-armed legion guarding the vicinity at all times. Where Rick has a gang, The Governor has a veritable army. He even has a Dixon brother of his own in Merle (Michael Rooker), brother to Rick's crossbowman and all-around badass, Daryl (Norman Reedus). Though he was seen in Daryl's hallucinations last season, we haven't seen Merle in the flesh since season one, when Rick left him handcuffed to a pipe on the roof of a building, leading to an arc where a conscience-stricken Rick went back to free Merle, only to find that he'd sawed his hand off to escape. Merle is back, and he recognizes Andrea. His replacement arm is suitably hardcore, looking positively warn out and slightly rusty from countless guttings, beheadings, and other manners of self-defense. Andrea doesn't know if Daryl is alive, and can only tell Merle that she last saw him about 8 months earlier, when they were separated while escaping Hershel's farm. Merle doesn't register whether he's hopeful or disappointed, and either way, the news doesn't have much time to register before Andrea and Michonne are dragged before The Governor.
Credit: AMC
Andrea is peeved with Michonne since they've known each other for nearly a year, and she still refuses to tell Andrea anything substantial about her. In fact, Michonne doesn't really say much of anything at all this week (except the incontrovertibly awesome retort, "My s*** never stopped being together"). In an amusing running gag, Michonne seems to only speak when it's to demand the return of her and Andrea's confiscated weapons, since it seems she has little use for communication beyond what she can communicate with a sword. Michonne is one of the most intriguing figures introduced in this series, as Danai Gurira communicates tons without saying a word, just playing with varying degrees of brooding. It's a face that's both full of emotion and completely blank. I'm really impressed with the performance, and even more interested to learn her back story.
Of course, though Michonne is among the most interesting elements of the series, we still have The Governor, a man of warped, though consistent, principles. Under his rule, Woodbury is a testament to just how normal life can be in a zombie apocalypse, provided you've adopted a totalitarian state (since I'm not entirely sure The Governor even gives his citizens the illusion of choice, much less the option to actually make their own decisions. They all must hold fast to his principles every bit as much as he must himself). His speech to Andrea about rebuilding society, and not allowing the walkers to take away from them the basic principles of a free society (kids still go to school in Woodbury, for instance, and people all have jobs throughout town, all in service of maintaining their little safe haven) is magnificent, and shows exactly the kind of actor they have in David Morrissey, who can communicate warmth and menace in equal measure. He insists that Andrea and Michonne are guests, and much of the episode is built on the suspense of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Credit: Gene Page/AMC
The Governor is presented as the anti-Rick. He doesn't appear to be off his rocker like Rick has, of late. And while he's relatively cold, it's in service of protecting his idyllic little haven. He's also polite in that Southern gentleman's fashion, and very hospitable in many respects, to say nothing of how he commands the unquestioned loyalty and respect of his people. It's almost too good to be true of any one man. And so we wait with bated breath for the clap of thunder after the lightning. And it comes when he executes some National Guardsmen who happen upon Woodbury, coloring them as a threat to their safety. He does this with the brutal, callous efficiency of an expert killer, and he demands no less of his men than what he would do himself, ordering one of his men to go out into the field to finish off the fleeing soldier he just killed. As the episode comes to a close, we see The Governor in a hidden chamber in his house, where several water tanks are filled with the severed heads of dead walkers, a macabre trophy room for Woodbury's protector, its sovereign, its governor. It's as chilling a final image as we've ever been given on this show, and a fitting window into the sacrifices required to maintain the kind of control and power that Rick is trying to maintain. As Rick has been gradually realizing in his arc, you can't be both "A Good Man" and "The Man In Charge" at the same time. Something's got to give. In the case of The Governor, it's his sanity, along with any sense of morality, outside of the mission to protect his people. The Governor is a portrait of where Rick is headed, the dark and lonely road of sovereignty, of absolute power that corrupts absolutely, to borrow a tired, but nonetheless accurate, truism.
Credit: Gene Page/AMC
"Walk With Me" continues the complete and total renaissance of The Walking Dead in its third season. I didn't think I could be any more impressed with the direction of the show after the last two weeks of stellar episodes. Yet here we are, and I'm pretty sure that nearly everything, from the teeth-gnashing intensity of the opening helicopter crash to the subdued menace of The Governor's proselytizing, is as good, if not better, than anything in the last two weeks. This is an exceptional bit of business, and I already can't wait for next week, and for the season as a whole. Each episode will likely draws these two groups inexorably closer together, and such a complication is rich with possibility: Rick and his militia vs. The Governor and what basically amounts to a private military. I'm more than game for that.
