The Walking Dead - Recap: The Governor's Ball

Recap video and review of The Walking Dead - Season Finale - Welcome to the Tombs:

Given that this has been the best season in the entire run of The Walking Dead, I suppose there's a certain expectation that the finale will be the season's crowning achievement, at best. At worst, the finale will simply tie up loose ends and set us up for the season to come. Yet "Welcome to the Tombs" didn't really do any of those things. Of course, while I'm disappointed that this finale ended up being as relatively subdued as it was, I didn't actively dislike it. There's a certain boldness behind the broad strokes of what happened tonight that has me genuinely intrigued about where the series could go from here, because I don't think I'd have believed you last week if you'd told me The Governor (David Morrissey) would survive this finale, or that not only would Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and company stay at the prison, but that they'd also be taking on several more mouths to feed. But most prominently of all, I wouldn't have believed that the finale would ever have ended on as high a note as it did, as the peaceful sunset overlooking Lori's grave (set to a hopeful, optimistic musical score) alongside Rick taking in the Woodbury citizens incapable of fighting, could have served as a finale for the series as a whole. I'd love to hear predictions for where you think season four might be headed, as I can't imagine the show will give us another full season of The Governor, although I've certainly been mistaken in the past. As it stands now, however, "Welcome to the Tombs" is a perfectly fine finale. It falls a bit short of expectations, but it still manages to be both emotionally resonant and dramatically relevant, insofar as it carries on the themes and arcs established in the episodes that precede it. It also manages to be tremendously suspenseful when it has to be, and I think that's one of the best aspects of any singular episode of The Walking Dead.

Credit: AMC

After a majority of the midseason spent preparing for war with The Governor, it's easy to be thrown for a loop when it appears that Rick and co. are high-tailing it out of the prison and heading for safer horizons. Carl (Chandler Riggs) is not happy about this at all, and Glenn (Steven Yeun) says he hasn't ever seen Carl this upset, not even after Lori died. Of course, this statement becomes kind of silly in retrospect when we learn that Carl isn't upset that his father is fleeing from the threat of The Governor and forcing them all to find a new home. No, Carl is upset because his father isn't actually letting him participate in the defense of the prison. The appearance that the group is leaving is all a ruse, allowing The Governor to be lured into a false sense of security before Rick and co. unleash their defense, which includes setting the walkers loose, and attacking from elevated positions, utilizing the assault rifles, body armor and other munitions they've picked up from Morgan and from the prison itself. If I have a complaint about the resulting sequence, it's that it's too brief. Between The Governor and his people clearing out the prison, only to be met by Rick, Glenn, Maggie (Laurie Cohan), Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) assaulting him from all angles (while Carl, Hershel and the others watch on from the woods surrounding the prison), the sequence hardly accounts for much more than a small fraction of the episode. For nearly a season's worth of build, it feels strangely anticlimactic, particularly once The Governor high-tails it out of there with his soldiers. He wants to go back and finish the job, but his people have no intention of going back into a no-win situation. And so The Governor indulges in that most well-worn of villain tropes: The madman who kills his own people for no reason. Well, actually, the reason here is their disobedience, but you'd think The Governor would realize he gains nothing by cutting down the size of his own army, in the event that Rick mounts a counter-assault...which is exactly what he does.

Credit: AMC

After the big battle, The Governor pretty much disappears from the episode, allowing the other elements of the episode to take center stage. Before leaving to mount his assault on the prison, The Governor caught on to Milton's (Dallas Roberts) duplicity. He gives his former friend the beating of his life before sending him into the torture room with Andrea (Laurie Holden). The Governor hands Milton a knife and tells him that he won't leave the room alive unless he kills Andrea. Milton, unable to bring himself to do it, turns the knife on The Governor. However, The Governor quickly unhands him, turns the knife back around on Milton, and stabs him repeatedly. Mortally wounded, he leaves Milton locked in the room with Andrea. If he wouldn't kill her as a man, he'll have to kill her as a walker. Because, as The Governor succinctly states on his way out, "In this life now, you kill or you die. Or you die and you kill." This development gives us the tensest portion of the episode: before being stabbed, Milton had left a pair of pliers beneath Andrea's feet, leaving us with a race against time as Andrea struggles to reach the pliers and break out of her restraints before Milton dies, turns, and then kills her. But aside from being compellingly suspenseful, it's also pretty touching, as a dying Milton asks Andrea why she stayed, and she reveals that she wanted to save everybody in Woodbury, even The Governor. Andrea insists that she'll break free and save Milton, but Milton, with tragically cold detachment, tells her that once she breaks free, she'll do no such thing. She'll go get something sharp and jam it into his head to save herself. It looks, for a time, that is is exactly what will happen, as Milton dies and turns into a walker just as Andrea gets one hand loose. Milton is on her right as she gets the other hand loose, and though we don't see what happens next, it doesn't immediately sound as if Andrea has been compromised.

Unfortunately, this turns out not to be the case, as Rick and the others, including Michonne, come to Andrea's rescue only to discover that while she was able to kill Milton, he was able to bite a huge chunk off of her shoulder first. I get the feeling that if Andrea had been a more relatable character and less of a pill throughout the series, this would have been a far more touching moment than it was, as Andrea asks Rick if Carl, Judith "and the rest of them" are okay, with Rick correcting her and saying, "The rest of us." I really don't feel like the character's deficiencies were ever Laurie Holden's fault, anymore than Lori's were Sarah Wayne Callies', but I do wish Andrea hadn't been such a problematic character nearly all the way through her run. As the scene continues, Andrea insists on putting the bullet in her head herself, while Michonne sheds tears at having to say goodbye to her friend (this is hardly even the first outwardly emotional moment Michonne is given this week, as she thanks Rick for integrating her into the group). Poignantly, Michonne insists that she'll stay with Andrea until the end, and as the other members of Rick's party wait outside the door, we hear the gunshot. And that's a wrap on Andrea.

Credit: AMC

Yet it's hardly a wrap on the story, as Carl and Hershel (Scott Wilson) encounter one of The Governor's men in the woods. It's a teenage boy who initially draws on Carl, but quickly surrenders, offering his gun. Carl, however, hardened by the frequent lapses in judgment that have resulted in the deaths of so many of his friends and family, shoots the kid in cold blood. Rick is initially disbelieving when Hershel tells him of what Carl did, yet once Rick confronts his son directly, it becomes apparent that Carl is a much different person now than when the season began. He basically chides Rick for his failures, saying that because Rick didn't take out The Governor when he had the chance, they're all in this mess now -- to say nothing of the walker he also didn't take out, the one that ultimately killed Lori. Carl is sick of mercy, and says that he "did what had to be done." Carl tosses Rick's badge on the ground at his feet and walks away, as Rick can only contemplate how his own decisions have affected his son. It's perhaps for this reason that Rick decides to show mercy to the people of Woodbury. Though The Governor is still at large, Rick doesn't hesitate to take a bus full of the citizens that were incapable of fighting in The Governor's army back to the prison (poignantly, he also takes Andrea's body back to the prison, wrapped in a tarp). In addition to the Woodbury residents, the group includes Tyreese (Chad L. Coleman) and Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green), who join Rick's group, and Karen (Melissa Ponzio), the sole survivor of The Governor's impromptu killing spree against his own people. As the sun shines on the prison and over Lori's grave, the survivors take solace in their a hard-won peace, even though it's likely only a tentative one. After all, besides The Governor, walkers continue to populate the surrounding area of the prison, so while it's not an entirely apocalyptic conclusion to the season, the threat of danger is ever-present. But the conclusion to the episode still accounts for a rare happy ending, a solitary moment of beauty in an otherwise insurmountably bleak landscape.

Credit: AMC

The third season of The Walking Dead proved to be among the best sagas on TV this year for its careful, deliberately paced storytelling. Yet while the conclusion to the season doesn't live up to the magnitude of the episodes that came before it, it proves to be a satisfying enough end to the arcs established this year, while also feeling of a piece with the rest of the season. Ultimately, despite a few missteps, season three was remarkably solid from front to back.