The Walking Dead - Recap: The Governor's Recall
Recap video and review of The Walking Dead - Season 4 Episode 6 - Live Bait:
In many ways, The Walking Dead has always been about division: this is essentially a world split between walkers and humans, and between humans and other humans. And it's hardly the only point of division to be found in the series, much less in this season, as characters often find points of division within themselves. "Live Bait" explores how The Governor (David Morrissey), now going by Brian Heriot from an R.I.P. notice on the side of a building, has essentially cultivated a new personality, with the intention of getting back to the way he was before the apocalypse curtained the world. If nothing else, the episode illustrates a side of The Governor that makes him a far more nuanced character than he's ever been on the show, previous to this point, as his attempts at reclaiming his former self have the added benefit of fleshing him out as a human being, largely pushing all memory of the monster he'd been to the periphery -- at least for a short time.
Credit: AMC
It's been a long time since we've had an episode of such singular focus, but "Live Bait" casts the net across the aftermath of The Governor killing the remnants of his army, and sparing Martinez (Jose Pablo Cantillo) to an uncertain fate. In one of the more interesting approaches of the season, the episode plays out like one long journey away from the man The Governor had been. He returns to Woodbury and torches the town to cinders in a burst of rage or anguish, and it's hard to say whether this is an act of erasure, or simply a measure towards keeping someone from claiming Woodbury as their own. It would be easy to imagine The Governor would view Woodbury as his creation, adopting an "If I can't have it, no one can!" mentality. But I genuinely feel there's more to it than that, since so much of this episode attempts to erase The Governor as we last saw him, putting in his place the man behind the eye patch and permanent scowl. He takes to the road on a solitary journey of despair and, perhaps, penance -- he has no particular destination, nor does he seem to have much of a will to live beyond surviving simply for its own sake.
Credit: AMC
Yet all that changes once The Governor reaches an apartment building housing a small family consisting of sisters Lily and Tara, their father, Don, and Lily's daughter, Megan. Tara is immediately suspicious of "Brian" and doesn't trust him enough to allow him to hold on to his weapons, yet Lily is far more forgiving. As is Don, a man with stage four lung cancer who is simply trying to hang on for his granddaughter's sake, as little Megan doesn't talk and hardly ever smiles for anyone but her grandpa. The family begins to stir memories in The Governor's mind of his own wife and child, and it's this connection with his past that inaugurates his shift towards being a fairly good guy. Granted, it's not as if his heroism this week negates all the terrible things he did as the tyrant of Woodbury, but there seems to be a clear indication that The Governor is working towards the reclamation of his former self.
Credit: AMC
It's an engrossing story to tell, and Morrissey is more than capable of telling it without a whole lot of dialogue. If there's any complaint to be lobbied here, it's that the transition is pretty abrupt, given that not too long ago, The Governor left Glenn (Steven Yeun) to die in a room with a walker before coming perilously close to raping Maggie (Lauren Cohan). He also killed Milton (Dallas Roberts) who, inevitably, turned and bit Andrea, necessitating her death at the hands of Michonne (Danai Gurira). So there's a lot more groundwork that should have been laid before presenting The Governor as someone for whom we should be rooting. Then again, given the structuring of the season, I'm not sure how this would have been possible. All things considered, I felt this was as good as we could have asked for, in terms of a transition between different phases of The Governor's personality. It helps that Morrissey is as skilled as he is at carrying off that transition. When The Governor risks his life to retrieve an oxygen tank for Don from a nearby old folks home -- leading to one of the most unsettling setpieces of the season, as the elderly walkers struggle to give chase through the darkened corridors -- the transformation is all but complete.
The Governor adopts the family as his own, for a time, and we can see just what kind of man he'd been before the zombie apocalypse. Megan is even talking now, and even if Lily hadn't explained it to The Governor (and the audience), it still would have been easy to see that the little girl was viewing him as a father figure, while he himself was viewing her as a surrogate daughter. Megan even looks a bit like his long-deceased girl, further heightening his sense of attachment to her. Although The Governor keeps a photo of his late family in his pocket, this is his family now, in all but blood -- particularly once Don dies and resurrects, forcing The Governor to kill him in order to keep Tara, Lily, and Megan safe. They understand what happened to their father, that this is what happens to all people once they die in this world, and Tara shows gratitude to The Governor for his actions, saying her father would have wanted The Governor to stop him before he could hurt his own girls.
The Governor has a pained, knowing look on his face, hearkening back to the same look he had on his face when a bedridden Don recounted how having daughters changes a man. It was more than just something the two men had in common -- it was a duty they shared as both fathers and men. The Governor atones for his failure to protect his own daughter (from becoming a walker, and from being eventually killed by Michonne) by protecting these people from harm. It may not be the swiftest character transition, but it works, as it is indicative of the division in The Governor's personality: he wants to remain a loner, as a form of penance perhaps, but Lily refuses to allow him to leave without them, saying that he's already made his choice to bring them with whether he realizes it or not. And so the party journeys on together, and small elements of The Governor's humanity return: he sleeps with Lily, protects Tara when she rolls her ankle, and carries Megan away from danger when she's paralyzed by fear at the sight of walkers.
Credit: AMC
It's this latter incident that takes us into the episode's climax, as The Governor runs through the woods with Megan in his arms, and the pair becomes separated from Lily and Tara, hobbling away together from the horde on their tails. As The Governor makes his way across a field, he falls into a pit designed to trap walkers. What results is one of the most grotesque, brutally efficient kills of the season, as The Governor rips out one walker's throat with his bare hands, batters the skull of another on the ground, and rips apart the jaw of a third with an old bone. It's the most powerful moment of the episode, as The Governor expresses his emotions through the urge to protect, keeping Megan from coming to any harm. As he cradles the terrified girl in his arms, he fights back tears as he promises that he'll never allow anyone to hurt her. The little girl throws her arms around him as he strokes her hair and assures her they'll be okay, "Cross my heart." But this is The Walking Dead, so of course The Governor and Megan are discovered in the pit by a stunned Martinez. And he doesn't exactly seem like the forgiving type.
Credit: AMC
"Live Bait" is a stunningly effective episode in terms of focus and narrative economy, presenting The Governor's introspective journey as a series of humanizing vignettes, taking him farther and farther back to his old self (his best self, perhaps). Only time will tell if the transition will stick, but from the look in his eye when approaching the prison last week, I'm skeptical it will.