In the sixth episode of The Walking Dead’s fourth season, David Morrissey returns as the villainous Woodbury Governor (although he holds that position no longer, and rather goes by the name ‘Brian Heriot’). He is accompanied by Jose Pablo Cantillo and Travis Love as his infamous henchmen. Audrey Marie Anderson, Alanna Masterson, and Meyrick Murphy also join The Walking Dead cast as new, unknowing zombiepocalypse survivors. Michael Uppendahl (Mad Men, Glee) directed this Governor-orientated episode.
I wasn’t very satisfied with this episode. After the last five seconds of last week’s episode, I was eagerly waiting to see the Governor come back as his old, evil self. And I was completely let down. Instead, I was gifted with seeing a whole other side of the Governor, the side you probably wouldn’t call ‘the Governor’-a softer, warmer, more husband-like side. Falling soft for a little girl, going on excursions for strangers, getting left behind, even growing a beard- The Governor wasn’t looking too good this episode. At one point, he even fell over on the road and stayed there.
While I appreciate seeing this other side of the Governor, I don’t trust it. He still holds a grudge against Michonne and everyone in the prison. With the end of last week’s episode, the Governor looming in front of the prison, I have no reason to begin to like the Governor. No matter what he does or who he saves, he set out to kill everyone in the prison and he’s up to something again. The change in him is interesting for one episode, but I don’t think it will last long. The Governor may have gained a family, but families don’t exactly help each other during the apocalypse (look at Rick, for example, he loves his family but the walkers have hardened him over time).
I would’ve preferred our old Governor back but, nonetheless, the other aspects of this episode were just as good as any other. Morrissey gave another good performance, as always, and the traditional walker-killing gore was not absent. As a matter of fact, even with the slow moving pace of this episode, its single kills were particularly gory (for instance, we saw a brief glimpse of the old Governor when he ripped out a walker’s jugular with his bare hands). The Governor’s burning-buildings montage was also noteworthy, and set to Ben Nichols’s “The Last Pale Light in the West” (a good song if you ask me, the lyrics felt very fitting). The directing of this episode was also interesting; compared to other episodes, it seemed rather dreamlike - fitting for this week’s events.
Season four’s sixth episode, “Live Bait,” featured a change in the Governor I did not like. But even so, it was interesting seeing this other side of him (although that doesn’t mean the first side stopped existing). Opposite of my negative opinion on the storyline, I felt the other elements of this episode were very well done and interesting. I wouldn’t pass up this episode of The Walking Dead.