What happened?
Rick managed to rescue
Daryl, with Merle, but when he refused to let Merle join their group then Daryl
left with his brother. Rick returns to the prison to address the matter of the
new arrivals but a vision of his dead wife sees him react in such a manner that
they hurriedly leave. Meanwhile in Woodbury The Governor is bent on going to
war with Rick’s group leaving Andrea to placate the townsfolk when they want to
leave.
Thoughts
Curiously, I (as
usual) enjoyed this episode. It seemed laced with tension and delivered
suitable dramatic impacts and yet, now I come to writing this, I find myself
surprised by just how little happened. Basically: Daryl went off with Merle and
Rick went a bit mad and frightened off potential newcomers, whilst Andrea
secured her position as queen of Woodbury. So how come an episode
were not a lot happened still managed to effectively keep me gripped?
The answer, I think,
is in the suspense of what events here could mean for the future. Basically
(and ain’t it always the way) Rick and his group look to be in an
ever-weakening situation and this episode was all about exacerbating that. The
only moment of superiority was in the first five minutes when Rick and Maggie
showed up to shoot and smoke bomb the baying crowd. It felt like a bit of an
easy resolve to the season break cliffhanger, although maybe Merle’s plan of
shoving the walkers against their aggressors to create panic and confusion
might have seen them scrape out of it.
The Governor kept a cool head and remained a menacing presence even after Merle
and Daryl escaped and left several of his people dead. Strange that afterwards
he basically retreated and kept himself locked away (save to come out and shoot a dying man). It was hard to get a fix
on where he was at, mentally. He told Andrea that they were now at war and the
suggestion seems to be that he’s not about to change. However, he was initially
prepared to let his town go to ruin and all the people with it and only Andrea
– the burgeoning queen of his kingdom – held the townsfolk together. Has he
softened now? Seeing Andrea take control. . . Will that quieten down his thirst
for vengeance?
I doubt it. Though it
might slow him down or make him review his strategy of attack.
As for Andrea she
continues to confound me. She perseveres with The Governor and the town despite
having seen the wall of heads, and the people cheering on two men beating
each other to death, and been informed that her former friends had been held
prisoner and she had been kept in the dark about it. Admittedly she’s in a
tight spot in terms of abandoning the town and going it alone but, still, it’s
hard to grasp why she would be so quickly willing to maintain the relationship
with The Governor. It’ll be interesting to see what take she has on any
proposals for Rick’s group. I expect she would want to reach out to them and
try and broker a truce – and I would anticipate The Governor may allow that to
happen with a steely-eyed plan of reneging on the deal and taking the prison
for himself first chance he got.
In the meantime at the
prison Rick’s group is looking weak. It was a wrench to see Daryl go with
Merle, but understandable. He is his brother, no matter what, and a figure that
has a grip on his psyche (I recall when Daryl fell into a daze he hallucinated
Merle’s return). For Rick, allowing Daryl to leave really was his only option.
After what Merle had done to Maggie and Glenn, not to mention his total
obnoxiousness when they were in the woods, there was no way he could have been
allowed to join Rick’s group. Let’s just hope we get to follow where Daryl and
Merle go to next. I’d like to think that Daryl will still want to watch over
the likes of Carol and “little asskicker” but how he manages that whilst
keeping Merle at bay is a difficult proposition.
Michonne is also a
character that Rick has decided is not welcome among his flock (whether or
not, once she gets healthy, she would even be interested in staying is an
intriguing question, too). Again, like Daryl, she is perhaps one of the most
capable warriors of the tribe so her being sidelined makes a huge impact in
their effectiveness should The Governor and his men come calling. I suspect,
however, she will earn herself a place before she is kicked out. By the end of
the episode there was serious reason for the likes of Hershal to question
complete devotion to Rick’s commands.
The final scene was a
truly wrenching moment. Just when you thought Hershal had done enough to
whisper wisdom into Rick’s ear and let the new people stay he then went and had
a mental flip and saw Lori watching over him. It wasn’t clear if this new group
had scarpered on a permanent basis – but I’d like to hope that the next episode
will see Hershal tell them not to go and that there clearly was a problem with
Rick at the moment. Admittedly two of the four people – the two white guys who
were itching to stage a coup – look like a pair of liabilities but perhaps they
can prove themselves honourable allies if treated better.
Again, the point is if
the four new people are thoroughly turfed out then it leaves Rick’s dwindling
band in a vulnerable position against The Governor’s inevitable advances.
What to do with Rick?
Well, it’s good that his mental crack-up with the radio hasn’t just come and
gone. Not good as in a good thing, good as in good consistency in the show. I remarked at the time that it was a real stretch
for us to believe Rick could start hallucinating voices in his head and then suddenly
be cured the moment he realised the voices weren’t real (or did he even realise
that?). Then in the previous episode he had a vision of Shane during the
gunfight which suggested his mental problems weren’t behind him. And now we
see that potential made explicit. Rick is not out of the woods of insanity just
yet – the question is how far mad will he go and what will the cost of that be?
What was the best
part?
The last scene was the
clincher. I particularly liked how it appeared Hershal had done just enough to
sway Rick’s opinion towards giving these people a chance. He started walking
towards them and it was played as though he was about to relent, and then
phantom Lori appeared on the balcony and Rick went and lost it. The scene just
hung around that little bit too long, eking out the discomfort for all that
were watching (characters and television audience alike). It went blundering
past awkward and right into disaster in the space of a minute.
What do I think will
happen next?
As stated, I think The
Governor may seek to use Andrea as a go-between to his group and Rick’s group,
but only as a Trojan horse style line of attack. Otherwise I anticipate he’ll
naturally launch a more direct assault but, when I consider how he took down
those army guys, subterfuge and trickery seem more his style. Meanwhile the big
issue of Rick’s sanity may cause the rest of the group to realise they’re going
to have to insist he rest and allow them to take over for a while.
Outside bet about
Merle and Daryl: Merle will eventually try and force Daryl to do things he
doesn’t want to do (perhaps against his own group) that will cause him to turn
on his brother and one of them won’t survive. Hopefully Daryl will emerge from
such a fallout alive!
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