We’ve come to the last two episodes of the nail-biter third season. We’ve seen the return to true suspense, the emergence of a real plot with consequences for the living and the dead, and re-entered the world that was once inhabited by old friends (Morgan) and broadened it to encompass a town run by an insane man, a group of hearty drifters, a katana wielding badass, the finding of a long lost brother, and the end result of turning one’s back on friends for the gain of sleeping with the enemy, literally.
It is her story we witnessed last night.
Andrea has always been a character wrought with conflict and horrible choices in men. Whether it was Shane the self-nominated enforcer of the Grimes Group, or now The Governor — the homicidal maniac whose number one pastime seems to be zombie cultivating and torture chamber building — Andrea has been drawn to both their power, brawn, and their ability to be completely, unerringly flawed and dangerous. The latter she only identifies when it’s too late. But we need someone like Andrea on the show we find. Yes, sure, she’s infuriating. She’s definitely risen to become the most loathsome character on the show. And the list of infractions is long. She turned her back on Michonne. She let her zeal for being a Woodbury leader of a sort cloud her judgment. She refused to see the real person behind The Governor even when Michonne showed her — and by “showed her” we mean “actually showed her the heads of zombies he kept in his rec room”. She on two occasions opted not to return to the Grimes Group when the writing was on the wall about Woodbury. What we gather is that despite her self-proclaimed ability to lead, keep people safe, and be effective in battle, she has learned very little about her own self-preservation. This is obvious since she keeps attempting to trade it for small things like sex and the ability to shoot a gun whenever she pleases.
So it came as no surprise when after Milton recognized with horrific clarity what The Governor was up to with his plans for Michonne which included a chair with stirrups and A SPECULUM for God’s sake, he literally had to lead Andrea by the hand so that she could witness the planned horrors with her own eyes. (Aside: My brain has not fully gone through the list of what it is The Governor is planning for Michonne. Those who read the comics know already, but let’s just say that in not knowing, the mind can’t help but conjure a whole litany of vile and abhorrent scenarios. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Also, NO SPOILERS.)
Why it took seeing PROBABLY THE MOST HORRIBLY INSANE THING YOU CAN EVER THINK OF to get Andrea finally moving and ready to take some action is probably only an enigma in the sense that The Walking Dead was finally ready for her to take some responsibility for generally sucking ass. For basically being the worst kind of person you could ever need to depend on in a zombie apocalypse. The kind that would be distracted by a shiny object or some other unnecessary trinket that would be used to lure her closer into the lion’s den. Can we say that in reality it would have taken this long for someone to get squicked out enough to want to leave Woodbury? No. Yet, this is Andrea we’re talking about here. The equivalent of flipping over a sofa cushion in human form. We’ll just ignore the HUGE, BIG, OBVIOUS CRAP STAIN ON THE OTHER SIDE, WON’T WE ANDREA?! But we did get a nice, if not vague moment between Andrea and Tyreese where she had the same conversation as she left Woodbury to warn Rick about The Governor that Michonne had with her several episodes ago — “The Governor is not what he seems.” He should probably have that printed on his eye patch like a seminar name badge. “Hi! I’m The Governor! I work at Initech and I’m not what I seem.”
And no he is not. We’ve lost all semblance of the affable small town politician with the genteel manner that we were introduced to. With the procuring of his eye-patch, and even last night wearing a knee-length trench with an upturned collar, The Governor leapt out of the pages of a comic, or a John Carpenter film. Was it a little convenient? Sure. The Walking Dead has been working on this transformation for several episodes, giving us little tidbits of who this man truly is. Even his obsessive nature can be traced back to his journals. His utter detachment and lack of consideration for human life was evident in the assault on the national guardsmen. His penchant for sadistic torture? His capture, intimidation, and near rape of Maggie. However, we will admit that it does seem like someone put a bit of 80’s villain steroids in his Woodbury Wheaties in the last two episodes. He turned into a full-on psychopathic entity last night from the nearly orgasmic smile he donned when he envisioned Michonne in his torture chamber, to the delight he took in giving chase to Andrea, the whistling, and even the dragging of the shovel across the floor (which was over the top). The Governor has emerged into the nightmare we were promised.
That’s not to say that the episode got it all right. A few questions:
- Wouldn’t The Governor especially this new version of himself jacked up on “kill fever” have killed Milton for 1) knowing about Andrea’s plan to leave and the reason why 2) for setting fire to his zombies which he all but admitted to?
- Knowing Milton’s divided loyalties, wouldn’t Andrea have not told him her plan to 1) kill The Governor 2) warn Rick?
- After such a tense interaction in the factory complete with a nicely done zombie horde sent to kill/distract/immobilize The Governor how does the show then make him appear at the prison at the very last second to stop and capture Andrea, especially without a struggle that Rick could see and/or hear?
But when the episode got it right, they got it very right.
- The Governor with all his newfangled 80’s slasher creep sensibilities did pull off coming across genuinely terrifying.
- Andrea’s quick thinking with those trapped Walkers in the stairwell and the look she gave him when she executed the plan. Finally some comeuppance. Not enough to erase all of the damage she’s done over the season, but at least she finally made her intentions to kill The Governor be known — that survival instinct finally kicking in.
- The single-minded, obsessed hunt for Andrea was intense and for once we were pulling for her to make it out (mostly because we needed her to). We know that there was no way she’d kill The Governor, but at least we had hope for a zombie bite or some other injury.
- We’re perhaps starting to see some internal questions being raised by Tyreese that The Governor will be too preoccupied to deal with.
- Knowing that The Governor now has trapped Andrea in her own torture chamber we imagine she’ll test out his plans for Michonne — and that was chilling.
So all in all, the game of cat-and-mouse did more to solidify The Governor as a sadistic horror show, than it worked to truly influence the arc of the show. Rick is still none the wiser and Tyreese still needs more prodding to abandon Woodbury. What we may see is the demise of Andrea who attempted to do a valiant thing a little too late, and the stepping up of Milton who finally decided not to continue to sit on the sidelines. Could a new ally for Rick be forming? But ultimately, will the showdown that we’re working toward between Woodbury and the Prison, really be between Woodbury and the Governor? What happens when your little oasis really isn’t safe and you find out that the dude running the place is as dangerous as the zombies beyond the gate?
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