Last night we saw the finale to season 3 of The Walking Dead. Everything built up to the amazing final confrontation between the people of Woodbury and our cast at the prison. The battle WAS amazing…in that it did not happen.
This should have been the end all, be all, of battles. The Prison throws everything they can against the superior forces of the Governor, and come up short. In the comic, the group is thoroughly routed by the Governor and all but a handful survive. Even the little baby is supposed to get killed! Instead, the Woodbury army enters the prison, Rick’s people unleash a few Home Alone booby traps, fire some guns, and the army dissipates and runs away.
The Governor regroup the survivors and guns down all those who ran.
Rick goes off to pursue them back to Woodbury, discovers the carnage, and instead invites the people of Woodbury to come live with him at the prison.
Seriously?
Beth, Daryl, Carol, Glenn, Maggie- essentially unused in this story. To not use Daryl as an integral part of the story after the death of his brother was a crime.
Herschel offers some Moral Orel advice, as usual.
The one character who seemed to move along nicely in this story was Carl. He crossed the line and shot a young Woodbury man who wanted to surrender. In the face, and had no regrets. This moves Carl closer to being the borderline psychopath we saw in the comics. Kill or be killed. It is more poignant when we realize that this is what the Governor was preaching about at the start of the episode. Carl is becoming the Governor, and Rick knows it. I think this had a lot to do with his decision to welcome the Woodbury survivors.
Milton is tortured by the Governor at the start of the episode. He is given a chance to redeem himself- kill Andrea for him. He refuses and is stabbed in the gut. He is then locked in the room with her, so that when he dies and comes back she will be eaten. She eventually kills Zombie Milton, but not before he gets a couple of bites in.
This gives Michonne something to be sad about, but for Andrea, there is no redeption. There is no saving this awesome character that was completely screwed this season. The writers ruined her, and this was the only way out.
As a finale, this was weak. As a set up to ANOTHER season of Prison versus Governor nonsense- it worked well. The Prison now has a full complement of characters to kill off, and the Governor lives to fight another day. Let’s hope the new showrunner- writer of last week’s phenomenal Merle episode- can keep this ship sailing smoothly.
The Skinny from the Fatty 