"Walk With Me", last night's episode of AMC's smash series The Walking Dead, at long last brought us the much-anticipated appearance of The Governor: a character voted a few years ago as one of the greatest villains in comic book history.
Okay, so David Morrisey doesn't resemble his graphic novel incarnation that much. But nonetheless Morrisey's Governor has finally brought this show something that's been a long time coming: a true breathing nemesis. For two seasons we've watched Rick and his group - unseen this week but presumably still holding their ground at the prison - fight off the walkers and not much else. But here comes The Governor. Mindless walkers and rogue survivors have been one thing. The head of a whole town and his very own well-munitioned army is gonna quite another.
"Walk With Me" picks up Andrea and Michonne's tale, with the ladies (and Michonne's ummm... "pets on a leash") coming across a crashed helicopter. The Governor and his boys arrive and in short order the girls are found... by a very much still-alive Merle (Michael Rooker), not seen since cutting off his right hand with a hacksaw in Season One. But no worries, 'cuz Merle has been fitted with a well-armed prosthetic.
And then we get to Woodbury: AKA "Mayberry Among the Living Dead". Complete with its very own town drunk. Maybe there's an Ernest T. Bass somewhere who'll throw rocks at the walkers.
Only two real action sequences in this episode. But even so, "Walk With Me" laid down a lot of new ground for no doubt quite a long time to come. The seemingly benign Governor hides the fact that he's a hard-boiled badass as well as he does his "living room". Given what last night's episode portends for his character, it wouldn't surprise me if Morrisey got an Emmy nomination.
Quite a solid episode. Quieter than the previous two episodes, but a hella appetizer for more.
2 comments:
Agreed - this episode set the "Governor" up to be a very complex character. Morrisey comes across as a blend of the book versions of the Governor and Spencer from the Alexandria Community. If you read "Rise of the Governor" and thought he was a bad ass in that, as cliche as it sounds, "You ain't seen nothing yet!".
While I missed seeing Rick and his group this week, there's no way the producers could have balanced the action between the prison and Woodbury. Next week looks interesting, but the prisoners Rick's group encountered aren't even as close to exciting as it will be when these two story lines collide.
The walking dead is the one I always look forward to watch.
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