Review: The Walking Dead "Dead Weight"

Non Spoiler Review:

Continuing the Governor's story, Dead Weight finds Martinez taking his former leader and the girls into his own camp, and the subsequent power struggle and angst that results within the group. The Governor struggles to maintain his new family life despite the pressures of their situation that requires a strong hand to lead.

I'm enjoying the excess development forced upon the Governor and his own cast of characters, but the series is definitely feeling like it's plodding through molasses given this abruptly all came at the expense of the prison storyline. Despite this nitpick, the episode ends bringing things back to the present. And with the addition of a certain heavy-duty piece of equipment now under the Governor's command, the mid-season finale promises plenty of action.

Spoilers Now!

Martinez stares down at the Governor for a moment before reaching down to help pull out Megan and throwing the rope down to him. Martinez asks him quietly if he's been on the road all this time. He explains they have their own camp, but the Governor must accept he's in charge and there's no dead weight—contribute or be cast out. The Governor agrees.

The Governor and Lily set up house together in an RV, next door to a tank that a former army man brought. He wishes he could make it better for her (annoyed by the leaky roof) but she's optimistic.

He goes on a supply run with Martinez and some others, Mitch and Pete, to investigate a survivalist camp. They come upon a decapitated corpse tied to a tree with a sign on it saying liar. As they get closer to the cabin they find another labelled rapist. Inside they find another with murderer tacked on him, and who appears to have shot himself. There are two walkers inside—the mother and child—both quickly dispatched. But they also discover the still biting heads from the corpses. 

As they stay there for the night, finding some beer, Martinez reveals he would have left him in the pit had the girls not been with him, but he thinks the Governor's changed. They wonder what happened in the cabin to create such an odd scene. 

Back at their own camp and enjoying their beers, Martinez explains he wanted to recreate what they had before. Lily admits the Governor won't say a word about their former settlement. After everyone disperses, Martinez and the Governor golf on top of the RV. Martinez confesses his cohort is dead and got reckless after they abandoned the Governor. He notices a family really brought him back, though Martinez would never risk something like that again for fear of losing them. He offers to share the crown a little now that the Governor's here. The Governor abruptly hits him in the back of the head with a club and kicks him off, then proceeds to drag him to the walker pit. He doesn't want the crown, he tells him over and over again and feeds him to the walkers.

Lily and Megan return home to find the Governor sobbing. He explains he had a bad dream. In the morning Mitch announces they found the remains of Martinez in the pit, having gotten drunk and likely fell in. Pete takes leadership of the camp, prompting cries for a vote. He assures them it's temporary until they arrange something more democratic, and asks the Governor to come along on a hunt.

Pete confides in the Governor that he needs some help with leading, but they're distracted when Mitch finds another camp ahead of about ten people with ample supplies. Pete suggests they take them in, but Mitch counters they need their supplies, wanting to take what they need and go. Pete refuses. 

They manage to trap a few meagre animals for food by the end of the day. The Governor walks off and they follow him back into the other camp, which has been massacred and pillaged. Mitch is furious that someone else took the supplies, while Pete is horrified they're all dead. 

The Governor returns home, directing Lily and Megan to pack. Things are about to go very wrong, he explains, and he can't put them at risk. They leave at night, including Tara and new girlfriend Alicia, but they stop on the road when they see a crowd of walkers blocking it, trapped in the mud. They return to camp.

In the morning he goes to talk to Pete, and quickly stabs him in the back. Next he goes to Mitch, pulling his gun on him, sitting down to have a chat. He explains Pete is dead. He admits he was right about taking the other camp's supplies. Pete was weak for wanting to do the right thing. His own brother was similar, always being the hero. He's running things now and will do anything it takes to protect the camp, and if he joins him, he'll never have to worry about doing the right or wrong thing...they'll do the only thing.

Later the Governor drops Pete's body in the creek, telling the rest he died on a supply run. Everybody loves a hero. The camp begins to organize and starts construction of a secure perimeter. The Governor warns them to avoid strangers and report back what they see when they search for supplies. 

A walker gets into camp and nearly kills Megan. The Governor shoots it in the head and everyone comes running. The Governor goes down to the dock and stares down at Pete beneath the water. Pete is a walker, struggling to reach the surface. The Governor then takes the truck to the edge of the woods, spying on the prison as he sees Rick and Carl tend to their garden. With gun drawn he moves on to find Michonne and Hershel disposing of the bodies of the walkers from the fence incursion. He raises his gun.

The Verdict:

I'm torn between my appreciation of the the Governor's arc and the derailment of the momentum of the prison storyline. It's unacceptable that the whole Carol/Daryl revelation has yet to happen. I'm also left wondering what the point is if we've basically brought the Governor right back to his post-Woodbury mental state. Did we really need two episodes to hit the reset button?

It will be curious to see if the Governor can put his need for revenge against Michonne aside in favor of protecting his new family. Or if he will let that opportunity cloud his judgement (I'm assuming he doesn't shoot Michonne and Hershel in the opening act next week).

The massacre of the other camp didn't make much sense given the close proximity the Governor, Mitch and Pete must have been over the course of their day out and heard nothing. But it also means there's another dangerous group of survivalists running around close by too. Will they show up again?

What intrigues me more is the preview for next week which sees the Governor at the gates of the prison with his iconic tank—if this storyline is playing out as it did in the graphic novel then the mid-season finale is definitely going to bring an abrupt change of direction for the entire season. I don't know if I'm even ready for that level of plot development coming on the heels of such an erratically paced batch of episodes.

Review: The Walking Dead 116

Non Spoiler Review:

The standoff that ended last issue is broken pretty quickly as Rick and Jesus put their big plan into effect. 

Another fast paced, quick read, issue 116 was an enjoyable one, providing some surprises and call backs to lessons learned from earlier storylines. The result is a very satisfying conclusion to this particular chapter and the promise the war is only beginning.

Spoilers Now!

As Negan and Rick face each other down, the former suddenly realizes there's a mere handful of men from the Hilltop leaving, not half the army as Gregory promised. With that Negan pushes him off the wall and opts for a more diplomatic approach with the invaders.

Rick holds firm to his demands so Negan's men begin firing. Rick's army takes cover and begins picking off the snipers, then unleashes a barrage of gunfire to pin down Negan and his men inside. Negan orders Dwight off to warn the other outposts, but realizes too late just what Rick's plan is—the cacophony has drawn every walker in the area to their position. With the plan working, Rick loads up his troops on the buses, intending on ramming the gate himself with a car.

Holly rushes out to stop Rick, wanting revenge for Abraham. She realizes he's willing to strand himself inside with Negan to break the gate, but Rick assures her he's the only one he won't kill. Holly knocks him down and takes the car, breaking through the barrier and hitting a wall.

As Negan orders everyone inside before the zombies enter the compound, he finds Holly alive, advising her he won't be letting her off that easy. Outside, Jesus is pleased with their first victory, but Rick warns it's just the beginning of the war.

The Verdict:

Issue 116 had some unexpected twists, not the least of which was Rick managing to derail Negan on a couple of fronts. Having grown to expect regular defeat lately, this first victory was a long time coming. The use of the herd as a weapon comes from plenty of past teaching moments and it worked really well as a battle tactic. As Rick comments, he who attacks first, wins.

It looks like Dwight didn't make it out, so I hope Rick and company manage to take down the other outposts before they can be alerted to trouble. Negan does have, Holly, however, and I'm sure she's in for a world of hurt as Negan will certainly want to demoralize his enemies by making an example of her.

What didn't ring right was Rick's decision to drive the car through the gate. Was he planning on being captured? After all the talk from Jesus that his people need him alive as a leader? That makes no sense and he's mistaken if he thinks Negan still needs to keep him alive—what better symbol to parade to their troops than Rick's dead body?

Review: American Horror Story: Coven "The Dead"

Non Spoiler Review:

The Dead returns the focus to Kyle as he begins to reconstruct his memories and is reintroduced to Maddie, who herself is coming to terms with her return from the dead. Queenie begins to doubt her place among the Salem witches. Fiona's past catches up to her at the school, while she finds herself drawn to the Axeman.

The Dead was a mixed bag, still setting up new pieces in the storyline for future pay off. The Kyle subplot looks like it's finally getting somewhere and Marie returns to prominence, as well. It just felt a bit off and unexciting, but nothing surprising as American Horror Story tends to suffer from these lulls here and there between major developments.

Spoilers Now!

In a flashback to Kyle when he was still alive and hanging with his friends at the tattoo parlor, Kyle has big plans to make something of his life. He wants to be an engineer to insure disasters like Katrina never happen again, and he doesn't want a tattoo that's going to make someone judge him. In the present, chained up in the greenhouse, he's horrified to find his ankle has his frat brother's tattoo. Zoe arrives, holding a gun behind her back.

Zoe explains he knows how this has to end and she should have let him go. The only way she knows to fix it is to kill him. Unfortunately Kyle grabs the gun and puts it in his mouth. Zoe struggles with him and it fires through the ceiling, and she break down, admitting she doesn't want him to die.

Meanwhile, Madison, who has been numb to the world all her life, wants to be able to feel something. That includes taking any poison she can find, to no effect. Even fire doesn't hurt her now, and she can eat all she wants.

Delphine finds Queenie in the kitchen so they go to the drive-thru and enjoy a late night snack. While discussing their odd situations, Delphine suggests the other girls will never see Queenie as her sister because she's black.

Hank calls Delia in the middle of the night wanting to come home. She hangs up, but he promises to see her soon as he sits among an assortment of high powered weapons. Delia gets up and goes in search of Delphine but hears a noise behind her. Madison grabs her before she stumbles on the stairs and Delia gets a flash of her death, including her mother killing her.

Fiona has gone to the Axeman's apartment where he puts on some jazz and gets them a drink. In the bathroom she finds she's starting to lose her hair, but seems to miss the bloodied corpse of the apartment's real owner behind the shower curtain. After a kiss she decides it's a mistake for her and moves to leave. He suggests it's her destiny, but she turns on him. She's a miserable human being, she admits, and he should want nothing to do with her. He offers sex instead of love and manages to seduce her.

In the morning Zoe chains Kyle up in her room and tries to train him to speak. He gets frustrated and Madison comes in, asking who it is. Zoe questions if she remembers it's Kyle given she killed him. Maddie says Delia wants to see her so she'll look after him. When she's gone she asks Kyle if he saw a light when he was dead. She didn't. But they both came back. They're both wondering now if it's been worth the trouble.

Queenie arrives at Marie's salon. She's surprised it took her so long to come see her. Queenie doesn't think the Salem witches like her, but Marie suggests they care plenty. They care about her power, though they'll never be welcome here. Marie reveals they have evil under their roof—she buried Delphine and Fiona dug her up. Queenie doesn't think she's so bad but Marie challenges her to ask her what she's done. If Queenie ever wants to join her, the only price is Madame LaLaurie. As she leaves, she wonder what Marie will do to Delphine. Marie tells her not to worry about that.

Delia confides in Zoe that she sees everything now despite her blindness. The Axeman is a bad spirit that Zoe sent packing, which means she's very powerful and she now has a bulls eye on her back and Fiona is her biggest enemy. She admits her mother has only ever been on her own side. If Fiona concludes Zoe's the supreme, she'll try to kill her, just like she killed Maddie. Fiona is growing weaker but that makes her dangerous. They have to kill her. Zoe returns to her bedroom to find Kyle and Maddie having sex.

Fiona dresses to leave but the Axeman wants her to stay. Fiona suggests the dead body in his bathtub will start stinking up the place. She's no angel either, he says, but she always had someone to tidy up after her. She's called the police and they're on the way, she counters. He knows she'd never do that. She doesn't care to hear anything more about him. He's been watching over her since she was eight, he explains.

In a flashback young Fiona uses her abilities to retaliate against older bully Helen. After Fiona is pushed to the ground it was the Axeman who knocked a shelf down on Helen. Fiona demands to know what he is. He admits he saw her as a daughter at first, but she grew into a fearsome woman and he fell in love. Fiona doesn't believe in ghosts. He just wants to give her pleasure. She tells him to keep his distance and haunt someone else.

Spalding wakes up in his room tied to his bed and Zoe waiting for him, asking how he is. He says he's feeling fine, stunned that he can talk and has his tongue back. She found it in the alcove hidden in a box, still alive because someone enchanted it. He admits it was Myrtle Snow's magic, and that's why he cut it out. She kept it, but Myrtle wasn't powerful enough to restore it. Zoe is. All she wants is the truth, the one thing he can't refuse her. He confesses he didn't kill Maddie and it was Fiona. His family has served the coven for ten generations, he protests. Not anymore, Zoe replies, and stabs him to death.

Queenie goes to Delphine to ask her about the worst thing she ever did. The older woman says the past is best left buried. But Queenie claims she wants to be a true friend and has to see the ugly as well as the good.

Delphine recounts the story of her slave Sally, who gave birth to a baby with a light complexion, obviously her husband's. Delphine decided to make her her new handmaiden to help with her beauty treatments. In her bedroom Delphine explains her own beauty concoction is the only potion that works and asks Sally to guess the ingredients. Sally thinks it's blood. But there's something extra special, Delphine teases, from a boy newly born. She knows who the father is and she needn't bother giving the baby a name. Queenie is mortified and Delphine says she couldn't have a bastard growing up in her house. Sally killed herself the next morning and they buried her with her baby. Delphine points out it was a different time and a different world. She's grateful to have a true friend to guide her.

Zoe showers up to clean off the blood. Madison asks what she's been up to and knows she's upset a little about what happened between her and Kyle. Zoe realizes they can't be together anyway, but Madison suggests otherwise given he's already died once. Being with him is the only thing that made Maddie feel anything, but Zoe doesn't have to give him up either. She takes Zoe to the bedroom where Kyle is sitting and the two welcome her into their bed.

Fiona turns up at the Axeman's bar waiting for him to finish playing. She offers to buy him a drink.

Queenie takes Delphine out to get a new hair style. Delphine is nervous at the prospect, but is excited when they enter the salon, unaware that it's Marie Laveau's, who appears behind her welcoming her back. Delphine tells Queenie she doesn't know what Marie will do to her. But she does, Queenie replies, and Delphine is chained up. Marie suggests Queenie make the first cut and hands her the knife. She'd love to. Afterwards Marie applies the fresh blood to her face. Beautiful, she says.

The Verdict:
The Dead didn't offer anything memorable this week, and played to expectations. Queenie has shifted loyalties to Marie as I thought she would, though how solid that is remains to be seen.

The question of what lies after death continues, and I'm wondering if it will become a major theme as the series progresses. Is there a reason Fiona doesn't believe in ghosts? Is the Axeman more than a ghost? Did the witches do something to him that allow him now to walk the world in a physical form?

While Kyle's storyline hasn't been my favorite, at least there's been advancement on that front. When Zoe indulged in her undead threesome my first reaction was that it was totally out of character. But then I realized it does suit her given she kills everyone she's with. What better sexual companions than two undead ones?

Here's hoping that Spalding breaks the resurrection chain and stays dead.

Review: The Walking Dead "Live Bait"

Non Spoiler Review:

Following last week's surprise reveal of the Governor watching the prison, Live Bait joins him immediately following the massacre of his citizens and his subsequent abandonment by his henchman. Alone and disconsolate, the Governor wanders aimlessly until meeting another group of survivors that reminds him of his past.

Live Bait succeeded in the impossible—humanizing the Governor again. It was also quite a slow burn of an episode, as well, coming on a string of them, but I found I wasn't bored at all. In contrast, there was a high level of tension given it's the Governor we're dealing with, and how he would respond to encountering other people. 

Live Bait refuses to go into expected territory, ending on a surprising note and playing against what most of the audience would have anticipated. The Governor's storyline will continue to get fleshed out next week, but there's the potential for interesting developments.

Spoilers Now!

Following the massacre of the Woodbury militia, the Governor and his two men make camp for the night. As he sits in a fugue in front of his fire he watches a zombie make its way towards him, trying to reach him through the flames until Martinez shoots it. Come morning he emerges from his tent to find they've abandoned him. He gets a rig working and returns to Woodbury, which he burns to the ground. 

Wandering for a couple of months he finally collapses on a street when he sees a girl in a window and goes inside to investigate. He finds two women with the little girl, armed with a gun and bat. He hands his weapon to them and explains the man in charge of his town lost it and he barely got out alive. He offers his name as Brian (from a message he saw scrawled on a barn). Tara, a former cop, and her sister Lily have been waiting for the National Guard. They also have their disabled father (suffering from lung cancer and requiring oxygen) and Lily's daughter Megan, who doesn't talk. They were lucky in having a food truck parked outside their building when the outbreak happened. They ask if he plans on staying, and he says just for the night. Tara warns him not to mess with her family or she'll put him down. Lily comes to visit him after, bringing him food. He takes it, but later dumps it out. 

The Governor brings the plate back and they invite him in. He helps them take their father to his bed. There are walkers moving around in apartments upstairs and the old man says Tara has tried repeatedly to kill them. He asks him to go to a friend's suite to retrieve a backgammon set, something that might make Megan talk again. The Governor does so, and finds the neighbour (who had lost both legs) now turned to a walker and trapped in the bathtub. He kills it and takes the gun in his hand. 

The Governor brings the game back to them, and in his room looks at the family photo he carries. In the morning Lily comes in with a few things for the road. She also gives him his gun back but he tells her to keep it as they need another one. He has the one he found upstairs, and explains that they have to kill the walkers in the brain. Tara's just been shooting them in the body. She reveal her father has stage four lung cancer and nearing the end, with just two days of oxygen left. She asks if he'll go to an old folks home to get any tanks he can find. 

The Governor walks to the place and finds it filled with the former residents. He discovers a dozen oxygen tanks and quickly heads out with them, but his activity has alerted the walkers and he can only escape with two. He brings them back but won't talk about what happened.

Lily insists on tending to his cuts. She admits Megan thought he was her dad when she saw him as he abandoned them a few years before the apocalypse. Megan stays with him while Lily goes for ointment and asks what happened to his eye. He confesses he's a pirate, and when they laugh he explains what really happened was he tried to help someone. 

The Governor stays awhile. Cleaned up and with a hair-cut, he proceeds to teach Megan chess as the girls tend to their dying father. When he passes, they finally bring in Megan to see him. The Governor urges them to go but she wants a minute. The old man's eyes open and he grabs Tara, and the Governor proceeds to bash his head in with the oxygen tank as the others scream for him to stop. The Governor digs a grave and Lily comes out to help bury her father. When they return Megan runs away from him but Tara admits he saved her life, and her father would have been grateful.

He leaves them alone, and when he returns home he burns the photo of his family. He packs up and tells Lily good-bye, but she wants him to take them with him to find some place better. He reluctantly concedes and they leave in the food truck. On the road, Tara admits she's not really a cop, though she was in the academy, and apologizes for lying. When they make camp Lily and the Governor wake up in the night and have sex.

The truck breaks down and they set off on foot to find a car. The Governor spies a herd of walkers ahead. Megan remains frozen but finally runs to him and they head into the woods. The Governor and Megan fall into a pit with a few walkers trapped inside. He violently kills them with his bare hands and promises Megan he won't let anything happen to her. That's when Martinez appears and looks down incredulously on them.

The Verdict:

Live Bait sets up a humbled Governor with a new group of survivors as a contrast to the prison. It's too early to make such grand predictions (after all, we only saw the Governor at the end of Internment). But the series managed to humanize the man in ways I couldn't have thought possible after last season, and raises the question if redemption is possible for anyone in the post-apocalypse. 

I felt plenty of apprehension watching him interact with everyone, and certainly relieved that Tara, Lily and Megan lived to see the end of this episode. Given how so many new characters are offed as soon as they break out of the gate, I hope they stay around as they've received more development in one episode than all the Woodbury characters. 

There's a comparison to be drawn between Carol and the Governor's abandonment of the past, which has become a running theme this season. Only once he lets go of his dead family can he move on and embrace a potential new one. Interesting to see if somehow Carol and the Governor cross paths how they might get along now. But the past isn't far behind with Martinez showing up with all the Governor's secrets. Will the latter kill him or can they agree to make peace now that he appears to be stable?

I'm still satisfied with the low key pacing of this season, mixed with a few skirmishes here and there, as I'm sure the mid-season finale promises a big event. However, it's irritating that we wait yet another episode to get to Daryl's reaction to Carol's absence. It feels like poor pacing to do that, especially if the Governor's story next week doesn't bring him closer to current events at the prison. 

Would I accept a redeemed Governor? It would certainly be an exciting storyline to pursue that would fly in contrast to the graphic novel and ripe for drama with all the characters at the prison coming to terms with the whole idea of it. I doubt that's going to happen, but at least the writers have succeeded in raising that hope. So if (and when) the Governor falls back into his old ways it will be just that more tragic.