House Call [The Walking Dissection]

One young lady gets skeeved on, another gets a mouth full of metal without the pain of braces. One brother has his past failures haunt him, another just gets haunted by his brother. We introduce a new black character just as another one dies. Lighting crashes.

The Governor gets an eyeful of his future, gates are stormed and we have an underwhelming cliffhanger. All of it is chopped up in this week’s breakdown AFTER THE JUMP…

A Villain… Born

Except for the fact that he’s already a bad guy. Remember when he killed the army people? That’s bad. Also, The Governor goes out of his way to let his lieutenants know that he wants our jolly gang of prison folk dead. Which is pretty rude. I mean, they really aren’t any different than random road folk for whom his entire community is comprised. Right? I understand killing a military unit for security fears, one day they could just invoke some random part of the constitution and depose you. But what does Woodbury even know about the prison gang aside from that they heartily encourage interracial dating?

Hell, at that point they don’t even know our prisoners were storming their gates.

Which is a very long way of saying that the Gov’s “origin” moment where Michonne kills his already dead daughter and then gives him a very close look at a glass shard just felt… hollow.

Why make him that bad of a guy initially? What if he’s a bit of a chicken hawk and knows he turns a blind eye to Merle’s brutality but at heart is a politician. A politician who would relish the chance to bring in new constituents. Let’s say he tells his brain trust that they need to offer terms of protection for the prisoners. Maybe even unreasonable ones. And if they don’t agree, take care of him.

THEN when the poop hits the fan and he’s left looking like Sagat there is a change in plans. As it is now he went from “let’s kill everyone in the prison” to “LET’S KILL EVERYONE IN THE PRISON”. Sure he will be a little bit more eeeeeeeeevil but how much more can you tarnish a man who killed unsuspecting soldiers in cold blood by himself?

Tyrese Arrives!

Not that Tyrese. It’s the Tyrese FROM THE COMICS!

I’ll get into some questions of how this screen version of T differs from his COMICS! version. In general, I have no idea why they introduced him in this episode. The Creepy Axel plotline was way more interesting and I would have loved more time there or maybe even flesh out our escape plan in Woodbury. Not to say that Tyrese won’t be a valuable character going forward, I just wish he and his group would have introduced when they had something to do.

The Cliffhanger

Let’s look at the peril our characters find themselves in, in order from most danger to least danger.

– Merle Dixon: Made to be scapegoat for incursion. Also kind of deserves it since he told the Gov that he killed Michonne before she returned to slice his eyeball like sushi.
– Daryl Dixon The only character who we love that is in genuine danger. But we don’t quite know how he was caught or what the Governor plans to do with him. It’s not like he even yelled “let’s kill them!” as they faded to black. We just know they are going to think about it for the next few months.
– Rick, Michonne, Maggie and Glenn In the woods, thinking about what to do. It’s not like Rick even yelled “we gotta go back!” or “we gotta leave him” as they faded to black. We just know he is going to think about for the next few months
– Andrea Hopefully drinking bleach off screen.
– Beth the 17-year-old sex object of creepball Axel Upgraded to Defcon 4 to guard against possible night molestation.

Is anyone really in any more danger than they normally are? Are there any consequences that we have to deal with in the upcoming half of the season? Pardon me if I just don’t see them.

Carl

On the upside I really, really liked Carl. He’s my favorite character now.

BUT IN THE COMICS!!!! Corner

BUT IN THE COMICS!!! Corner tries to predict arguments you will hear from fans of the show that are also fans of the comic book.

Couple nominees from Twitter. “BUT IN THE COMICS it was an eye patch not a bandage” is good and even BUT IN THE COMICS Tyrese goes crazy killing zombies in the gym not the electrical room.

I can’t think of any better. So if you have one, leave it in the comments or something. Or don’t, it’s fine.

Which Brings Us…

Eh. We’ll see. Whatever happens it will probably just be really inconsistent peppered with inventive ideas and random surprise deaths.