Piers McCarthy reviews the sixth episode of The Walking Dead season 4…
Episode 5 of The Walking Dead’s fourth season was pretty impressive at points. Reviewing the episodes weekly can take a fair bit of time and sadly last week I didn’t have it. For a quick overview, I would point out the decent parts including Rick and Carl shooting a group of infiltrating walkers who broke through the fence, Hershel finally killing a zombie after a host of the prison-inhabitants turn, and the final shot of the Governor peering over at the prison from the woodland. This week’s episode should triumphantly follow on from that shot, but instead we see a different side to the Governor’s story, and a not altogether satisfactory one.
Major spoilers follow
The Governor is a tough-shelled, cold and animalistic character. He’s being pursued by Michonne like the beast he is. Or, at least, the beast he should be. “Live Bait” alters that perception for a Governor-focused 40 minutes.
We begin seeing the man as we always see him – dead-eyed and carefree. He stares into space as a walker creeps over to him, walking and then stumbling through a campfire and trying to snap at the Governor. The cycloptic man looks on, unmoved by the terror clawing itself toward him. As it reaches his feet a bullet rips through its skull – from Caesar’s gun. Caesar sees the apathy that’s taken over the Governor so when the Governor wakes in the morning, Caesar is gone. It won’t be long into the episode where the viewer has the motive to do the same.
The Governor, in his anger against everything in his past, destroys Woodbury. With a few cool cameras rigged on the truck smashing into the town, one unfortunate tracking shot melodramatically showing the Governor aloof in front of a burning building, we then see a few weeks/months later down the line.
Enter – Snake Plissken! Well, near enough. David Morrissey with his beard, eye patch and long brown hair looks a wee bit like Kurt Russell in the Escape from New York/L.A. films. He skulks across the barren Atlanta landscape until finding an apartment with some life seemingly living inside. In there are two women, a little girl and an elderly man. There’s nothing fascinatingly new about this lot – one is cautious, one is forthcoming, one is a little child, and the other is a dying, aged figure. We’ve seen versions of these characters already in the four seasons and like the occasional new introductions we find in The Walking Dead, they seldom leave their mark.
The rest of “Live Bait” mainly stays in the confines of that apartment building, with the Governor sulking and pontificating on his life. He’s been humanised here, and will be heroic by the end – a brave yet irksome change in the main villain of the piece.
Nearly at the end of the episode the old man dies. As the virus reawakens the man-cum-walker, the Governor turns back to his vicious self, pummelling the head with an oxygen tank. By saving the ladies he then becomes the new male figure in their lives. It at one point looks as though he’ll leave them – what would seem more in keeping with his character – but he stays. They travel on from the apartment, looking for new sanctuary and food.
On the way the vehicle stalls and they have to walk. You finally sense some dread in the situation, especially when a large group of walkers emerge from a side-road. The idiotic little girl stands still as the three adults beckon her to come running. The Governor sweeps her up and it’s here where he changes completely – no longer a villain. Running away with her in his arms they fall into the pit we saw last season. Filled with several walkers, they are both very much in harm’s way. The “Walker Win” of the week comes spectacularly when the Governor fights them all off – ripping the throat out of one, punching one’s skull in and then, amazingly tearing the top-half of one’s head with a bone in its jaw and simply pulling upwards. Having watched the placidity of the most of the episode, this moment is brilliantly energetic and violent. It bolts you up in your seat.
The episode ends on the Governor comforting the girl (“I’ll never let anything happen to you”) who has become his surrogate daughter. Then Cesar wanders onto the scene, looming over the both of them from the top of the pit. “Holy shit” doesn’t only reflect Cesar’s shock at finding the Governor again, but maybe to see him holding onto the little girl, calming her and, above all, being nice.
Piers McCarthy – Follow me on Twitter.
Originally published November 24, 2013. Updated April 13, 2018.
