The Walking Dead-Season 4, Episode 6: The Governor Rises

He's baaack, and had a whole episode all to himself. Philip aka the Governor aka Brian Hariot has been out on the road since we last saw him. His two go to guys have abandon him after the slaughter of the Woodburians. So he bums around the zombie world until he finds a group of survivors. I think the whole one man on the road thing was cool, but I would have personally liked to see him a bit more scared from being out there by himself. I wanted to see how terrifying the landscape is when you don't have a group, or at least a partner to watch your back. Instead, we got to see him burn down his town which was cool, but the rest was pretty much just him being all emo. I would have liked to see the guy running for his life, narrowly escaping packs of walkers or something.

He eventually finds a group of survivors held up in an apartment building. Fans of the book "Rise of the Governor" is going to love this episode. While it doesn't dive as deeply into the psyche of Philip as the novel did it was still cool seeing apart of that story brought to life here. I liked that the writers chose to take a break from the Prisoners and give the Gov his own episode. It really broadens the world and gives us time to really get to know him. Part of the problem I had with this character last season was that he was kind of all over he place as a character, it felt like the writers didn't want to go all out with the character like Kirkman did in his books did, but they didn't do anything too interesting with him. However in "Live Bait", they introduce these women that he has to now take care of which gives a fresh take on the character.

I'm liking what they are doing with his relationship with the two women and especially the little girl. With his daughter dead, the girl gives him a new sense of purpose, and will probably inspire him to turn over a new leaf. While this episode didn't blow me away, it did intrigue me, and I'm curious as to what leads up to him showing up at the prison.

After brutally killing the re-animated father of the women with the very thing that was supposed to save his live, they take off. While on the road, Phil hooks up with the one sister who's not gay, makes a promise to protect, and watch over the little one, but not after a totally bad ass zombie fight scene! After a heard chases the survivors into the woods, Phil runs off with the kid, and tumbles into a walker burning pit with a couple of ghoules inside. When talking about this show I've often complained that the Gov wasn't as hardcore as he was in the graphic novel, but seeing the guy rip a zombies throat out then kill it with mo'fuckin femur bone now that's metal! Just when he saves the day, my boy Martinez shows up!

So I did enjoy this episode dedicated to the Gov, it looks like next weeks episode will be centered around him as well, and I'm not complaining. This episode has regained for me some interest in the Governer again & I wanna see how the things are gonna play out now that Martinez is in the mix with the survivors we met this episode. After all he is aware of all the twisted stuff the guy did. Like I said I wasn't blown away with the episode, I think there were some moments that lagged a bit, and I think they could have done a bit more with the episode considering its source material. So overall I'm giving "Live Bait" a 7 out of 10.

Written by Isaiah Mueller