For all the criticism that has been leveled against The Walking Dead’s slow-moving episodes, the show’s mid-season and season finales consistently contain some of the most memorable moments that contemporary TV has to offer. Season four unfolded like a lit fuse leading to a pile of dynamite—and that’s not a bad thing. Sure, that little flicker of a flame is taking forever to get to that pile of explosives, but when it does, it’s spectacular, visceral, and not without collateral damage. It’s the slow burn leading up to a grand finale that makes this show special. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of anticipation, as long as the payoff is worth the wait.

This episode (and its respective spoilers) is worth the wait.

“We Stay Here, We’ll Die.”

Springboarding off of the exposition that season four offered our characters, we begin with the Governor rallying his new troops. They are, understandably, a bit hesitant until the Governor works his silver tongue and gets them whipped up into a frenzy. By convincing his new pals that Rick and Co. is composed of brutal savages, they put aside their doubts and fall in line. 

At this moment, it’s difficult to understand why people decide to follow a man into a potentially hazardous—both physically and morally—situation. In the end, the people give in because the Governor is offering them hope—a commodity that is in extremely short supply during a zombie apocalypse. That’s how he put Woodbury together, and that’s how he convinces a bunch of people he barely knows to go into battle for him. 

Hostages don’t hurt either. Hershel and Michonne have fallen into the Governor’s hands, and he plans to use them as bargaining chips in an attempt to oust Rick and his party from the security of their prison. 

Despite the fact that the Governor basically staged a one-man coup with his current group’s former leadership, there’s still a part of me that wants to believe him when he says that nobody has to die in this sticky situation. In the end, if he’s able to cultivate a small seed of hope despite brutally murdering two guys during last week’s episode, I can buy that he is charismatic enough to turn a group of generally decent people into a death squad.

“You’ve Got a Tank. You Don’t Need Hostages.”

When the Governor and his crew roll up to the prison’s front door with a small army—complete with a tank—Rick  marches down to meet him. The last few episodes have drawn several parallels between Rick and the Governor. The two men were destined to be leaders, and, if not for a few vastly different decisions along the way, they could have been drinking buddies.  At this moment, when Rick stands up to the Governor despite the fact that he’s seriously outgunned, we see both men lay their cards out on the table. After some deliberation, Rick suggests that both groups put aside their, er, differences and find a way to share the prison. The Governor, however, wants none of that and demonstrates his rejection of Rick’s offer by putting Michonne’s katana to Hershel’s neck. 

At this point, I emitted an audible gasp. If Hershel bites it…that would just suck.

Hershel bites it. It sucked. The Governor chops his head off in front of God and his whole family. Remember when Dale died? This was way worse.  I mean, Hershel? Really? During Talking Dead, Robert Kirkman claimed that, since Hershel was such an important and loved character throughout his tenure on the show, his death had to be as memorable as possible. It makes a sick kind of sense, but I suppose if he was going to die anyway, this was the way to it. If he was done in by a stray bullet or an errant zombie, that would have cheapened his death somewhat.

RIP, Hershel. You were the one-legged, surrogate father that I never had.

The ensuing battle is a bloody one that leaves the prison virtually uninhabitable. The tank drives over the fence and starts blowing holes in the structure, which alludes to the fact that the Governor may have been motivated purely by revenge, instead of a desire to make sure his new family was safe. Speaking of his new family, let’s discuss what they were up to while their friends were off blowing shit up.

As Lily watches a walker get carried off by the current of a huge river, Megan is digging up a large, metal sign that warns of flash floods. In one of the most terrifying zombie attacks of the season, the removal of said sign frees up a walker who has been buried for who knows how long. Its rotten, mud-caked arms reach up for Megan, and Lily arrives just in time to see the mud zombie take a fatal bite out of her daughter. The irony of the situation is a bit heavy-handed, and again alludes to the Governor’s true intentions. Despite the tragedy of Megan’s death, it also served as a green light for someone to drop the Governor’s sorry ass. 

While the two factions are busy perforating one another, Rick and the Governor have thrown out their guns in favor of an old fashioned pub fight, as Chris Hardwick put it. As soon as the Governor gains the upper hand, the blade of Michonne’s katana rips through his chest. When the conflict dies down, Lily approaches and puts a bullet in the Governor’s head to finish the job. 

During the last few moments of the episode, Rick searches frantically for Carl—but all that remains of Judith is a car seat soaked in blood. In a scene that reminded me of the painful moment of Lori’s death, Rick and Carl buckle with the realization that after surviving a brutal conflict together, they have lost more than they should have to bear.

Prison Battle Scorecard

There were a few moments during the prison battle that are worthy of mention—the scene was explosive and violent, and it showcased the fact that Rick’s group is populated by folks who can think on their toes. Here are a few of my favorite moments:

• Daryl: Okay, Daryl has the market cornered on being the group’s badass with a heart of gold, but he goes above and beyond during the prison battle. As he’s holding off an onslaught of interlopers, a separate onslaught of zombies approaches from behind.  Admittedly, I feared for Daryl’s life, but what did he do? He impaled one of the undead on a spear, used it as a meat shield while shooting his way through some Governor minions, and dropped a grenade down the tank’s barrel. After blowing up a tank and crossbowing the Governor’s most annoying lackey, Daryl gets the MVP award for this particular battle.
• Lizzie and Mika: Even though Carol has been exiled, her wisdom and survival spirit had an influence on these two little girls. Instead of running off and hiding, they arm themselves and save Tyreese’s ass from getting pinned down. Yes, it’s unsettling to see these two young kids thrust into a violent battle so early in their lives, but it’s a testament to Carol’s advice: they need to be strong in order to survive.
• Carl:He’s becoming more capable as the show goes on. After resisting the impulse to plug the Governor right from the get-go, he holds his own against the undead that have breached the prison. The moment when he is reunited with Rick only to break down when they can’t find little Judith is gut-wrenchingly awesome—Chandler Riggs really brings it to this episode.

Verdict:

There were two things that I was grateful to see resolved during this episode. First, I was glad that the prison battle began and ended tonight. Waiting two months to see the resolution of this conflict would have made me irritable as hell. Second, I was glad that they brought the Governor down. He’s a great villain, and I thought the decision to dedicate two whole episodes entirely to him was ballsy, but I’m glad the dude is out of the picture. Keeping him around for any longer than they did would have felt like they were just prolonging his existence for the event that they needed material for some future episode.

I noticed glimmers of familiarity between this episode and the finale of season three—both pretty much end with a big fight over the prison—but the fact that this episode also left their home in ruins opened the second half up to all kinds of terrible realities, which is why I love the show in the first place.

I have a love/hate relationship with these mid-season breaks. I hate the fact that my Sunday nights won’t be populated by complex characters battling the undead along with crumbling senses of morality; but I love the fact that I have two months to theorize and speculate about what tragedies that could possibly be inflicted upon them. 

It’s been real, season 4. We’ll see you in February.

PHOTO: Gene Page/AMC