Episode Title: “Live Bait”
Writer: Nichole Beattie
Director: Michael Uppendahl
Previously on “The Walking Dead”:
“Live Bait” is probably going to be one of the more divisive episodes of “The Walking Dead” this season, and not just because Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) and the rest of the prison survivors were nowhere to be seen.
Instead, the focus fell squarely on the Governor (David Morrissey), last season’s big bad who was last seen watching the prison from outside at the conclusion of “Internment.” Rather than presenting the Governor as an insane villain bent on revenge, “Live Bait” actually turns the Governor into the protagonist of his own story and the episode seems to actively invite the audience to sympathize with him even though the opening sequence takes us back in time to the third season finale where he murdered several of his own followers in a fit of rage.
Looking back, it seems obvious now that Shupert (Travis Love) and Martinez (Jose Pablo Cantillo) would abandon the Governor shortly after that massacre. He had nothing to offer them at that point and Martinez doesn’t even hide the disgust on his face after he killed a walker that was crawling towards the spaced out Governor.
I’m already reading complaints online about this episode because the Governor was portrayed in a heroic light. Is that really what people believe is happening here? Yes, the Governor does some truly selfless things in this episode, but if you think he’s suddenly on the side of the angels then you haven’t been paying attention. We already know where this is going. The Governor will be standing outside of that prison and it’s pretty unlikely that he’s just dropping by to make amends.
We’re not watching the birth of a hero. This is the story of how the Governor will rise again into someone who can legitimately threaten the survivors at the prison.
There are full spoilers ahead for “Live Bait,” so if you missed last night’s episode of “The Walking Dead” then you should probably skip this review or else Megan will give the King another eye patch.
It seems that the Governor has come to hate himself almost as much as the audience does. The man who was Philip Blake abandons his own name in favor of an alias, “Brian Herriot” and he talks about his time as the Governor as if it was somebody else who screwed up everything in Woodbury. Incidentally, I loved the shot of the Governor facing the camera as Woodbury burned behind him.
The Governor’s disdain for himself is so deep that he can’t even look at a picture of himself posing with his dead wife and daughter. If the zombie apocalypse had never happened, the Governor never would have become a person who would kill just to maintain his small kingdom at the end of the world.
After really letting himself go, the Governor stumbles upon a family living in a largely abandoned town: sisters Lily (Audrey Marie Anderson) and Tara (Alanna Masterson), their father David (Danny Vinson) and Lily’s daughter, Megan (Meyrick Murphy). Despite their initial weariness towards the Governor, Lily and Megan soon warm up to him and he becomes the defacto protector of the family almost against his wishes. In fact, when Lily tells the Governor that he no longer has a choice in the matter, he throws down his bag in frustration. It may have upset him, but this is everything that he wanted. A new daughter and a new lover. If they seem tailor made for the Governor then that’s probably how and why they were conceived by the creative team.
We’ve seen the mysterious lone wolf gunslinger befriend a family so many times that it’s become very common and very cliched. But it usually works because the audience wants to see the Clint Eastwood type achieve some measure of happiness. Unlike those nebulous heroes, we know all about the Governor. He’s not a mystery to the viewers. All of his sins are intimately known to us, so the only real surprise comes when it becomes clear that the Governor had no hidden agenda with the family. He really was being selfless.
If the character at the heart of this story had been almost anyone but the Governor, I think the audience would have been more inclined to get behind him. But the Governor has far too much baggage for the audience to simply accept his change at face value. The Governor hasn’t even truly revealed himself to his new surrogate family. The one time they catch a glimpse of his true self is when he puts down the newly turned David in a particularly brutal way… and in full view of Lily, Tara and Megan.
That was probably the Governor’s best chance to slip away quietly, but instead he stays around long enough to bury David and to get roped into keeping the women by his side as he went back out into the world. Although it sure seemed like Lily and Tara should have simply stayed holed up with Megan in that apartment complex. They may come to regret that choice.
Morrissey has such an innate sense of charisma that this episode works almost solely on the strength of his performance. Admittedly, some of the tense moments in the episode came from the knowledge that the Governor could snap at any time. But the Governor’s initial rapport with Megan seemed natural and his concern for her wellbeing was not an act. The Governor dispatched a few zombies with his bare hands just to protect Megan near the end of the episode, And props to the zombie effects team for some really memorable walker deaths there.
I wasn’t as convinced by Lily’s romantic interest in the Governor, but I suppose I can still see it happening. It’s not as if there are a lot of romantic options at the end of the world. That’s kind of how Glenn and Maggie got together. Speaking of which, Anderson had an odd resemblance to Lauren Cohan which I would have assumed to be intentional if the Governor had flashed back to the time that he terrorized Maggie.
If the Governor and his newfound surrogate family had simply found a safe place to live then it’s doubtful that he’d ever be returning to the prison. And while Lily and Tara are missing at the conclusion, the Governor and Megan run into Martinez, the same man who abandoned the Governor at the start of the episode. And that’s where the story leaves us as we go into next week’s episode; which will apparently stay with the Governor for at least another hour.
I’m a little annoyed by that, but I’m willing to withhold judgment until I see how this all plays out next week. The Governor is who he is. A few good deeds in this episode isn’t going to change that. Nor will the audience forgive him for what he has done. He’s still the villain of this story and I am curious to see how he builds himself up once again.
