On part four of The Walking Dead Special I go over season four and how its a drastic change from the pacing and storytelling of the first three seasons and I found out why! This and so much more on the latest special of The Rant with Me, David King.
Notes:
Intro:
Season four picks up some time later after the war with the Governor. From the opening scene we see there are many people all living under the roof of the prison.
There's a farm now, with crops and livestock and everyone seems to be thriving.
The title of the episode is “30 days without incident” and that's clearly the case here.
Everyone seems to be getting along fine.
And In fact the answer to our question after season two, will Rick become the Malevolent Tyrant when he finds his inner monster. His will to lead and survive.
The answer is no. He did not. And in fact it could be said he showed that hes not only a leader, from the last season but a great leader after this episode.
The reason I say that is because Rick willfully relinquishes his authority as a leader, and has the group form a council to make decisions.
The true sign of any good leader is one who is willing to step aside and let someone else take over. They don't cling to power or seek to gain more of it.
This is also indicative that the group has been without real problems for some time, they have established a sort of democracy within the prison. But that democracy will be tested very soon.
The first several episodes of season four deal with an unexpected virus that is going around the prison and causing people to die.
Its full blown panic mode, one that immediately pulls Rick out of retirement from being a leader. He has to step up and work with Herschel to make decisions on how to save the people from this infection.
I actually really like these first few episodes because it touches on something that most shows really wouldn’t. And its because most people don't think about this sort of thing happening.
The reality is now that there's no modern medicine, water treatment plants, soap, and other sanitary functions that we are used to. People would be getting rather sick and often in the later months and years in the apocalypse.
Add all this to being cramped in a dark, concrete prison with little to no ventilation, and people will start to spread their germs like wildfire.
Its the first time we really see the group realize they need medicine for things beyond cuts and bruises.
So Herschel starts a quarantined area to start treating the sick. It becomes very dangerous as people start to die in their cells and then change to walkers.
The group sets off to find meds at a local college and Herschel and Rick do all they can to stop the containment.
Eventually though the meds get there in time to save the important characters and after a close call with a large zombie outbreak in the quarantine all is getting better. Except that Carol killed a few of the people including Tyrese's girlfriend and burned their bodies in hope to stop the spread of the infection. That didn't work and all it did was send Tyrese into a rage and get Carol exiled from the prison.
Then suddenly as things are getting interesting in the prison and worked out we suddenly see a cut to a man standing in the woods watching prison. And who is such a man but none other than the governor himself. The devil has come back for his fill.
Then after that we are plagued with very slow and drawn out episodes of the Governor wandering around barely surviving looking like a homeless guy I saw in Atlanta one time… Only to find a family living in an apartment that he befriends.
Oh if only these ladies could see past the charm of this bearded hobo… they had no idea the let the devil in. But unfortunately in this world, everyone is so desperate for tomorrow they will let anyone in.. and these ladies do.
Eventually they all set off and end up running into a group that's led by one of the Governor's right hand men from Woodbury. It does not take very long for the Governor to kill this guy in order to take over as the group's leader.
Notice the difference in leadership between Rick and the Governor? In the first episode we see Rick has given up his power and refuses to take it back when asked to. The Governor, well he kills the man in charge and threatens his soldiers to obey or else…
And Thus Hitler has come back for a second time….
So the Governor also wastes absolutely no time in telling all these people they have to go and wage war on the Prison and take it for themselves. Everyone is against this idea for obvious reasons. None of these folks except for one guy is a soldier… none of them want to die in battle.
And frankly anyone with half a brain could pick apart the Governors argument on why they need to go after this prison. But the reality is this wasn't about keeping any one safe, this was a revenge tour, and a plan to create as much chaos as he could in the shortest amount of time.
If he wanted to keep anyone safe, he could have easily taken them back to woodbury and started over. Or any other number of places besides the prison.
And so that is what happens… but not before capturing Herschel and Michonne. The Governor planned to use them as pawns to get Rick to leave the prison. But I believe he knew that Rick and the group wouldn't leave. And intended to start the War over by getting back at Michonne.
So the Governor arrives at the Prison with a small army, oh and tank by the way. Because well… why not..
And so negotiations are attempted between Rick and the governor. Needless to say the Governor is losing his likeability with the people in his charge because Rick is literally saying “hey there's enough room for all of us we don't have to fight, you can come in and live” and the Governor wants nothing to do with that.
BECAUSE HE JUST WANTS TO KILL RICK AND DESTROY WHAT HE BUILT.
This is about revenge, and nothing more.
So when Rick says we get to come back from this and can move on… well that triggers the Governor and he kills Herschel.
Gunfire breaks open and the battle begins.
The two groups fight it out pretty hard, but eventually most of Rick's group escapes on a bus and others get out in other ways. The Governors group gets completely wiped out and from the looks of it there's no survivors.
The Governor and Rick fight it out but Michonne sends her Katana blade right through his chest.. But its his girlfriend that finishes him off.
A fitting scene, where the woman who accidentally let the devil in sends him back to hell where he belongs… Unfortunately we find out later she didn't make it out of the prison alive and become walker bait.
Now, all is pretty well and good up to this point of the season. We have had a lot go one in a very short amount of time. We had the outbreak in the prison, the reuniting of the governor and his story and then the battle for the prison.
The prison is wiped out and everything the group built is gone…
This spreads out the entire group all throughout the area. And that's where the show starts to go off the rail a little.
I love multiple plots, stories, and situations under one roof. I think it makes for a really complex show filled with lots of information and details. But this might be too much?
From here on out each episode is basically following each member or members of the group that's scattered and tells their story of basically how they eventually re-connect or make it to a place called terminus.
Ricks basically half dead and Carl hates him for losing the prison and Herschel's death.. But by the next day loves his dad again because well, its his dad after all.
Michonne eventually finds Rick and Carl..
Darell and Beth, Maggie's sister who really up to this point was never important and did not lend much to the story other than singing and setting the mood of a scene…. But the writers were smart enough to pair her with Darrell who is interesting and made more so when hes lost with an innocent and naive girl like Beth.
Well… somehow she gets kidnapped but who we don't know and then Darrel is picked up by a gang of marauders. Pretty rough dudes, but nothing Darrel cant handle.
Glenn is found still at the prison surrounded by the dead… He finds Tara, one of the girls that the Governor befriended. She's the only survivor from that group.
They set off the find Maggie. And in the process of it all run into three new characters. And BOY ARE THEY CHARACTERS.
I started to realize that this is where the show began to change. After the war in the prison, it was clear that the writing changed hands for this show. And Come to find out that was true, the original writer for the first two seasons was fired. For the life of me I can understand why, and from what I heard of the original cast, they didn't like it either.
For instance, Lori was never supposed to die… that was a change. Maybe because Sarah Wayne Callies, the actress who played Lori, was the one who kind of pushed back the most on that decision.. Needless to say she died on that hill (no pun intended).
Now don't get me wrong, I like Abraham hes a great character that brings some masculinity and comedy to the show. But make no mistake hes a character.
And what I mean by that is hes a bit over the top, and the same could be said about Ugene. Its like the writer said, I want a loyal soldier and a smart hillbilly. So they took all the attributes to them and overdramatized them to the extreme.
In other words they're over the top in terms of the character traits. This is the first time the show has ever brought someone into it where they don't come across as people you would meet any day of the week. These are not normal individuals or relatable in that case.
And Maybe that’s ok, maybe its nice to see something new and a bit over the top to bring a little spark into the show. Certainly in terms of characters and being over the top Ugene and Abraham wont come close to what the Walking dead throws our way in the near future… thats for sure!
But I can't help but dislike the entire idea of what Abrahama, Ugene, and Rosetta are doing. Apparently Ugene knows how all this started and needs to get to Washington DC to tell the authorities…
Does anyone realize how stupid that sounds? I mean I understand if its meant to sound stupid and we are meant to realize that's probably not true. But we aren't. Because Ugene tells Glenn and Maggie this and even they believe him.
ITs not like he actually tells them… he just said it's classified and can't say.. REALLY!?
Did Glenn have a moment of austimers and forget that he was at the CDC and they literally said they don't know where it came from OH AND COMMUNICATIONS WITH EVERYONE IS GONE! Meaning hey, there's no officials anymore in DC…
No he doesn't mention that…. Guess he forgot about the moment he was almost fried to death by a depressed CDC doctor…
But here are, everyone believing this crap and the story plugging forward.
As all of the group wanders around they see signs for “Terminus” a safe haven for all.
Eventually everyone links up there only to find it aint a safe place… and they all get locked into a train car.
What will happen? How will the escape? Who will die? How will Ugene ever get to Washington DC?...
Guess we will find out in Season five!
All in all season four was not bad, I enjoyed the first half the most but really disliked the second half. Everyone was just wandering around trying to find each other.
The show often focused heavily on characters that were not interesting enough to carry the show. Or maybe just dragged on a little too much. But that's being nit picky because it wasn't all too bad. We did get to see Rick a chunk out of a dude's jugular with his teeth… that was pretty epic.
And by the way, you want to be Rick in the apocalypse… at least for now. This is a guy who has it finally worked out, can do what it takes without falling into the pit of despair and becoming evil.
However I will say the later half of this show may be foreshadowing of bad writing, and characters to come…
Wrap it up.
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The Walking Dead Theme Song
created By Bear McCreary