Walking Dead: Welcome to the Tombs

And so it ends.

Well, the season ends anyway. This is the moment we have been leading up to – the big final showdown between Rick and the Governor. It’s all been preparing us for this moment of absolute war between the prison and Woodbury. We’re finally going to get to see some real, hardcore action-

Or maybe not.

The episode certainly starts out pretty intensely. The governor has turned on poor Milton and has brought him to his little torture room where he has been keeping Andrea. They used to be friends in the real world and even after the Governor took over Woodbury but now? It doesn’t matter any more. Milton tries to appeal to him and ask what his daughter would think but that was the last thing he probably should have said. He understandably got himself shanked and left for dead in the same room where Andrea is tied up defenselessly in a chair. Watching Milton slowly bleed out. Yeahhhhh.

Once he’s done with his little play things the Governor decides it’s time to go after the prison. He lies about what happened with Merle and claims that the whole prison abushed them and continues to make them afraid of Rick and his people. They go off ready to assault the prison – which earlier we had seen several of the survivors seemingly preparing to abandon. They break through the fences, get into the building, and find nothing. At least at first. There is a little fire fight where the prison survivors send them packing and everyone seems pretty happy.

Herschel, his youngest daughter, the baby, and Carl had gone out into the woods to hide while the assault went on. They just happened to be found by a scared Woodbury kid who had run away from the fight. He was trying to surrender when Carl shot him in the head point blank in front of Herschel and his daughter. He later tells Rick he couldn’t take the chance with leaving him alive. So. Carl’s heading off the deep end. At least he’s failing to be able to understand human attachments and what not. I mean. We saw that coming.

Tired of waiting for the Governor to come after them, Rick’s group decides to go after Woodbury and end things once and for all. But on the way they come across a harrowing scene. Earlier on the road after failing to take the prison the Woodbury folks were retreating when the Governor – in a fit of rage – mowed them down. All of them. There were only three survivors – two of his lackeys and one woman who hid under the dead body of one of her friends. They rescued her from a truck where she hid from the zombified Woodbury fighters and then continue on to Woodbury.

Tyreese and his sister had stayed behind in town to watch over the kids and old people. They refused to go after the prison and after a tense moment the Governor let them stay. It was just the two of them and once the girl explained things to Tyreese he opened the gates for them.

Unfortunately, they showed up too late to save Andrea. She had tried really hard to survive. Milton had even helped her. He dropped a pair of pliers purposely near her feet where she was tied up when he was being tortured and then shanked. They have a really emotional series of scenes where he’s dying and she’s trying to get him to hold on. I guess Milton really did stand up and do something to make people proud. Unfortunately no one will know about it now. Because Andrea was the only one who knew how bad ass Milton had become and he’s done. She manages to get the pliers in her hand but just as she manages to clip herself free zombie Milton gets her and… yeah. Rick and the others find her locked away in the torture room bleeding out. She shoots herself instead of having one of them do it.

Then Rick and the others take the Woodbury remnants back to the prison with them. Which just pisses Carl off.

I suspect we’re going to see a lot of pissy, borderline-psycho Carl in the future.

Also, you know, hopefully the Governor. I was a bit disappointed in the way this season ended. I think we were all looking for something of a bang, right? Am I the only one? Instead the Governor breaks and then… runs off. Seriously. His two lackeys get in the truck with him and they drive off somewhere together.

I don’t know what I was expecting but I don’t think it was this. The whole season sort of seemed to foreshadow a real show down and resolution. I guess we’ll have to wait even longer for that now.

On the plus side, we did get to see the first television spot for the Last of Us!