The Walking Dead Episode Review: Don't Look Back

WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!

The most exciting episode in a long time. Since it was a mid-season finale (more episodes coming in February), of course at least one major character gets killed, in this case poor Herschel. Herschel wore a serene smile as he met Rick's eyes for the last time, then it got ugly quickly as the Governor cut his throat with Michonne's katana, then pursued the dying man as he crawled across the grass and hacked his head off, precipitating the final battle for control of the prison. It's probable that, if anyone were to return to the prison after this battle, they'd find poor Herschel's head zombified. The firefight for the prison reminded me of old 1980's A-Team episodes, with lots of shooting but not enough fire discipline to hit anything. It was all spray-and-pray, with a few wounds here and there; Bob, Tyreese and Rick are all wounded by gunshot.

The Governor and Rick engage in a brutal fistfight, with the Governor getting the best of it, finally wrapping his hands around Rick's neck and choking him, at which point Michonne, having escaped earlier, stabs the Governor from behind with her katana, which she apparently retrieved. Her stabbing of the Governor very much resembled Aeris Gainsborough's death at the hands of Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII. The governor, dying, is finally killed by his female lover (can't recall her name offhand), whose daughter he had left behind supposedly in safety, but who had been killed by a walker.

Most of the prison gang escaped in a schoolbus, including Glenn, too weak from his bout with the zombie flu to take part in the battle. Maggie runs off to look for Herschel's daughter and thus misses the bus, but escapes after the last of the Governor's people are killed; Daryl Dixon, Tyreese, Rick and Carl are also left behind to find their way out of the now-walker-infested prison to rendezvous with the bus. Rick's baby daughter doesn't make it, having been devoured by a walker. Thankfully we are spared watching that particular death, if death it was.