The Walking Dead: Review: Season 3 Ep 13

AMC, 10 March 2013

Rick and The Governor meet face-to-face for a summit to solve their problems…

This episode has been criticised in some quarters for being “too talky”, yet this is exactly the kind of character-based drama that The Walking Dead should be presenting. Yeah, zombie kills are great, and there are a couple of zingers here as Daryl and Martinez bond during a zombie slaying excursion, but it is the characters, their dilemmas and their choices that keep us coming back episode after episode.

The long awaited confrontation between The Governor and Rick was electric, even if Rick seemed to be on the backfoot too often, regularly giving the floor to the manipulative Governor. From a sob story about his wife through to his absolute (seeming) reasonableness on almost everything else, The Governor traps Rick into feeling sympathy for him, while all the while having a gun taped up under the table just in case. With Michonne having been redeemed in Rick’s eyes just last episode, it was inevitable she’d be the scalp The Governor would demand as the price of peace (she took his eye out, remember?), while Rick knows that handing her over won’t solve anything.

Meanwhile, outside not only are Daryl and Martinez getting to know each other through their zombie slaying oneupmanship, but the more intellectually inclined Milton and Herschel are also finding common ground. These are both great conversations, exploring character and motivation, and they are just as riveting as any amount of action sequences—and that’s just how it should be.

As for poor Andrea, having set up the summit she doesn’t seem to know which way to jump when everyone leaves. Heart (or some other organ) rules her head as she sticks with the Devil she knows in the shape of The Governor, although in her exchange with Herschel she seems to recognise she is in danger of being excluded from both camps…

By the time he’s back at the prison, Rick is talking up the threat from The Governor and hoping Herschel can act as his conscience and change his mind… Nothing doing on that front, so it looks like all out war between the camps for the final three episodes of this season, and in that no-one wins but the zombies.

Verdict: It might be mostly talk, but this is fascinating stuff and just as exciting as any number of mindless zombie attacks…

Episode 13 ‘Arrow on the Doorpost’: 9/10

Brian J. Robb