'The Walking Dead' Recap: 'Live Bait'

Courtesy AMC
BY DENISE PURVIS

My, my, my. The Governor looks sad on this episode, but don’t let that fool you. You know that there’s an evil psycho lurking underneath the surface. Unlike our pals at the prison, he has not located a good barber in the area. He’s in desperate need of a trim.

As he’s lurking around an abandoned city, he sees a girl in a window. The Governor being the Governor goes up to the apartment and finds two women and a girl. One of the women, Tara, is a real hard-ass, but she doesn’t understand that she’s dealing with a Grade-A maniac.

Tara’s sister, Lilly, is a little nicer and gives him some of their food, but you know old Brian, err, the Governor. He hurls it out the window. He doesn’t want to eat their slop when he can feast on what appears to be sardines. It turns out that there’s a decrepit old man in there with the women, but he doesn’t look like he’s of much use. I’m glad they explain why they have so much food and supplies. Decrepit Daddy drove a food truck that they are sourcing their food from, ANNNNNNDDDD, they also scavenged a bunch of oxygen for the old man.

I can already tell, 16 minutes in, that this episode is going to be on the slow side. They’re trying to reestablish the Governor as a character but in the slowest way possible. Maybe I’m a little crazy, but I prefer to see his psycho side.

The Governor goes and gets a game board for the little girl and puts a walker that’s lying haplessly in a bathtub out of its misery. He pulls out a photo of his wife and Penny and folds down the portion with his image. He instructs Lilly on how to properly kill zombies. I’m not sure how they haven’t figured it out by now. Old girl is pretty ballsy and asks him to go get some oxygen from the old folk’s home for her father that’s dying of cancer. Surprisingly, he goes to get it. “Hey, you know, there’s this place like two blocks away and all, and I know we have this zombie problem, but no big deal.” Okay, that wasn’t the conversation, but it should have been.

As I figured, there’s some gory old folks rotting away in their beds and wheelchairs. As we learned last season, they can’t do much damage without teeth, so maybe all of their dentures fell out. I wouldn’t think that elderly zombies would be much trouble, but I guess I failed to consider the orderlies. It looked pretty gnarly in there. Is he going through the same guilt that affected Rick? Nahhhh, that man is a stone-cold psycho, and I doubt he’s had a change of heart.

I’m just waiting for him to hate-bang Lilly like he did Andrea. Maybe he’s being sensitive because the little girl, Megan, reminds him of Penny. She asks him what happened to his eye. “Well, you see, I had all these zombie heads in an aquarium, and well...shit happens.” I guess saying you’re a pirate is better than telling the truth. No one wants to sympathize with a zombie hoarding maniac. You see, he’s just misunderstood!

As he plays chess with Megan, he gives Lilly some lascivious glares. I just know there has to be a hate-bang in the works. But I don’t know if that would make me any less bored with this episode at this point. Character development, blah blah. Give me more zombies!

Well, the old man kicks the bucket, but the Governor('s alter-ego) is around to bash his brains in with the oxygen tube that he risked his life for. Of course, old "Brian" does his good deeds and says peace out. I think I might have had a petit-mal seizure at some point because I don’t remember seeing him cut his gnarly hair or beard, but there he is, all clean shaven and creepy. I liked it better when he looked like he had freshly Escaped from LA.

Oh, Tara wasn’t a cop after all. Good thing no one really believed it before. In fact, I don’t even think I typed it.

I knew there would come a time for him to hate-bang someone. Glad I called it. Their car kicks the bucket, but the Governor tells them that they will find another one. About that time, a bunch of walkers come out of the wood-work, literally. Tara somehow falls and hurts her ankle. They all end up hauling ass but leave Megan dragging her rolilng suitcase. WHY DOES SHE HAVE A ROLLING SUITCASE? Finally, he acts like he’s the only one with sense and grabs Megan up. As he’s running with Megan, they fall into a pit with three walkers. He kills them with his bare hands. Way to go, dude. I knew you had it in you. I think he’s using her as Penny’s replacement.

About that time, one of his goons appears at the top of the pit. Well, well.

Smaller Bites:
-I am ITCHING to see what Daryl is going to say about Carol’s disappearance. Why are you going to keep me hanging so?
-I thought this episode was slow, but ehhh, I guess occasionally you need a new story line. I mean, Rick already booted Carol.
-It looks like there’s going to be a LOT more of the Governor and his new “family” in the coming episodes.
-WHAT IS RICK DOING? HOW IS GLENN? GAHHHHH!


The next episode of "The Walking Dead," "Dead Weight" airs next Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on AMC.