This episode, and season, were a big departure from the comics. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, and I never expected the series to follow the comics faithfully, but now it certainly looks like at least part of -- if not all -- of next season is going to revolve around the prison (again) instead of having the story move forward. it's a disappointment. This.
Hopefully, they'll tie up the Woodbury story arc in the first few episodes of S4 and move on to another one. The one good about next season is that there's a new show runner, who appears to be a strong writer (or better than Glenn Mazzara) so maybe he can make it as entertaining as S1 and S2. At this point, the governor is really no longer a threat. It's only him and 2 henchmen, who have to be questioning his sanity at this point. Also, although it didn't show it, Rick and company had to have raided Woodbury's armory and food supply when they took on the stragglers, so other then what he's got with him, there's really no people or weapons left for him to fight with.
I expect a massive zombie herd in the first few minutes of season 4 that eliminates 90 % of the Woodbury survivors, and forces the main crew to leave the prison.
Yeah, maybe Mazzara was the problem with this season. It just didn't seem to have the same oomph as the first two. I don't know if he's really not a threat anymore. He's got weapons. He's got a couple of seasoned fighters (eve if they do believe he's crazy as a shithouse rat). He's pissed off even more because he lost. He's coming back, in some way, shape or form, in Season 4 to try to exact his revenge. Not a bad thought at all. The siren going off. The bangs outside. The big assed hole in the wall. And it would cut down on the number of extras needed for the new season. Yeah, I can see that.
Yeah, the Woodbury folks add a weird dynamic to the group and doesn't really fit in with how the story evolves, so I agree with you that something will happen to them in a way that they're not an issue. Either they get killed like you say or maybe they go back to Woodbury with Tyrese as their new leader?? I didn't mean to imply he was no longer a threat, just not as much of one now because of the numbers he lost. And, I'm just speculating about the raid on Woodbury's armory. That's just what I would have done, but for all I know, he had most of his arsenal with him when raiding the prison. It would be even more of a disappointment then the anti-climatic season ender if he were to just fade into 'bolivian' instead of exacting some type of revenge. What was even more disappointing about last night's episode is that they didn't even give us a teaser preview of S4. I realize they probably haven't started filming it yet and it may not even be written, but they had to know ahead of time that people wouldn't like how S3 ended, so they could've given us a little insight into S4.
Carl is going Shane. Mazarra used to write for The Shield so, it wasn't him, it's the network trying to get as many people watching as possible. The show has turned to crap.
I'm hoping the new writer can get us something good, and Carl is definitely going the Shane/Governor route. I think we will see his redemption, and as long as John Connor is there to save them I have hope that humanity will survive the termin... I mean zombie threat.
I just wanted to add that I was glad the season ended on a bit of an uptick. No one I cared about died, and we saw a bit of humanity in the taking in of the Woodbury people.
Agree with the above comments that Woodbury is a dead end, story wise--it's all played out. The writers would do well to get rid of them because, even after more than a year of a zombie apocalypse, these people seem to be pure sheeple. The last scene of them coming off the trailer into the prison even shows them moving along like cattle. They are mouths to feed. Period. Fine, I know that society has to have a base of humanity. But this show does not need them. TWD needs to get back to its Season One/Two tempo: a core group of hardened, tempered people, moving out from the prison confines to some new, more pleasant, place to live, while they fight their way to that objective. Hey, they are in Georgia, right? So, head them over to Amelia Island or some other nice place--with arable land--and let's get the party started. Woodbury was a waste of a third season. An ISLAND is a uniquely defensible piece of geography. Or do Zombies now pilot water craft?
