The Walking Dead: Season 3 Finale

"In this world, you kill or you die.  Or you die and you kill."

These are the words that The Governor (David Morrissey) leaves Milton (Dallas Roberts) with after stabbing him repeatedly and locking him away with the bound Andrea (Laurie Holden) and leaving them both for the zombie plague to take effect.  Though having boiled over since Michonne (Danai Gurira) took both The Governor's eye and the reanimated life of his daughter, this black and white mantra always dictated the actions of the leader of Woodbury—it's why he slaughtered a platoon of army soldiers, it's why he spoke peace out of the side of his mouth to Rick (Andrew Lincoln) in exchange for Michonne, and it's why, after leaving Milton for dead, he and his DIY soldiers storm the prison looking to eliminate Rick and co. off the face of the post-apocalyptic earth.

Keep these words in mind as "Welcome to the Tombs" unfolds.  Not only will these words give voice to the thread that will thematically tie the episode together, but by simultaneously foreshadowing grave encounters to come, these words will also spawn the only emotional moment worth remembering in a season finale that could not live up to the promise of an excellent premiere. 

God bless Ernest Dickerson. Wisely choosing to bookend the season with the same director, departing showrunner Glen Mazzara showed some smarts in bringing back the director whose storied past as a cinematographer shines through in how he's able to imbue emotion and urgency with how he places and moves his camera.  Combined with a piano score courtesy of Bear McCreary, the opening sequence of the gang packing up to seemingly depart is gentle, somber, and lingers almost nostalgically, implying that the debate between stay or go has been settled in favor of the latter. Not long after, Dickerson shatters the short-lived calm with the invasion of The Governor and his forces, shot and edited with a kineticism that would imply doom if Rick and the others had chosen to stay. They hadn't, of course, a decision that seems to baffle The Governor as he and his forces gradually make their way through a moodily lit, yet very empty prison. 

April Fools’—Rick and the gang are home after all and have lured The Governor's forces into a trap sprung with smoke grenades and walkers deep in the bowels of the prison. The Governor's forces, made up primarily of Woodbury volunteers likely using guns for the first time, retreat into the open of the prison yard only to be assaulted by the fully armed and newly affianced Glenn (Steven Yeun) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan). Despite The Governor's commands to regroup, the vast majority of his "soldiers" flee, leaving the psychopath no choice but to turn tail as well. 

Forced to view the skirmish from afar, Carl (Chandler Riggs) intercepts a fleeing young man who makes motions to surrender and hand over his gun. Before he can completely yield, Carl guns him down. "He drew on us," Carl will later justify to everyone. "He murdered that boy," Hershel (Scott Wilson) will later contradict to Rick. 

And while far more surprising, Carl's cold-blooded murder is not the only one this episode has in store. After forcing the trucks carrying his cowardly cohorts to the side of the road, The Governor opens fire on the innocents, killing everyone except for one Woodbury resident who was fortunate enough for a corpse to fall on top of her. Lack of the infinite ammo code saves her from the precautionary bullet to the head and she survives so that she can later found by Rick, Daryl, and Michonne and give voice to the horror of The Governor's actions that the script insufficiently conveys. The Governor's slaughter is supposed to come off as shocking—clear line crossing of a mentally unwell man—but because this point has been hammered home exhaustedly since Michonne Cyclops’d him, the not-so-friendly fire is reduced to Diminishing Returns 101, more par for the course than anything shocking or game-changing. After that, The Governor drives off and, I don't know, builds a birdhouse? Despite having promised a satisfying climax for an entire season, The Walking Dead writers apparently binge watched AMC's other disappointment, The Killing, and figured that a series-long tease was the right way to go.

But while the present Governor disappears unsatisfactorily, Mazzara at least gives us a fascinating look at a mini-Governor in the making. Carl has matured greatly this season, disagreeing with his father a few times and once even going so far as to suggest that he step down from his position of leadership. When explaining why he killed a defenseless boy, Carl justified it by pointing out the deaths his father failed to prevent: the zombie that killed Dale (Jeffrey DeMunn), Andrew (Markice Moore) indirectly killing Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies), The Governor killing Merle (Michael Rooker). "I did what I had to do," Carl says, implying that so far, Rick has largely failed. 

Indeed, even after Rick returns from Woodbury with citizens in tow, Carl marches off furiously. This is not something that the group has to do, but after seeing the extremes of what "has to be done" in Morgan (Lennie James), Rick has decided that there's more to surviving the world than "has to." 

In the end, the problem with "Welcome to the Tombs" is not that it's a bad episode, but that it's only a good episode. There's no rule that says season finales have to be explosive and wrap everything up neatly, but this season had made so many promises about a satisfying climax between The Governor and Rick that to have the former ride off into the sunset feels like a cheat, especially considering that near the end he had become to feel like a collection of tired villain clichés. 

It's fine to end in uncertainty—seasons one and two both did it—but those seasons at least closed the chapter on one period in the group's lives and opened up another. "Welcome to the Tombs" does indeed feel like there is more to come, but it feels like that because it's just like every other episode since the midseason break that has spun its wheels and generally meandered toward something unknowable.  There didn't need to be hand-to-hand combat, but for a season finale, it needed something to stand apart from everything that had come before, and that was nowhere to be found.

Oh, and Andrea died, but does anyone really care?