The Walking Dead 4 x 5-6 | Full-Length Reaction
Added 2025-10-07 23:29:39 +0000 UTC
Comments
I am so late to the party this week, but I have a lot to say as always. I love Hershel so much. Just the idea that every single life means the world to him gives him such a strong moral backbone to lean on when he's struggling. It's also his kryptonite, though, as we've seen. When those lives he values are lost, he takes it so much harder than others. He also puts himself at risk to keep others safe and happy to an unreasonable degree, which leaves him in close-call situations often. You brought up Shane, and it made me recall his disdain for Hershel. He would have cut him off like a weed, either killing him or letting him die. Because Rick showed that compassion for Hershel, Sasha and Glenn, and so many others were saved by him down the line. Everyone matters, and everyone has a job to do. No one is worthless, and that is part of what the show teaches us. The relief I feel every time I watch Daryl's group return in episode 5, such a great feeling seeing them and the sun again after so much darkness through the episode. You are so valid in your reaction to seeing the Governor again. I remember the lot of us yelling together in the living room when he showed up on our screen. A very special Governor episode, or so we called episodes focusing on one character in particular, separated from the rest of the main group. I can't even lie, it feels so good to see the Governor falling on the ground and eating cat food. The writers really knew what they were doing, knew we needed to see him get some kind of punishment. His one and only good point as a character, besides being damn near unkillable, is that he does seem to genuinely have a soft spot for little girls. I'm fully confident he would never hurt a living girl on purpose. That's good writing for you, though, when the villains have some good points and the heroes have some flaws; nothing is black and white. Still hate him, but fell in love with Tara's family. The dad putting all of himself into protecting his family, even with Stage 4 cancer; his love for his daughters reminds me of Hershel. Tara still being so young but having the maturity to understand things so fast; we know how long it has taken others to understand before. Lilly being so strong and intelligent and keeping her family sane. And Meghan being just the sweetest little girl with all the curiosity, and still able to be a kid so far into the apocalypse. Crazy to see a family so isolated so long after the outbreak began. They didn't know about how to kill walkers, how you become one, or how bad it really is outside. They are a huge contrast to our main group, but not far off from where Rick was when he woke up from his coma. I like the difference between The Governor putting down a zombie that failed to opt out and Bob's moment with that. Bob killed the walker out of compassion for the human it once was; the Governor killed the walker in the tub to grab his gun. I've been mentioning Bob every video, it feels like, but the writing for his character and the way he is portrayed are just sooo juicy. Just one of those seemingly meaningless characters that carries a lot of weight, he's like the continuation of the series showing us how manhood can be represented in so many ways. He and Tyreese were perfect additions to continue that conversation. The scene in the nursing home reminds me of the game Outlast. When people come back as walkers, their bodies seem to remain in the state they were in at death until they either begin to decompose or get injured by an outside source. So that old lady in the wheelchair probably wasn't paralyzed. Many wheelchair users are ambulatory wheelchair users, which means they use them to manage pain, manage balance issues, to conserve energy, or for mobility, because, though they can move their legs, they can't walk long distances. Even for paralyzed people, it's actually pretty uncommon to be 100% paralyzed. Out of around 1.1 million people with paraplegia (paralysis that affects the legs), only about 20% have a complete loss of movement and sensation. Lots of people assume all wheelchair users have to be paralyzed and then start shit with people who are disabled cause they "saw them faking it" when they see them stand, but they were using a wheelchair, mobility scooter, or handicap spot or stall. My dad is disabled, but only sometimes feels he needs a cane, so people have given him crap for making use of those amenities designed for people like him because "[he] can walk, so it can't be that bad." Sorry, I went on an unrelated rant, haha. The Governor burning down Woodbury and then burning the photo of his family seems to be symbolic of him trying to leave his past self behind and move on to become a different person. Beautiful symbolism, but teenage me was not buying any of it my first watch. I was just antsy for them to get back to the present because whatever happened in the flashback, bro was still staring down the prison menacingly in the previous episode, and I wasn't having any of that redemption shit after what he did. My family kept poking fun at me by saying he's gonna be the new Rick and become the main character. 😭
MegMegMegg
2025-10-11 07:42:50 +0000 UTCI mean, the one benefit to the show is that Robert Kirkman was always involved, at least for the first bunch of seasons. He oversaw all the modifications from the comic book, so nobody who was a fan of the comics could get too mad since he was right there.
Eboe Thrasher
2025-10-10 17:56:58 +0000 UTCSo I looked it up: in our actual timeline, it's day 524 since the first day of the outbreak. In the Governor flashback, when he gets to the sisters, it's unknown, but it is known that the day the Governor wakes up and sees that the other two dudes have abandoned him and then sets fire to Woodbury is day 314. So maybe it's day 400 or around there when he meets the sisters? Also they didn't know anything about walkers because they said they'd been holed up there the entire time, they didn't even know you had to shoot them in the brain. As an aside, I have to be honest and say it kind of bothers me that anyone could be willing to forgive Shane after he tried to rape Lori, and be willing to forgive The Governor after what he did to Maggie, among killing a dozen+ innocent people. I mean with Shane he killed one dude horribly and that was too much- there's literally nothing The Governor could do to earn any forgiveness. The willingness to forgive men who try to sexually hurt women... not to mention what he wanted to do to Michonne. Him doing something nice for these girls isn't even about them, it's about him and his ego and how he wants to see himself. He's a true narcissist.
First Name Ella
2025-10-10 09:15:42 +0000 UTCThe show writing off Dale because the actor was loyal to the first showrunner is atrocious and makes me so angry to THIS DAY. So many characters got bad arcs or written off due to political bullshit outside of the show, like what I said happened to Laurie Holden. Luckily the asshole that ran season 2 got fired and then the asshole that ran season 3 got fired. I think we would have gotten a better and more well-rounded show had Glen (the original showrunner, the guy who brought the damn show to life to begin with) had stuck around.
First Name Ella
2025-10-10 08:39:19 +0000 UTCEpi 5 Sheer chaos is what this episode should have been titled...so much chaos that I was stressed out watching it even though I already knew the outcome from watching it when it first aired. It tore me seeing Hershel break down sobbing, but I know it was a needed emotional release from all the stress. And he is simply exhausted as all the sickness reached its peak, showing all of his attempts to keep the quarantine under control, the sick people alive, and prevent anyone who succumbs from reanimating.....even with a bit of spaghetti levity...in all this chaos, Hershel keeps his sense of humor. He did his best, he is a hero. As you say, he is always considering others state of mind. Agree with you Frank, Hershel is the Terminator with a shotgun!! After Rick giving Carl a very short crash course on how to reload an assault rifle, Carl begins getting headshots left and right, and smoothly reloads the rifle on his first try much to his father's surprise.Like Father, like Son when Rick realizes that Carl is just as good a shot as he is - and then some. I liked how the final scene of episode 5 closely mirrors the opening scene of the season 4 premiere, with Rick coming out of the prison to tend to the garden. And yet, with all the chaos that went on due to people being sick and walkers crashing parts of the fence....the last thing we need is the closing shot revealing the Governor standing out of sight beyond the prison fences. UGH!!!
KimM
2025-10-08 16:47:05 +0000 UTC"How much can you take?!" is pretty much the premise of the show lol
melskmelsk
2025-10-08 14:35:27 +0000 UTCThe way I see it, the Governor’s worldview was just destroyed, and he started out the episode filled with despair and self-pity because of that. Before Woodbury went to shit, he thought he was invincible. He was convinced that he was just the leader of an upstanding community, and he was always justifying everything he did as necessary to keep the town going because they needed him. He thought he was the only one who could “make the hard choices”. He thought he was meant to be the one and that he deserved to be the one. But he was just an unhinged tyrant. That’s what he became in the face of the apocalypse because his overblown ego and self-centeredness were probably already the dominant parts of his personality. I love that the show decided to explore all of that. They weren’t satisfied just saying that he’s a villain for villain’s sake. Yet another demonstration of the endless ways people react to the end of the world. I can’t say for sure if he ended the episode willing to take ownership of all the bad things he did but at least he gave the family compassion and protection.
Ellen Noir
2025-10-08 03:17:47 +0000 UTCIf you’ve ever been so depressed that it was difficult to speak, that’s the vibe I get from Philip in his episode. It’s the kind of despair that drains you of the will to put shoes on, brush teeth, and hardest of all to feign interest in a conversation.
Susan B
2025-10-08 03:03:07 +0000 UTCEverybody needs a Herschel during the saddest times.
Susan B
2025-10-08 00:15:33 +0000 UTCThe prison flu here reminds me of a book I read about the WWI “Spanish flu.” It was most serious in young adults, not kids or elderly. Newspapers were trying not to hinder the war effort by acknowledging an epidemic, so there were pages and pages of obits in cities like Chicago that cited “heart attack” or even “natural causes.” It was only called the Spanish Flu because a Spanish newspaper was the first to report on it.
Susan B
2025-10-08 00:14:30 +0000 UTC
