Rick’s group is settling in pretty nicely at the prison, but could this be their home for the long haul? We make our predictions on how long we think the prison will remain a safe haven for the survivors on The Walking Dead. Potential spoilers ahead.
Imagine traveling for months, struggling to survive in a zombie apocalypse, when you stumble upon a seemingly abandoned prison. What could be a more perfect place for setting up camp for a while, or perhaps permanently?
Besides clearing out a few dozen walkers, Rick’s group on The Walking Dead was able to take the prison relatively easily. With the exception of Hershel’s partial leg amputation and some trouble from a couple of the prisoners they found still stuck in the prison (which unfortunately caused the losses of T-Dog and Lori), Rick’s followers seem to have finally found comfort.
How long will that last?
The threat of the Governor and his forces in Woodbury is now at the forefront of Rick’s consciousness, and since staging a rescue mission to retrieve Glenn and Maggie, the Governor is now aware of the threat Rick’s group poses to his tyranny. Could the Governor’s forces push the survivors out of the prison?
In Robert Kirkman’s original Walking Dead comics, the Governor comes to the prison with an army to overtake the prison and kill Rick and his group. However, this happened after Michonne had completely maimed the Governor (and we were honestly surprised that he survived her attack), and after a man named Martinez pretended to join Rick, but was actually working as a spy for the Governor.
Since Maggie has revealed to the Governor that they were staying in a prison, the Governor knows exactly where they are. He just doesn’t know what kind of force he’s up against.
Currently, the Governor has Daryl in his clutches, and it seems like he’ll be pitting the Dixon brothers against each other. Up until now, Merle has acted as the Governor’s right hand (pun intended) man, so why has he all of a sudden turned on his loyal servant?
We think that the Governor is going to use Merle as a mole (whether Merle is conscious of it or not) to scope out the prison. According to the previews for the second half of The Walking Dead season 3, Merle and Daryl are seen running through the woods, and we hear Glenn ask, “What is he doing here?”
Our guess is that the “he” to whom he is referring is Merle.
Maybe we’re wrong about Merle, and maybe he’s just been misunderstood, but even with his desire to save his baby brother, we think he still is going to find a way to lead the Governor to Woodbury.
Or perhaps that job will fall to Andrea.
In the most recent promo we’ve seen for the upcoming episodes of The Walking Dead, Andrea is seen venturing to the prison, and her emotions seem to be conflicted when it comes to the Governor. Could she be the one who leads the Governor to the prison? If she does, we think it will be inadvertent. We have high hopes that Andrea will start to see how purely evil he is.
Regardless of how the Governor arrives, we think that Rick and his band of survivors won’t be at the prison beyond season 3. In the comics, the Governor’s story arc ends with the prison’s arc, and we foresee a similar situation happening on the show.
Our predictions:
The Governor will attack the prison, during the battle he will be killed, and the folks at the prison will be forced out and suffer a few fatalities. Though Hershel and Tyreese are both killed by the Governor in the comic version of the prison battle (which comes in a couple of phases), we’re hoping they’ll survive the AMC version.
We don’t really want to begin to guess who’s going to be a casualty of the eventual attack from the Governor.