Tonight’s The Walking Dead season 4, episode 6 “Live Bait” was Governor-centric and reminded us of Rick during his emotional points.

Our Walking Dead recap breaks down the events of the episode.

We kicked things off with a flashback to the end of season 3, where the entire episode will be set. The Governor is an emotional mess after losing Woodbury and its people. In anger, he returns to his old town and burns it down. He then starts walking in no particular direction by himself (Johnny Cash’s “Wayfaring Stranger” plays in the background), and over weeks of time grows a beard and a neverending cloud of sadness.

Eventually collapsing on a road, he sees in the distance a young girl in a window. He enters the apartment building and finds a family who take him in.

The next morning the Governor is about to leave when one of the women asks him to go next door to get an oxygen tank for their dad who has stage 4 lung cancer and will die in days if he doesn’t get another one. The Governor obliges and is able to grab a couple.

Upon his return, one of the women patches him up because he had encountered a few zombies. She reveals that her daughter thought that he was her father when she first saw her on the street. That revelation is interesting because the Governor thought that he had seen his daughter in the window.

Governor (or Brian, as he said his name was to them) and the daughter get some one-on-one time where he opens up about how he lost his eye. “I’m a pirate,” he tells the little girl with a laugh. Then he gets serious and says he lost it trying to protect someone he loves.

Following a commercial break, the Governor has cleaned himself up (he’s now shaven) and chatty (he’s teaching the little girl about chess). In the back bedroom, the women are spending their final moments with their father, who’s now out of oxygen. Sure enough, moments later he reawakens as a zombie. The Governor takes an empty oxygen tank to his head to kill him for good.

Later that night, the Governor tries to leave when one of the women – the Maggie lookalike – says they’re going to come with him wherever he’s headed.

They head out, and one night as they’re sleeping in the back of the truck, sparks start to fly between the Gov and the lookalike. The next morning they can’t get their truck to start, so they head out on foot. They encounter a group of zombies on the street and have to head into the woods.

On the run, the Governor and Megan (the daughter) fall into a pit where a few zombies are living. He takes them out one by one with his bare hands, and after promising the girl that he’ll always protect her, Martinez shows up. The episode ends there.

Review

Tonight’s episode of The Walking Dead was solely focused on The Governor and moved pretty slowly but had a great story and message. Brian is clearly a changed man and has a new lease on life thanks to this new family that he can protect. The little girl is particularly intriguing to him because he gets a second chance at having a daughter. Megan feels the same way about him – he is a new father figure she can rely on.

What did you think of the episode?