Sam Talks of the Dead: Chapter 8

Here it is the last STotD in compendium 1! In my opinion the TV series is headed to a similar ending in the next part of season 3, but only time will tell!

At the beginning of the chapter we see the Governor’s body guards discovering his body and trying to find someone to care for him. We see him bandaged up and explaining his plan to one of the guards. He tells him how Martinez went with Rick and Michonne and Glenn so that he could return to Woodbury at some point and tell him where the prison is located. It’s been a week since Michonne cut him to pieces, and there are no signs that he won’t make it through recovery.

The Governor has a town meeting after he recovers a bit. He tells the people of Woodbury about the outsiders and what they did to him. He demonizes Rick and the others, and makes everyone believe that they are in great danger if they will not try to eradicate them. He removes all of his zombie daughter’s teeth so he can kiss her…gross. Him and some of his men then travel out to the National Guard station, but on the way they find the evidence of the others having been there. That evidence of course being the bodies of some of the Governor’s men in the nearby department store. They follow the tracks left by the others in order to find the prison and keep an eye on things at the prison gate for a few days. They take what ammunition they can from the guard station, including the tank, and prepare to search for the prison.

The group is of course caught off guard by the attack, though Andrea makes it to one of the guard towers with a rifle. Rick tells Lori to hide out in one of the rooms in the prison, in the hopes that she and Carl can wait out the worst of the fight and survive even if he doesn’t. Thankfully there are enough zombies outside the gate for the Governor to shoot through that it isn’t easy work. Any of their vehicles would be overtaken by zombies if they got too close without thinning them out first. Andrea also causes a problem with her fantastic shooting skills and takes out a handful of the governor’s men before he knows where the bullets are coming from. Andrea gets grazed by a bullet and stops shooting, which the Governor realizes that if they keep up their current rate of firing they’ll run out of bullets before they make it into the prison.

After considering his options, the Governor decides to just continue shooting. Axel also gets hit by a bullet at this point, and thankfully Andrea regains her composure and continues shooting at the oncoming Woodbury fleet. Glenn gets to the other guard tower and starts to take out some more of the Governor’s men. They take down so many of them that the Governor orders them to fall back to Woodbury. During the moment of calm, they get Andrea into the infirmary and realize that Rick has been shot. Alice gets the bullet out, but he needs a blood transfusion. Thankfully Patricia is O negative so he gets the blood he needs.

Michonne continually tries to get everyone to allow her to sneak out of the prison to attack Woodbury. She feels that she could do some real damage and doesn’t seem to care too much about the high probability that she will die in the process. Her and Tyrese put on some of the hazard suits and head out into the field to surprise the Woodbury troops. After they leave, Dale tries to convince a handful of people to leave with him in the RV. He thinks that if he can just get them away from the prison, the Woodbury folks won’t care about killing them and will just be happy to take the prison for their own use. In the end, Andrea, Dale, Sophia, Allen’s twin boys, and Maggie & Glenn leave in the RV.

Tyrese and Michonne reach Woodbury and start killing of the troops guarding the outer wall. Somehow Tyrese gets captured and one of the guard tells the Governor that he killed Michonne and stole her sword. He does have her sword with him, but the Governor seems less than convinced that she is actually dead.

At the prison Rick puts together some supplies in a truck that can hold everyone left at the prison. They plan to escape together, and leave the prison behind them. Everyone prepares for the return of the Woodbury forces in their own way, and Rick spends some quality time with Judy. Billy’s on the lookout for any sign of Woodbury troops and yells when he sees some trucks driving on to field. They stop and get out of their cars, revealing that they have Tyrese in their custody. They threaten to kill him if they will not open the prison gates. Everyone inside the prison does nothing, and so they all witness The Governor behead Tyrese with Michonne’s sword.

The Governor drives back to the rest of his men to plan their final invasion of the prison. As he makes a speech about how they must take the prison now and not allow it to be ruled over by such villainous people any longer, Michonne appears and points a gun at his head. In the struggle that ensues the Governor gets grazed by a bullet and Michonne manages to escape. Rick shares the news of Tyrese’s death with the rest of the gang in the prison, and Lori yells at him for allowing such a thing to happen.

The Woodbury troops return, ready to make one final attempt to overtake the prison and kill everyone living there. Rick tries to make Lori and Carl ready for the escape attempt, but Carl seems nervous about it. Axel gets shot in the head, then Billy starts throwing their grenades out on the Governor. As the Governor yells at a guard about having to return fire immediately, he watches the guard take a bullet to the head and die. Turns out, Dale and Andrea returned with the RV and she is now picking off more of the Woodbury troops. A car drives into the side of the RV and knocks Andrea down. The Governor then decides to abandon any hope of utilizing the prison and drives the tank through the gates.

Rick runs into the prison and finds Lori, Carl, and Judy and tells them to prepare to run and escape the prison. All of those inside the prison begin to make their way to the truck. Patricia gets shot in the head, as Billy tries to get her to move faster. Billy is the next one to fall victim to a Woodbury bullet. As Rick gets his family to make a run for it, with Carl leading the way, Lori and Judy fall to the same bullet. The Governor then kills Herschel himself. The woman responsible for shooting Lori is shocked by what she has done and blames the Governor for telling her to shoot the woman and her baby. She had no idea the woman was holding a child and tries to kill the Governor. The troops are distracted by a group of zombies, and after killing a few of them, she puts a bullet in the Governor’s head and lets the rest of the zombies have their way with him.

Rick and Carl make it a fair distance from the prison, through they never got into the truck they had prepared. In the end it is just the two of them left alone at the top of the ridge on the outskirts of the prison grounds. Only then does Carl realize that he has just seen his mother and baby sister for the last time.

The following pages contain a short story about Morgan and Duane, the man Rick finds shortly after waking up in the hospital and his son. It’s just a cute story about Morgan finding some toys for Duane to try to keep him happy in the end times. Nothing like the Morgan and Duane depicted in the TV show.

So that’s the end of the prison saga, and the end of compendium 1. In a way I’m happy that there will be no more prison drama and I hope that the thinning out of the cast will lead to less soap opera-ness and more action and thought provoking survivalist tactics. There is still a lack of the scientific angle to the comic, that the TV show was sure to invoke in the first 6 episodes. The faith angle was present with Herschel, though still not as much as in the TV show. I would not be surprised if things became much darker from here on in, as Rick just lost his wife. One of the few things (arguably) that was keeping him attached to his moral center. I was somewhat surprised that both Lori and Judy died at the same time. I didn’t expect Judy to survive for very long anyway, but I was surprised that they were both killed off in the same moment.

I’m thrilled that all the Woodbury nonsense is done and over with. The Governor is a disgusting man, and I am so happy he is dead. I can only assume that there will be new characters coming in at the start of the next compendium. It will be incredibly interesting to see what happens with Rick and Carl as they face the world alone.

Thanks for reading! Hope you come back for compendium 2 soon!

-SM

Check out my video review of Brian K. Vaughan’s Saga Chapter 7! –> http://www.thatruled.com/saga7/