The Walking Dead (Season 3) – “Welcome To The Tombs”

For a season finale, “Welcome to the Tombs” was a little underwhelming. I know a lot of people’s first reaction was “that was huge” or “amazing episode,” but was it… really? Were we watching the same season? ‘Cause this isn’t the finale my season had been building to.

Probably should mention now that there are SPOILERS ahead.

The episode was not without incident, however, there was no follow through, except for maybe where Andrea was concerned. And what happened to Andrea seemed to come out of left field. It certainly would have been nice to see her return to the tribe. But like most events in the finale were handled, it all seemed so patchwork.

For example, the Governor and his crew attack the prison. They retreat when faced with resistance. The Governor cuts off the retreat and opens fire on his own people. The Governor disappears for the rest of the episode.

Another example: Michonne expresses her understanding to Rick of the options he had to consider. She then thanked him for taking her in as a tribe member. That’s it. No cause. No reason. No ending. Simply pointless, and out of character. We would have gotten the gist that she understood had we simply seen her fighting alongside the tribe.

Continuing with examples, Daryl says to Carol that his brother never did anything like that before (referring to the last episode, “This Sorrowful Life,” in which Merle leads a mini horde of walkers to ambush the Governor). Carol says something equally pointless and that’s it. It would have been much more satisfying to see Daryl flare up and go on a killing rampage.

I think you get the point; things were done or said simply to address them and to close the door on them. Other things were just rushed.

I think what we all wanted to see was a full-scale battle with some tension between the Governor, Rick, Daryl, and Michonne. We wanted to see Tyreese flip sides at a crucial juncture. But the actual battle was non-existent, excluding the initial storm on the prison yard.

And from the moment the Woodbury soldiers stepped down from their vehicles it was painfully obvious that it was a trap (even if we saw the tribe packing up in an earlier scene). What kind of moron leads his men into a building full of lockable cells? I honestly didn’t expect them to reach the “tombs” before the trap was set.

The trap was basically setting of the prison alarm system, creating a panic, and shooting the Woodbury “elite” as they rushed out of the prison. However, did anyone see other tribe members on the attack other than Maggie and Glenn? Where was everyone else? Are we really supposed to believe that our two lovebirds fought off such a heavily armed unit?

There are so many holes in that sequence; it’s ridiculous.

Carl’s character got some brief development, furthering what we learned in the “Clear” episode – that he’s capable of killing a man. This time it was in cold blood, more or less. When Rick confronts him about it, Carl presents a pretty sound argument based in cause and effect. And what Carl did (and thinks) is the exact enactment of what the Governor said to Milton in the opening scene of the episode: “kill or you die.” There’s a certain truth to that in the post-apocalyptic world of The Walking Dead, but there’s also still humanity, as Rick showed when he brought back the Woodbury refugees. Whether he did that out of sincerity or as an example to his son remains to be seen.

So where has this finale left us? The Governor is missing. The tribe has refugees to contend with. Woodbury has turned on the Governor. Carl needs some readjustment. And we still have the tribe intact (Merle and Andrea weren’t really a part of the tribe, so I’m not counting them as losses). The prison still belongs to the tribe. The tribe has lots of weapons. There aren’t many walkers to contend with. All seems pretty good, and nothing like the cliff hangers we had in Seasons 1 and 2.

Boring, but still gonna watch Season 4.

Rock Hard \m/