The Walking Dead Recap: “Prey”

by Sarabeth Pollock:

The Walking Dead Recap: “Prey”
Original Air Date (AMC): Sunday March 17, 2013
Season 3 Episode 14

In case you were wondering, I didn’t get captured by the Governor and fed to Biters last week.  I was out of town and the hotel didn’t have AMC.  (Plenty of adult channels in Las Vegas, but no AMC.  Go figure.)  We can sum up last week’s episode by borrowing from Julius Caesar himself: Veni, vidi, vici.  Except in this case it was more like “they came, they saw, they talked, and they made agreements that neither side intended to keep.”  Andrea brought Rick and the Governor together to talk.  Rick brought an offer to draw a border between the prison and Woodbury, while the Governor was not prepared to give up anything.  Daryl and Hershel made nice with Milton and Martinez.  Glen and Maggie had sex while on watch duty back at the prison.  Crazy kids.  Merle challenged the Grimes Gang authority and ended up getting overruled.  In the end, the Governor said he was willing to wage peace in return for Michonne.  He gave Rick two days to think about it.  Rick knew there wasn’t really a deal on the table and told his people that they were going to war.  Back at Woodbury, the Governor continued to keep Andrea in the dark about his true intentions.

And that’s where we start this week.  Well, sort of.

We begin with a flashback of Michonne and Andrea camping in the woods during their time together.  Andrea wonders who her pets really are, and Michonne, in keeping with her tight-lipped ways, doesn’t give much away.  She notes that they weren’t human to begin with.  Hopefully we get to hear more about her pets later.  In the meantime, the Governor is preparing for Michonne’s return to Woodbury.  He’s preparing a torture chamber for her, complete with chains to keep her restrained.  Looks like someone is falling off the sanity bandwagon.

Milton sees Martinez loading weapons into trucks.  He wants to know what’s going on, but Martinez isn’t exactly forthcoming with the information.  The whole town is being dispatched to fight in the Governor’s war.  The Governor “wants options.”  Andrea appears and doesn’t understand what’s going on; after all, there was a deal on the table.  Milton puts her mind at ease by telling her that it’s just a show of force, and then he makes a hasty exit to find the Governor.  It doesn’t take him long to find him in a shadowy room.  The Governor is laying out various instruments of torture that look like something straight out of a BDSM medical/torture fetish scene.  After a few moments, the Governor notices that Milton had been watching him, and he calls out to his trusted friend. “You need something?” he asks nonchalantly.  Milton wants to know what he just saw in the room.  The Governor calls the room his workshop.  How does the workshop help Woodbury? Milton tries to reason with the part of the Governor that has a lingering concern for the well-being of the town.  But clearly that part of him is gone.  He’ll rest when he has Michonne.  If Milton ever believed that the Biters possessed a “spark” of life in them, then Michonne killed his daughter and the Governor won’t rest until he has had his revenge.

Outside, Milton tells Andrea that there is no deal, and the Governor is planning to massacre everyone at the prison after the Governor gets Michonne.  She doesn’t believe that Rick would ever hand Michonne over, but Milton points out that it doesn’t matter.  Nothing can stop the Governor.  He takes her to the workshop and shows her what he has planned.  Andrea decides that she must kill the Governor.  She watches with revulsion as the Governor whistles while he works, setting out a needle and thread before playing with a video camera.  The sick bastard plans to film everything.  After a few moments, Andrea takes out her gun and aims it at his head.  Milton stops her before she can pull the trigger.  They go back to her house, where Andrea demands to know how Milton can just stand by while this happens.  Milton explains that he knew Phillip before this all happened.  And even if Andrea kills him, then Martinez will take over and the cycle will continue.  No, Milton must stay in Woodbury.  She decides that she’ll have to go to the prison to warn everyone.

Looking dazed, Andrea makes her way through the town.  Martinez sees her and tells her that she has to surrender her weapon.  The Governor has ordered all weapons to be rounded up, and even though she asserts that she’s more useful armed, he doesn’t relent.  Once she has been stripped of her gun and ammo, the Governor walks up and apologizes for not warning her in advance.  She bats her eyes and plays coy, pretending to go along with his plan.  After all, she just wants to be helpful.  He smiles and tells her that he wants her to join them at the meeting with Rick the following day, just to make sure that things go as planned.  She agrees.

At the wall, Tyreese and Sasha keep watch.  Tyreese is using one of the approaching Biters for target practice; evidently, Sasha is a much better shot than he is.  He finally manages to shoot the Biter before he reaches the wall.  That’s when Andrea approaches, telling the brother-sister team that there is a herd approaching on the other side of town, and Martinez wants them to move over there.  Neither Sasha nor Tyreese falls for it, and they refuse to leave unless they hear about it from Martinez himself.  Eventually, Andrea breaks down and admits that she’s leaving Woodbury.  She gives them a few tidbits of information about the Governor’s insidious ways, and then she hops the fence and takes off.

Tyreese and Sasha go to the Governor and Martinez and report what happened.  The Governor twists Andrea’s story, saying that she’s in no condition to be out there alone, especially after spending the winter by herself.  Tyreese hopes that he hasn’t complicated things, given that she was once aligned with the prison gang, but the Governor insists that he isn’t upset (though you can see the wheels turning in his brain as he plots his next move).  Once he has gained their sympathy and ensured that they are loyal, he asks them to help Martinez while he goes out to look for her.

The Governor tells Milton that he’s going to look for Andrea himself.  Milton tells the Governor to drop it, that she’s just trying to be with her people.  The Governor puts two and two together and realizes that Milton must have talked with her.  He shoves the smaller man against the railing and demands to know whether or not he told Andrea about the deal with Michonne.  Milton doesn’t say anything…but he doesn’t need to.  The Governor puts it together and leaves abruptly.  Interestingly, he doesn’t hurt Milton, though he doesn’t hesitate to scare the living shit out of him.

Beyond the gates, Andrea sprints toward the prison.

Martinez tells Tyreese and his friends that they’re leaving in a few minutes.  Tyreese takes that time to talk to Ben and his son, telling them about Andrea.  Ben is convinced that Andrea was bad news, and he shouldn’t do anything to jeopardize their position in Woodbury.  Clearly, Tyreese is rethinking their situation, but Ben is trying to keep his son safe.  Martinez interrupts them and says it’s time to go.

Andrea hears a car approaching and runs off the road into some trees.  It’s Martinez and his crew.  While she stands against a tree, a Walker grabs her from behind.  As she is being restrained, more Walkers approach.  She manages to pull her knife out and stab the Walkers, and then she breaks the arm of the one holding her.  That’s what she gets for taking a break.  There are no breaks.  You have to keep moving.

The crew from Woodbury arrives at the field where three pillar-like turbines spin.  There is a pit filled with Biters, and the plan is to put them into the nearby horse trailers.  Tyreese is appalled at the idea that they’re going to send Biters into the prison.  There are women and children in there.  Such an act would be reprehensible.  Martinez doesn’t care.  He gets to work.  Tyreese wants out of this plan, but Ben doesn’t want to follow along with Tyreese and the two men get into a fight.  Martinez is unimpressed and he orders the group to be sent back to Woodbury.

Andrea is in the middle of a big field.  She hears a car passing by, so she drops to the ground.  The car drives by and she breathes a sigh of relief, but little does she know, the truck is actually coming for her.  It’s the Governor, and he’s chasing after her through the field in his four-wheel drive chariot.  His face is eerily passive as he guns the engine and honks the horn while she tries to run from him.  She manages to run into a thicket and he stops, watching her intently.  This is a man obsessed.  She makes it to an abandoned building, but he’s right behind her.  It’s dark inside, but there are enough rooms to make it a challenging cat and mouse game between them.  The broken glass signals where she is.  The Governor whistles again, just as he did in his workshop.  This tells us that he’s a sociopath who finds pleasure in these heinous acts.  Andrea takes out a Walker; the sound alerts him to her location.  He tells her that he wants to take her back home, to Woodbury.  That’s her home and that’s where she belongs.  When she doesn’t come out, he starts breaking windows with a shovel, sending broken glass down upon her as she hides.  She manages to find a hiding spot.  The Governor is about six feet away, whistling and dragging his shovel around, and just when it seems as though he has spotted her, he hears something.  It turns out to be a few Walkers, which he takes out with ease.  (If ever he was concerned about Penny’s soul, he certainly has no regard for the other Biters)

Eventually, the cat and mouse game comes to an end when she finds herself cornered in a room whose door leads to a stairwell full of Biters.  As the Governor approaches, telling her that it’s time to go home, she opens the door and steps inside.  He gets closer, and the herd of Biters pours through the doors.  He tries to fight them off while she makes her escape.

Out in the field, the trailer and pit full of Biters are doused with gasoline.  Matches are thrown and the Biters go up in flames.  A truck drives away from the scene as the fire burns in the field.

The next day, Andrea reaches the prison.  She spots Rick on watch duty in the guard tower and raises her arm to signal him.  Suddenly the Governor tackles her from behind.  Oh shit.  This isn’t good at all.  Rick sees movement in the bushes, but there are so many Walkers out and about that he dismisses it.

The Woodbury crew goes to the field and discovers that the Biters have been incinerated.  Of course, they’re Biters, so even the fire can’t kill them.  The pit is full of wriggling, blackened bodies.

Martinez is at the gate when the Governor returns.  He asks if the Governor found Andrea.  No, the Governor replies.  He keeps his car window rolled up halfway so that Martinez can’t see that she’s actually there in the car with him.  Martinez reports that the pit Biters have been burned up, and he suggests that it was Tyreese who did it.  The Governor want to see Tyreese and his group, and he also tells Martinez to find more Biters.

Sasha wants to know if the Governor found Andrea.  He tells her that he didn’t, and that he almost didn’t make it back alive himself.  He’ll keep looking for her tomorrow.  Tyreese tells the Governor that they don’t want to cause any trouble for him, but they can’t stand by while women and children are fed to Biters.  The Governor assures him that it’s just a scare tactic, that “people are more afraid of a Biter on a leash than a gun in their face.”  Well, if that’s the case, then why didn’t they just say that?  The Governor points out that they don’t discuss tactics with people they don’t know.  Tyreese assures the Governor that they want to be a part of Woodbury, and the Governor appears to be placated.  Before he leaves, he asks where they got the gasoline.  “Come again?” Tyreese asks.  The Governor pauses.  He knows that they didn’t do it.

Outside, the Governor runs into Milton.  Milton wants to know if he Andrea is still alive.  The Governor hopes so.  He’ll keep looking for her.  Then Milton says that what happened at the pits is a “shame”, but he doesn’t seem very upset about it.  He asks if the Governor knows who did it.  Yes, he does now, the Governor replies.  Milton’s gaze never wavers as the two men stare each other down. Looks like the Governor is questioning Milton’s loyalty.

Deep within a hidden room in the idyllic little town of Woodbury, Andrea is chained to Michonne’s would-be torture chair.  Bound and gagged, her eyes reveal the terror she feels as she sits waiting for what is to come.

Well, boys and girls, I certainly didn’t see that ending coming.  Isn’t it just Andrea’s dumb luck that as soon as she pulls her head out of her ass and decides to return to the prison crew, she ends up being on the receiving end of the Governor’s torture fetish.  How many opportunities did she have to kill the guy?  I bet she’s regretting sleeping with him now.

We only have two episodes left in the season…what do you think will happen next?  Please leave your comments below!

Sarabeth Pollock is a contributor for DarkMedia. She covers True Blood, Doctor Who, Fringe and American Horror Story, as well as the True Blood comics and whatever movies and books happen to catch her fancy.  She’s an avid writer, reader, and pop culture fan, with interest in everything from True Blood to Doctor Who to Anne Rice to Deborah Harkness.  Follow her on Twitter at @SarabethPollock and check out her blog at http://sarabethpollock.wordpress.com