Season 3 Episode 16 - Welcome to the Tombs (SPOILERS)

FlyingIrishMan

I've heard that Mazzara was fired because of this finale. Kirkman didn't agree with it or something like that.

PhiloCypher

Overall a disappointing end to a season that had gotten off to a flier in the first half dozen episodes , while the episode was not without its moments it singularly failed to give us the epic confrontation we were meant to be building towards. The attack on the prison for instance, while I liked idea to lure them into the tombs then use zombies on them at a base level, I just wish the plan had been more innovative and involved then simply driving them out into the yard and shooting the ground at their feet A-team style until they ran away( i was thinking more along the lines of what Morgan did) . I actually laughed when Karen told the Governor they weren't going back because it was a massacre , I was like really ??? I don't think I saw a Zombie bite nor Glen or Maggie hit one person.

Another one of those moment/missed opportunities was the Milton Andrea scene, again it was a good idea but I felt it was a little too drawn out and was time that could have been better spent on the prison attack with characters who you know we actually like somewhat. There were a couple of things that annoyed me about the scene a) could Milton not have crawled over to her and handed her the pliers b)if she hadn't kept bloody stopping every 2 minutes to check if he was alive she would have freed herself in plenty of time c) infact to my mind she was free in time, both hands were free when he lurched towards before she could get up out of the seat all she had to do was was to get her feet inbetween them and push him off before stabbing him in the head with the pliers.

No justice for Merle ?? seriously , you have the governor kill off his brother in the previous episode and don't even have a face to face encounter between Daryl and the Governor in this one , in fact you let him off scott free.

Why bring all the woodites back to live in a dark dank zombie infested ****hole when woodbury's defences are fine and the living conditions are infinitely better . It makes no sense whatsoever and it completely the wrong direction for the series to go when they should have ideally been going back on the road with a leaner cast allowing neglected characters to get more sceentime. Its like AMC signed a 2 year lease on prison and are legally bound to see it out regardless of logic

I did enjoy the scene between Rick and Carl the latter of which made some pretty salient points about his failing to kill that zombie that killed dale and Rick failing to kill the Governor when he had the chance at the expense of Merle, but putting Lori's death on Rick because he didn't make sure Andrew was dead (even tho he had every reason too) is a bit of a stretch imo.

IvySlayer

Does Woodbury even exist anymore? They took the kids/other people and I assume they robbed all the supplies. Who's left with the Governor? Martinez and that other dude.

expectationlost

did anyone see anyone be killed in the attack?

Lone Stone

expectationlost wrote: »

did anyone see anyone be killed in the attack?

no one even got wounded with a bullet .. i really wish this episode went down like the comic. Such a let down

El Guapo!

Seriously disappointing season finale.
I can't really add much to whats already been said in this thread though.
We were leading up to what should've been a fantastic episode, but it turned out to be a total let down.
Why didn't they move into Woodbury instead of heading back to the prison??
It can't be for fear of the Governor because he's practically on his own now.

As others have said in this thread, I just can't buy into Carls character at all. I know he's supposed to be a badass in the comics but it doesn't work in the show. It's just not believable. He just comes across as a moody, irritating little twerp and with Andrea gone now, my hatred is shifting towards him.

I'm a huge fan of this show and at the end of seasons 1 & 2, I was left gagging for more and was counting the days till it started back up again. But not this time. I'll definitely continue to watch it for as long as it runs but I'm just not as excited about it as I used to be.

FlyingIrishMan wrote: »

I've heard that Mazzara was fired because of this finale. Kirkman didn't agree with it or something like that.

Yep. Here's a link to the story.

Jason Todd

expectationlost

expectationlost wrote: »

did anyone see anyone be killed in the attack?

It was like something from the A-Team. Lots of shooting and spectacle but nobody actually getting hurt. I half expected one of the jeeps to flip over in slow motion. And the funny thing is one of the people described it as a 'slaughter' when the governor stopped them down the road.

Where did the governor go? Even if he planned to leave Woodbury surely he would go back to get some supplies and personal effects. He just drives off randomly with his two mates... Very lazy writing.

Also Starring LeVar Burton

They killed Andrea, so I'm happy...

expectationlost

Jason Todd wrote: »

laurie-andrea: our spirits connected that day

milton in hilar! zombe make-up, it was out funnest day

god laurie holden has stick up her butt trying to justify her acting in a zombie tv show

expectationlost

i get the point they were trying to make, it just seems a big chunk was cut out of the middle of this ep

SicklySweet

I cried.



Because i wasted 45 minutes watching it. It was just so disappointing. I really don't like the Governor storyline anyway, but there must have been more they could have done with that episode.


And i hope Carl gets killed off. Kid gets on my tits. Can't stand him.

Kirby

Kirby wrote: »

For a split second I thought they may actually kill her off. Fans don't like her, shock value, she has seemed pretty annoyed in recent conventions and interviews. It made sense.

Called it. I posted that after "Prey" where she is running from the Governor.

I knew I wasn't imagining things. Her body language has seemed.....off whenever I've seen her talk about the show. And now we know why. Her character has been killed off and she knows people will be happy about it. :P

steveLFC24

I agree with the general consensus...it was a good episode, but not a good season finale episode. It just seemed too rushed, almost as if they didn't have time to fit a massive battle into it. Leaves a lot of unanswered questions, which I guess is what a season finale is supposed to do, but they weren't the kind of unanswered questions that we would have been hoping for.

I'm not really THAT disappointed though, this season has been a 100 times better than season 2 and for that I commend them. Just hope they take it up another notch next season.

JP Liz V1

Bad finale to a pretty decent season couldnt care less about Andrea dying

CastorTroy

Strange thing about the last few episodes is that it seems to be different to the rest of the season, as if they attempted to do what they want to do the whole season: Show the Governor as a bad guy, make Michonne more likeable by talking more and having Andrea realise the Governor is bad.

I'm sure all those Woodbury residents will be like the passengers from Lost. People you've never seen before will suddenly appear out of nowhere, supposedly from Woodbury. But since the people from Woodbury probably weren't cast for long term purposes they have to be recast.

Thought the Governor had every able bodied man/woman/child with him. So they saying Merle killed 8 last week and the Governor killed all but Karen and his 2 guys this week?

Oscorp

As a finale that was so underwhelming.

Turtyturd

Agree with what others have said...not a terrible episode but a terrible finale. As with others I wanted closure to the governor storyline and some questions for series 4. I would have rathered they had to leave the prison....and I thought this was being foreshadowed with the governor knowing about the hole in the wall...and the amount of walkers heading towards the prison when Merle is heading to hand over Michone. I would have liked to have seen the group split up by having to leave the prison in a rush...and would have liked to have seen the comic arcc with

Rick injured and Carl looking after him

as a stand alone episode.

I get they may have wanted a hopeful ending as the first two series ended fairly downbeat but they could have had a glimmer of hope with some of thecharacters reuniting at Herschel's farm.

tvnutz

jaysus that was shocking! so so bad! I think everyone has pretty much mentioned all the reasons why. Seriously, if someone got fired for that finale, then it was justified!

Only good thing is Andrea was killed off but even still that was done so badly. She and others have managed to kill zombies so easily this season, she had her hands free and a pliers in one hand yet couldn't kill Milton without being bit? I might have believed that in season 1,but not this season where the zombies have been so easily desposed of. I actually screamed at the tv to tell her to cop the **** on and stop talking to Milton but rather free herself as she had about an hour to do so. My mother came into the room wondering who I was shouting at. It was that irritating.

Duggy747

You imagine my disappointment when they brought Woodsbury people back to the prison, Carl asks Rick a question, the audio suddenly skipped to gunfire while the picture keeps going as normal.

"Oh shìt, something just went down"

I pause it, realise there's little time left in the episode so I assume something really major just happened and I go to get another source to see what it was.

A really good cliffhanger? Did the governor sneak back / have a card up his sleeve and start shooting at people? Something really bad had to have happened......

No, just a really bland, lifeless and anti-climatic ending leaving me with:

"That's it, that's how the season ends!?!"

A muck episode to an otherwise decent season with too many things annoying me:

• Andrea smiling at Milton instead of getting herself free, for fùck sake. Did nobody in the crew or writing team think how daft this was given the impending and inevitable danger that was at hand? An awful way to get rid of her character.
• Merle's death might as well have never happened, a piss-weak reaction to it dealt with minimal dialogue.
• The prison "attack" was a joke, it really was. Glenn might as well have been pointing his fingers at them going "RATATATATATATA". Sick of him and his moany face, too.
• The governor, who was a major part of this season, just vanished..........AWOL..........*poof*..........leaving us without a trace of where he went to except the notion of how dastardly and cartoonish he's gotten.
• They went back to a prison with compromised barriers instead of Woodsbury that had it's tall barriers still standing and untouched. I think I'm more bothered that we'll have another season of that place, it's served it's function and they need to get the characters out of there.

FlyingIrishMan

Duggy747 wrote: »

You imagine my disappointment when they brought Woodsbury people back to the prison, Carl asks Rick a question, the audio suddenly skipped to gunfire while the picture keeps going as normal.

That happened to me too, but I left the audio going long enough to make out that it was from the part where Rick's group went to Woodbury and I saw there was a few minutes left and knew nothing was gonna go down..

Tinie

Terrible ending to the finale. No cliffhanger or nothing. So, just more of the same next season, with the guv'na trying to take over the prison then is it? yawn

NufcNavan

Is it just me or did the series go to sh*t after the mid season break, barring possibly the 3rd and 2nd last episodes.

The mid season finale was much more compelling than the finale ending outright.

Tinie

yeah...

Propane Nightmare

This would have been such a better ending I think...

The Governor and his two men pull up to a roadblock and begin investigating what appears to be booby traps. Suddenly two shots ring out taking out Martinez and Shupert.
The Governor looks up to see Morgan standing on the top of the building right before the third shot fires into his skull. Screen goes black on impact.

Roll credits.

Or perhaps end it as a cliff hanger, by not showing who fired the 3 shots killing the governor and his 2 goons, and we find out in S4 that it was Morgan.

Yakult

Great episode but as a finale? Wtf was that? That wasn't finale material and far from it. Really disappointed with that given the big build up to it, but alas, they failed badly imo.


The only bright side is that I wont be on the edge of my chair waiting for Season 4. Take your sweet ass time and cop the **** on who ever is behind the writing.
I can put up with the character scenes, I dont care about action/explosions every episode but you would expect better from a 'Finale'. lackluster to say the least.

4/10

FlyingIrishMan

Turtyturd

Duggy747 wrote: »

[*]They went back to a prison with compromised barriers instead of Woodsbury that had it's tall barriers still standing and untouched. I think I'm more bothered that we'll have another season of that place, it's served it's function and they need to get the characters out of there.

Of all the things that happened that actually bothered me the least, would they have enough people to defend Woodbury properly? And given the fact that the Governor knew the place better than they did I didn't think it made sense to go back there.

More annoying would be why didn't Milton crawl over and hand the wrench to Andrea?

Sleepy

We'd the same issues with Andrea's dramatic pauses instead of just getting on with things in our house... to the point that when we saw Milton's corpse we sighed in disappointment before cheering when the bite was revealed.

Lesson for the show runners: you can't create dramatic tension with a character no-one gives a **** about. Had it been any of the main group, or even Tyrese in that situation, it may have held some drama but, even then, it should have been a short scramble to get the pliers and kill zombie Milton, not a quarter of the damn season finale with most of that time being wasted on pointless dialogue and imbecilic behaviour.

Personally, I don't see the problem with them choosing the prison over Woodbury. Sure, it's damaged after the fight and there are walkers to clear out of the place but it still has strong concrete walls, watch-towers etc. It needs some work before it could be a fortress of course but Woodbury only survived because it had plenty of men guarding the (fairly weak) walls and it had never been approached by a horde. With most of those who held the walls now dead, the prison is the logical place to try and hold out.

Tinie

trickymicky

Good ending to series but i just thought they could of ended with what the governor was doing to make it more tense for season 4.

Cantona's Collars

Sleepy wrote: »

Personally, I don't see the problem with them choosing the prison over Woodbury. Sure, it's damaged after the fight and there are walkers to clear out of the place but it still has strong concrete walls, watch-towers etc. It needs some work before it could be a fortress of course but Woodbury only survived because it had plenty of men guarding the (fairly weak) walls and it had never been approached by a horde. With most of those who held the walls now dead, the prison is the logical place to try and hold out.

The governor left trucks on the road & Rick brought back a bus,surely the logical thing would be to take the trucks and the bus back on runs to Woodbury and recover anything of use,they had food,medicine etc. stored along with turbines and solar panels which provided power,all this would be invaluable to them at the prison.

One other thing regarding power,the generators at the prison still work,they turned them back on to power the sirens when the Governor attacked,why not cut the wires for the sirens then use the generator for lighting etc?
I suppose logical thinking doesn't count during a zombie apocalypse.

sparkthatbled

zerks wrote: »

The governor left trucks on the road & Rick brought back a bus,surely the logical thing would be to take the trucks and the bus back on runs to Woodbury and recover anything of use,they had food,medicine etc. stored along with turbines and solar panels which provided power,all this would be invaluable to them at the prison.

I think this is the kind of thing we'd all be p*ssed off with them wasting screentime on. I'm going to assume this will be done in the intervening period between this season and next and lets hope they don't forget to clear out Woodbury's armory! If it turns out they haven't done all of this between seasons, well we can coin a new phrase and say they "did an Andrea"! I assume there won't be enough cells so I hope (if they must stay in the prison another season) we'll see a new prison from the start, fortified and totally cleared of zombies. Maybe Morgan will even join them there with his own arsenal...

It's hard to see what they can do with the story from the Prison now, though... The Governor is not really a threat, so where will the threat come from?



Edit: Proposed dictionary definition of 'an Andrea': To neglect to do the blinding f*cking obvious sensible thing from the start and instead make everything unnecessarily harder on yourself through a series of poor decisions and even poorer judgement.

Grimebox

zerks wrote: »

The governor left trucks on the road & Rick brought back a bus,surely the logical thing would be to take the trucks and the bus back on runs to Woodbury and recover anything of use,they had food,medicine etc. stored along with turbines and solar panels which provided power,all this would be invaluable to them at the prison.

One other thing regarding power,the generators at the prison still work,they turned them back on to power the sirens when the Governor attacked,why not cut the wires for the sirens then use the generator for lighting etc?
I suppose logical thinking doesn't count during a zombie apocalypse.

All of these things happened, there is just no point in showing it whatsoever.

Cantona's Collars

Grimebox wrote: »

All of these things happened, there is just no point in showing it whatsoever.

I hope so or as Sparkthatbled stated, they'd have done an 'Andrea'. I'll reserve judgement until the new season.If I see the same 4 vehicles parked in the prison I'll be pretty annoyed.I only saw one Hummer in this episode which is now abandoned at the prison but from what I recall,they had several at Woodbury.

Keyzer

Keyzer wrote: »

Completely under whelming as a finale.

I was sitting looking at the screen thinking is that it?

The shoot out in the prison was absolutely ridiculous. Very poor ending considering all the tension building in recent weeks.

Just didn't feel like a finale and lots of easy way out writing. Andrea's demise was a joke also.

After thinking about the episode for 24 hours and reading some of the commentary in this thread I have decided to upgrade my rating of this episode to absolute dog sh1t.

So many plot holes and stupid story lines, lazy writing and sentimental garbage.

After a hugely promising start to the season where I though cool, they have learnt their lessons after the boring first half of season 2, we are left with this p1ss poor finale to season three.

I'd be glad to see them all die in the prison now, apart from Daryl and Hershel's wooden leg...

Shane St.

krudler wrote: »

Havent watched it yet but didnt really care enough to not spoil it so it seems really pointless as a finale, guess that's confirmation they've departed from the comics then

What happened to the Governor in the comics?? PM if not allowed to post here

Grimebox

zerks wrote: »

I hope so or as Sparkthatbled stated, they'd have done an 'Andrea'. I'll reserve judgement until the new season.If I see the same 4 vehicles parked in the prison I'll be pretty annoyed.I only saw one Hummer in this episode which is now abandoned at the prison but from what I recall,they had several at Woodbury.

I wish they made it more clearer about the passage of time in the show. Even a "Two weeks later" fade would be nice here and there.


Well my 2c on the finale:

I enjoyed it. I generally find this program to be poor at best so my expectations have hit rock bottom in this series. Everybody has stated all the flaws already so I won't bother reiterating. I liked it after a friend told me the finale was rubbish, and he's a huge TWD fanboy so my expectations were even lower still. I was expecting a lot worse so I was somewhat pleasantly surprised. I can see past the plot holes at this stage and just enjoy it, knowing what it is.

I liked that the Guv went bat**** crazy in this (even though the scene itself was laughable). He is getting closer to his character in the comic which is definitely a good thing imo. His character arc in general was butchered and needed to be a lot darker than the writers of this show were willing. His moment of insanity is more like what I want from him. I'm glad he's still alive and I hope he turns his craziness up to 11 in the next series.

This episode was huge for Karl and I loved his new development. He is getting closer to his comic book character (sorry for constantly comparing to it...). At first I thought he was going slightly insane for killing that boy but he is growing into a decisive man that his father is completely failing to be, and that is truly needed in TWD's world to survive. I feel sorry for you if you don't like him because he is going to be the main character in this show in the next few seasons.

I hate cliff hanger endings and I'm glad they didn't go for anything like that

Gbear

FlyingIrishMan wrote: »

Governor's henchmen reaction to gunning down people

I think that they've already stuck with him doing some heinous ****.
To stop now would be doing the Nuremberg defence on it a bit. In for a penny in for a pound and all that.

They murdered those soldiers. They were happy feeding the prison people to zombies.

mrbrown69

This show got steadily worse in the last 3 or so episodes culminating in the finale which was quite frankly awful....acting and dialogue very poor

FlyingIrishMan

Gbear wrote: »

I think that they've already stuck with him doing some heinous ****.
To stop now would be doing the Nuremberg defence on it a bit. In for a penny in for a pound and all that.

They murdered those soldiers. They were happy feeding the prison people to zombies.

Ah but there is a difference between murdering random soldiers who could be a threat to you, and gunning down people you have lived with and made friends with over the past few months.

No one mentioned how the governor went around blasting them in the head after?


Tell ya, he's a big softie underneath that psycho exterior!

SantryRed

It's gone so downhill. What was the point in even killing Merle?

Barely anything has actually happened in the past few episodes of note. Well for a good reason at least. The way they killed Andrea was crap, killing Merle, I just don't get it. They built up to this finale and it was a steaming pile of ****e. It makes the past few filler episodes as bad as well.

Gbear

FlyingIrishMan wrote: »

Ah but there is a difference between murdering random soldiers who could be a threat to you, and gunning down people you have lived with and made friends with over the past few months.

There's a leap there but not as big as you're suggesting. These guys are already murderers. They're also quite clearly subservient to him. Seeing some of the appalling **** that humans are capable of suggests that their actions aren't that outrageous.

Calibos

I think Karl made the right call tbh.

"See, I'm putting down the gun! ....[As I slowly walk towards you with the gun still in my hand, that with a flick of the wrist will be back aimed at your head}

Dempsey

Calibos wrote: »

I think Karl made the right call tbh.

"See, I'm putting down the gun! ....[As I slowly walk towards you with the gun still in my hand, that with a flick of the wrist will be back aimed at your head}

He definitely wasnt going to put down the gun without a fight imo

Hershel was too stupid to see that

wonderfullife

FlyingIrishMan wrote: »

I've defended this season so far, I haven't hated any episode. But that episode was extremely disappointing. As a standalone episode itself it was great, but as a season finale it was abysmal.. no closure at all. I don't want another season in the prison.

Anyone on this forum knows i've been a huge supporter of Season 3 - but i can't agree it was a good episode even as a standalone. It was poor by that standard. Even worse in terms of being a season finale.

When Andrea had the pliars in her toes, i said to myself if she drops this i'm switching it off.

Points:

There was no tension throughout the episode. No stand-off between the 2 camps.

Milton and Andrea die. Fair enough, 2 peripheral and/or frustrating characters. For Andreas death to have an emotional resonance, she needed to be liked. She wasn't. So her death scene was emotionally redundant. In fact, i probably felt worse when Axel was killed. Poor fella.

Michonne barely speaks a word all season yet in the Finale we are to buy her tears for Andrea? You can't scowl all season then break down like a blubbering mess and pass that for character development. Ditto Rick saying "you're one of US". Well, last i checked she wasn't welcome at the prison or greeted with open arms.

Tyerese woefully underused since his introduction, his presence in the Finale was more or less negligible.

The Gov goes off the rails and massacres a bunch of nobodies who haven't spoken a word all season. In short, nobody cares.


It's sad that a season with such standout episodes could end on such a flat note. Plenty to look forward to next season but for the average, non-dedicated fan sadly this Finale may well be the prompt to give up on the show.

Nevertheless, let us not forget that despite this frankly awful Finale, season 3 brought us episodes such as Killer Within, Clear and This Sorrowful Life. For different reasons both Killer Within and Clear could easily win awards for episodic brilliance.

Sadly our finale, Welcome to the Tombs, was not a patch on earlier episodes and could be the final nail in the coffin for many a casual fan.

FlyingIrishMan

wonderfullife wrote: »

Michonne barely speaks a word all season yet in the Finale we are to buy her tears for Andrea? You can't scowl all season then break down like a blubbering mess and pass that for character development. Ditto Rick saying "you're one of US". Well, last i checked she wasn't welcome at the prison or greeted with open arms.

You're forgetting that Andrea and Michonne spent a couple of months together alone before Season 3. She didn't know Rick and his group, she didn't know if she could trust them, and Rick was pretty harsh towards her at the beginning. People grow attached to people, opinions change. Just because Rick isn't welcoming of her when he first meets her doesn't mean he can't be a month or two later.

I think the rest of your points are more opinion based so I won't counterpoint them.

Lone Stone

I think the show can redeem it self by releasing a promo of Carl walking around the prison putting bullets in everyone's head then cut to him and rick on the road BAH BAHhh bAHHmmm

wonderfullife

FlyingIrishMan wrote: »

You're forgetting that Andrea and Michonne spent a couple of months together alone before Season 3. She didn't know Rick and his group, she didn't know if she could trust them, and Rick was pretty harsh towards her at the beginning. People grow attached to people, opinions change. Just because Rick isn't welcoming of her when he first meets her doesn't mean he can't be a month or two later.

I think the rest of your points are more opinion based so I won't counterpoint them.

I don't think you read my point properly - Andrea and Michonne spent closer to 8 months together, not a couple of months, but given everything the lack of emotional character development from Michonne, it's tough to buy into her tears and actions at the end.

Effectively what i'm saying is for that scene to pack a punch, we need to care deeply for Andrea and Michonne. In general, the audience doesn't care at all about the former and not much about the latter. So the scene felt hollow.

And yes, Andrea may well have been welcomed back by both Rick and Michonne. And yes they would both have been upset at her death. But for it to resonate with us (the viewer) we need to care about her. And frankly, most of us didn't.

(some all of my points are opinion based lol)