By Matt Ern
Columnist
The Walking Dead– Welcome to the Tombs
Grade: B+
The season is over and Woodbury went along with it, although the Governor survived and is still out there somewhere. What the showrunner is planning on doing with that is anyones guess, but personally I would have preferred a more final ending. After a season of building up the Governor and Woodbury as threats, the end felt a little unsatisfying. The prison group beats Woodburys army pretty easily (admittedly, most of them werent soldiers and Ricks group is fairly hardened by now) and when his people wont keep fighting, the Governor massacres them. Its a chilling scene, but not how I hoped the conflict would end.
But moving past the disappointing final conflict, theres a lot of great character work in the episode. Carl has evolved into quite the little monster, gunning down a young soldier fleeing Woodburys army and then reprimanding his father for not having a stern enough hand and killing more people. When Rick returns at the end with the remains of Woodbury, Carl isnt very happy with him (and neither am I to be honest). Its great to see Tyreese joining up with Rick, but I could do without the group taking in everyone. But thats what Rick needs to do in order to clear his conscious of all the burdens hes been working through all season.
The last key part of the episode is Andreas death, which was done very well. The Governor leaves her bound in a room with a dying Milton, who will presumably turn and eat her when he finally dies. Even though Andrea manages to get free, its too late and Milton takes a bite out of her. When Rick and the others arrive at the end, its just in time to watch their friend die. Andrea has a nice moment with Michonne and then shoots herself in the head.
The Walking Dead made a lot of progress this season and reminded everyone that it can be a very good show with some important comments to make about the idea of death- when it wants to be. Not everything the show tried to do over the course of the last sixteen episodes worked, but enough of it did to give the show its best season to date. Heres hoping that the trend continues next year.
Archer– The Papal Chase
Grade: A-
Because there was no Community this past week Im taking the opportunity to write about Archer instead, which is enjoying a pretty solid fourth season. While some of the earlier episodes were a little shaky, the past few weeks have represented something of a hot streak. The Papal Chase has a lot going for it: the debut of Pam as a field agent, the return of Woodhouse, and the opportunity for some topical, Pope-based humor.
Archers entrance chanting hymns in Latin was hilarious as was his insistance on learning Romansh instead of Italian. Pam is appropriately outrageous in the field, although weve gotten a taste of that in past episodes such as last seasons Drift Problem. Lana gets one of the best lines of the episode, Its going to be raining dead-ass Popes, which speaks to how well her character has evolved. Originally Lana suffered a bit from always having to be the straight man in a great comedic cast, but in the later seasons shes had some funny moments.
All of this great comedy supports a very Archer-esque plot: ISIS is hired to prevent an assassination attempt on the Pope, utilizing Woodhouse as a decoy. In the end it turns out to be a set-up and the would-be assassins actually work for the cardinal who hired ISIS in the first place, who believed they would bungle the mission. Its the type of plot that the show seems very comfortable with, but it doesnt get boring or played out because the dialogue is just so damn funny.