The Walking Dead season 3 finale

Andrea (Laurie Holden) in Episode 16. Photo by Gene Page/AMC.
Andrea (Laurie Holden) in Episode 16. Photo by Gene Page/AMC.
The Walking Dead season 3 finale “Welcome to the Tombs” was Sunday night and some, like me, are still sad that Andrea was killed off the show, while others are saying “finally” after lots of complaining about her character during the season on social media sites like Twitter. Well all of you “Andrea haters” got your way, she is dead now. Now you can complain about someone else and get them killed off the show too. It’s not all of the haters fault though that Andrea is gone, it’s also the writers fault as they put her in Woodbury and kept her there. Read and watch the summary of episode 16 “Welcome to the Tombs” here.

Anyways, back to the season 3 finale, it seems to be split in those who liked what happened in the finale to those who didn’t like what happened. For me, I don’t think it was a better season finale than the season 2 finale as I was expecting a little more and I didn’t see Andrea’s death coming. The part where the Woodbury residents run away from the prison, some didn’t like it, to me it made sense afterwards as these are just regular people, not soliders. I thought the Governor would head back to the prison himself for one last attack but looks like they’re saving that for next season. All in all, I liked the episode but felt they needed more.

The prison in Episode 16. Photo by Gene Page/AMC.
The prison in Episode 16. Photo by Gene Page/AMC.
The episode starts with the Governor beating up Milton and he tells Milton to kill Andrea. Milton instead tries to kill the Governor but the Governor overpowers him and stabs him. The Governor leaves the room, wanting Milton to die and turn to a walker and kill Andrea. The Governor and his Woodbury residents drive to the prison as Tyreese and Sasha stay behind in Woodbury. The Governor and Woodbury residents drive to the prison, Martinez blows up two prison towers and they storm the front of the prison, killing walkers and breaking through fences. The Governor and the Woodbury residents go inside the prison and into the tombs of the prison. Soon, smoke grenades go off and the prison alarm starts going off as walkers are in the tombs. The Woodbury people run out of the prison and back to their vehicles as the Governor retreats as well. They all get in their vehicles and drive off. Outside of the prison, hidden in the nearby forest, a young teen from Woodbury runs into where Carl, Hershel, Beth and Judith are hiding. Carl and Hershel tell him to put the gun down. The teen instead tries to hand Carl the gun, Carl waits but the teen keeps taking turns looking at Carl and Hershel, and then Carl shoots him. They go back to the prison to meet up with the others and Hershel tells Rick what happened with Carl killing the teen.

With the Woodbury residents retreating, the truck that the Governor is riding in pulls in front of the rest of the other vehicles and forces them to stop. He gets out and wants to know why they’re retreating. The Woodbury residents refuse to fight and the Governor just loses it as he opens fire on all of them. Martinez and Shumpert are shocked and freeze as they don’t know what to do. Allen aims his gun at the Governor but the Governor shoots him too. The Governor gets in his truck and then Martinez and Shumpert join him, and they drive off.

Rick talks with Carl about shooting the teen. Carl says that he had to do it to avoid any further deaths where he makes a good point, but still, he took out a kid. Rick, Daryl and Michonne leave the prison to go after the Governor. The three of them pull up to where the Woodbury residents were slaughtered by the Governor. There they find Karen, woman from Woodbury, in a truck, as she hid under a dead body after the Governor shot at the residents. Karen is the mother of the teen that Carl killed.

Milton Mamet (Dallas Roberts) in Episode 16. Photo by Gene Page/AMC.
Milton Mamet (Dallas Roberts) in Episode 16. Photo by Gene Page/AMC.
Milton is now a walker and starts moving. Andrea frantically tries to use the pliers she got from the ground to break the handcuff chains on her. He comes at her and then screams are heard behind the door to where they are. Rick, Daryl, Michonne and Karen reach Woodbury and Tyreese and Sasha let them in as Rick tells them what the Governor did and that they’re looking for Andrea as she never made it to the prison. They find the interrogation room where Andrea is but they’re too late as Milton’s body is on the ground and Andrea has been bitten. Rick gives her a gun and they leave the room except for Michonne. A gunshot is heard.

Rick and the others return to the prison with a bus full of others from Woodbury, mainly women, children and older people.

Here’s two videos showing the making of the show and the parts with Milton and Andrea. The second video actually has scenes of Andrea getting bitten by Milton that were not included in the finale.

The Making of Episode 316 Welcome to the Tombs, Prison Assault: Inside The Walking Dead

The Making of Episode 316 Welcome to the Tombs, Andrea’s Dilemma: Inside The Walking Dead

Some more information about the Andrea-Milton scene from Milton (Dallas Roberts) himself, via EW.com:

EW: Yeah, I know you guys originally shot a much different version of this whole scene. Walk me through how it was originally shot.
ROBERTS: Originally, the beating scene that started the episode wasn’t there. Originally, I showed up and was led into the room where Andrea was and I took the tools out – the instruments of torture that were laid on the table – and then he shot me in the stomach, completely unexpectedly. And then I was left to bleed out in the same idea basically – you’re going to kill her now. There was a lot more of Milton trying to open the door and him trying to free her from the chains. And then there was a section where he was going to wrap the chain around the neck and try to choke her to death before he turned so she wouldn’t have to deal with Walker Milton, or Biter Milton, as it were.

And then at the end of that, it was just Tyreese and someone else who found her. Rick and Daryl and Michonne weren’t there. So it was essentially the same idea, except you saw me taking chunks out of Laurie Holden in that version. And then they called us back a few months later to re-shoot it and made all those changes. So now you’re not sure if I’ve gotten her until after that door opens, and I think that’s probably why they did it.

EW: So they actually shot the scene of you as a zombie biting into her?
ROBERTS: Yeah. It’s funny, in the articles and on Talking Dead last night, you’ll notice stills of Milton where he has glasses on [Ed Note: See picture above!]. They are from the scenes that we shot and weren’t aired. Because Milton gets his glasses knocked off and never has glasses in the interrogation scene in this finale. But I’ve seen a lot of pictures where Milton has blood on his mouth and glasses on that were from that first shooting.

EW: So tell me about the part where you were trying to strangle her.
ROBERTS: They both desperately wanted for that to work but at that point he had bled out so much. So he pulls and pulls and pulls but he doesn’t get it done and he falls against the wall and is passed out. And he never comes back from that until he turns into a walker.

EW: When you came back to do the reshoot, was that after Glen Mazzara had moved off the show?
ROBERTS: Yes, it was after he and AMC had decided to part, but he was still theoretically in charge of the back half of the season. I didn’t see him there. I don’t know if we was in L.A. pulling those strings. Scott Gimple, who ended up taking the showrunner position, was there, so some of those changes may have come from him.
Source: EW.com

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