The Walking Dead - Prey Episode Recap

What's the official word on this episode? The Governor chases a dissenter who fled Woodbury. While the Governor is gone, a traitor tries to sabotage his upcoming plans. Alright--so how did it go down? The episode opens with Michonne's pet walkers chained to trees while she and Andrea have dinner near a campfire. The chains are pulled to their limits as the "pets" are getting restless. Andrea asks Michonne where the pets came from--whether she was attacked by them, hunted them down or knew them. Michonne doesn't answer verbally, but is visibly shaken by the question, leading Andrea to ask if she can do anything; Michonne just doesn't want to talk about it. The men who became those walkers deserved what they got, she says; they weren't human to begin with. The camera pans back in on the chains, transitioning to the present day, as the Governor sets up a dungeon/interrogation room in Woodbury. Outside, Martinez and Bowman are arming up vehicles; they tell Milton that "everyone" is going to the meet with Rick. Andrea joins them on the street and is confused, having been told by the Governor that there was still a truce on the table; Milton tells her that he's sure it's just a show of force. Back at the dungeon, the Governor lays out torture devices when Milton arrives. He tries to leave, but the Governor calls him back. Milton asks what the dungeon is, and how it helps Woodbury, saying that the Governor needs to move on. The Governor rationalizes his behavior by asking Milton whether he still thinks there is any spark of humanity left in the zombies, and when Milton says that he thinks there is, the Governor points out that by Milton's own logic, Michonne killed the Governor's daughter. Leaving the meeting, Milton spills the details of the Governor's plan to Andrea, who follows him to a room overlooking the Governor's new "workshop." Milton wants Andrea to go back to the prison to warn Rick and the others, but she wants to stay and kill the Governor herself. While they're having the discussion, the Governor enters the dungeon down below, laying out more torture devices and whistling. Andrea takes aim at him with her pistol, but Milton pulls the gun away. Back at Milton's apartment, he tells Andrea that he can't see his way to killing the Governor because the man he knew before he became the Governor still exists in there somewhere; it's a pretty hamfisted comparison to the discussion he and the Governor just had on zombies a minute or two ago, but we'll give it to him because his next point is somewhat more valid: if Andrea kills the Governor, all that will happen is that she'll be killed next and Martinez or someone equally unstable will take over Woodbury, meaning that she won't have saved her friends anyway. She says that in that case she needs to go warn them of what's coming and that Milton should come with her, but he tells her that he belongs in Woodbury. Before she leaves, she tells Milton that if he wants to stay in Woodbury, he can't keep looking the other way while the Governor does horrible things. Walking down the street, she's approached by Martinez, who demands her gun and ammunition to arm the troops going out to terrorize Rick and the others. She resists at first but caves when he threatens her, but refuses to turn over her knife. The Governor immediately apologizes for not telling her about the situation, saying that he wants to keep her separate and safe from it. He tells her that he wants her with him when he goes to see Rick the next day, and she assures him she'll be there. Elsewhere in town, Tyreese and Sasha are practicing shooting at a walker. He's an awful shot, finally killing it only once it got close. Andrea comes and tells them to go find Martinez, that she's taking over their guard shift. They won't move, though, without Martinez telling them personally, and ultimately Andrea grows impatient and just climbs the ladder to the wall.  Tyreese tries to grab her to prevent her leaving, but she pulls the knife on him and tells him that she's leaving because the Governor is not what he seems--and that they should, too. They try to convince her to stay, but eventually let her go, but go tell the Governor and Martinez immediately. Martinez tells them that they should not have let Andrea leave, but the Governor is still keeping up a face for the new folks; he tells them he's glad they let her go and that nobody was hurt, reassuring Tyreese (who seems to have bought into Andrea's story) that Woodbury is "not a prison camp." He tells them that Andrea spent the winter out there all alone with the walkers and is in no psychological condition to leave, but asks if she gave any clue as to what panicked her. Tyreese tells him nothing about Andrea's claims that the Governor was dangerous, saying only that he and his group still hope to stay in Woodbury and that he hopes letting Andrea get away doesn't "complicate things." The Governor dismisses that notion, telling Tyreese that he and his group can help Martinez with a project. Outside, the Governor tells Milton that he's going after Andrea. Milton tries to dissuade him, and the Governor forcibly grabs him, demanding to know whether he had spoken to her and knew of her plans to leave. Milton admits that he did, and while he doesn't answer when the Governor asks whether Andrea knows about Michonne, the Governor knows the answer. Outside the Woodbury walls, Andrea runs down the country road, past walkers. Back inside the city limits, Martinez wants Tyreese and his group to join him at the truck in five minutes, leaving them to talk. Allen and Ben talk with Tyreese, who expresses reservations but Allen just wants him to shut up and play ball so they don't get evicted from Woodbury. When Tyreese starts to defend himself, Allen challenges him that he's trying to make him look bad in front of his son; apparently the two have bad blood going back to Tyreese having saved Donna, and Donna then clinging to him from that point forward. Allen charges that Tyreese did it to look good, while Tyreese maintains that he was just in the right place at the right time to help her and that it could have been anybody. Yes, folks, this week's episode of The Walking Dead takes place partially at DeGrassi Junior High. Back out on the street, Andrea hears a truck coming and darts into the tree line to avoid it. Hiding behind a stand of trees, the Governor blows by in a truck and misses her, but a walker reaches around and pins her to the tree from behind. While she's trapped there, two more walkers approach her from ahead. She takes those two out with her knife, then leverages the limb holding her in place against one of the trees and snaps it. Once she's taken that walker out, too, she keeps running. Martinez has Tyreese and company recovering walkers from a pit where they've been trapped with the intent to use them as a weapon against Rick and his group. Tyreese objects, saying that whatever is going on, he doesn't believe in feeding women and children to zombies. Martinez warns Tyreese that the Governor will toss the whole group out of Woodbury for his disobedience, leading to another confrontation with Allen. Cross words get physical when Tyreese, apparently tired of stroking Allen's ego, uses the Donna thing that he's so sensitive about as a verbal weapon and Allen tries to jump him. After a short scuffle, Tyreese dangles Allen over the pit of walkers briefly before Sasha breaks it up. Martinez tells Bowman to take Tyreese and Sasha back to Woodbury. In a wide-open field, Andrea again sees the truck on the road. She drops to the ground, hoping that the slope of the ground will hide her, but the truck pulls back around and sounds like it's stopped.  She runs, and shortly after that the truck rolls out into the field after her. She barely manages to escape into the tree line, and then comes out the other side of the woods behind a building, where the Governor is pulling his truck up. She darts inside and stays pretty inconspicuous except she trips over a bucket full of tools, making a huge noise.

By the time the Governor comes to the door, Andrea is in another room; he starts to whistle, attracting the attention of a walker hiding in the shadows that Andrea has to kill, the sound of which gives him a sense for her direction. Eventually, he stands on the other side of a dividing wall from her, trying to convince her to come out; when she won't, he picks up a shovel and starts to smash the glass portions of the walls above her head (the building seems to be a factory or maybe a meat-packing plant where management had offices with large windows at head level to see out onto the floor). Andrea runs as quietly as she can when the Governor is distracted, hiding in an area small enough that he can't reach it with the shovel in hand. It's a sound plan, except that he hears a noise in the distance and again starts whistling to attract whatever it might be. He gets very close to Andrea's hiding spot but a distant crash lures him away. It's a walker, which he impales on a piece of nearby machinery, then shoots two more, finishing one off with the shovel. As he does so, Andrea keeps moving through the building, arriving near an exit; a walker jumps out at her and she impales it on a nearby meathook. Nearing what looks like an exit, she opens a door onto a stairwell, where about a dozen walkers are waiting; she immediately closes it, and the Governor approaches her, confident he's got her cornered. Rather than go back with him, she opens the door, hides behind it against the wall and lets the line of walkers descend on the Governor. As he runs out of bullets and struggles to keep them off of him, she leaves. Back at the pickup point for the walkers, an unseen figure douses the walkers in the pit and those that Ben, Allen and Martinez have loaded onto the trailer for use against Rick with gasoline, then lights them on fire. In the woods, Andrea isn't in good shape when she finally reaches the prison. Rick is standing watch, and as she tries to call out to him, her voice is hoarse. Instead she tries to flag him down with her arms, but the Governor tackles her; Rick sees the movement and points his rifle in their direction but they're already out of view. At the pickup point, Bowman realizes that the walkers have been sabotaged; word gets back to Martinez, who tells the Governor when he pulls in. The Governor denies finding Andrea, but won't open his truck window all the way. He asks whether Martinez has any suspects, and Martinez fingers Tyreese; the Governor asks to see their group. When Tyreese expresses concern about the use of walkers as an offensive weapon, the Governor tells him that they're a scare tactic, a bluff, not meant to be used. Tyreese asks why Martinez didn't just clarify that with him, and the Governor tells him that Woodbury isn't comfortable sharing their tactics with relative strangers. He seems fairly satisfied with that answer, telling the Governor that he still wants to stay in Woodbury and that what happened at the pit won't happen again (he's talking about fighting with Allen). When the Governor asks him where he got the gasoline, Tyreese's genuine confusion tells the Governor he isn't the guy. Outside, he's met by Milton, who says it's too bad about the walkers being sabotaged, and asks whether the Governor knows who did it. The Governor says that yes, he knows, and leaves. Back at his torture dungeon, Andrea is chained to a chair with her mouth duct-taped shut.