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" It&amp;#039;s easy to call the Governor a bastard. Because until last night, his sins\u2014a ledger of which would run longer than a walker&amp;#039;s strung-out guts\u2014never had rhyme or reason other than they were evil. But during his sabbatical, the Governor&amp;#039;s put on a new coat of paint that recasts his villainy as something else: survival. The Governor&amp;#039;s a family man now, complete with a surrogate wife, daughter, and an impossibly annoying sister-in-law. He&amp;#039;s made it his responsibility to ensure their survival. With this new mindset, practicality trumps morality. As long as it&amp;#039;s in the name of his family&amp;#039;s survival, there&amp;#039;s nothing the Governor won&amp;#039;t do; as he put it last night, it&amp;#039;s no longer about doing the right or wrong thing\u2014it&amp;#039;s about doing the only thing. Whacking his old buddy Martinez with a nine-iron before feeding him to a zombie pit removed a sloppy leader. Stabbing Pete and making him an aqua-zombie eliminated any competition for the alpha-male title. And appointing the misogynistic redneck as the second-in-command keeps the camp&amp;#039;s wild card under his control. (Between this guy and Merle, the governor must have a thing for hillbillies.) Yes, the Governor is still vile, but his new strain of evil is far more respectable. As nasty as &amp;quot;One-Eye Bry&amp;quot; got last night, he never crossed the line of sadism, which he was so fond of doing last season. This makes the Governor a far more terrifying prospect for Rick and the prison. He&amp;#039;s still nuts, but now that craziness has refined into robotic determination. Oh\u2014and he&amp;#039;s packing a full-fledged army tank, so there&amp;#039;s that. He&amp;#039;s even managed to do some actual good along the way, fortifying the camp from a couple of RVs into an actual shelter (is it too early to christen the place Woodbury 2?) to sharp-shooting a Walker that was about to bite his &amp;quot;daughter.&amp;quot; It might be too early to label the Governor a sympathetic villain, but he&amp;#039;s far from the comic book maniac that drove everyone as nuts as he was. Hopefully this means less moments wasted on brushing a zombie child&amp;#039;s hair and more time on pushing Rick into a greater challenge than another simple shoot-out. (He does seem to enjoy chess these days.) His restraint against popping Rick between the eyes in the final scene is promising, hinting that something bigger\u2014see: tank\u2014is in the works. Besides, only a bastard would gun down a man in front of his child. Your Zombie Apocalypse Survival Companion Useful information from this week&amp;#039;s episode. \u2022 Maglites double as especially effective skull busters. \u2022 Undeath makes one somewhat amphibious, as zombies are just as dangerous in the water as they are on land. \u2022 However, they apparently cannot slog through mud. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a26106/walking-dead-recap-s04e07/>