As if this week's Walking Dead wasn't enough of a nightmare, things just
had to go and end with the comeback of everyone's favourite elected official The Governor.
The episode was the epitome of what it means to have hope. Our heroes had to fight their way through the virus that infected the prison and they've managed to save some of their community.
The hope they used as a weapon wasn't the superficial kind that gets manufactured and sold as modern day "motivation" but real, true hope.
Mad hope. The sort that will get you stuffing a plastic pipe down spluttering Glenn's throat while believing it's going to work.
To go through all that and all you get for it is the lunatic stare of The Governor is enough to drive anyone out of their mind. But most of them will stay sane (unlike Carol). We know this, we trust this. Particularly when Hershel's involved.
He's astonishing isn't he? - yet again he's proven that he's the most mentally and morally strong out of them all. I lurved how starkly he was contrasted with that sick doctor who died in the cell ... the doctor who got so depressed when his eye started to bleed. Sure, it was terrible, but if he'd spoken hopefully instead of doing all that moaning he may have survived.
Or, he might still have died.
That's the problem of course ... you can have heaps of hope and things can still turn out very crap. Ultimately it's what's happened to them - they fought through the sickness and all they get in return is the return of One Eye. Who, incidentally, also has his own twisted hope.
He's lost everything - including his humanity - but he refuses to die because he has hope that he can continue his scourge.
Which in turn sparks a deep and uneasy hope in me. It won't be easy and I'm sure it's going to come at great cost
but I fully believe that Michonne will chop his head off.