The Governor (TV)

"You can't think forever. Sooner or later, you gotta make a move."

- The Governor

The Governor, real name Phillip Blake and later known as his alias Brian Heriot, is a central character and major antagonist in AMC's The Walking Dead, based off of his comic and novel counterpart, though portrayed with much more sympathy.

He is portrayed by David Morrissey.

Past
Throughout Season 3, he is shown as the governor of Woodbury whose wife was killed in an auto wreck and keeps his daughter, Penny, as a walker. He also had walker heads in aquarium tanks and was also in a relationship with Andrea.

Season 3
In his debut episode, "Walk With Me", he introduced Andrea and Michonne to Woodbury, and appears to be a friendly guy. While taking care of Lt. Welles, the Governor discovers that Welles' men have a camp not far from Woodbury. When he and his men find them, the Governor tells them that they have Welles before they gun them all down and take their supplies. After that, the Governor returns to Woodbury and tells the people that the men were killed by walkers when they got there. That night, the Governor goes to his room of aquarium tanks, and among them is the decapitated head of Lt. Welles.

In the episode, "Made To Suffer", While Rick and his group rescue Glenn and Maggie, Michonne heads to the Governor's apartment, where she finds the aquarium tanks and a zombified Penny. Before she can kill Penny, the Governor shows up and begs her not to kill her. Knowing that Penny is no longer human, Michonne kills her. This leads to a brutal fight between the Governor and Michonne, ending with her stabbing the Governor in the right eye with a glass shard, blinding him. He now wears an eye-patch to cover the wound. The death of his daughter devastates the Governor and sends him into further acts of madness.

Since then, the Governor, seeking revenge for his daughter's death, has sought to destroy Michonne, Rick and the prison group. His actions have lead to an assault on the prison and the deaths of Axel and Merle Dixon.

In “Welcome to the Tombs”, The Governor has Milton Mamet tied up to a pipe in the shacks and beats him up, blaming him for the death of his men, since Milton burned up the walkers they had captured. He begins to berate him and tell him to be stronger. When Milton asks about Andrea, he takes Milton to Andrea's torture room, and orders him to kill her in order to get out of this situation alive. Milton tries to attack The Governor instead, but The Governor defends himself and stabs Milton in the gut multiple times, he then decides to leave Milton locked with Andrea, since he will reanimate and kill her, before leaving the torture room, The Governor says: "In this life, you kill or you die... Or you die and you kill."

Later, he and the Woodbury Army head to Rick's group at the prison so they can kill them once and for all. They arrive there exploding the guard towers, shooting all the barricades and running down the courtyard gate, but the prison seems to be empty. Later, they got attacked by flash grenades and walkers, everyone starts panicking and The Governor tries to calm them down, as they are running outside, Glenn and Maggie start shooting at them from the catwalk, telling them to leave the prison. The Governor wants to stay and fight, but the scared army of citizens leave the prison behind, prompting The Governor and his men to get in a car and go after them. As they reach the army, they stop the convoy and The Governor leaves his car angry at them, ordering them to go back to the prison immediately. Martinez and Allen agree with him, but the rest of the army refuse to attack the prison again, since they are scared and want to return to the safety of Woodbury. The Governor loses his sanity and starts shooting everyone to the ground. At that point on, Allen stands up to The Governor and nearly shoots him after pointing the gun at him, but The Governor, who is unfazed, easily kills him after tricking Allen into standing down. Martinez and Shumpert only watch horrified as The Governor shows no remorse whatsoever after killing 23 of his own people. The Governor gets back in his car with Martinez and Shumpert and they drive off to an unknown location.

Season 4
The Governor did not appear in the first few episodes of the season, but he was mentioned by Michonne, Daryl, and Tyreese. During the first half of season 4, he appears in the very end of "Internment", secretly watching over the prison from a distance.

In Live Bait, The Governor camps at the site where he massacred the National Guard soldiers with his remaining two men, Martinez and Shumpert. However, they grow wary of him and abandon him during the night. He then returns to Woodbury, destroys the barricades and burns it to the ground in a fit of insanity, destroying it permanently and allowing walkers to overrun it. After surviving for seven months on his own, he comes across a building with several messages and names written on them, one of which is Brian Heriot. After arriving in a town, The Governor sees a young girl peering at him from a window and enters the house, finding a family who at first warily hold him at gunpoint, but then welcome him into their home.

During his time there, he befriends them and slowly begins socializing. He helps them out on multiple occasions, including recovering oxygen tanks for an terminally ill cancer patient (their father). He begins to develop close bonds with the family, especially the girl, Meghan. He then kills a zombified David, who expires after using up the oxygen.

Eventually, Philip makes the decision to leave, but the family comes with him. The group rests on the side of the road, in a semi-truck, where The Governor and Lilly share a passionate kiss. On the road, they are pursued by walkers, and Lilly and Tara are separated from The Governor and Meghan. The Governor carries Meghan to flee but falls into a pit, similar to the "Screamer pits" of Woodbury. The Governor manages to kill all of the walkers in the pit, and is discovered by Martinez.

In "Dead Weight", after Martinez takes him and Megan out of the pit, he allows The Governor and The Chamblers to join his group as long as they don't question his leadership. After settling in with the group, the Governor plays some golf with a drunk Martinez. Martinez offers Phillip to run the camp as a partnership which enrages him. The Governor then hits Martinez with a golf club and drags him to a walker pit, slowly dropping him into the walkers resulting with Martinez's being eaten alive. The Governor later stabs and kills Pete by strangling him to death, before dragging his body out to the lake and weighing it down. The Governor then threatens Mitch into letting him become the leader and to say that Pete died on a supply run. The Governor is last seen near the prison, he spies on Rick and Carl, and then he spots Hershel and Michonne and trains his gun on Michonne from a distance.

In "Too Far Gone", The Governor kidnaps Michonne and Hershel and later gathers up the people at the camp and convinces them to help take the prison for their own. The Governor leaves Lilly and Meghan at the camp to keep them safe. In the hostages RV, The Governor tells Hershel that they can't live together as he wouldn't get along with Rick and Michonne. The Governor's group part to the Prison and they start by blowing up a tower with the tank- He calls Rick to talk and tells him that their people must leave the prison or they would die. Despite Rick trying to convince that they could live together, The Governor says they can't. Refusing to leave, Rick instead brings out a memorable speech that Hershel once told him that everyone is not too far gone, and that everyone can live in peace together. The Governor appears to have listened to Rick's speech but after looking towards him on the other side, he calls Rick a liar and strikes Hershel with the sword, shocking everyone with Hershel's daughters Maggie and Beth reacting horrifying. Angry, Rick shoots The Governor in the army, before the two groups open fire against each other; during which Rick gets shot also. As a helpless Hershel attempts to escape, The Governor corners him and ends up killing him by slashing his head off. After this, Lilly arrives with a dead Meghan, who was bitten by a walker. The Governor remains silent and shoots the little girl to prevent reanimation. He then orders the group to bring the fence down and kill the prison group. As the Governor advances behind the tank, he takes cover behind a bus and is tackled by Rick. The two engage in a fist fight and The Governor gains the upper hand. As he is about to kill Rick by choking him, Michonne sneaks behind him and stabs him in the chest, wounding him and saving Rick. Before leaving with Rick, Michonne approaches towards the wounded Governor; but rather than killing him, she instead leaves him to die from his wounds. Then, Lilly approaches a dying Governor and shoots him in the head, killing him and avenging all the deaths he had committed (including Axel, Merle, Milton, Andrea, and Hershel).

Trivia

 * The Governor has suffered the most pain and injuries in the comic book series. For example, gunshots (chest, shoulder, cheek), amputations (ear, eye, fingernails, arm, some parts of his cheek, and penis), blood loss, been exposed to fire ( stopped his arm nub's bleeding with blowtorch), hits, bites, and kicks (numerous counts, most from Michonne), and numerous falls (fall from Jared's tank, explosion). He has also vomited badly several times (both puke and blood) and he's been drilled in the shoulder.
 * The Governor is one of the two people in the comic series to lose an eye, being the second.
 * The Governor lost his left eye which is opposite of Carl who lost his right.
 * The Governor's kiss with Penny shows one of several incidents, proving the survivors cannot be turned into zombies by exchanging body fluids.
 * In the comics, he loses his left eye to Michonne, whereas in the TV Series episode, "Made to Suffer", he loses his right eye.
 * In "Hounded", Merle Dixon chooses not to reveal to The Governor that Michonne has survived, due to the fear of his wrath. This is similar to how Dwight decides not to tell Negan about Paul Monroe's escape, for the same reason.
 * As a result of this lie, he lost his right eye to Michonne, which was one of the factors to him betraying Merle.
 * In the TV Series, he suffered much less damage from Michonne in the fight, as he only lost an eye, whereas in the Comic Series he lost an eye, arm, ear, and had his genitals nailed to a 2x4 and cut off. He did, however, lose his daughter, causing him much more emotional pain than physical, as well as driving him to be presumably one of the least sane people encountered so far in the TV Series.
 * The Governor is one of two characters to appear on a promotional season poster, the other character being Rick Grimes.
 * In the comics, Penny was The Governor's niece, but in the TV Series, she is his daughter.
 * The Governor's clothes can be purchased as an Xbox 360 Avatar Outfit.
 * In "This Sorrowful Life", Merle mentions that the Governor had slashed the throats and stabbed any opposing people he came across, saying to "Never waste a bullet". It is apparent that The Governor has recently reconciled this practice (he shoots both Axel and Merle and directs his men to shoot any of the prison survivors on sight).
 * So far, the Governor has the second longest lifespan out of any other main antagonist in the TV Series with a total of 22 episodes, being behind Negan who has surpassed the Governor's record.