Philip Blake, better known as The Governor and later as Brian Heriot, is a major antagonist in the survival-horror TV series The Walking Dead. He appears throughout Season 3 and for a few episodes of Season 4, leading other survivors of the undead apocalypse against series protagonist Rick Grimes. He is portrayed by David Morrissey.
Personality[]
In Season 3, The Governor played off a facade of a congenial man, but, in reality, was a volatile and depraved sociopath and a cold-blooded murderer. He was a smooth talker, easily able to talk his way out of situations using his "charm", and was able to use his manipulative abilities to coerce others into doing his own bidding. He was obsessed with protecting the people that he cared about by taking charge and doing what he saw as the only way of survival for his people, which included killing anyone who was a potential threat to them without hesitation. He also had dark secrets, such as keeping his zombified daughter in a closet and having fish tanks filled with walker and human heads.
Throughout Season 3, he gradually became a much more cold-hearted and barbaric person. His dark personality was only exacerbated when Michonne broke into his apartment and killed his zombified daughter, thus triggering severe homicidal desires within him. From then on, he lost most of his sanity and only desired to be on a warpath, seeking retaliation on Michonne and Rick Grimes's group and setting out to slaughter them all (the latter having attacked him and "taken" Woodbury away from him). The Governor's desire to destroy Rick's group was so strong that he slaughtered almost every member of the Woodbury army when they refused to aid him in his quest.
In Season 4, after being abandoned and wandering alone for months following the fall of Woodbury, The Governor adopted a "makeshift family" that he found whilst wandering and retains much of his old self. However, he lied to them, keeping his past and his violent nature a secret, while convincing himself that he is doing this to protect them (which is true). According to his actor, David Morrissey, The Governor was genuinely fighting himself in a "Jekyll-and-Hyde" manner. This battle with himself ultimately proved to be fruitless, as he returns to his old actions to protect his new family by killing Caesar Martinez and later Pete Dolgen to re-establish his position as leader and attempting to take the prison from Rick's group by holding Hershel Greene and Michonne hostage, eventually brutally killing Hershel and almost succeeding to kill Rick. He dies a cold-blooded, remorseless mass murderer, and is put down by one of the very people he swore to protect, yet failed to.
History[]
Pre-series history[]
Before the dead walked the Earth, Philip Blake was a family man with a mediocre office job. He lost his wife in a car accident eighteen months before the outbreak occurred, leaving him to care for his daughter Penny alone.
When the outbreak took place, Philip and nine other survivors holed themselves up in apartment for an unspecified amount of time, before moving out, picking up new group members along the way, and eventually coming upon the abandoned town of Woodbury. As they secure the town and settle in (whilst their size continues to increase), Philip establishes a leadership role and is branded the nickname "The Governor".
Penny was infected and reanimated, though when exactly this happened remains unknown. Philip could not come to terms with her death and kept her zombified body locked in his closet.
For many months, the Governor acted as a benevolent leader, taking in any survivors who could contribute to Woodbury's continuing prosperity. All the while, however, he maintained a darker side of his personality which he kept secret from the rest of the community; no one else knew that the Governor had been keeping severed reanimated heads in his home in fish tanks, nor did they know that he had kept his zombified daughter locked up and regularly fed her fresh meat.
Season 3[]
Throughout Season 3, the Governor is shown to be the leader of Woodbury.In his debut episode, "Walk With Me", he rescues Andrea and Michonne and brings them to Woodbury, and appears to be friendly. While taking care of a wounded soldier called Welles, the Governor discovers that there is a small military 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 who were captured by Merle Dixon, 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 not a 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, causing a lot of damage. From that point onward, the Governor hides his wounded eye behind an eye-patch.
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 numerous people from both the prison and Woodbury.
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, shooting all the barricades and running down the courtyard gate, but the prison seems to be empty. They are soon 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 becomes enraged and starts shooting everyone to the ground. 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[]
Following the failed attempt to take the prison, the Governor, Martinez and Shumpert hit the road. For a time, they camp out in the former site of Welles' platoon, but during this time it becomes clear to Martinez that the Governor has gone insane. Having lost all hope, Philip enters a state of severe depression and does not try to defend himself when a walker wanders toward him. Martinez puts down the walker, but it becomes clear to him that Philip is a lost cause and so he and Shumpert take off in the middle of the night, leaving Philip to fend for himself.
After being abandoned, Philip returns to Woodbury and finds it deserted, with nothing but walkers roaming the otherwise empty streets. In his frustration, Philip goes on a killing spree, destroying the zombies roaming the town and burning down his old house, letting the fire burn wild and spread throughout the town.
For the next several months, Philip wanders the highways alone and eventually collapses from exhaustion. Shortly after, he spots a young girl staring at him from the window of an apartment block and he goes to investigate. He is greeted at gunpoint by the Chamblers, a family who have been waiting out the apocalypse in their apartment for all this time, surviving off the non-perishable foods stored in the back of a truck outside. The Chamblers warily allow Philip inside and when they ask for his name, he refers to himself as "Brian Heriot", which was a name he had seen scrawled on a wall some time before he arrived at the apartment. He never tells them his real name.
Though he originally was only allowed to stay one night, Brian finds himself quickly becoming an important part of the Chamblers' lives. He helps David by finding him a new backgammon set and by finding him oxygen tanks at an old folks' home. He plays games with young Meghan and gets her to talk again, and later saves Tara's life after David reanimates and attacks her. Following David's death, Brian decides to leave as he doesn't want to be responsible for other people any more. Lilly, Tara and Meghan refuse to let him go off on his own and they join him. During this time, Brian and Lilly share a night of passion together and become romantically involved.
Whilst travelling on the road, Brian and the Chamblers arrive at a new camp which appears to be empty. Meghan runs into a zombie but Brian grabs her and the two flee, but accidentally fall into a pit full of walkers. Brian manages to protect Meghan and kills the three walkers in the pit. Help arrives a moment later in the form of Brian's former lieutenant Martinez, who reveals that he is the leader of this camp which is by no means deserted.
Martinez allows Brian and the Chamblers to join his group, remarking to Brian that he is the one in charge. Brian agrees and he soon contributes to the group by joining Martinez and the Dolgen brothers on scouting runs. One day, after a successful run, Brian and Martinez reconvene atop Martinez's RV for a round of golf, drinking and talking about the past. Martinez mentions possibly sharing his authority with Brian, but this seems to anger Brian as he suddenly slugs Martinez over the head with a golf club, protesting that he doesn't want authority any more. In his manic rage, Brian drags Martinez towards a pit full of zombies and lowers him in, leaving him to be eaten alive.
Some time later, Martinez's scraps are discovered and Pete Dolgen assumes leadership of the camp until a voting system can be established. However, it becomes clear to Brian that Pete is uncomfortable with his new responsibilities as he cannot bring himself to make the difficult choices necessary to ensure the group's survival, such as stealing from other survivor groups. For the sake of his new family, Brian decides to take matters into his own hands and kills Pete, dumping his body into the river and leaving him to reanimate. Brian then garners support from Pete's brother Mitch and assumes leadership of the group.
Finding himself in a position of power once more, Brian decides that the camp needs to find somewhere more secure to live. Knowing that the West Georgia Correctional Facility is only a few miles away, Brian sees an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, to find a new home for his group and take revenge against Rick Grimes and his party. After capturing Michonne and Hershel Greene whilst they are outside the prison fences, he gathers up the entire camp and all their weapons and leads them in an all-out assault on the prison. Lilly and Meghan do not join the attack and remain by a riverbank for Brian to return for them.
Death[]
In the episode "Too Far Gone", the Governor leads an assault on the prison, holding Michonne and Hershel hostage and demanding that Rick and the others leave. Rick refuses to give in despite the Governor having superior numbers as well as a tank, and tries to negotiate a peace between the two groups. The Governor is unwilling to let bygones be bygones and he kills Hershel with Michonne's sword, which prompts the groups to start shooting at one another. As battle erupts, Lilly arrives carrying the dead body of her daughter Meghan. Brian sees Meghan's body and shoots her through the brain to prevent her reanimation, but seeing her only strengthens his resolve to take the prison and slaughter Rick's group.
As the battle rages, Rick and the Governor savagely beat each other. The Governor gains the upper hand and furiously beats Rick to the ground. He is about to deliver a finishing blow when he is suddenly impaled from behind by Michonne's sword. Michonne had managed to squirm away and cut herself free from her bonds, and after stabbing the Governor and picking up Rick, she leaves the madman to bleed out.
As Brian lies bleeding to death, a tearful Lilly appears over him brandishing a gun. Seeing Brian for the monster he truly is, Lilly shoots him through the head and walks away.