SPOILER ALERT If you haven’t seen The Walking Dead episode 8, ‘Too Far Gone’, then look away now.
The episode saw the Governor (David Morrissey) take another trip to psychoville, slaughtering Hershel in front of his friends, family and fans. Once we’d recovered from the trauma of seeing one of our favourite characters beheaded, we started to wonder why the Governor would kill him over his arch-nemesis, Michonne (Danai Gurira). Luckily, The Hollywood Reporter chatted to Morrissey and asked the question that was on every Walking Dead Heads’ lips.
“There’s a sense that he wants them to see just how terrible he can be; he wants to shock them,” he says. “He was planning on killing Michonne afterward, but he has a sword to this man’s neck and he was hoping that [Rick’s group] would see he was serious and say, ‘We’ll leave [the prison],’ but they still weren’t saying that.
“In the Governor’s craziness, just like at the end of Season Three when he has this blackout, he goes into this traumatic place again and blacks out and lashes out. The person he lashes out to is the person whose neck is right in front of that sword.”
Of course, chaos ensued and he never did get to kill Michonne; she got to him first. But Morrissey was satisfied with how his final moments on the show played out: “I was very happy that the person who ended his life was Lilly and not Michonne,” he says.
“Michonne condemned him into being a zombie and was very happy to leave him in that horrible place, whereas Lilly was not happy to leave him in that place. She knew that in order to give him freedom, it has to be killing his brain, and that’s debatable if that’s a compassionate act on her part. But I would like to believe it was.” 
We’re not so sure, given that Lilly had happened upon the scene just as the Gov was hacking at Hershel’s not-quite-detached head. It was his abandonment, against her wishes, that led to her daughter being bitten and his reaction was to take the unconscious girl in his arms and swiftly shoot her in the head. There was no remorse or feeling at all, as she looked on in horror. It seemed to us that she would have killed him whether he was half-dead or not.
On a lighter note, actors David Morrissey and Scot Wilson were given a heartfelt farewell from their fellow cast mates. Apparently they can no longer go to a restaurant for their now-famous Death Dinners (any nearby fans would suspect), but they went to someone’s house instead and the ghost of Lori showed up.
“Sarah Wayne Callies [whose Lori Grimes was killed off in season three] came,” he says. “She knew Scott Wilson very well, and it was great to see her and hear what she had to say. It’s a very close family. Once you’ve been in The Walking Dead, you’re always in The Walking Dead.”
The Walking Dead: The Complete Season 3 is available now on DVD for £28 or on Blu-ray for £30 from Amazon.co.uk.
