[Serenity@sea]

One thing I've been wondering is why TBTB decided to leave Andrea in Woodbury throughout the season. I'm wondering if once they decided to do episodes entirely focused on Woodbury, they felt that they needed to have a main character (that we knew) there to keep our interests. If they felt that they needed Andrea to interact with the Guv for us to get to know him. Or if their goal was to ultimately have a showdown with Andrea and Rick and Co, so we wouldn't know which side she chooses.
I would guess that it was a little bit of both scenarios behind their reasoning.
Personally, I feel that if the reason was to have her choose sides, it was a poor choice because that story is already been told with Daryl and Merle.

Or do you think there was another reason behind that decision?

[Singlyme]

Your speculation that we get to know the gov through her is a good one, I believe. And even though we're waiting to see what happens between Daryl and Merle, we also have to wonder how she'll react to the governor's inciting the people to kill them.

[meesha1971]

I think the main reason they chose to have Andrea end up in Woodbury was to have a familiar face in Woodbury for the audience. Similar to how networks will often have characters crossover to introduce spin off series. They hope the familiar face will draw the audience to the new characters and/or location. Plus it makes exposition easier because it's plausible for the governor and/or people in Woodbury to tell Andrea things about the town and answer her questions.

In theory, that's how it should have worked. Unfortunately, they have rushed through this season with all the finesse of a bull in a china shop so the end result was a mess of inconsistent characterization and poorly explained scenarios in Woodbury that did nothing to move the story forward or make it interesting.

[Singlyme]

I think the main reason they chose to have Andrea end up in Woodbury was to have a familiar face in Woodbury for the audience. Similar to how networks will often have characters crossover to introduce spin off series. They hope the familiar face will draw the audience to the new characters and/or location. Plus it makes exposition easier because it's plausible for the governor and/or people in Woodbury to tell Andrea things about the town and answer her questions.

In theory, that's how it should have worked. Unfortunately, they have rushed through this season with all the finesse of a bull in a china shop so the end result was a mess of inconsistent characterization and poorly explained scenarios in Woodbury that did nothing to move the story forward or make it interesting.

Your last paragraph says it all. :-)

[Yelnots]

Meesha really did say it all, very well put.

At this point (and I haven't seen any previews for the second half) I'd imagine they're working on her departure from Woodbury. But in my opinion they really wrecked Andrea's story/character, I'm interested in how they plan on turning it around.

[I R Biter]

For the wood, and the buryin'.

[Daisy]

To give Ms Holden a major plot, probably. Woodbury could have been a great opportunity, wasted by the fact TPTB thought the whole story would be more palatable with some sort of romance in it. Go figure.

[Boota]

I think it's bigger than all that. Part of it is having Andrea there so we can have things explained to us easier. Part of it is lulling us into a false sense of security for a punch in the story. Another part of it is a chance for Andrea to deal with the idea of whether to help her former friends who left her for dead as opposed to the current people, questionable as they may be. And ultimately, I think it's so that she is in place to save the day when everything goes to hell and Daryl is facing certain death.

[GirlsDeadMonster]

I think it's all of the above. They needed us to get to know the Guv and Woodbury through the eyes of Andrea and Michonne. Andrea as a person who wants stability and something akin to the old world and Michonne as someone who has learned to live in the new world effectively and is suspicious of anything that might be too good. Because of that we got to see both sides of Woodbury and the Guv. Now Andrea has invested herself in that life while Michonne left it and found Andrea's old crew, I think it was great.

[backwoodsroamer]

I've got to agree with what has already been said. Andrea's sojourn in Woodbury is just a plot device to join the Woodbury story line to the story already told. It also let's us see the Governor's character develop slowly rather than spring him on us in full blown looney tunes mode.

I also have too agree with meesha's opinion on the way it was handled. Pretty ham handed.

[backwoodsroamer]

For the wood, and the buryin'.

[thelastpaul]

I think the main reason they chose to have Andrea end up in Woodbury was to have a familiar face in Woodbury for the audience. Similar to how networks will often have characters crossover to introduce spin off series. They hope the familiar face will draw the audience to the new characters and/or location. Plus it makes exposition easier because it's plausible for the governor and/or people in Woodbury to tell Andrea things about the town and answer her questions.

In theory, that's how it should have worked. Unfortunately, they have rushed through this season with all the finesse of a bull in a china shop so the end result was a mess of inconsistent characterization and poorly explained scenarios in Woodbury that did nothing to move the story forward or make it interesting.

Michonne and Andrea came to Woodbury, both were skeptical, michonne left, Andrea stayed. Governor likes Andrea, developed a relationship with her. They show what general life is like at Woodbury and the seedy undersides.

Andrea now knows much more about the governor (fish tanks, penny) and we're waiting for the show to return. Story not moving forward? Puh leeze

[meesha1971]

Michonne and Andrea came to Woodbury, both were skeptical, michonne left, Andrea stayed. Governor likes Andrea, developed a relationship with her. They show what general life is like at Woodbury and the seedy undersides.

Andrea now knows much more about the governor (fish tanks, penny) and we're waiting for the show to return. Story not moving forward? Puh leeze

No, the Woodbury arc has not moved forward at all. Andrea's presence there has been entirely pointless because we've learned next to nothing about the town or the people who live there. We have no idea what general life is like at Woodbury because Andrea chooses not to interact with anyone in the town except for the governor, Milton, and Merle. Nor have we actually learned anything about the governor or the "seedy undersides" of Woodbury due to Andrea being there. On the contrary, what little we do know about those things was revealed in scenarios that had nothing to do with Andrea at all. She wasn't even in those scenes. The Woodbury arc has been very, very slowly developed in spite of Andrea - not because of her. The extremely slow development for this arc has become boring to be honest - watching grass grow would be more exciting.

That makes for a radical contrast to the excessive action with the prison arc - where the story is progressing much too fast for there to be any real development for the story or the characters. They need to find a balance in the pacing.

As for what Andrea "knows" - she only knows what the governor told her and she chose to blindly believe every word he said the first night she got there. That hasn't changed at all - and it does not appear it will change all that much in the episodes to come. They will most likely continue to use Andrea as a nothing more than a convenient plot device.

[Sweetsister]

I wonder if Andrea would have stayed in Woodbury if she had not seen Dale die. If Andrea thought Dale may be alive would she have wanted to go look (as Merle wants to look for Daryl). Andrea said she had a really hard time the last few months but if she felt the Guv. was true to his word, why not go out and look now that you know Woodbury exists and you can return (Im sure the guv wouldnt tell her if she leaves hes gonna send a group to kill her). I would have thought that having seen Ricks reunion with his family in season 1 Andrea would feel its at least possible to look and in her mind bring her friends to the "safety" of Woodbury.
Course itd be a crappy idea since we know the guv. is evil but Andrea doesnt know, so why wouldnt she even ask the guv if she cold go look for her friends and then return???

[BeardedOne]

I wouldn't have had a problem with the whole Andrea / Michonne / Woodbury gig IF they had executed it "properly", however, I find myself asking "why" and "what the fuck" far too often when watching the Woodbury scenes. The way the show has handled the ENTIRE Woodbury story line hasn't worked out too well for me.

[saltydog75]

Isn't "nothing happening in Woodbury" sort of the point of Woodbury itself? People are there because it's safe, because nothing happens, because they can just go about their lives without worrying about what's going on outside the walls. The Governor basically has everyone under his spell. To me, the point of that story is to contrast with all of the insanity going on in the prison and illustrate how idyllic (from a certain perspective, anyway) life in Woodbury is.

I think some criticism is certainly warranted for season 3 as a whole - I think Mazzara has led the show in a bit too action-heavy of a direction and let characterization suffer - but this feels like criticism of the search for Sophia all over again. Everyone was bitching about how long it went on and how nothing was happening. The point wasn't the search for Sophia, but to allow the characters to define themselves by how they related to the search. I HOPE that when we see the tail end of the season, we'll see that some of what appeared to be pointless in the first half with Woodbury will pay off. I'm REALLY most interested in Milton, because up til now he's sort of just been this wonky research guy who doesn't add much to the story.

My pet theory is that he has a crush on Andrea and that will eventually manifest in him helping her to escape Woodbury, kill the governor, or something along those lines.

Just my opinion.

[DAYE2232]

The season isn't over yet, so we can't say they have rushed through anything until season 3 is actually over. We can definitely say that there wasn't much character developpement of anyone though... I think she's in woodbury for the same reason she wanted to follow Shane and pushed all the good people away from her. She is insane and is a terrible judge of Character.

[DAYE2232]

For real, it was probably so we can get to know Gov. through a familiar character. He fel in love with her because apparently she looks like his late wife?(that's what I read anyways, I didn't get to see his family picture very long, I'm dealing with two sick babies! lol) and it will more than likely cause more drama down the road for everybody.